"Tell me something, Ellie. How is it Valentines Day already?"
It was a warm day inside the castle even though it was a cloudy day outside.
"It isn't. Fifteen days, Silas, it's not Valentines Day just because you want it to be."
Ellie was doodling in her Potions book while Silas beamed and breathed in the fresh scent of lunch spread out on the Ravenclaw table. Her blue eyes briefly flicked over to the Slytherin table, where she saw Nikolai, Draco and the rest of the Slytherin gang hunched over something Nikolai had in front of him, which had to be one of his journals, as he sat in the centre of them all. Silas looked at her and followed her eyes, to which he scoffed. Ellie had told him everything as soon as he returned to Hogwarts.
"Look at him! Could he be any more obvious? He looks so shady," Silas spat bitterly, looking away from the Slytherins.
Nikolai hadn't spoken to Ellie in a few days, but when he returned from the holidays he beamed at her like nothing happened. And then he drifted away, and she assumed that he was going on about things he didn't want her listening to...yet.
"I wish Malfoy would hurry up and nick that journal."
Ellie shook her head at the Ravenclaw boy. "No. He said he's not going to until—"
"—until next year, yes I know. It's silly and pointless. Might as well nick it now and save you the trouble of having to put up with the daft toad for the next however many months."
Ellie groaned and dropped her head onto the table. "Months?! You just had to remind me didn't you."
"Sorry," Silas said, turning red. "At least, you know, not all of them are bad."
"It's only Malfoy that isn't," Ellie mumbled, focusing back onto her drawings. She was drawing the owl she saw perched by Malfoy, as the beauty of it had caught her eye and she just couldn't resist. "And he's probably just pretending. That story he told —"
"Yes, as terrifying as it is, it's definitely the truth. I mean I believe the whole thing simply because it's Nikolai Orlov. Only problem is everyone here thinks that the sun shines out of his dunghole."
"Hmm," Ellie murmured, taking a sip of her pumpkin juice.
"Plus, Malfoy's into you."
The pumpkin juice stopped halfway down Ellie's throat and she choked, coughing and dropping the half-full goblet onto the table. Silas jumped back and raised his arms.
"Bloody hell, Silas!" Ellie coughed, clearing her throat.
"What?" Silas said innocently.
"What do you mean what? Don't say things like that."
"Well...it's true. Silas sees all, Ellie. Silas sees all. I knew how Nikolai saw you from the start and now I know how Draco sees you."
Ellie felt her face flushing but simply shook her head, returning to her sketch of Draco Malfoy's owl, fighting the urge to smile.
"Besides...what other reason could he possibly have for keeping your ruined canvas, fixing it, and then gifting it? I don't believe it was just to be nice."
Ellie shrugged. "I'm under the impression that he seriously pities me."
"Well maybe he does seriously pity you but that doesn't automatically rule out that he fancies you."
"Why would he fancy me of all people?" Ellie couldn't help but wonder. Nikolai didn't even like her the way that she was, why would Draco Malfoy?
Silas was drinking his pumpkin juice but swallowed quickly and put down the goblet, making the kind of gesture with his hands that let Ellie know he was about to make a list.
"Well — you've got pretty hair. No, really. Long and red. How could you not be into that? Clear skin, not a lot of us teenagers—"
"Um," Ellie said, pointing to a red spot on the side of her face.
Silas brushed her off by waving his hand and shaking his head. "Clear skin, Ellie. Those cute freckles. And you've got a hell of a cute smile, see? Look at it!"
Ellie was laughing, making Silas smile at her.
"And I guarantee you if you look behind me, you'll see Malfoy looking at you."
Ellie reluctantly did as Silas said and looked to the centre of the Slytherin table, and blue eyes clashed with grey. But he quickly looked away.
"Silas...d'you think maybe they could be just really looking into those Death Eaters that escaped Azkaban the other day?" Ellie said solemnly, dropping her smile. "Well, Nikolai most of all."
"Honestly your theory on Nikolai wanting to sign up for a lifetime of rainbows, butterflies, and creepy forearm tattoos doesn't even surprise me," Silas replied. "Just don't forget that gleeful look on his face when he read the papers."
"Elyssa!"
Ellie was in the library one afternoon working on her pile of homework given by Professor Umbridge when someone completely out of breath knocked her in between the shoulder blades. The girl jumped and turned away from the bookshelf, and her stomach dropped.
"Hi, Nikolai..." she said uncertainly, forcing a smile but avoiding his eyes. He was alone. "You okay?"
"I'm marrying the prettiest girl in the castle, why wouldn't I be okay?" he said, smiling flirtatiously at Ellie. She knew she had no choice but to smile back, even though she wanted nothing more than to pull a gross face at him. "And, of course, you'll be accompanying me to Hogmeade tomorrow, won't you?"
Even though this was a question, it didn't exactly sound like a question. There was a hint of demand in this question, and Ellie forced another smile at him.
"Of course," she said regretfully.
He smiled back. "Good. It's good to see you this happy."
"So, I'll meet you by the doors then?"
Nikolai nodded, before leaning forward and kissing her cheek. After this, he departed, and Ellie let out a very long breath of air. Her stomach dropped even further...she didn't even want to wake up for tomorrow, she wanted to skip it and wake up the next day instead.
Sighing, the redhead picked out her book and sat back at the table Lavender and Parvarti were at. They were grinning and giggling, which was expected.
"He asked you, didn't he?" Lavender beamed, ditching her quill and leaning across the table.
"You know it," Ellie said, organising her pile of books and parchment. She ignored Lavender and Paravarti's squeals and focused on lining up her ink by the parchment. "Just can't believe you two have studied with him."
"Oh, yeah. That was fun. He mostly asked us questions and gossiped to us, but just being in his presence was...exhilarating. Sorry, Ellie," Parvarti said quickly.
"Gossiped? Nikolai gossiped?" Ellie said in disbelief, raising her eyebrows. "What did he gossip about?"
"Well, you mostly," Lavender replied while Parvarti nodded. "Just rumours about you, he asked whether they were true or not."
"Like...like what? What rumours? Details, girls, I need details."
"Okay, okay," Lavender breathed, pushing her work aside. "You remember that day you came into Divination and you were all...messy...and everybody assumed you and Nikolai got together in, like, a broom cupboard or something? Well, sure he took credit when asked but he was still confused as to why you were...messy...and why Umbridge would assume such a thing. That's all. Parvarti and I told him that you were just running late, that's all."
Ellie rolled her eyes hard. Nikolai should have known the reason behind this, but he probably just assumed that she went straight to class after the first time he hurt her.
"Right...and what questions did he ask?"
"Just things like if you have any other friends besides us and Blair, and who you owl, who owls you, just general things a boyfriend should know about his girlfriend," Parvarti shrugged. "I just find it weird that he wouldn't find these things out from you, but yeah."
"And I can't believe that you have Draco Malfoy tutoring you in Potions!" Lavender said.
"Yeah!" Parvarti cut in. "I mean, we saw you two in here sometimes but we just thought that maybe you were having an affair with him. We never said anything though, not even to you. I was worried you'd get scared or offended or something, especially if it wasn't true at all, which we now know."
"Yeah, why didn't you tell us?" Lavender asked politely, although there was a hint of annoyance and suspicion in her voice.
"I don't know," Ellie shrugged. "I was worried about what you'd think."
"Worried about what we'd think?"
"Yeah. I didn't want to come off as dumb. So dumb that I need Malfoy to help me," Ellie said bitterly, considering that she never wanted his help to begin with. Now, however, she didn't mind it all.
"Well, it doesn't matter who is helping you, so long as you're getting the help that you need."
Ellie was at the oak doors before Nikolai the next day, playing with the ends of her hair as she stared distantly out at the cloudy sky. She swallowed before turning when she heard her name being called, and watched as Nikolai jogged down the stairs and made his way over to her with a smile.
"It's just us two today?" she asked, noticing he was alone again.
"Yes. Pansy's off with her girl friends, I think they'll be there. Draco will be with Crabbe and Goyle, we might even bump into them."
"Cool," Ellie smiled. But she was worried. She would have preferred that the rest of his gang follow closely behind, especially Draco. She didn't want to be alone with Nikolai.
"Cool?" Nikolai scoffed lightly with a hint of a forced smile. He grabbed onto Ellie's hand. "Shouldn't use that word. I know, I know, I may have used it before but...there are better words. You know, like splendid, marvellous, pleasant...that kind of thing."
"Right..." Ellie said bluntly, turning her head to the side to roll her eyes.
They made their way to and past Filch in silence, then as they made their way into the village Nikolai began to talk about their wedding, which made her want to crawl into her bed and hide from the world.
"I think about it all the time really, and I was thinking about where we would have it. Our hall isn't...good. Don't ask why, it just isn't. What about your hall?"
"Hall?" Ellie said quietly. "Well, we have a ballroom. I suppose that could be rearranged into a room for it."
"Ballroom?" Nikolai scoffed. "No way. Oh, well. My parents will ask around and see if we can have it at somebody else's hall then. The Malfoys' have a huge one, but I'm not sure I'd want it there."
"I agree," Ellie said, looking down.
Nikolai chuckled lightly as he stared out into the road. "My father and I were talking the night before the start of term and he says once you and I are married we should have a baby straight away. A baby every year he said."
Ellie tried not to look shocked and disgusted and forced a laugh with him.
"So, where do you want to go first?" she asked, determined to change the subject. "Ooh, let's go to Honeydukes! I've been dying to have more Sugar Quills! And chocolate frogs, oh my goodness, the chocolate frogs..."
Ellie suddenly forgot who she was talking to, and as she trailed off she slowly turned to see Nikolai's expression, and knew it was going to be one of disgust before she saw it. He had his lip curled and his eyes squinted.
"Forget Honeydukes we aren't going in there," Nikolai scoffed, looking over at Honeydukes and giving it a bitter stare. "Well, you aren't. You shouldn't even be eating most of the food in the Great Hall. Honeydukes is ten times worse and I forbid you to eat anything from there. No sugary foods, no sweets."
Ellie felt anger bubbling in her stomach, but she remained calm on the outside and politely asked, "But why?"
And she knew the response would hurt her.
"You need to keep up a certain look," Nikolai responded with his hands clasped together. He didn't even look at her as he spoke. "I don't want to marry a girl who looks like the crazy fat aunt of the family. And I don't want you to ever look like that. The way you are now...okay-ish...but you could be better, really. I think I've let you off the hook a little too easily, I'm going to be stricter on your diet again. I would say you should try out for Quidditch but I feel that it's a male thing. The girls on the team right now are already laughable."
Ellie bit her tongue to keep from saying something she would seriously regret and kept quiet, slowly looking up into Nikolai's amber eyes when he looked at her.
"Okay?" He said firmly, looking at her as if everything he had just said was completely normal and part of your everyday conversation.
"Yeah," Ellie mumbled. "Whatever you want."
She tried very hard not to add the word 'weirdo' at the end. He could continue to think he was going to have her for life, but she would not allow it to truly happen. She managed to keep the thought of him murdering his little brother out of her mind to keep from having a panic attack, but it was slowly creeping back as Nikolai slowly approached her. She could feel her breathing getting heavier.
He smiled widely. "Good! Now, should we go and have some tea? Oh, perhaps I should buy you a gift, it's Valentines Day after all. So, what do you want?"
Ellie blinked. "What?"
"What do you want? It's Valentines Day, what would you like me to buy you?"
"Well, I don't think that's the way Valentines Day works, Nikolai."
"Excuse me?"
"Meaning no disrespect of course," Ellie said quickly, almost rolling her eyes. "I just think you're meant to gift something to me without me having to tell you what I want. Like flowers, or choc...I mean, or roses, or whatever."
"I'll make Valentines Day whatever I want to make it and I'll do it however I want," the boy said stubbornly. "So what do you want? Hurry up or you get nothing."
"We can just get that tea," Ellie mumbled, rubbing her arm uncomfortably.
A drop of water fell into Ellie's eye, then on her forehead, then atop her head, followed by a downpour of rain that had begun to fall out of nowhere. A light crack of thunder rumbled, and Ellie heard Nikolai yelp.
He was shielding himself from the rain with his arms and acting as though every drop was poison.
"I'm going back to the castle! Come on!"
"But...no...I don't want—"
"Come on, Elyssa, before I—" he was cut off by another crack of thunder and turned on his heel. "Whatever, do what you want!"
Ellie watched him race through where they had come from with his hands over his head, until he eventually disappeared out of sight. She looked up at the raining sky and smiled.
"Thank you," she whispered.