- Chapter Two -
"I'm going to name you Lepus."
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten seconds until she would get up and start her first day of fifth year, the other girls had already gone down to breakfast, but to avoid any confrontations, Elladora always waits.
Her time was up and she slipped out of her bed. The green cover being fixed as she flattened it out over the mattress, tucking it under her white pillow. She grabbed her robes, her shirt, her skirt, tights and tie, quickly stripping and pulling them on. She had not yet put her shirt on as she became distracted by the bruises that littered around her waist, remembering how painful it was when she got them. It will all be over soon.
Deciding that wallowing over her battle scars was not going to do her any good, she slipped the rest of her clothes on, brushing her hair, grabbing her wand and matching down into the common room. She ignored the countless stares she got as she opened the door to the Slytherin common room and walked to breakfast.
Even with lots of students still in bed and sleep, the great hall was buzzing with children that were either excited for their first day or rather grumpy about their first day. Elladora was neither, she didn't have a preference.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Professor Slughorn, her head of house, approaching her with a piece of parchment in his hand. He stopped in front of her and gave his usual smile.
"Here's you timetable, Elladora. I see you have transfiguration first, McGonagall tells me you do quite well in that." He told her, awaiting her reaction. She looked at her timetable and back up at Slughorn, nodding her head as a thanks and finding a seat at the end of the table that was nearest to the staff.
She indeed had transfiguration first, with the Gryffindors. The two houses had the majority of lessons together which was odd as there is a lot of house supremacy between the two. James Potter being an example, targeting students just because they're in the house of the snake when he's in the house of the lion. Sirius Black is no better, his hatred for his family bled into his hatred for the house.
Being as quiet as Elladora, you tend to hear things that people think they are keeping at a whisper, such as the Marauders planning their next prank on Severus. She could hear them right now as they were sat behind her, talking in hushed whispers.
"We could die his hair pink. Everybody loves their hair." Sirius suggested, consciously touching his curly locks as admired them in all the glory before looking back at his friends.
"Good idea, Padfoot." James complimented his best friend, using those weird nicknames that they had for each other. Elladora doesn't have a nickname as she didn't have anyone that cared enough to give her one, but she was sure that Padfoot had nothing to do with the name Sirius Orion Black.
"Or! We could inflate their tongues." Black suggested again, waving his hands around like a madman as Remus Lupin ate a piece of toast and quirked an eyebrow.
"Inflate their tongues?" He questioned, closing his book and setting it down on the table.
"Yeah, think about it, tomorrow at breakfast, all the Slytherins take one bite of food or one sip of their drink and boom!" James exclaimed. "Their tongues are too big to fit in their mouths."
"Awesome." Peter laughed, looking at all the Slytherins, his eyes landing on the back of Elladora. She could feel his eyes on her, burning into her back. Slowly, she twisted round to see him staring at her and he quickly returned to his food.
The other marauders glanced back at her once she'd turned around and then back at Peter, looking at him like he had grown two heads.
"Don't tell me you fancy Hargreaves." Sirius said, unaware of her still being able to hear their conversation. She wasn't purposely eavesdropping, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
"No!" Peter denied, his voice coming out a bit louder than intended. "I'm just interested, why does she never speak? She's never ever spoken bad to us or about us unlike the other Slytherins so why should we prank her."
"All slytherins are bad!" James reasoned, once again showcasing his house supremacy. "I mean, she was placed in that house for a reason and the reason is that she's evil. She probably doesn't talk because of some childhood trauma or something." He scoffed.
With that, she no longer felt hungry and pushed her bowl of porridge away from her, taking her timetable and marching out of the great hall, past her fellow sixth-years who were snickering quietly at her.
"Think she heard us?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows as the four boys watched her breeze past a hufflepuff who was coming into the hall.
"How could she? Unless she's a werewolf." Peter nudged his friend, causing them all to laugh before they exchanged glances, widening their eyes and standing up out of their seats, rushing after the quiet Slytherin.
"Where the fuck did she go?!" Sirius exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air as they stood in the corridor that led to the Slytherin common room. "God, maybe she is a werewolf."
"I don't think so." Remus denied. "She doesn't give me that feeling." He elaborated, seeing a flash of green and some brown hair quickly turn a corner.
•*•*•*•*•
"Today class we will be learning something very, very simple. How to turn flubberworms into rabbits." McGonagall announced to the glass, clasping her hands together as she walked over to a glass and pulled out a large flubberworm that she most likely got from Slughorns potion cupboard.
She placed it down on her desk and whipped out her wand, pointing it towards the worm, who wiggled on the spot. "Lapifors." Her voice was filled with such purpose as the small wriggly creature morphed into a large, fluffy house pet.
A Gryffindor sat in front of Elladora squealed at the animal, finding it incredibly adorable as McGongall started to hand out the flubberworms, placing them on everybody's desk. The girls and boys made sounds of disgust at the slimy creatures whereas the Slytherin sat at the back by herself, picked it up in her hands and brought it up to her eye level, examining the animal.
The way it moved along her hands but didn't bother to try and jump off of them, fascinated her. She found it amazing how they knew that they would fall if they lost balance at the edge of her hand.
"Begin." The woman at the front of the classroom ordered and everybody in the class started to point their wand at the flubberworm, repeating the smell.
Some peoples worms only grew rabbit ears which were rather entertaining to look at and some only grew a puffy tail.
Elladora cleared her throat and pointed her wand delicately at the worm in her hand. "Lapifors." She muttered, slowly letting it slide onto the table as she lowered her hand and it started to transform.
Taking the place of her flubberworm, a white fluffy rabbit sat sniffing the desk before looking at the girl in the chair with wide eyes. She reached forward and stroked its back, enjoying the feeling of its soft fur prickling her hand ever so slightly. "I'm going to name you Lepus."
"Interesting name, what does it mean?" Lily Evans asked, turned her head around to face the girl behind her, next to the redhead was Marlene McKinnon who had her eyes bulged at the sight of a fully transfigured rabbit on Elladoras desk.
"It's Latin for rabbit." The Slytherin quietly told the two, continuing to pet it as James shouted at Sirius for 'messing up his game'.
"You know Latin?" Marlene raised an eyebrow at the girl, only getting a nod in return. Realising that Elladora had nothing further to say, the two Gryffindors turned again to continue trying to transform their flubberworm.
Lepus had hopped into the girls lap, snuggling down into her skirt as he drifted off to sleep, content with the rubs he was getting from his new owner.
"Miss Hargreaves, where is your flubberworm?" Professor McGonagall came to up to her, not seeing any sign of life on her desk. Elladora glances at her lap and then back up at her teacher as the woman also looked down.
A small smile took over her face as she saw the white rabbit asleep in the girls lap, having a peaceful slumber. Elladora doesn't know what limit her powers reached as she never tried but McGonagall had a faint idea, the girl could do amazing things and she could do them now if she wanted to.
"Ten points to Slytherin." She announced causing smirks to appear on the face of the students with green ties, knowing that their best student had done it again and groans came from the Gryffindors as they looked back at Elladora, having a clearer view of Lepus on her lap.
She payed no mind to the attention that was trained onto her and continued to stroke the pet. "You'll get along just fine with Dolor."
Dolor is what she had named her owl, it was Latin for pain, grief, heartache, anguish and misery. She felt that is summed up her life better than her own name does. The owl is however never put to use, she never writes to her parents and they never write to her, she didn't have a sibling or some person on the run that she could send news too, she had no one. Inside and outside of Hogwarts, but that's ok, it'll all be over soon.
Even though she has no letter to send, Elladora always visits the owlery anyway, making sure that Dolor got fed along with talking to the other students owls. It comforted her, they could be saying something so incredibly rude to her and she would never know, they were just there for her. They could fly away, but they didn't. They decide not too.
For the rest of the lesson, the girl had played with Lepus, who kept falling asleep on different places on the desk, he even decided to stick his face in the inside of her robes at one point. Now it was time to perform the counter-spell, meaning that Lepus would turn back into a flubberworm.
The white rabbit morphed back into the wriggly creature, letting Elladora take it into her hands and raise it to her eye level once again, the worm staring right back at her as McGonagall came to collect them from her students.
"Goodbye, Lepus." She whispered to the creature, lowering it into the jar as the Professor watched with an amused expression, smiling softly at the Slytherin who stared at her desk straight-faced as always, tracing patterns.
•*•*•*•*•