Chapter 6

5 years later

Rose sighed as she looked down at the 4 ft long essay she had been writing for the last five hours. It was now 2 o'clock in the morning, and she was just about sick to death of Transfiguration. Rose was now the only person in the common room and had been for the past 2 hours, since it was still lessons tomorrow. She yawned loudly and scratched her name at the end of the parchement in relief. Finally, she'd finished! She grinned happily and packed away her stuff. She slung her bag over her shoulder and stood up facing the portrait hole, and froze in shock. Standing in front of the portrait hole was a girl with long, silky black hair with a gentle curl and pale but beautiful skin. Rose was frozen to the spot. She knew this girl. It had been over five years, but she'd recognise those stunningly beautiful bright blue eyes anywhere.

It was Elle.

Elle grimaced. Back to Hogwarts. Back to home. She couldn't quite understand why she felt so scared and anxious about going back to Hogwarts. After all, she hadn't wanted to leave. She'd only been there for 2 weeks, and yet everywhere she went after leaving felt strange, just like she was visiting. She had been at a forgein magic school for the last 5 years, after a sudden move had taken her far away from Hogwarts, her new friends and her new life. Her parents appologised profuesly, but she understood why they had to move; it was too dangerous for them in Britain. But now, it seemed, they could come back. That's what her parents had told her. But she knew it wasn't true. She knew why they had moved back. It was because of her.

When they had moved, her parents had told her that she'd only be two weeks behind everyone and that she'd make friends easily. They were right about her not missing much. Her scores were far higher than anyone else in her year in the start of term assesment, and her teachers all loved her. But friends was a far different story. At the start of a new year at a new school, everyone joins together and creates their friendship groups. Shockingly, this always happens within the first few days and so when Elle arrived at her new school two weeks late, everyone had already got their groups and everyone was seemingly reluctent to upset the peace by accepting a new member to the group. And so, she began her life as an outsider. For the first term she remained her kind, gentle self as she always had been, and so she was easily suseptable to bullying. The difference between her school and Hogwarts was that at Hogwarts, a lot of the time a cool head can get you through any spats with bullies. At her school, a cool head would be about as useful as suncream at the bottom of the ocean. By the end of first term Elle was acing her grades, bruised all over and mentally scared by all of the brutal jinxes and hexes that some of the older students had invented. When she returned home for Christmas, her parents were horrified by what had happened to her. Elle suggested that they moved again, anxious to get away, but her pleas fell on deaf ears as her parents reasured her that now everyone was used to her, things would get better. But they never did. Eventually, Elle started to harden up. She was by far the cleverst student in the school, and she soon started to create her own spells, ones which blocked those created by the senior students. After a while she started developing less defence spells and more attack ones. She created four spells in total, the first two being defence and the last two attack. Driven by lonelyness and fear, she mouled her two attack spells together to create one horrific spell that could, if performed correctly, cause great pain to the victim. When she started using her three spells out of classes, other students soon began to fear her and seniors who had bullied her stayed well away. Unfortunately, she never made any friends and by the time it was the start of 5th year, she was the most hated person in the school. Everyone avoided her and even her teachers were affraid by her inteligence alone. She showed no mercy to those who had been cruel to her. The reason that her family moved back was because she had been expelled. For the first time in 5 years, Elle had been caught using her attack spell on another student and was imedietly (much to the pleasure of students and teachers alike) expelled. Her parents had noticed her hardened expressions and increasing smirks, but they thought it was just her being a teenager. They were shocked when one day she appeared home, 3 weeks before the end of term, carrying an expulsion letter from the headmaster. They were angry after reading the letter, but Elle simply explained to them that she had just been doing what they told her too; make her life better. Her father shouted at her for twisting their words and she exploded, telling them about everything that had happened in her first term at school and the amount of bulling that had gone on. The next day, the Turner family returned to Britain.

Elle snickered lightly as she remembered how unimpressed she had been when her parents surprised her by showing her their 'new' old house in Britain. She knew they had hoped it would soften her up, bring back some of the old Elle, but unfortunately that failed. As she clambered up the Grand Staircase towards the Gryffindor common room, she let her memory guide her up to the place which she'd long since... not forgotten, more like pushed the memory to the back of her mind, a place where it can't escape. As she neared the portrait of the Fat Lady, she was irritated to find she was feeling more and more nevervous with each step she took. This place does something to me. She thought grumpily. Maybe it knows I don't belong here. Or maybe it knows I do... She reached the portrait hole, slightly out of breath as her physique was not exactly perfect and (although she would not admit it) with butterflies having a party in her stomaugh. It was two in the morning, and Elle knew the Fat Lady would not be impressed at being woken at this hour. But it seemed that she had been warned of Elle's arrival as she was awake and waiting.

"Ah, Elle Turner! I was told you'd be coming!" she clucked cheerfully. "It's so strange to see you again, looking so grown up! I remember you-"

"I'm tired." Elled inturupted. "Pippin Chocolate." The Fat Lady looked at her sullen expression reprouchfully, but said nothing.

"Very well, Pippin Chocolate it is." She sniffed, and swung forward. Elle clambered through the portrait hole, utterly exhausted. She couldn't stop the joy that spread through her body as she saw that nothing had changed in the Gryffindor Common room since she left. Her eyes swept the room, her eyes taking in every perfect detail of a place she once loved. And still loved, although she denied loving anything or anyone except herself anymore. It was then she saw Rose Weasley, frozen in shock and gazing at her with such surprise that it made Elle quiver with sadness that one of the only people she still refused to hate could barely stand the sight of her.

A/N: Poor Elle. Poor messed-up Elle.

Okay, so the weird personality change... It's been 5 years of hell. Deal with it.

Creating new spells - Snape did it, and this school, whilst not Durmstrang (You'll find out it's name later in the story) was very, VERY rough, with hints of dark magic seeping through the walls.

FYI, her (and the older student's) spells were sort of twists off of other, already existing spells. Just making them worse.

And not many students 'created' spells, as you had to be highly intelligent.

Her final spell is similar, but not the same as crucio.

Reviews are greatly appreciated!

Boe