(OotP) CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Nice Voice, Nice Face, Nice Body
"Are you trying to get yourself expelled?" Fred demanded as soon as Ellie reached the Gryffindor table for dinner.
"Seriously," said Ron, shaking his head, "how do you two do that?"
But Ellie wasn't focused on either of them. Umbridge may not have expelled her yet, but surely it was only a matter of time. If Ellie wanted to secure any future for herself—and if she wanted any hope of Fred being in that future—there was only one thing left to do.
So she marched straight past the Gryffindor table, up to the Hufflepuff table, and took a seat next to Liam.
"Well, hello, Ellie," said Liam, looking a mixture of confused and pleasantly surprised. "What brings you to the Hufflepuff table today?"
She glanced past him at his friends, several of whom had been shooting her dirty looks all year. She shot them equally dirty looks right back before refocusing her attention onto Liam and saying, "I want to meet your brother."
To her relief, he looked pleasantly surprised by that, too. "Well, great! Only I can't imagine Umbridge plans on giving you a day pass, given..."
"I know." She bit her lip, considering her options. "Where's your brother's label located?"
"London. Not far from the Ministry. Not close to here."
She frowned. "How far is London by broom? Couple of hours?"
"By broom?" he repeated. "Are you mad?"
"Can you see if he's able to stay late, at the office? Meet with me tonight?"
"Tonight?"
"Well, it's best to travel under cover of darkness, isn't it? So Muggles don't see me? And this way, I won't miss any classes—nor any opportunities for Umbridge to come up with fun new punishments for me."
He looked like he was struggling to keep up. "You're serious? You actually want to go tonight?"
"Dead serious."
He watched her wordlessly for several seconds before finally taking a deep breath and saying, "Okay. Then I'm coming with you."
El. What's going on? Why hasn't anyone seen you since you left the Great Hall with the Cedric wannabe?
"Tell me," Ellie said to Liam, pushing back Fred's persistent thoughts with her Occlumency and refusing to feel guilty about it. It wasn't as if she could answer him, anyway, thanks to the potion he'd created and taken. And Cedric wannabe, really? It was a low blow to both her and Liam. "Have you ever been in love?"
They were well on their way to London by now. Ellie had never been on a broomstick ride this long before, and found herself missing Buckbeak—and her father—even more than usual.
Liam considered her question for several seconds before answering. "I don't know. I mean, I've dated a handful of girls. Told one that I loved her. But real love—like the kind you have with Fred? I don't think so."
"The kind I have with Fred?" she repeated dubiously. "Have you seen us this year?"
He shrugged. "I've seen that you're having a tough go of it after what happened to Ced, sure. No way around that, I reckon. But I've also seen the way you look at each other, even despite all that. The way you worry about each other." He grinned slightly. "The way he gets jealous when you talk to me."
He said it so innocently that it didn't embarrass her in the slightest—though it certainly surprised her.
"You think it's possible, then?" she asked him. "For us to find a way back to what we were?"
"Can't say I'm exactly an expert," he told her with a small smile. "But I can say that if two people as in love as you can't make it, I don't know who can."
If Liam Davies was a wannabe Cedric, then his brother Noel was a Cedric on steroids.
Everything about him was piercing—his sharp, azure eyes; his pointed chin; his slick, black hair. He was undeniably handsome, yet something about him sent shivers down Ellie's spine.
As soon as he saw Ellie, his eyes raked over her entire body from head to toe. Only then did he smile and say, "You made it."
"Thanks for seeing us on short notice," Liam told his brother, not having seemed to notice the glance.
"Us?" Noel repeated. "You're waiting outside, bruv. This is between me and the lady."
A flicker of uncertainty crossed over Liam's countenance, and Ellie decided that he wasn't quite as oblivious to his brother's doglike tendencies as she'd initially thought. He glanced at Ellie, who, against her better judgment, gave him a nod and a smile.
What did she really have to lose at this point?
"So," Noel said once he had closed the door to his office on the two of them. He gestured for Ellie to take a seat on the couch, and she did. "Li says you're interested in signing with us?"
"Well… yeah. The whole band is. The Weasleys."
He watched her thoughtfully as he took a seat next to her on the couch, despite having a perfectly good desk across the room. "Where's the band now?"
She tried to ignore the nervous thumping of her heart. Why was he so close to her? "They had to stay at school. They're interested, though. They just… sent me."
Again, his eyes raked her body. This time, it made her feel physically queasy.
"I'll cut to the chase," he said. "The community has no shortage of wizard rock bands. Our label alone is responsible for the Weird Sisters, the Hobgoblins, and the Black Witches. We aren't interested in accumulating more."
That, she certainly hadn't been expecting. Hitting on her was one thing, but hitting on her and rejecting her?
"You, on the other hand," he continued, inching closer still to her, "are an asset. Nice voice, nice face, nice body—the sort of pop star the wizarding community doesn't have enough of."
Now she was sure she was going to be sick. Never in her life, even by the likes of Aleks, had she been reduced to "nice voice, nice face, nice body." She felt violated, and he hadn't even touched her.
"I'm not interested in doing this without my band," she said, rising to her feet. "I should go."
"Hold on, now," he said, reaching out to catch her by the arm. "No reason we can't finish the conversation, is there?"
Her head was starting to swim with dizziness. It felt like the room—or at least her skin—was on fire. Why wasn't her shield activating? Why did it never do what she needed it to do?
"There is a way," Noel said, using his grip on her arm to tug her close to him. His other hand snaked its way to her lower back, and he leaned in so close, she could feel his breath on her skin. "A way for you to make me reconsider."
This couldn't be happening. Not with Liam right on the other side of the door. Not with things already so bad.
She closed her eyes, trying to block it out—not only the feeling of his hands on her, but also the memory of Aleks' hands on her—the memory of Aleks taunting her—the memory of Aleks killing Cedric—
It was all too much. She had to get out of there. She had to get to the one place in the world she felt safe—to Fred.
So she did.
"Oh, my God. Ellie? El! Can you hear me?"
"What the bloody—whoa."
"Someone get Dumbledore! Tell him we need transport to St. Mungo's! Hurry!"
St. Mungo's? Did she really have to go to St. Mungo's again? What was going on?
Ellie tried to open her eyes, but, for some reason, she was having a tough go of it. She tried to move her body, too, but—
Pain. Not the sort of pain she felt when her shield was activated, but true, gut-wrenching, sickening pain.
"El." It was Fred. "Open your eyes. Please open your eyes. Can you hear me?"
Reluctantly, and with more effort than she had exerted in quite some time, Ellie opened her eyes.
She was in Fred's dorm room.
How was she in Fred's dorm room?
The last thing she remembered was being in Noel's office in London. He had come onto her, touched her, and then…
"You Apparated here," Fred told her. He was pressing something against her stomach—a towel, maybe? Was she bleeding? "I don't know how—it's supposed to be impossible."
She Apparated there? Ellie had never Apparated on her own. She wouldn't even know how.
"You Splinched," said George from next to him. "Worse than I've ever even—"
Fred shot him a look, and he fell silent.
"You're going to be fine, El," Fred told her. "Dumbledore will be here any second, and he'll get you to St. Mungo's. Okay? Just stay with me. Focus on my voice."
"I think…" She felt faint. She felt sick. She felt… dirty. "I think I'm going to close my eyes again."
"No," Fred said quickly. "El, no. You have to stay awake. You have to—"
But that was the last thing she heard before she slipped back into unconsciousness.
At least there, she didn't have to dream.
When Ellie woke up again, she was back at St. Mungo's.
Fred was at her side, sleeping. His hand was in hers. Molly and Arthur were there, too, also sleeping. The only one awake was the great, black dog sitting at the foot of her bed, watching her.
"You shouldn't have come here," she whispered to her father.
The dog rose to a standing position at that, padding closer to her and lifting its chin so that it rested on the side of her cot.
I love you, he told her. She heard him not through Legilimency, but through the same animal-to-animal communication she'd used with Crookshanks back in her third year at Hogwarts. Too much to sit at home, not knowing whether you were alright.
A tear trickled down her cheek as she reached out to stroke his thick, coarse fur with her hand. "Take me with you," she whispered. "Back home."
I want to, but the Order thinks it would be too risky. Molly and Arthur said they'd take you to the Burrow for a few days, until you're strong enough to go back to Hogwarts.
She shook her head. "I don't want to go back there, Dad. I want to go home with you. Permanently."
He lifted his head, tilting it to the side in confusion. What are you talking about?
"I hate it there. I don't want to be there anymore. I just want to be with you."
But… what about your classes? Your friends? His gaze shifted to the sleeping face of Fred, and he added, What about Fred?
Saying out loud was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do, but it was long past time to stop denying it.
"It's over."
She had never seen so much concern in her father's eyes.
But he still said no.
When Ellie had, to the utter bafflement of everyone, Apparated from London to Hogwarts, she had lost a layer of skin on her abdomen that was approximately eleven inches long and three inches wide, along with pieces of several organs including her spleen and small intestine. If she'd had to rely on Muggle medicine, she would have died.
"What were you doing that night, El?"
It had been six days since she Splinched and two days since she'd been released to the Burrow. She was there now, sitting in the kitchen, sipping on tea. Molly was in town picking up food, Arthur was at work, and the rest of the Weasleys were either at Hogwarts or off living their adult lives. It was just the two of them.
"Nothing," Ellie said, looking determinedly into her mug of tea and not at him. "It was stupid."
"Did he try to hurt you? That Liam guy?"
"No. Nothing like that."
"Where did he take you?"
She ran a hand through her hair, which hadn't been properly washed in days. "He didn't take me anywhere, Fred. I took him somewhere."
This clearly hurt Fred to hear, but he didn't stop pushing. "Where?"
She groaned. "To London. Okay? His brother is a music producer, and I wanted to meet with him to talk about the Weasleys."
That, Fred clearly hadn't been expecting. He looked a strange mixture of relieved and confused. "The… band?"
"Yes, the band. I told you it was stupid. I just thought, with both of us being on the brink of expulsion, and our relationship in total shambles, that maybe…"
He seemed to understand—though the realization seemed to sadden him deeply.
"Then… what happened?" he asked. "In London. To make you run away like that."
How did he know her so well? How did he always know her so well?
"Who says I ran away?"
He shot her a very sarcastic look.
She sighed. "Look, Fred, I really don't want to talk about it. Okay? Something happened that made me want to leave, so I left."
But it clearly wasn't good enough for him. "Why are you keeping this from me? Why did you block me out that night?"
"Would it have mattered if I hadn't? I can't communicate with you anymore anyway, can I—thanks to your ingenious little potion?"
He groaned, tugging at his own hair. "I never took the bloody potion, El. I only said that because I thought it would convince you to. I made George try it to make sure it was safe."
She stared up at him in disbelief. "You… what?"
If Fred hadn't taken the potion, it changed things. The rage, emptiness, and utter sense of hopelessness that had engulfed her upon knowing that he had chosen to block her out could be erased. There would still be hope for them, after all.
"I didn't know what else to do, El. We were falling apart, and I was scared, and you always seemed so mad when I popped into your head, and I… just…"
"You lied to me."
His jaw tightened, and he looked away from her. "I did. I'm sorry."
In the grand scheme of things, she barely even cared that he had lied. It was the bigger picture that mattered to her now—the question of whether they still had a chance.
"I know things are bad," he told her, reaching out to take her hands. "I know we have a lot to figure out. But seeing you get hurt like that, El—seeing you nearly get killed again…" He shook his head. "It made me realize what really matters—the only thing that matters. There's only one thing that's forever, right?"
Her eyes glistened with tears, and when she whispered her answer, she felt hope in her words for the first time in far too long.
"How I feel about you."
Is it possible that they've finally found a road back, or is it a fluke? The next chapter is a big one (not that this one wasn't!), so stay on the edge of your seats, ladies and gents, and keep the support coming!
