Elizabeth had always been an objectively pretty girl. She knew this, as she stared at herself in her dorm´s bathroom mirror. She wasn´t anything special, but she was pretty, nonetheless. She spent a few minutes just observing her face, this was the face Cedric Diggory had said `I love you´ to. He loved her. And she had told him she loved him back without hesitation. She couldn´t help but smile at the thought of Cedric pronouncing those words.
"Someone´s had a good day!" Violet said happily as she arrived to the bathroom.
"Hey Vi. It´s been a bit of both, but I had a great time with Cedric" Ellie revealed.
"Did you guys finally have sex?"
"What? No, that´s not what – We said I love you, that´s what happened" said Ellie slightly puzzled by the mention of sex.
"Cedric told you that he loved you!" Violet screamed excitingly.
"Ew" Pansy said as she also entered the bathroom.
"Sush Pansy" Violet said and turned back to Elizabeth, who hadn't stopped smiling. "How was it? Tell me everything"
Elizabeth was aware of Pansy´s presence and as much as she didn´t want her to know about her business, this was her moment. She couldn´t wait to tell Violet everything about it.
"We were just talking, I told him I was a bit down, I said about how I feel weird with all these changes in my life, and he told me that I haven´t changed, and that he loves me whoever I am "
"Babe, that is beautiful!" Violet celebrated
"I´m going to throw up" Pansy said, reaching for his toothbrush.
"I know, I know, it´s crazy and so exciting – no one had ever told me that they loved me before! I don´t know how to feel. I just want to spend time with him" Ellie continued ignoring Pansy.
"Oh, El! I´m so happy for you. This news are so much better than the sex!"
Filled up with the excitement of bearing news, Pansy ran downstairs to the dungeons. She loved to have the big scoop, and she was sure her friends would find it hilarious.
"Hey boys!" Pansy hummed with a smirk.
The boys in question, Crabbe, Zabini and Malfoy acknowledged her with a nod, and resumed to their conversation.
"You won´t believe what I heard Fern say to Violet just now" she said. That caught Draco´s attention, who looked up instantly. Blaise also turned to face Pansy, who was standing in the entrance with her arms behind her back.
"What are you on about now" Draco jeered.
"I came into the bathroom, and Fern and Violet were brushing their hair or something and Violet was asking Fern why she was so happy. And Fern said … and listen to this closely … Cedric told her I love you, and she said it back" Pansy said. Now that she said it out loud, she realised, it wasn't that juicy.
Draco narrowed his eyes, the tension in his eyebrows made visible by two lines between them.
His legs felt light and faint.
He loved her and she loved him. He knew no one had ever told Ellie those words. He knew how important it would be to her.
Everything inside of him was asking him to leave the room and go find her, try to turn back time to when she didn´t love Cedric. Everything was lost, he thought. It was a hard realization, that she had moved on from whatever they had. He considered, again and again in the few seconds after Pansy´s revelation, if there had been anything to move on from at all.
"And?" Draco hissed impatiently.
"Funny, isn´t it?"
"You are a fucking idiot, Pansy, that´s what´s funny" Draco said, a mix of softness and hard edge to his voice. Like he had realised as he spoke that he was letting on more than he anticipated. He couldn´t help it, he wanted to scream, hit something, anything that would let him get rid of this rage that was not possessing him.
Blaise, who was attentively staring at Draco took a few steps toward him and posed his hand on his shoulder.
"Let´s get out of here" he muttered, like he knew what was going on inside of his friend´s mind.
Pansy stood on the edge of the entrance, embarrassed but still too proud to let it show.
"Draco you are a child!" she said, and her pose and voice resembled a little kid throwing a tantrum.
Ellie closed the book. It was one of the presents Cedric had given her for her birthday, and she was about to finish it. She turned off the little green glass lamp from her wooden bedside table and put the book inside the drawer. Everyone else was asleep, Pansy had arrived furious thirty minutes before and she had gone straight to bed. It had been an eventful day and Ellie was tired.
At first, she dreamed of home. She didn't dream of a particular house she had even been to. It was a beautiful white house with broad windows and a green long garden that surrounded it, delimited by a white picket fence. She was trying to come inside, but her body was heavy and slow, and as much as she tried, she could only crawl. She looked inside the windows, to ask for help so someone would carry her inside, but the tall dark figure that was sitting on a rocking chair wasn´t facing her. There was urgency in her movements, but she was still slow and clumsy.
"Ellie" someone called from inside the house. It was an ominous voice that seemed so familiar yet so anonymous, she couldn´t tell who it was.
"El" the voice said again. The voice that first seemed calm turned into a scream.
The house that seemed so peaceful and idyllic started to crumble slowly, but the dark figure didn´t move. Something kept calling for her, yet it was useless. She couldn´t answer, the house seemed miles away.
Draco stood in the doorframe of the dorm. Ellie´s bed was luckily the closer to the entrance, so she was the first one next to the door. She was fast asleep, turned to the side, with one arm under the pillow and the other one holding the duvet to her chest. Her lips slightly open, she looked worried, like she had just been presented with a big dilemma. It felt weird and at the same time peaceful to watch her sleep, he could look at her without worrying about her seeing him.
He looked like a mess, his platinum hair was rumpled on his head, his eyes were wet with what looked like tears or could have been water that he had splashed on his face. He had been talking to Blaise for a while, and he was surprised to find out that the boy was more observant that he had given him credit for. Draco had obviously only shared a quarter of the information, but Blaise had given him good advice; Go talk to her. And that´s what Draco had done, no second thoughts, no time for regret. He approached her bed and sat on his knees, by the head of the bed.
"Ellie" he whispered as he shook her lightly.
No response. She was still asleep.
"Ellie, wake up."
He shook her again, but this time he noticed a few drops of blood dripping on her duvet. He quickly inspected his hand to find a sharp cut on his knuckles, that were too bruised. He had hit his dorm´s bathroom mirror. He knew it wasn´t a good thing. He knew he shouldn´t hit things. And he didn´t, usually, but he had never felt so impotent than in that moment.
"Ellie" he called again, this time hiding his bruised hand.
"Draco?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing here?"
"Come with me"
"No"
Ellie sat up and observed the scene that was unravelling before her eyes. It took her a second to snap out of her dream and realize that this was real life and that Draco was there, looking like he had been through hell, trying to get her out of bed.
"Please" Draco pleaded.
"Merlin, Draco you are bleeding!"
"Shh! Come with me, please Ellie" he said, and she felt weirdly calm, like everything was normal, for a moment, and she was Ellie and not Fern or El, or Elizabeth.
"You are going to wake up everyone" she complained.
"Come with me, it´ll be a second"
"Fine." She concluded and got out of the bed to follow him outside of her room.
She walked hesitantly behind Draco, who walked downstairs towards the Slytherin Common Room where he knew no one would bother them.
"Why are you bleeding?" she demanded.
"It´s just a cut"
"Come here, let me take care of that"
"It´s not a big deal, just follow me please"
"Come, sit down" she demanded as she sat on a bench right outside of room door.
"Ellie, I-"
"What did you do? Did you punch someone?" Elizabeth wasn´t the best at healing spells, but she knew Draco wouldn´t go to Madam Pompfrey to get it taken care of. She would call his father.
"I came to your dorm because I wanted to talk" Draco said as Ellie took his hand into her lap to try to cure it. She was touching him, taking care of him. She was barely looking at him, but he wasn´t doing anything else than staring at her.
"What was that curing spell…I think…" She murmured to herself, ignoring Draco.
"I´m fine, please just look at me" He asked.
"Was it Ferola? Merlin, I can´t remember it… I heard Cedric talk about it…" she continued.
"Elizabeth, please, let me talk"
He watched her eyes as they darted up towards his face and then to the cut again. She frowned, considering whether to give him a chance to talk, or if she should just go back to bed. She wanted to be good, to give him another chance, but she also wanted revenge, for all the pain he had caused her. She didn´t want to give in so easily.
"No, Draco, I´m going to fix you up, and then I´m going to go back to bed" she said faking a confidence in her words that she didn´t have. She didn´t want this. She wanted it all to be just the way it was, but she couldn´t forgive him so easily.
"I need to talk to you" He insisted.
"Yes, Draco, and I needed to talk to you when I sent all those letters during the summer, when I didn´t have anywhere to go. When the Diggory´s took me in, when school started. You don´t just get to come back whenever you decide you need me too" her lips twitched, and she looked like she was holding back tears.
She was hurt, Draco knew that. He had seen her multiple times like this, with weepy eyes forcefully trying to not cry. He had never been the reason for it, though. He didn´t know what to say or what would help from this point. He had been stupid.
Thank you so much for reading!
New chapters are out every Friday and Sunday
You can follow me on twitter threeam13 for sneek peeks and updates
See you soon :) x