Year 4: A Fresh Start

Chapter 40: June 2018

Exams came and went. To Molly, they seemed about the easiest exams she'd ever completed, though it probably had to do with how much revising she'd done ahead of time, not to mention all the extra revising she'd managed to accomplish while helping Debbie catch up. Debbie was not so confident, but Molly continued to reassure her that she'd done great and that she would surely pass.

Once the exams were through, Sarah turned her focus to the final quidditch match of the season against Hufflepuff. Though Gryffindor were a shoo-in to win the match, they had to win by a certain margin or else Slytherin would win the quidditch cup and as a chaser, Sarah was feeling the pressure.

Julie and Debbie started hanging out more. Now that Julie didn't have exams and revising to worry about, she had time to catch Debbie up on everything that she'd missed in Ravenclaw Tower while she was gone.

Which left Molly to her own devices much of the time. This suited Molly fine. After all, she still had wandless magic to master.

After her disastrous attempts to meditate in her dorm, Molly found a suitable empty classroom on the seventh floor not far from Gryffindor Tower. It wasn't anything special, but it was quiet, and nobody ever went in there, which meant that Molly didn't have to worry about people interrupting her. She felt as though she was getting closer too. It wasn't something she could put her finger on, but she was starting to feel something more inside her when she meditated, and she was pretty sure it meant she was on the right path.

One evening, Molly had been meditating alone for a while. She was deep into it, perhaps deeper than she'd ever gone before. Usually she managed to maintain some sense of the time throughout her meditation process, but that night she completely lost track of the time. Her eyes were closed, and she'd shut down all her other senses. If someone had screamed, she wouldn't have heard. If there'd been a fire, she doubted she would have smelled the smoke. Whatever pain her back was in from sitting on the floor for so long was dull and far-away.

And then she felt something touch her shoulder and she panicked. She was violently wrenched out of her meditation and as her eyes flew open, she saw her cousin Victoire sailing through the air towards the opposite wall. Molly jumped up in surprise, calling Victoire's name.

"Are you alright?" she asked as Victoire picked herself up off the ground.

"What was that for?" Victoire demanded, rubbing her shoulder where the impact had been the hardest.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean – " Molly paused. She hadn't meant to cast the knockback jinx on her cousin. She hadn't even been holding her wand. It was safely stowed in her bag a few feet away. It could only mean one thing. She'd cast the spell wandlessly. "I did it!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"Did what?" Victoire demanded, annoyed.

"I did wandless magic!" Molly explained.

"What?" Victoire frowned. "No way. I can't even do wandless magic."

"Well don't take this personally," Molly said. "But you took potions, herbology, and care of magical creatures as your N.E.W.T. classes. It's not like spells have been your focus."

"Teddy can't do wandless magic either," Victoire amended. "And he took N.E.W.T. level defence. There's no way that was wandless, you're just messing with me."

"No really," Molly insisted. She ran over to her bag and rummaged through it for her wand. "Look."

She held the wand up and Victoire looked impressed. "Alright then," she challenged Molly. "Cast another spell."

Molly dropped the wand back in the bag and focused her efforts on a simple closing spell on the door. The closing spell was a basic first year spell, just like the knockback jinx. In fact, the knockback jinx was a little more complicated. But try as she might, she couldn't get the door to close.

"I guess I still need to practice," Molly said in disappointment. "But I'm getting there. I've been practicing for months."

Molly sat back down on the floor, determined to keep on working.

"What are you doing?" Victoire demanded.

"Getting back to work," Molly stated. "If I put in enough time, maybe I can master this before the holidays."

"Well you're not practicing in here," Victoire declared. "It's past curfew."

"It is?" Molly frowned. It had been just after supper when she'd come up here. She'd thought it had only been an hour, but maybe she'd been in an even deeper meditation than she'd thought.

Victoire nodded. "I came in here because I'm on patrol and you're out after hours."

Molly cursed in her head. She hadn't meant to stay out past curfew. She really hadn't realized how late it was. At least it was Victoire that had found her. Victoire wouldn't punish her too badly for breaking the rules.

"Please don't dock points," Molly pleaded. "I really didn't realize how late it was. I meant to be back in the common room before now. You know I would never purposefully break the rules."

Victoire hesitated. "Well as Head Girl, I am responsible for punishing anyone who breaks the rules," she said. "But… I'm only Head Girl for a few more days. And it's not like you were doing anything bad."

"Thank you," Molly breathed a sigh of relief. "I couldn't bear to get in trouble so close to the end of the year. Or at all really."

"Don't worry about it," Victoire smiled. "Let's just get you back to Gryffindor Tower before Mr. Clarke sees you and I have to dock points."

Molly started to stand up to leave, but just as she did, Peeves and Meeva, the two Hogwarts poltergeists, floated in through the open door. They didn't seem to notice Molly or Victoire at first. They were just laughing and bouncing around like they didn't have a care in the world. But then Peeves saw that the room had occupants and his eyes grew mischievous.

"Ooh," he said, getting Meeva's attention. "See here! Two naughty Gryffindors out of bed late at night. What oh what will Peevsie do?"

"I'm Head Girl Peeves, remember?" Victoire said, her tone slightly exasperated. "I'll handle this situation myself thank you very much."

"Meeva will handle this," Meeva declared, puffing herself up and trying to look important. She floated up to Molly with a stern expression. "You shouldn't be out of bed so late young lady," she scolded.

"I'm very sorry Meeva," Molly said calmly. She decided it would be better to play Meeva's game than to resist it. Hopefully it would be over sooner this way. "It won't happen again."

"Hmm," Meeva hummed, turning back to Peeves. "What does Peeves think?" she asked. "Does the naughty Gryffindor tell the truth? Or does she need to be punished?"

"Punished!" Peeves exclaimed gleefully. He spun around upside-down and reached for something on the ground. Victoire realized a moment too late that it was her wand, which had been knocked out of her hand when Molly had wandlessly cursed her. As both Molly and Victoire lunged at him, Meeva took the opportunity to grab Molly's discarded wand from the top of her bag, cackling merrily.

"Now girlsies will see!" Meeva cried, zooming out of the room with Peeves faster than Molly or Victoire could follow them. The door swung shut and Victoire rammed herself into it. She grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't open. "Consequences will be had!"

There was the clattering sound of the two wands being dropped to the floor on the other side of the door and then Peeves and Meeva zoomed off together down the hall.

"What the hell was that?" Victoire demanded in outrage.

Molly sighed. "I've been through this once before. In my second year, Peeves tried to lock us out of our study room – you remember the one. Anyway, we convinced him to unlock it, but afterwards, I did some research on poltergeist magic so that I'd be able to get myself out if ever I was in a similar situation."

"So you can unlock the door?" Victoire asked. "Then do it!"

"But I don't have my wand," Molly said. "I can't do anything."

"Sure you can," Victoire insisted. "You cast that knockback jinx without your wand. You can do this too."

"But this is a much more complicated counter-spell," Molly insisted, unsure of herself. "And I don't even know how I managed that jinx on you. When I tried again with the closing spell, nothing happened."

"You just have to concentrate," Victoire decided, clearing some space in front of the door for Molly to take a seat. "Come on, this is important. If Mr. Clarke or someone catches us locked in here – well it won't make much of a difference to me, but you'll get in trouble. And I don't feel like being stuck in here all night. I have things to do."

"I guess I can try," Molly allowed. Victoire was right. She needed to get them out of here before someone else found them. Having Victoire catch her out after curfew had been a blessing. Anyone else would have docked points on the spot and possibly even issued a detention.

Molly sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the door and focused on the counter-spell she'd learned all those years ago. She stared at the door, focusing on the spell, and trying desperately to cast it. She even tried shouting it out loud a few times, since non-verbal magic was more complicated than verbal magic. But nothing happened.

"This isn't going to work," Molly said, sagging in defeat. "I need my wand."

"You're doing this all wrong," Victoire insisted. "You're focusing on the spell too hard. When you jinxed me, you didn't even know you were doing it until it was done."

"So, what? I'm supposed to just sit here and try to not unlock the door and hope it unlocks?" Molly frowned.

"I don't know," Victoire threw up her hands in frustration. "You're the one that's been studying wandless magic."

"You're right," Molly agreed, scrambling up. "I have."

She hurried over to her bag and produced a book she'd been carrying around on the subject. She flipped through it until she came to the page she wanted and silently began to read.

"Well?" Victoire asked impatiently.

"Hold on," Molly insisted. The book said that meditation was supposed to help her with her magic. When she'd cursed Victoire, she'd connected with it, but hadn't been in control of it, which was why it had lashed out on its own. But just now when she'd sat in front of the door and focused on casting the spell, she hadn't been connecting to her magic. There had to be a way to combine both. There had to be a way to do this.

Molly sighed. "I'm only a fourth year," she insisted. "You can't expect me to do this. Maybe we can climb out the window. Maybe there's a ledge we can use to get to another window we can climb through."

"We're on the seventh floor," Victoire insisted. "If we fall, we could die. It would be better to be caught in here than to splatter all over the pavement."

"If I had my wand, we could jump and I could perform a cushioning charm at the bottom," Molly muttered.

"If you had your wand, you could unlock the door," Victoire pointed out. She moved over to the wall and sat down, leaning against it. "Look it's fine if you can't get it open. When Mr. Clarke finds us, I'll just explain what Peeves and Meeva did and he'll have to understand."

"I regret ever asking Headmaster Slinkhard to bring Meeva into Hogwarts," Molly grumbled. "At least before Peeves just wanted attention. He'd never really hurt anyone, because he was just looking for friends. Now they play pranks to show off in front of each other and they don't care if we get hurt."

"Wait, you're the reason they brought in Meeva?" Victoire asked in surprise.

Molly nodded. "After Peeves locked us out of our study room, I realized he was lonely. But I think I prefer him lonely if this is what friendship does to him."

"When I was in my first year, he shoved a desk out of a seventh-floor window and framed me and my friends for it," Victoire said then. "He wanted us to play with him, and when we refused, he got mad."

"Sounds about right," Molly nodded. "Maybe if we ever get out of here, we can petition to have Meeva removed."

"She is worse than Peeves ever was," Victoire agreed. "She likes to see people suffer. She's a nightmare for us prefects to deal with. At least Peeves respected our authority. Meeva doesn't even respect most of the professors."

"I'm going to try again," Molly declared then in determination. She wasn't going to let Meeva win this time. She wasn't going to let Meeva have the satisfaction of knowing that she'd gotten Molly in trouble. This wasn't about the risk of getting caught anymore, it was about Meeva, and the fact that it was Molly's fault that she was even there in the first place.

Molly sat in front of the door and closed her eyes, focusing inwards. It didn't take as long this time to feel that strange feeling that she'd felt earlier when Victoire had surprised her, and soon she was thinking the spell in her head, imagining that she was holding her wand, even though she wasn't and channeling the magic through the imaginary tool towards the door.

There was a click and Molly knew she'd done it. She opened her eyes and turned towards Victoire, smiling brightly.

"Got it," she declared proudly.

Victoire looked stunned. "You really did," she said in disbelief.

"I thought you knew I could do it," Molly teased.

Victoire shrugged. "You're a fourth year," she replied. "You're a fourth year that just intentionally performed wandless magic. That's really impressive."

A feeling of elation welled up in Molly as she opened the door and retrieved hers and Victoire's wands. It was strange. Normally, Molly loved to brag about how smart she was, how she could perform high-level spells that nobody else could accomplish, how she was so much more advanced than anyone in her year and even most people in the years above her. Molly loved the spotlight, particularly when she was being recognized for all the work that she put in to being the best.

But for some reason, she didn't want to gloat about this. She didn't want people to know just yet what she'd accomplished. She didn't want to boast.

"Don't tell anyone yet," Molly requested as she gathered her things and prepared for Victoire to escort her back to Gryffindor Tower. "I think I want to enjoy this for myself for a while."

"Alright," Victoire agreed.

MmMmMmMmMmM

The final day before they were scheduled to return home, exam results were released. Molly and Sarah stopped by Professor Longbottom's office to retrieve theirs while Julie and Debbie went to get theirs from Professor Flitwick. They met up in the library to open them together.

Unsurprisingly, Molly got straight O's. But for once, she didn't gloat about it. She was proud of herself of course, but she didn't feel the need to rub them in her friends' faces.

Julie and Sarah got mostly O's, but each had a couple of E's as well. Molly decided that it was probably because of all the time they had to spend on quidditch. But the E's didn't make them less smart than Molly, she noted. It just meant that they had different priorities. If it were a flying contest, Molly would lose hands-down, and she was alright with that reality. Similarly, their dedication to quidditch meant that they didn't have as much time to dedicate to studying as Molly. But as long as they were happy with their grades, which they seemed to be, that was all that mattered.

As for Debbie, she managed to pass all her classes. She only managed a single O, and it was in history of magic. This made sense, as it was the only class without a practical component, and she'd been able to keep up to date on it in full while in the hospital. She did manage a few E's in the more theory-oriented courses and received A's in everything else. Not only would she not have to repeat her fourth year, but she didn't even have to repeat a class in summer school.

Again, Molly didn't gloat. She could have bragged about how she'd helped Debbie to pass her classes. But it wasn't Molly's victory, it was Debbie's. Molly let her have it and instead accepted her straight O's with quiet pride.

The Hogwarts Express came for them all the next day and Molly and her friends enjoyed the ride back to London enormously. They got started on some of their summer homework, eager to get a head start, and talked about how exciting it would be to return next fall for their O.W.L. year. Sarah inquired with Molly as to how her attempts at wandless magic were going and Molly lied and said she'd given up.

When she saw the looks in her friends' eyes at this statement, she knew it had been the right thing to say. Her constant insistence that she was better than them and that they needed her help had never been received the way she'd intended it. She knew her friends were tired of her pretending she was better than them, and Molly was starting to see that she wasn't.

When the train arrived, the four friends said their goodbyes, and Molly sought out her parents, ready to return home for the summer. She reflected on her year and realized that she'd grown up a lot since last June. Then she'd been friendless, alone, bitter, and resentful. Now she had her friends back and she was finally starting to understand what true friendship looked like.