"So," Yeoreum says when they've returned to their room, lying on their beds and staring at the ceiling, "where do we go from here?"

Ella shrugs, an awkward motion when she's lying down, an arm over her face. "We're back to square one." A weight falls on the edge of the bed and something taps her stomach. "I'll feed you in a minute, Jinxie."

"Are we missing something? Are there any hints? I know Beedle the Bard doesn't have anything else, I know that story off by heart." Yeoreum sits up, hair messy from how she'd been lying down. "If I was Harry Potter, where would I hide a rock that could potentially raise someone from the dead?"

Ella forces her mind back to the memory of last Halloween. She's gone over the conversation enough times for her to remember most of what was said, but much of it passed over her head, not particularly knowledgeable of the trio's exploits outside of what her brothers were privy to. In the grand scheme of things, that isn't much. She thinks of Yeoreum's question, but nothing Harry said was particularly helpful.

But she does remember something Hermione said: "It doesn't matter! My point is that some kids could go in there for whatever reason, same as us, and find it. The Resurrection Stone isn't something to leave lying around, not when so many people here could be vulnerable to it."

She bolts up in bed. Yeoreum looks at her questioningly.

"It's somewhere at Hogwarts."

Yeoreum's eyes widen. "How do you know?"

"Something Hermione said when the three of them were talking about it," Ella says. "She was worried about people here being vulnerable to it. And that it's possible that someone like us — just kids — could find it." She decides not to acknowledge that she is exactly the type of person Hermione was worried about.

"Then it should be accessible to us, right?" Yeoreum must not be acknowledging it either. "Somewhere, somehow."

Ella nods. "Exactly. Though I guess the question becomes where at Hogwarts it is. This place is huge."

"It'd be easier if we knew where Harry went with the stone," Yeoreum says with a sigh.

"It's not like we can just ask him," says Ella, rubbing her forehead. "Hermione said that 'some kids could go in there' which means we have to go into something or somewhere, but that's all I've really got. That, and something about following spiders."

Yeoreum visibly recoils. "Spiders?"

Ella tries not to smirk, she really does. "Don't tell me you're scared of spiders."

With a nervous laugh, Yeoreum looks everywhere but at her face. "Well, you see — oh, looks like the game's over!"

It's clearly a diversion, but Ella leaves her for now, following her gaze to the window. The students are making their way back to the castle, and by the general demeanour of the crowd, Slytherin won. The Slytherin seeker is being carried on their friends' shoulders while the Ravenclaws trudge across the grass with their heads down. There are a few others from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff that seem rather put out, and Ella is sure Damien is among them.

"I bet there's as many rooms in this castle as there are students out there," she says, gesturing towards the window.

Yeoreum slumps in a huff. "Don't remind me. How are we supposed to search all of them? And there are some that we can't get into, like areas for teachers and prefects and stuff."

Ella hadn't even thought of that. "Maybe we should stick to places that fit the criteria and we have access to."

"Sounds like a plan!" And just like that, Yeoreum has straightened up, the sparkle back in her eyes. Ella can only wish to be so resilient.

"Do you have a map of the grounds at all?" Ella asks.

"Nope," Yeoreum says. "We'd probably be able to find one in the library, though."

Turning away from the window, Ella strides towards the door. "To the library we go?" she says, looking back at Yeoreum.

"To the library we go!"


The library has less people in it than usual when they arrive, likely due to everyone attending the Quidditch game instead. There are a few leftover students studying at various tables, a few years older than either of them, and Ella keeps an eye out for somewhere more secluded for them to sit. Studying a map may not be suspicious on its own, but their conversation as a result of it might be.

A map is easy to find, a pile of them sitting on the desk by the entrance, ripe for the taking. Why they don't hand them out to incoming first year students is a mystery. Are they expected to just magically know where each place is off by heart?

When Ella says as much, Yeoreum says, "Dad says you get used to it eventually, and I guess I am, but there are just so many places that I haven't been."

They find the perfect table. It's towards the back of the library in a corner, large enough for them to spread the entire map across the desk, and blocked off from view by the towering bookshelves. Ella unfolds the map before sitting down in a position Madam Pince surely wouldn't approve of. The woman is almost as strict about her furniture as she is about her books.

"Okay," she says, "where should we start?"

Yeoreum opens her mouth to respond, but before she can, a loud voice says, "This shouldn't be that hard! Muggles didn't invent that many things, surely."

The voice comes from the other side of one of the nearby bookshelves, and it's a voice Ella has heard before. Unsure whether to be annoyed or amused, she slides her chair back and, with one finger, slips a book from the shelf in order to create a spy window.

There, in all his glory, sits Draco Malfoy. He's still as pointy as ever, but his hair is disheveled. His fingers are tugging on the strands as he taps his quill against the parchment laid out before him. He isn't alone, either. He's surrounded by what she can only assume are his friends, around half a dozen of them there, studying with various degrees of intensity. One has even given up entirely, his head on the desk.

"Well, you can't expect them to act like barbarians. They had to survive somehow up until now," says a well-dressed man, not looking up from the book on his lap.

"Sod off, Blaise."

"I don't understand," says a girl with dark hair. "Muggles have no problems writing letters, so why did that go out of fashion? Are we missing something?"

"Muggles are finicky, I suppose."

Ella can't help but snort at that, though her one moment of weakness has everyone seated at the table moving their heads in her direction (except the poor bloke with his head down). Knowing she's been found, and because it's easier to make fun of them if she isn't in hiding, she steps out from behind the shelf and into their space. Light footsteps indicate Yeoreum is following along behind her.

"Oh, it's you, Creevey," Draco says.

"Just 'Ella' is fine," she says. "Also, to answer your question," she looks at the dark-haired girl, "writing letters went out of fashion because muggles invented telephones."

The girl wrinkles her nose. "Telly-foam?"

"Telephone, Pansy."

"I thought you were sodding off, Blaise."

"Why are you so concerned with muggles all of a sudden, anyway?" Ella asks. "I was under the impression that you couldn't care less."

Pansy whines. "Compulsory Muggle Studies."

Despite herself, Ella laughs. "I can't say I feel all that sorry for you."

"Fair," says Blaise.

Draco gives him some side-eye. "Blaise here has already finished his work, but he won't share. So has Daphne, but she's neck-deep in her current thesis." He gestures to a girl with dirty blonde hair, hand moving at rapid speeds as she furiously scribbles on her parchment.

"What do you have to do, anyway?" Yeoreum asks. She sounds as she always does, but she's standing close to Ella, slightly hidden behind her.

"We have to take something in the wizarding world and something similar in the muggle world and compare the two," Pansy says. "Where do we even begin?"

"It's really not that difficult," says Blaise, and both Pansy and Draco glare at him. He ignores it. "I did medicine, Daphne did the education system. These two are just clueless on muggles and where to find information on them."

Ella raises an eyebrow. "You could just, I don't know, ask someone who's muggleborn."

Pansy winces. "Most muggleborns aren't exactly fond of us, you know."

"They don't need to be fond of you," Ella says. "I'm certainly not, but I'll tell you what you want to know."

Yeoreum sneaks a bemused look in her direction at that, one Ella only sees from the corner of her eye. She nudges her discreetly, hoping to convey that she knows what she's doing, that she has a plan. That, and she wants to confuse the minds of some prejudiced wizards a good seven years her senior.

Pansy's eyes widen. "You will?"

Ella shrugs. "Sure, why not? Now pick a subject and we'll go from there."

She and Yeoreum grab chairs and sit at each end of the table. Ella explains the difference in communication technologies to Pansy and Yeoreum dives into the vast differences in government structure. The two of them are even able to rouse head-desk boy (his name is Gregory, apparently) into writing down some points on wizard and muggle sports. It isn't how Ella thought her afternoon would go, but the look on Pansy's face when she mentions the word 'computer' is priceless.

Once they've explained everything they can, Ella stands from her chair abruptly, hands slamming on the desk. Thank goodness Madam Pince isn't around to hear that. "Alright, we've helped you, now you can help us."

Blaise swings back on his chair, hints of a smirk on his face. "We should have known this came with a price."

"What could you possibly want from us?" Draco asks in what Ella assumes is supposed to be a biting way, but the bewilderment shows in his eyes.

Holding a finger up to say 'give me a second', she rounds the bookshelf to where she and Yeoreum planned on sitting beforehand and grabs the map they'd left on the table. Everyone stares at her as she brings it around and unfolds it so it's sitting atop their newly finished essays. She doesn't bother sitting back down, standing over the map instead.

"Yeoreum and I wanted to do a bit of exploring since this castle is so huge," she says, convincing herself that it isn't a complete lie. "We just want to know where we need to avoid. I don't trust this castle not to eat us or something just as bad."

Pansy huffs. "The castle isn't going to do anything to you."

Ella looks her in the eye. "My brother was frozen for half of his first year here because there was a giant snake on the loose."

"I — okay, right."

"So," Ella says, "which places aren't the best to be?"

Surprisingly, it's Draco who grabs his quill first. He reaches over to circle the edge of the map, right where the seventh floor is. There isn't a room or even a corridor there, just the wall, and she and Yeoreum look to each other in confusion.

"It won't look like there's a room there, but there is one," Draco says. "Whether it's safe or not right now is… up for debate."

Ella is about to ask why, the words on the tip of her tongue, but only makes a short noise when she sees the way Greg lowers his head. Draco won't meet her eyes, either. There is definitely something she is missing here, but the one thing she does know is that she shouldn't ask, at least not right now.

"Okay," she says instead. "Where else?"

Ten minutes or so later, the map has been circled over a dozen times, more than Ella anticipated. She'd known Hogwarts didn't have the best record when it came to student safety (really, her brother had been petrified at age eleven for goodness sake, not to mention the death of the headmaster and the triwizard tournament existing in general) but there are more areas marked than there should be. That doesn't bode well for their search. They'll have to narrow the list down later.

"Wow, thanks," she says, a little breathless at just how much ink is on the page. "This is a big help."

"Well, there's no point in attending this place for seven years and not putting what we've learned to good use," Pansy says. "Hopefully your school years will be less… eventful."

Yeoreum hums, a sly grin on her face. She's become more comfortable with the current crowd over the course of the afternoon. "I don't know, I could use a bit of adventure from time to time."


By the time they've finished at the library, it's close to dinnertime. The sky is quickly losing its blue hue, the Gryffindor common room bathed in a coral light when they return, the room itself busy as it usually is during this time. Students are laughing with friends, catching up with homework, preparing to head down to dinner. The air outside the tower is still cold, but the inside is filled with a soft warmth.

Ella ensured that the map was securely tucked in her pocket before leaving the library, not wanting anyone to see it. Her prudence pays off when, halfway to their dormitory, they run into Torian. He pauses when he sees them, almost looking unsure.

"Hey, I haven't seen you two today," he says, the unspoken question clear in his voice.

"We weren't really feeling up for Quidditch," Yeoreum says, lifting herself on the balls of her feet. "It's way too cold, so we decided to stay in."

Torian laughs, but it's strained. "Yeah, yeah… I didn't go either. I knew Marius would be sitting with Damien, so I just…" He shrugs.

Ella makes a face. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to deal with that."

"Don't worry!" Yeoreum says. "We can all go together to the next Quidditch game."

When Torian smiles, it's soft, but more genuine than his laugh. "That would be nice."

"And we'll get to cheer for Gryffindor's victory together," Ella says, then grabs the sleeve of Yeoreum's sweater. "We should get ready for dinner. We'll see you then?"

"Uh, yeah," Torian says, stepping aside as Ella and Yeoreum pass by. "See you then."

Perhaps, if Ella weren't so focused on the map and studying it more closely, she would have noticed Torian's confused, hesitant, and concerned expression watching them ascend the stairs.


thank you for reading! also thank you to everyone who's followed/favourited the story and left a review. i read all of them with a smile on my face.