As October slides lazily into November, the castle becomes awash with floating candles and seasonally autumnal wreaths to keep the growing dullness of winter at bay. It's as beautiful as ever, and only adds to the excited buzz amongst the students as the first Triwizard task begins to draw closer. The feverish anticipation is contagious, and even Marjorie finds herself caught up in the whole excitement surrounding the mystery of the competition.

Harry Potter himself seems to be the only person in Gryffindor House who remains resolutely unaffected by the anticipation surrounding the upcoming task -- whenever he was asked about it, he just looked vaguely ill and swiftly changed the subject. Neville had confided to her in a low voice that Harry and Ron Weasley had had some sort of falling out, although he needn't have bothered; Marjorie wasn't entirely stupid, and it was difficult to not notice that the two of them were no longer seen in each other's presence.

Marjorie feels an enormous amount of sympathy for Harry; she imagines that the look of nauseated dread that creeps across his face whenever someone brings up the Tournament is similar to how she looks whenever someone brings up the topic of the Yule Ball. All the girls in the dormitories seemed absolutely thrilled about the idea of a ball, but then they would be -- Marjorie is certain that they will all be asked in no time. Katie, Angelina, and Alicia are all nothing short of lovely, and very pretty too. Anyone who asked them would be lucky to attend the ball with them! It's unlikely, however, that Marjorie herself will be asked, and the thought of attending alone makes her palms sweat.

At breakfast one morning, two weeks before the first task, Katie says to the girls, "Okay, but who would your dream date be? Like, if you could pick anyone?"

"Cedric Diggory." Alicia says promptly without pausing to think, grinning even as she receives an elbow to the ribs from Angelina.

"Oi, good show of House loyalty!" Angelina complains, but she's grinning too. "Fair enough though, he's got a nice face, hasn't he?"

"His face is pretty good," Alicia nods sagely, "But have you seen his arse beneath his Quidditch robes? It is something else."

The girls howl with laughter, and Marjorie smiles nervously at the edge of their group. She's not really sure if she's being included in the conversation, but Neville (sitting to her left) is in the middle of a passionate description of mandrake care to a politely attentive Dean Thomas, which leaves her listening in to her dorm mates' conversation and trying not to seem too intrusive.

"I think possibly Krum," Angelina says thoughtfully, her gaze roving over to where the surly boy sits at the Slytherin table, "But he'd want to lighten up a bit. Still, I'm dying to ask him for training tips. Imagine how cool that'd be. And you, Katie?"

"Oliver Wood." says Katie immediately, as though she had just been waiting for someone to ask. "In a heartbeat, girls."

There's some thoughtful mumbles agreement, and then Alicia turns around and says, "What about you, Marjorie?"

Marjorie jerks, startled at being addressed so suddenly, and begins to choke on her pumpkin juice. She hadn't even realised that the girls had known she was there, so the sudden inclusion to the conversation had taken her by surprise.

"Oh!" Angelina's eyes go wide as Marjorie splutters and she begins pounding her hard on the back, apparently under the impression that this would be helpful, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, fine!" Marjorie wheezes, struggling to get herself back under control. "I, um, I- I think I would probably- um, I think maybe Cedric, too. I've fancied him since third year." As soon as the last part comes out of her mouth she turns violently scarlet. Why had she admitted that! The girls would surely think she was a total creep for sharing that!

But Alicia just nods with a certain sense of satisfaction and winks at her. "Seems like we both have good taste, eh, Marjorie?"

Taken aback but utterly delighted with this new sense of camaraderie, Marjorie nods eagerly. "Oh, yes! He's very, um," and then she abruptly colours even further, and ends her sentence in an embarrassed whisper, "Very handsome."

"Damn right he is!" Alicia cheers loudly, and smugly adds to the other girls, "See, Marjorie's on my side here."

"Well, the others are good choices too!" Marjorie says hastily, worried that the others might be annoyed with her, but Angelina waves her off.

"Diggory's a good choice, sure, but I've just thought of someone else," she says, waggling her brows with a grin, "Charlie Weasley."

Katie makes an odd sound around a mouthful of hash brown and begins blushing. "Oh Merlin, yes." She says emphatically as she chews.

Alicia nods too, but when the girls look to Marjorie for a reaction she only shrugs. "I don't think I know Charlie Weasley." She confesses with a shrug.

"Oh, you poor thing." Katie says playfully, "You have no idea what you're missing out on."

"Although, speaking of Weasleys," Alicia says with an air of confidentiality, leaning over the table and gesturing the other girls closer, "What's going on with you and the twins, Marjorie?"

Marjorie straightens up out of surprise, blinking rather owlishly. "Going on?" She repeats, confused.

"Well, it's only," Alicia's eyes dart momentarily over Marjorie's shoulder, looking somewhere further down the table. "They keep looking this way, and it's definitely not us they're looking at."

"They asked me about you yesterday," Angelina confides, biting back a grin, "Wanted to know if you'd always been in our year or if you transferred in recently."

"Good Godric Gryffindor, those two are so dense." Katie sighs, "Were they being serious? We've been in classes together for five years!"

Marjorie just nodded along, surprised speechless yet delighted at the prospect that all the girls were on the same page as her. It was ridiculous! "I thought I had made quite an impression on them in first year after they sent me down the moving staircases, but apparently not." She confessed, a little self-conscious of the fact that she was apparently so forgettable that even almost breaking her neck wasn't much of a noteworthy event.

Angelina shook her head and bit into her toast with a shrug, "Don't take it personally, Marjorie, honestly. They're just like that."

Marjorie hummed, and cast a quick look over her shoulder. The twins were sitting several places down and having a very intense whispered conversation with Lee Thomas, but one of them glanced up and caught Marjorie looking at them. He sent her a cheeky wink, and laughed when she went bright red and whirled back around to face the girls, who thankfully didn't appear to have noticed the exchange at all.

"We'd better get going to Charms." Angelina was saying, pushing her breakfast away a little reluctantly and getting to her feet. Katie and Alicia follow her lead, but when Marjorie doesn't move Angelina asks, "Coming, Marjorie?"

Again, Marjorie startles a little, before blurting "Oh, yes!" and snatching at her schoolbag. "See you later, Nev." She says hastily, nudging her cousin in the back as she climbs over the bench to join the girls. She feels a little bad that she had mostly ignored him for the whole meal, but she was just so excited to be included in the group with the girls! Plus, Neville was busy having his own conversation, so she didn't think he minded very much.

Angelina and Alicia kept up a steady stream of conversation the whole way to Transfiguration, with Katie chiming in every couple of minutes with her own opinion. They did their best to include Marjorie in their conversation, but didn't seem to mind too much when she stayed quiet. After sharing a dormitory with her from first year, they were probably used to her being quiet. Marjorie was too busy enjoying the feeling of feeling included to bother with speaking too much -- she didn't want to ruin it.

They had to split up once they got to the classroom, moving to sit in their usual seats, but Marjorie was so pleased with how breakfast had gone that she swore she was probably glowing as she sat alone at her desk near the back.

Her airy happiness doesn't last for too long, however, as someone throws a crumpled up piece of parchment at her head. She pulls it out of her hair with a frown and turns to see the Weasley twins, settling into their seats behind her once again. "Yes?" She says, aiming for a patient and pleasant tone of voice and just falling short.

"Well, hello to you too, Maggie." One of them says as they both send her identical grins.

Marjorie stares at them, shocked at the sound of Neville's little pet name for her falling from his mouth. "What did you just call me?"

Their smiles slip a little, and they share a brief indecipherable look between them. "Oh, come off it, you can't pretend that's not your name. We heard Neville call you yesterday!" The other one says. Marjorie thinks that this one is Fred.

Marjorie's face drops, unimpressed. They had taken to trying to guess her name, now? "Only my family calls me Maggie."

"Aw come on, we're friends, aren't we?" Possibly-George says with what he clearly thinks is a winning smile. "Surely we can call you Maggie too, huh?"

Marjorie is so taken by surprise that she almost forgets to answer. She doesn't think she's ever had so many people be friendly to her in one day in all her years at Hogwarts -- despite her lack of experience in the friends department, she doesn't quite think that she's at that point with either Fred or George. "No." She says belatedly and too bluntly to be polite, then gets flustered at her unintentional rudeness.

Rather than get offended, however, Fred and George just look at each other and crack up laughing. To Marjorie's relief, Flitwick walks in and hushes everyone as class gets started. They're practicing a variety of everyday household spells today, and Flitwick pairs them off into groups of two in order to practice together.

Professor Flitwick always chooses to partner people from different houses together in the spirit of inter-house unity or something like that; this is good for Marjorie on the one hand, as it means she has an excuse to move away from the twins. And yet, on the other hand, they have Charms with Hufflepuff today.

"Miss Longbottom, with Mister Diggory, please!" Flitwick squeaks from the top of the class as he reads out the pairings for practical work.

Marjorie feels the blood rush to her face even before Cedric turns to peer around the classroom, trying to spot her. Her blush is only made worse when she catches sight of Angelina and Alicia, wagging their eyebrows at her and grinning so widely it looks as though their cheeks are about to split in two.

When Cedric finally spots her, he smiles and ambles over. "Hey." He says softly, kindly choosing not to comment on the redness in her round cheeks or the way she's sunk down in her chair. "How's it going?"

"Great!" Marjorie says, sounding distinctly strangled. "Mm. Really wonderful."

Cedric doesn't laugh, but he looks as though he might want to. Instead, he just says, "Well, that's great to hear," and swiftly opens his Charms textbook.

Marjorie sinks down a little further in her chair, cursing herself.

Flitwick bounces around the room, passing out what looks like ancient and very stained Quidditch robes. "Listen here, students!" He calls, drawing attention to the front of the room, "Today, I want you to pay particular attention to the Cleaning Charm!"

Cedric nods along confidently, unphased by Flitwick's instructions. Marjorie, on the other hand, begins to feel her stomach sink. She's never been very good at Charms, and this time she has the added pressure of being paired with Cedric Diggory. She really can't imagine a single way that this situation will turn out well for her.

"Would you like to go first?" Cedric offers, gesturing to the ragged set of Quidditch robes laid out on the desk in front of them.

"Oh, um," Marjorie glances around rather anxiously, but can't quite see any way to get out of this. All around the classroom, students are shouting incantations with various levels of success. The chaos is a little distracting, but at the very least it seems that no one is paying attention to her. Even the twins, each paired up with a rather disgruntled looking Hufflepuff, are preoccupied with transfiguring the Slytherin robes they've been handed a lurid, obnoxious shade of pink.

Under Cedric's encouragingly expectant gaze, Marjorie fiddles with her wand and takes a breath as she prepares herself. "Scourgify!" She flourishes her wand at the robes.

Instead of purging the layers of dirt from them, however, Marjorie's spell tears a hole right through the centre of them.

She and Cedric stand and blink at them, startled by the force of the charm. A sense of creeping humiliation begins to build in Marjorie's stomach, and she glances sideways at Cedric. "I think I did it wrong."

"Er-" Cedric pokes at the singed edges of the fabric. "I think it looks a bit cleaner, actually, if you look closely."

If anything, Cedric still trying to be nice to her is even more humiliating than if he had been rude to her. "Ah, thanks." she says weakly. "I think it'd be better if you gave it a go."

"Right, yeah." Cedric says sheepishly, and begins rolling up his sleeves. He doesn't seem to be aware of the dark flush crossing Marjorie's face, or if he is he does not show it. When he casts his own charm, he does so with the kind of easy confidence that Marjorie equally envies and finds attractive. Several layers of filth promptly disappear, revealing black cloth for the first time rather than just the deep brown of dirt. Cedric peers critically at it, "A few more goes should do it, yeah?"

"Yeah, but maybe you should do it."

Cedric chuckles, but then immediately looks guilty. "Sure you don't want to try again?" He asks, "I can mend the hole, if you want to give it another go."

"Yeah, I'd probably just accidentally blow them up or something." Marjorie says with a self-conscious smile.

Cedric laughs again, properly this time, as though Marjorie had just told a very funny joke rather than the truth. He repairs the damage to the robes with a flick of his wand, and then casts the Scouring Charm again. The robes are beginning to look almost like a wearable garment by this stage, and for the first time Marjorie can see that they're Ravenclaw robes.

By the time Flitwick appears by their side, the robes are actually quite decent looking. "Excellent work, Mr Diggory!" He cheers, inspecting the robes.

"Marjorie helped." says Cedric generously, casting her a conspiratorial wink.

"Ah, of course." Flitwick says indulgently, although he appears doubtful when he glances at her. "Very good, Miss Longbottom."

"Thank you, Professor." Marjorie smiles, conscious that her cheeks are still flaming from Cedric's wink. Once Flitwick moves on, presumably to scold Arthur Carmichael (who has managed to shift the dirt from his robes to all over his partner, who looks as though she's about to start swinging on him), Marjorie turns back to Cedric and earnestly says, "Thanks, for that. I'm, um... not doing too great at Charms at the minute."

"No problem." Cedric says airily, stowing his wand away. "Those household charms can be tricky, anyway. They're finicky, you know?"

"Right." Marjorie nods, deciding not to point out that Cedric hadn't appeared to have much difficulty with them at all. Even Carmichael had done a better job than she had.

She's relieved when class begins to wrap up -- she thinks that too much time with Cedric is probably bad for her blood pressure. Her stomach flips dramatically when he leaves her with a smile and a "See you, Marjorie."

"Oh, yes, goodbye!" Marjorie breathes, flustered. She's so flustered that she hardly notices the twins appearing behind her.

"Marjorie!" They chorus, their tones revelatory.

"Hm?" Marjorie hums absently, her eyes on Cedric's honey-coloured hair and broad shoulders. Distracted as she is, she doesn't notice the way the twins begin to snigger.

One of them steps in front of her, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, excuse me!" He says in an exaggeratedly polite voice, "Are we distracting you from your very important ogling?"

"No!" Marjorie snaps, whirling around defensively. "What do you want?"

"Nothing at all." The other twin says airily, stepping up beside her. He towers over her, smirking. "Just wanted to commend you on your stellar job with those robes. You blasted through them like they were made of wet tissue."

"Yeah, can you give us tips?"

Damn, Marjorie thinks, her shoulders beginning to hunch. She should have known that she wasn't fortunate enough for that particular mishap to have gone entirely unseen, but she really didn't think that she deserved to be teased mercilessly about it. "I'm not in the mood to be mocked." She said, hoping to sound firm but coming off a little nervous.

"Who's mocking you? We're being serious, aren't we, George?"

"Right we are, Fred." George grins at her, "It really was quite impressive, you know. We've found that it can be pretty difficult to blast holes in things without setting whatever it is on fire, but you managed it with no problem!"

"Yeah, that kind of mindless destruction can actually be pretty difficult!"

Marjorie glances between the two, feeling distinctly unbalanced. They seem earnest enough, but Marjorie just has too much experience with being the butt of the joke to take them at face value. "Right. Well, I'd better be going." She says, awkwardly trying to edge around both boys.

Fortunately, Alicia appears right at Fred's shoulder that minute, grinning like a wild thing. "Marjorie!" She breathes, looking practically beside herself. She grabs Marjorie's arms and elbows George in the stomach to get him to move out of the way, then hauls Marjorie out of the classroom and into the hallway. "Partnered with Diggory! What are the chances!"

"Oh, yes, I know!" Marjorie giggles despite herself, giddy from her interactions with both the girls and Cedric. "He was very kind!"

"I really thought you were going to pass out when Flitwick read out your names, you went so pale!" Alicia laughs, clapping Marjorie on the back, "But you held it together quite well!"

Marjorie beams, her embarrassment beginning to steadily fade away. She thinks that she wouldn't mind embarrassing herself in front of Cedric Diggory a hundred times over if it meant that she could laugh about it with the girls afterwards. It feels, for these brief moments, as though she has friends, and she finds herself desperate to hold onto that feeling for as long as she can.

A/N:

Marjorie? Developing crushes on anyone who shows her basic kindness and desperately yearning for the validation of female friendships? Yeah, that might be me projecting 🥺

I was gonna wait to post this, but I'll be busy next week as I have loads of assignments due, so I thought it'd be best to just post it now. As always, I'd really love to hear what you think and it'd mean a lot if you commented or voted on the story!