Ch 7 Council of war

disclaimer: as always I do not own anything.

November was over and they were a week and a half into December when Ellen noticed something was very wrong between James and Evie: they didn't fight anymore, it was like they felt so awkward with each other they preferred avoiding and being avoided in return to facing whatever was the problem.

She was thinking about that in the library a Saturday evening, when her thoughts were interrupted by the scraping of a chair, she looked up to find Albus in front of her, it was vaguely strange, they didn't talk much unless they were at Quidditch practice, because Al was a year younger and because she always felt slightly unsettled around him.

She kept repeating herself it was the Potter's messy hair, it called to her motherly instincts making her want to smooth it over, and she had not the same reaction around James because she thought of him as Evie's future boyfriend.

That was it.

That had to be it.

"Do you know what's the matter with Minerva and James, Ellen?"

Well, she also liked the way he said her name, it was kinda...

She shook her head, both in answer and to shake her distracting thoughts.

"Knowing Evie, I reckon she feels awkward, but God knows why. Probably something happened two weeks ago."

"Apart from the huge prank on James' fan club?"

"Something happened when she went to thank him for defending her." If it hadn't been strange that Evie had worked up the guts to thank her arch-nemesis, her red face when she had come back had been.

Hard to say if it was because of anger or embarrassment.

Ellen guessed that it was a bit of both.

"You have an idea about what it was? It was two weeks ago, they should have worked it out by now!"

Al raised his voice at the end of the sentence, earning numerous shushing noises from across the whole library.

Ellen shrugged, not knowing what to say.

Then a suspicion popped in her mind "Why are you so concerned about your brother?"

Albus did not lose his cool often, if ever, contrary to his over-emotional family, so his sudden interest in James and Evie's relationship really stank of ulterior motives.

Al sighed and ran his hands through his hair, Ellen had to smother the urge to comb the stray locks herself.

She shook her head again and put her hands in her lap so that they couldn't go anywhere without her consent.

When Al answered he had regained his aloofness while Ellen was seriously trying to concentrate on the subject at hand.

"Everyone's worried sick about him. They nag at me day and night to do something about my idiot brother, who is starting to turn into a pining, lovesick dimwit. And that freaked me out."

He finished with another heartfelt sigh.

Ellen grinned at Al's explanation, then her worrywart side took over and she said "He doesn't look lovesick to me. Why do you say so?"

"He hasn't gotten detention in two weeks, he didn't prank anyone, pick a fight, smuggle banned goods into the school or even sneak out at night. That idiot is not James anymore."

Ellen offered "Maybe he wants to stay out of trouble?" but even she was not optimistic enough to believe that, so when Al threw her a doubtful look she caved, and spreading her arms she almost barked "I know, I know, but I don't know what to do with them anymore!"

Oh, Gosh, she sounded like an annoyed mom, could she be more ridiculous? She rarely was ashamed of herself but around Al it seemed to happen all the time.

She brought herself back with a mental slap. It was not the time to get hung up about something so stupid, James wasn't the only one acting out of character, she couldn't remember the last time Evie had made a sarcastic remark or snorted or gotten into a fight.

Lately she was always distracted, well behaved and subdued and Ellen was worried, she was worried sick about her friend, that was why she had been thinking about it even before Al had brought it up.

It was time to do some serious planning and set things to rights.

After the whole lot of his cousins had saddled him with the sad duty of solving his brother's relationship problems, Al had known that the only person who could give him some insight on the matter was Ellen, pity she knew as much as he did.

However he could see the genuine concern on her face, and wondered if she was already coming up with some solution.

That was the amazing thing about that girl, she always came up with something, and that was why he trusted her to be more useful than his whole family; not that they couldn't have hatched some kind of plan, but it would have been crazy and unreasonable and surely not subtle at all, given that they were dealing with two hot-headed people, they had to be very, very careful.

So Ellen was his best and safest bet.

Pity that he had the feeling that she didn't like him very much. It was rare for her not to be cheerful and warm around somebody and with him she was never either.

But he didn't mind, really.

Well, maybe a little bit.

To hell with it, yes, he minded, very much too, but he couldn't do anything about it and he didn't have the habit to worry about things he had little chance of changing. As long as he didn't know what her problem with him was he had to suck it up.

"We need more info."

"What?" he had been so lost in thought he had forgotten that she was right in front of him.

She frowned at him before repeating "We need more info."

"Which kind of info?"

"We need to know what happened, or we risk to make mistakes ant tip them off about what we're doing. I don't look forward to explaining to Evie that I'm trying to pair her up with James."

And that, Al thought, was an understatement.

"Well, what do you suggest we do?"

"Find out what's wrong with them, then we meet again so we can trade our info and come up with a more detailed plan." Ellen was speaking with a strength and precision that made him think of some great tactician of the past, he decided he rather liked where this was going, even though he was poking his nose into his brother's affairs.

He was also looking forward to his next little council of war with Ellen, but he didn't dare ask himself why.