The grass tickles the exposed skin of Marjorie's legs as she stretches leisurely in the mid-afternoon sun, thoughts slow and soupy as she teeters just on the edge of dozing away. Neville's voice seems very far-away as he chatters away about the qualities of a rare moss found only in west-facing cave entrances. Every so often Marjorie gives a little hum in an attempt to make it seem like she's listening, although she very much doubts it matters; Neville would chat to the tree behind her if he had to.

The honeyed-heat of the afternoon is unusual for mid-October, which makes Marjorie all the more determined to enjoy it while it lasts -- soon the evenings will grow shorter and darker, and Hogwarts will be awash with candles to keep the darkness of winter at bay, and these beautiful sunny afternoons will be like a distant memory. With the sun on her face and the gentle rolling of the Black Lake in her ears, Marjorie is fighting a losing battle to stay awake. Every couple of minutes the lazy silence hanging over Hogwarts' grounds is broken by a shriek of laughter or the careless chatter of students getting too excited about something, and Marjorie jerks a little more awake.

The grass is more comfortable than it has any right to be, and Marjorie finds herself wishing this afternoon could last forever. The exact moment she has that thought is also, unfortunately, the exact moment that Neville decides to slap her hard on her leg.

"Bollocks, Nev!" Marjorie jerks upright, the skin on her thigh stinging. "The hell is wrong with you!"

"You weren't even listening to me!" Neville says indignantly, clutching his new Herbology book to his chest and scowling over the top of it.

"Yes I was." Marjorie defended herself half-heartedly, anger fading. "You were talking about that weird moss."

Neville sniffs and looks away, clearly irritated. "No, I had moved on from that, actually. I was asking if you had written to Gran recently."

"Ah." Marjorie falters. She casts her gaze around, as though hoping someone would jump out and save her from having to answer the question. When nothing of the sort happens, she bites her lip and turns back to her cousin. "No. I don't know how to tell her that I'm failing Charms."

Neville winces sympathetically and nods. "Yeah, I've been trying to word a letter telling her I'm failing Potions for nearly two weeks."

Not for the first time, Marjorie is filled with an abrupt and startling sense of utter appreciation for her cousin; sure, she's failing most of her subjects within the first two months of the school year, but at least they're in this together.

"Maybe we should just put it all in the one letter," She suggests, sitting up properly and crossing her legs under herself. "At least that way she might just send us the one Howler, rather than two."

Neville doesn't look particularly enthused at the idea, but he nods all the same. "Yeah, that's probably best. I was gonna ask Hermione Granger for help, but I don't want to bother her -- she's always very nice to me."

Marjorie hums thoughtfully, brow furrowing as she thinks. Asking a classmate for help would be a good idea, but she can't think of a single person who might be willing to help her; her classmates tended to avoid her in class, terrified of being paired up with her for an assignment. She couldn't exactly blame them -- she wouldn't want to be paired with herself either. Glad as she was that Neville had someone that was nice to him and who might offer him some assistance with schoolwork, as Marjorie was a year ahead of her cousin she couldn't very well ask Hermione Granger as well.

"We'll figure it out." She says, smiling reassuringly at Neville. She's not sure how convincing it is, but Neville smiles and nods all the same.

"Course we will." He says, and turns happily back to his Herbology book.

With the Triwizard Tournament happening at Hogwarts this year, Marjorie had been under the completely incorrect impression that her teachers would hold back a little on the homework. Instead, it's like they're competing with each other to see who can send their students careening head-first into an emotional breakdown fastest.

Marjorie sprawls out in front of the fire-place in the Gryffindor common room, star-fished across the carpet. Her abandoned homework lays by her head, the pathetic inch she's already written taunting her. The common room is pleasantly abuzz with conversation; people are discussing their classes, their homework, friends they've met from the visiting Wizarding schools, and just general small talk. Marjorie wishes desperately that they'd all just shut up, though she very much doubts that it would make any difference at all to her current work ethic.

She feels someone come to settle next to her on the carpet, and knows that it's Neville without even looking. "Don't talk to me." She warns, her words muffled by the carpet.

"Homework going well, then?" Neville asks, completely ignoring her dramatics. Apparently he cranes his head to get a look at her parchment, because when he speaks again his voice is coloured with disgust, "'A History of Chichevache in Great Britain throughout the ages? Urgh."

Marjorie shoves herself up, spitting out carpet fibers as she goes. "I don't even understand what a Chichevache is, Nev!" She wails, scrubbing at her face. "Why do I need to know this?"

Neville, bless his soul, nods along sympathetically. "It's rubbish, really, isn't it."

Sighing, Marjorie decides that it's probably time to pack up for the evening and begins shoving everything into her backpack with absolutely zero finesse. Her assignment is going to be awful anyway, she doubts it matters whether she hands it in on crumpled parchment or not. When she looks up at her cousin again, she sees that he's looking over at the squishy armchairs clustered in the corner, where Harry Potter and his two friends are sitting huddled around a mass of parchment.

Marjorie clicks her tongue in sympathy, and murmurs, "I suppose you haven't asked Hermione Granger for help?"

Neville shakes his head miserably, "Harry's so busy with the first Triwizard task coming up; I can't distract them from that!"

There's a sudden commotion from the portrait hole, and the two of them turn to catch sight of the bright orange heads of the Weasley twins clambering into the common room. They're clutching each other and howling with laughter, as though they've just heard the funniest joke of all time.

Marjorie purses her lips at the loud interruption to the relative peace of the common room. "Think I might go to bed, actually."

Though she doesn't look at him, she can feel Neville staring at her, aghast. "Maggie, it's only seven thirty!"

"I'm very tired, Nev!" Marjorie says defensively, hauling herself to her feet and throwing her schoolbag over her shoulder. When she sees Neville's expression (looking distinctly wrong-footed, as though he'd missed a step on a flight of stairs), she softens and says, "Sorry. I'll see you at breakfast, yeah?"

"Yeah." Neville smiles, instantly soothed by her apology. "Feel better."

Marjorie makes her way upstairs wondering how on Earth her cousin manages to be so damned sweet, and also thanking any earthly power listening that he didn't seem to notice her bad mood coincided with the arrival of the Weasley twins. She still hadn't forgiven them for the awful prank they'd played on her in their first year; it had started with Muggle itching powder and vanished shoes, and ended with her careening head-first down one of the staircases as it was mid-change. The only reason she hadn't hurtled right off the edge and into the depths of the castle was thanks to Professor McGonnagal's well-timed arrival and quick spellwork.

Though the rest of the student body had found the entire incident hilarious, it took Marjorie quite a while to get over her now instinctive fear of the moving staircases. She also couldn't help but feel that one of the reasons she found it so hard to make friends in her first year was because people thought that she was a bit of a loser -- a preconception not helped by the mortifying prank Fred and George had pulled on her in only their second month of school. Of course, that didn't fully explain why she was still largely friendless in her fifth year of school, but she tries not to think too much about that.

The dorm, when she enters it, is empty, and she breathes a short sigh of relief as she begins to change out of her uniform and into her nightdress. Her roommates have never been anything but polite to her, but the lack of privacy is still one of her least favourite aspects of life in Hogwarts.

She flops back onto her four-poster bed with a sigh; she hadn't really been lying to Neville about being tired. Marjorie has always found it difficult to sleep at night, but recently she's been feeling as though it's getting worse. She doesn't feel as though she's gotten a good night's rest ever since she arrived at Hogwarts a month ago.

Her inability to sleep through the night is in huge part down to the funny noises and strange shapes she swears she hears and sees when the room is dark and quiet. All the same, she wraps herself in the downy covers and sighs into her pillow as she shuts her eyes. There's no point in worrying herself with her mountain of increasingly difficult schoolwork and shadowy shapes that may or may not even be there; they could wait until tomorrow.