Chapter 40: One in the Same
Devil Like Me by Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Elara felt the blood drain from her face as the gravity of the two words sank into her. He knows. Her heart began speeding in her chest, pounding violently against her sternum as she fell beside Harry, her blistered skin hot and angry beneath the heavy, wet fabric of her robes.
"He knows?" Ron asked, looking at Harry with wide eyes.
"You've gotten into his head again?" Hermione asked, "Harry, we've talked about this-
"I've told you, I can't always control it, Hermione!" Harry said, clearly aggravated.
"Nor should you!" Elara said, reaching up to straighten his glasses on his nose. She held his face between her hands for a few moments, feeling the fear and uncertainty of the information he had just been given, thrum through him.
"If he keeps letting him in…" Hermione trailed off, concern twisting in her as she closed her eyes in defeat.
"If he doesn't, we have no idea where You-Know-Who is at. Now we do. Harry, what do we need to do?" Elara said.
"He's going to Hogwarts," Harry muttered, pushing himself off the ground. "Whatever the last of the Horcruxes are, they're there."
"How are we going to get rid of this one?" Ron asked, "That bloody Goblin took off with the sword!"
"I think…" Elara bit into her lip, the thought hitting her hard as a bludger to the head. "I think I can do it."
"What?" Harry asked, his brows pulled together as he looked at her.
"My grandmother, my father's mother, she had the same abilities that I have," Elara began to explain. "My father showed me the memory of it, when I saw him over Christmas last year. They thought she was insane, hysterical, even. They kept her locked away, she spent a lot of time in St. Mungos… Anyway, it turns out that she just… She felt things differently, deeper, like I do."
"What does it have to do with killing horcruxes?" Harry asked.
"I'm getting there," Elara said, with a pointed look. She held up her left arm, shaking back her sleeve to reveal the emerald bracelet she had worn for the last year and half. Emeralds, all but one, slightly cracked, adorned with the charm that Draco had given her to hide her Dark Mark. "You see this?" she held her wrist out, pointing to an unblemished emerald. "This is a horcrux of sorts."
"Come again?" Ron said, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline. A look shared by Hermione and Harry.
"It's not… Magic isn't all Light and Dark… There's some grey area to it. My family has a way of ensuring the name gets passed down. This is how."
"Of course!" Hermione, naturally, was the first to catch on. "That's why your father has been able to, albeit very slimly, navigate his way past death!"
Elara nodded, "Exactly!"
"Mind explaining what the hell you two are on about?" Harry asked.
Elara huffed, "Horcruxes, while used for immortality to people like Vo- You-Know-Who, aren't always used for such dark things. They can be used for protection as well, for instance, protection of a bloodline. By creating a horcrux, my father has guaranteed that he will stay alive until he is able to produce an heir. Once he does, the horcrux is destroyed, and it's passed down to the next generation. When Draco and I came of age, Draco should have been given the bracelet. My father would have destroyed his horcrux, and Draco would perform the ritual to place a bit of his soul in a stone on the bracelet until he, himself, produced an heir and that heir came of age. The bracelet would have been given to his betrothed to use as protection, to ensure that both she and Draco continue until the heir is produced."
Harry and Ron shared a confused look, but Hermione smiled. "It's brilliant magic, really. Horcruxes are ancient, it would make sense that a family that goes back as far as yours would utilize it to protect the bloodline."
"Okay, so your family has Horcruxes…" Harry said.
"My family has a horcrux. And that's not the important part. Because of the protection that it offered, it kept my grandmother alive. My father wasn't of age when she died, you see…"
"Oh my god," Hermione said, her face lighting up as it clicked in place.
"What?" Ron asked.
"My grandmother used her magic to destroy my grandfather's horcrux, so that she could take her own life," Elara said, swallowing thickly. "The bouts of magic when I'm upset or angry… She had them, too. And she knew how to control them, more or less. Until her mind got the better of her. She didn't have the luxury of potions, the way I do."
"Do you think you can do it?" Harry asked.
Elara shrugged, "I guess I kind of have to figure it out, don't I? We don't have a lot of other options."
"Not here," Harry said. "We don't have time to do it here. We need to move."
"Where are we going to go?" Ron asked, "We can't exactly wander in through the front doors."
"Hogsmeade," Harry said. "We'll go to Hogsmeade and go through the passage in Honeydukes cellar."
Hermione and Elara worked quickly to dry their clothes and transfigure them into something a bit more fitting to them, while also healing some of the more painful burns they had all endured. Within minutes, they were ready and grasping tightly to Harry's hand, she closed her eyes as the small stretch of shoreline blurred from her sight.
"Well this was a massive oversight!" Elara hissed, as a loud caterwauling charm sounded through the village of Hogsmeade the moment their feet hit the stone.
"It's gotta be Potter!" the gruff voice of a man called from somewhere to her left.
"What do we do?!" Hermione asked, her eyes widening considerably.
"The cloak! Harry put the cloak on!" Elara said, "Disillusionment charms, Hermione!"
Hermione gave a sharp nod, tapping her wand to her own head, and then Ron's.
"Wait!" Ron said, "Wait! I have decoy detonators! I completely forgot I grabbed them just in case!"
"Brilliant, Ron!" Elara cheered.
Ron pulled several of the small decoys from his pocket and with all the strength he could muster, he set them off and threw them as far away from them as he could, one in a different direction each way.
"Couple years of Quidditch paid off," Ron said, smiling to himself as they landed a considerable distance away.
"We could let the Dementors find them…" a voice said.
Elara's heart rate skipped. She had no desire to face Dementors ever again in her life if she could help it. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably as a familiar feeling of dread sank low in her belly. They needed to get out of where they were, and they needed to do it fast.
"Maybe we can disapparate," Elara said, hearing the tremor in her voice as she spoke.
"No. They were expecting us, they probably put up something to make sure we couldn't escape." Harry said.
"Shit," Ron said, "Where do we go?"
"I don't know, let me think!" Harry said.
"The Dark Lord wants him alive, you idiot! If we-
"And the Dementors won't kill him! Make it a sight easier for the Dark Lord to do it himself though!"
"Harry!" Elara said, panic stealing her breath as she felt the air turn icy around them. "Harry! What can we do?! They're going to find us!" She could feel the despair sinking into her gut as the world around them became impossibly black, the stars disappearing from the sky as the darkness and unseasonably frozen air began to creep into the alley they were standing in.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry said, a silver stag bursting from the end of his wand.
"They're going to find us now!" Hermione said.
"Well did you want the Dementors to get us first?!" Harry asked, irritated.
"Look! That's his Patronus down there, innit?!"
"Shit!" Ron swore again, "Shit! Harry-
The loud grinding of bolts on a door somewhere to their right interrupted Ron. "Potter! In here!"
"Come on!" Harry said, his footsteps falling away from them.
"Harry no!" Elara said, running after him.
"In here, you lot! Let's go!" A large man with familiar blue eyes and an enormous grey beard waved his hand frantically, ushering them inside just as Harry's patronus died away and the Death Eaters approached the door.
"That was his patronus! I know it was! It was a stag!"
"A stag?" The man said, a booming laugh at the end of the word. "You bloody idiot!" The man cast a Patronus charm, a large horned goat erupting from the end. "Does that look like a stag to you?"
Elara shifted uncomfortably in the room following the sound of Harry's footsteps as he made his way up the stairs. The man continued arguing loudly with the Death Eaters, his deep voice covering the creaking of the steps as they made their way to the second floor.
"...And I don't much think your Dark Lord will be happy being called out here for my cat!"
Elara looked around the room, her hands trembling as the fear of Ron, Harry, and Hermione mixed with her own, vibrated through her in nauseating waves. She sat on the edge of the shabby couch that was shoved against the wall, her eyes falling to a large portrait above the fireplace, a young girl with mousy brown hair and twinkling blue eyes stared back at her. As if she could see straight through the disillusionment charm she had casted on herself. A small smirk pulled at the girl's lips, an eyebrow arching on her forehead as she tilted her head to the side, studying Elara closely.
The heavy door slammed shut, startling Elara out of her study of the strange portrait. When they heard the locks grinding into place, Hermione dropped her disillusionment charm, as well as Ron's and walked over to the window, pulling the curtain shut. Harry pulled the cloak off himself and sat on the couch next to Elara as she canceled her own charm.
"Bloody idiots!" The barman swore, looking at the group of teenagers, "The lot of you! Are you trying to get yourself caught?!"
"Thank you," Harry said, ignoring the insult. "You saved our lives." The man puffed an incoherent grumble and moved further into the room. Harry looked at him for a long time, watching the man before he jumped to his feet, "You're Aberforth! Aren't you? Professor Dumbledore's brother!"
The man stopped his meandering, turning slowly to look at Harry, but didn't say anything. Elara felt the shift in his mood, which was calm but not pleasant, per se, to begin with. Something grim settled over the man as he straightened his back, his eyes roaming over the four of them.
"Dumbledore?" Ron asked, "Wait! The Doe! Did you send us the Doe Patronus?!"
"Doe.. Boy, what are you talking about? You saw my patronus just now! Thick as them, are you?" Aberforth said.
"Oh… Yeah, well… I'm hungry." Ron muttered, looking down at his shoes.
"I have food," Aberforth said, moving back toward the stairs and disappearing for a moment.
Elara stood, walking over to the fireplace and looked at the portrait a bit closer, the girl was young, possibly younger than Elara herself, but there was something about her that she felt drawn to, something she couldn't explain. She felt as if the girl was seeing her, really seeing her.
"El… are you okay?" Harry asked, his hand landing on her shoulder.
Elara nodded, "Yeah," she slowly pulled her eyes from the girl in the portrait and looked at Harry, forcing a small smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You aren't a very good liar," Harry said.
"I'm fine Harry," she pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Promise."
He bobbed his head slowly a few times, as he opened his mouth to speak again, Aberforth entered the room with a tray of bread and cheese and a pitcher of mead. The smell of the warm bread had Elara's mouth watering instantly, and in the same mind, Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione swarmed the tray, grabbing all they could hold in their hands. The four of them squeezed onto the small couch together, not speaking another word as they ate at a ravenous pace, guzzling mead to wash the crusty bread down.
Finally, once they had their fill, Aberforth collected their goblets and took a seat in a large chair by the mantle, "Right then. We need to figure out the best way to get you lot out of here."
"Out of… What? No. We need to get into the castle, not away from it!" Harry said.
"Potter, have you fallen off your broom?! Get out! Get away from here, leave the country if you can!"
"We're not leaving." Harry said, as he squared his shoulders. "If you don't want to help us in, fine. But Dumbledore, your brother, gave us a job to do and-
"A job?" Aberforth barked out a loud laugh, "Nice job, is it? Easy going sort of thing? Gave you all the details and wrote it out in plain English so you could complete it, right?"
"Well… No, but-
"Yeah. Didn't think so. Albus' jobs were never easy jobs. He had a way of asking too much from people he knew would give it to him. Judging by the way you four ate just now, I'm assuming you've spent too long focusing on this job, and not enough time focusing on your livelihood!"
"Look, what we have to do is important!"
"It's always important!" Aberforth roared, jumping up from his chair. "You think I don't know my own brother, boy?!"
"No, sir. That's not what I… I've got to do it, okay?"
"Got to? Got to?! Albus is dead, last I checked! Save yourself! Get out!"
"I can't." Harry's voice was quiet, meek, almost.
Elara shifted in on the cushion next to him, her hand moved to rest lightly on his forearm and he pulled his gaze from Aberforth, turning emerald eyes to her and she felt the desperation pulse through him.
"And why not?"
"I…"
Elara took a deep breath, feeling Harry becoming quickly overwhelmed by Aberforth's questioning, his insistence that they leave. Just as she was about to speak, Hermione cut in.
"But sir, aren't you fighting as well? You're part of The Order of the Phoenix, aren't you?" She asked.
"The Order of the Phoenix is no more," he said, turning bright blue eyes, much colder than that of his brother's toward Hermione. "You-Know-Who has won. You'll all have targets on your backs now, working with Potter. You'll all be killed if they find you."
"To be quite frank, sir, I'll be killed regardless." Elara said, finally finding her voice through her nerves. "I was only going to be kept alive to be used as a tool anyway. So, if there's any chance that what we're doing will hinder that, well then, I suppose I have to try."
His eyes landed on Elara and she felt a curious bit of intrigued swim through him, "Let me guess, you're the Malfoy girl, then?"
Elara shifted again, squaring her shoulders and straightening her posture. "Yes, sir, I am."
Aberforth stared at her for a long moment before speaking, his gaze falling back to Harry. "I don't know what goose chase my brother sent you on. But you'd be better off to leave and not look back. Whatever he's told you to do, I'm guessing he didn't tell you why." He took their silence as answer and continued. "Albus grew up with lies and secrecy. You'd do well to remember that before you go and get yourselves killed."
The silence that fell over them was stifling and Elara's stomach twisted with the anger that bloomed through Harry the longer they sat. Combined with Ron's vexation and Hermione's nervousness, she could feel a dull throb starting in her temple. She closed her eyes for a moment before looking up at the painting again, the girl studying her every move once more.
"Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry," Hermione whispered.
"Did he now? Funny thing, that is. Seems like most people Albus cared about would have been better off had he just left them alone."
"That girl," Elara said, pointing to the painting behind him. "Who is she?"
"Ariana," Hermione answered instantly, "I mean… Isn't it, Mr. Dumbledore? Your sister…"
"Yes. Been reading Skeeter?" He asked, laughing cynically.
"Elphias Doge told us about her," Harry said, lamely.
"That old berk. Thought the sun shone from my brother's every orifice. But then again, so did a lot of people, you lot included, it seems. Albus didn't care about anyone but himself."
"Are you talking about her?" Ron asked, looking up from his lap. "Is that why you hate him so much?"
"Never you mind-
"But that's a really serious thing to say!" Hermione said.
"My sister was six years old when she was attacked by a group of nosy muggle boys who saw her using magic. Accidental stuff. She couldn't control it. When she couldn't replicate the trick, they got carried away."
Elara could feel the pain seeping off the man, washing away the complex pit of emotions that had been warring inside of her from the others. Completely enveloping her in pain and grief.
"It drove her mad. She was hysterical, would lash out, hurt people, herself, blow things up and she-
"She's like me," Elara gasped, the realization settling in her chest and surging through her instantly. "Harry, she was like me!" Elara gripped Harry's arm, her eyes flying back up to the portrait and she saw the girl's face change. She was smiling now, a pleasant, serene smile as she looked at Elara.
"What are you-
"She wasn't mad! She wasn't hysterical!" Elara said, jumping to her feet and approaching the painting, "You felt everything, didn't you? Everything from every person, every building, every… every damn tree! You felt it! You weren't insane. You had empathic ability, like me."
Elara's eyes prickled with tears when the girl's smile widened. She pulled her eyes from the portrait to see Aberforth standing now, staring at her with a completely gobsmacked expression on his face.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"She had magic she couldn't control, didn't she? Blew things up, shattered windows, broke otherwise unbreakable things, didn't she? Only ever when she was extremely upset, or angry?"
Slowly, he nodded. "My father went after the bastards that attacked her. Got thrown in Azkaban for it. We moved away, kept her hidden, told everyone she was ill. Otherwise-
"They would have locked her away," Elara said with a soft voice, already knowing. "You kept her hidden to keep her safe. Mr. Dumbledore, you asked if I was the Malfoy girl, tell me, if you would, what you know about me…?"
"I know you're wanted, a hefty price on your head. I know you didn't… You were kept away until last year…"
Elara wet her lips, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she nodded, "Do you know why, sir?"
"Can't say that I do."
Elara turned to Harry, "I'd like to show him, now, if you don't mind..?"
"Yeah, of course." Harry said, instantly jumping up from the couch and closing the space between them.
"Can you… Will you be okay if I show him more than one?"
"Yes," Harry said. "If it gets him to help us, do whatever you need to do."
She could feel the skepticism rolling off of Aberforth in waves accompanied by a piqued curiosity. Elara nodded, "No hands this time. I think he'll understand better if he sees it this way."
Harry gave a sharp nod, clasping his hands behind his back as Elara's fell to her sides. She locked eyes with him and reached into his mind, carding through the rolodex to pluck out an easily identifiable bit of anger. Harry's face became red, as he grit his teeth, vibrating with fury, his nose flaring.
"What the…" Aberforth whispered, taking a step closer.
She blinked, giving a bit of reprieve to the anger Harry felt, skimming through his mind to find sadness and loneliness, slamming them to the front of his brain. Harry dropped to his knees, dissolving into tears, crying out for her to stop. She found happiness in his mind bringing it forward and burying the anger, sadness, and lonely feelings that had been there moments before. Suddenly, Harry's sobs of desperation turned to laughter as he held his stomach, absolute elation pulsing through him. After a moment, she gave him serenity, a calm to bring him back to himself, to center himself again.
"Ariana…" Aberforth said, pulling his eyes from Elara and Harry and looking up to the portrait. The girl was now grinning brilliantly, overjoyed with the sight before her.
"Things you couldn't explain," Elara said, stooping over to offer Harry a hand and pulling him off the ground. "I know it's too late now, but if it's any closure… She wasn't mad. She wasn't hysterical or insane… She was like me."
Aberforth cleared his throat, swallowing a few times before he opened his mouth again, "I was her favorite, the only one who could calm her down when she had one of her fits."
"Every person has their own emotional signature, if you will. Something that differentiates them from all other people. It's hard to explain, exactly what it is… But yours is… Well, it's rather calm. Even when you were irritated a few moments ago, it wasn't a blazing type of anger like Harry feels, or- or a frustration like Ron has. It was calmer, docile."
His eyes met Elara's, "I wasn't home when it happened. And our mother… She wasn't young, by any means. She didn't know how…"
"She killed her," Elara said. "She didn't mean to, I assume. But she did."
He closed his eyes, bobbing his head slowly.
Elara took a deep breath, blowing it out through her nose. "I've killed too," she said, waiting to see his reaction. He opened his eyes again, sorrow filling them as he looked at her. "It was an accident, I didn't mean for him to die… But I…" she sniffed, trying to keep her own emotions under control. "I was the reason he died."
"One of us killed her," Aberforth whispered. "When our mother died, there was no one else to take care of her. I told Albus I would stay and do it, I loved her. He didn't care about her! He cared about the greater good, only ever talking about his plans to lead the Wizarding World out of hiding! Grindelwald came along, and well… what's the well-being of one teenage girl when you have the greater good to worry about?"
Elara was consumed by his sudden cynicism, but under it, she could feel the pain, the grief that laid heavy on his mind. Aberforth continued, "I begged him to let me leave school, let me take care of her! 'No Ab, you need your education,' he said. Ha! Education never did matter much to me! I wasn't talented, I wasn't brilliant like Albus! But I loved Ariana! I had enough of it, had enough of watching her get shoved to the side, listening to Albus and Gellert's plans… I told them to stop. That they couldn't leave and take over the damn world with her! That she needed care, Grindelwald didn't take kindly to that. Pulled his wand on me, crucioed me until I was pissing in my trousers. Albus stepped up and dueled him and then all three of us were… It set her off. She wanted to help, I think, but she… and then she was d-dead."
Elara kept her eyes on the man, her face pale as he recounted the story of his beloved sister's death, a girl who was so much like herself, so very much misunderstood. She could have just as easily been in Ariana's place, been treated just the same, had her parents feared her. Had her own father not seen it before.
"It could have been any of us, I don't know who cast the curse that killed her, but it could have been any of us. Albus didn't care though, why would he? He was free of her-
"That's not true," Harry said. "He wasn't free. I saw it! I watched him crumble, begging for your life, for hers! He was never free of her."
"Potter, he wasn't who you think-
"It doesn't matter!" Harry said, throwing his hands in the air. "It doesn't matter anymore! Like you said, he's gone! But our lives are still at risk!" Harry pointed to Elara, "Her life is worth saving! Wouldn't you agree?!"
"Yes! That's why you should leave!"
"And then what?! Go on the run for the rest of our lives? I know how this might end. I know I might die! I've known it for years! But if my death means that she lives, that they all live, then sometimes things are bigger than yourself! Sometimes you have to do things for the greater good!"
Aberforth stared at Harry as he moved forward, taking Elara's hands and lacing his fingers through hers. His jaw was set tight, his chin raised high as he looked the man in the eye, daring him to suggest that Harry was wrong, that he should leave.
"You may not have liked your brother, but he knew how to defeat You-Know-Who and he passed that information along to me. And I will fight until I succeed or until I die. We need to get into Hogwarts, if you don't want to help us, fine. I'll find another way. But we aren't running."
Elara looked away from Aberforth, back to the painting of Ariana. She was still grinning brightly, positively radiating with excitement as she clapped her hands, bouncing on her toes.
"I won't let your sister's death be in vain," Elara promised, looking back from Ariana to Aberforth. "When we succeed, I will make sure everyone knows that she wasn't insane or ill. That there are more like her, that there are others that do the things she did. We've been held captive to fear for too long, and honestly, sir, I'm tired of hiding."
Hermione and Ron both moved from the couch, Ron clasping his hand around Elara's and Hermione taking Harry's free hand. The four teenagers stood in silence, staring at the man, waiting for an answer. Elara silently pleaded that he would help, hoping that the knowledge that the sister he loved more than anything wasn't the deranged girl she had been made out to be all these years, was enough to sway him.
Slowly, he turned toward Ariana's portrait, a short laugh bubbled from his throat as he looked at her, vibrating with happiness and excitement. "That's a look I've rarely seen from you, Ariana" He whispered and sighed heavily, "You know what to do."
Somehow, her smile got even wider, splitting her face in a blinding grin before she turned around, walking down the path that was behind her.
"Wait," Ron said. "Where is she going?"
"Only one way into the castle now."
.
.
a/n: A lot of the interaction with Aberforth was pulled directly from the book and paraphrased.
So if you've read this far, you have read 82 total chapters of this series (including the chapters of Hidden Heir in that count, obvs) and I AM SO EXCITED for you all to finally see where I pulled my idea for Elara's abilities from. What do you think?
Also, I like to think I have stayed pretty close with canon for the most part, obviously, we derailed a few things, and that pattern will continue through the rest of the chapters. Things will change that weren't in canon to make room for Elara and to also accommodate Draco's defection. I will be pulling from both the movie and the book throughout the battle chapters as well as changing things to fit Elara's POV and story arc. So you know, there's that.
Please leave a review! I have been waiting SO LONG to post this chapter to make this connection! I really want to know what you guys think!
xo
mimi
