(OotP) CHAPTER NINETEEN: Saving Arthur Weasley

That night, Ellie woke to the sound of Harry screaming.

She had fallen asleep on the couch. It was a habit she'd slipped into more than once since Fred's departure. It wasn't the same, of course, without him there to hold her—not even close—but it still felt less lonely than sleeping in her bed.

She scrambled off the couch and up the boys' staircase as soon as she heard Harry. On her way up, she passed a pale-faced Neville coming down.

"He's had a vision!" he exclaimed to Ellie. "I'm going to fetch McGonagall!"

"Hurry!" she said encouragingly, and Neville scampered off as she finished climbing the staircase and dashed into the fifth-year boys' suite.

He was awake, with a wide-eyed Dean and Ron on either side of him.

"It's Mr. Weasley," he said shakily to Ellie. "I think he's being attacked."

Ellie glanced at Ron, whose face was white as a sheet. She thought of Fred first, as she always did, and then of Arthur himself, who had always been like a second father to her. "Where is he?" she asked Harry.

"I… I don't know," Harry stammered. "I thought I recognized the room, but I couldn't put it together. Dark, sort of ominous and shadowy…"

"Doesn't sound like the Burrow," said Ron in a voice several octaves higher than usual. "But where else would he be? The Ministry?"

"We don't know that anything's happened to him," said Dean. "Right? I mean, this could just be a dream."

"The Department of Mysteries!" Ellie exclaimed, thinking back to the place she and Harry had gone to have his hearing. "Could that be it?"

Harry's green eyes widened with enthusiasm, and he nodded. "That's it!"

"Okay," Ellie said, nodding. "I'll go check it out."

"What?" demanded all the boys in the room—even Seamus.

But she ignored all of them, closed her eyes, and transported herself straight into the Ministry of Magic.


It didn't take long to find Arthur when she reached the Department of Mysteries; all she had to do was follow the screams.

He seemed to be bleeding everywhere. He was on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl somewhere—though where, she wasn't sure.

"Mr. Weasley!" she shouted, sprinting over to him and kneeling in front of him. He looked even worse up close. There seemed to be dozens of small, but deep, wounds all over him—almost like bite marks. Her heart flooded with fear, and her thoughts yet again turned to Fred and how devastated he would be if he lost his father. "You're going to be fine. I'm going to take you to St. Mungo's."

He looked up at her in wide-eyed confusion. "Ellie? Wh—how are you here?"

"Don't worry about that. Listen, Mr. Weasley—I know you shouldn't be transported by Apparition when you're this wounded, but I don't think we have a choice here. Now, take my hands, and—"

"We're in the Ministry!" he interrupted. His voice was filled with blood, too, and the phlegm in his cough made her cringe. "It's impossible to—"

"I know," she interrupted impatiently, "but not for me. And I've already practiced this with a side-alonger. Just trust me, okay?"

She extended her hands out to him, and, after a moment's hesitation, he accepted. Just before she closed her eyes, though, he said, "You can't tell anyone you found me here, Ellie. It has to have happened in my office."

She nodded, making a mental note to ask him why at a later time. But there was no time for questions now. So, instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, thought of the wizarding hospital that she'd been to quite a few times by then, and Apparated them out of there.


As soon as the St. Mungo's healers had carted Arthur off for treatment, they turned on Ellie for an explanation.

She wanted to stay—not to give them explanations, but to look after the man who had looked after her quite often over the past five years—but she couldn't. If she stayed, not only would she have to lie about where and how she had found Arthur, but she'd also guarantee herself more painful Umbridge detentions, and—worst of all—risk seeing Fred again.

It wasn't that she didn't want to see him. She wanted to see him so desperately, her heart swelled to twice its normal size at the thought, and every inch of her skin seemed to tingle with desperate desire. She pictured herself looking into those warm, brown eyes that had always provided so much comfort for her, running up to him, and hugging him so tightly, neither of them could breathe. It brought a smile to her face just imagining it.

But that wasn't what would happen. Fred had made it perfectly clear that, no matter what she said or did, he had no intentions of taking her back—or even speaking to her. He wouldn't hug her; she doubted he would even look at her.

And then she'd be left feeling worse than she had before.

So, smiling an apologetic smile at the healers who were determined to get answers out of her, she Apparated out of St. Mungo's and back to Hogwarts.


"Good," said Neville when Ellie reappeared in the Gryffindor common room. "I was told to wait for you here. We've got to get to Dumbledore's office."

Ellie frowned. "What does he know?"

"McGonagall took Harry and Ron there after you left, so I expect he knows everything. She asked me to stay here and to bring you there when you returned."

"So she knows what I did?"

He nodded. "Hope you don't mind. We weren't trying to get you into trouble, obviously. We just wanted to be as honest as possible in case it helped Ron's dad."

Ellie understood. If they hadn't told McGonagall where she'd gone, the Order might have sent some on their own—and potentially risked that person getting into trouble, since not everyone shared her gift of Apparating into high-security places like Hogwarts and the Ministry.

She followed Neville to Dumbledore's office, scanning the walls and portraits of Hogwarts as she walked and wondering to herself whether this would be the last stroll through the halls that she'd take. She had helped Arthur, and she hoped that might make some small difference in how Dumbledore and McGonagall responded to her rule-breaking, but if Umbridge found out...

She shuddered at the thought. She might actually prefer expulsion to more Umbridge detentions.

Ron leapt to his feet the moment Ellie entered Dumbledore's office. "Well?" he demanded in a high-pitched, anxious tone. "How did he seem?"

Ellie glanced hesitantly at Dumbledore. If Ron already knew that Ellie had succeeded in delivering Arthur to St. Mungo's, it probably meant Dumbledore did, too; there was no point in hiding anything.

"We know," Dumbledore affirmed. "We'll get into the details momentarily. For now, you may answer Mr. Weasley's question."

"Right." She smiled shakily at Ron. "He was… lucid enough to talk to me. They got him into treatment right away. So that's all good, right?"

Ron, of course, didn't look remotely satisfied by that. "But, I mean, how bad was it? What had been done to him, exactly?"

"I didn't get into the details with him. I just wanted to get him to St. Mungo's as quickly as possible. It looked like he'd been… bitten. Repeatedly."

She glanced at Harry, who looked unsurprised. "It was… a snake," he said quietly. "I've told Professor Dumbledore already."

"A snake?" Ellie repeated, glancing nervously from Dumbledore to Harry. "Did it belong to Voldemort or the Death Eaters?"

Before anyone could answer, Dumbledore cleared his throat. "If you don't mind, Miss Black, I think I'll be taking over the questions now."

She nodded, looking down at her feet.

"How did you know that something was wrong with Arthur initially?"

Was it just her, or was that the sort of question a detective might ask a suspect? "I heard Harry shouting from up the stairs. I fell asleep in the common room last night by mistake."

"So you went up the stairs to investigate, and he told you what he had seen?"

"Just that he'd seen Mr. Weasley being attacked."

"Did he tell you where it was happening?"

"He didn't know where it was happening, but he thought it looked familiar. When he described it to me, I remembered from the day of his hearing."

"And that was when you decided to Apparate to him?"

Ellie shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Yeah. I've been practicing a bit. I guess something about my Perelli charm allows me to bypass the usual protective enchantments in places like Hogwarts and the Ministry."

"Had you Apparated into the Ministry before?"

"No, Professor. I just… hoped it would work."

"You nearly died the last time you Splinched," McGonagall said with a tsk of her tongue. "That was quite a risk to take."

She shrugged a shoulder. "He's like a father to me."

Ron's eyes watered at that. Even Harry looked moved.

"When you reached the Department of Mysteries," Dumbledore said. "Did you find him straight away?"

"I followed the sound of…" She glanced guiltily at Ron. "…well, you know. He wasn't being quiet. Found him in a few minutes."

"And what did he say to you?"

It definitely felt like an interrogation. She wished he'd just rip the Band-Aid off and expel her now, then ask her the questions later. "He was confused, obviously, about how I'd found him. Tried to get me to explain how I planned on getting him to St. Mungo's, but I told him he just had to trust me, since we didn't have much time. Just before we Apparated, he told me not to tell anyone where I'd found him."

She knew, of course, that Arthur hadn't been referring to any of the people in the room with her now. He would have trusted Dumbledore, McGonagall, Harry, Neville, and Ron every bit as much as she did.

"Meaning, the Department of Mysteries?" Dumbledore asked.

She nodded.

"And? Did you?"

"No. As soon as I dropped him off, I came back here."

Dumbledore nodded, then sat in silence for a moment. Ellie scanned the faces of everyone in the room, breath held, as she mentally prepared herself for the worst.

"You are never to Apparate in or out of Hogwarts again," Dumbledore began. "It is dangerous for multiple reasons, and it is for your own safety that we have the rules in place that we do. As a result of your repeated infractions of that rule, you will carry out detentions with Professor McGonagall every evening after school for the next two weeks."

Ellie let out a giant sigh of relief. Detentions with McGonagall? She'd take a million of those over one with Umbridge.

"You are never to tell anyone—especially Professor Umbridge—about this newfound ability of yours. As far as she knows, the only time you attempted it, you were wounded so severely, you never tried it again."

Wasn't planning on it, she thought grimly. "Yes, Professor."

"Despite your having broken some of the most important school rules possible," Dumbledore continued, "I do feel the need to extend my gratitude, along with the gratitude of Molly and the rest of the Weasley family that aren't already here with us, to you. Judging by the extent of the injuries you and Harry have described to me, every minute counted."

That, she hadn't been expecting. "Of course, Professor."

"Tell me, Miss Black. Your shield… the Perelli charm. Has it given you any other unexpected abilities… or, perhaps, any unexpected challenges?"

Challenges? she thought with an inward chuckle. That's one way of putting incomparable pain and suffering that seem to be leading me to an early grave.

"No, Professor," she lied. "None that you wouldn't already know about."

He held her gaze for a moment, and she had a feeling he knew she was lying. But before he could question her further, one of the portraits announced an update regarding the Ministry of Magic, and all of the students were politely invited to utilize the Portkey he had prepared for them to travel to 12 Grimmauld Place, where they could await further information about Arthur.

Harry and Ron, of course, immediately reached for the Portkey. Ellie, on the other hand, did not.

As much as she loved them, the Weasleys were officially a part of her past.

She would stay at Hogwarts and finish out the term with the B.A., who were now her present and future.


Well, she might be reckless and possibly dying, but she's definitely a badass, don't you think? Sure, we know that Arthur would have been okay either way, but these kids don't! Things are really going to ramp up in the next chapter, "Screw You" - you definitely won't want to miss it!

P.S.: I am choosing to believe you can't Apparate in or out of the Ministry normally. I know some lines from the books suggest you CAN, but that just leaves so much room for plot holes, I can hardly believe she did it that way (why didn't Harry, Ron, and Hermione just Apparate exactly where they needed to go in the 7th book, for example? And why does anybody travel to work via Floo Powder and/or flushable toilets/phone booths?) There might be an expert out there who knows more about this than I do, and feel free to drop a review if so... For our purposes, though, we'll say the Ministry has the same anti-Apparition type of magic as Hogwarts.