Chapter 17: A Late Night Conversation

Downstairs, all the candles had been extinguished, and the only source of light was coming from the fire place. Everyone had gone to bed long ago, which left the eerily silent common room all to Ellie.

She slowly glanced around, watching the shadows of the vacant furniture dance on the stone walls.

"Have difficulty sleeping?"

Ellie's heart suddenly jumped into her throat at the sound of the voice. She turned to face the fireplace and saw a head peering around one of the large cushy armchairs.

"I'm sorry I startled you." Harry apologized.

"That's okay; I didn't see you sitting there." Ellie replied, her heart still racing.

She moved towards Harry and plopped down on the couch that was perpendicular to the chair he was sitting in.

The common room fell silent again. Ellie glanced at Harry who was gazing blankly into the fire, as if his mind was somewhere else.

Ellie was just about to ask Harry why he was still awake, when she had the sudden feeling of being watched.

Her eyes shifted to the far end of the couch where there was a small creature with large bat like ears, a pointed nose, and two tennis-ball sized eyes which were staring right at her.

Ellie let out a yelp of surprise at the sight of the creature.

"Hello Dobby." Harry said casually.

"Is it true that Harry Potter has brought a muggle to Hogwarts?" The creature asked in a squeaky voice, not taking his eyes off Ellie.

"Yes, it's true." Harry replied. "Dobby this is Ellie. Ellie, this is Dobby the house-elf." He introduced them with a mild amusement.

"Dobby has never seen a muggle before." Dobby said with a fascinated tone.

"Well, I've never seen a house-elf before." Ellie replied.

"Muggles don't look as filthy and disgusting as Dobby has been told." The house-elf commented.

"That's a relief." Ellie said, with a bit of resentment.

"Dobby use to belong to the Malfoy family." Harry informed her with a bit of a chuckle.

"Oh." Ellie said understanding what Harry meant.

"Muggles don't look that much different from wizards." Dobby stated, still staring at Ellie. "Dobby thinks wizards and muggles look exactly the same, except muggles don't have the Aura."

"Aura?" Harry said in a puzzled tone.

Ellie was relived that she wasn't the only one who didn't have a clue what Dobby was talking about.

"The Aura that surrounds all wizards. The aura that give the wizards the ability to do magic, Harry Potter." Dobby explained.

"I've never heard of this Aura before." Harry said.

"The Aura can only be seen by very few creatures. We house-elves can see it. It lets us house-elves know if we have to hide from people who are not meant to see house-elves."

There was another brief moment of silence before Dobby's ears suddenly perked up.

"Dobby must go now." He squeaked. "Dobby has a lot more cleaning to do before sunrise."

"It was nice meeting you Dobby." Ellie politely said.

"It was a pleasure meeting you too, Ellie muggle, miss." Dobby bowed so low that his long pointed nose scraped the floor.

"Good night Dobby." Harry said.

"Good night Harry Potter, sir."

And with a loud cracking noise, the house-elf vanished.

Once again the common room was silent, except for the occasional crackle from the dimming fire.

Harry went back to staring blankly at the fireplace. It was almost like he had forgotten that Ellie was still in the room. Ellie just quietly watched Harry. During this quiet moment, she became aware of an odd tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

"It's probably excitement from meeting a house-elf for the first time." A tiny voice in her mind told her.

But Ellie had been experiencing this feeling of delight since she first came to Hogwarts.

"It's just the thrill of discovering the magical world." The voice spoke again.

Ellie began to trace back the events of the day, when she suddenly had a clear vision of where and when she had first felt this sensation. She was in the Three Broomsticks, and she had just looked into the most brilliant green eyes she had ever seen.

Ellie quickly snapped back to reality, and realized that she was still staring at Harry. She darted her eyes away from him, hoping that he didn't notice just how long she had been looking at him.

However, Harry's gaze hadn't changed at all; he was still looking at the fireplace.

"You're hiding something from me, aren't you?" Ellie blurted out. She wasn't really sure where this accusation was coming from.

"There are a lot of things you're not telling me." She said firmly.

Harry slowly glanced at Ellie.

"For someone as curious as you are, I'm surprised you didn't ask earlier." He frankly stated.

"I thought about it." Ellie said truthfully. "But I didn't want to invade your privacy. But whatever you're hiding, it's eating away at you."

Harry turned towards the fireplace again before sharply looking back at Ellie.

"I'll tell you everything if you tell me why a fifteen year old girl was wondering around downtown London all by herself." Harry stipulated.

Ellie's face dropped. She was completely caught off guard by such a proposition.

After a tense moment of silence, Ellie spoke.

"I was looking for answers." She simply replied.

"Answers for what?" Harry asked.

"A week ago Wednesday my cousin was killed in a bombing in downtown London. It was an open casket funeral, which was extremely odd for someone who died in a bomb explosion. There wasn't a single mark on my cousin, so I decided to investigate the street where the bombing took place. There was absolutely no structural damage to any of the buildings...and that's where I noticed the two men in cloaks." It was only after Ellie had finished talking when she realized that she had tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry about your cousin." Harry said in a consoling tone, but there was something about the expression in his face that caused Ellie to think that he knew something about the bombing that she didn't.

"Do you know who is responsible for my cousin's death?" Ellie asked firmly, wiping her cheeks.

Harry glanced down at the floor with a grave expression, and nodded.

"Yes, I do." He said quietly.

"Who?" Ellie asked urgently. She was finally going to hear the truth about Nicole's death.

Harry took a deep breath.

"There is an evil wizard by the name of Voldemort who is bent on becoming the most powerful wizard in the world. He has a group of followers called the Deatheaters, who gladly perform his every bidding." Harry paused, and Ellie began to wonder what all this had to do with her cousin.

"Over the past several months Deatheaters have been apperating in crowded muggle streets and killing as many muggles as possible with the Avada Kedavra curse. This curse kills anyone instantly without leaving a mark, and there is no counter curse. That is what killed your cousin."

"Why are they doing this?" Ellie asked horrified.

"It's a game to them. They see muggles as worthless, insignificant beings worth killing for the fun of it. Who ever kills the most muggles without getting caught wins the highest favor with Voldemort." Harry replied with a tone of disgust.

"Have any been caught yet?"

"Not many." Harry regretfully said.

"So, you're telling me the reason my cousin is dead is because of a game?" Ellie asked through clenched teeth, her eyes filling with tears again.

"I'm afraid so." Harry said lowly.

Ellie didn't know if she wanted to cry, scream or punch something.

A game! A sick, twisted game was the reason why she would never see Nicole ever again. Ellie had never felt so angry and devastated in her life. It felt like her head was spinning.

"My parents were killed by the Avada Kedavra curse too." Harry said suddenly.

The blood pounding in Ellie's ears subsided, and she was quickly brought back to reality. She stared into Harry's green eyes and could see the pain and tragedy behind them.

"I was only a year old, and I still have nightmares about it."

Harry then began to tell Ellie everything from his parents' death, and how he got his scar, to discovering that he was a wizard on his eleventh birthday. He continued to tell her every single detail about his five years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ellie was captivated by Harry's stories of his first year at school when he found the philosopher's stone and overcoming Voldemort for the second time; then about his second year when he discovered the chamber of secrets and defeated Voldemort in the form of a diary memory; in his third year he learnt about his parents being betrayed by a close friend, which his godfather, Sirius Black, was wrongfully accused and sent to the wizard prison Azkaban for it; then in his fourth year he was entered into the Triwizard tournament and was forced to be a part of Voldemort's rebirthing ceremony and finally the nightmares he suffered from last year, facing Voldemort in the ministry of magic, and witnessing the death of his godfather.

Ellie listened attentively to every word that came out of Harry's mouth. The story sounded so outrageous, but for some reason Ellie never doubted anything that Harry said, not even for a second. She sensed that Harry needed to tell his story from beginning to end to someone who didn't have any pre-judgments abut him, almost like a type of therapy.

"I spent months learning how to prevent Voldemort from invading my mind. Now I just suffer from the usual, run-of-the-mill nightmares, which is the reason why I can't sleep." Harry finished.

The room fell silent for the first time in quite a while. Harry had been talking for hours, and the night sky was gradually getting brighter.

"Isn't there anyone powerful enough to stop Voldemort?" Ellie asked.

"Yeah....me." Harry replied with a chuckle, as if it was the most ridiculous answer. "A prophecy was made before I was born stating that the one who will vanquish the dark lord will be marked as his equal, and that someone is me." He said bitterly with his voice growing louder.

Ellie could tell that the pressure of being the only one able to destroy Voldemort once and for all was building inside of Harry, and has been growing since he was first told abut the prophecy.

"I never asked for any of this to happen." Harry suddenly spat. "It's as if anything that can go wrong does go wrong."

"Its almost very Arthurian like." Ellie quietly said to herself.

"What?" Harry asked just barely overhearing what Ellie had said.

"In the legend of King Arthur, Arthur never asked to be the one to pull the sword out of the stone; he never wanted to be king. It was his destiny, and no matter what choices he made he couldn't avoid it."

The room fell silent as Ellie waited for a response from Harry, who seemed to be contemplating something.

"Wasn't King Arthur killed by his arch rival?" Harry asked.

Ellie had to think back to her Camelot story books before giving an answer.

"Well, Arthur fatally wounded his nephew Modred, but before Modred died he dealt Arthur a lethal blow to the head....so they both killed each other." Ellie replied with an uneasy tone.

"So you think I'm going to die." Harry said coldly.

"I didn't say that." Ellie said defensively.

"But you implied it." Harry retorted.

"I was simply using a metaphor to tell you that you're obviously destined to become a great hero, and you can't change that no matter what you do." Ellie spoke a bit louder than she intended, but she was trying very hard to get her point across.

"But I'll probably die doing whatever greatness I'm destined for." Harry said bitterly.

"Are you always this pessimistic?" Ellie asked incredulously. She was astonished by Harry's stubbornness to see that his life could turn out better than he thinks.

Harry remained silent, and continued to stare into the fireplace.

"Alright, here's a better question," Ellie began, "are you always this self-centered?"

"Self-centered!?!" Harry shouted, hardly believing his ears.

"That's right, self-centered." Ellie said coolly. "You're not the only person who has had a terrible life, or lost a loved one."

"Don't you dare compare your cousin's death to the death of my parents and godfather!" Harry's voice was full of venom, and his temper was rising.

"Don't worry, I'm not!" Ellie spat back. "But there are at least hundreds of other people, both magic and muggle, who have lost parents, godfathers, siblings, and best friends. Do you ever think about them?"

"They don't have a psychotic powerful wizard trying to kill them!" Harry shouted.

"Not yet they don't!" Ellie yelled back. "You need to start realizing that your life and destiny affects everyone else. You're the one who has the power to stop Voldemort, no one else. You're the one who will put an end to all these senseless muggle attacks, so other children will have parents to raise and take care of them. You're the one who will stop the battles between Deatheaters and wizards, so others won't have to burry another one of their best friends. This isn't just about how horrible your life is. It's about fulfilling your destiny, and ensuring that no body else will have to suffer the pain and loss you've experienced."

The common room fell dead silent. Even the dying fire wasn't crackling loudly anymore.

Harry had returned to staring into the fire, but his expression was no longer angry. Ellie wasn't sure if he was contemplating what she had said, or just ignoring her.

Finally Harry stood from the large cushy armchair and looked at Ellie.

"I should probably try to get some sleep. Quiddich practice starts in five hours." Harry said in a distant voice.

This wasn't the response Ellie was wanting, but at least he wasn't shouting anymore.

"Yeah, I should probably get some sleep too." She said. A wave of drowsiness seemed to come over Ellie without warning.

"Ellie." Harry quietly said.

Ellie had only taken one step up towards the girl's dormitories. She turned to look at Harry, but could just barely make out his features in the very dim room.

"Thanks." He simply said, and ran up to his dorm room.

Ellie stood at the bottom of her staircase, staring at the spot where Harry had just been. She could have sworn there was a smile on Harry's face just before he turned away.

The excited feeling in Ellie's stomach returned in full force, and Ellie wondered if she would be able to get any sleep at all.