September 1991
Ellie quickly decided Hogwarts, for all of its eccentricities and annoyances, was at least an improvement over normal school.
It had occurred to Ellie shortly after her mind-control superpowers had kicked in that she really didn't need to go to school if she didn't want to, it wasn't like the Dursleys could make her go anymore. After a moment of thought, she'd decided to just keep going anyway. When it came down to it, school had never been that much of an imposition. In some ways, it'd been something of a refuge — it was the one place Vernon and Petunia couldn't get to her, she was safe for at least a few hours. Sure, Dudley and his friends would make enormous arses of themselves, but Ellie was long accustomed to avoiding them by that point. She'd actually looked forward to each approaching holiday with dread, knowing she'd be stuck in the house with the Dursleys for days or weeks straight, unable to escape them for even a few hours.
After the mind-control superpowers had started being a thing, well, she still didn't like being around the Dursleys if she could help it. Going to school was at least a way to get away from them for a little while. And it wasn't like anyone else bothered her there either — Dudley was terrified of her now, so she didn't have to deal with his gang, and they'd already long ago scared away all the other kids. She wouldn't say she liked going to school anymore, not really, but she didn't mind.
At Hogwarts, she'd immediately realised one of the biggest downsides: the people here wouldn't just ignore her like they did back home. Ellie was famous for stupid irrational reasons, after all, and her being a Slytherin now made a lot of them be extra stupid and irrational — she didn't entirely understand why, something about the war, maybe — so people were inclined to notice her, even if they didn't actually talk to her. Which was irritating, they kept staring, she could feel their eyes on her skin like ants, she tried to not think about it.
And, normally, if people were being annoying and paying too much attention to her, she'd just make them leave her alone, but she wasn't certain that would be a good idea here. Dumbledore had explicitly warned her against compelling the other students, had implied Snape would be watching her, and Quirrell clearly had mind magic powers too, so all three might notice if she did anything, and she doubted she could make them ignore it. If nothing else, she suspected they'd feel it if she tried to do anything to their heads, which made getting them to ignore her difficult, obviously.
As uncomfortable and nerve-wracking as it was, the least terrible of all available options was to do nothing.
Though, as stupid as it made some people be, Ellie thought being put in Slytherin might have actually been the best possibility. They might have decided they didn't like her for no good reason, all glaring and whispering, but if she'd been put somewhere else they might have actually tried to talk to her — she didn't like it, but at least all the non-Slytherins were mostly leaving her alone.
That first day after arriving at Hogwarts was a Sunday, so they didn't have class. (Which was funny when she thought about it, since she'd thought having Sunday off was a Christian thing, and she was pretty sure mages weren't.) Instead, they were given their schedules, the prefects showing the first-years around the school, where the classrooms and the library were, and tricks to navigating the place and such. And it did require tricks to get around, since the castle was very magic — things had a tendency to move around, the people in portraits couldn't be used as landmarks, the rooms and the staircases and the hallways themselves slowly drifting. And there were odd things like doors needing to be asked politely before they would open, or walls pretending to be doors, which could also be confusing...
...or so she was told, but the fake door Prefect Gemma pointed out as an example was obviously fake to her. It looked real, of course, but it didn't feel real. There was a tingling of magic around it, more than just any other random spot on the wall, and while Ellie wasn't good enough to know what kind of magic something was just by feeling it, she could still tell. Like, the subtle sense something wasn't right, a little whisper at the back of her head hissing lie lie lie.
Most of that first day ended up being spent with the other Slytherins, so she knew all of them by the end, the girls somewhat better than the boys. All of them had already known each other before (with the exception of Dorea), since apparently all the fancy nobility grew up knowing each other, so a lot of their conversations ended up being focused on introducing themselves to her and getting to know her, which was irritating, but what could she do. By lunch, she'd already divided the Slytherins into a couple groups, and she hadn't even needed cheating mind powers to do it.
The biggest group was the one that seemed to be centred on Draco Malfoy, the same tall blond boy she'd pegged as one of the rich popular kids when he'd introduced himself the first night. He was a little bit of a pompous git, honestly, but probably the easiest to deal with — Ellie had quickly realised that he could rattle off on his own for long minutes, perfectly happy with only an occasional hum or nod from her, and he also worked as a good repellant for more tedious people, so that was just convenient. Greg Goyle and Vinnie Crabbe, those two boys who looked far too large to only be eleven, were always with Draco. They didn't talk much, which was also fine, Ellie didn't really feel like talking to them either.
She wondered to herself if they were doing the same thing she was — latching on to Draco because it was simply the easy thing to do, humouring him only as much as they needed to to keep him happy. Or maybe they were just idiots, it was hard to tell.
Pansy Parkinson and Theo Nott had also attached themselves to Draco, though not for the same reasons. Ellie got the feeling that Theo Nott, a quiet, squirrelly little boy, was friends of some kind with Draco. Not really great friends, just in the casual, known each other forever kind of way. Pansy, on the other hand, seemed to be trying very hard to get as much of Draco's attention as possible. It was sort of pathetic, watching her a part of Ellie just wanted to cringe, but the more Pansy made an idiot of herself the less effort Ellie had to put in actually holding up a conversation with Draco, so it didn't really bother her too much. And then there was slightly disheveled-looking Millie Bulstrode, who was very tall for a girl (though not quite as tall as Greg and Vinnie), and seemed to maybe be friends with Pansy — she hardly ever said a word, but they were always together, Millie looming behind Pansy like a silent, red-headed shadow, so it seemed a good assumption.
Ellie had noticed, when they'd been in that room before the Sorting, that the rest of the first-years didn't seem to like this first group very much. She'd assumed it was because they were, you know, the rich popular kids, the sort of person that always somehow ended up at the top of the pecking order despite not being very nice to everyone under them — Ellie had accepted Draco's little offer of friendship that night for that reason, she'd thought letting Draco claim her would be an easy way to just not have to deal with most of the rest of her classmates. It turned out, the real reason most of the other kids didn't really like Draco and his friends was because their parents were all Death Eaters, followers of that Dark Lord person. The same Dark Lord person who'd killed Ellie's parents, the one she was famous for supposedly somehow defeating ten years ago.
So, er. Whoops?
Not that Ellie cared, honestly — she didn't see why what someone's parents might or might not have done over ten years ago should matter to her. But, her adoring fans had clearly come to some sort of conclusion, when Ellie had shaken Draco's hand, one which had not at all been part of her calculation at the time, one which being put in Slytherin had only made worse. Ellie wasn't sure what the non-Slytherins (or the Slytherins, really) were thinking about this, it was still very early yet, but she couldn't suppress the feeling that it wasn't going to end well.
The second, smaller group of kids wasn't really a thing, not a social clique the way the other one was, mostly united in that they clearly weren't friends with the first group. The most talkative of them was Daphne Greengrass, who was unfairly tall (though not as tall as Millie) and unfairly pretty, all blonde-haired and round-cheeked and button-nosed. (Ellie was instantly jealous of her hair, but she was jealous of anyone who had hair that actually behaved, that wasn't special.) Daphne seemed perfectly nice, if overly polite, though it was very obvious she didn't get along with Draco, Pansy, and Theo, everything they said to each other was cold and sharp and almost-but-not-quite mean. Daphne had her own quiet shadow in the form of Tracey Davis, but sort of the inverse of the Pansy-Millie duo, Tracey shorter than Daphne and less dramatic-looking, with black hair and grey eyes, rather plain overall — though, exactly like Millie, she would hardly say a word to Ellie for months. And then there was Blaise Zabini, a tall black boy who always seemed to be smirking, the few times he did say anything always flat and sarcastic. Nobody really seemed to like him very much, but he did gravitate a little away from Draco and Pansy and toward Daphne and Tracey, so Ellie put him in the second group.
She did the same thing with Dorea Black — tall, very thin, her long face against her wavy black hair looking almost too pale — but she was a little harder to figure out. When their getting-to-know-each-other conversation wasn't focused on Ellie, it was focused on Dorea, since nobody had known her before Hogwarts either...which was bloody weird, because she was apparently related to half of them — for some reason, it seemed to be important for these silly people to establish that Draco's mother was a Black, Dorea's great-grandmother was a Crabbe, and her great-great-grandmother was a Bulstrode, and the Davises and Parkinsons got involved somehow too, Ellie had lost track a long time ago. Apparently even the Potters were related to the Blacks, she and Dorea (and Draco) were second cousins...which might mean something to Ellie if she had any idea what a second cousin was, exactly, or why she should care.
She would assume Dorea should get along with Draco's group, since her dad was also apparently a Death Eater — though he'd been in magic prison since '81 and she'd literally never met him — and they were all from these silly old magic families. Draco and Theo and Pansy seemed to be trying to make friends, even. It just didn't seem to be working very well. It was hard to tell for sure, since Dorea was also doing the perfectly nice, overly polite thing Daphne was, and doing it somewhat better, the sharp note Daphne had when talking to the more annoying Death Eater kids wasn't there. But, Ellie noticed, there were a lot of things Draco and his friends said or questions they asked that Dorea dodged stating an opinion on or directly answering. Like, who her mother was, she was asked that multiple times over that first Sunday, and Dorea avoided the question every time, before flatly telling Pansy to quit it because she wasn't going to talk about her family no matter how many times they asked — the Death Eater kids really didn't seem to like that, for some reason Ellie couldn't quite figure out.
And once, when Pansy had been mocking Tracey — over her mum being muggleborn, which was apparently something worth mocking people for (though Ellie's was too, and none of them had said anything about that) — Dorea had jumped in and conspicuously changed the subject. At least, it had seemed conspicuous to Ellie, she wasn't certain anyone else noticed...though Daphne stopped using her cold voice with her after that, she'd lumped Dorea in with the Death Eater kids at first, so maybe just her and Daphne. But Dorea kept trying to be nice, especially to Ellie, which since Draco was trying to claim her meant being nice to him and his friends too...but she also seemed to be drifting toward Daphne and Tracey as the week went on...
She didn't know, she stuck Dorea in the second group just to make it simpler.
So, she had to deal with the Slytherins, which was something she really hadn't had to put up with at normal school, but they were also comparatively easy to deal with, either because they were consciously trying to be nice or simply didn't make a point of talking to Ellie much. It was still early, but given a choice between living with the Dursleys or in the dorm with the Slytherins, she'd pick the latter. Which wasn't a high bar, but still.
As far as the other three-quarters of their class went, or the actual school part of going to school, Ellie was more uncertain.
Their very first class on Monday was Defence Against the Dark Arts, which was pretty much a disaster. Ellie had already decided Defence would be useless — the textbook dealt largely with magical creatures she doubted she would ever actually see, so learning how to handle herself with them seemed like a waste of time — but that was before she'd realised who was teaching it. Professor Quirrell was a completely useless teacher, his lecture that first day all meandering and stuttering, occasionally breaking off to whimper to himself over whatever he'd just said. He seemed to be terrified of his own subject matter, so he could hardly get through a full sentence. Ellie couldn't imagine how he wasn't embarrassed with himself, doing this.
Also, Quirrell just so happened to be the purple-turban-wearing bloke who'd tried to read her mind during the Sorting, and he kept bloody doing it. Which was also fucking weird, because he acted (and felt) meek and terrified and useless, but the mind clawing at the edges of her own was anything but — cold and sharp, like knives against her skin. It was a bit scary, actually, the constant pressure for the hour, dangerous and cruel and right there, it made her feel a bit twitchy, she almost thought she might be sick. He didn't push, not trying very hard to actually get into her head, but he was always there, it was all Ellie could do to act normal. When the hour was finally over, Ellie was one of the first out of the room, the pressure fell away and she could breathe again.
Ellie rubbed at her chest, the network of old scars twinging with a cold, dull ache.
The second morning hour was Potions, which was held halfway across the school from the Defence classroom — Ellie and the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, who they had both classes with, walked down toward the basement together. Which was when Ellie got to learn that the Gryffindors really didn't like her. She had sort of noticed that before, she guessed, the displeased glaring from the red and gold table had been particularly bad, but she'd never actually spoken to any of them before. The walk from Defence to Potions on Monday made it very obvious.
Particularly, Ronald Weasley and Lavender Brown seemed to have taken personally Ellie not being the entirely fictional Girl Who Lived they'd been raised to expect — they were angry with her for not being all cheerful and nice and friendly, they hated her for being put into Slytherin, they saw her deigning to allow people like Draco Malfoy and Dorea Black to sit next to her as some kind of personal insult. And, oh, did they let her know it, glaring and sniping at her, saying things that were supposed to be insults of some kind. (She must be missing cultural knowledge, they could almost be speaking a different language.) Draco and Pansy ended up getting drawn into a fight with them, which was just as well, it was easier for Ellie to ignore them if they were all focused on yelling at each other.
She didn't even think they'd noticed Ellie had shuffled away to quietly walk with Daphne, Tracey, and Dorea — and Gryffindors Hermione Granger, Lily Moon, and Neville Longbottom — too wrapped up in hating each other over stupid shite to pay her any mind anymore. Which worked just fine for her, not complaining.
Potions as a class was a huge step up from Defence. Snape was the same dark, cold, flatly sarcastic bastard he'd been Saturday night, which at least ensured being stuck in a room for an hour with him lecturing at them wouldn't be boring. (Though he really didn't seem to like the Gryffindors — his disdain when Weasley couldn't answer one of his questions on Monday was very obvious, and he tore Longbottom and Finnigan apart when they explosively ruined their first potion on Wednesday.) The subject Potions seemed interesting enough, at a glance. It was basically just magic cooking, wasn't it? Not complicated, and also kind of neat.
Their last class on Monday afternoon was Transfiguration, which they had with Hufflepuffs, who might be her favourite first-years so far. None of them came up and talked to her — well, one did, but Zacharias Smith was about as much of a pompous git as Draco — and there was a little bit of staring and whispering at first, but they'd quit it almost right away. Once they'd gotten used to the fact that they were in a room with the Girl Who Lived (be still my heart)? Yeah, they pretty much just ignored her. Not a cold-shoulder kind of ignoring, more a sort of...friendly distance, she guessed. They didn't hate her, like the Gryffindors did, but they also didn't want to impose, like the Slytherins felt they could. Which was how she liked it.
Transfiguration wasn't great though. It was taught by McGonagall, who Ellie already didn't like — not for entirely rational reasons, she knew, but she couldn't help how she felt. Monday's Transfiguration was actually her first practical magic class, but it was also an irritating practical magic class. They were turning a matchstick into a needle, super simple, but Ellie couldn't get the damn thing to work. She could feel the magic trying to take, it was doing something, but she must not be doing it right. And McGonagall's stern, deceptively simple lecturing wasn't helping, because she had no idea what she was doing wrong. By the end of the double period, half of the class had needles, and Ellie was one of only five kids who hadn't gotten their matchstick to change at all.
Ellie tried not to let the surprised looks bother her.
Charms next afternoon, though, Charms was a totally different story. That one they also had with the Hufflepuffs, the professor this time a hyperactive, tiny bloke by the name of Flitwick. (Pansy hissed something about him being a half-breed at one point — goblin, Ellie assumed, his mind had the same unyielding, knife-edge feel.) The first thing they were told to do was to just push their magic out, basically, which was supposed to make sparks happen. Ellie got it immediately, on the first try, a stream of brilliant red and silver sparks filing the air in front of her. It wasn't until she heard the gasps of the other kids, Flitwick cheerfully clapping, that she realised she was the only one who had.
While the rest practised getting their magic to move properly — most of them had it by the end of class — Flitwick had her control the colour, shape, and brightness of the sparks. For the first, she just had to think of a colour and push, and it'd be the colour she wanted (they only came out red and silver if she wasn't thinking about it), but the other parts were harder. She figured out how to control the shape they took after a bit, how tightly packed or how spread out and how they moved after leaving her wand, not quite perfectly but sort of what she wanted, but she couldn't get them to dim from the brilliant shine they defaulted to at all. Flitwick was still impressed, though, threw ten points to Slytherin for her work that day.
Ellie would learn, very quickly over the next weeks, that Charms was handily her best class.
Immediately after Charms was Herbology with the Ravenclaws, who were also fine. Like the Hufflepuffs, the Ravenclaws all left her alone — the silence was somewhat colder, but that was fine, Ellie didn't really care so long as they didn't bother her too much. Unfortunately, the class itself was bloody stupid, she hated it. Ellie had already done far too much mucking about with plants, okay — her memories of the gardening at the Dursleys' were not pleasant — and the things being magical now didn't really make it better. It also didn't help that Herbology went absolutely stupid, for silly reasons that only made Ellie even more annoyed.
It was nearing the end of the class, and they were being showed around the greenhouse, Sprout pointing out this or that bit of equipment, explaining which sorts of plants were where, blah blah. Ellie was startled out of her stupor when she heard a couple girls screaming, jumping away from a spot in front of her, while Dorea froze, going still as a statue — just next to her right foot was a rather large snake, an adder, black and a bright almost auburn brown, hissing up at the noisy children. Thing must have gotten into the greenhouse somehow. It was obviously scaring Dorea very badly, for some reason, and Dorea had been nice enough to her so far, so Ellie decided to help, darted in to scoop it up, telling her off for making a nuisance of herself, stalked off to the door to toss her back outside.
Ellie didn't realise anything out of the ordinary had happened until she came back to find the whole class, including Professor Sprout, staring at her in shock, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
To be honest, Ellie had entirely forgotten she could talk to snakes. Back when she'd still been doing the gardening — so, from when she was five or so until her mind-control superpowers kicked in — she'd run into them every once in a while. Looking back on it, more often than she probably should have, since they'd been rather close to London to be finding snakes everywhere, but maybe it was a magic thing, she didn't know. Anyway, they'd come by, and they'd talk at her, and Ellie would try not to talk back at them, because talking to snakes was definitely a freakish thing she shouldn't be doing, she hadn't been entirely convinced she wasn't just imagining the things talking, but she'd slipped sometimes anyway.
Not that they were very interesting to talk to. Snakes talked about hunting, how nice and warm the sun was, and finding other snakes to make little snakes with, and that was about it. She might have some freakish ability to talk to them, but that didn't mean they weren't still dumb animals.
In fact, they were so boring to talk to that in the couple years since she'd run into one she'd managed to completely forget she could talk to them at all.
The last few minutes of Herbology class was rather more subdued than it'd been before, dark and distracted. On the way back to the castle, the Ravenclaws kept a conspicuous distance between Ellie and the other Slytherins, but she hardly had time to wonder about that. "You're a parselmouth?!"
Ellie turned to frown at Draco, the silly boy walking rather more closely than she was comfortable with, she slipped a little further away. "I don't know what that is."
"You can talk to snakes."
"Oh." She frowned for a second, blinking up at him. "Well, yes, I guess I can. I completely forgot about that, honestly."
"How do you forget that you're a parselmouth?!"
"I never use it, do I? Snakes are awful conversationalists."
Dorea, Daphne, and Millie looked amused, Daphne even tittered a little; half of the rest of the Slytherins looked almost scandalised. Draco sputtered for a moment, before squeaking out, "But, it's— It's parseltongue! It's really rare, you know!"
"It's not, actually." The Slytherins all turned to stare at Daphne, who gave them a careless-yet-graceful shrug. "It's not exactly commonplace, of course, and the trait has practically died out among the nobility, but there are still plenty in Britain. About a fifth of Greenwood are parselmouths."
"But it's Slytherin family magic!"
Ellie blinked — talking snakes was a Slytherin thing, like a Salazar Slytherin thing? That would explain the snakes everywhere, she guessed, but she hadn't realised there even was such a thing as family magic. But the Slytherin family died out ages ago, where had she gotten it from?
Conveniently, Daphne went on explaining that. "British parselmouths are mostly descended from Slytherin, yes. But then, half of all mages in Britain are, aren't they?"
"What are you talking about, Slytherin's line died out over three hundred years ago!"
"No, the Noble and Most Ancient House died out, that's not the same thing as all of his descendants. Salazar Slytherin had, what, thirty-odd grandchildren? most of whom married into other magical families and had more kids of their own? Nobody carries the name Slytherin anymore, but half the country is descended from him."
Draco fell into spluttering again, apparently unable to come up with a good response for that. Which was perfectly reasonable, Ellie wasn't certain there was one — they'd established just two days ago that most of the first-year Slytherins were related somehow, the idea that half of the tiny magical society might have a single ancestor back over a thousand years ago seemed perfectly plausible to Ellie.
"So," Ellie said, "you're saying it's just a thing I inherited from my father, then." That was an odd thought, really. Not a bad one, exactly, she just knew virtually nothing about her father. That she might have gotten her silly, useless ability to talk to snakes from him was...strange.
Daphne shrugged again. "Or your mother — she could be from a squib line, these things skip a few generations sometimes."
Draco went very red.
After dinner, they had Welsh class. Well, it wasn't called Welsh, they called it Cambrian, but Ellie was pretty sure it was Welsh — it looked like Welsh, anyway. The Slytherins took this one with the Gryffindors again, but the class was somewhat smaller than usual, missing Slytherins Daphne, Draco, Pansy, and Millie, and Gryffindors Neville Longbottom, Lavender Brown, and...Fay? Ellie thought her name was Fay Dunbar, she wasn't sure. The why, or at least a good guess at why, was obvious pretty quickly: a significant portion of British society still spoke pre-English languages, particularly Welsh ("Cambrian") and Irish ("Gaelic"). Those seven missing kids had probably been raised on Welsh, at least partially.
Apparently, her being a parselmouth had started getting around the school by now. If the Gryffindors had disliked her before, now they'd seemingly decided she was evil. It was very irritating, but at least the decision she was evil meant she was a lost cause, so they seemed less inclined to bother her, so...mixed blessing, she guessed.
The exception was Hermione Granger. Ellie had gotten to the classroom early, Hermione only a few seconds behind her, and the other girl waltzed right over to plop down in the open seat next to her, and immediately started interrogating her about parseltongue, exactly what that was and how it worked. Hermione seemed somewhat disappointed that snakes were really quite boring to talk to (though unlike Draco, not particularly surprised), and even more disappointed that Ellie knew nothing about it, it didn't feel any different from English to her — she did manage to use it on purpose, when Hermione asked what it sounded like, but she had to think snakey thoughts and it just felt like talking normal, if Hermione didn't say it'd worked she might not have been able to tell.
Hermione then followed her around for the rest of the evening, until Ellie escaped back into the Slytherin dorms. The other Slytherins really didn't seem to like her, probably more anti-muggleborn stuff — though Dorea didn't mind, looking faintly amused more than anything — but Ellie thought she was fine. Much like Draco, sort of, in that she could go on long rambles with practically no input form Ellie at all, but where the stuff Draco talked about was bragging about his parents or society nonsense, Hermione mostly babbled about book things, which were at least marginally interesting. More interesting than Draco's rambles, at least — Ellie might not have said very much, but she'd actually listened to all (well, most) of what Hermione had said to her, which she certainly couldn't claim about Draco. If she was going to have someone filling the air around her with pointless blather, she thought she preferred Hermione.
But she might not have humoured Hermione so much if she'd realised what the consequences would be beforehand. By the time they got to breakfast Wednesday morning, Ellie noticed there'd been an abrupt shift in how Draco, Pansy, and their friends were talking to her. They'd gone all cold, and snide, no longer trying to be nice and actually almost seeming angry, for no real reason that Ellie could see. Draco especially seemed to have taken something personally. Which made these Gryffindor–Slytherin classes pretty much insufferable, because the Gryffindors were all being stupid — with the exception of Hermione, who had decided to babble at her again the whole way between Defence and Potions, and Neville Longbottom and Lily Moon, who hardly even seemed to notice she existed — but now most of the Slytherins were annoyed with her and being jerks too.
Only the first group of kids, of course, the second group had gone the exact other way, Daphne in particular seeming ever so slightly friendlier than she had the first half of the week. (Though it was hard to tell, with how flat and polite she was all the time.) And after Draco very conspicuously picked up his shite and moved so he didn't have to brew their first potion with her Dorea had immediately swooped in to take his place, with a smile at Ellie and a pointed glare at Draco. So, it seemed very much like Ellie had done something to pick sides in the little rift inside the first-year Slytherins, breaking her little truce with Draco, but she had no idea what it was.
Daphne was nice enough to inform her at lunch. Apparently, just being nice to a muggleborn was enough to get Draco and his friends to not like her anymore. Which was fucking stupid, Ellie hadn't even been that particularly nice to Hermione, really, she'd just been not mean. That was bad enough, apparently, for them to decide Ellie was...
Well, Ellie wasn't certain what she was supposed to be. Not a crazy racist? Much of Daphne's explanation didn't make a whole lot of sense, but Ellie was pretty sure she'd understood that much.
She spent most of History thinking over this new development — because it wasn't like she'd be listening to the lecture, the professor was a ghost and he was horribly boring. After long minutes of thought, Ellie decided that, no, she might not have humoured Hermione if she'd known it would make things in Slytherin more difficult...but she also probably wouldn't have made that very temporary alliance with Draco if she'd known he and his friends were crazy racists (apparently).
If being less than cruel to one muggleborn for one evening was all it took for them to be finished with her, she was certain something like this would have been inevitable anyway. Maybe Pansy would be a bitch to Tracey, a fight breaking out with Daphne, and Ellie would get annoyed enough to yell at Pansy to stop being a fucking idiot and shut up about the halfblood thing. Maybe one of them would remember Ellie's own mother was muggleborn. Maybe Ellie would get drawn into a conversation with some other muggleborn, humour them to be polite and because it's just what you do, and this same exact thing happened.
Hell, Ellie hadn't even known Hermione was a muggleborn when she'd come up to her at the beginning of Welsh class, not until she'd said something about it during the parselmouth conversation. How were you supposed to tell? It wasn't like they wore signs or anything. She was certain she would have "slipped" eventually, and been polite to the "wrong" person — if only because she just didn't care about this shite enough to bother keeping track of who her classmates thought were the "right" people and who weren't.
But just because this had probably been inevitable didn't mean Ellie didn't find her Slytherin classmates' new attitude very annoying.
Three days into classes, and she'd already offended most of the Gryffindors and most of the Slytherins, over stupid shite that wasn't really important and she didn't even understand very well. If nothing else, Ellie was very good at offending people. She could only wonder what she would do to make the other two hate her.
(Mind magic, probably. She was betting the mind magic would do it.)
Late that night, when Ellie would really rather be in bed with a book already, they had Astronomy. This class was held at the top of one of the many towers stretching above the castle, the entirety of the first year poking at telescopes under the open sky. Professor Sinistra hadn't really set much of anything for them to do tonight, just familiarising themselves with the equipment. Thankfully, nobody took advantage of the lax supervision to bother her, Ellie and Dorea were left to tinker with their telescope unmolested.
It was very boring. She and Dorea referenced a chart Sinistra had set out to find a few planets and galaxies and such, and she guessed they were pretty, but... She didn't get what the big deal was. Pretty lights, yay, there were pretty lights all over the place in this castle. So what?
Ellie was biting back a yawn, counting down the minutes until she could go down to bed, when Dorea whispered, "I'm sorry."
She frowned, turned to stare at the taller girl. She looked normal...well, as normal as Dorea ever looked — she was rather frail-looking, all skinny and too pale, Ellie had the vague feeling there was something wrong with her. Anyway, she looked normal, staring up at the sky, her shadowed face mostly expressionless, but she felt... Ellie wasn't sure, actually. Something nervous and cautious, anyway. "What for?"
A weak smile twitched at her lips. "Everyone being such pricks." Ellie thought that was the crudest thing she'd heard Dorea say yet, she almost smiled. "You just can't do anything right this week, can you? I've been trying to help, but..."
"Trying to..." Now that she thought about it, there had been a few times so far that Ellie had stuck her foot in it and Dorea had said or done something to distract Draco or Pansy or Brown or whoever was annoyed with her at the moment. Ellie had mostly just been grateful she was being let off the hook, she hadn't been paying enough attention to pick up the pattern. "Oh. I didn't even notice." Ellie frowned. "Why?"
It apparently hadn't occurred to Dorea she might be asked that question — that weak smile dropped away, an odd jerk echoing from her Ellie couldn't quite read. After a long, conspicuous hesitation, "I want to."
That didn't answer the question. "Why?"
"I can't explain, really."
Ellie was not satisfied with that at all. That did seem a very...she didn't know, not-done thing to just come out and say — she really did try to be polite, if she didn't have a particular reason to not be, the Dursleys just hadn't given her much in the way of examples of how a person goes about being polite, it was hard. So she just gave Dorea a flat look, hoping she'd get the idea without Ellie having to come up with a nice way to say it.
It seemed like Dorea got the message, eyes tipping up to the sky with another sigh. "I just... You know my father's in Azkaban, right."
Ellie nearly asked what the hell Azkaban was before remembering that was what the magic prison was called. "Yes?" She didn't really see what Dorea's father could possibly have to do with anything, she thought she'd never even met him before...
"Do you know what he's there for?"
"Well, no." Ellie shrugged. "I assumed Death Eater things."
Dorea looked faintly amused at that, the corner of lips twitching. "Kind of. Though, I'm not actually certain what happened — he never got a trial, you see. Mum, and my cousins, they..." She trailed off for a moment, frowning to herself, before letting out a thin sigh. "Long story short, there are multiple things he's there for, and he might have done some of them. But my family is certain he's not actually a Death Eater. Everyone says he is, that he was a spy the whole time, but we think that's all made up. There's good reasons for thinking that, but there's nothing we can do about it, Uncle Ted has tried to get him a trial but nobody will listen to us."
"Okay?" Ellie really didn't see what this had to do with anything. Kind of sad, she guessed, but...
"There's one thing, that... My family doesn't think he did it, but..." Dorea shook her head. "I'm not really sure what to think about all this, you know? I've never met the bloke, my mum didn't really know him that well, honestly, and the Tonkses weren't even in the country for a couple years by then..."
"Is this getting to a point?"
Dorea shot her a flat look. "They think my father betrayed your parents to the Dark Lord."
"Oh." Ellie blinked. "And?" At Dorea's surprised, baffled sort of expression — well, more the echo of the feeling radiating out from her head, but the same thing — Ellie said, "I mean, it's not like— I don't see why that should matter. Neither of us even remember any of them, what does it have to do with anything now?" It was hard to be angry over something she didn't even remember, and was hardly Dorea's fault anyway. It was completely new information, sure, but she didn't see why she should care.
"I guess not. I just..." Dorea shrugged. "I just feel like I...owe you, I guess. I don't know, I didn't say it made sense. Besides," she muttered, shooting a hooded glance in the general direction of Draco and Pansy and friends, "I really don't like those idiots, and it's not going to take them very long to decide they don't like me either. They're assuming I'm a pureblood, and one of them, just because of my name, and they may be stupid, but they're not that stupid, they'll figure it out eventually. So, I kinda figure we're on the same side. I guess."
Ellie thought about that for a second. But there really wasn't that much to consider, when it came down to it. "Okay."
Her little alliance with Draco might have imploded instantly, but it looked like another one with Dorea was falling right into her lap. That would do, she guessed. She was fine with that.
If nothing else, Dorea was rather less annoying than Draco so far...
(On the way back to the common room that night, Ellie wondered to herself if this was how friends happened.)
It probably wasn't fair, but Dorea was somewhat surprised by how nice Professor Snape's office was.
She would say it was just because of what Andi and Dora said about him, none of which was at all flattering...but that wasn't it, really. By this point, Dorea had had a week of classes with him already, so she knew what Dora had said about his teaching style was sort of kind of true. If anything, Dora had undersold it — the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws usually had Potions together, and the worst of Snape's vitriol seemed to be saved for Gryffindors. But, since it was mostly for Gryffindors, Dorea hadn't had any of it pointed at herself. She couldn't say he liked her, she got the impression from a few glances here and there he had some kind of problem with her, but he'd hardly spoken to her at all. So, hit and miss on that part of his reputation, so far.
It wasn't about his personality, really, it was the aesthetics. He was a dark, dour sort of bloke, an impression his dreary, slimy classroom had fit with perfectly. It was that impression that didn't seem to match with his office. It was just...well, a normal office. Carpet and nice padded chairs, most of the walls covered in packed bookshelves — there were no monstrosities preserved in jars anywhere, instead a few trinkets, most of which Dorea couldn't even tell what they were. Little enchanted widgets, gifts from students? And it wasn't all cold and dank either, there was a fire in the hearth crackling behind her back, the room well-lit and warm.
If this was what Snape chose to do with his own space, she really had to wonder why his classroom was the way it was.
Snape was seated at his desk — rather more messy than the one in the classroom, papers and magazines and books and empty potions bottles strewn here and there — reclining in his chair enough Dorea could see there was a notebook of some kind in his lap, a fountain pen hanging ready. (Not a self-inking quill, which was interesting.) He was silent a long moment, apparently gathering his thoughts, or else letting her take in the room first. Probably not the latter...but Snape wasn't anything like what she'd been lead to believe, she guessed she couldn't say. Finally, "I'm afraid I know rather less about you than I do most pureblood children upon their arrival at Hogwarts, Miss Black."
She shrugged. Dorea wasn't pureblood at all, of course, but Snape was hardly the first person to assume she was. Pretty much everyone did, actually. "I'm not surprised, sir. My mother thought it best to not go out on the magical side much, things being as they are."
"Naturally." Snape wrote something in his notebook, she couldn't see what from here. "You live with your mother, then."
Dorea nearly asked why he wanted to know, bit down on the question before it could get out. Snape was the head of Slytherin, he was sort of responsible for her — at a guess, these meetings he had with all the kids at the beginning of the year were to make sure all the new Slytherins were okay, that there weren't any problems at home, or whatever. (Dora had said there were rumours about that, Snape had even gotten into fights with a few terrible parents over the years.) It sort of was his business, when she thought about it. "Yes, sir."
"What can you tell me about her? I understand her name is Abigail—" Snape nodded at something in his mess of papers, presumably a copy of Mum's marriage license with Sirius, or Dorea's birth certificate or something. "—but I'm afraid I know nothing else about her."
"I don't really know what you want me to say, sir." She was never certain what to do with questions quite that open.
"Where is she from, what does she do?"
Dorea shrugged. "Well, she's English — we live in Maidstone now, but she's from up near Leicester. Hinckley, I think it was called?"
Snape was giving her an odd look, she couldn't quite tell what, but he just said, "There is a town called Hinckley in Leicestershire, yes."
"That's probably it, then. I don't think I've ever even been there, my grandparents live around Coventry now. She doesn't work or anything, my brothers are still little, but she's started taking classes at the University of Kent lately."
Snape stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed, hardly even seemed to be blinking. "The...University of Kent."
It took some effort for Dorea to keep a smirk off her face. "Yes, sir."
"Miss Black...is your mother a muggle?"
"I can't see how that should possibly matter, sir."
"It doesn't in the way you imply, but..." Snape stared at her for another moment, fingers idly tapping at his desk. "I'm certain you're aware of the crimes your father is accused of."
Dorea felt a wry smirk pulling at her lips. "Nice word choice there, sir. Accused — he never did get a trial, did he?"
"No, Miss Black, he did not." It almost looked painful, admitting that. "I have always had my doubts, so far as the official narrative is concerned, though I have never believed Sirius Black to be perfectly innocent. Are you familiar with what happened, that week in Eighty-One?"
"The general idea, yes," Dorea said, nodding. "Someone betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord, and everyone knows the story of what happened there. They say Sirius betrayed them, but my aunt Andi thinks—"
"Andi? You know Andromeda Tonks?" There was an odd, tense tone on his voice, almost sounding irritated.
"Yes, sir. She kept my mum informed on what was going on on this side, and helped out with accidental magic stuff sometimes. Why?"
"It is none of your concern, Miss Black." Snape shifted in his chair slightly — he still seemed slightly annoyed, but Dorea couldn't guess what it was about. He didn't really know Andi that well, did he? "You are suggesting your family believes Sirius Black did not betray the Potters, but did seek vengeance against the one who did."
"That's what I was told. Andi says she can't imagine Sirius actually doing anything to hurt the Potters, but blowing up half the street to get at the bloke who did, that's exactly the sort of thing he would do."
"And what do you think about it?" There was another odd tone on his voice, something...expectant? What exactly he was expecting though...
Dorea lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I'm sure I couldn't say, sir. I've never met the man, but Andi knew him pretty well, and if she says she believes he'd kill a dozen people to get at this Pettigrew, I just have to take her word for it. A lot of the other things they say about him are so much nonsense, though — I mean, he obviously wasn't a Death Eater or anything, just look at my mum."
"Yes." Snape stared at her for another long moment, pen slowly tapping against his notebook. "Is there any particular reason you haven't told your classmates about your mother being a muggle?"
"They never asked, sir."
It might be her imagination, but she thought she saw his lips twitch with a hidden smirk. "You said you have brothers. I take it your mother remarried?"
"Yes, sir. It wasn't like she was in love with him or anything in the first place, she was hardly going to wait for some miracle to get him out." Snape gave her another flat look so, a little awkwardly, she explained. "I'm told Mum and Sirius went to the same nightclub, back when Mum was at uni in London. They barely knew each other, and I was kind of an accident. Mum thinks Sirius was trying to do what he thought was the right thing, and... Well, Mum didn't have to worry about money when I was little, so, at least there's that, I guess."
Just recently now, when Dorea had been using Sirius's money to buy supplies for school, Mum had said that if Sirius hadn't offered to put them up — which was all their 'marriage' had been, really, when it got down to it — Dorea might not exist at all. Mum had admitted, in an unnerving moment of too much honesty, that she'd been considering getting an abortion when Sirius had shown up with his own idea.
It was kind of hard to feel bad about using Sirius's money when his offer to give it to them was literally the only reason she existed in the first place.
Some kind of expression passed Snape's face, but it was too mild for Dorea to guess what it was. "I perhaps should say I'm shocked by that sort of behaviour from Sirius Black, but I honestly can't. Marrying a muggle woman he met at a nightclub strikes me as precisely in line with his usual behaviour — to irritate his mother, if for no other reason."
That had been the impression Dorea had been given too, yes. Of course, saying he shouldn't say that, because it was somewhat insulting to Sirius, also meant he shouldn't imply it about Mum either, for the same reason. But Dorea was well aware getting knocked up by some bloke she barely knew, and then marrying him mostly because he was throwing money at her, was rather... Well. She knew exactly the sort of things people could say about her mother, and Mum had never tried to pretend to Dorea she was anything other than what she was.
So, she didn't say anything about it, and just moved on. No reason to make this silly little interview any more painful than it had to be, after all.
Ellie stared at the door for a long moment, her arms tingling with preemptive nerves.
She probably didn't have anything to worry about. Probably. Snape was a legilimens, yes, but Dumbledore had said he would tell Snape she was too, so he wouldn't use crazy mind powers on her. (At least, he had to know she would notice if he did.) Of course, that also meant Ellie couldn't use her crazy mind powers on him, if she had to...but she didn't expect to have to. Snape was kind of creepy, yes, and could be a bit of an arse, but he was generally... Well, he wasn't nice to the Slytherins, exactly, but he was less of an arse to them, at least. She didn't really expect Snape to do anything she would need her crazy mind powers to stop.
The idea of being stuck in a room with him alone, though, was...uncomfortable. She didn't have any good reason to feel this way, but she couldn't help it.
(The last adult she'd been in a room alone with had been Dumbledore. It hadn't gone well.)
Dorea, because she was annoyingly observant sometimes, had tried to reassure her. That it was fine, Snape was just doing all these one-on-one meetings to make sure none of the new kids had any problems that he would need to address. Like, health stuff, or issues with their families, that sort of thing. Ellie had known Dorea believed what she was saying — Dorea still didn't know Ellie could read her mind, and Ellie wasn't planning on telling her — but that didn't mean Ellie thought Dorea was right that there wasn't anything to worry about. Especially since, apparently, a significant part of Dorea's talk with him had been about her family, what things were like at home.
Ellie couldn't talk to Snape about that. Not only did she not want to, she... She couldn't. Besides, the last time anyone had found out anything about the Dursleys, he'd brought her right back to them. She'd left again right away, because Dumbledore trusted her to stay where he put her (which was bloody stupid, but she wasn't complaining), but she couldn't let Snape know about that, either. People generally didn't approve of children living on their own.
For some reason. Honestly, Ellie was much better off on her own. Cheating with her mind-control superpowers to make people let her stay in a hotel somewhere was far better than being stuck with the Dursleys. She was fine, she didn't need help, and she'd really rather Snape keep his big fat nose out of her business.
But she didn't really have a choice in the matter. It wasn't like she could make Snape forget they hadn't had their little meeting — he'd definitely notice if she tried something that invasive. So she was trapped.
(—hand heavy on her back holding her down, the cloth of the sofa scratching at her chest and her face, she bit down on her finger, and she waited, it would be over—)
Ellie hated feeling trapped.
Rather more shakily than she liked, Ellie raised her hand to knock on the door. Snape's low, cutting voice called for her instantly, so she opened it, stepped inside.
The room was nice enough, she supposed, but she hardly noticed her surroundings, distracted by something immediately — the instant the door closed behind her, there was a sharp snap of magic. Ellie jumped, glanced at the door. She couldn't tell what magic was doing most of the time, but that was definitely doing something. She wasn't locked in here now, was she?
"Did you feel that?" Snape, somewhere in the room behind her, felt slightly surprised. Ellie was keeping herself to herself, but even without reaching out she could feel the echo on the air, faint but undeniably present.
"Yes, sir." Reluctantly, she tore her gaze from the door, turning to face Snape. His desk was surprisingly messy, somehow she hadn't expected that — he always looked so orderly and composed, it was weird. "What was it?" She kept her suspicion off her voice, she thought, but he probably felt her the same way she could feel him anyway, so it didn't really make a difference.
The narrow, considering sort of look fell off his face, turning back to a blank statue. "Nothing to worry about, Miss Potter. I have wards around my office to prevent unwanted guests or eavesdroppers, and they only operate properly when the door is closed." His head tilted slightly, a tense feeling floating off him she couldn't quite read. "The door will still open from this side. You may try it, if you like."
For a moment, Ellie wondered if he'd gotten into her head without her noticing, or if she was just that obvious. "That's okay, sir." She walked over toward the desk — he watched her the whole way, her skin crawled and her fingers twitched — and sat across from him, settled into the chair, trying to look more confident than she actually was. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"I meet with all the new first-years, Miss Potter." He paused a moment, fingers tapping at his desk. (And staring at her, she tried not to be unnerved by that, self-consciously fiddling with the hem of her shirt.) "The transition to living at Hogwarts can be difficult for many of our students, especially those who were raised by muggles." There was a faint sense of a question about that, more felt than heard.
Ellie tried not to glare. All the mages she'd met so far assumed she'd been living with mages in secret somewhere (getting super-special training while she was at it, which was very silly), nobody had ever just assumed she'd lived with muggles yet. That Snape had was a little suspicious. "What would you know of that? Sir," she added, belatedly.
Snape hesitated, just for an instant, Ellie wasn't entirely certain she hadn't imagined it. "In the interest of full disclosure, Miss Potter, your mother and I lived in the same neighborhood when we were children. There are few potential mages associated with your parents who might have been trusted with your guardianship, all of whom I've eliminated for one reason or another in the years since. One of the few options remaining is Petunia and her husband — his name is Vernon, I believe? — though I've gotten no confirmation on the matter from the Headmaster." He felt very slightly annoyed by that.
"Did you know my mother?" She couldn't say exactly why she asked, there'd just been a weird feeling, couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. And, when she thought about it, maths. Petunia had met Vernon at university, with how old Snape had to be to have been a Death Eater (or more properly a spy within the Death Eaters, she'd learned all about that since school started, kids gossiped) he would have been at Hogwarts for some years, by that point — the only way he should have met Vernon after starting at Hogwarts was if he had some reason to be around the Evanses over the holidays, and that he'd been friends with Lily was the cleanest solution.
Once again, Snape hesitated, long enough this time Ellie was certain she wasn't imagining it. "Your mother and I were friends for some years, yes, though we were rather...estranged, by the end."
Ellie couldn't quite hold in a snort at that. Obviously they'd been estranged, Snape had joined the Death Eaters — even if he'd been a spy from the beginning (and the common assumption among the students was that he'd flipped at some point in the middle), he couldn't have told anyone that — and Lily had been a muggleborn. Ellie wasn't an expert in these things, but she assumed it could be hard to keep up a friendship when one of you had joined a pack of genocidal crazies out to kill people like the other one. Like, obviously.
Snape felt less than amused with her amusement, but he didn't say anything about it. "Was I correct in my assumption?" Oh, going back to the actual subject of discussion, fine, Ellie just nodded. "I must admit I haven't seen Petunia in a very long time, and I know very little about her husband."
Ellie did not want to talk about Vernon. "He makes drills."
Snape blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Vernon. He makes drills. You know, tools that...drill things." Honestly, Ellie had no idea what Grunnings made, exactly, "drills" was actually a pretty big category of things, she just knew Vernon talked about drills a lot. "Well, he doesn't make drills, he has an office job of some kind, in London somewhere. I don't know what he does, really, just that it involves yelling at people over the phone a lot."
Talking about what little she knew of his mysterious job was way better than anything else about Vernon, but unfortunately that didn't seem to be what Snape wanted, still feeling faintly expectant.
Ellie tried not to grit her teeth. "He's an idiot. A big fat angry idiot. Honestly, I don't know how he hasn't been fired yet." Especially what with Ellie being creepy the last couple years, there were patches Vernon hadn't slept well at all, had probably been half-zombie at work. Which, just made his temper shorter, so.
An odd stillness came over Snape, and Ellie fidgeted — his attention on her felt sharper somehow, it was uncomfortable. "Angry?"
"Yeah, he yells a lot." Before Snape could ask after that, Ellie pressed on. "And Petunia is also an angry idiot, but a thin and wispy idiot instead of a big and fat idiot. And Dudley is also an angry idiot, so, I guess it runs in the family."
Snape hesitated, again, eyes on her slightly narrowed. She tried not to fidget (it wasn't working). "That would be your cousin, I assume." He waited for her to nod. "By the use of 'angry idiot', I take it you two don't get along."
She managed to hold in the snort of laughter this time. "No. We did when we were really little, sort of, but not for a long time now. Not that I mind, he turned out a stupid bully, so."
That was probably an inconvenient word choice — Snape obviously caught what she was implying, a questioning eyebrow ticking up his forehead.
"He tried, but he's too stupid and fat." Before, she could always just out-run him, or climb up a tree, or just not be where he expected her to be. It really wasn't difficult to avoid Dudley, most of the time. And, well, "He doesn't even try anymore, mind-control superpowers and all." At least, Ellie thought it was okay to tell Snape about that. Dumbledore had implied he would tell Snape about the mind-reading thing, so he...probably already knew? He hadn't said anything, but...
"Ah." For a long moment, Snape silently stared at her, fingers tapping idly at his desk. A thick, awkward silence fell over the room — Ellie didn't have anything to say, she didn't even want to be here, this whole thing was uncomfortable and annoying, and if Snape didn't have anything to say either, what were they even doing? She tried not to be too obviously uncomfortable, but she could feel his eyes on her skin like ants, she kept fidgeting in her seat, playing with the hem of her shirt.
Then, leaning back slightly in his chair, Snape let out a little sigh, one hand rising to rub a thin line over his eyebrow. Which...okay? At least he wasn't looking at her anymore, instead staring down at his desk, but still, odd. He was quiet another moment, looking strangely uncomfortable, something slick and unsettled on the air. Then he turned to reach into a drawer, fiddled around with papers in there for a moment.
And then he was sitting upright again, looking not quite directly at her but obviously focusing on her again. (Even if he wasn't looking at her physically, mind magic stuff meant she could feel his attention on her anyway, it was uncomfortable.) "I have some questions I want to ask you, Miss Potter, some of which might seem...strange. If you truly don't want to answer them, we may stop at any moment. Understood?"
Strange was better than uncomfortable, really. "Yes, sir."
"Do you feel close to your aunt?"
Ellie almost laughed again. "No."
"Do you ever speak with her about personal things, say, what you think and feel about things?"
"No." That was hard to even imagine, honestly...
"How about your uncle, do you feel close to him?"
This time, Ellie actually did laugh. "No."
Snape's eyes flicked up to her, that odd unsettled feeling on the air lurching slightly. "I don't suppose there's any point asking that second question."
Ellie shook her head.
Again, Snape was silent for a lingering moment, shuffling papers around some more. "Are there any adults in your life that you admire?"
"No." Though, maybe she'd end up liking some of the professors here at Hogwarts, she hadn't known any of them long enough, but she didn't have very high expectations about that. Most people were either terrible, or useless, or both.
"If you needed to know something, or wanted advice, is there someone you could go to?"
"No." Petunia and Vernon had literally been telling her to not ask questions her entire life, so, obviously.
"If you were having difficulties at home, is there someone you could talk to about it?"
Ellie almost shivered at the reminder of that time she'd accidentally told a teacher, what had happened afterward. "No."
"If you did something well — say, for example, you received excellent marks at school — is there someone you would tell about it?"
"No." That hadn't gone well either, the one time she'd done it...
"Of the teachers you've had before Hogwarts, how many of them have you liked?"
She shrugged. "Some of them were okay, I guess." Honestly, she hardly noticed — once she'd started intentionally doing badly, there was really no reason to pay much attention to them.
That odd feeling on the air was getting even worse, enough it was starting to show on Snape's face, something hard and severe and...wary, almost. Ellie still couldn't say what it was, but her answers to his questions clearly weren't making him feel better. "When someone makes you angry, do you imagine hurting them?"
Ellie's mouth opened — more from surprise than anything, she hadn't seen that kind of question coming. "Er, I've never done anything."
"But you've thought about it."
"Well, yeah." Was that a bad thing to admit to? It was hard to keep track of these things sometimes...
"Do you sometimes imagine hurting people you don't like?"
That one probably was a bad thing to admit to. "No."
Snape glanced up again to shoot her a look, a shade of exasperation slipping through the tension in the air. "I can tell when you're lying just as well as you can when I am, Miss Potter."
Ellie tried not to flinch as— (She choked back a cry as the belt cut another line of fire across her back, What have I said about telling lies—) "I haven't noticed you lie so far."
The tense feel about the room softened, somewhat, still feeling odd and sick, but not quite so harsh. "I haven't. Because I know you'll feel it if I do."
Oh. Er. "Yes, I think about it, sometimes. I never have, though."
Snape nodded, slightly. "Do you sometimes have daydreams or nightmares about trying to get away from someone who wants to hurt you?"
She felt her neck tingling (—the echo of it on the air like a bad smell—), her chest going slightly tight, just noticeable at the edge of her breath. "Yes."
"Do you sometimes imagine people being killed?"
That definitely wasn't good to admit to, but Snape could tell when she lied, she didn't have a lot of choice. (That was so unfair, and yes, she realised she was a hypocrite.) "Yes."
"Do you find other people's difficulties bother you?"
And more bad questions to answer, dammit. "Not really, no."
"If you were cruel to someone, would you feel bad about it later?"
Ellie hesitated for a second. "I guess it would depend on why I did it? I mean, if I had a good reason for it, I wouldn't care, but if I did it just because, I might..."
Snape nodded, this time whatever he wrote down after her answer taking slightly longer than usual. "If you were certain you wouldn't be caught, would you steal something you really wanted?"
"Yes." In fact, she had stolen plenty of things by now. It was really more about need, though — most of what she'd been stealing were things like food, or a room to sleep in — but there wasn't much of a difference, when she thought about it. It wasn't like the universe depended on her staying alive, after all, taking the things she needed was a choice she made because she wanted to not die. (Also, she could have just stayed with the Dursleys, but she didn't want to, so.)
"Do you think other people usually have a good reason for fighting with each other?"
"Pfft, no." People were bloody idiots, and obsess over the stupidest things...
"Does lying make you uncomfortable?"
Ellie shot him a look. "Not when I know I can get away with it."
Snape, the arse, almost felt a little amused. "I'm going to make a list of statements, that I would like you to answer based on whether you feel they accurately describe how you feel. A simple yes or no is adequate."
Okay...?
He apparently took her silence as agreement. "You want to grow up, because you think things will be better when you do."
"Er..." She honestly had no idea how to answer that. If nothing else, people would be less stupid about a kid being on her own, she would have to deal with that less, so... "...yes?"
"You might as well give up, because you can't make things better for yourself."
"No." Obviously, everything that'd gone right so far was because she'd made it go right. Because mind-control superpowers were like that.
"When things are going badly, you know they won't be bad all the time."
...He meant, what she thought while the bad was happening, right? That was the point of the question? "No...?"
"That sounded like a question."
Ellie shrugged. "I mean, I know things aren't awful all the time, but while awful things are actively happening, it can be hard to remember that sometimes."
Snape nodded in understanding, so apparently that was the point of the question. "You can imagine what your life while be like when you've grown up."
"No."
"You have the time to finish the things you really want to do."
Well, the only thing she really wanted to do was not be stuck at the Dursleys' and read, so, "Yes."
"Someday, you will be good at the things you really care about."
"Um, yes."
Snape glanced up at her again, clearly expecting her to elaborate on that one too — but there wasn't anything to say, really, it'd just taken her a second to think of things to be good at that she cared about. (Getting by without the Dursleys, really, only thing she could think of, and she was already good at that, so.) After a second, he moved on. "You will get more of the good things in life than most other children."
"No." Honestly, she wasn't certain what the good things in life even were.
"You don't think you'll get what you really want."
She almost rolled her eyes — come on, she had mind-control superpowers, she could just take things if she really wanted them. "No."
"When you grow up, you think you'll be happier than you are now."
"No."
"You don't think you'll have any real fun when you grow up."
"Er, not really." She didn't really have fun now...
"The future seems unclear and confusing to you."
"Yes."
Snape paused a moment, then sighed, just barely, only a slightly harsher hiss of breath through his nose. "I have some more yes or no questions. These ones are going to go on for a little while."
Ellie tried not to look too annoyed — she didn't know what was going on here, exactly, and Snape was being so weird and confusing, and she'd really rather just leave now. But, she didn't have a whole lot of choice, it wasn't like she could mind magic him way, so... "Okay."
"Okay. Do you talk in class a lot when you're not supposed to?"
"No."
"Do you feel afraid a lot of the time?"
"Sometimes, yes."
"Do you worry about what other children might be saying about you?"
"No."
"Is it difficult for you to express your feelings?"
"Yes."
And on and on and on it went, mostly quickly now that they were less complicated, confusing questions. Ellie wasn't counting, but there had to be dozens of them — was she in pain a lot, did she worry people might not like her, did she steal things, did she understand other people's feelings, did she feel sick a lot, did she break things on purpose, did she cry a lot, did she like helping people, did she have trouble listening to people, did she enjoy things, did she have trouble sleeping or eating, blah blah blah. There were enough of them they might have taken forever, if it wasn't so easy to answer most of them.
Once his questions were done, Snape paused for a moment, longer this time. That odd feeling on the air had gone all tense again, Ellie tried not to fidget under it. "I have two more things I want to talk to you about. They might be...uncomfortable. If you don't want to answer a question, simply say so."
Because this whole thing had been voluntary, of course. "Okay."
"Have you ever..." Snape hesitated again, and he actually shifted in his seat a little — he even looked uncomfortable, which was weird, Ellie hardly ever saw Snape look anything. "Have you ever experienced something that was unusual — by which I mean, not a normal life experience, something you suspect has not happened to other children — and that was...terrible, terrible enough it'd be upsetting to most anyone?"
Ellie tried not to flinch.
(—echo of it lingered like a bad smell, his eyes on her skin like wasps, lines of fire slicing across—)
"You don't have to tell me what it was. Just a yes or no."
Ellie swallowed, though it was harder than it should be, coming thick and slow, enough she was slightly out of breath. She worked her tongue for a moment before finding her voice again. "Yes."
Across that odd, slick, unsettled feeling in the air, there was a sudden flash of heat — Snape was feeling something, obviously, but whatever it was didn't show on his face, and she couldn't quite read it. "How old were you, when this happened?"
"I wa..." Ellie had to take a moment again, her mouth was uncomfortably dry, made it a little hard to talk. "I was seven the first time, I think. I stopped it when I... It was two summers ago, I think it was before my birthday, so I would have been eight."
Snape let out another little sigh. "I'm going to ask you a few questions. I'm not asking you to volunteer any details. I just want you to answer on a scale from one to five — one is never, five is frequently or always. Okay?"
"Okay." Her voice cracked slightly.
"Oh, I should— Some tea and ice water, please, Tansy."
Ellie blinked at Snape (or in his general direction, she couldn't look straight at him) — who the hell was Tansy? She never did get an answer, but a short moment after he'd spoken to the seemingly empty room a tea tray appeared at the end of his desk, laden with a pot of tea, a pitcher of water, and a neat pile of biscuits. Ellie immediately poured herself some of the water.
After letting Ellie sip at her water a bit, Snape spoke again, his voice still flat, but strangely soft, without the hard edge to it it usually did. "Have memories of this thing pushed themselves into your mind at times, unexpectedly?"
Ellie swallowed the last sip of her water, drawing it out a little longer than necessary. "Four."
"Do you have nightmares about it?"
She felt the urge to shiver sweep over her — this water was rather cold, maybe the tea would have been a better idea... "Five."
"Have you... Are there ever moments when you feel like this thing is happening even when it isn't, that it seems like you're back there again?"
Ellie took a long breath. (—echo lingering like a—) "Three."
"Does encountering things that remind you of it upset you?"
"Four."
Snape paused a few seconds, rubbing at his forehead again. "Do you ever try to avoid thinking about it, or feelings you associate with it?"
"Five." She'd forget it ever happened if she could, honestly...
"Have you sometimes avoided doing things or being in situations that remind you of it?"
"Five."
"Have you found you sometimes can't remember details about it?"
Ellie opened her mouth to say one — obviously she remembered everything about it, she couldn't forget — but then froze. She did forget things. How many times he hit her, exactly — she knew it was usually more than five, and...maybe less than ten? She wasn't sure. She couldn't really remember how often it'd happened either. Maybe about once a week, but...maybe that was too often, she didn't know. So, when she thought about it... "Three?"
"Have you lost—"
Ellie jumped, an almost painful shock running through her. And then she jumped again, as she sloshed cold water on herself, dammit...
A faint scowl crossed Snape's face — Ellie flinched away, then forced herself straight again, it was fine, he wasn't even looking at her — and he stiffly pushed himself to his feet. "One moment, Miss Potter." He stepped around his desk and over to his door, opened it a crack, spoke in a low voice to someone who must be on the other side.
Oh, there'd been a knock on the door, that must have been what had surprised her. She hadn't even noticed. After a few seconds Snape closed the door again, with another sharp snap of magic. "Are– Are we taking too long, sir?" They had been in here what felt like forever, he did have his meeting with Blaise right after her...
"Do not worry about that, Miss Potter," Snape said, his robes dramatically swishing around him as he returned to his desk. (She wondered if that was magic.) "I will reschedule my other business."
"Oh." She kind of wished he wouldn't...
Snape poured himself some tea — and some for her, when she reached toward the tray once he was done — turning back to his papers again. "Have you lost interest in things that used to be important to you since it happened?"
Going right back into it, then. Awesome. "Three?"
"Do you feel...more distant from other people, than you did before?"
That one was kind of hard to answer, really — it was so long ago, it was hard to remember what things had felt like, back then. But, she thought, maybe, "Five."
"Do you ever feel like you can't express yourself as clearly as you did before?"
That was also really hard to answer, because it wasn't like she'd really been able to express herself before either. But...she also didn't know how to do that, really... "Four?"
Snape paused another brief moment, shifting his papers a little. "Have you had more difficulty falling or staying asleep than you did before?"
"Five."
"Do you get annoyed or lose your temper more than you did before?"
"Three."
"Have you had times when you have more trouble concentrating than you did before?"
"Four."
"Have there been moments when you are more alert, hyper-aware of things happening around you, then you were before?"
"Five."
"Have there been times you're more startled by sudden noises, or unexpected touches?"
"Five." Really, she just did a minute ago...
"Do things that remind you of it make you sweat, or tense up, or have trouble breathing?"
"Five."
That unpleasant feeling on the air — the one wafting off of Snape, she meant — was thicker than it'd been before, by a lot, enough it was almost a physical presence, she felt she could almost taste it. (Not that she could say what it would taste like, exactly, but certainly unpleasant.) "Do you have these distressing feelings... I mean, have they been persistent, since it happened? Say, a few times a week?"
Ellie shrugged. "Sometimes it's worse and sometimes it's better, I guess. It never really goes away, though."
"Right." Snape let out another short sigh, folding something in his notebook over. He hesitated a moment, rubbing at his forehead some more, pausing to take a sip from his tea. "Have you... Miss Potter, do you know what post-traumatic stress is?"
"Er. No?" She could kind of maybe guess what it was sort of about from the words it was made up of, but that was just a guess, and probably not very good.
Snape opened his mouth to say something, then cut himself off, hand coming up to run a finger over his lips. He glanced at her for a second, then looked away again. After a long moment, where Snape was obviously very uncomfortable and uncertain what he wanted to do, he got to his feet again, and walked over to one of the cabinets to Ellie's right. He poked about for a bit, cloth rustling and glass clinking, and when he came back there were two little bottles in his hand.
Sitting down again, he set them on the table right in front of Ellie. They were potions, obviously, but Ellie didn't know near enough to recognise them by sight — they were a pale, pleasant-looking blue, perhaps enough in each bottle for two or three mouthfuls.
"These are calming potions, Miss Potter. If you find yourself stuck being drawn back into that moment, or you can't stop thinking about it, or if you're having particular trouble sleeping, these might help. One sip might by enough, but if you find it's not you can take the whole bottle at once — however, one whole bottle is the maximum, do not take more than that in a day. If you do take a whole bottle, and are still not feeling better, come and find me, and I'll figure out something else. You may come to me at any time to get more, or Madam Pomfrey if you prefer. If she's asking too many questions, tell her I've authorised it. Okay?"
Ellie had no idea what to think about all this. So she just nodded.
For a moment, she almost thought Snape was going to insist Ellie give him a proper answer — or say something about something else, she didn't know — his eyes a little too sharp, something unspoken hovering over him. But then it fell away, and Snape turned back to shuffling through his papers. "I have one last series of questions for you. If you feel you're not up to it right now, we can pick this up next time."
Oh, fuck, there was going to be a next time? Doing this shite once really felt like more than enough... "Might as well get it over with. Sir."
Snape looked like he was going to say something again, but he shook his head to himself, dropped whatever it was. He paused for another sip of tea before speaking. "This list of questions is going to be rather long. If you need me to clarify something, ask. Answer how often you've felt that way over the last couple weeks, on the same one to five scale from last time — one for rarely or never, five for frequently or always. Okay?" Ellie just nodded. "Have you been very sad?"
And of course the first question was a hard one. "I don't know what that is." Snape blinked, an odd shiver reverberating between them. "I don't know what sadness is supposed to feel like, I mean."
Snape stared at her for a couple awkward seconds. "Perhaps, inexplicably especially miserable, enough it was distracting."
"Okay..." She shrugged. "Two, I guess."
"Have you been in the sort of bad mood when even little things make you angry?"
"Er, four? I keep it to myself, but..."
"Were there times nothing was fun to you, even things you used to like?"
"Five."
Snape especially didn't seem to like that answer, the corner of his lips tilting downward, the unpleasant feeling on the air turning slightly sharper. "Were there times you felt nothing was interesting, when you were persistently bored, or sat around doing nothing at all?"
"Four."
"Have you felt like not eating?"
Ellie hesitated on that one slightly. Since she'd been at school lately, it was just a routine thing that she did, and had never really considered, just, not showing up at meals — especially since Dorea would notice she wasn't there. But, thinking about not what she did, but how she was feeling when she did it... "I dunno, four, I guess."
"Have you wanted to eat more than usual?"
"One."
Snape opened his mouth to ask another question, then immediately hesitated, for just a second — it was impossible to know for sure, but Ellie thought he'd skipped a question. "Have you talked or moved around a lot less than usual?"
"Er..." Well, she sort of had to talk to people and do things, because she was at school now, and her usual was pretty much doing nothing, so. "One."
"Have you been restless, when you feel the need to keep moving?"
"Three."
"Have you had trouble concentrating on your schoolwork?"
That...was probably the sort of thing she shouldn't admit to a teacher. Eh. "Four."
"Have you felt more tired than usual, so you don't really want to do anything?"
"Four."
"Have you felt you've had less energy, so it takes a lot of effort to do anything?"
...Weren't those basically the same question? "Four."
"Have you felt down on yourself, thinking you can't do anything right?"
"...Four." Talking to other kids was hard...
"Have you felt bad about the way you look?"
Her damn hair. "Five."
"Have you felt like you were about to cry?"
"Four."
"Have you had trouble concentrating, or thinking as clearly or quickly as usual?"
"Five."
"Have you felt things never seem to work out right for you?"
Ellie had to think about that one for a second. But the more she thought about it, the worse she felt, something thick and tingly crawling up her throat. "Five."
"Were there times it was more difficult for you to make up your mind?"
"Four."
Snape's voice, over the course of these questions, had sunk a bit, low and soft, like the rumble of distant thunder. "Have you felt life was hopeless, and there was nothing good coming in the future?"
"Four?"
"Have you thought more than usual about death and dying?"
...more than usual? "Two?"
"Did you wish you were dead?"
Ellie felt her own eyes widen with surprise. She glanced at the bottles on the desk, gentle blue in sparkling glass. "Four."
"Have you thought about killing yourself?"
"One."
Snape let a long breath out through his nose, hand once again rising to rub at his forehead. He was silent a long moment, but his mind clearly wasn't, sparking with thoughts Ellie was too far away to see, the air between them thick with something clearly unpleasant, though she wasn't quite certain what it was. Usually, if she really wanted to know, she'd just peek in the person's head, to see what they were thinking so she could figure out from context what that feeling was, but Snape would notice if she did that, so it probably wasn't safe. So she couldn't.
No matter how much she did really want to know. This whole thing had been...uncomfortable and confusing, and she didn't really get what was going on, and Snape was being all weird, and... Not knowing what was happening was making her kind of anxious, and increasingly irritated with how she'd been backed into cooperating with whatever this was in the first place — she hadn't chosen to come here and talk to him, after all, and he'd feel it if she tried to trick him — and Snape obviously reacting very badly to whatever was going on was just making her more anxious and...
If this wasn't going to make any sense, she'd really rather it just be over, please.
"Miss Potter."
She jumped — his head was still in his hands, she hadn't expected him to be talking. "Ah, yes?"
"If you..." Snape trailed off, again, the hand covering his face drifting down a bit, rubbing along his jaw. "I'm not going to tell you to do anything. But...if you're feeling especially poorly — in particular, if your answer to that final question changes — I ask that you talk to someone about it. It doesn't have to be me. If you'd rather go to Madam Pomfrey, or even if it's just Miss Black, that's fine. I don't care who it is, so long as you tell someone."
"Er...okay." The chances of her actually doing that were pretty much zero, of course. Not that she expected to have problems anyway? She meant, having to deal with her classmates all the time was rather...exhausting. She wasn't used to needing to, since she'd gotten into the habit of using mind-control superpowers to make everyone leave her alone, and she couldn't do that here. Well, she could still do it, if she really needed to, but it should be an emergency thing now, not an everyday thing.
And if she was feeling especially badly, talking to someone about it was pretty much the last thing she'd do. Why force herself to deal with people when she was already miserable from dealing with people? That would just make it worse, really.
That hadn't exactly been a lie, more just acknowledging she'd heard what Snape had said, but he still didn't quite seem to believe her, something tense and uncertain on the air. But, thankfully, he apparently decided to drop it. "If you ever need help with anything, Miss Potter, I do hope you'll come to me."
Like that would ever happen. Rather than give a response which would almost certainly be a lie, Ellie just nodded vaguely. "May I go, sir?"
"Yes, you may."
Pausing only briefly to snatch up the two little potions bottles, Ellie fled.
The questions Snape is asking in this chapter are pulled here and there from a collection of screening tools for professionals dealing with children I found on the internet, with some minor rephrasings. I really did base his little interview off of screening questions for at-risk children, as well as PTSD and depression, though obviously more brusque and matter-of-fact than would be appropriate for real professionals, Severus is not trained for this and only sort of knows what he's doing.
Because I think about this shit too hard.