Chapter 14: The Feast
There was still no sign of life in the corridors as Ellie followed Harry, Ron and Hermione through the labyrinth of hallways and staircases. Harry then began to tell Ellie about the four Hogwarts houses, the sorting ceremony which determines what house you'll be placed in, and how the point system for the house cup works, all in great detail. Hermione would often interrupt Harry, and add even more information which she learned from a book that, according to Ron, she had read over five hundred times called Hogwarts: A History.
Ellie had been given a full tour of the astronomy tower, library, trophy room, armor gallery, transfiguration classroom, charms classroom, and heard about a crazy divination teacher by the name of Sybil Trelawney before Hermione glanced down at her watch and saw that it was time for all of them to head back to Gryffindor tower, so they could get dressed for the feast.
So far Ellie was very impressed with the castle and couldn't wait to see the rest of it after dinner.
Ellie climbed through the portrait door, and saw that on the other side were dozens of students talking excitedly. Every single one of them immediately stopped their conversations and fixed their eyes on Ellie the moment she walked in the room. It was the first time Ellie had seen any other students in the common room, and she knew that they were just as curious about her as she was of them. She continued to follow Hermione quietly up to the girl's dormitory, feeling very uncomfortable with so much attention on her.
When Ellie came back down stairs the resumed conversations abruptly stopped again, and all focus was back on her. She knew they had all been talking about her, most likely speculating about who she was, where she came from, and why she was there.
Before the portrait door shut behind her, Ellie could hear the murmurs and chatter start back up again.
It seemed like a long walk to the great hall. Now all the students in the corridors were gawking at Ellie as she passed by. The constant glares and curious expressions on the students' faces were really starting to annoy Ellie, but the moment she entered the great hall she forgot all about them.
It was a massive hall with five long wooden tables, one on top of a platform at the front of the hall, and the rest ran parallel to each other, but the tables weren't the first thing Ellie noticed. Her eyes naturally floated upwards to the ceiling which wasn't there at all. Instead of a high arch ceiling, which Ellie had expected to see, there was the early evening sky fading into night hovering above. For such a spectacular castle as Hogwarts, Ellie found it odd that the great hall wouldn't even have a roof.
"It's just an illusion." Hermione informed Ellie, pushing her forward out of the door way so other students could get by. Ellie was then lead to the furthest table from the door where the only person she recognized was Ron's sister, Ginny. Ellie took a seat between Hermione and Harry, and tried to ignore the constant stares from the other students as best as she could.
"Who is your friend Harry?" The boy sitting next to Ginny asked.
"She's just a friend who is staying for a couple of days Neville." Harry replied after a bit of hesitation.
Neville didn't look very satisfied with Harry's response, but before he could ask another question the entire hall became silent. Ellie followed Harry's gaze towards the head table where Albus Dumbledore was standing up, waiting for everyone's full attention.
"I'm sure all of you are curious to know why I've arranged this impromptu feast." Dumbledore began, glancing at each table. "It is because we have a special guest eating with us tonight."
Ellie suddenly felt her cheeks go red at the mention of the special guest, and even some of the students glanced her way.
"I am pleased to announce that our special guest is none other than the minister of magic himself, Cornelius Fudge." Dumbledore gestured to the chair on his right.
Fudge remained seated but gave a slight wave to acknowledge the small bit of applause he received.
"Tuck in!" Dumbledore announced.
When Ellie turned back to her plate she saw that the table was now covered with mounds of delicious looking food. There was a juicy roast beef with dark gravy, succulent pork and lamb chops, golden BBQ chicken, buttered peas and carrots, five different varieties of potatoes, delicious yorkshire pudding, and crisp corn on the cob. Ellie stared in wonder at the food piled in front of her.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Harry asked plopping a large spoon full of mashed potatoes onto his plate.
"Do you always have this much food at dinner?" Ellie asked with her eyebrows raised.
"At the feasts, yes, but our usual dinners are about a quarter of what you see here." Hermione answered.
"With all this food its amazing that everyone isn't the size of Dudley Dursley." Ellie quietly commented to herself, but it was just loud enough for the others too hear.
All at once Hermione gave Ellie an astonished look, Ron almost choked on his pork chop, and Harry spat out his entire mouthful of pumpkin juice, which sprayed all over Ginny, who was sitting across from him.
"Sorry Ginny." Harry apologized. "How do you know Dudley?" He quickly asked Ellie.
"He's a friend of my brother." Ellie replied.
"Who's your brother?"
"Dennis Richards."
"Is he the tall one who's a year older than the rest of them?"
"Yeah..." Ellie replied slowly, wondering how Harry knew all this. "How do you know my brother and Dudley?" She asked skeptically.
"Dudley is my cousin." Harry answered.
"Are you serious?" Ellie asked in disbelief.
"Afraid so." Harry said glumly. "I've lived with the Dursleys almost my entire life."
"You lived with them too?!" Ellie exclaimed.
"I still do during the summer holidays."
Ellie took a moment to really process what Harry was saying.
"Wait a minute; I've never heard Dudley or my brother mention anything about Dudley having a cousin who lives with him."
"Well, my aunt and uncle don't like the news of their family 'abnormality' spreading too far. Dudley probably threatened all his friends to keep their mouths shut."
"But, you don't even look remotely related, even as far as cousins go." Ellie commented, and it was true.
Physically Harry and Dudley were complete opposites. Dudley was fat, dumb, ugly and had blond hair, while Harry on the other hand, had black hair, was thin, polite and good looking.
"Well, it's true. My mother and his mother are sisters. Besides, why would I lie about being related to the Dursleys?" Harry retorted.
"Good point." Ellie agreed. "It must be horrible to share a living space with Dudley."
"It was at first, but the last few years haven't been too bad. He's terrified that I might hex him in his sleep, although I must admit the thought has crossed my mind several hundred times." Harry smirked.
"Why didn't you?" Ellie asked with a bit of disappointment.
"Because we're under aged wizards, and we're not allowed to do magic outside of the magic world." Ron replied.
"Or else we could get expelled from Hogwarts." Harry bitterly said. "Believe me, the summers would be a lot more tolerable if I could."
"Well, it could always be worse." Ellie commented, popping a baby carrot into her mouth.
"Oh really?" Harry indignantly said.
"Yeah ... at least Dudley doesn't have a crush on you."
Harry's jaw dropped.
"You poor thing!" Ron exclaimed in a pitiful tone that was a bit over dramatic.
"I always figured that Dudley was too dense to even notice girls." Harry commented.
"Unfortunately not." Ellie groaned. "But if there is one nice thing I could say about Dudley is that he's very persistent. Actually, it's the only nice thing I can say about him."
"Is he really that bad?" Hermione asked.
"Well, I'll put it this way, every time he sees me he wraps his arm around me so tight I can barely breath, and starts rambling on about how I could be the luckiest girl in the world if I would only go out with him ... and he's been doing this for the past two years."
"You're right; you do have it worse than me." Harry frankly stated.
"You know there might be a way to get Dudley off your back." Ron said with a sly grin.
"What?" Ellie asked desperately.
"Just tell him you're friends with Harry."
Ellie stared at Ron with a blank expression.
"It's actually not a bad idea. Dudley hates me..." Harry commented. "But a better idea would be to embarrass him."
"Embarrass him? How?" Ellie asked with curiosity.
Harry began to tell Ellie every single embarrassing moment in Dudley's life including the time he sprouted a pig tail, the snake attacking him at the zoo, his four foot tongue, and the dozens of childish pet names his mother calls him.
Ellie had never laughed so hard in her life, and even had to wipe away the tears trickling from the corner of her eyes. Suddenly Ellie realized that Ginny was looking at her with a stunned expression.
"You're a muggle?" Ginny whispered in astonishment. She had obviously been listening carefully to the conversation.
"Ginny, you can't mention this to anyone." Hermione said firmly.
"I know that! Why do you think I was whispering?" Ginny retorted.
No one else at the table had overheard Ginny's discovery except for the boy sitting next to her, Neville, who was now staring at Ellie with very wide eyes.
"But how did she get here?" Ginny asked.
"It's a bit of a long story." Ellie replied.
"She'll tell you later." Hermione said, glancing nervously around the table.
Everyone else was too busy eating and gossiping about who Ellie really was to overhear any of the conversation between Ellie, Harry, Ron and Ginny.
"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Ron asked after several minutes of awkward silence.
"I guess we could show Ellie whatever parts of the castle we don't get to tonight. Its too dark to see the green houses and the lake, so we can save that for tomorrow." Harry began.
"Don't we have practice tomorrow morning?" Ginny asked Harry and Ron.
"I completely forgot." Ron groaned.
"No, it's perfect! Ellie can come watch our quiddich practice." Harry said happily.
"Quiddich?" Ellie asked curiously.
"It's our sport." Ron replied, but Ellie wasn't wondering what quiddich was as much as she was wondering why that word sounded so familiar.
"I've heard that word before, but I can't remember where." Ellie said furrowing her brow.
"You must be mistaken." Hermione said in a dismissive tone.
"No, I'm positive I've heard it before." Ellie began, but then it suddenly dawned on her.
"Uncle Simon!" She exclaimed.
"Uncle who?" Ron asked.
"Three years ago my uncle went to his best friend's camp site to help with an overflow of pre-bookings. The next morning my uncle was found wandering two streets away from his house with his brain completely fried, and mumbling nonsense about quaffles, bludgers and quiddich."
Ellie noticed the strange way Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were staring intently at their dinner plates.
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" She suspiciously asked all of them.
After a bit of reluctance Harry finally answered her.
"It was the quiddich world cup, and memory charms were placed on all the muggles who were working at the camp site so they couldn't reveal that there was a large population of wizards staying there."
"The memory charms don't usually have that effect on muggles, but there were a lot of people who weren't being very discreet about being wizards, and too many memory charms in one day aren't very good for the mind." Hermione added.
"Well, that certainly explains a lot." Ellie stated. She always wondered what happened that night Uncle Simon went to Mr. Roberts's camp site, but hundreds of wizards watching a sport was the last thing she ever expected.
Suddenly, a terrible vision flashed through Ellie's mind. She was walking aimlessly down Wisteria Walk without a clue who she was, or where she lived, and with no memory of Hogwarts or the magic world. A slight shudder ran throughout her body, but she quickly shook it off, and grabbed a slice of cherry pie from the pile of desserts that had just appeared before her.
Glancing around the room Ellie saw that many of the students were still inquisitively glancing at her.
With her eyes still wandering around the room, Ellie finally turned her attention to the only table where no one had even given her one single glance; the head table. All of the teachers were minding their own business, not taking any note of Ellie's presence what so ever. Hermione must have noticed what Ellie was staring at, because she began to tell Ellie each of the teachers' names and what subjects they taught. Ellie recognized Prof. Flitwick, the charms teacher, and Hagrid, the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, as two of the people she immediately noticed when she first walked into the Three Broomsticks.
As Hermione was still listing off each teacher at the table, Ellie couldn't help but scan further down the head table until her eyes met those of a teacher who was actually looking right at her. In fact he was the only teacher paying any attention to Ellie at all. He had a contemptuous expression on his face, with a sickly complexion, a hooked nose, and long greasy black hair.
It wasn't long before Ellie learned that it was the potions master, Prof. Snape, who was looking at her with such dislike.
"The table next to us is the Hufflepuff table." Hermione continued, motioning to the long wooden table next to them. "The one next to that is for Ravenclaw house, and the Slytherin table is at the opposite end of the great hall."
At the other side of the room, Ellie noticed at pale blond haired boy whispering to the two large blokes sitting next to him, occasionally shooting cruel, disdainful expressions in Ellie's direction.
"That's Draco Malfoy." Hermione informed her, following Ellie's gaze.
Just before Ellie returned to her slice of pie, she caught sight of a pair of familiar pale protuberant eyes staring at her form the Ravenclaw table.
Ellie quickly diverted her eyes away from Luna Lovegood, and bit her lip. It wasn't the suspicious glare that Luna was throwing at Ellie that made her turn away. It was the pink shoe string with a large clove of garlic tied to the end, hanging around Luna's neck that Ellie couldn't look at any longer without bursting into hysterical laughter.