During her spare time, Eleanor found herself taking to her usual hobby of knitting, it was one of the only things that could keep her mind occupied for long periods of time. And with Marnie occupied with the toilet, for the time being, she settled herself in a window seat and worked away, humming lightly to herself. Although after a while, she was growing concern as to what was taking Marnie so long in the girls' lavatory, but the more she thought about it, she figured it was best not to question some things in life.

Glancing up from her work eventually, she caught sight of Cedric down the way and standing across from him was Cho Chang. He was grinning from ear to ear as she blushed away furiously in front of him, leaving Eleanor to set her knitting down and watch the scene of flirting. She didn't understand what was taking him so long to just ask the girl on a simple date, he seemed to be drawing it out for dramatic effect or something along the lines. They were both obviously interested in each other and yet, they still weren't taking the next step. But after a few other words were exchanged, Cedric and Cho parted ways and he walked away with confidence pouring from him with every step.

He spotted Eleanor and instantly made his way over where he sat across from her, the smile on his face not fading in the slightest.

"You look like a git smiling like that," Eleanor told him, " I take it that you asked her to be official then?"

"What? No," Cedric shook his head, "I'm still working the Diggory charm, slowly but surely, Ellie."

With a sigh, she started to pick up her work again, happy for Cedric and his flirting going in the direction he wanted it to but also feeling conflicted that she was encouraging him to ask Cho out on a date. Unfortunately, Eleanor was all too aware that Marnie fancied Cedric, even if she didn't make it all that obvious, it was more than clear that she did. It was just difficult for Marnie to express herself in affectionate ways and that led Eleanor stuck in the middle. She wanted both of her best friends to be happy, she just wasn't sure how that was possible.

"That doesn't look like the scarf you were working on last time I saw you knitting," Cedric said, " what are you working on now?"

"My newest and latest cap," Eleanor said proudly holding it up. "I finished that scarf ages ago."

"I don't know how you can knit that quickly, " he told her, " it's actually pretty ridiculous."

"No, it's not. It's called years of practice, besides, it's pretty much my only talent that I've got going for me, I need to perfect it somehow."

"Whatever, it's already perfect, you make wearable clothing garments in days and there's hardly ever a stitch out of place. Anyways, where's Marnie? Napping?"

"Lavatory, she should be back any second," Eleanor said with a rather hopeful tone. But it seemed that Cedric was not going to wait around as he pushed himself up to stand. "Where are you going?"

"To rally up my troops and take to the Quidditch pitch for an early practice."

Shaking her head, Eleanor was not fully encouraging his train of thought. "Cedric, the entire Hufflepuff team is going to turn on you if you keep it up with so many practices. I heard Heidi and Maxine already coming up with a plan to do you in."

"They can whine all they want," he called to her as he started walking away, " but when we win the cup, they'll all be thanking me."

"That's if they let you live to even see the start of the season!"

Cedric turned around with a laugh and made a face at her that consisted of him sticking his tongue out. "Hey, you and Marnie should come watch, tell us how we look out there."

"You know how hard it is to motivate Marnie to watch any sort of Quidditch," she reminded him, " she can't stand it, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right, well, I guess I'll see you two at dinner then?"

She answered with a nod and a small wave before Cedric disappeared around the corner of the corridor. Although she didn't find herself alone for very long as Marnie finally returned a couple of minutes later, gripping her stomach before plopping down where Cedric had been sitting earlier.

"Breakfast definitely came back to haunt me," she admitted with a groan, " so much regret."

"Ew, Marnie," Eleanor scrunched up her face, " that's sick."

"No, what came out of me was sick!"

Deciding that she was going to taunt Eleanor with details that were not asked for, Eleanor grabbed her unfinished cap and placed it over her head to pull it down over her ears. She picked herself up, fully prepared to run from Marnie if she had to, but of course, Marnie was making her way to follow her.

"It was so- ARRGGHH!"

Hearing the sound of her friend let out a scream, Eleanor quickly whipped around, only to see Marnie on the floor, lying flat on her back. She made her way over to see if she was alright, only to gasp and cover her mouth with her hands as Marnie sat up as she was stunned by the sight of what she was witnessing.

"What the hell?!" Marnie exclaimed, rubbing the top of her head. "What hit me? And why are you looking at me like that?!"

"Marnie," Eleanor said in a small voice, " your hair...it's blue."

With a look of disbelief, Marnie rolled her eyes before she went to grab a lock of her hair. "What are you talking about- SWEET MERLIN'S TITS MY HAIR!"

Eleanor flinched as Marnie's voice roared and echoed in the corridors, bringing others in the distance to look over. She had to bite down on her tongue with such strength to keep herself from smiling as it was completely unexpected to witness such a thing. And she should have known as she looked around to figure out who had done, that the Weasley twins were the ones behind it all.

She spotted them, their red hair a dead giveaway as they poked their heads around the corner. She shook her head own head in their direction before offering her hand to Marnie to help her up.

"Come on, Marnie," she said, " I know the charm to fix it."

"I'm going to kill those two!"

As Marnie and Eleanor disappeared from the corridor, the laughter behind them still lingered, leaving Fred and George Weasley to feel rather accomplished that their prank had gone through without fail. Of course, they were probably going to have to watch their backs because if there was any student that would probably go through with a death threat it was Marnie Saxon.

"Nice aim," Fred said as he nudged George's shoulder, " got her perfectly."

"Yeah well, would you believe me if I told you I wasn't aiming for her?" George countered. "I swore I aimed for Eleanor. But I guess it doesn't matter, we got one of them right and that's another down."

"Yes it is and it was an impeccable choice in colour."

"I don't think she thought so," George grinned, " she didn't look happy at all."

"Yes, now that you mention it, she did look rather blue, didn't she?"

"Well, I don't know what her problem is, the whole thing honestly blue me away."

It was Ginny who stumbled upon the two of her older brothers, listening to them going back and forth with their horrible puns as they failed to notice her. With a heavy sigh, she placed a hand over her face and shook her head back and forth.

"Dear Merlin, why couldn't I have been blessed with older sisters?"

Back in the Hufflepuff Common Room, Eleanor had her wand out, trying to help her reverse the Colovaria charm, but Marnie was refusing to stay still as she kept waving her hands about.

"Will you hold still, Marnie!"

"Stop pointing your wand at me and I will!" Marnie said attempting to dodge behind one of the armchairs in the room, leaving Eleanor to become relatively frustrated. Ever since the Stretching Charm had gone awry that one time, Marnie didn't seem to trust anyone pointing a wand at her and for good reason. However, Eleanor wasn't trying to do anything but fix her hair.

"Do you want to keep the blue hair then?"

Marnie poked her head out, wearing a frown before shaking her head.

"Then come out of there and let me fix it."

Holding her wand steady, Eleanor remained as relaxed as possible while Marnie was visibly freaking out by covering her face and whimpering, only leaving her hair exposed. Reversing the Colovaria charm, Eleanor watched as a yellow light emitted from the end and took to Marnie's hair. Each thread seemed to glow, only for about a second before it died down and her original dark colour reappeared.

"Alright, everything is back to normal!" Eleanor announced. "You're no longer blue!"

Grabbing at her hair again, Marnie inspected it before letting out a happy cry. "Oh thank Merlin's beard!"

"Merlin's beard?!" Eleanor exclaimed. "What about me? Where's my thank you?!"

Placing her hair over her shoulder, Marnie ignored her as she hugged herself and hugged her hair at the same time with a bright smile on her face, leaving Eleanor to stand there and cross her arms.

"Unbelievable."

Thankfully, after the incident occurred, Marnie seemed to settle, at least enough that she wasn't willing to go through with her death threat, but still, she was still pretty ticked off about the situation. It was unfortunate that the Weasley twins had chosen the colour blue out of all the colours they could have chosen from. Marnie had her own personal vendetta against the colour, due to the fact that it was associated with the Ravenclaw house.

Under normal circumstances, Marnie wouldn't have had a problem with a house, in fact, she really didn't have anything against Ravenclaw itself, but it was her parents that had basically caused her to become resentful over it. Not only did Marnie's parents come from the Ravenclaw household, but her older siblings had been sorted into the house as well during their time. She was the only one that wasn't sorted into it and it seemed like her family held it against her.

It wouldn't be a big deal to others, but it was a big deal to her families as if they were trying to find fault as to why she had been sorted into Hufflepuff. From that point on, they had always slipped in jabs and reminders that she had been sorted differently, but Marnie took pride in that in a lot of ways. She just came to hate the colour blue that decorated her home because she felt like they were always attempting to rub it in her face.

Eleanor and Cedric couldn't really relate as Cedric came from a long line of Hufflepuffs and Eleanor didn't have to worry about what house her family had been in because her mother was a muggle. She couldn't even be bothered to learn the name of the house that Eleanor was in, let alone care about the others.

And as they entered the Great Hall for dinner that night, Eleanor could sense that Marnie was still bitter, but hopefully the food would act to further calm her down. As promised, Cedric came in after Quidditch practice and joined them. The Hufflepuff team followed but unlike him, they all plopped down onto the benches with loud groans.

"I think you might have worked them too hard tonight, Cedric," Eleanor said, glancing over at where Heidi could barely lift her arms for her fork. "You might want to take it a bit easy on them."

"Nonsense, it was a great practice!" Cedric replied cheerfully as he grabbed his own plate to start eating.

"It's not going to matter how good the practices are if your whole team ends up dead from exhaustion before the season starts," Marnie pointed out.

"They'll be fine," Cedric reassured them, " and more importantly, they'll be prepared. I know what I'm doing."

As he turned around to continue fixing his plate, Marnie looked over at Eleanor and mouthed "No, he doesn't" quietly while shaking her head. Eleanor covered her mouth to keep from laughing, but quickly placed it back down as Cedric turned back to them.

"So, did anything eventful happen with you two after I left?" he asked Eleanor.

"Not really," she said nonchalantly, " I kept working on my cap and oh, Marnie got to try out a new hair colour!"

"You did?" Cedric looked to Marnie with a surprised look. "What colour?"

"It was blue!" Eleanor blurted out, leaving Marnie to glare at her before she looked back at Cedric.

"I didn't try out anything and I certainly wasn't looking to try a new colour like blue! It was the two pain in the arses in Gryffindor!"

Cedric seemed unsure of what to say at the time but Eleanor looked almost as if she was bursting at the seams with amusement.

"It was great!"

"Ellie!" Marnie looked over at her with a more than offended look as Cedric hid his laughter behind his hand. "Who's side are you on?"

"I'm sorry, Marnie," she quickly apologised, " but it was really quite...complementary."

Instantly, Marnie's expression darkened as she was full prepared to unleash hell on her best friend, even with witnesses around.

"You literally have three seconds to vanish before I drown you in my mug."

"Now, Marnie, let's not get violet."

"That's it, Ross!"

From the across the Great Hall, the commotion at the Hufflepuff table had caused quite the scene as they usually weren't ones for ruckus. But it seemed to involve Eleanor Ross and Marnie Saxon as Eleanor had jumped up from the table to escape her friend, running out of the Great Hall with Marnie in hot pursuit. He was curious as to what had caused the little spat between them as they usually seemed to get along. But at the same time, he was just thankful that he wasn't the one being hunted down by Marnie.

The girl had been shooting deadly glares at him and George throughout dinner, so he wondered how soon it was going to be before she retaliated or at least, attempted to retaliate.

Moments later, Cedric Diggory rose from the Hufflepuff table, red in the face as he looked away to make sure he didn't make eye contact with anyone. He followed his friends out of the Great Hall to see where they had ended up.

Curious to see what unfolded, Fred nudged George to follow him and they proceeded to leave the Great Hall going unnoticed. Apparently, the three hadn't made it far as Eleanor was using Cedric as a shield while Marnie kept trying to go around him to get her.

"Get over here, Ellie!"

"Marnie, calm down! Eleanor was just joking around, there's no need to go mental!" Cedric tried to hold her back, but she ended up psuhing him to the side, causing Cedric to release one hell of a shriek as he nearly fell over.

"Run, Ellie, Run!"

"Come on, Marnie," Eleanor said in a nervous voice as she backed away, " you're blowing this all out of porportion. I wasn't insulting you."

"Oh, you weren't?" Marnie questioned placing her hand on her hips. "Not at all."

"No," Eleanor told her, " it was just a pigment of your imagination. Ha!"

Getting in the last laugh, Eleanor knew better and decided to start running, heading down the stairs to make her way to the basement, probably going to retreat to the Hufflepuff Common Room. Marnie took off after her, leaving Cedric to be abandoned in the corridor for a few moments before he pushed himself up and went after them. Hoping that Marnie didn't catch up to Eleanor before he could intervene again.

Once the three disappeared, Fred turned to George with a grin, only to see that George was smiling too.

Their earlier prank was turning out to have some pretty interesting last effects.