𝐎, 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 ⎥ "He wants a fight with
a God? I'll give him one."
﹙ from stardust we came, to stardust we return ﹚
Prisoner of Azkaban - Deathly Hollows
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HARRY AND ELARA RETURNED TO GRYFFINDOR TOWER THE FOLLOWING EVENING. from what hermione and ron told them, dumbledore had spoken to the school that morning at breakfast. he had merely requested that they leave harry and elara alone, that nobody ask them questions or badger them to tell the story of what had happened in the maze and in moody's office. most people, elara noticed, were skirting her and harry in the corridors, avoiding her eyes. some whispered behind their hands as they passed. elara guessed that many of them had believed rita skeeter's article about how disturbed and possibly dangerous he was, and how elara was merely pretending to love harry so as to kill him. perhaps they were formulating their own theories about how cedric had died. elara found she didn't care very much. she liked it best when she was with harry and ron and hermione and they were talking about other things, or else letting harry and elara sit in silence while they played chess. she felt as though all four of them had reached an understanding they didn't need to put into words; that each was waiting for some sign, some word, of what was going on outside hogwarts — and that it was useless to speculate about what might be coming until they knew anything for certain.
the only person apart from ron and hermione that harry and elara felt able to talk to was hagrid. as there was no longer a defense against the dark arts teacher, they had those lessons free. they used the one on thursday afternoon to go down and visit hagrid in his cabin. it was a bright and sunny day; fang bounded out of the open door as they approached, barking and wagging his tail madly.
"who's that?" called hagrid, coming to the door. "harry!'lara!"
he strode out to meet them, pulled harry and elara into a one-armed hug, ruffled their hair, and said, "good ter see yeh. dood ter see yeh."
they saw two bucket-size cups and saucers on the wooden table in front of the fireplace when they entered hagrid's cabin.
"bin havin' a cuppa with olympe," hagrid said. "she's jus' left."
"who?" said ron curiously.
"madame maxime, o' course!" said hagrid.
"you two made up, have you?" said ron.
"dunno what yeh're talkin' about," said hagrid airily, fetching more cups from the dresser. When he had made tea and offered around a plate of doughy cookies, he leaned back in his chair and surveyed elara and elara closely through his beetle-black eyes.
"you two all righ'?" he said gruffly.
"yeah," said harry and elara together. the response to this question has almost become automated.
