(OotP) CHAPTER THIRTY: Skin

"This is as far as I've ever been in here," Ellie said when they reached the cold, dark corridor that had once led her to the chamber where Harry's hearing was. "Harry, do you know how to get to the place from your dream?"

"I've dreamt about it a thousand times," he said, leading the way with eager confidence toward a great, black door. They followed him through the door and into the next chamber, but there, his confidence waned.

"I…" He scanned the twelve doors in the chamber, which were revolving as if on conveyor belts. "There was only one room in my dream. It wasn't like this!"

There wasn't time for indecision, Ellie thought with a pang of fear for her father. "Just try them all!" she shouted at the rest of them as she reached forward for the closest door to her. She started to step into it as soon as she opened, but hesitated when the smell of formaldehyde overwhelmed her senses and what looked to be aquatic brains floated in liquid containers.

Shuddering, she slammed the door closed, shaking her head.

All around her, her friends were shaking their heads, too, with one exception: Liam.

"Harry," he shouted. "Was the room in your dream filled with shelves? They seem to have these sort of… orbs on them."

"That's it!" Harry shouted, scrambling over to the door Liam had open as Ellie did the same.

Before long, all eight of them had piled into the large, tall-ceilinged room filled with shelves full of glass orbs. But not one of them detected any sign of Sirius.

"Do you still have the connection with whoever you talked to from the Order?" Katie asked Ellie. "Maybe you could check in on them—see if they've heard anything we should know?"

Ellie bit her lip. Had she been keeping Fred out this whole time? She hadn't intended to, though she hadn't ever consciously stopped trying to, either.

Heaving a sigh, she closed her eyes again and focused on letting down her walls.

Ellie? El, are you there? Ellie?

Yeah—I'm here. We haven't found him yet. Have you heard anything?

He's with us. He's fine.

Ellie's eyes flew open. "He isn't here!" she shouted.

But Harry wasn't paying attention to her. He was staring at one of the orbs as if utterly transfixed.

"Did you hear me, Harry? He isn't here! He's fine!"

"This orb has my name on it," he said, as if he hadn't heard her.

El, please. You have to get out of there. We're on our way, but we had to fly there. We're still a few minutes—

"Harry! Look out!"

Despite Ron's panic, the man who had appeared in front of Harry didn't seem intent on harming him—at least, not at that moment. Lucius Malfoy seemed far more intent on the orb that Harry had picked up.

"Nicely done, Harry," he said in a disturbingly calm, cheerful voice. "Now, then. Just had it over to me, and nobody has to get hurt."

Harry gazed slowly down at the orb, then over to Ellie. "He isn't here?" he asked her.

She shook her head.

"This is what you wanted, then?" Harry asked Lucius, holding the orb closer to his chest. "This is why you tricked me into thinking you had him?"

"Indeed." Lucius' voice was smooth as silk. "Only those about whom a prophecy are made can retrieve it, you see, Harry. And this particular prophecy… Well, it's about you."

Before Harry could say a word, another figure emerged from behind Lucius—and then another, and then another. Death Eater after Death Eater—ready to play.

She was going to need to use her shield again—and it was going to need to be stronger than ever.

Given that she felt weaker than ever, there was really only one solution: she had to make music. And given that she hadn't written a song in over a month, she only had one option: Skin.

Ellie had written Skin shortly after Fred left, and had adapted and edited it more and more over the weeks and months that followed. It was far too personal for her to ever have recorded or performed with Noel's studio—which was exactly why she thought it might just be enough to protect her friends.

"Guys," she said. "Stay close to me until the Order shows up. I'll keep you safe."

"No," Harry said immediately, just as Fred said it in her head. "You can't—"

"I drift away to a place—another kind of life. Take away the pain, and create my paradise. Everything I had has hit the wall—what used to be yours isn't yours at all."

Curses and shrieks resounded from the Death Eaters across from them as they realized that their spells weren't landing. Ellie ignored the faces and noises of all of them—even Aleks—as she closed her eyes and focused on nothing but the emotions that had led her to write the song.

"Falling apart, and all that I'm asking—is it a crime? Am I overreacting? Oh, he's under my skin—just give me something to get rid of him. I've got a reason now to bury this alive—another little white lie."

They were all casting their spells at her again, but it didn't hurt like it once had. She had grown so used to the never-ending pain of her shield, she wasn't sure it could get any worse.

"So what you had didn't fit among your perfect things? Never fear, never fear—I now know where you went. Braids have been untied, and ribbons fall away. Leave the consequence; my tears you'll taste."

He was there now. They all were—every member of the Order, including her father. She saw them both run over to her—Fred and Sirius—heard them both beg her to stop—but she ignored them. How could they expect her to do any differently now that they were there?

"Falling apart, and all that I question—is this a dream, or is this my lesson? Oh, he's under my skin—just give me something to get rid of him. I've got a reason now to bury this alive—another little white lie."

The Death Eaters had finally stopped focusing their attacks on her. They were more concerned, she could tell, with getting the Prophecy from Harry. There was a commotion between Harry and Bellatrix—she couldn't touch him because of Ellie's shield, but her magic still seemed able to rock and sway his body in its attempts to maneuver the Prophecy towards her—and then it was moving, flying through the air, and then… shattering.

"I don't believe I'll be alright—I don't believe I'll be okay. I don't believe how you've thrown me away. I do believe you didn't try—I do blame you for every lie—when I look in your eyes…"

She knew the next line by heart, just like she knew the rest of the song: I don't see mine.

But standing there, staring into the eyes of the boy she was still, even after all that had happened, madly in love with, she couldn't say it.

"…I still see mine."

"You fool!" Lucius screamed at Harry. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Dumbledore showed up at that. He walked straight over to Ellie, placed a hand on her shoulder, and said in a gentle voice, "That's enough."

Obediently—since she owed him quite a bit of obedience by then—she closed her mouth.

As Dumbledore turned toward the Death Eaters to effortlessly corral them away from the students and Order members, Sirius and Fred both stepped even closer to Ellie.

"Ellie," Sirius said, taking his daughter's face in his hands and looking her straight in the eyes. "I'm going to go and help the Order. Stay here, and do not, under any circumstances, try to start up your shield again. Do you understand me?"

She nodded—though, of course, it was something she barely had control over, and wouldn't want to limit even if she did.

Sirius nodded, too, gave Fred a long, reproachful stare, then took off behind Dumbledore.

Which, of course, gave Fred his opening.

He didn't reach out to take her face in his hands like Sirius had. He didn't reach out to touch her at all, though something in his gaze suggested to her that he very much wanted to. Instead, he stepped even closer to her, so that they were mere inches apart, and said softly, "I'm so sorry, El."

That was it? After all he had put her through—after all that had happened—four simple words?

"It's not okay," she whispered.

"I know. But I'm still sorry."

Her jaw seemed to tighten, and her heart gave a lurch. It wanted her to forgive him. It ached for her to forgive him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione dive into the fray, despite having been given the same instructions she had regarding staying put. Her instincts told her to follow them, but she reluctantly refrained. She had to finish this, and anyway, Dumbledore was there to keep them safe. This fight was as good as won.

"I don't feel like I have a choice here," she said softly to Fred. "No matter what you do, I can't help loving you. So how long can I really fight forgiving you?"

"You shouldn't ever forgive me." He still wasn't touching her, but he seemed to be inching closer to her by the second. "You should remind me, every day, how much I hurt you. You should remind me that I owe it to you to do better—to be better. But even if you never reminded me again, I still would. I swear to you, El. I would never— could never—hurt you again."

It wasn't the first time he had made such a promise, and he had broken it before. Would he break it again?

Did it matter? At this point, was fairly certain she would rather have even just a few more months with him and get her heart broken again than not have him at all.

"I'm going to be mad at you for a very long time," she told him softly.

And before he could say another word, she kissed him.

As thrilling and exhilarating as it was to finally feel Fred's lips on hers again—and, God, it was—she also experienced the distinct feeling that something in her was finally settling—like the shield that had bubbled up in her for months, coming to the surface unwarranted on more than one occasion, finally was able to relax. You're safe now, it seemed to tell her. I can take a step back.

And yet, after only a few seconds, he pulled away from her—brown eyes filled with a kind of fear she had only seen in them a handful of times before.

"El," he said slowly. "Why do you taste like blood?"

Her hand flew to her mouth, and she realized too late that, for the first time, she was bleeding from the mouth.

She had almost forgotten about the small matter of her being much closer to death than most people her age. Should she have told Fred before she kissed him? Didn't he have a right to know what he was signing up for?

He began to suffer nosebleeds, which eventually turned into bleeds from the ears, mouth, and, finally… eyes.

"It's the next-to-last symptom," she whispered.

"Symptom?" he repeated, eyes searching hers frantically. "El, what are you—"

Ellie? Ellie, I need help!

Ellie tore her eyes away from Fred's to focus on the voice inside her head. It was Luna—a very frantic Luna.

What's going on? she asked her friend. Where are you?

I—I don't know! I was being chased by Aleks, and I ran back to the corridor we came from and through another door. There are these sort of brains everywhere, and—

I'm coming, Ellie told her.

"I've got to go help Luna," she told Fred. "Stay here."

He ignored that, of course—following just behind her as she sprinted out of the room of prophecies and toward the door she had opened in the previous corridor.

But Luna wasn't there.

"Luna?" she shouted, whirling back around to face Fred, who was inches away from her.

And then…

Crash.

Gasps escaped both Fred and Ellie as a wall of iron bars slammed down between them. Too late, she realized that the wall connected to three other walls of iron bars which, together, formed a cage.

Too late, she realized it hadn't been Luna's voice in her head at all.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," said Aleks from the far side of the iron bars.

And before Ellie could utter a word to either of them, he snapped his fingers, and both she and the cage were transported elsewhere.

Ruh-roh! Ellie DID piss off a lot of people over the course of this story, so it only makes sense they'd try extra hard to get revenge on her, especially Aleks... but what's going to happen next? Only one more chapter in OotP, so make sure not to miss it, and keep those reviews and follows coming! Oh - and make sure you check out "Skin" by Alexz Johnson from Instant Star. Probably my favourite of all her songs, and very fitting for this moment!