The weeks pass quietly. Perhaps too quietly. Aiming to find the resurrection stone is one thing, but finding it within such vague parameters is another. She hasn't made any headway on figuring out where Harry Potter 'lost' the stone. Hogwarts is massive; there are plenty of places no sane person would go, she's sure. The place is a death trap disguised as a school.
Homework is piling up now that the first years have become properly adjusted to Hogwarts. Ella loathes to admit it, but she's settled into a routine where she isn't trying to hate everything every few seconds, if only because it's exhausting. Magic isn't easy, but it isn't exactly difficult for her. That still astounds her. Being able to practice the magic her family always hoped she'd have can still be a surreal experience.
Still, she can't allow herself to become too comfortable.
She's reminded of this on a chilly morning at breakfast. The owls swoop in and drop letters, miraculously missing the recipients' plates. A copy of the Daily Prophet lands on the table between the first year Gryffindors, well within their reach, though it's Damien who grabs it first. He bites into his toast as he reads the front page with a nasty scowl.
"What is it?" Marius asks.
"The Death Eater trials are starting today," Damien says, disdain evident in his voice. It isn't often that Ella shares his sentiments, but this is one of those times.
Torian frowns. "I thought they started those back in August?"
"They did, but they had some preliminary hearings where witnesses were listened to. Something about wanting to get the full story from outside sources before discussing it. A few people have already been tried, but most are still pending," Yeoreum says. "Plus, they had to catch the Death Eaters that escaped."
"That… would be your dad's job, wouldn't it? Catching them, I mean," Ella says. She's still learning about the different professions in the wizarding world, but she thinks she (mostly) understands what the aurors do.
"Exactly!"
Torian sighs. "Sounds like a tough job."
Damien smacks the paper against the table. "People are already trying to claim they were under the imperius curse. And two of the Malfoys got off the hook! Well, with probation and some other rules, but still! They should all be in Azkaban, I don't care if Harry Potter testified on their behalf."
"If he did that, then he probably knows stuff that we don't," Marius says, grabbing an apple. "And he didn't do it for anyone else, as far as I'm aware."
Damien huffs. "Still. And Draco Malfoy and all his little Slytherin friends are back at Hogwarts to 'complete their studies', I bet they were forced to. No one wants them here, anyway."
Ella tunes out the moment Damien says 'Slytherin', used to his biased tirades by now. That leaves her mind free to wander back to the trials. She doesn't know how many Death Eaters there are. She doesn't know their movements on May 2nd, she doesn't know who they saw or who they fought. She doesn't know if one of them was the one who killed her brother.
Maybe whoever took her brother away from her was already dead, too. Perhaps they were a magical creature Voldermort coerced into fighting for him instead of a wizard. She doubts she'll ever know, especially when all the information she knows is second-hand.
She is finally able to have some time to herself on the weekend of the next Quidditch match. It's between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, so she isn't as interested. Explaining that to the Quidditch-loving Yeoreum would take too much time out of both their mornings, however, so she feigns illness and tells her to go on without her.
"Okay, feel better! I'll fill you in on everything when I get back!" is what Yeoreum says, already halfway out the door to meet the boys downstairs.
Ella waits until the crowds heading towards the Quidditch pitch have thinned before leaving Gryffindor tower, The Tales of Beedle the Bard tucked under her arm. The last thing she needs is to be spotted before arriving at the library. Not that going to the library was inherently suspicious, but she doesn't want to interact with people more than she has to when she's on a mission.
The library is deserted when she arrives. Even Madam Pince is missing from behind her usual desk, likely taking a morning out of her schedule of book gatekeeping to enjoy a Quidditch match. It's easier to breathe when she isn't here to breathe down anyone's neck.
Deciding where to start is difficult. She knows what the Resurrection Stone is and what it's supposed to be used for, but she doesn't know enough about magic to properly categorize it. As much as Colin and Dennis told her about magic and its uses, even teaching her the wandwork for specific spells at times, matters of the dead were never breached. Not in this context.
(She still remembers the hushed conversation she overheard between her brothers close to her eighth birthday, something about a funeral and a boy called Cedric, and they'd sounded so sad and scared, only to greet her in the morning with smiles on their faces.)
She wanders through the aisles, waiting for something, anything, to catch her eye. She's hesitant to take the books from the shelves haphazardly, all of them looking old, and she knows if she breaks one Madam Pince will ban her from the library for the rest of her days. No, reading the spines and only the spines is the superior option.
It's as she's running her hands across some history books that she spies something from the corner of her eye. The rope towards the back of the library that separates the restricted section from the rest of the library is still yet inviting, and she narrows her eyes at it. Madam Pince had made it very clear during their first visit to the library that wandering beyond the rope is forbidden. Even with signed permission from a teacher to use a book, she would be the one to retrieve it.
But Madam Pince isn't here, is she?
Ella stops at the end of the aisle and looks right, then left. No one around. She darts across to the rope and jumps over with ease. She was half-expecting there to be a spell in place to send her flying backwards and is pleasantly surprised when she isn't. She'll take the small victories.
She's two steps into the restricted section when she hears rustling from behind a shelf and she pauses. She doesn't have time to duck somewhere and hide, and so a moment later, she finds herself face to face with someone else. Sort of. It's hard to truly be face to face when she's a good two heads shorter than them.
The man in front of her has bags beneath his wide eyes, prominent against his pale skin, yet that doesn't take much away from his almost regal appearance. Or perhaps regal isn't the correct word. Prideful, maybe. He carries himself with grace, head up and shoulders back. She tilts her head. She can almost imagine him with a beak and an array of feathers behind him. A proud peacock. He has a book under one arm, but unlike her copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, she doubts it's from one of the safer places of the library.
"I don't believe you should be here," he says. Ella didn't know voices could sound punchable until today.
"Should you be here?" she counters. Realizing she sounds incredibly childish, she adds, "It's a bit strange that you're here when there's no one else is around."
"And you would know, since you're doing the same thing, yes?"
She juts her chin out. "Perhaps."
The man pinches the bridge of his nose. "And what would a first year want with the restricted section?"
"Information, obviously. That's what a library is for, isn't it?" she says.
"In the restricted section?"
"Well, I'm standing in it, aren't I? And so are you."
"So I am."
"So, what are you looking for?"
"That's none of your business."
"Then I guess what each of us is doing is none of each other's business."
"I guess so."
She smiles triumphantly, stepping around the man and heading further into the restricted section. She's only able to take three steps before she hears him mumble something behind her. Something that catches her attention.
"This Elder Wand business better be worth all this trouble."
Why does that sound familiar? She frowns, tapping her fingernails against her unreturned copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard (she'd rather return it when Madam Pince can see her, just in case it gets lost and she has to deal with a furious librarian on her tail) when she realizes the answer is in her hands. Flipping through the pages, she turns to the story she's become well acquainted with in the past few weeks, albeit for different reasons. It takes only a few seconds for her to find what she's looking for.
"The Elder Wand?" she says, turning the book so he can see the illustration of the three brothers. "You mean like the one in this story?"
The man gapes at her, then strides towards her, snatching the book from her hands. He brings the book up to his face and glares at it as though it's wronged him. She waits, hands on her hips, as his gaze darts across and over the pages.
"You're joking," he says eventually. "I've been looking in here all morning and it's been in a silly children's tale this entire time?"
Ella shrugs. "It's weird how these things work out."
He looks at her curiously. "Why are you walking around with The Tales of Beedle the Bard, anyway?"
"I was planning on returning it if Madam Pince was in," she says. "I didn't know any of these stories, so my friend recommended I read them since they're part of so many people's childhood."
He's taken aback, eyes wide. "You didn't know any of them? Not even Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump?"
She levels him a look — once again, difficult when he's so much taller than her — and says, "I'm muggleborn. We don't have these in the muggle world."
"Do muggle children just not have stories, then?"
"Of course we do! We have stories like Cinderella."
The man's pointy nose scrunches. "Cinderella? That sounds like a disease."
"And wizards have a children's story about Death scheming to indirectly kill three brothers," she points out. "You have no room to talk."
He seems rather put out, but still says, "I suppose."
"So," she says, taking the book back, "why the sudden interest in the Elder Wand?"
The man presses his lips together so tightly that Ella thinks they'll be stuck that way for the next week, but that is quickly proven wrong when he sighs and says, "It has something to do with what Potter said right before he defeated the Dark —" he clears his throat "— Voldemort. I suppose you don't know much about that, do you? Being a first year and all."
"Only the basics," she says, thinking of the edition of the Daily Prophet that had been delivered the day after Colin's death. "Why, what did he say?"
"There was a lot of talk about plans backfiring and misconceptions and other things that I won't even begin to question when Potter's involved, but there was a crucial point that I can't let go of," he says. "Something about how I became the owner of the Elder Wand when I… disarmed Dumbledore." He swallows thickly, but doesn't react further, continuing. "Then Potter disarmed me, which made him the true owner of the Elder Wand. Voldemort was under the impression that someone else was the true owner and they died for it. I want to know what this is all about."
"Okay," Ella says slowly, "why don't you just ask Harry Potter about it?"
He's aghast at the suggestion, reeling back. "Me? Ask Potter? Not a chance."
"Why not? He seems nice enough to me. He's not going to bite your head off," she says. "Or blast it off, whichever is your most pressing issue."
He stops, regarding her with narrow eyes, but there is no real scrutiny in his gaze. Only curiosity. "You don't know who I am, do you?"
She raises an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to?"
"I suppose it's better that you don't," he says, bitterness underlying in his tone, but she doubts it's directed at her. "I'm Draco Malfoy."
And suddenly everything makes sense. It isn't only his reasoning for not asking Harry Potter outright, but also his demeanour and stance. She never knew what Draco Malfoy looked like, but seeing him in front of her right now, he looks exactly like she expected despite expecting nothing at all.
"So you're the infamous Draco Malfoy," she says.
"Unfortunately," he says. "And it's only good manners to introduce yourself after someone offers you the same courtesy."
She barely refrains from rolling her eyes. "Ella Creevey."
She thinks she sees a flash of recognition in Draco's eyes, but it's gone before she can be sure. "Right, so now that you know why I'm here, why are you here?"
Damn, she'd hoped he'd forget about that.
"Honestly? General curiosity," is what she says. She isn't about to tell him she's searching for the Resurrection Stone. That will only lead to a barrage of questions she has no appropriate answers for. "It isn't every day that the librarian isn't in."
"The whole school attends Quidditch games," says Draco. "She usually locks the library during them, but she's leaving it open this year for us alumni to study whenever we want."
"And yet you're the only one in here."
"Yes, well… it's best that I'm neither seen nor heard at the moment."
Ella thinks of Damien that one morning, scowling at the newspaper and spitting out Malfoy's name like something unsuspectingly sour. "Understandable."
"So." He looks down at her and she thinks she's supposed to be intimidated. She isn't. "I wasn't here and you weren't here, right?"
She can't stop the corner of her lips from rising. "Right."
Even after she and Malfoy swear each other to secrecy, her search is all in vain. She finds plenty of books, some with voices of their own, and even a few on the subject of necromancy, but nothing that would help her track down the Resurrection Stone. It didn't help that she wasn't looking for anything specific. A charm to locate the stone, perhaps, or a way of connecting with the stone from afar.
She has to make a mad dash back to Gryffindor Tower when she spies her fellow students returning from the Quidditch pitch when she glances out the window. The last thing she needs is for Yeoreum to question her whereabouts. That, and she doesn't want to be caught by Madam Pince. She leaves The Tales of Beedle the Bard on the counter, however, as an anonymous peace offering. Just in case.
The common room is deserted when she enters through the portrait hole, and she wastes no time in taking the stairs two at a time. Jinxie meows loudly when she throws the door open, but jumps out of the way in record time for her to flop on her bed and bury her face into her pillow, pretending she's been there all morning.
Yeoreum enters five minutes later, cheeks pink from the cold, a bright smile on her face. "Ella! Are you feeling better?"
Ella musters up a smile. "I am. How was the game?"
Yeoreum launches into a recount of Ravenclaw's victory over Hufflepuff that Ella only half understands. All she needs to do is nod along and ask one-word questions in the right places. If it keeps Yeoreum happy, then she doesn't mind too much.
(She doesn't know when she stopped resisting Yeoreum's friendship, just that it was long ago and that she never stood a chance.)
"I can't believe we have to wait until February for the next match." Yeoreum groans, falling back on her bed. "And I'm pretty sure Gryffindor isn't playing in it."
"That long?" Ella asks.
Yeoreum nods. "Yep. I get not having any in December since most of us go home for Christmas, but we're all back by the first weekend of January. The next one should be at the beginning of February at the latest, not at the end!"
"Right, the Christmas holidays."
Between classes and her own research, she'd forgotten about Christmas, let alone going home for it. Her stomach flips at the thought. Last Christmas had been slightly more subdued than usual, but in their own corner of the muggle suburbs, they had been able to forget about the magical war for a moment. Her main problem at the time had been keeping her brothers' spirits up, even if dragging them away from their magical radio and shoving santa hats on their heads had been the only way to do so.
Now she can't even do that.
hope you enjoyed! next up is the winter break where we get to see ella's parents in person and. whew.
