(GoF) CHAPTER ELEVEN: First Day, Fourth Year
"They won't be here 'til October," Fred told Ellie late that night when they met up in the common room. "Day before your birthday."
Ellie grimaced at that. "Happy birthday to me."
"What if we talked to Dumbledore?" suggested Fred. "Told him about what happened with Aleks. Maybe he could write to Durmstrang now—tell them not to send him."
That only made her grimace more. She wasn't sure what sounded worse—telling Dumbledore about her stupidity on the run or letting Aleks find out she was so scared of him, she had gone to her headmaster about him. "No—I can't do that. Besides, he didn't actually do much of anything to me, really."
"He assaulted you!" Fred shouted, so loudly that she feared he might wake up the other sleeping Gryffindors upstairs. "That isn't nothing, El!"
"Even still," she said darkly. "The last thing I want to do is tell Dumbledore."
Fred didn't exactly look pleased to hear it, but he did seem pleased about one thing: "At least if he does come, I'll get the chance to hit the arsehole."
"Fred!" she gasped, half-amused and half-horrified. "You will do no such thing! The guy knows a spell that can cut your insides open!"
That, unfortunately, only seemed to deepen Fred's desire to do bodily harm to Aleks.
"What about Sirius?" he asked then. "You were going to write him a letter today, weren't you? Can you at least tell him about all this?"
"Already did." She and Harry had met up in the common room as soon as the feast was over to draft up a combined letter to Sirius, which they had signed and addressed with the code names Padfoot and The Pups and sent off with Woodstock. "Without going into too much detail, mind you. Now, new subject. What do you know about this Mad-Eye Moody fellow?"
He didn't look pleased with the change of subject, but he did seem satisfied that she had written to Sirius. "He's an Auror—you know, a Dark wizard-catcher. Responsible for putting most of the Dark wizards in Azkaban there. They say he's really paranoid, though—jumps at anyone who so much as looks at him wrong. Dad went to help get him out of a spot of trouble this morning, but he didn't mention anything about him coming here to Hogwarts."
"That might be good, right?" asked Ellie thoughtfully. "An Auror as our Defense teacher? At least he has real experience."
"Might be," Fred agreed, still watching her carefully. "But I'm not sure that's what I'm concerned about at the moment."
"I'm fine, Fred," she promised him. "Even if he comes here—I'll be fine."
He gave her a skeptical look at that. "You promised to be honest, El."
"I am being honest." She swallowed, not entirely sure she should say this next bit, but feeling that she had no other choice. "You know what I didn't have when he hurt me, don't you?"
He waited, seeming to sense the answer that was coming, but wanting to hear it from her.
"You."
Cedric approached her the next morning on her way to Herbology, looking exceptionally cheerful.
"Walk you to class?" he asked her.
"Sure," she said, ignoring the fit of giggles that emerged around her from Lavender and Parvati. "Thanks."
"I think I'm going to enter the tournament," he told her as they walked. "What do you think?"
She hadn't even stopped to consider who would or wouldn't enter. Fred and George had joked about finding a way past Dumbledore's age line at breakfast, but beyond that, she hadn't heard of anyone interested.
"I… don't know, honestly," she said, frowning. "I missed a lot of what Dumbledore said last night—I was a bit distracted. It's supposed to be dangerous, isn't it? That's why they cancelled it before?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, but they say it's going to be loads safer this year. And anyway, I like a bit of danger. Remember?"
And with that, in true Oliver Wood fashion, he winked at her.
They were nearly to Professor Sprout's greenhouse by then. Ellie allowed him a small smile, but also said, "Just sit on it for a few days, okay? Let me see what I can find out. You have 'til Halloween to enter, right?"
"Yeah." He grinned back at her, looking rather touched. "Worried about me, are you?"
"Maybe a little."
"I'll take it." And just before departing, he snuck her a swift kiss on the cheek.
Herbology was, for all intents and purposes, the same as it ever was. Professor Sprout explained to the class how to collect Bubotuber pus, which was every bit as disgusting as it sounded. Next, Ellie and the rest of the Gryffindors headed out to Hagrid's for their first Care of Magical Creatures lesson, where Hagrid introduced them to Blast-Ended Skrewts, which were quite possibly even more disgusting than the Bubotuber plants—and quite a bit more dangerous.
After that came lunch, which Ellie spent with the twins, though she felt Cedric's eyes on her from across the room. She had never dated anyone in another House before and wondered how such things would even work; Gryffindors always sat with Gryffindors, and Hufflepuffs with Hufflepuffs. Would they only be able to dine together on some sort of middle ground, like a courtyard?
Doesn't matter, she told herself as she tore her gaze away from him and back toward the twins. You aren't dating him.
After lunch was Divination, where Trelawney tried to use Harry to show them how to "read the planets," but really only proved what a fool she was by saying he must have been born in midwinter.
Finished with their classes for the day, Ellie, Fred, George, and Ginny met up in the Room of Requirement for their first band practice in quite some time. They had previously always practiced in the Gryffindor Tower, but for the sake of their House mates along with the sanctity of the songwriting process, they decided to opt for more privacy this year.
"I've got a few ideas for this next song," Ellie told them as they warmed up. "I think it should be something fun, don't you? Something to get everyone's head bobbing—even make them sing along."
"Well, that part sounds great," said Fred, sounding rather glum. "But what about the part Ginny mentioned?"
Ellie knew exactly which part Fred was referring to; it had been on her mind since they rode the train in. It was the part where the student body at Hogwarts apparently expected Ellie's lyrics to inform them all who her next boyfriend would be.
"It's not going to be about a boy," she said firmly. "Let them think what they want."
The rest of the band exchanged looks as if not quite believing her, but she ignored them as they got to work.
At dinner that evening, things got a bit… exciting.
It all started with the latest article by Rita Skeeter, the very woman who had written the Prophet article about Ellie over the summer. She had written a new article, this time about Arthur Weasley and his last-minute rescue of Mad-Eye Moody just before Moody came to Hogwarts. It wasn't particularly interesting, in Ellie's opinion, nor particularly well-written. Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to find the article quite so dull; as soon as they made it out of the Great Hall, Draco and his lackeys approached them to poke fun at Ron for being a Weasley.
Which, of course, meant poking their fun at Fred and George, too.
"Oh, sod off, Malfoy," snapped Fred before he could even open his mouth. "We saw the article. Save your breath."
"Save my breath?" Draco repeated, laughing, as if the concept was foreign to him. "Not before I at least point out that she couldn't even get Daddy's name right."
"It must be hard," Ellie said to him, "seeing so many of our names appear in that paper, but never your own. Skeeter may have misspelled Mr. Weasley's name, but she didn't even write your dad's, did she? I doubt she even knows who he is."
Draco looked rather livid at that. "I'd rather she not know who I am than write to the whole world about my father being Britain's Number One Most Wanted."
"Well, don't get too comfortable," snapped Harry. "Once they find out everything we know about your dad, he's sure to be at least Number Two."
Harry tried to turn and leave at that, but he only made it a few steps before Draco lifted his wand. Ellie and Ron both jumped at Draco, shoving him sideways so that his spell landed somewhere just past Harry's right ear. Before anyone could say a word, though, Mad-Eye Moody seemed to appear out of thin air, point his wand at Draco, and change him, then and there, into a ferret.
"That'll teach you to strike an opponent when his back is turned!" shouted Moody in a gleeful, maniacal tone as he used his wand to maneuver Draco's ferret form around in the air, not unlike the way the Death Eaters at the Cup had puppeteered the Muggle family.
It didn't last long, unfortunately. Within seconds, McGonagall had run over to them, asking in shocked disbelief, "Professor Moody! Is that… a student?"
Upon learning that the ferret was, in fact, a student, McGonagall quickly transformed Draco back. He scampered off at that, whining as he did so about how his father would hear about this. But that only seemed to inflate Moody's fury; clearly he liked Lucius Malfoy about as much as Ellie and Harry did.
"That was incredible," gushed Ron as their group headed back to the common room. "Possibly the best two minutes of my life."
"He really shouldn't have done that, you know," said Hermione, frowning.
"Just wait 'til you have his class," said George eagerly. "Best Defense teacher we've had in years—besides Lupin, anyway."
Ellie listened as the twins went on to explain how their first class with Moody had gone, but she didn't quite make it to the common room before being approached by none other than the handsome, eager Cedric Diggory.
"Ellie," he greeted with a small, sweet smile. "Could I borrow you a moment?"
Ellie didn't dare look at Fred as she smiled back at Cedric, nodded, and followed him into an empty classroom.
That Cedric sure is determined, isn't he? Ellie's going to have to make up her mind soon... What do you think she'll do? Stay tuned, and don't forget to follow and review!
