In the morning Ella didn't even want to open her eyes, she was still tired from the previous night. She doesn't even remember what time she passed out. Ella grudgingly moved to get up but was stopped by something holding her by her waist. Her eyes adjusted to see herself once again in the Slytherin common room asleep on the couch with Draco.
"Draco" she shook him, he whined in response, she rolled her eyes "get up"
"tired" was all he said
Someone came down the stairs "You have to let her go at some point, or tons of boys will see her in her pajamas"
"Morning Blaise" Ella greeted
"Morning" He smiled, he walked over and shouted in Draco's ear "Ella's naked!"
"Excuse me" Ella said annoyed
Draco opened his eyes and hit Blaise "shut up Zabini"
"Got you awake though" Blaise smirked
"yelling in anyone's ear would wake them up" Draco complained as he sat up
"morning love" Ella kissed his cheek
"Do you have to do that in front of me?" Blaise asked
"yes" Ella replied and Draco smirked
"Go change" Draco pushed Ella to the girl's side
"ok ok" Ella sighed walking to her room.
-
Harry and Ella met up in the library to try to figure out the golden egg. Harry opened the egg and the two siblings listened intently, hoping that this time it would make some sense. They strained to think what the sound reminded them of, but they had never heard anything else like it.
Harry closed the egg, shook it vigorously, and opened it again to see if the sound had changed, but it hadn't. Harry tried asking the egg questions, shouting over all the wailing, but nothing happened.
Ella threw the egg across the room, she hadn't really expected that to help "I give up"
"Cedric told me to try taking a bath" Harry said
"Yeah you do smell" Ella said and laughed
Harry shook his head "no, I mean as a hint"
Ella shrugged "I don't know"
"Ella"
The siblings looked up to see Draco at the library's door.
"See you later Harry" Ella stood up and walked over to Draco
Harry watched as Draco held Ella's hand and left with her. Harry sighed and looked back at the egg, great he was losing his mind, the tournament, and his sister.
-
The first day of the new term arrived, and everyone set off to lessons, weighed down with books, parchment, and quills as usual. Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that they couldn't see out of them in Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this weather.
When they arrived at Hagrid 's cabin, however, they found an elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.
"Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago," she barked at them as they struggled toward her through the snow.
"Who're you?" said Ron, staring at her. "Where's Hagrid?"
"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank," she said briskly. "I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher."
"Where's Hagrid?" Harry repeated loudly.
"He is indisposed," said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.
Soft and unpleasant laughter reached Harry's ears. He turned; Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins were joining the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see Professor Grubbly-Plank, except for Ella.
Ella walked away from Draco and over to the trio "Where's Hagrid?"
"Indisposed" Harry replied glaring at Draco "no thanks to your boyfriend probably"
"This way, please," said Professor Grubbly-Plank, and she strode off around the paddock where the Beauxbatons horses were shivering. Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed her, looking back over their shoulders at Hagrid's cabin. All the curtains were closed. Was Hagrid in there, alone and ill?
"What's wrong with Hagrid?" Harry said, hurrying to catch up with Professor Grubbly-Plank.
"Never you mind," she said as though she thought he was being nosy.
Harry sighed, he knew better then to mouth off to a teacher, his sister on the other hand had no problem with it.
"We do mind, though," said Ella hotly. "What's up with him?"
Professor Grubbly-Plank acted as though she couldn't hear them. She led them past the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were standing, huddled against the cold, and toward a tree on the edge of the forest, where a large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.
Many of the girls "ooooohed!" at the sight of the unicorn.
"Oh it's so beautiful!" whispered Lavender Brown. "How did she get it? They're supposed to be really hard to catch!"
The unicorn was so brightly white it made the snow all around look gray. It was pawing the ground nervously with its golden hooves and throwing back its horned head.
"Boys keep back!" barked Professor Grubbly-Plank, throwing out an arm and catching Harry hard in the chest. "They prefer the woman's touch, unicorns. Girls to the front, and approach with care, come on, easy does it...."
Ella happily went up with the other girls, Draco smiled seeing his girlfriend looking so happy. The moment Professor Grubbly-Plank was out of earshot. Harry turned to Ron.
"What d'you reckons wrong with him? You don't think a skrewt -?"
"Oh he hasn't been attacked, Potter, if that's what you're thinking," said Malfoy softly. "No, he's just too ashamed to show his big, ugly face."
"What d'you mean?" said Harry sharply.
Malfoy put his hand inside the pocket of his robes and pulled out a folded page of newsprint.
"There you go," he said. "Hate to break it to you. Potter...."
He smirked as Harry snatched the page, unfolded it, and read it, with Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville looking over his shoulder. It was an article topped with a picture of Hagrid looking extremely shifty.
DUMBLEDORE'S GIANT MISTAKE
Albus Dumbledore, eccentric Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has never been afraid to make controversial staff appointments, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. In September of this year, he hired Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, the notoriously jinx-happy ex-Auror, to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, a decision that caused many raised eyebrows at the Ministry of Magic, given Moody's well-known habit of attacking anybody who makes a sudden movement in his presence. Mad-Eye Moody, however, looks responsible and kindly when set beside the part-human Dumbledore employs to teach Care of Magical Creatures.
Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore. Last year, however, Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many better-qualified candidates.
An alarmingly large and ferocious-looking man, Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care with a succession of horrific creatures. While Dumbledore turns a blind eye, Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being "very frightening."
'I was attacked by a hippogriff, and my friend Vincent Crabbe got a bad bite off a flobberworm," says Draco Malfoy, a fourth-year student. "We all hate Hagrid, but we're just too scared to say anything."
Hagrid has no intention of ceasing his campaign of intimidation, however. In conversation with a Daily Prophet reporter last month, he admitted breeding creatures he has dubbed "Blast-Ended Skrewts," highly dangerous crosses between manti-cores and fire-crabs. The creation of new breeds of magical creature is, of course, an activity usually closely observed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid, however, considers himself to be above such petty restrictions.
"I was just having some fun," he says, before hastily changing the subject.
As if this were not enough, the Daily Prophet has now unearthed evidence that Hagrid is not – as he has always pretended – a pure-blood wizard. He is not, in fact, even pure human. His mother, we can exclusively reveal, is none other than the giantess Fridwulfa, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
Bloodthirsty and brutal, the giants brought themselves to the point of extinction by warring amongst themselves during the last century. The handful that remained joined the ranks of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and were responsible for some of the worst mass Muggle killings of his reign of terror.
While many of the giants who served He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were killed by Aurors working against the Dark Side, Fridwulfa was not among them. It is possible she escaped to one of the giant communities still existing in foreign mountain ranges. If his antics during Care of Magical Creatures lessons are any guide, however, Frid-wulfa's son appears to have inherited her brutal nature.
In a bizarre twist, Hagrid is reputed to have developed a close friendship with the boy who brought around You-Know-Who's fall from power – thereby driving Hagrid's own mother, like the rest of You-Know-Who's supporters, into hiding. Perhaps Harry Potter is unaware of the unpleasant truth about his large friend – but Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the dangers of associating with part-giants.
Harry finished reading and looked up at Ron, whose mouth was hanging open.
"How did she find out?" he whispered.
But that wasn't what was bothering Harry.
"What d'you mean, 'we all hate Hagrid'?" Harry spat at Malfoy. "You know that's a lie, even Ella likes Hagrid. And what's this rubbish about him" – he pointed at Crabbe – "getting a bad bite off a flobberworm? They haven't even got teeth!"
Crabbe was sniggering, apparently very pleased with himself.
"Well, I think this should put an end to the oaf's teaching career," said Malfoy, his eyes glinting. "Half-giant...and there was me thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was young....None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all....They'll be worried he'll eat their kids, ha, ha...."
"You -"
"Are you paying attention over there?"
Professor Grubbly-Planks voice carried over to the boys; the girls were all clustered around the unicorn now, stroking it. Harry was so angry that the Daily Prophet article shook in his hands as he turned to stare unseeingly at the unicorn, whose many magical properties Professor Grubbly-Plank was now enumerating in a loud voice, so that the boys could hear too.
"I hope she stays, that woman!" said Parvati Patil when the lesson had ended and they were all heading back to the castle for lunch. "That's more what I thought Care of Magical Creatures would be like...proper creatures like unicorns, not monsters...."
"What about Hagrid?" Harry said angrily as they went up the steps.
"What about him?" said Parvati in a hard voice. "He can still be gamekeeper, can't he?"
-
"That was a really good lesson," said Hermione as they entered the Great Hall. "I didn't know half the things Professor Grubbly-Plank told us about uni -"
"Look at this!" Harry snarled, and he shoved the Daily Prophet article under Hermione's nose.
Hermione's mouth fell open as she read. Her reaction was exactly the same as Ron's. Harry angrily walked over to Draco and Ella when he saw the enter together.
"Potter-"
Harry pulled Ella away from Draco "Ella before I was tolerant-"
Ella shook her head "Harry-"
"No" Harry said "stay away from him, I mean it, he's the reason Hagrid is in this situation. He helped."
"Harry I'm sorry he did that but I can-"
"NO" Harry shouted "I'm serious, you-"
"Mr. Potter" Snape walked over "is there a problem"
Harry let go of Ella and walked back over to his table.
Draco looked upset "Ella I'm-"
"You can't just control yourself can you" Ella ran out of the great hall
"...I'm sorry" Draco mumbles sadly
-
Ella avoided both Harry and Draco for weeks. Draco was dealing with it the only way he knew how. Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes. Malfoy was gloating at every possible opportunity.
"Missing your half-breed pal?" he kept whispering to Harry whenever there was a teacher around, so that he was safe from Harry's retaliation. "Missing the elephant-man?"
There was a Hogsmeade visit halfway through January. Ella eventually was seen hanging around Draco again. She still distanced herself from harry though, she didn't know how to explain to him that she was in love with Draco. No matter what he does or says, she can't change how she feels about him cause he always treats her the best.
Her and Draco sat together in Honeydukes.
"sugar sugar sugar" Ella cheered happily
Draco chuckled "you're so cute"
"I'm trying to be stupid, not cute" Ella blushed
"You're not stupid, you're just adorable" Draco pinched her cheeks
Ella blushed more "D-Draco stop, you're embarrassing"
"I'm sorry, am I not acting like the cool and arrogant Malfoy?" Draco questioned
"no no no that's not what I meant" Ella placed her hand on his cheek "their's more to you then what everyone else sees, to everyone else you are Draco Malfoy, to me you're... you're just Draco"
"Good" Draco smiled, he leaned in to kiss her but they were interrupted by Blaise placing stuff down on the table
"No lovey dovey bs in public" Blaise lectured sitting down at the table
"says who?" Draco asks
"me" Blaise replies handing Ella her sweets
"yay sugar" she cheered
Draco couldn't help but to smile and think to himself, that's my girl.