In the time of the Order of the Phoenix, a mysterious transfer student from the United States of America comes to Hogwarts. With hair to rival Hermione's, and a tongue to rival Draco's, the suspicions and tensions rise in Professor Snape's classroom. And we thought Dolores Umbridge was the problem...
This story will be told in many different parts, in many different times. It will jump from the years at Hogwarts to the years after the war, and it'll be up to you to figure out the puzzle.
Ella 15
"You're not doing very well at this."
"Buzz off, will you?"
"The others are saying he's thinking of breaking up with you. You need to get close to him!"
"Go bug someone else's ear, will you, you gnat?!"
"Ella?" She looked up to see Draco Malfoy looking at her, his pale eyebrows wiggling on his giant-ass forehead. "Were you just...talking to that hummingbird?" She quickly put on a honeyed smile and waved the bird away, which was not actually a hummingbird, but an AWIB agent called Nels, who just happened to be able to turn into a hummingbird. In fact, many of the birds that surrounded her were AWIB agents. One was a cardinal, one was a magpie, one was a sparrow, and one was a hummingbird.
All four of them were bugging the bejeezus out of her, in addition to the hundreds of owls and the hundreds of thousands of other sorts of birds that dwelled in that damn forest next door. One might think that it'd be neat to be able to talk to birds, but here's the thing: it's not. It's really annoying, and it was almost as annoying as this Malfoy guy, with his nasal voice and his pasty, pasty skin. He was cute enough in the photographs, and even moreso when he smiled, but the second he opened his mouth and revealed what a horrible personality he had, his big dumb forehead got even bigger every time she saw him. She was actually glad that he hadn't tried kissing her yet; she was dreading that. Thank goodness for deep-seated intimacy issues and a well-ingrained mentality from a toxic patriarchal society.
"Oh!" She laughed, imitating her mother's old chuckle whenever her father would be too serious about something. "Oh, no, I was just telling it to not bug me while I was studying." She stood up from the bench, smiling, giving the freak a bat of the eyelashes. "What's up?" He shifted uncomfortably.
"Walk with me," he said.
Oh god. Ella knew that tone; it's the tone men get when they want to say something uncomfortable that they knew you wouldn't like, and were bracing for a fight. "Always," she said, taking his arm, making sure to accidentally touch the side of her breast to his arm through her sweater vest. His one saving grace was that he always smelled great. They walked together through the courtyard, the dappled autumn sun hailing the first signs of winter to come.
"Ella, listen," he began. "You do please me, some of the time." What the hell? "However, it's quite clear that you're, frankly, just too annoying to be on my arm."
"What?" Ella, be cool. Control your temper. You're on a job. This mission is important. I know he's a brat but act like you're in improv class or something. Burst into tears. Go ahead, it might work—
"Well, you are rather entertaining to be around. You're...adventurous, but is that enough? It's quite clear we have nothing else in common, and I know nothing about you other than you seem to have some sort of affection for breaking the rules."
"'Affection for breaking the rules?' I think you just insulted me!" Ella snapped, ripping her arm away.
"I didn't mean to insult you—"
"—Yes you did! You called me annoying, and even worse you didn't bother to learn anything about me when I actually made the effort to learn about you—stupid me, right?" She put her hands on her hips and adopted a very powerful stance. "I like you because you're brave, and quick to defend me against others. And I like you because you're smart, and well-read, and that you're actually a person that I can have a real conversation with!" Oh man, look at that flicker in his eyes—you've touched a nerve! Keep going! "Y'know, silly me for thinking that you'd be the one person in the whole school that understands what it's really like to be from the kind of background I am—my mistake for thinking you were capable of any sort of depth." She whipped her head around and began to storm off, immediately pleased with herself at both telling him off and getting a bullseye from shooting in the psychological dark.
"Hang on—! Hang on just a minute!" He grabbed her arm, hard—Ella, out of instinct, flapped herself away and transfigured back to her normal self, a few feet away, giving him an extremely incredulous look. She did want to be followed, but how dare he grab at her? "Listen, just a minute here!" he said, his face rather red, now, as he pointed his bony finger at her. "I like you because you're fun, and you're funny, and you're dedicated to what you do, and you don't let me get away with stuff—"
"—Wait a sec—! So you like me, then?" she asked, staring up through her furrowed eyebrows.
"Of course I do!"
"And I like you back?"
"Apparently!" His tone was that of someone who was arguing, but his eyes looked rather confused.
Ella's mother's voice came into her mind, quipping about Geminis and their capriciousness, which added to her annoyance. "Then why are you picking a fight with me?" she demanded rather loudly, causing quite a few others to look their way. His face changed, and he looked as if he were about to give some sort of 'what will people say' reasoning, which was the logic of Old World Pureblooded families that Ella truly abhorred. She wasn't about to let him get those words out, so she snapped: "What is wrong with you? Don't you know how to be happy?"
His face went white, and his eyes went wide and a bit out of focus, as if he'd just been knocked into the middle of next week. He looked so pitiful just then that Ella felt a tiny pang of remorse, which grew and grew, until she realized that he'd been so jarred by the question he couldn't even speak. She then heard the chirping and chattering of all of the birds, as well as the whispers of the students around the two of them. She then sighed a bit through her nose and came close to him.
"Hey, um, maybe we should talk about this later—" Her eye caught a glimpse of wild brown hair, peeking through the columns that held up the open walls of the courtyard's corridor. The birds all agreed; that cheeky little know-it-all was onto her, and the last thing she needed was for an outside force to jeopardize her mission. Her anger flared, and she felt overwhelmed with a combination of fury and panic. The mission was already going horribly, she hated this school and it's wretched uniforms, and the last thing she was going to do was let anybody else screw it all up worse than it was going. Chief Hudson was wrong about Ella; she wasn't best at listening and learning, she was best at kicking ass. A plot, quick as a hiccup, formed in her head, remembering how much Draco disliked that girl.
She jumped over the curb of pavement and sharply shoved Hermione Granger back against one of the columns. Gasps erupted all around her, and she shoved her face right up to hers and said, lowly: "I know you've been snooping around about me and if you don't get off my back, I am going to shove a box of fizzing whizbees up that tight asshole of yours."
Her jaw dropped in shock, and her eyes went wide. Harry and Ron were nearby and about to rush to her aid; if this was going to work, she'd need Hermione to exchange the first blow. Okay—No-Maj-born, bad temper, smart but with an inferiority complex; best to go for—
"Wannabe," she spat. Hermione dropped her books and whipped out her wand, causing a rather large deal of gasps. Her eyes were warning her; Ella could see the murder in her gaze, the anger, the attempt for self-rationalization. The American witch threw her head back and laughed as hard and as loud as she could muster, with a great deal of support from her diaphragm. "Oh, please! Do it. I dare ya. I double-dog dare ya!"
"HERMIONE, NO!" shouted Ron, who had just come up next to the two of them. "She's not worth it!" he pleaded. Harry was in the background, and Ella could see him in the corner of her eye.
"Listen to your boyfriend," she whispered with a defiant smirk and a quirk of an eyebrow, and the panic behind her eyes gave Ella a rush of sick pleasure, the kind you could only get by getting inside your opponent's head and twisting. "Go back to your books where you belong." Draco hated Hermione for whatever reason, and to take her down as the brightest witch at Hogwarts was hard, but not if she could factor dueling in.
"Hermione!" pleaded Ron, grabbing at her sleeve to pull her away. Enough of the rational part of her brain must have kicked in, for she slammed her fist down by her side and turned away in a huff. Ella couldn't let that happen.
"Told you she wasn't a real witch," gloated Ella to nobody in particular, which caused Hermione to turn-face-heel and throw a hard punch straight at her face. Ella dodged to the left and ducked with a quick strike at her ribs, causing her to 'oof' backwards in the grass, her skirt and hair flying.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" chanted the other students, and they were then surrounded by everyone in the quad. Hermione whipped out her wand with a lioness-like roar and Ella slipped out hers. Traditionally, one would bow before dueling, but they were playing street rules.
"Stupefy!" shouted Hermione, which Ella quickly blocked with a nonverbal shield.
A quick squiggle-flick of her wand cast: "Caerse!", the clumsiness curse, which caused every move Hermione made to stumble and fall like a newborn faun, clumsily trying to stand up straight. A great deal of laughter erupted as her ankles buckled sideways and frontways and backways. Ella twirled her wand defiantly, and decided to look over her shoulder to give Draco a confident wink. The second that she did, however—
"Expelliarmus!" Ella's wand flew, as did Hermione, sideways. Her eyes aflame with rage, Ella snarled at her clumsy opponent, who was smiling in a crumpled, tangled heap on the soft ground. Oh, I don't give a SHIT if this is to impress Draco, now!
Ella licked her lips and whistled, the kind of whistle you might use to call for a dog, and her beautiful sycamore wand was summoned from the soft ground straight into her hand. Gasps of shock and surprise erupted in a wave, and she was sure that she even heard a scream or two. Hermione's eyes went wide; she had obviously never read that you could summon a wand back from expelliarmus. Ella grinned and put her wand down at her side, pointing her finger with her left, summoning the ancient spell of her ancestors. Everything went suddenly slow, a sign that the spell was about to work, and the world around her stalled as the feeling of rage, of conviction, of fire in her belly overcame her eyes, and a single word came to her mind, as she looked at Hermione: "pig."
A jolt of white-green light went straight from Ella's finger to Hermione's heart, and time sped back up to its normal as a pair of pink ears sprouted out of the top of Hermione's thick hair. Her petite nose grew out, all hairy and snout-like, and she shrunk all at once into a fat little squealing piglet. A roar of laughter unlike any she'd ever heard before dinned over the circle. A rush of euphoria came over her as she watched her successful spell take action, and when she flipped her hair and looked over her shoulder at Draco, his jaw was dropped open and his eyes went wide as saucers, and she swear they turned into pink, pumping hearts, just like in the cartoons. Ella couldn't help but smile, because he was looking at her as if "My Heart Will Go On" was playing in the background. All of that, however, was interrupted when Professor Snape—who had apparently seen the whole thing—came and pinched her ear to drag her off, along with a great amount of clamor from the other professors.
"Minerva! A transfiguration that even you are unaware of? What a talented young witch!"
"Pomona, please don't encourage her—it must be a curse of some kind."
"I've never come across this. Surely it's an American transfiguration. And she cast it nonverbally? Oh, Severus!" Ella looked over her shoulder from the chair she was sitting in. The other three Head of Houses were squabbling over Hog-mione, who was a squealing piglet on the desk that they couldn't seem to transfigure back to the normal shape. It was the thing about the Cambiatus curse, you see, that made it impossible to be cast or un-cast by a witch or wizard that was not a Christophe, a very special kind of blood magic that was kept a family secret through the Fidelus charm. You kept it a secret, of course, by teaching only nonverbally, and with a very specific kind of skill that most seem to have forgotten: to be truly in-touch with your own emotions. When Professor Snape glided into the room, though, Ella wondered why Professor Dumbledore was nowhere to be found. This school was so bizarre...
Professor Snape glanced a knowing glance at his goddaughter, quirked a brow, and then looked to the piglet on Professor McGonagall's desk. Professor Flitwick was pouring over every book he could find, and Professor Sprout was patting Hog-mione on the head, trying to keep her calm. Surely, they had better things to do? Who the heck was teaching the classes? England was so backwards...but maybe this was what happens when you have such a small student body?
"Severus, your student seems to have transfigured Miss Granger into a piglet using a S.O.U."
A...sow? Ella didn't know much about her Godfather, save for what her mother had told her about him, but she swear she saw a glimmer of a smile on his pursed lips, and she immediately liked him, just a little. He then adopted a rather cruel sneer and glowered down his long nose at her, and Ella felt a strange sense of shame in the bottom of her belly. He crossed his robed arms.
"A S.O.U., Miss Zamora?" he sneered. "And I suppose you've some reason for causing so much trouble after narry being here one month?" Why is he pausing so much between each word...?
"A...'sow'?" She frowned in question.
"A Spell of Origins Uknown."
"Oh!" laughed Ella. "In America, we call those—"
"I don't care what you call them in America," he snapped. "Would you mind explaining why you've decided to unleash whatever it is you've unleashed on Miss Granger?"
"She started it!" gasped she, pointing at the squealing pig, who was now screaming at an ear-splitting level. "You did so!" she shouted while she squealed higher and higher. "Did so!" The American looked up at her Godfather with as big eyes as she could manage. "Professor, she did! You've seen my record—it's perfect! You know I wouldn't cause any trouble!" She pointed a finger at her reluctant rival. "She's the one that started it, I swear! She even threw a punch at me before she whipped out her wand! Ask anybody; they all saw!"
"That is a very serious accusation!" gasped Professor McGonagall.
"Indeed," agreed Professor Sprout, wringing her dragonskin gloves. "Miss Granger's such a good student, though." Argued she, before lowering her voice to a whisper. "Perhaps promoting her to Prefect, Minerva, was a bit much for the poor dear?" Ella had told everyone that her hearing was awful, but it was really excellent; it was a tricky way to get people into thinking that she wasn't listening. "She does tend to be a bit on the high-strung end."
"And I suppose this claim has evidence?" queried Professor Snape.
"My claim has evidentiary support out the ying-yang!" Ella proclaimed. "Ask anyone that was out there—I've got no less than twenty witnesses that saw her throw the first punch. Even that ginger boyfriend of hers was trying to talk her out of it..." Ella read all the files, had heard tales of Hermione's temper from all the birds. She decided to go in for the kill, and adopted a tone of feigned ignorance. "It's almost like he knew she was going to be violent or something."
Professor Snape gave her a knowing glance, and turned away from her to face the other three professors. "Miss Granger does have a violent streak, and Miss Zamora has been Captain of the Thunderbird Girls' Dueling Team since she was a second-year. That doesn't happen without extensive knowledge of rules and dueling protocol."
"And dueling protocol in America is so different?" snapped the salty Professor McGonagall.
"The rules of wizard's duels are quite clear," piped Professor Flitwick. "One must finish what they start—"
"I'm quite clear of how to duel, Filius. What I'm unclear of is how to turn Miss Granger back when the last spell cast from Miss Zamora's wand was a curse of clumsiness." Ella noticed Professor Snape walking to examine Hog-mione.
"And so she must have cast it wandlessly?" suggested Professor Sprout. "Her grades are top-notch."
"Nonverbal and wandless transfigurations at fifth year?" balked Professor McGonagall.
"It's not unheard of, Minerva. The students at Uagadou learn magic without wands from the start," Professor Flitwick argued. "And the indigenous magical community of America got along just fine without wands before the Muggle settlers came from England."
"Filius—"
"The Cambiatus Curse." The dialogue stopped as Professor Snape held his wand over the piglet's head, who seemed to go quiet at his presence alone. "Extremely dangerous, wildly unpredictable type of blood magic heard of only in the legends of the Monegasque." Ella shrunk. "It is a curse shrouded in mystery, as the only holders of its technique and incantation are shown under a fidelus charm, strengthened with blood magic. It is taught wandlessly and wordlessly so as to keep the ancient secrets of this curse. It is, in fact, one of the famous transfigural curses gave birth to legends of witches and wizards turning muggles into toads with only the point of a finger. It is considered to be one of the most-dangerous curses one can cast, but since the incantation is unknown, it is impossible to regulate."
"There's a counter-curse, of course?" gasped Professor Sprout.
"Naturally," said Professor Snape.
"Then we can call upon the girl's grandmother!" suggested Professor Flitwick. "Helene Christophe is sure to come to our aid. We all know the stories... She's a war hero! A true warrior of right and wrong!" Meme is a war hero?
"Unfortunately, the counter-curse can only be cast by the original Christophe that cast the curse in the first place." All eyes went to Ella, and she felt like crawling under the chair. The kind and pleading look on Professor Sprout's face did nothing to cancel out the fact that the flesh on McGonagall's face looked like it was about to melt off. They all took rather threatening steps towards her, and Ella had to fight her instinct to change and fly away. Her heart felt as if it had jumped to her throat and began to pound at the back of her mouth.
"Well?" growled Professor Snape. Ella's eyes darted desperately between Snape and McGonagall. She wanted to ask for a sidebar, to explain to her godfather that she'd never done the counter-curse on a living thing before, that Meme and she only practiced on household objects. It was such a tricky curse, after all, governed entirely by one's emotions. To even cast the curse you have to truly feel that emotion, that want, that loathing, that will. The curser must cast away all compassion, all empathy, and focus entirely on that which does not make the cursee human. You must turn them into a thing because that's what they are, in your eyes, in that moment. But to reverse the curse? That required one thing that Ella didn't come by easily: forgiveness.
Professor Sprout was the first to speak, who was looking rather pitifully on her. "A moment?"
"What?" The three of them apparently understood what she was saying, and stepped back a bit while Professor Sprout gave a knowing smile to Ella. She gestured to the seat next to her.
"May I sit there?" Confused, Ella nodded silently. Mama had always said that Hufflepuffs were a Slytherin's best friend; was that going to prove true with the Hufflepuff Head of House? Professor Sprout lumbered down to the seat next to her, and turned to face her. "You haven't had it easy here, have you, Zamora?" Ella frowned, unsure of what to do next. She knew that Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore knew about her being in the Order and part of the AWIB under the guise of the EWE program...but did Professor Sprout know? Nobody had told her. "You've barely been here long enough to get your bearings, and now you're the most-popular witch in school."
"Yes, ma'am," agreed Ella, hesitant.
Professor Sprout nodded. "I know how it is. The pressure, I mean. Always having to say the right thing, do the right thing with your hair, wear the right clothes. When I was your age, I was the most-popular witch in school."
Your shoes are covered in dragon dung, though...
"Does that shock you?"
"No, ma'am," lied Ella, brightly and politely with a very sudden shake of her head. Professor Sprout smiled.
"I also taught your mother when she was in school. She would have earned herself a N.E.W.T., I'd think, had she stayed. She, too, had a bit of a temper. Ever the Slytherin, though, she knew how to control it."
Ella chewed the inside of her lip, feeling her mouth go a little dry. "Yes, ma'am," she agreed, swallowing.
"I imagine that her father and mother instilled quite a bit of that in her, which is why, I imagine, she decided to not pound it into your head, Zamora." She wasn't quite sure where she was going with this, so she stayed quiet. "Is it hard for you to hear about her?" Professor Sprout then asked.
"No, ma'am," lied Ella, looking down at her folded hands. She felt a bit of a reassuring smile.
"I'll bet it's also hard to be the most-popular witch in school without your mother there to guide you." Ella frowned and shrunk away, crossing her arms along her chest.
"My mother was not popular when she was my age," she spat, her voice cracking.
"It's true, she wasn't. In fact, she was a bit of an outcast. Most found her personality to be...well, abrasive."
Ella's chest felt as if it were going to cave in; her shoulders shrank in anguish and anger. Is this what Hufflepuff kindness is supposed to be like?
"She annoyed most, a bit like Miss Granger." Ella looked up in surprise. "Your mother, too, was a bit of a know-it-all. She liked to push buttons, but unlike Miss Granger, she knew when she was going to go too far, and she knew when to leave somebody alone." Ella's eyebrows tilted up in concern, and then looked down as a wave of remorse began to creep at her ankles and slowly rise up her legs. Was that true? "But once you get to know Miss Granger, I'm sure you'll be able to get along." She looked over at the piglet, who wasn't really a piglet, but a classmate. Ella knew that Hermione was a great threat to her mission, but maybe it wasn't the wisest thing to make someone else a casualty. "Do you think you're willing to try if she would be willing to try, too?"
Ella doubted very much that Hermione would be willing to try, but considering that she had little choice, she nodded with a deep sigh. "Yes, ma'am."
Professor Sprout smiled. "There, now, dear. Take a breath and give it a try." She nodded pointedly to Hermione, who was on McGonagall's desk, snorting. Ella sighed through her nose and stood up, taking out her wand and rubbing the wood handle nervously with her thumb. She wouldn't use her wand for this, of course, but she always held it close when she felt nervous. The noble Sycamore tree is a wood of questing, of adventure and curiosity, and when paired with a thunderbird feather core, one would be a fool to say that she who would possess such a wand would be anything other than an extraordinary explorer, destined for greatness. Here she was, though, in the biggest trouble she'd been in that year, surrounded by Professors in a foreign land, with a near-wholly-botched mission for the government of her own country, dealing with the consequences of the most-dangerous curse she could imagine.
Oh well. Boo hoo. Ella tucked her wand into her sleeve, where she kept it for safekeeping, and walked towards Hermione with a conviction that she was faking. This is okay, she told herself. Don't be nervous. It's just like walking into the arena of a potions competition. This is certainly less nerve-wracking than the world potions competition. And, hey, you won that. You're okay. Just take in a deep breath through your nose, and slowly out your mouth. Ella was good at calming herself under pressure.
"Well?" Flitwick's voice snapped her out of her tranquil state. She had a right mind to punt him out the window for that, but of course she wouldn't.
"Let Zamora concentrate, Filius," said Professor Snape. "This is a particularly tricky countercurse."
"But she can do it?" whispered Professor Flitwick.
"Let — her — try." Growled Snape, causing Ella to inwardly smile. She looked over at her godfather, whom she had hoped to be smiling at her; he wasn't. He wasn't looking particularly annoyed, of course, but he still gave an encouraging nod of the head. Just think, this was the man that her mother had deemed fit to care for her should anything happen to both herself and her father. She didn't know if she liked him yet, but she was trying very hard to do so. It did hurt her feelings a little to know that he didn't instantly adore her, welcome her with open arms. Plus, his house smelled dusty and stale.
Ella took in a deep breath through her nose, then sighed out through her open mouth. She looked over to Hermione, who seemed to be shaking with rage. Ella had to fight the urge to threaten to brine her with brown sugar and smoke her with hickory if she didn't shut up. After a moment, she reminded herself that she might not like being turned into a pig very much either. If Hermione truly was like her mother, it would certainly explain why she immediately disliked her—her mother was always picking on her. Ella couldn't even remember what it sounded like when her mother said 'I love you', only when she was barking orders at her.
'Sit up straight. Don't put your elbows on the table. Stop leaving your shoes everywhere. Hang up your cardigan. Finish your homework. Clean your room. Stop playing with your food. Don't backtalk me. Don't disobey me. Sit still. Get your feet off the sofa. Close the door. I said get green tomatoes, not red ones. Don't even think about going to that audition. You're too young to wear makeup, go wash your face. You're too old to wear socks, wear stockings instead. Get that disgusting glitter nail polish off your fingers. I never want to see those awful shoes again. Take your hair down, you're not a factory worker. Go brush your teeth. You're not going out until you polish your shoes. Don't wear your good dress outside - you'll tear it. Get off that shelf, young lady, before you fall and break your neck!'
Ella snorted to herself in remembrance of her mother. Tch. Yeah. I've never even fallen before—I change before I hit the ground. A tightness suddenly grew in her chest, and then a lump caught in her throat. To her horror, her eyes began to well, and her nose felt itchy; she closed her eyes before her vision could blur with tears. Her shoulders went unnaturally tight, and every inch of her skin prickled up, threatening to feather out and allowing her to fly away from the train of grief that bombarded her heart. Her hand quickly came up and covered her nose and mouth, and a horrible yowling came up inside her, clawing to get free. Ella's legs buckled and she lowered herself to her knees, feeling as if she might vomit at any moment.
It's okay, she tried to tell herself. It's okay. Stop. Do what you have to now, then cry later. For God's sake, keep it in.
She stifled a breath, swallowing her sudden attack of...whatever that was. Ella took in a deep breath and chanted to herself, "Think, think, think," in a low whisper, and with those magic words the storm of her mind began to calm, and clouds parted to reveal a clear gray winter sky. Below was her Mind Palace, and the second she saw it she felt herself go inside, swirling around the halls, flying passed doors that were closed tight. She found a door that was large and ornate and made entirely of frosted glass, covered with gold locks. With a wave of her palm, the locks clicked open with the grace of a perfect design, and the door opened to reveal a blinding white light. This was the door that held all of the memories of Meme, and from it came only her voice, washing over her with the scent of the sea and the sound of waves:
"Forgivenesz eez not alwayz becauz zey deezerve eet; eet ees zsometimez becauze you deezerve peacze."
Peace... Chanted Ella to herself. Peace... I deserve peace. I deserve peace. I deserve peace. She said it to herself over and over, as the feeling of an ocean breeze washed over her, filling her lungs with salt. Maybe you deserve it, too...
The light burst over, and flooded the palace, and when Ella opened her eyes, the light faded and Hermione Granger stood before her, doe-eyed and very much a human girl again. Ella rose to her feet to meet her gaze. "Um, Hermione—"
"YOU—!"
"AAAAAAHHH!"
"MISS GRANGER!"
"AAAAAAAAAHHH GET HER OFF ME!"
"YOU LOATHSOME COW!"
"MISS—! GRANGER—!" Professor McGonagall ripped Hermione away by the shirt collar while Professor Snape pried Ella out of her claws, Hermione taking a fistfull of ebon curls with her.
"MY HAIR! MY HAIR! SHE PULLED MY HAIR OUT! PROFESSOR SNAPE, DID YOU SEE WHAT SHE DID TO ME?!"
"MISS GRANGER!" roared Professor Snape. "Are you quite finished with assaulting our foreign exchange student?!"
"But sir—!" Hermione began to protest.
"—Miss Zamora left America to get away from terrorist attacks, not be subjugated to this rumpus!"
"Professor McGonagall—"
"—I can't believe I'm about to say this, Miss Granger, but Professor Snape is right! I don't know what was said to provoke this abhorrent behavior, but you shan't disgrace the House of Godric Gryffindor by attacking any foreign guests."
Ouch. Ella felt a twinge for Hermione, who looked as if she was about to burst into tears. She couldn't say anything, though, for the sake of… Wait, how was this pertinent to the mission? Ella felt the back of her skull, wondering if she was bleeding.
"I am shocked at your Miss Granger. I'm sure that you two have your disagreements, but that is no excuse to be openly attacking one another."
"Well, I—for one—am not shocked at this barbarism. Fifty points from Gryffindor!" snarled Snape.
"Sir!" cried Hermione, tears welling at her eyes.
"Seventy-five, then!"
"Severus," whispered Professor Sprout.
"I'm afraid I have to agree with Professor Snape, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall gravely. "And I will be writing to your parents about this." Hermione looked destroyed, and Ella began to feel a great deal of remorse for picking a fight with her like this. I did this for a reason, she reminded herself. I had to…didn't I? She remembered Hermione's record was good; there's no way she'd get suspended for this. Still, this had to be a big mark against her. And all for what? The safety of the Wizarding World, Ella. You're doing this for America...right?
"Zamora." Ella was abruptly snapped from her thoughts by McGonagall's voice. "I hope you know that this does not reflect Hogwarts as a whole." She frowned in confusion. "We are happy to host you and happy to have you here in our school."
Wow. I wasn't expecting that. "Uh—" She cleared her throat. "Thank you, ma'am. I'm happy to be here."
"Now, Miss Granger, I think an apology is in order." Ella looked over to Hermione, who had tears streaming silently down her face. She felt awful.
Hermione's voice was small as she croaked "I'm sorry."
"Me, too," said Ella, sincerely, the reality of what her actions were causing slowly hitting her. You're doing this for America, Ella. It's okay. You're doing this for the sake of the world. You're doing this for a reason. It's okay. It is… Isn't it? "I'm sorry, too."
"There, now. An American is more mature than you," sneered Professor Snape with a shocking amount of vindictiveness. Ella looked up at him in shock. McGonagall sighed and dismissed Hermione to go back to her dormitory. The back of her head felt sore, and when she felt the nape of her neck, she felt a whole patch of her hair missing, causing her to audibly gasp. Professor Snape looked down at her. He must have seen her trembling lip for he sighed through his long nose and said: "I'll make you something to grow your hair back." He put his arm around her and escorted her towards the door.
Wait, so that's it? That's how they handle assault at this school? What kind of crazy place is this?! As they made their way to the door, Ella could hear muffled shouting on the other side. Professor Snape quirked a brow and swung the door open to find Harry and Draco arguing in a rather heated manner. Ella was stunned.
"Professor!" Draco exclaimed. "I saw it!" He near-shouted, pointing his bony finger at Harry. "That thing assaulted Ella out of nowhere! I thought that creature was going to tear her apart! I tried to find you!"
"Mister Malfoy—"
"That's a lie!" insisted Harry. "Zamora started the whole thing—"
"—I have no less than ten witnesses to this flagrant violence against her, willing to testify at any moment! Ella was acting in self-defense, Potter!"
"Mister Malfoy—"
He turned back to Professor Snape, his chest puffed out much farther than she thought his bony frame could muster it to puff. "If any punishment dares to befall Ella Zamora, my father will hear about it—!"
"MISTER MALFOY!"
Silence met all four of them. When Ella looked, she guessed that Hermione was nowhere to be seen for she had run off with Ronald, leaving Harry to their only defense. The tension could be cut with a knife.
"I have no intention of punishing Miss Zamora."
"Of course you don't, sir!" agreed Draco with a ridiculous amount of conviction. Ella was so tired of the entire situation that she rolled her eyes and stormed away, half-desperate to get a moment alone. "E-Ella!" called Draco. She then heard the sound of his polished shoes running to chase her down the hall. She quickened her pace. "Ella, please don't make me chase you!" She rounded the corner of the corridor, light streaming in from the giant windowpanes. "Ella—! Ella, please wait—" He didn't grab at her wrist, but gently touched her shoulder. She stopped in a huff as he twirled around to come to face her. "Ella, I'm sorry I raised my voice. Please don't be so upset," he begged.
She frowned in question. He's sorry he raised his voice…? His face looked so different just then, so…sincere. She'd never seen that look on his face before, and Ella couldn't help but frown in question. His gray eyes begged for some kind of answer, and for the first time in forever she actually thought he maybe wasn't so weird-looking after all. Is he actually liking me now?
"Oh," he said, looking at her sleeve and touching the fabric at her shoulder. When Ella looked, she saw that it had torn at the seam in the scuffle.
"Augh!" she huffed and pulled out her wand. "Reparo," she cast, and her sleeve stitched itself up.
"Did she attack you again in there?" he gasped, his voice low, but full of genuine concern. Ella felt very confused about where all of this was coming from. It was getting harder and harder to get a read on this Malfoy guy by the moment. Horrified at the realization that he wasn't about to let her go without an answer, she tearfully lifted up the right side of her hair to reveal the newly ripped bald spot at the nape of her neck. His jaw dropped in shock. "That disgusting little mudblood!" he spat. Ella frowned in confusion.
"What's a mudblood?"
"You—?" He straightened up. "You don't know what a mudblood is?" Ella shook her head. "Muggle?" She'd heard that word here and there, but nobody in Slytherin had ever given her a straight answer, and at this point she was afraid to ask. She shook her head again. "You mean you don't have—? In America, there are no—? You don't go to school with—?"
"Spit it out, dude," Ella snapped.
"Nevermind, Ella, it's a dirty word," he said with much waving of the hands.
"So you're cussing in front of me now?" she balked, annoyed.
"You're right, I'm sorry." Ella looked away, her chest feeling uncomfortably tight. This was the reason that she was here, though, wasn't she? To gain his trust and befriend him? To get inside the Death Eaters somehow? Learn their secrets? But at what cost? She slowly began to wonder if she was actually capable of seeing this mission through. "Let me buy you something?" he then asked. She looked up, incredulous, her mouth hanging slightly agape. "What's wrong?" She quickly shut her mouth then looked away.
"Sorry, it's just..." Ella couldn't help but smile. "That's always my father's first response when I've had a bad day."
"That's a good thing for me, I hope," he said, smirking that dopey smirk he always smirked. A tiny laugh escaped her chest.
"Yeah, my dad's pretty cool," she admitted. "I kind of…miss him." A beat. "Do you miss your father when you're far away from him?" This was possibly rushing things, and he didn't seem responsive, for he shrugged with a dismissive grin and then said:
"How about a hat? A marvelous hat with a festoon of beautiful feathers," he suggested, gesturing wildly over her head with his spindly, pasty fingers. Ella cringed.
"…Who's feathers would they be?"
Draco frowned, then soon realized how creepy it might be for a bird to wear another bird's feathers—she guessed—for he then looked away and said "Oh." After a moment, he smiled and said: "Flowers, then? A hat with flowers on it—beautiful plumerias or perhaps a chrysanthemum or two?"
She looked down. She wanted very much to be able to put on a happy face and smile and swoon and get on with it, but she just couldn't seem to get a hold of her emotions and shake this awful feeling of guilt. She'd nearly ruined a poor, unsuspecting person's life with no conscious or care for—
"Not flowers, eh? Hmm." Ella sighed. "Jewels, then! A tasteful, bejeweled hat. You know, I think I saw one in the window at Gladrags. It's a shade or two lighter than navy blue with a satin ribbon. It ought to match your Ilvermorny robes. Let's go try it on." Ella looked up; he was offering his arm, looking rather tall and pleased with his own idea, giving a half-smile that looked truly half-genuine. She sighed and circled her arm through his, curling her and up to squeeze his bicep—half to show some kind of affection, half to see if there was anything really there. Nope, still nothing. They began to walk. He seemed rather proud to be with her, and seemed to be a bit taller, now, too. She guessed that it was because she was slouching, but she wasn't about to let her posture suffer, so she straightened herself up to match his pace.
Ella looked over to him and examined his profile. He was near-swaggering with such extreme confidence, you'd have guessed that he was the one that had cast a wandless, nonverbal curse, and then cast the counter-nonverbal-wandless-curse in front of four people. Oh, right; I picked a fight with her so he'd like me more, she reminded herself. She didn't expect him to come galloping to her defense, however; that part was a surprise. She'd expected him to find her later and make some snide remark, and then offhandedly mention that she was now in the cool kids' club, but certainly not following and shouting and threatening in that way. It then hit Ella: he was protective. She smiled.
"Prussian," she said.
He looked over to her with a quizzical eye.
"A shade or two lighter than navy blue is Prussian blue, and you're right, it does match my Ilvermorny robes. The official colors are Prussian Blue and Cranberry Red, and all robes are clasped with a golden Gordian knot."
"Why don't you have different colors for different houses?"
"Because we're all a part of one whole, of course!" Draco didn't seem to understand. They walked down the stairs together as it began to move to attach itself to another corridor. "Here's a riddle—what's more powerful, five or one?"
"Five, of course," answered Draco without thinking.
Ella sighed and rolled her eyes. She held up her left hand, her fingers spread wide open. "Five," she said. Draco nodded; Ella clenched all five fingers into a fist. "One. One army, united, indivisible." He looked…pensive. She began to smile inside, feeling a bit of him open up to her. "Were you really going to call your father for me?"
He waited, then smiled. "Yeah," he said. Ella smiled, too, and his big-ass forehead somehow began to look smaller.
WOW. Okay. Phew. This is obviously earlier in the timeline than we've been in awhile, and we FINALLY find out who she transfigured into a piglet! Okay, so, we're really seeing things play out. No WONDER Hermione hates Ella's guts! She nearly ruins her life! Ugh. There's a lot of moral gray and a lot of gross intrigue and teenage drama. We're seeing remorse. We now know how the Cambiatus curse works. But why the heckin' heck is all of this relevant? Why do we care about this curse at all? And WHO KILLED LUCIUS MALFOY?! We're going to find out in the next chapter. Know why? KNOW WHY? Because it's the trial. Hopefully I'll be able to finish that chapter within the next goddamn year... .
Thank you, as always, to HeartofAspen, PancakeStack, SabrinaJasmine, Death's Avenging Angel, and my guest readers! I really appreciate your patience. I hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving! Gobble gobble!