Marjorie's potion is emitting ominously dark clouds of smoke and the occasional belching sound. After desperately flicking through her Potions textbook for a solution yields no results, she casts a nervous look around the dungeon.

From the table beside her, Miles Bletchley from Slytherin casts a disgusted sort of look at both herself and her cauldron. He leans over to whisper something to the girl next to him with a pointed look in Marjorie's direction, and the girl looks over and begins to giggle.

Ears growing red, Marjorie ducks down and doubles her efforts to rescue her potion. If she doesn't do something to improve it very quickly, then-

"And what," comes the horribly familiar slow drawl of Professor Snape from just over her right shoulder, "do you call this, Longbottom?"

"It's the Draught of Peace, sir." Marjorie manages to force the words out with great effort -- even in a whisper, her voice shakes slightly.

"Is it." Snape peers down into her cauldron, his expression unreadable. "What colour is it supposed to be, hm?"

"A-a light periwinkle blue, sir."

"And what colour do you call this?"

Marjorie's stomach sinks so low that she thinks she might be sick. "I-I suppose, um... brown, sir?"

"Brown." Snape repeats. His nose is crinkled in disgust, but Marjorie can't shake the feeling that he's enjoying this nonetheless. "What did you do wrong?"

"I followed the instructions, sir." Marjorie says quietly, avoiding his dark eyes at all costs. "I don't know what-"

"Obviously you did not follow the instructions, idiot girl, or this wouldn't have happened." He snaps, waving a hand at her now-heavily smoking potion. His voice abruptly turns silky and rather dangerous, "Or are you telling me that my instructions were not correct?"

The dungeon had fallen eerily quiet, and Marjorie felt the heavy weight of her classmates' stares on her; some of their gazes were pitying, some gleeful, and some just seemed relieved that Snape's ire was directed at her rather than them.

"No, sir!" Marjorie says quickly, aghast. "No, I didn't mean-"

"If you followed the instructions to the letter, as you say you did," Snape speaks over her, still using that deceptively soft voice, "Then I cannot seem to understand how the potion could have gone so wrong. Are you so incompetent that merely your touch corrupts your work?"

Marjorie is sweating now, flushed horribly from a mixture of terror and humiliation. Tears prick at her eyes, and she has to keep her gaze stuck to the floor to prevent Snape or her classmates from seeing her cry. Behind her, someone sniggers. "I-I'm sorry-"

"I don't want you to be sorry, I want you to listen for once in your-"

Snape's harsh reprimand is cut off by a loud bang, as a cauldron several desks away explodes violently, spraying indigo liquid all over the walls and floor of the dungeon and coating several students who were unlucky enough to be standing close to it. Whirling around and apparently forgetting about Marjorie entirely, Snape stalks like an overlarge bat to the back of the classroom to survey the mess.

As soon as he's out of earshot, Angelina slides over. "Are you okay?" She asks, throwing a nasty look in Snape's direction. "He's such a greasy git."

"Yeah." Marjorie breathes, not entirely sure if she's answering Angelina's question or agreeing with her sentiment about Snape. "He just- he scares me."

She's half-expecting Angelina to laugh at her, but instead she nods seriously. "I can understand why. He picks on you worse than anyone else, you know." She scowls in the Potion master's direction once more before adding, "Honestly, it was good timing on Fred and George's part. If they hadn't done something, I think I probably would have."

"Fred and George?" Marjorie repeats, still slightly shaken, and turns to see Snape fish what looks like the burnt remains of a firework out of the bottom of the exploded cauldron.

He stares at it for a long moment in silence, his greasy hair falling over his face to obscure his expression. When he finally does speak, it's in a voice so soft it's hardly audible, "Weasley."

"Yes?" One of the twins says obstinately. They're both standing at a cauldron throwing-distance away from the one that had exploded, miraculously clean of the potion remnants that have covered everyone else within range, watching Snape with matching expressions of distaste.

The whole class watches in captive silence until the bell goes that moment, breaking the bubble of tension that had been steadily building as people scramble to bottle samples of their potion. Marjorie bottles and stoppers a sample of her own potion, choosing to ignore its striking similarity to sewage water, all while keeping a close eye on Snape as he orders the twins to stay behind after class.

"Come on," Angelina murmurs, tugging Marjorie hastily out of the dungeon, "No point in sticking around waiting for him to remember that he was in the middle of publicly humiliating you."

She has a point, so Marjorie doesn't argue. She can't help but glance once over her shoulder as they leave though, and asks, "Are they going to be alright? Surely they'll be in loads of trouble."

Angelina scoffs, throwing her braids over her shoulder, "Nothing new for them, don't you worry about it. They knew what they were doing when they threw that stupid thing into Boles' cauldron." Once they're in the hall, Angelina checks her watch and clicks her tongue. "Look, I've to run to get to Ancient Runes. You okay?"

"Yes, of course!" Marjorie flusters, still not used to anyone asking after her, "I, um, I have a free period now."

"That's good." Angelina nods, "Well look, take it easy for this period, yeah? I'll see you later."

"Yes." says Marjorie as Angelina gives her one last smile and turns to walk away. "Thank you!" She calls belatedly, watching as Angelina just gives her a lazily salute as she goes.

Marjorie watches Angelina, Katie, and Alicia as they howl with laughter in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, reading each other passages from a magazine that is apparently terribly funny.

"Why don't you just go over and join them?" Neville asks without looking up from his History of Magic essay. "It's obvious that you want to."

"I can't, it would be weird." sighs Marjorie, tearing her eyes away from the girls and looking back at her dream journal. The dream journal-ing is not going well; so far, all that her dreams have consisted of is vague spindly dark figures that alternately point at her and shriek in terrible howling voices or simply loom over her shoulders and disappear when she turns around to catch a look.

"It wouldn't be weird," Neville argues in that soft way of his, without any heat, "You're mates, aren't you?"

"We share a dorm," Marjorie murmurs, "It's not the same thing."

"I think you're being silly."

Marjorie scowls at him then, and pokes her quill at his shoulder. "Oh yeah? Why don't you go and join them, then?" She jerks her chin over at Dean and Seamus, who are lazily chatting over on two armchairs by the stairs.

Neville colours, and doesn't meet her eyes. "That's not the same."

"How is it not the same?"

He's saved from answering as the portrait hole opens, and Fred and George emerge into the common room. They seem no worse for wear after their encounter with Snape that afternoon, nudging and sniggering to each other as they make their way over to Lee Jordan and Ron, who are sitting beside two empty armchairs. Marjorie watches their progress across the room and tries to figure out if she should go over and say thank you to them. If it were anyone else she probably wouldn't be hesitating like she is now, but she doesn't particularly want to be made fun of.

She doesn't notice that Neville is watching her, glancing between her and the twins. "Er... everything alright?"

Marjorie jerks and lowers her gaze instantly, burrowing her head right back into her dream journal. "What? Yeah, of course." She says hastily, beginning to sketch out a messy drawing of one of the figures from her dream.

A little frown appears on Neville's forehead as he looks back to his cousin. "Are they, um... are they bothering you?"

"No, of course not." Marjorie sighs, peeking up at him from over her journal. "They actually sort of did me a favour today."

"A favour?" Neville says doubtfully, "Really?"

"Mhm." Fiddling with her quill, Marjorie sends another quick glance their way. "I was actually trying to figure out if I should go over and say thank you."

Neville still looks confused, but he nods slowly all the same. "Right. Well, why not?"

"Yeah, why not." Marjorie murmurs, before taking a fortifying breath and clambering gracelessly to her feet.  Neville shoots her a confused but supportive smile as she begins to make her way across the room.

One of the twins sees her coming, and nudges the other who then turns to watch her approach with raised eyebrows. Their attention makes her want to turn around and go straight back to Neville, but she powers through until she comes to a stop right in front of them. Ron, who seems to have been in the middle of a story, falls silent when he notices that his brothers' attention is elsewhere and turns to stare at her too. The abrupt silence makes Marjorie panic a little, and she blurts out, "Oh, hello!"

Lee Jordan must take pity on her, because he gives her a gentle smile and says, "How's it going, Marjorie?"

"Ah, good, thank you!" Marjorie grasps onto this tiny bit of kindness, answering a bit more eagerly than the question warranted, "And you?"

"Yeah, not too bad, thanks." Lee bites back a grin. "Something you needed?"

"Ah," Marjorie glances back to the twins, "Just to say thank you, actually."

"Oh?" One of the twins leans back in his armchair, "Hear that, Georgie? Marjorie wants to say thank you."

Marjorie flushes without fully understanding why, and stares at the carpet rather than make eye contact with any of them. "Yes, um... I appreciated it, that's all."

George, who's been watching her very closely since she's come over, offers her a genuine smile. It's much softer than his usual mischievous grins, and Marjorie finds that she can't actually look at him at all while he's smiling like that. "Nothing to thank us for, really. Getting under Snape's skin is a favourite past time of ours, honestly."

"Yeah, getting him off your back was just an added bonus, really." Fred chimed in.

Now that she has said what she came over to say, Marjorie is at a bit of a loss for what to do or say next. She fiddles with her fingers, eyes darting from one twin to the other as she searches for something to say. Ron speaks before she gets the chance to. "Honestly Marjorie, you're wasting your time thanking these two," He says absently, hardly even looking up at her; he seems too busy staring down Harry, who's sitting with Hermione across the room, "They probably did it just cause they thought it was funny, I doubt they were actually trying to help at all."

"Oh," Marjorie laughs nervously, suddenly embarrassed -- what was she thinking, coming over here to bother them like this? "Of course! I didn't mean to- er, sorry!"

Before any of them can say anything more she turns on her heel and hurries away, though she still hears George land a kick on Ron's thigh as Fred hisses "A bit of tact, Ronald!"

Neville is looking at her expectantly even before she sits down next to him again. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing!" Marjorie says quickly. She buries her head back into her dream journal and doesn't raise it again for the rest of the evening.

A/N:

Lads! mad woman is currently at number 5 in the weasleytwins category! Beyond delighted with this, thank you so much to everyone who's been reading and voting so far, I really really appreciate it!

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