It took four showers to get the neon chalk dust out of Olive's hair.
Four.
It took twice the amount of time it took her to take all four showers to get Natalie and Cho to stop nagging her during the late hours of the night. They would never let Ollie get away with hiding something- Natalie and Cho had university degrees in getting secrets out of Olive.
And although the shy girl didn't tell them where she had been, why she was covered in neon pink and green chalk dust, or who she was with... Olive did get something off of her chest.
"I'm sorry." Olive whispered, being careful not to wake Marietta. She had managed to get dressed in complete darkness, and had dragged the two back down to the common room to talk.
"For what?" Cho asked, "If this is about tonight, you don't need to apologize."
"If anything, it looked like you had the most fun you've ever had all year." Natalie added. Olive looked down at her lap, allowing a wet lock of curly hair to fall into her face.
"No, I'm sorry for avoiding you guys... and Cedric... and even the twins. I was just feeling really down about what Ingrid said- and I don't know." She sighed, "I thought being alone was the best way to solve that."
"Ollie-"
"No- I'm not done." The metamorphmagus said, her tone strong and confident- a side to Olive that had been hidden behind social anxiety and nerves from Ingrid's bullying, "You guys were trying to be there for me, and I completely ignored all of you. It wasn't right, and I just made myself more unhappy than I already was. Tonight made me realize that I have the best friends ever."
"You're still not going to tell us what happened tonight, are you?"
"Not a chance."
"Then your sappiness will only make me cry, Olive, I thought we all made a pact in like third year?"
"I'm trying to apologize here!" Olive laughed, "This is the most I've ever said in like weeks so please bear with me."
Natalie took a seat next to her best friend, draping an arm around her to pull Olive into a hug. Cho joined, plopping down on the other side.
"Okay, okay, we understand." Natalie chuckled, "You're Olive- you're stubborn and shy and that's why we love you."
"Is Natalie being emotional?" Olive perked up her head as she spoke, "Cho, I think she's running a fever."
"I think Nat's got a case of the nice-flu." Cho laughed, "Take advantage, Ollie, I think Nat was saving the rest of that for Jasper."
"Oh ha ha." Natalie pushed herself off the couch and rolled onto the floor, staring back up at her two friends a loopy grin, "You two are hilarious. Can't you see I'm dying of laughter?"
"Or the nice-flu." Ollie shrugged, "I think the latter is the best explanation."
"Well, Olive, it's nice to have your shimmering personality and input back in my life again." Natalie chortled, "After a long, depressing period of time that lacked your dazzling words of wisdom."
"Guys?" Jasper poked his head out from around the corner of the common room, "You know I'm still here, right?"
Natalie grabbed the nearest pillow she could find, chucking it at the fellow fifth year. Jasper ducked, the pillow grazing his his mop of curly brown hair.
"Go and polish your French horn, Quell. We're having girl talk." The blonde called, sending the boy a quick wink.
"First of all, it's a mellophone-"
"Jasper-"
"Okay! I'm gone. You ladies have a wonderful night." Jasper quickly started to polish his glasses with his pajama shirt as his nimble frame dashed up the stairs. Natalie looked off in his direction with red tinting her cheeks, before turning back to her two friends.
"What were we talking about again?"
"Olive- why are you in such a rush? We don't have class until ten today." Natalie was still in bed, her blonde hair tangled in her face as she watched the Lark girl walked briskly around the dormitory.
"Because, I want to get to breakfast." Olive shrugged, tying up her damp black locks (she took another shower to make sure the pastel colors were out of her hair) into a ponytail.
"But it's seven in the morning- and you're going to wake Cho!" Natalie whisper/yelled, sending a look in the direction of the Ravenclaw a year below them. She was sleeping peacefully, her head buried into her pillow as soft snores came from her direction. Marietta was already awake- and had gotten out of the dormitory as quickly as possible to avoid the older girls.
"I- well... I'm just particularly hungry this morning, is all." Ollie lied, tying her blue and silver tie around her neck to complete her uniform. She wasn't hungry at all, actually, but felt this compelling force to get to the Great Hall early this morning. Olive was particularly curious to see if George managed to escape Filch and avoid detention.
But she didn't want Natalie to know that- because then it would be fairly obvious what the shy girl was going out late last night.
Natalie yawned, pushing knotted blonde hair away from her face, "I'm on to you, Lark."
"Nat, I can save you a seat if you'd like." Ollie offered, grabbing her book bag from the foot of her bed.
"No- I think I'm going to take the opportunity of late classes today to sleep in." The Arnold girl let out a long, fierce yawn, "Especially since I was up last night-"
"With Jasper?" Olive waggled her eyebrows at her friend.
"Yes! No! Maybe- shhh. I'm trying to sleep." Nat pointed a lazy finger in the direction of Cho, "Plus you'll wake her up- and you know how much Cho hates that."
"Okay." Ollie lowered her voice a little, backing away from Nat's bed to the door, "See you in Charms, then, yeah?"
Natalie watched as her shy, socially anxious friend walked out of the dormitory with an impatient bounce in her step. She buried herself again in the sheets of her bed, playfully rolling her eyes to herself.
"Weirdo, that one is."
The Great Hall smelt of freshly made breakfast foods, pleasantly filling Ollie's nose as she ventured closer and closer to the hall. It was one of the first times she'd gone to the Great Hall either a) by herself or b) in a good mood. The events of last night had given the girl slightly more confidence to venture out into a more public setting of Hogwarts breakfast.
The Ravenclaw still kept her head slightly bowed, because although her spirits were lifted, it would take a while to cure Ollie's social anxiety and slight fear of speaking to those she wasn't comfortable with. However uncomfortable she was in that situation though, Olive did a good job to push the feeling into the back of her mind, replacing it with a small distraction.
Olive didn't know why, but she was worried that George might have gotten himself in trouble for making sure she got back safely to her dorm. There was a chance that he could have gotten back to his dorm safely, but Olive would feel terrible if she had caused him to get detention.
And that worry was one of the reasons why she decided to wake up early and go down to breakfast when she didn't need to. Well... some part of Olive told her it was the main reason- but she did bring her notebook with her and had an idea for a small piece of writing to get started on.
The large double doors welcomed Olive as she walked into the Great Hall. Scarcely any students were seated at the tables- probably a handful or two from each house, and a few professors. However, Olive took the lack of students as a warm invite to sit down, using the quiet atmosphere as a cue to get her writing done first. After all, she had a few hours to kill before class.
Ollie gladly poured herself a warm cup of tea, adding the needed milk and sugar before getting to work. She took out one of her favorite pens from Missy, her notebook, and began to write.
This new 'project' however, wasn't what Olive usually wrote. She wasn't writing a small story of fiction, fantasy, and romance.
She was writing a memory.
Yes, it was quite unusual for Olive to be writing memories in her notebook. After all, it wasn't a diary, but a place for her many, many stories to be written and reread. However, Ollie felt different about this memory- it gave her the same high of thrill and excitement as writing did, and she wanted to hang onto that specific memory because of that.
So, while it was still fresh in her mind, she wrote it down. Olive wrote down what she saw, what she heard, the way she felt, even the smells around her. She wrote down colors, sounds, things she physically touched or felt. These senses and words of description turned into a short story that in hindsight seemed better than the actual memory itself, but to Olive nothing was better than living through the moment itself.
Time seemed to pass around Olive- students came and sat down around her to eat, then left for class while she still sat writing. She was transfixed, reliving each moment to get each detail perfect. If Olive was going to write down a memory, she was going to do it properly.
With only less than an hour until Charms class, Olive finally finished. Her hand was slightly smudged with black ink, and she didn't realize how much time she spent writing until she took a sip of cold tea.
That's when Olive had one of those moments equivalent to when someone takes a nap longer than they expect to, and they wake up wondering what year it was. She looked up, closing her notebook as she looked around the Great Hall. There was always a moment when Olive felt like she was on the outside looking in at the world- always the observer. One had to be an observer at least a few times in his or her lifetime if they wanted to be a writer, it helped Olive understand a lot about people, which she translated into her stories.
Just as Olive was about to open her notebook up again and read what she had just written, she noticed the head of extremely ginger hair across the Great Hall. She forgot she was looking for George- that she wanted to thank him and see if he got out of trouble himself. Olive didn't know why she was so concerned about the very boy who seemed to annoy her to no end- but he did save her from a detention with Filch.
That was like taking a bullet for someone.
But as Olive was about to get up and walk over to the Gryffindor table, she noticed that the certain Weasley she was looking for was nowhere to be found. Usually Fred and George were glued at the hip, always around one another at what seemed like all hours of the day. Today, however, only Fred sat with Lee Jordan, cheerfully eating his breakfast as he joked with his friend.
"Funny.." Olive thought, "They're always together."
Timidly, the Ravenclaw got up from her seat at the end of her house's table, and walked towards the Gryffindor table. Olive wrung her hands together, twiddling with the loose and flowing sleeves of her robes. She never walked over to another house's table by herself before- and even then it was only to see her cousin Cedric. Times like this made Ollie wish she didn't have the social anxiety she did, because it made even asking a simple question to someone else rattle her nerves to no end.
It was like she had these weights shackled to her ankles, limiting her to what she could do or say. Depending on the situation, the heaviness increased and made it even harder for her to speak.
"Olive, fancy seeing you here at a time like this." Fred spoke up, snapping Olive from her mental fight with herself on how to get the boy's attention. The raven-haired girl looked up, a sense of relief washing over her face, "What can I do for you, Ollie?"
The girl opened her mouth, but her tongue and throat immediately went dry. Taking a deep breath, she sighed, squeezing her hands together as they fiddled together in front of her.
"Have you seen your brother?" She asked, forcing herself to speak louder than the usual squeak she spoke at in fear Fred would ask her to repeat herself.
"Which one? I have five." The Weasley boy shrugged.
"George?"
Fred raised a brow. He gave a look to Lee as if he wanted him to bugger off and do something else while he talked to Olive.
"George got detention last night. We did a bit of pranking, Filch got to us, and then I didn't see him until three thirty this morning when he came in from scrubbing the Trophy Room floors." He explained, "He's sleeping in a bit before class."
"He got detention?" Olive furrowed her brows together, mentally cursing herself for being out that late at night. If she had just stayed in- George would never have had to take Olive to the Ravenclaw Tower and use his only smoke bomb.
"Yeah, he said he had to make an extra stop, and then on the way back Peeves decided to make a bunch of noise that gave him away." Fred shook his head. Suddenly, his brows furrowed together, casting a strange look at Olive, "Why do you ask?"
Ollie paled, "Just curious." Her mouth felt like sandpaper, and she felt as if people were glancing at her as she stood beside the Gryffindor table, "Y-You guys are always together is all."
With that, she looked down at her feet awkwardly, took a deep breath, and did her best to offer the twin a shy smile.
"Thank you, Fred. See you around."
Olive quickly turned on her heel, her face pale as she headed back to the Ravenclaw table. As she sat down, she quickly occupied herself from Fred's weird stare by scooping some grilled tomatoes onto her plate, accompanied by a waffle.
The small feeling of guilt built up in her stomach as she ate breakfast in total silence. Ollie felt bad for George getting detention. She was grateful for him walking her back to the Ravenclaw Tower, because the castle at night looked totally different than it did during the day- she would have definitely been caught if she tried to sneak back alone. However, Olive felt like she needed to repay George for what he did for her. Not because it would alleviate the guilt from her conscience, but because Olive felt that it was what friends did for each other.
And Ollie felt like she could use some friends these days.