(HBP) CHAPTER TWELVE: Catching Grenades

"I have to admit," Katie said a few days later as the B.A. sat together for lunch in the courtyard. They hadn't been doing it quite as regularly as they had the year before, as Ellie was trying to make more of an effort with the rest of her Gryffindor friends, too. "I'm starting to feel like the B.A. is falling apart."

"We're right here, aren't we?" Ellie asked with a bit of a frown.

"For the first time in what—a week?" asked Liam. "I feel like Katie's right. Our strength last year was that we didn't keep anything from each other, and this year, it feels like we don't tell each other anything."

"I tell you guys everything," offered Luna. "There just isn't much to say, as far as I'm concerned. I'm scared about You Know Who, especially after what he did to Ellie, but there isn't much I can do about it."

"Do you ever try the listening in thing you did last year?" Neville asked her. "You know—how we knew the Azkaban breakout was going to happen?"

"I do, but Aleks and Bellatrix are strong enough Occlumens to keep me out, and Lucius Malfoy is rather boring, being stuck in Azkaban and all."

Ellie didn't mind that Luna didn't have a direct connection to any Death Eaters. Frankly, she needed a break from Death Eaters.

"I tell you guys everything, too," she said. "There just isn't much for me to say, either."

Liam made a bit of a face at that—as though he didn't quite believe her.

"Well, it's true," she said firmly. "Sorry that I'm not as exciting as I was last year, but given that my constant Apparition, intense spell-casting, and death missions brought me within an inch of death, I think I prefer myself this way."

She hadn't meant to get quite so intense about it, but she couldn't help feeling a bit attacked. She didn't want to lose the B.A. They meant the world to her, and had gotten her through the toughest time of her life.

Unfortunately, the intensity of her words only seemed to push them further away.

Especially Liam.

"I hate to say it, but maybe it's to be expected," Fred told her at the Three Broomsticks during the first Hogsmeade visit of the year. "You all just got so close, so fast—sometimes things like that fall apart just as quickly."

She hated hearing the term fall apart being used to describe people she cared so deeply for, and was determined to change the subject. "How's it going at the shop?"

"Fine, actually. Feel bad for the folks at Zonko's, though. They aren't faring quite as well. I spent the morning there, before you arrived. George is actually interested in buying the place."

Ellie's eyes widened. "Buying the place? With what money?"

He looked amused. "We do run a successful business, El. Meaning we've made some profit."

"But you've only been open for less than a year! How could you possibly…"

She trailed off when she spotted Katie coming out of the washroom. She looked pale as a sheet, and was carrying a long, rectangular package.

"Katie?" Ellie called out, eyeing the package suspiciously. She hadn't had it when she walked in, had she?

But if Katie heard Ellie, she gave no indication.

"Hey," said Leanne, a friend of Katie's in her own year, approaching her. "Where are you going? We've just started—"

But Katie ignored her, too. She had nearly made it to the front door.

Ellie glanced at Fred, flummoxed. "Should I go after her?"

He was already getting to his feet. "She had the look of someone who's been cursed," he said through gritted teeth. "C'mon."

Ellie, Leanne, and Fred dashed after Katie, jogging to catch up with her outside of the restaurant and putting out hands to physically stop her.

"Katie!" Leanne shouted. "What is that you're holding?"

"I have to get it to Filch." Her voice was distant and detached, and she wasn't looking anyone in the eye.

"She asked what it is," Ellie said, rooting her feet firmly in place and keeping a tight grip of Katie's arm. "Who gave it to you?"

"Madam Rosmerta." Katie was still staring dazedly at the castle as if none of them were there. "I need to go."

"Let me see that," Leanne said, reaching for the box.

"No," Fred said quickly, reaching out to stop her. "It could be cursed!"

Hearing the word "cursed" and seeing Fred's hands anywhere near the box was enough for Ellie to snatch it from both of them. Unfortunately, when she did, the package bumped itself open, her hand grazed the contents inside, and just like that, she was dropping the box and keeling to her knees in the kind of pain she hadn't felt since her summer in the cage.

"Ellie!" Fred shouted, panicked, as Leanne yanked Katie away from him and Ellie. He dropped to his knees to look Ellie in the eyes. "Are you okay?"

She was okay. The pain had staggered her, but it was already over. She took a deep breath, then nodded. "I'm fine."

An audience was starting to form around them, but Fred paid it no mind. "Did someone charge your vambraces this morning?"

"I did," said Hermione from behind them. She, Harry, and Ron were all approaching. "What happened? Was it that necklace?"

Ellie glanced down at the box, which was still partially open. Inside it was long, opal necklace.

Before she could comment on it, she clocked Fred pulling out his wand and pointing it at her vambraces. He was re-upping her magic supply, she realized with a weak smile. She was his only priority in that moment.

In this moment and every other, he said in her head, causing her smile to widen.

"I know that necklace," said Harry when Fred had finished, stooping down to investigate it. Fred put out a warning hand, but Harry didn't dare touch it. "I saw it years ago at Bourgin and Bourke's. It's cursed."

"Yeah," Ellie said grimly as she got back to her feet, "think we pretty much gathered that." She glanced at Katie, who still looked completely out of it, and frowned. "We should get her and the box to Dumbledore—figure out what all this is about."

Fred pulled off his jacket and used it as a glove to pick up the box. "I'm coming, too. Whoever did this almost hurt Ellie."

But Ellie had a feeling she wasn't its intended target at all.

"It was Malfoy," Harry said as he, Ellie, Fred, and Leanne headed to Dumbledore's office, forcibly escorting Katie there. "Had to be."

Ellie frowned. "What makes you say that?"

He looked annoyed by her question. "I saw it in a store at Knockturn Alley," he reminded her. "Malfoy frequents the place, doesn't he?"

"Him and every other Slytherin around," pointed out Leanne.

Harry reluctantly fell silent at that, though Ellie had a feeling it was purely because he didn't know Leanne very well.

To Ellie's surprise, Harry knew the password to Dumbledore's office without having to knock or ask. Fred knew, of course, having used Dumbledore's office to enter and exit via the Floo Network every weekend, but she wasn't sure why Harry did. She recalled his words about Dumbledore not wanting him to share everything with her and decided that he must be meeting with him regularly.

They piled onto his moving staircase, atop which they were greeted by both Dumbledore and Snape.

"Professor," Harry said to Dumbledore, as if Snape wasn't even there. "We think Katie's under some sort of mind control."

"Someone slipped her this in the washroom," Fred added, lifting the covered box. "Madam Rosmerta, she said. Told her to bring it to Filch. Ellie grazed it with her hand, but her shield kept her from feeling the full effects of whatever the curse was."

Snape pulled out a handkerchief and accepted the box from Fred with it, reaching down to open it. His eyes clouded over with recognition when he saw the necklace; clearly he knew it from Bourgin and Burkes, too.

"I'll do some testing on it," he told Dumbledore.

Dumbledore nodded. He looked deep in thought.

"It was Draco," Harry said urgently. "He picked it up from Bourgin and Burkes. He—"

"—was in detention all day," Snape interrupted tersely. "And is hardly capable of putting not one, but two of-age witches under mind control, being a mere sixth-year himself. Really, Potter—how far do you plan to take this petty rivalry?"

He's one to talk, Fred quipped in Ellie's head. Does he not have the same kind of rivalry with your dad?

He had a point; Sirius and Snape hated each other, and always had. Still, Ellie was on Snape's side on this one; this didn't feel like the work of Draco to her. And if it was, he certainly wasn't acting alone.

"I think you're giving your new buddy a bit too much credit," Fred told Ellie a few hours later as she walked him back to Dumbledore's office so he could travel home. "Or too little, depending how you look at it. Remember when Harry got into your head back in your fourth year?"

She remembered. He'd been using Imperius on her to help practice her resistance to it. "I agree that Draco is capable," she admitted. "But I can't see him intentionally cursing someone of his own accord—aside from in a duel, I mean."

Fred still looked doubtful.

"I should go and check on Katie," Ellie said. Dumbledore had sent Leanne to the hospital wing with Katie in tow to see what Madam Pomfrey could do about the mind control, though he said it would probably fade naturally with the initial goal no longer being possible.

Fred nodded. They had nearly reached Dumbledore's office, anyway. He came to a stop and turned to face her fully. "Look, El… what you did today, reaching for that box so I wouldn't touch it…"

She knew where he was going with this one. "I won't apologize, Fred. I'd do it again in a second."

He groaned. "You have to stop thinking of yourself as a human shield, El. What we went through—getting you back on track—we won't be able to do it again."

"The vambraces were charged," she reminded him.

"As a precaution, not so you could go around soaking up damage to your heart's content. Besides, we don't know how strong that curse was. Your shield could have required more magic than was in those vambraces to keep the curse at bay. You might already be back on the track you just cleared."

"I doubt it. And even if I was, I wouldn't care. It would have been worth it to save you."

He groaned again. "You can't just—"

"I can." Her voice was firm. "I love you, Fred, and I'd do anything to protect you. It's not a crime. Have you ever heard the Muggle phrase 'I'd take a bullet for you'—or, as Bruno Mars puts it, 'I'd catch a grenade for you'?"

He shot her a sarcastic look. "It's not the same thing."

"It's exactly the same thing. This is just my version of catching grenades, Fred. And frankly, it's substantially safer. So, really, you should be happy."

He managed a reluctant laugh at that. "I suppose that's true."

She took a step forward, reaching out to take his hands in hers and squeeze them. "I know you'd do the same for me, Fred. So don't tell me it's a crime."

He sighed. "Of course, I would. I just need you to let me once in a while."

"The necklace that Katie had," Ellie said to Draco the following Monday in Potions. "That wasn't you, was it?"

She could tell from his expression that she probably should have eased into it more gently. Draco didn't seem to be in good spirits today—a fact that unfortunately supported Harry's claim more than her own. "Sod off, would you, Black? I'm not in the mood today."

"I won't lie to you," she said, ignoring his request. "Harry thinks it was you. I told him he's wrong, though. At least, that you wouldn't do something like that alone."

Draco glanced carefully around to ensure that no one was listening to him. Once he did, he turned back to her and hissed, "And who says I'm alone?"

Well, that wasn't a good sign.

Have I told you lately that I'm not a fan of this particular friendship? Fred asked in her head.

Noted, she replied shortly before returning her attention to Draco.

"Okay," she whispered, attempting to keep her cool. She had known that Draco might be a Death Eater, hadn't she? That wasn't news. She could still try and convince him to find a better path, even if that was the case. She could still give him a chance, like Snape had suggested. "You're not alone. All I'm saying is I'm sure it was their idea, not yours."

He rolled his eyes. "And what makes you so sure of that—if not this ridiculous infatuation with me you seem to have developed?"

She pretended to gag. Fred joined her in her head. "I'd sooner date Cormac McLaggen than you—and I really can't stand McLaggen."

He grimaced, but she was fairly certain she caught a hint of a grin on his face. "It'd be your funeral. Guy's got breath that could take out a small village."

She grinned, too, but she wasn't ready to let go of the real subject at hand. "Look, all I'm saying is, if it was you, it's okay. No harm done. And it's not too late to stop trying to cause harm."

His expression darkened again. "You don't know the first thing about it."

"I don't know much about it," she admitted. "But I'm here if you ever want to tell me."

He said no, of course. Shot her another dirty look and quipped another mean joke.

But she got the feeling that, little by little, she was starting to get to him.

I know this friendship with Draco is dangerous, but it's courageous, too, don't you think? Hope you enjoyed her heroics with Fred! Tune back in for the next update and don't forget to leave a comment if you're enjoying the story. Thanks for reading!