(GoF) CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Expectations
"Ellie!" Harry shouted that night as soon as she made it back to the common room. "C'mere!"
"Sorry," she lied to Dean with a cheerful smile as she stepped away from him and over to Harry. "What's up?"
"Woodstock dropped this off a few minutes ago," he explained as he handed her a letter that was clearly penned by Sirius. "He told us to be in the common room on November 22nd. That's only a week out."
She scanned the letter eagerly, glad to have a chance to talk to Sirius again even if she couldn't be completely honest with him. "Great," she said when she finished reading it. "Though… surely he doesn't mean to come here?"
"I think he's going to use the fireplace," he explained. "I've seen that kind of communication before. It gives us a visual without him actually… being here."
It certainly sounded like the right call. Only… "How can we ensure that no one else will be here?"
"I'll talk to Hermione. It'll be late at night—maybe she can help patrol the girls' dorms upstairs."
Ellie nodded. "I'll talk to Fred."
As if on cue, Fred stepped over to them at that, George following shortly behind him. Neither one of them looked very happy.
Ellie explained the Cliffnotes version of the Sirius situation to both of them, but neither looked particularly interested. "Sure," Fred said dismissively. "But, El…"
"Eleanor Black," said a new voice—the unmistakably sharp, fiery voice of Ginny. She tore over to them like a bat out of hell, eyes bright and angry. "Do you know what people are saying about you?"
Ellie blinked, thrown by her pseudo sister's intensity—and even more thrown by the look Fred and George exchanged at Ginny's question. "Uh… no?"
"There's this nutty Durmstrang boy," Ginny explained impatiently. "Aleksander Dolohov. As in the Dolohov who killed Mum's brothers."
Uh-oh. This couldn't be good. Ellie glanced heavily at Harry, who looked every bit as confused as her.
"What did he say?" Ellie asked Ginny glumly, despite being quite certain she didn't want to know the answer.
"He claims to have… flung… with you this summer," said Ginny. "Like… really flung."
She had almost forgotten about Aleks' latest absurd requirement of her blackmail. "Oh—right. Well… yeah."
Harry, Ginny, and George's eyes all bulged as Fred groaned.
"What?" Ginny demanded. "Y-y-you met him out there? With your dad?"
"Yeah." Ellie shrugged shortly. "It was stupid. A mistake. That's all there is to say about that."
Ginny didn't look remotely ready to accept such a short answer, but she also seemed to have the good sense to save the third degree for when they were alone together. Harry was clearly too baffled for words, and George too disgusted.
Fred, on the other hand, looked furious. "El," he said darkly. "Can we talk?"
Ellie was more than happy to take him up on his offer. He'd been short-spoken with her both in person and via locket-ring communication for days, and she missed him. "Of course," she said a little too quickly, and she followed him up the stairs.
The sixth year boys' dorm was empty, which left them room to talk in peace. Unfortunately, the conversation was anything but peaceful.
"He made you agree to it," he said. "To go along with this ridiculous piece of gossip. Didn't he?"
She shrugged. "Yeah, but so what? As long as he keeps asking me to do trivial things like fake relationships—"
"Trivial?" he interrupted, voice rising. "Did it feel trivial to you when we had to end things, El? Because—"
"No," she said quickly. Her hands seemed to reach out to grab him by the shirt and pull him toward her of their own volition. She pulled him close to her—too close to her. "That's not what I meant," she said softly.
Their closeness seemed to have the same effect on him that it had on her, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. "It matters, El. Not just to me. It's your reputation. It's what… expectations… other people might have."
It took her a second to realize what he meant, and when she did, it hit her in a very unpleasant way. If Aleks was claiming to have slept with Ellie, would Cedric expect her to do the same with him?
"Cedric isn't like that," she said, praying it was true. "And even if he was, it wouldn't matter. Nothing's going to happen."
He sighed, reaching out a tentative hand to cup her cheek. He kept it there for only a few seconds before lowering it and turning away from her, but those few seconds meant the world to her. She would hold onto them for all she was worth in the coming days.
"I just don't get it," said Hermione a few minutes later when she, Ellie, and Ginny curled up on Ellie's bed. Lavender, Parvati, and Kellah were all listening in, too. "It can't be wholly true, can it? I mean, surely you didn't…"
Ellie grimaced, knowing perfectly well what Hermione was implying. What was she supposed to say? If she admitted it was a lie, would it somehow get back to Aleks?
"She does do everything a bit sooner than the rest of us," giggled Lavender. "Dating, kissing… maybe she just wanted to stay ahead?"
"Of course, she didn't," said Ginny firmly. "The question is, why is she letting him get away with saying this stuff?"
"She is sitting right here," said Ellie through gritted teeth. "And she'd rather not talk about it. Hermione, is there something different about you?"
Hermione's cheeks immediately turned pink, and her hand flew instinctively to her mouth. "Well… now that you mention it… After that ordeal with Harry and Malfoy, I sort of… let Madam Pomfrey shorten my front teeth a bit further than they had been before."
She was referring to the misfired spell incident, of course, which had resulted in her front teeth growing nearly as long as Dumbledore's beard. Ellie felt bad for Hermione for feeling that her old teeth were something that needed to be fixed, but she couldn't deny that the reduction did bring a new charm to her already pretty face.
"You look lovely, Hermione," Ellie told her. "Now, let's go to bed."
It was readily apparent to Ellie from the way Cedric looked at her the next morning that he, too, had heard the rumours.
"Morning," he said guardedly to her when she stepped out of the portrait hole. He gave her a short, restrained kiss before turning to walk her to the stairs.
"Morning," she replied equally cautiously. "Sleep okay?"
"I've slept better." There was an unmistakable bite to his tone. "Ellie, d'you know what people are saying about you?"
She did her best to fake a laugh. "Lots of things, last I checked. Are we referring to the daughter-of-an-escape convict bit, or—?"
He shot her a dark look that instantly silenced her.
She sighed. "Right. Aleks, then."
His eyes darkened further at hearing her use of his nickname. "You call him Aleks?"
"Look, Ced—whatever you heard about him—"
"Did you date him?"
"Not… exactly."
"Did you…" His eyebrows were furrowed in angry frustration. "…fling with him?"
Couldn't she just say yes? Couldn't she just go along with the stupid lie and let it blow up in Aleks' face? Clearly Cedric wasn't okay with it; maybe it would be enough to get him to dump her and set her free.
Then again, her getting dumped by him would only backfire on her, Sirius, and Dumbledore. Besides, Cedric deserved better than that.
She sighed, taking him by the hand and pulling him into the nearest empty classroom. "Look—I met him while I was on the run with my dad. I was lonely and scared and starved for human contact, and he… offered to teach me some magic."
Cedric's reaction to that wasn't unlike Fred's had been when Sirius took her back to him. "To teach you magic?"
"I know it's stupid. I was stupid. It was a mistake, and I figured it out pretty quickly. By the time I ran into you at the Tournament, it was long done."
He shook his head. "I thought it was Fred I had to worry about. I had no idea—"
"Aleks isn't something to worry about," she said firmly. "I hate him."
She'd let her hostility show a little too much, she mused as she stared into the concerned, grey eyes of her for-all-intents-and-purposes boyfriend. He was worried about her.
"Did he… hurt you?" he asked carefully. "Do something to you against your will?"
"No." She really hated this conversation. "No—nothing like that."
He nodded. He looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed—glad that she hadn't been hurt, yet bummed that she had willingly gone along with it.
"Okay," he said in a more subdued voice. He reached out a hand, took hold of her robes, and pulled her gently toward him. "Thanks for telling me the truth."
And with that, he kissed her—hard.
Aleks was right, she mused grimly as she kissed him back. It had worked.
But from the searching his hands were starting to do, she had a feeling that Fred had been right, too.
There were expectations now.
