Three days before the third Triwizard Task, Marjorie wakes up in the early hours of the morning screaming.

Angelina nearly flies out of bed, scrambling to get her wand and get across the room before she can even register what's happening. Katie jerks awake and promptly gets tangled in her bedsheets before falling onto the floor with a loud thud. Alicia jumps out of bed and trips on the curtains of her four-poster bed.

"Marjorie! Marjorie, are you alright?" Angelina asks shrilly, her eyes wide and panicked in the darkness of the room as she tears Marjorie's curtains open.

"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!" Marjorie sobs, chest heaving and tears streaming down her face as she stares unseeingly into the dark.

"It was just a dream, Marjorie." Angelina throws her wand to the side when she realises that no one is any imminent danger, and then climbs onto Marjorie's bed and pulls her into her arms. "It's alright! It was just a nightmare."

"Merlin," Alicia whispers, staring at them from the floor. "Is she alright?"

Angelina doesn't answer, she just holds Marjorie tighter as she sobs into her chest.

At breakfast, Marjorie sits hunched beside Angelina, with Neville sat on her other side. Across the table, Katie keeps sending her worried looks.

"Maggie, you look awful." Neville murmurs to her, peering into her face. She knows her eyes are still puffy, with deep dark circles in the hollows of her eye contour.

"Oh, cheers, Nev." Marjorie replies dryly, attempting a smile for him. When Neville only responds with a concerned frown, Marjorie realises that she really must look terrible -- normally Neville would be tripping over himself to apologise, horrified at the thought of causing offence. "I, um, I didn't sleep so well last night."

Neville reaches for her hand and squeezes it. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, of course, everything is fine." Marjorie says hurriedly, forcing a smile. "Look, Nev, I'd better run. I have to get to Divination."

"Wait Maggie, you have to finish your breakfast-"

Marjorie is up and out of her seat before he can finish, hurrying out of the Great Hall with her bag slung precariously across her shoulder. She wants to get to Divination early, to catch Professor Trelawney alone. Also, she might be trying to avoid the twins - only a little bit, and only because she knows that they'll be worried if they see her like this and she doesn't think she's able for the questioning right now. They had both just been so sweet to her since she had described her bad dreams and difficulties sleeping - they had barely made any jokes about it at all!

By the time she pokes her head through the trapdoor that leads to the Divination classroom, she's sweating a little from how fast she's run. "Professor Trelawney?" She calls hesitantly, trying not to choke on the overpowering stench of incense.

Her professor whirls around, apparently surprised to hear her. She supposes that she musn't get very many students showing up early to class. It's the first time that Marjorie has seen Professor Trelawney without her crocheted, beaded shawls, and it feels like she's looking at her half-naked. "Oh, hello, dear. Can I help you?"

"Er, yes-" Marjorie clambers awkwardly through the trapdoor, tripping on one of the thickly woven carpets before grabbing a chair and settling in it. "I wanted to talk to you about my dreams, actually. If- if you don't mind?"

"Well, of course, my dear," Trelawney says grandly, though Marjorie sees her shove a half-eaten muffin under one of the ruffled tablecloths. "Yes, your very interesting dreams."

"Yes." Marjorie breathes, a little relieved that Trelawney is showing some interest. "Well, I had... a nightmare, last night. It was, well, it was awful." Her voice gets a little choked up as remembers it. "It was a little blurry, and I'm not really sure of all the details, but- I saw-" Her voice drops to a whisper, afraid to speak the dream into existence. "I saw Cedric Diggory die."

Professor Trelawney blinks at her, eyes overlarge and owlish through her thick spectacles. "I see." She says. Her voice is carefully neutral, devoid of her usual dreamy tone. "And were the usual... dark figures present?"

"I... don't think so." Marjorie says hesitantly, trying to think back. She had been a little distracted with seeing Cedric's dead body. There was one dark figure, the one who had cast the Killing Curse, but she was sure that it wasn't the same as the usual dark shadows that tended to lurk in the corners of her dream. "It wasn't like my regular dreams, Professor. It felt real, like it really happened."

Trelawney hums thoughtfully and purses her lips. "Let me get some tea, Ms Longbottom."

"Oh, don't worry about it-" Marjorie starts, but Trelawney is already up and moving across the room to fill a cup.

"I know these dreams can be scary sometimes," Trelawney begins, setting a pungently scented cup of tea in front of her, "Have you had any others similar to this one?"

"Um," Marjorie sips cautiously at the tea and tries not to obviously gag at the taste. "I had one at the beginning of the week about a man who was wearing the wrong skin. That one was... disturbing."

"Well," Trelawney says delicately, smoothing the doily in the middle of the table. "I'll be honest, my dear - I don't think you should assign too much meaning to this particular dream."

"You don't?" Marjorie asks hopefully.

"Sometimes, those who do not possess the ability to analyse their dreams assign meaning to  dreams that are, in actuality, meaningless. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that this dream is a result of exam stress and the anxiety of the upcoming Triwizard task."

For the first time in several days, Marjorie allowed herself to relax - her neck was a little sore from holding the tension in her shoulders all day, and she blew out an explosive sigh. "So... you don't think it's anything to worry about?"

"No, dear," Trelawney smiles sweetly at her, "I think it's safe to say that there's nothing to worry about at all."

Marjorie was in a much better mood by the time lunch came around. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she felt like she was floating down the hallways. If even Professor Trelawney thought that she was being overdramatic, then maybe she really had blown it all out of proportion.

"It was just a dream." She murmurs to herself, smiling softly as she heads towards the common room. She has some sandwiches neatly wrapped up in the pockets of her robes, and she's ready to get caught up on some of the assignments that she's fallen behind on because of her bad sleeping schedule. The castle is quiet, as mostly everyone is in the Great Hall for lunch. Marjorie doesn't see a single other person until she reaches Gryffindor Tower and climbs in through the portrait hole, and when she finally gets into the common room she's surprised to see the twins sitting in the corner of the room murmuring quietly to each other.

Marjorie beams at the sight of them, and hurries over excitedly to sit with them. They don't notice her at first, too absorbed in their own conversation, and it's only as she nears them that she realises how serious they look.

"I'm just saying we've got to be careful with how we phrase it, because if it comes across as threatening then we could be in big trouble," George is saying in a low tone that would be impossible to overhear, had Marjorie not been directly behind them, "Blackmail is still an offence, you know-"

"Blackmail?" Marjorie repeats, startled.

The twins both jerk, turning around so quickly they nearly upset the coffee table between them. "Marjie!" Fred exclaims, his voice slightly higher than usual. "Didn't see you there!"

"Why aren't you at lunch?" George adds. His voice is pitched lower than usual, as though trying to overcompensate for his brother's high-pitched surprise.

"Who on earth are you trying to blackmail?" Marjorie asks, frowing at them both. "Are you in trouble?"

"No, no, nothing like that." George says hastily, glancing shiftily around the empty common room. "Honestly, darling, it's nothing to worry about."

Marjorie bites her lip, glancing between the two of them. "Are you lying to me?"

The boys look momentarily stricken, before Fred groans and rubs his face with both hands. "Aw shit," He says quietly, before raising his head to look at her properly, "Look, Marjie, we just don't want to stress you out any more than you already are. We may have made a bit of a risky gamble with some money, and it's ended up biting us in the arse. That's all."

George holds his hand out and gestures for her to sit next to him on the little squishy armchair. Marjorie hesitates, unsure about whether or not she would fit, but George takes a hold of her hand and pulls her down beside him once she takes too long. "George, I'm going to squash you." Marjorie protests, highly conscious of her weight and nervous about hurting him.

"Marjorie, darling, you could crush me into dust and I would consider it an honour."

Marjorie turns scarlet, and stops struggling on his lap. She clears her throat, flushed and hot, and says, "You're trying to distract me."

"Is it working?" George murmurs hopefully into the delicate skin at her throat. She can feel him smile against her when she shivers lightly in his arms.

"No." She says stubbornly. "What sort of gamble?"

Fred laughs and runs a hand through his hair before reaching out to take a hold of her hand. "We won a bet at the Quidditch World Cup, and the man we made it with is refusing to see it through. We're not actually trying to blackmail anyone, but we've tried being nice and polite in our letters and we haven't gotten a single reply. I think it's time to get serious."

"How much money did you lose?" Marjorie asks, watching Fred play absent-mindedly with her fingers.

Fred chews on his lip without meeting her eyes. "A fair amount. We took a risk, and it should have paid off if Bagm- if the person we made the bet with had honoured the agreement. The bastard tried to pay us off in leprechaun gold."

"It disappeared overnight." George snorts humourlessly, fiddling with the ribbon tying Marjorie's hair back. "So now we're broke and getting a little frustrated."

Marjorie frowns thoughtfully. "Maybe... maybe he hasn't been getting your letters?"

Fred smiles wryly, then kisses her fingertips so gently that it makes her stomach clench. "That's very trusting of you, love, but he's definitely been getting them. You should see the way he runs whenever he sees us."

"I'm sorry-" Marjorie begins with furrowed brows, but George shakes his head immediately.

"Nah, don't be, princess. It was our own bad decision, I guess. Anyway," He grins at her, clearly hoping to change the subject. "Why aren't you at lunch?"

"I was going to do some homework," Marjorie says, conceding to the change in subject. They had opened up to her more than she had honestly expected, anyway.  "I brought sandwiches."

"Sandwiches," Fred says derisively. "That's not enough, Marjie. Come on, we'll all go down to lunch together."

She really should get started on her homework, but the twins are already getting to their feet and are looking at her expectantly. She can't believe she's so weak against their stupid big brown eyes, but she finds herself trailing after them down to the Great Hall all the same.

"I'm still thinking about sneaking a Niffler into his room at the Three Broomsticks." Fred mutters as they sit down at the Gryffindor table. "We might get something out of him."

As Marjorie reaches for a plate of Cornish pasties, she notices Ron Weasley perk up when he overhears Fred's words. "Are you finally going to tell me who the hell you're trying to extort?" He demands, abandoning his conversation with Hermione Granger to lean over and glare at his older brothers.

"Mind your own business, you nosy little ballbag." George shoves irritably at the back of Ron's head, ignoring his squawk as his nose dips into his soup. "He wasn't talking to you."

"I'm your brother!" Ron says indignantly, wiping his nose. He catches sight of Marjorie, and immediately points at her. "Hang on! Have you told Longbottom?  You told Marjorie Longbottom and not me?!"

Fred rolls his eyes and fills a cup with pumpkin juice. "Why would we tell you, Ronniekins? So you could run back and tell Mum? Rat."

Ron scoffed, clearly miffed. "I haven't ratted you out to Mum in ages."

"Yeah, whatever, you little grass." Fred says dismissively, waving a hand.

Marjorie shifts a little uncomfortably and takes a bite out of her pastry as Ron chokes irritably. "Oh please!" He says, his neck flushing a deep red, "You only told Longbottom because you fancy her-!"

"Oi!" George punches him hard in the arm, "Shut up!"

"Dickhead!" Fred adds, shoving his head yet again. "This is why no one tells you anything!"

Marjorie has stopped chewing, and is gazing wide-eyed at both Fred and George. Their ears have gone scarlet, almost blending right into their hair. "Do you?" She asks, her stomach doing somersaults.

Hermione Granger gives Ron a positively filthy look before pulling him away from the table, ignoring his complaints about not having finished his food. As soon as they're gone, Fred and George share one of their usual looks, communicating without saying a word in that strange way they have.

"Marjorie," Fred says very slowly. It might be the first time that either one of them have ever used her full name, and she straightens up automatically at the sound of it. "Can't you tell by now that we're both mad for you?"

Marjorie stares at them like a total idiot, her mouth still full of pasty - she thinks if she tried to swallow right now she'd choke. No one has ever fancied her before. She barely even had friends before this year; she'd only ever had Neville, and she's slowly coming to the realisation that she has no idea how to respond to this revelation.

George chuckles a little at her confounded expression. "We're obviously doing something very wrong. We enjoy hanging around with you of course, but why did you think that I kissed you that night in the common room, or why Fred did a little bit more than kissing with you?"

Marjorie flushes at his implication, then shrugs jerkily. "I-I don't know! I guess I just thought it was because... I was there."

Fred makes a face instantly, and George looks a little hurt. "You thought we were into you because you were easy?"

She hadn't necessarily thought exactly that, but only because in truth she hadn't thought all that much about it. It had been so exciting when the twins started to pay all this attention to her, and their little touches and physicality had been borderline addictive. It had been a strange enough thought that the twins might actually like her as a friend, but the thought they might actually fancy her the way she did them had never so much as crossed her mind outside of her daydreams.

"No one has ever liked me before." She says instead, at a loss for how to fully explain how strange it was that they liked her like that.

"Their loss." Fred says instantly, swigging his pumpkin juice as though it was a shot of Firewhiskey. He looks as though this entire conversation is going to turn him prematurely grey.

"Although," George adds, looking a little amused, "To be fair, love, I don't know if you would have noticed. If you didn't notice that we liked you-"

"It's not like we were being particularly subtle." Fred adds. "But luckily, we don't mind a challenge."

"There's no pressure, Marjie." George says soothingly. Marjorie wonders if he's able to read how overwhelmed she is from her face. "It doesn't have to mean anything unless you want it to."

Finally, Marjorie manages to swallow her mouthful of food. They like her. Tentatively, she says in a low voice that only they can hear, "I like you too."

George exhales softly as a little smile begins playing around his lips, and Fred throws an arm over her shoulders and says, "And why wouldn't you? Just look around the place - I'm easily the best looking lad here, and George is probably second best. Maybe third." Despite his confident tone, Marjorie can feel how the tension leaks out of his body at her words.

"We have the same bloody face, you absolute moron-" George punches his brother hard in the arm, ignoring the indignant squawk he receives as they begin bickering over Marjorie's head.

Marjorie takes another bite of her pastry and ducks her head, smiling happily to herself. The presence of Fred and George on either side of her is warm and comforting, and the sound of their light-hearted bickering washes over her like familiar white noise. She relaxes fully in the presence of the twins, her nightmare from this morning utterly forgotten about.