The Divergence
Marietta Edgecombe's curse and her current predicament were so simple to explain, it was almost a primal fear. She was relatively sure that everyone had nightmares about this sort of thing happening. Unfortunately for her, the nightmares had become real, and there was no getting out of it.
Simply put, her clothes would vanish at entirely random intervals. The curse was on her body, meaning it only applied to what she was currently wearing, but it was unbearable enough as it was. To make matters worse, whenever she tried to tell someone she was cursed and that her nudity was not her fault, suffice to say she would only attract more attention to herself. No matter what excuse she submitted to anyone, including the teachers, her punishment would only worsen, and she had no desire to see how much further it could go. After the first time she tested the curse, she decided to try to manage the symptoms- curing it could wait until they were let out on holiday.
She no longer agonized over her former friend getting her to join the Defense Association, something she knew she had been stupid to go along with, and worse to betray, since she could have just stopped attending. Being honest with herself, what stood out as her real mistake was asking what measures were in place to prevent people from ratting them out; she hardly wanted to be caught with her name on such a list.
The moment came back to her, not for the first time.
"Well, I thought it better to keep it a secret, but since you asked, and it is important, I've placed an enchantment on the parchment with our names," Hermione Granger had explained. "Anyone who talks about the group with anyone whose name is not on the list will be cursed with… well, a fittingly unpleasant appearance."
It seemed obvious to Marietta that she was putting it mildly out of politeness, since it would demonstrate a lack of faith by declaring the exact nature of the curse like a threat, but some of her friends saw it differently.
"That's it?" Harry Potter asked. "I mean, I'm sure it's an incredibly complex bit of magic-"
"It should be worse," a tall boy with red hair asserted. "Harry could be going to Azkaban over this- really, all of us-"
"Well, I suppose it is a bit mild, but what I was thinking at the time was that we would know who did it, and then be able to respond appropriately," Hermione explained. "There's some chance that the secret could be revealed to one person, and not go any further than that, and it also might be an accident-"
"It's an accident that's easy to avoid, especially when you know what could happen," said someone Marietta did not know.
"Frankly, I would prefer to attach a more severe punishment to the curse, and be done with it," opined another. "I wouldn't want anything to do with a traitor."
"Neither would I." Marietta had a thought that the witch speaking could be the sister of the red-haired wizard. "I think that person should be totally exposed, and to where no one would want anything to do with him or her again."
"It has to be at least as bad as prison for it to make sense," one of the wizards from before decided. "If you put a dozen people in Azkaban, you should get something that's like going there, only a dozen times over. That way, each one of us would want to keep the secret as much as everyone else wants us to keep it." Marietta had a thought that the wizard had a future in law, or perhaps public policy. He wore a blue tie, but she did not know everyone from Ravenclaw.
Eventually, it was agreed that the curse had to be totally humiliating, and that from then on, whoever was inflicted with it would not be able to forget it. There would also be no hope of removing it; that was quite possibly the most important thing. According to everyone else, being able to remove it made the whole thing pointless. Marietta only sighed at that, muttering to herself about how they all had anger issues.
When she eventually decided that whatever the effects of the curse, they could be negated, she reported the activities of Dumbledore's Army to the proper authorities, but was quite shocked to find they did not have anything to say to her in response. She remembered following Professor Umbridge quite a way, waiting to hear something that would tell her she was out of the woods herself, but it appeared she was more concerned with assembling the Inquisitorial Squad and putting the matter to rest. Her trials and tribulations would come after that matter was settled, when she returned to her dormitory after being questioned. She managed to identify Potter, but for some reason she had a mental blank in the meeting and was unable to provide any specifics.
"How could you turn on Harry like that?" Cho asked when she returned to the Ravenclaw common area. She followed her up the stairs.
"Oh, come off it, we were going to get caught anyway. I asked them if you and I could be spared since I came forward."
"I don't care about that- you know I have feelings for him, right?" she asked. Marietta chose not to answer. Before long, her friend would get over her silly crush and they could go back to being the best students of their year.
"This is for the best. You don't have to like the Ministry, you just have to follow the rules."
"There shouldn't be rules against learning magic-"
"The spells we were learning were dangerous," she argued, interrupting. "Honestly, you could kill someone with a fire charm. We don't need to learn that kind of thing in Defense- we really don't need the class at all, that's why we have Aurors and Hit Wizards. Don't tell me you believe Voldemort is back."
"We're not discussing this," her friend decided, throwing her hands up. A few of the other girls in the dormitory were looking at them. Marietta had tried to estimate the amount of support Potter had among students who had not joined him, and her guess was that it was pretty dismal. She doubted she would face substantial social repercussion for calling him out.
They went into the showers eventually and she almost gasped as her clothes disappeared.
"That's a neat trick," Cho commented. "Did you charm your clothes to vanish when you came in here?"
"No- I would remember something like that. That younger witch said that whoever goes against the group should be totally exposed, so this must be what Granger decided to use as a punishment."
"You're saying it's the curse, then?"
"Of course-" All at once her hand moved on its own and squeezed her breast. It was a bizarre sensation, but she fought through it.
"What was that?"
"I- I didn't do that consciously, that must be some other effect of the curse." Her other hand went to her other breast. She had never been fondled before, but it felt exactly like someone else was doing it, since she could not control herself.
"I know. I was talking with Hermione about what we should do for the curse."
"You decided this?" Marietta asked, feeling betrayed.
"I didn't know you were going to turn everyone in. I was hoping no one would. We thought about it, though, and we decided that if whoever gets cursed tries to talk about it, the effects only get worse. I know already, so it's going easy on you, but if you try to tell a teacher, you'll lose control over your mouth."
"This is disgusting!"
"I know. I'm trying to be sympathetic, because it really is a horrible thing to do to someone, and I've been friends with you for years, but I can't override Hermione's decision. There's nothing I can do."
"Well, let's talk to her together. In the meantime, I have to find some way of-" Her clothes reappeared. "What? Why did they come back?"
"Oh, that's the thing. It curses your clothes off at random time intervals, but if you were always naked, you could just put on a new set. If we made it so that nothing ever stayed on you, then the school would realize that it was not your fault. We also kind of went in thinking that it should come as a surprise... sorry."
"This goes way beyond sorry- I tried to get you out... I really talked to Professor Umbridge and tried to say that you felt pressured to join." It was not a true statement, she supposed, but there were more important things to be considered, like how she was cursed. "This could totally ruin my life..."
"Well, Harry almost went to Azkaban, so you're getting off easy. Hermione was going to use a much lighter punishment, but I'm glad she asked me for help. I think this punishment is appropriate."
"Why? I mean- I know I went against the D.A. and I knew there was a punishment, but this is going too far. My mother works at the Ministry-" The sympathy argument seemed to be more effective than any other. "I really didn't have a choice, because if I were caught, she could be fired-"
"Okay, okay, we can go see her tomorrow. Meet us in the library after classes are over."
"After classes?"
"You should at least have to stew through that much."
Cho left the bath.
Sighing, Marietta took off her clothes properly and got into the shower, hoping they would still be there when she got back. Her friend seemed to be of two minds about the whole thing, which made sense given her general nature. On the one hand, she was attached to Potter and she had put a lot of work into the curse with Granger, and on the other hand, it was clearly going too far and the two of them had been friends for years.
"I was even friends with her before Cedric," she said to herself. "I'll be there when she gets over her current fling."
If one thing was certain, it was that Potter and his male friends at the very least would be completely in favor of her being cursed, so that was a possible way of splitting them up, though she still had to get Granger to agree to remove the curse, since it sounded like Cho had no authority to do so herself. She had other questions about how the logic of it worked, like whether it applied to all her clothes or just what she currently had on, but it was a bad idea to bombard a friend with questions after a certain hour.
Lying awake in bed, she tried to think about obvious ways of getting around the effects, like a Disillusionment Charm, though those were difficult to learn ad she would be counted as absent in class if no one could see her. Thinking about it, her clothes had reappeared on her body, not where she had been standing, so the curse had to be aware that she was wearing the clothes, so it seemed likely that if she kept something in her bag, she could put it on in a worse case scenario. If she kept her cloak in her schoolbag, she could at least try to get it on before anyone noticed. Sitting in the back of all her classes would definitely help. Marietta constantly sat at the front, because she was proud of her perfect attendance and academic record, and she wanted everyone to know about it, but she could put up with being a little more anonymous for a day.
"This is only temporary," she said to herself. "By this time tomorrow, the curse will be a thing of the past."