14. Damn Slytherins!

On the next day Harry lay in his bed staring at it's ceiling. It was already lunchtime, but he hadn't had enough sleep at all since he had fallen asleep very late or better very early in the morning. He had woken up about an hour ago and remained in the same position since then. He didn't want to stand up. He didn't want to see anyone. Especially her. How could he have done it? He had been out of his mind! He knew he shouldn't have done it and still… it had been better than in any of his dreams – absolutely mind-blowing. And she had kissed him back – he was more than sure of that. They had been kissing for some time before she had pushed him back. Did that mean that she had feelings for him? She might have pushed him away because she had been worried about having a relationship with him and not because she didn't feel anything for him. Maybe she was just afraid what could happen if they were together, not that she didn't want them to be.

There he was again for the who knows which time. No matter how much he thought about it - and he had began doing so since he had headed back for Gryffindor tower the previous night – he couldn't be sure what she felt for him. The only way to find that out was to talk with her. And that was the reason why he was still lying in bed. He was afraid to talk with her, to even see her. He was afraid of her reaction, afraid that it could mean the end of their friendship. So to hell with the Gryffindor courage – he just wanted to stay in bed for the rest of his life. And of course as always his only wish shouldn't come true.

"Harry?", he heard Ron's voice from the other side of his bed's curtains. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, Ron", Harry answered without moving.

"Are you sure? Hermione sent me, she's worried about you. We haven't seen you since lunch yesterday."

Great. "Yeah, I'm sure. I just wanted to be alone for a while", he said while standing up and pulling the curtains away.

"Good then. Will you come with us to lunch?"

"Of course. Go to tell Hermione that I'm fine and I'll just change and come down too."

"OK."

After lunch Harry headed back to Gryffindor common room with Ron and Hermione. When he had come down to the Great Hall with them Elena hadn't been there and she hadn't appeared before they had finished eating. Harry saw Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle eating and leaving so he concluded that Elena wouldn't come for lunch. He wondered if that had something to do with him or if she was just still sleeping – he preferred the second one.

"Harry", he looked at Hermione's concerned face, they had almost arrived by the Fat Lady. "Are you feeling well?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Are you sure? You're acting strange."

"I just got lost in thought about… the quidditch cup. You know, it's our last year. I'm sorry I didn't listen to what you were saying, did you want something from me?", Hermione looked a bit suspicious, but she seemed to believe him.

"I just said that Ron and I started writing Snape's essay before lunch and wanted to know if you'll join us to finish it. And afterwards we may do our Transfiguration homework", Hermione told him while they climbed through the portrait hole.

"Sure, I'll go to get my things."

However, while Harry climbed up the stairs to his dormitory he remembered that Elena had actually helped him write the Potions essay the day before, between the movies. Ah, Elena. He didn't remember ever having so much fun while writing Potions homework. He had to talk with her, work things out. He just couldn't imagine what he would do if he couldn't spend time with her anymore. The only question was how to do it. He could wait till dinner, but then she would be with Malfoy and the last thing he wanted was to have to talk with Malfoy too. He could send her a message to meet him somewhere alone, but he wasn't sure if she would agree to see him. So probably the best way would be to catch her when she was alone. But how could he do that? The Mauderers map!

Harry took the map out of his trunk. First he looked in the Slytherin common room – she wasn't there, but Malfoy and his friends were, which meant that Elena was somewhere alone. That somewhere, however, didn't seem to be in the castle, he looked a couple of times all around. She could be in the room of requirement, which didn't help because he couldn't go in there without knowing what she was doing. Harry looked again at all the corridors. Almost all students were in their common rooms, the library or still in the Great Hall eating. There was no one outside, since it was cold and cloudy. He looked absently at the outlines of the lake while contemplating if he should go to the room of requirement to check if there was someone inside and then he saw her. Elena's little dot was standing near the shore of the lake almost at the end of Hogwart's grounds and the map. That was it – the perfect opportunity to talk with her alone and far away from everyone.

Harry took his thick cloak, scarf, hat and gloves immediately, but then he remembered what he had told Hermione. He stood without moving for a couple of seconds thinking what he could do about it, then he took his school bag checking if everything he needed was inside and hurried down the staircase to the common room.

He went to Ron and Hermione and put his bag next to Ron. Hermione looked up confusion spreading over her face after seeing Harry dressed to go outside.

"I thought we were going to write our homework, Harry."

"Yes, but I forgot that I wrote Snape's essay yesterday. So I thought I could take a walk outside till you finish it and we could start with Transfiguration afterwards."

"Why would you want to go outside – it's cold", Ron said.

"Not that much, there's hardly any snow left. And it will help me to wake up completely, I still feel a bit sleepy for some reason. It won't take long. Bye!", Harry left quickly not wanting to have to lie to them more than necessary.

The moment Harry walked out through the big wooden double door an icy wind hit his face. It really wouldn't have been that cold wasn't for the freezing wind. Harry wrapped himself as good as he could and headed to the place where Elena was. He wondered how she could stand it to be outside for so long and why she would want to be outside in the first place. Suddenly he had a bad feeling that he wouldn't like the answer to that question, but he dismissed it remembering the feeling of her lips on his – which also had the nice effect of making him feel a bit warmer.

When Harry reached her – after almost ten minutes of walking in the cold wind – he saw Elena sitting in a beautiful deep blue armchair a couple of feet from the water. She had folded her legs to her chest with her arms around them and was staring at the lake in front of her.

"Ellie?", Harry said. He had no idea what to say – he had forgotten to worry about that.

Elena didn't even move a muscle. Did she want to act as if he wasn't there? Harry didn't think of giving up that easily.

"Aren't you cold?" – no reaction – "The wind's freezing, isn't it?", what else could he say?

"Then it's good that we aren't muggles who can't cast a simple spell to block the wind, isn't it?", she said quietly without looking at him.

The moment she had uttered the first words Harry wished she hadn't spoken at all. Her voice was so cold, colder than the wind. She had never spoken to him in that way. She had been angry, indifferent but never cold. They stood in silence for a couple of minutes. A couple of minutes during which Harry felt colder and colder – not only due to the icy wind and he couldn't remember any simple spell to block it. But he had to do – say something, it couldn't be over, it just couldn't.

"Ellie, I… I…", what?

She looked at him at last – her eyes were just as cold.

"What? Why have you come here?", she said standing up.

Right then Harry had the crazy thought that even Voldemort himself could be envious of her coldness.

"Shouldn't we talk… about it?", he tried.

"No."

"But.."

"No", she repeated even colder if that was possible.

She took her wand out of her pocket waved it and the armchair disappeared. Then she walked pass Harry without looking at him and headed to the castle.

"Are you going to walk away just like that? I thought we were friends!"

Elena stopped and turned to look at him.

"So?"

"You.. I.. I'm sorry I did it, but…"

Something changed in her eyes for the smallest moment, but it was gone before he could blink.

"Not everything has to do with you, Potter. I know you're used to being the centre of attention", whenever he had been told that he had felt annoyed or angry, but hearing it from her hurt, "but I just got bored – simply bored, OK? I don't want to talk with you anymore so I would appreciate it if you stay away from me. I can write our DADA homework alone", with that she turned around and left him standing there frozen.

Three days later Harry was still in the same condition. He had no idea how he had managed to go back to Gryffindor tower after she had left him and actually managed to write his Transfiguration homework. He knew it must have become a very bad written essay, but it didn't matter. Hermione was becoming more and more worried about him and even Ron had sensed that there was something wrong, but that didn't matter either. The only thing that did matter was the fact that he had lost her, she didn't want to talk with him or to look at him. In DADA class on Monday she had managed to persuade even him that he wasn't sitting next to her with her behaviour. And so Harry found out just how much he loved her in the most painful way. He was so hurt that at some point he had wanted Voldemort to come and just kill him then and there. How had it come to this? How could she tell him all those things just like that? Why did she have to choose that time to act like a true Slytherin? Had he really been just pastime for her? Was she really like that? By now Harry knew Elena good enough to know that she could be a very good actress, but which Elena had been real and which false? Or has she been acting all the time?

Those and much more questions ran through Harry's mind all the time during the previous three days. He didn't have an answer to any of them and it drove him crazy. He had hardly slept at all and right now he was wondering around the school after leaving Ron and Hermione after the end of their last class. He had no idea where he was or where he was going and he didn't care. The only thing that kept him a bit sane was the tiny hope that Elena might have just been upset about the kiss and that after she calmed down they may start over again. Though so far nothing had changed in her behaviour towards him.

"Potter", Harry needed a couple of seconds to realise who it was and when he did he wished he was wrong. Nevertheless he turned around, "Malfoy"

"Potter, I want to talk with you."

"Well, I don't."

"I'm Head Boy and if you don't I might take points from Gryffindor or give you detention."

"You can't without a real reason."

"I can think of many reasons, probably most simple would be for insulting the Head Boy. I'm sure Snape won't mind at all."

Harry still wanted to just go away, but then he thought that Malfoy wasn't going to let him get away just like that, especially if he really wanted to talk with him. So the best would be to get over with it as quick as possible.

"Fine."

"Not here", Malfoy said and nodded his head towards the nearest class room.

Harry went in first and Malfoy closed the door behind them. He had his wand in his hand and waved a couple of times towards the door performing some non-verbal charms. Harry took his wand out too. Now that he thought about it, it didn't seem the best idea to go into an empty class room with Malfoy. When Draco turned around to face him, Harry had already pointed the wand at his chest.

"I just don't want anyone to overhear us or interrupt, but I really only want to talk with you", Malfoy said putting his wand back into his pocket. Harry didn't move, "I swear. Let's just talk", Harry was still not completely convinced, but he lowered his wand.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Ellie, of course. What else would I have to talk with you", Malfoy said while passing Harry to sit on the teacher's desk. "What happened between you?"

"Excuse me?", Malfoy was one of the last people with whom Harry wanted to talk about what had happened that night.

"Don't act as if you don't know what I mean. I know something happened, I just don't know what. Ellie has been acting strange since she woke up on Sunday morning. She doesn't want to tell me anything, but her behaviour is going on my nerves already. So I thought that it would be easier to find it out from you."

"And why do you think that I have something to do with it?"

"Oh, come on, Potter. You were together on Saturday, you're probably the last person she talked to that night, you've been acting a bit strange too – wandering around all the time -, and she wrote your homework alone. Enough reasons? I have more if you want. Besides you're not very good at occlumency, are you? I could see myself what happened, but don't you thing it would be much better and easier if you just told me", Malfoy finished folding his arms in front of his chest.

Harry glared at him. He wasn't afraid of Malfoy. But what would happen if he told him? Or better why should he care? He didn't care about anything anymore.

"I - we kissed.. on the way back to your common room."

Malfoy just stood there looking at Harry not showing any sort of emotion – damn Slytherin's lack of emotion.

"Did she push you away?"

Harry couldn't tell the truth, it would be humiliating. But maybe he could find out from Malfoy why she had acted like that, so he did.

"After a while. Then she ran away. But she kissed me back", he just had to add the last one.

A small smirk appeared on Malfoy's face.

"Have you talked since then?"

"On Sunday. She said that she had become bored of me and that she didn't want to talk with me anymore, even about homework."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Malfoy's smirk grew.

"What's so amusing, Malfoy", Harry asked angrily.

"First: you are the reason for Ellie's bad mood and you've suffered more from it than I after all. Second: this is one of the rare times when I have been right and she wrong."

"About?"

"None of your business, Potter", Malfoy said standing up and coming near Harry, stopping right in front of him. "I don't know what image you have of her, Potter, but you should know this:", he leaned a bit towards Harry since he was taller, "except of the muggle-loving part Elena is a Slytherin through and through. And as far as I know you hate everything that has to do with Slytherin, don't you?"

Malfoy took his spells off and went out of the room leaving Harry to ponder on his words.