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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter Four: Marjory "Helps"
Sleep that night had been restless, and full of twisted nightmares about Lord Voldemort and Cedric that left Harriet Stewart weeping pathetically by the early morning. She awoke at what she guessed to be four in the morning, and tried for half and hour to lull herself back to sleep. But it was as though every noise was magnified. Marjory's usually light snoring in the next bed over now rivaled a banshee's wail. Patches' content purring by her side, which she normally found endearing, now annoyed her. The blankets too hot, the air too cold. Harriet gave up and gathered her uniform for the day before heading to the dormitory's showers.
When she arrived, she picked one of the showers in the back of the shared bathroom and set her things down on the bench before peeling the slightly-sweaty and sleep-ruffled nightclothes from her tiny body. Clumsy fingers groped for the handle and pulled on it. Freezing water stabbed at every inch of the fifth year's pale skin and resulted in a high-pitched shriek. She quickly threw her body against the shower wall and away from the spray of ice-cold discomfort.
Over the summer, Harriet had forgotten the tricks to Hogwarts showers.
You see, the showers did not have a 'hot' option, because it was assumed by...well, whomever built the showers, that the witch or wizard would be able to warm the water themselves. This, after all, was very basic magic.
"Fucking hell, Dumbledore, you can have mass illusion and protection charms going 'round the clock around the whole bloody school, but you can't manage a ruddy hot water handle? Maybe you really are as daft as the Prophet says you are." Harriet grumbled to herself, peeved and shivering. She reached her around the icy waterfall and fumbled with the lever for a minute before shoving it back into place.
"Accio wand." She commanded. Her wooden companion obeyed, flying into her open palm. Harriet then tapped the shower head with her wand, and pulled at the handle again.
The water once again complied, and began to spray down at the tile. Tiny drops managed to rebound off of the grey surface and land on her legs. The Hufflepuff stuck her free hand out into the spray, judging the temperature of the water. She deemed it a fair temperature before tossing her wand back onto the bench with her clothes and ducking under the shower. Ah. That was more like it. The cleaning process began.
Scrubbing herself free of sweat, Harriet began to think about life outside of just Hogwarts. The Prophet had been writing about Dumbledore and Harry Potter all summer. Each headline proclaimed the same thing: Dumbledore had gone loony, and Potter was just spewing whatever rubbish his Headmaster told him about You-Know-Who's return. And Harriet's father believed every criticizing word. Of course, that meant her mother agreed as well. You see, Mr. Stewart was a very hard and unyielding man. What he said usually set the tone for the rest of the household, and Harriet usually just went with it, nodding along dumbly. But lately, she had started to question her father's words.
It wasn't as if Mr. Stewart forced his beliefs onto anyone. On the contrary, he encouraged intelligent and intellectual debates with his workmates, friends, and extended family. He was just simply...to be polite, loud. When the head of the table expressed his opinion about an issue, the whole bloody neighborhood heard about it.
But this time, Harriet couldn't bring herself to agree with her father just to get him to quiet down. The young Badger didn't think that You-Know-Who's return was simply a ploy set up by her Headmaster and fellow fifth year. She considered herself a relatively good judge of character, and that talk she shared with Harry Potter in the corridor yesterday still rang clear through her mind.
"Cedric was my friend too. People seem to forget that when they accuse me of lunacy."
Harriet knew that he wasn't lying, faking, or insane. The image of him crouched over Cedric's body the night of his death quaked down her spine as it reappeared. How the Boy Who Lived's face became the embodiment of pain and suffering, how his spine went rigid like a wild animal who had been cornered one too many times, how he had to be forcibly pried off of Cedric Diggory's body like he was still trying to protect it...
The young witch fought back a wave of sobs before realizing she had been standing, deep in thought, for twenty minutes. A quick glance at the clock reminded her that she had thirty minutes till her first class of the day. She quickly finished her shower and got dressed for the day.
Half way through her oh-so-enjoyable two hour lesson with Professor Snape, class got a little more interesting. All of the students had been instructed to read through the first three chapters of the text (cauldron care and safety), and had been dutifully either reading, sleeping, or staring blankly at the pages. Harriet, on the other hand, had been scribbling in circles with her quill and daydreaming in her own little world when a quiet creak disturbed the silence. She turned to face this intrusion and nearly tumbled out of her seat.
Fred and George Weasley were slowly but surely sneaking into her Potions class. They hadn't been joking about being in her class. Both twins were bent at the waist, creeping along the back wall of the room. Their fiery red hair, unkempt and sticking out in every direction, contrasted against the dark walls as they made like bandits to their seats. Where are they going to sit? Harriet thought to herself. They weren't here yesterday, and all of the seats are taken...
Oh Merlin how had she not seen this coming. The only two available seats were on either side of the dainty little Hufflepuff. She quickly looked away from the twins and toward the front of the room, where Professor Snape was grading the homework from last night. The middle-aged Slytherin flicked his quill over thirty-some essays with decided efficiency. It was the kind of grading system you neither accepted nor questioned; it just was.
As the tall Gryffindors made their quiet ways into the seats beside her, Harriet's breathing hitched. She tried to make herself appear normal and unaffected by their intruding presence. This failed miserably.
"'Lo, Harriet." They whispered teasingly, sitting down at the exact same time. Much too close to her by means of comfort. She gulped hard and nodded in return. Both red heads had smug grins on their face, content with their success. At least, they thought they were successful.
"You will have to do better than that if you're going to sneak into my class, Weasleys. Ten points from Gryffindor, each."
Two sighs were released from either side of her. She pretended to read through the text, in reality checking the twins out in her peripheral vision. The Weasley on her right set his textbook on the three-seater desk, while the one on her left took out his quill and a piece of parchment. Harriet was pretty sure that the right twin's book had a small George Weasley printed messily on the side of it, so she mentally referred to him as such.
"Please bring your homework to my desk immediately." Snape continued, voice drawling absently like he had half a mind to dock them thirty more points each.
"No can do, Professor." Fred replied, shrugging his broad shoulders. Oh, how broad and muscular they looked.
Snape looked up from his grading with his eyebrow raised, and even though Harriet's desk was pretty far back in the classroom, she was sure that there was not the slightest hint of amusement on his face. "Why is that, Mr. Weasley?"
"Well, Professor, we were much too focused on a higher task yesterday to complete the assignment." George answered, stroking his chin like he had just given the most educated and justified reason in existence. He tilted his chair back and crossed his arms over his chest.
"And neither of you completed the assignment?" Snape continued in his bored tone.
"Unfortunately, sir." Fred nodded, stretching out his arms and cracking his knuckles. His elbow brushed hers, and her breathing hitched. What the bugger was wrong with her? And why had the twins asked her what the assignment was yesterday if they weren't planning on completing it? Whether it was Fred and George's closeness, or their lack of logic; they had Harriet's head spinning.
"Hmm," Snape murmured something to himself, as if mulling over one of the essays. "Ten more points from Gryffindor, each. Congratulations, Weasleys. Fourty points in one day. Kindly remove your filthy feet from my desk, Mr. Weasley."
George did as he was told, the smug look remaining on his face. Harriet couldn't believe it. They'd just lost fourty house points and the twins remained content?
"Are you going for a new record?" The Hufflepuff asked in a disbelieving whisper as she turned towards him.
He only smiled wider in response, and shook his head in amusement. "Not even close." He gave her a small wink that set her cheeks ablaze.
"W-what?" She stammered, fists clenched at either side of her textbook. Be still, my beating heart. That was the most seductive wink I've ever seen.
"If we were going for a record," Fred contributed from her left. He then leaned in very close to her and started to whisper in her ear. "We'd need to be docked over one hundred and twenty." His hot breath traced the shell of her ear and made her whole face heat up. She could feel her stomach twist into knots. Oh, the inexperience of a very excitable virgin.
"That's, uh, quite a high number." Harriet remarked, reaching up to pull her collar away from her neck. She could have sworn steam rose from her skin.
Fred made a noise of agreement before returning to his original position. Harriet couldn't tell whether she missed his closeness, or reveled in the ability to breathe again. She cleared her throat before returning to the textbook, reading the same line that she must have started five times by now. The rest of class continued in the same fashion, with Harriet swooning all over the place and the twins cracking jokes at every turn.
That lesson affected Harriet's mood for the rest of the day, and it did not go unnoticed by Marjory at dinner.
"What's got your panties soaked through?" She commented bluntly, not five minutes into their meal. This caused Billy to sputter into his soup and stare shocked at his girlfriend. Harriet joined him in a like manner. A bit of her own soup dribbled out of her hanging jaw.
Marjory continued to stare expectantly, perfectly arched eyebrow and all. "Well?"
"Nothing, Marj." Harriet muttered, and wiped at her chin with her sleeve.
"Liar." The dark-skinned goddess remarked off-handedly.
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Marjory, please." Harriet whined childishly.
"It's that ginger twin, 'innit?" Billy joined in, probably wanting Marjory's attention back. He really was one of those puppy-type boyfriends.
"Stay out of this, Billy." The two Hufflepuff witches said in unison. Neither turned and looked at the poor seventh year, so he glumly went back to his eating.
"Did you make a move?" The eldest witch carried on relentlessly, not at all swayed by the younger's begging.
"Of course not!" Harriet coughed out. Her? Make a move on the Weasley twins? She'd never even really talked to boys she found attractive. Much less tried to pick them up.
"Should've guessed. I'll get you a date." And before she could argue, Marjory had made up her mind. Harriet could already see the wheels turning in her pretty little head. It was hopeless for her to object.
Bugger.
Thank you for waiting and reading! This is where the story starts to get a little more fluffy and interesting! I'm trying to keep a good balance between background, plot, and romance. C:
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