Chapter XXV - A Reason to Live
It was past noon and Remus was still sleeping. Ellie was seated by the kitchen window, looking at the peaceful landscape. Looking but not seeing, her eyes were concentrated in her thoughts. And her mind was still with Severus.
"Forgive me."
His voice and his words were still echoing in her heart. They had touched her deeply. And she was remembering things she had tried to bury a long time ago.
The night she found out Severus was a Death Eater had such an impact on her that she felt as if a Dementor was constantly walking with her. Her whole world seemed to be collapsing in tears and sadness, in emptiness and sorrow.
Desperate and not knowing what to do, she just ran away from him, from herself, from everything. In less than a week she had packed and gone on her second learning journey, this time around the world, willing to forget everything about him and her past life. She needed so much to purge Severus out of her heart, she even let go of potion making and she started her studies on magical creatures.
She went deep in forests, high in mountains, far in deserts. She had seen so much and filled her mind with so many new things... but still her mind remembered Severus at night when, alone and cold, she felt he was missing next to her. He was connected with every happy memory she had. Severus or her dad, and she was still too hurt to think about any of them. And so, at night, her only hobby was trying to find happy memories where none of them were present.
Surprisingly enough, she found one. Deep down her mind, almost forgotten, she had stored the memory of that light brown haired boy, winking at her and leaving the breakfast table to join his friends...
***
Pacing around, having a good time torturing her, was prefect Finn, from Slytherin. It was night already and she had been found trying to sneak into the Slytherin common room.
"Maybe I should take ten points..." he was saying, with a smile. "Or maybe twenty."
"Why don't you take thirty while you're in it?" she asked, grumpily.
"Best idea you had all night!" he said, with a twisted smile. "But I have a better one, still."
Ellie didn't answer.
"You still haven't told me what you were doing trying to get in our common room."
"And it's none of your business so you'd better go on with it. Is it thirty, then?"
"My, my... You are not cooperating. I might have to take fifty points from Gryffindor if you keep that behavior."
"Listen, Finn-"
"What were you doing there?" he hissed.
"None of your business." she answered back.
They were eyeing each other with loath.
"You know," he said after a while "I like your temper. I'm so surprised you're not a Slytherin."
"And I'm so surprised they made a git like you a prefect! Will you get on with it?"
"Oh, dear! You really are in trouble now. Insulting a prefect... I think this asks for... one hundred points is it?"
"You can't do that!" she said in outrage.
"Watch me..." and, with a smile, he pointed his wand at the prefect's badge. "One hundred points... from Gryffindor."
Ellie was struck with horror. One hundred points by the hands of a prefect?! That shouldn't be allowed!! They'd kill her in Gryffindor when they found out! And especially because she was trying to get into Slytherin's common room!
"I can't believe you did this!" she said, outraged. But he was still smiling. At least now, she thought, there was no way he could torture her anymore. She turned to leave.
"Hey, Wood, dear..."
"What?" she asked acidly without turning to him.
"I know how hard this must be for you. How about winning some extra points?"
She frowned but turned to him. "How's that?"
"You can carry my books tomorrow." he said, nastily "Give you ten points for that."
She didn't answer. "Not enough? How about twenty-five points if you stand on our side next Quidditch match? It's Slytherin against Gryffindor. I'd love to see you in our colors. Thirty points if you do it."
Ellie did not want to be bribed... but she feared her fellow Gryffindor's reaction when they heard about the hundred points she'd lost them. Still she said nothing.
"I know... It's not much and it's too far away. You needed to recover all the points you lost them tonight and fast, isn't it?" Still Ellie didn't answer. "Well, I have a quick way for you to do that." This time, he was walking towards her. He stood near her and started whispering "I'll give you your hundred points back... if you give me a kiss."
"A kiss?!"
"A kiss." he whispered. "Not a quick kiss, and not on the cheek. One hundred points for a long... wet... kiss... in-"
SLAP!
Finn looked at her thunderstruck. For a few seconds he just kept his hand on the cheek she slapped, blinking, flabbergasted. Then-
"You b**ch! You'll pay for this!" He grabbed her by the arm before she had time to flee.
"Let go of me!!"
"Hey!" another voice came "What's going on here?"
Right on cue, Gryffindor's prefect, Remus Lupin, arrived and was looking at them stunned. The scene was not very pretty: Finn was holding Ellie by force, and she was struggling hard to get free. And all this in the middle of the night on an empty corridor.
"Well?" asked Lupin again "What's going on here?"
"This mudblood here-"
"You can't take points from someone because of their lineage, so I suggest you keep it out of this." and Lupin, although talking calmly, was looking a bit dangerous.
"Well, this... girl here was trying to sneak in my common room!"
"That's no reason to hold her like that. So let her go." Finn didn't move. "Which part of 'Let her go' did you not understand?"
"She also slapped me in the face when I took points from her."
"Liar!" she managed to say. But Lupin was already pointing his wand at them.
"Finn... Let her go. Now!"
Slowly, the Slytherin boy let go of her. Ellie massaged her wrist and looked at Lupin, gratefully. But he was still looking at Finn.
"Finn, you know the Prefect's Conduct we follow now is not the one written in 1572, where physical punishment was permitted, but the one revised in 1953, where, among other things, 'a prefect involved in a punishable action, unless if mere witness, in not in position of evaluating the situation as a prefect', meaning, you were victim of violence and you cannot punish her behind your prefect's badge. And since she's in my house... I think I'll take it from here."
Finn was looking dangerous. But Lupin was not a bit impressed and was looking himself a lot more dangerous. In fact, calm, delicate, harmless Lupin seemed a lot more frightening than any Slytherin in a bad day. Ellie began to wonder whether she had been released from one prick to fall in the hands of another. And, she reminded herself, he used to hang on with that Black and Potter boys, which meant nothing but trouble.
Slowly, Finn turned away, and so did Lupin. Ellie followed him. They were heading for the same common room.
"Er... Thank you." she said, trying to keep up with him.
"Why did you hit him, anyway?"
"He was blackmailing me." she said darkly.
"Well, that cost our house one hundred points." said Lupin grumpily.
"It did not!" she said furiously. "He was trying to scare me because he caught me trying to enter their common room and I insulted him and he just took what he felt like!"
"Then you were even more stupid because you knew he was being arbitrary with you and you played along!"
Ellie was shocked. They were near the common room and when Lupin entered ("Golden Snidget") she was still looking astounded at him.
Next morning, Severus met her at the door of the Great Hall.
"What happened last night?" he whispered her.
"Finn caught me."
"Did you tell him what you were doing?" he asked pale.
"Of course not, silly. But I got into trouble. I'll see you after lunch." and she went to her breakfast table, where she heard all sorts of rumors about the one hundred points lost. By the looks of it, Lupin hadn't told anyone it had been her. Not even Potter and Black seemed to know. In fact, Lupin seated next to her when he had the chance.
"I'm sorry about last night." he said in a quiet voice. "I shouldn't have said what I said. I was just angry because Finn keeps doing this and our Gryffindors always play along. All he has to do is heat them a little and they'll loose points by tens! Of course, nobody lost a hundred before."
"Wanna know why?" she asked defiantly.
"Why?"
And she told him all about the deal to win them back.
"He what?!" asked Lupin in shock. "I should tell Prof. Dumbledore! That's blackmail!"
"That's harassment, that's power abuse, that's humiliating, that is."
"What did you do?"
"That was when I hit him!"
Lupin was surprised at how wrongly he had seen last night. When he finally put all the pieces together and looked at it again he laughed heartily for a moment, then, controlling himself, he said "Well, then, let's see... that's fifty points for not giving in to blackmail and showing moral fiber... and another fifty points for giving a correct answer, because that was the only correct answer to a stinking Slytherin's dirty proposal! " Ellie smiled, astounded. "And ten points for... hum... let me see..." he looked at her very serious, then he grinned and said" ten points for your beautiful eyes. Since you have two of them" he shrugged, winking at her "that will make twenty points for Gryffindor."
Right at that moment, Lilly Evans had just come in the Great Hall and was talking loudly to some friends about some twists in the house points: there had been added one hundred and twenty points just out of nowhere! Gryffindor's were really trying to make it up from last night's disaster (which nobody ever knew who the responsible was)!
Lupin winked at her and left the breakfast table to join his friends.
***
After these events, all prefects were called by the Headmaster, who, understanding how dangerous it was to leave house points to prefects, limited the points given or taken to fifty.
Severus noticed that Ellie's behavior around Lupin was more and more suspicious. She didn't dare get near him, but she eyed him frequently with a smile, which he usually returned.
Out of jealousy, Severus made the mistake of telling her about Lupin's... problem. "Sour." she thought of Severus every time she remembered he had done it.
But it had the opposite effect. Instead of scaring her, she found it fascinating. She fell in love with Lupin's tragical story and his strange loneliness, even when surrounded by his friends, was finally clear. She even found the courage to talk to Lupin and eventually became his friend.
***
When alone, and cold, looking for a comforting memory, she stopped in Lupin's fragile and strong image she understood his loneliness for the first time. And his image became her company during her world trip.
In time, she was forgetting about Severus and falling in love with this tragical werewolf who needed to be loved as much as she needed to love someone in order to be strong again. And stronger and stronger, she made it to the Confederation of Potion Makers, she made it to be present every year in the Convention, she made an impressionable career.
But all she cared about was a way of releasing him from his loneliness... since no one could release her from her own.
And now she had made it... she was felling lonely again. Seated, by the kitchen window, she was thinking about how much she had lost and what she had accomplished. But when she remembered Remus on her bed, sleeping after a night when he'd been safe, she had to say to herself that all the suffering and all the humiliations were nothing next to what she had won.
And it was time now for other people to win their freedom from that curse and for their love ones to find peace in their hearts.
It was time to start the struggle again and prove before everyone, every wizard... and every Confederation, that the potion was working and was healing.
But how could she prove she had been bitten and now was safe?
"Morning" said Remus, walking in the kitchen, looking very pale.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, walking to him.
"Happy." And he kissed her "So happy. But I was wandering if you have any news."
"News?" she asked, frowning.
"Yes, news. I mean answers. About why didn't you transform." But Ellie wasn't listening. She was smiling and then she kissed him and said "Remus, I love you! You-are-a-genius!!"
"Am I?" he asked smiling.
"I'll tell you all about it later... but now I need your help." And she grinned.
Oh, sweet revenge!
It was past noon and Remus was still sleeping. Ellie was seated by the kitchen window, looking at the peaceful landscape. Looking but not seeing, her eyes were concentrated in her thoughts. And her mind was still with Severus.
"Forgive me."
His voice and his words were still echoing in her heart. They had touched her deeply. And she was remembering things she had tried to bury a long time ago.
The night she found out Severus was a Death Eater had such an impact on her that she felt as if a Dementor was constantly walking with her. Her whole world seemed to be collapsing in tears and sadness, in emptiness and sorrow.
Desperate and not knowing what to do, she just ran away from him, from herself, from everything. In less than a week she had packed and gone on her second learning journey, this time around the world, willing to forget everything about him and her past life. She needed so much to purge Severus out of her heart, she even let go of potion making and she started her studies on magical creatures.
She went deep in forests, high in mountains, far in deserts. She had seen so much and filled her mind with so many new things... but still her mind remembered Severus at night when, alone and cold, she felt he was missing next to her. He was connected with every happy memory she had. Severus or her dad, and she was still too hurt to think about any of them. And so, at night, her only hobby was trying to find happy memories where none of them were present.
Surprisingly enough, she found one. Deep down her mind, almost forgotten, she had stored the memory of that light brown haired boy, winking at her and leaving the breakfast table to join his friends...
***
Pacing around, having a good time torturing her, was prefect Finn, from Slytherin. It was night already and she had been found trying to sneak into the Slytherin common room.
"Maybe I should take ten points..." he was saying, with a smile. "Or maybe twenty."
"Why don't you take thirty while you're in it?" she asked, grumpily.
"Best idea you had all night!" he said, with a twisted smile. "But I have a better one, still."
Ellie didn't answer.
"You still haven't told me what you were doing trying to get in our common room."
"And it's none of your business so you'd better go on with it. Is it thirty, then?"
"My, my... You are not cooperating. I might have to take fifty points from Gryffindor if you keep that behavior."
"Listen, Finn-"
"What were you doing there?" he hissed.
"None of your business." she answered back.
They were eyeing each other with loath.
"You know," he said after a while "I like your temper. I'm so surprised you're not a Slytherin."
"And I'm so surprised they made a git like you a prefect! Will you get on with it?"
"Oh, dear! You really are in trouble now. Insulting a prefect... I think this asks for... one hundred points is it?"
"You can't do that!" she said in outrage.
"Watch me..." and, with a smile, he pointed his wand at the prefect's badge. "One hundred points... from Gryffindor."
Ellie was struck with horror. One hundred points by the hands of a prefect?! That shouldn't be allowed!! They'd kill her in Gryffindor when they found out! And especially because she was trying to get into Slytherin's common room!
"I can't believe you did this!" she said, outraged. But he was still smiling. At least now, she thought, there was no way he could torture her anymore. She turned to leave.
"Hey, Wood, dear..."
"What?" she asked acidly without turning to him.
"I know how hard this must be for you. How about winning some extra points?"
She frowned but turned to him. "How's that?"
"You can carry my books tomorrow." he said, nastily "Give you ten points for that."
She didn't answer. "Not enough? How about twenty-five points if you stand on our side next Quidditch match? It's Slytherin against Gryffindor. I'd love to see you in our colors. Thirty points if you do it."
Ellie did not want to be bribed... but she feared her fellow Gryffindor's reaction when they heard about the hundred points she'd lost them. Still she said nothing.
"I know... It's not much and it's too far away. You needed to recover all the points you lost them tonight and fast, isn't it?" Still Ellie didn't answer. "Well, I have a quick way for you to do that." This time, he was walking towards her. He stood near her and started whispering "I'll give you your hundred points back... if you give me a kiss."
"A kiss?!"
"A kiss." he whispered. "Not a quick kiss, and not on the cheek. One hundred points for a long... wet... kiss... in-"
SLAP!
Finn looked at her thunderstruck. For a few seconds he just kept his hand on the cheek she slapped, blinking, flabbergasted. Then-
"You b**ch! You'll pay for this!" He grabbed her by the arm before she had time to flee.
"Let go of me!!"
"Hey!" another voice came "What's going on here?"
Right on cue, Gryffindor's prefect, Remus Lupin, arrived and was looking at them stunned. The scene was not very pretty: Finn was holding Ellie by force, and she was struggling hard to get free. And all this in the middle of the night on an empty corridor.
"Well?" asked Lupin again "What's going on here?"
"This mudblood here-"
"You can't take points from someone because of their lineage, so I suggest you keep it out of this." and Lupin, although talking calmly, was looking a bit dangerous.
"Well, this... girl here was trying to sneak in my common room!"
"That's no reason to hold her like that. So let her go." Finn didn't move. "Which part of 'Let her go' did you not understand?"
"She also slapped me in the face when I took points from her."
"Liar!" she managed to say. But Lupin was already pointing his wand at them.
"Finn... Let her go. Now!"
Slowly, the Slytherin boy let go of her. Ellie massaged her wrist and looked at Lupin, gratefully. But he was still looking at Finn.
"Finn, you know the Prefect's Conduct we follow now is not the one written in 1572, where physical punishment was permitted, but the one revised in 1953, where, among other things, 'a prefect involved in a punishable action, unless if mere witness, in not in position of evaluating the situation as a prefect', meaning, you were victim of violence and you cannot punish her behind your prefect's badge. And since she's in my house... I think I'll take it from here."
Finn was looking dangerous. But Lupin was not a bit impressed and was looking himself a lot more dangerous. In fact, calm, delicate, harmless Lupin seemed a lot more frightening than any Slytherin in a bad day. Ellie began to wonder whether she had been released from one prick to fall in the hands of another. And, she reminded herself, he used to hang on with that Black and Potter boys, which meant nothing but trouble.
Slowly, Finn turned away, and so did Lupin. Ellie followed him. They were heading for the same common room.
"Er... Thank you." she said, trying to keep up with him.
"Why did you hit him, anyway?"
"He was blackmailing me." she said darkly.
"Well, that cost our house one hundred points." said Lupin grumpily.
"It did not!" she said furiously. "He was trying to scare me because he caught me trying to enter their common room and I insulted him and he just took what he felt like!"
"Then you were even more stupid because you knew he was being arbitrary with you and you played along!"
Ellie was shocked. They were near the common room and when Lupin entered ("Golden Snidget") she was still looking astounded at him.
Next morning, Severus met her at the door of the Great Hall.
"What happened last night?" he whispered her.
"Finn caught me."
"Did you tell him what you were doing?" he asked pale.
"Of course not, silly. But I got into trouble. I'll see you after lunch." and she went to her breakfast table, where she heard all sorts of rumors about the one hundred points lost. By the looks of it, Lupin hadn't told anyone it had been her. Not even Potter and Black seemed to know. In fact, Lupin seated next to her when he had the chance.
"I'm sorry about last night." he said in a quiet voice. "I shouldn't have said what I said. I was just angry because Finn keeps doing this and our Gryffindors always play along. All he has to do is heat them a little and they'll loose points by tens! Of course, nobody lost a hundred before."
"Wanna know why?" she asked defiantly.
"Why?"
And she told him all about the deal to win them back.
"He what?!" asked Lupin in shock. "I should tell Prof. Dumbledore! That's blackmail!"
"That's harassment, that's power abuse, that's humiliating, that is."
"What did you do?"
"That was when I hit him!"
Lupin was surprised at how wrongly he had seen last night. When he finally put all the pieces together and looked at it again he laughed heartily for a moment, then, controlling himself, he said "Well, then, let's see... that's fifty points for not giving in to blackmail and showing moral fiber... and another fifty points for giving a correct answer, because that was the only correct answer to a stinking Slytherin's dirty proposal! " Ellie smiled, astounded. "And ten points for... hum... let me see..." he looked at her very serious, then he grinned and said" ten points for your beautiful eyes. Since you have two of them" he shrugged, winking at her "that will make twenty points for Gryffindor."
Right at that moment, Lilly Evans had just come in the Great Hall and was talking loudly to some friends about some twists in the house points: there had been added one hundred and twenty points just out of nowhere! Gryffindor's were really trying to make it up from last night's disaster (which nobody ever knew who the responsible was)!
Lupin winked at her and left the breakfast table to join his friends.
***
After these events, all prefects were called by the Headmaster, who, understanding how dangerous it was to leave house points to prefects, limited the points given or taken to fifty.
Severus noticed that Ellie's behavior around Lupin was more and more suspicious. She didn't dare get near him, but she eyed him frequently with a smile, which he usually returned.
Out of jealousy, Severus made the mistake of telling her about Lupin's... problem. "Sour." she thought of Severus every time she remembered he had done it.
But it had the opposite effect. Instead of scaring her, she found it fascinating. She fell in love with Lupin's tragical story and his strange loneliness, even when surrounded by his friends, was finally clear. She even found the courage to talk to Lupin and eventually became his friend.
***
When alone, and cold, looking for a comforting memory, she stopped in Lupin's fragile and strong image she understood his loneliness for the first time. And his image became her company during her world trip.
In time, she was forgetting about Severus and falling in love with this tragical werewolf who needed to be loved as much as she needed to love someone in order to be strong again. And stronger and stronger, she made it to the Confederation of Potion Makers, she made it to be present every year in the Convention, she made an impressionable career.
But all she cared about was a way of releasing him from his loneliness... since no one could release her from her own.
And now she had made it... she was felling lonely again. Seated, by the kitchen window, she was thinking about how much she had lost and what she had accomplished. But when she remembered Remus on her bed, sleeping after a night when he'd been safe, she had to say to herself that all the suffering and all the humiliations were nothing next to what she had won.
And it was time now for other people to win their freedom from that curse and for their love ones to find peace in their hearts.
It was time to start the struggle again and prove before everyone, every wizard... and every Confederation, that the potion was working and was healing.
But how could she prove she had been bitten and now was safe?
"Morning" said Remus, walking in the kitchen, looking very pale.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, walking to him.
"Happy." And he kissed her "So happy. But I was wandering if you have any news."
"News?" she asked, frowning.
"Yes, news. I mean answers. About why didn't you transform." But Ellie wasn't listening. She was smiling and then she kissed him and said "Remus, I love you! You-are-a-genius!!"
"Am I?" he asked smiling.
"I'll tell you all about it later... but now I need your help." And she grinned.
Oh, sweet revenge!