authors note: just finished the song of achilles and i'm dead inside. this and this and this to all my beautiful readers.
𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁
August 5, 1993
The first of Snape's "lessons" fell upon Wednesday the fifth, although Fred had taken to calling them her "periods of imprisonment". Her father had sent an owl ahead telling Elodie to be in his office after dinner, but she stalled as long as possible, taking slow bites and seconds of everything.
"You're going to throw up if you eat more of that." Maura pointed out, as Elodie poked sadly at her steak.
"Good, then I'll be sent to Madame Pomfrey instead."
"Whats the worst that could happen?" Her friend asked gently.
"He could poison her." George suggested.
"He could put grease in her hair." Fred added spritely.
"Ha-ha." Elodie said flatly. "Bore me to death, is more like."
She felt a hard slap at the back of her head and turned to see her father, looming over her. "I thought I made it clear you were to be in my office?" He snarled, hand still raised.
Elodie rubbed her skull, wincing. "I'm still eating." She gestured to the tiny bits of steak scattered around her plate.
"Office. Now." Snape turned on his heel, gesturing for her to follow him. Elodie got up reluctantly, her friends shooting her pitiful smiles.
Snape's office was dark and dreary as ever, blinds shut and candles burnt to snubs. It smelled fouler than usual, the bitter scent of aconite burning her nostrils.
"You'll be helping me brew a wolfsbane potion tonight." Her father said curtly, gesturing to an empty cauldron.
"Why? Been bitten by a werewolf recently?" Elodie asked wryly.
"Watch your mouth." He spat. "And don't ask questions."
This was said so aggressively that Elodie pondered the possibility that he had been bitten by a werewolf.
The wolfsbane potion would be one of the most complicated potion they had tried yet; it took at least a week to brew, and the aconite flower was deadly to the touch.
It was nearly midnight before Snape finally let her go; and Elodie could have fallen asleep on the floor of the dungeons, at that point.
Snape escorted her out the door without a word-but then again, he had barley spoken to her all night. She was barely out of the door when a drawling voice jeered at her from outside of the Slytherin dungeons.
"Ah, the mudblood! Wandering around where we don't belong, are we?" Draco Malfoy's cruel voice carried through the stone chambers, mere seconds after Snape retreated back into his office.
"I belong here as much as you, Malfoy." Elodie narrowed her eyes, turning to face the pale-haired boy.
"Don't make me laugh." He smirked. "Your professor pops keep you back for remedial potions? Are you really that daft?"
Elodie could've hexed him right then, but held her tongue. She flashed him a bitter smile and walked off. She would get her revenge on the foul git, if it was the last thing she did.
𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁
"We could hex him." Fred suggested once Elodie was snugly back in the common room. She had been delighted to find that her friends were still up, as they had mounds of homework to finish. The twins, however, were playing a game of exploding snap on the couch and ignoring their Muggle Studies essay.
"Too easy." Elodie shrugged, settling into the couch next to Katie, who was trying to translate a passage of ancient runes into English.
"Yeah, Freddie, where's your imagination? So into hexing people, lately." George rolled his eyes at his brother.
"I wore it out today trying to transfigure that sock into a nutcracker." Fred sighed, flopping his head on the table, allowing his card to explode with a BANG.
"That's my problem with transfiguration." Elodie frowned. "When am I ever going to need a nutcracker?"
"Well-" Fred began, a joking smile on his face. George threw a playing card at him.
Elodie looked outside at the dreadful downpour. Oliver would make them do practice in the rain; she was sure of it.
"Ugh, it's awful outside." She groaned.
"Thought you liked the rain." Katie glanced at her.
"I do, but it'll be terrible to practice in. And if the weather continues like this, we'll have to play our match against Hufflepuff in the rain." Elodie reminded her. She was already dreading the game, and it was nearly a month away.
"In the rain..." George muttered, a mischievous smile forming.
"Ooh, George's got that look on his face!" Maura grinned.
"Alright, who knows any weather-modification spells?"
𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁
August 8, 1993
Nobody knew anything about weather-modification spells, apparently. So George, Fred, and Elodie spent a rare Saturday afternoon in the library. It was so unlike them that Madame Pince, the librarian, sent them many suspicious glances as they worked.
George was very insistent that he knew what he was doing, so the other two followed his lead warily. It turned out rain-producing spells were not all that difficult; it was getting them to stay in place that was tricky.
Elodie searched through the pages of Hogwarts, A History, trying to find out how they charmed the ceiling in the great hall. Meanwhile, George was flipping through a book on weather charms, and Fred was practicing the rain spell by flicking his wand at Elodie, and causing raindrops to pour on her incessantly.
"Would you-" Elodie shielded her face desperately with her arms. "-Stop that?!"
Fred giggled. "But it's fun."
George snickered along with him.
"Georgie! You're supposed to be on my side!" Elodie complained, as light rain still fell on her hair.
George rose his hands in surrender. "Hey, I'm an impartial party. I choose the side of fun." He shrugged.
Elodie flicked her wand at both of the twins, making a large raincloud form over their heads. George muttered "finite", and went back to reading his book, completely dry.
"Are you kidding?" Fred and Elodie said in unison.
"Teach us!" Fred added.
"No." George smiled smugly. Elodie focused her raincloud on Fred, making his red hair plaster to his face.
"Oh, you little-" Fred shot daggers at her, trying to shield his eyes from the downpour. His concentration became so intense that the rain over Elodie's head turned to snow. She giggled, sticking out her tongue to catch a snowflake.
"Bugger." He sighed, and withdrew his charm. Elodie stopped her rain as well, wanting an equal fight. Unfortunately, now they were both still soaked, and Elodie had never quite mastered drying charms. She stood up, wanting very much to go back to her dormitory.
"Where're you going?" George looked up from his book.
"I couldn't find anything, Georgie. Unless you want to combine the permanent sticking charm with the rain one-and that would be complex magic-it's not going to work." She insisted.
"It will work. And I thought you were the one who wanted to curse Malfoy in the first place!" George chided.
"But I'm wet, and you won't teach me how to do Finite Incantatem!" Elodie pursed her lips.
"Thats what she said." Fred murmured under his breath.
"We'll do more research tomorrow, I promise." She put a reassuring hand on George's shoulder.
"Alright, alright, fair enough. Freddie, you go up with her, I don't want to be your new target practice for the rain." George pushed his sopping brother away from him.
"Suits me." Fred got up, wringing his soaking uniform.
"Madame Pince is going to kill you." Elodie raised her eyebrows at the puddle forming on the floor.
"Then I'll die not being weighted down by 20 tons of water." Fred said happily, skipping off down the hall.
"Wait up, beanstalk." Elodie called, running to catch up.
"Then keep up, midget."
"So mean to me." She sighed.
They set off down the hallways, just in time to see the sun setting softly behind the mountains in a nautical dusk.
"Fancy a walk?" Fred asked, glancing down at her.
"Sure. If I get hypothermia, I'm blaming you, though." She grinned.
It was a bit of a peculiar time for a stroll, especially in waterlogged robes, but Elodie obliged happily as they wandered the sparse halls of the castle. Fred was glancing at her nervously, like he had something he was itching to talk to her about, but was afraid it would start a fight- or something of the sort.
"I never really got to ask you what being petrified was like." Fred started. "If you want to tell me, that is."
"Oh." Elodie said, taken aback. He was right, they had never said more than two words about it, after the "I missed you's". Well, why not?
"It was weird. You can hear things, and feel things, too-like when Maura put the necklace on me." She fingered a pretty silver chain around her neck. It had a tiny bijou star hanging from it.
"Couldn't see." She continued nervously. "And I couldn't speak, either. That was the worst part." Elodie paused in an open archway. She was feeling quite on edge.
"I couldn't blink, or laugh when you told a joke." Elodie muttered. "Couldn't wake up. I felt powerless." She admitted, blinking hard.
Why was she being like this? She had promised herself she had moved past the petrification, forever, and the emotions were all coming up now? And in front of Fred, no less?!
Fred leaned against the opposite side of the stone arch. "I'm sorry." He said quietly, staring at his shoes.
"No." Elodie looked up fiercely. "You know I don't want you to feel sorry for me, Freddie."
"Yeah, I know." He bit his lip.
"It's alright. I'm alright now." She sent a forced smile in his direction. "Anyways, I really liked your jokes."
"You did?" Fred looked up hopefully.
"Yeah." Elodie grinned. "They were terrible, but I liked them."
"Elodie?"
"Mm?"
"...Nothing."