1 Chapter 7 A secret revealed

When Hermione found Elle she was sobbing into her pillow in the dormitories. Parvati kept trying to get close enough to sit on the end of her bed and ask her what was wrong, but couldn't manage it as she kept being slid backwards. In the end she gave up and said to Hermione, "You can try now."

Hermione got her wand out and said, "Reversi spacai!" She managed to sit on the end of Elle's bed and touch her left shoulder before she was thrown against the wall. Elle turned and faced her, her face was tear stained and sweaty.

"Get lost, Hermione!" she shouted, "You can't solve everything, little miss know-it-all!"

"Fine!" she shouted back, "But if you keep distancing yourself from your problems, you'll never get anywhere!"

Hermione ran out of the dorm room and into the common room. Ron and Harry were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. A tear was falling down her face and she wiped it off with the back of her hand.

"What happened, Herm?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," she mumbled and she sat down on the sofa in front of the fire. Ron and Harry sat down next to her.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked sympathetically.

Hermione sniffed and told them what had happened in the dorm.

"I dunno what's wrong with her, but her left shoulder was burning hot."

"Herm?" Elle asked from the bottom of the stairs, her face was washed but her eyes were still red. Hermione smiled sympathetically. Elle walked over to were the three were sitting and gestured an old chair to move in front of the sofa, which it did. She sat in it and apologised to Hermione. "I'm real sorry Herm. I just got all emotional. Still friends?"

Hermione nodded and smiled.

"Care to share?" Ron asked.

"I suppose I ought to." She said reluctantly, "Before I came to Hogwart's I went to a magic school over in Ireland, I flew over there every year. That wand shop, Olivander's couldn't find a wand to suit me so I just went without one. The school didn't like me not having a wand, so just like Snape, they wouldn't let me join in any practical work. The best thing about that school was the fact that they owned two dragons, me and my sister, Sal adored them and Care of Magical Creatures was my favourite lesson, because you didn't really need a wand to join in. My teacher for that lesson said I was her favourite student, because I had a natural thing with the dragons, Rusty and Candrell. Sal and I were twins, so we were in the same year and we shared Care of Magical Creatures, just like we do with Slytherin. In one of our lesson our teacher decided that we would learn to fly the dragons. I was really excited because I loved the dragons and I was really proud of my dragon shaped scar, the other girls bullied me about it, but I thought it was cool. Any way my sister was chosen to go first, I was really jealous because I wanted to go first. She was riding Rusty, who was a grey ridge-back kinda like Riska. The thing is there was this boy in my class, Jon who kinda fancied me and he had this power to sense other peoples emotions. He could sense that I was jealous of her but he didn't look deep enough to realise that I figured I'd get over it and I was proud of her, because I was so close to her. He thought that if he made my sister's flight not great and mine was good I would like him more. But he wasn't really in control of his power and he tried to make her not loose control Rusty a bit but instead when he set off a firework he scared Rusty so much he dropped my sister and she died instantly." Tears rolled down Elle's face.

"No wonder you won't ride Riska," Ron said quietly.

"Is that why you came to Hogwarts?" Harry asked. Elle shook her head. "No, in one of my lessons the girls in my class were bullying me so much that I couldn't do any magic so to prove I could I went to smash the window behind them. But I was so angry I ended up smashing all the windows in a five mile radius."

"Woah," Ron said.

"You've got to remember it was Jon, who caused your sister to fall, not the dragon." Hermione contributed.

"I know that, I just can't bring myself to believe it." She buried her face in her hands as she began to cry more. Hermione moved to the arm of the chair Elle was sat it and reassuringly cuddled her. Elle shrugged her off and gently moved her back into her seat.

"Are you going to help us?" Harry asked.

"It doesn't look like I have a choice." She said and smiled feebly.

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