mad woman → fred & george weasley

xiv

Marjorie's dreams have been getting worse, much to Professor Trelawney's delight.

Dusky dark figures seem to be lurking at the corners of her vision even when she's awake, but at night they reach out to claw at her, tugging at her hair and her clothes. She wandered through shapeless, colourless dreamscapes, her nightdress soaked with dark liquid that could be blood or could be something else entirely as incomprehensible whispers press in on the corners of her thoughts. She thinks that the dream people are trying to communicate, but if they were trying to speak then it wasn't in any way that she could understand.

Most mornings she wakes while the sky is still in a liminal state of purple and white, the sun peeking shyly over the treeline of the Forbidden Forest, with her nightdress damp with sweat and plastered to her skin. Sometimes, when her heartrate slows down and her breathing regulates, she falls back asleep with her sweat cooling on her skin and then wakes up exhausted hours later to the other girls getting ready for class. Other mornings, she wanders down to the common room and curls up on the couch in front of the low-burning fire, staring into the embers until she can hear the sounds of Gyffindor house coming alive in the dormitories above her.

Professor Trelawney leafs delightedly through her dream journal, her large eyes widening even further in excitement as she reads through the details. "Fascinating," She murmurs, thumbing at her lower lip in thought, "Oh yes, most interesting indeed."

Marjorie shuffles a little, and hopes that Trelawney can't hear her stomach grumbling. Class ended almost forty minutes ago, and she's impatiently waiting to be dismissed so that she can finally go to lunch.

"It is as I thought," Professor Trelawney says grandly, finally lowering the journal from her face. "These mysterious interlopers in your dreams are attempting to communicate with you."

"Right." Marjorie says dully. She's so tired from several consecutive nights of troubled and fitful sleep that she can't even inject her tone with the careful politeness she usually goes for. "And, er- what is it they're saying?"

"Oh, who can say?" Trelawney says mysteriously, waving the journal in a way that she probably thinks is mystical. "It is you that is the messenger here, my dear. The interpretation must come through you and you alone!"

"Oh, I see." Marjorie desperately tries to stifle a yawn. "Well, I suppose I'll just... keep trying. To, um, communicate."

"Excellent!" Trelawney says, tucking the journal back into her hands and beaming at her. "I can't wait to see what you find! I think it goes without saying, my dear girl, that your grades will see a marked improvement this term. Not," she added hastily, straightening one of her many beaded shawls, "That aptitude in the sacred art of Divination can be so easily measured by academic success, of course."

That does work to cheer Marjorie up a bit, and she ends up leaving the hot, stuffy Divination classroom in a markedly better mood than usual. That only lasts until she reaches the Great Hall and realises that Professor Trelawney had kept her so long that she doesn't actually have time to eat anything or else she'll be late to Charms.

Her stomach rumbles in protest, but she has no choice but to ignore it as she hurries to class - she's already terrible at Charms, she doesn't need to give Professor Flitwick any more reason to dislike her by being late as well.

By the time she gets to the Charms classroom, she feels terrible. She's a little sweaty from running through the halls, she's hungry, and she's exhausted, but at least she's not late. She takes her seat without looking up and making eye contact with anyone, and then lets herself slump over her desk. Merlin, she wishes she were asleep right now.