An Alternate Punishment

Marietta was eating lunch when she felt her shirt disappear, but it was no matter. She was already wearing another just like it. She finished lunch and walked out, her shirt reappearing almost immediately. It was worth wondering whether the curse was getting confused, or if she had just finally thwarted it, but in either event it would not do to let her enemies know. If they figured out she was skirting around their curse, she would likely just be punished in some other way, possibly something that would prevent her from getting revenge.

Once her classes were over she continued to practice the Disillusionment Charm in the library, deciding she was further along with it than anything else and it was better to have one spell mastered than two or three half-decent. Marietta suspected her second layer could still disappear, though it had not yet done so thus far. If it did, of course, she could always go back to the school's servants and ask for an even thinner uniform to serve as a third layer, but she guessed that would bring with it the practical issue of needing to be repaired more frequently.

Lost in a book, she almost did not notice her shirt disappearing, along with the second layer. Quietly, she supposed that meant the curse knew perfectly well she had a second layer, if it was a more useful one than what she had before. She decided against disillusioning herself, as she still had books out and it might prompt someone to come and sit on her. Propping up the books, she made an effective little wall in her corner of the library, though she guessed that anyone who saw it might have thought Granger was there.

"It makes no difference. I am here to beat her at her own game, not invent my own. That would be a complete waste of time." Sitting perfectly still as she read, she heard something as soon as she stopped muttering to herself. A handful of younger students were talking in hushed tones about 'the school slag', which she presumed to be herself. Rolling her eyes, she knew better than to try to set them straight, since she would only expose herself in the process.

"I heard she's obsessed with showing off to everyone," one of the younger wizards said.

"I heard she's already done it in front of a bunch of people," another wizard said.

"Roger Davies said she's got nice-" a witch started. Marietta really wanted to hex her, but decided she was probably just being pulled along by the others. "Anyway, we should steer clear of her."

"Absolutely," one of the wizards agreed. "We just should also keep track of where she is, so we can avoid her."

"I never thought of it that way. Is there a good way of telling where she is?"

"There's a spell called the Follow Me Charm. Apparently everyone who knows about the spell, knows where whoever it is at all times."

"If we ever see her, we'll have to cast it on her," the witch decided. "That would make her the easiest to avoid."

"Yes, that's why we'll get her with it."

Marietta's eyes were rather like a cheese wheel in the foothills. She knew precisely why the wizards wanted to hit her with such a charm, and it was somewhat flattering. Generally, she took no pride in appearances, but the insults along those lines that she had recently suffered were entirely too much to bear, and she would have to factor them into her revenge. Looking over the stack of books, open in front of her or otherwise, she saw there were no younger students gathered.

"To think, they have the nerve to say I'm unattractive," she muttered, putting her nose back in a book. "-as if that would bother me. Of course, it's clearly quite the opposite, as a pair of younger teenage boys have expressed a desire to merely look at me." She remembered Davies complimenting her body, but that was just too filthy of a thing to have in her mind for any length of time. Both of her shirts reappeared after a few hours, and she noticed to her chagrin that she was allowing herself to grow comfortable while exposed in public, as long as no one could see her.

Before the curse had ruined her life, she doubted she had ever been naked outside of the shower, and then only briefly. There was very little worse for her than the state of nudity, and she was willing to stand by that. Marietta cursed her adaptability.

Leaving the library in the evening, she saw she was walking behind an older, dark-skinned boy who might have been a friend of the Weasley Terrors. She scrunched up her nose, but decided to think no more of it. The twins were long gone from the school, and she doubted anyone remembered them fondly. To her surprise, he ducked into an empty classroom right as both her skirts disappeared. She quickly applied the Disillusionment Charm, which turned out somewhat better than last time, but it was a wonder why two layers disappeared at the same time.

Deciding it was better to get out of the way than run into anyone else leaving the library, she went into the spare classroom, confident that if she remained still, she could not be seen. Marietta was surprised to find there was a witch already in there, though the thought crossed her mind that she might be from the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which would explain how they would know each other.

She went back to the door, deciding she wanted none of what was going on, but the witch waved her wand, closing it and locking it. It was not as if that would keep her from escaping, but it would keep her from escaping unnoticed, which would practically defeat the purpose. If they saw the door open, they would just barely see her go through it, meaning they would know there was a pervert going around spying on everyone from under a concealing spell. To make matters worse, she could see how the wizard at the very least would have already heard the rumors about her.

The two of them were merely kissing at first, which was grudgingly tolerable, since she had seen her parents do it once or twice, but these two were going about it entirely differently. It was disgusting, frankly, but rather like a train wreck she found she could not look away. To make matters worse, as if they could be any worse, the pair of them started getting- 'touchy feely' with each other. It was the closest approximation to a descriptor she could manage without gagging. They were both sitting on a desk now, and the wizard's hand started going for the witch's skirt, though she swatted it away.

"At last you develop a modicum of sense-" Marietta started whispering before noticing she was smiling. Her eyes widened. The mere possibility of enjoying the proximate touch of a wizard escaped her. She concluded that there was some joke she was missing. Gryffindors must have a bizarre sense of humor.

There was a sound outside the door, which distracted them long enough for her to open it and get out, not closing it in hopes they would think someone accidentally opened it from outside, saw them, and left. It was very much what she wished she could have done, but that ship had sailed. Though she was almost certain she had been concealed the whole way, her skirts had still yet to reappear, except when she went up to the dormitory, and got in bed before cancelling the Disillusionment Charm. She noticed Cho in her usual bed. The room was otherwise unoccupied.

"How was your day?" she asked.

"It was... interesting. I learned that there are younger students who have already heard malicious rumors about me, so I have your friends to thank for that." If she had intended to make her friend feel guilty, her efforts would have failed.

"Oh, did they hear you like to be naked in public?" she asked. "Well, it was going to get out sooner or later. You can't go around exposing yourself and expect yourself to stay hidden. It rather seems a contradiction of terms." She shrugged. "Ah, well, who am I to judge? My date with Harry went well, I think."

"Oh?" It was curious how spending time with a wizard could possibly go well.

"In the aftermath of nearly going to prison, it seemed he was worried I would 'take your side' as it were, but I decided that I had to be fair, and that I would have to treat anyone who brought on that punishment the same way. In truth, it was a little hard for me at the beginning, but today I told him that it's much easier, since I now understand that at least a part of you enjoys this sort of thing. Now I can support you without worrying about being disloyal."

Marietta wanted to scowl, but apart from being a friend of hers, Cho was still her best bet at getting her curse removed. It had been proven that her safeguard was not perfectly effective, as she had hoped, so she still needed some way of permanently removing the root cause. Getting on the witch's bad side by revealing the way she felt was counterproductive.

"I... well, you may believe that I do not suffer from embarrassment if it suits you, but the punishment remains monstrously inconvenient. I am constantly on the verge of being thrown out of school."

"Oh, well, why don't you just tell the teachers that you can't help it? You could tell your favorite Headmistress," she suggested.

"I could, but then I would be thrown out anyway. Even if they somehow managed to figure out that I was cursed without my help, for the betterment of the other students it would still be better to throw me out. Besides, enough of them likely believe everything that Potter and his friends are saying about me. If I were to march into a teacher's office naked and start saying things that came out lewd, it would be all they needed."

"Yeah, I suppose."

Marietta could tell her friend was not really thinking about it and just making conversation. She had a habit of not thinking things through, like when she got the both of them to join the Defense Association in the first place, without thinking that she would do the smart thing and get them out. She rolled her eyes. Having a slow-witted friend was the least of her worries.

In truth, she had been interested in learning practical magic, up to and including what she was researching presently, and she had believed in some corner of her mind that when the regulation was passed, it would really only be state enemies or attention seekers like the Gryffindors who would not be permitted. That would have been more than reasonable, but the Defense Professor appeared to have to apply the rule to everyone. She hoped some of the bad actors would have been punished especially, but that was also not to be.

The following day, she was in class again and made sure to sit as far back as possible, but she still received the occasional backward glance. It was enough that she doubted she would notice it if someone turned around and hexed her, but she was normally not very attentive to the actions of lesser students. She cared very little about what they did with their lives, and they made it obvious to her more than often enough that she was better off not knowing, as was the case with that awful wizard, whom she should have assumed would be up to no good, being an associate of the Weasleys. Hogwarts had never experienced such a great day as when they left, though they made sure their exit was as annoying and problematic as possible.

More than anything, though, she wished their younger siblings had gone with them. They were enough of a curse when they were part of the Defense Association, always breaking rules this way and that, but now they had taken positions near the forefront of the rumors about her. Marietta looked down at her books and sighed. In the past few days, she might have learned fewer new spells than terms the Weasleys had used for 'slut'.

At least half of them had to be invented on the spot, and that only annoyed her more.