Dark

Chapter 7

Harry
I couldn’t help but wonder if she had been bothered or not by Moody’s demonstration in class. I tried to push it from my mind during dinner, but I kept looking up and across the room toward her. Eleanor was sitting alone again. Was there really no one in her house that talked to her? For the briefest moment I was truly concerned, but then the image of her staring at Moody as he killed that spider, not even flinching in the slightest at the cruel action, came into my mind. I felt constantly torn between feeling sorry for Eleanor and wanting to just ignore her completely.
When I noticed her get up from the Slytherin table and make her way out of the Great Hall, I jumped up and followed her. Though I hadn’t mentioned anything to Ron and Hermione since our Defense Against the Darks Arts class, they still followed me out of the Hall.
I had intended to ask her calmly about what had happened, but yet again that image of her standing completely indifferent to the situation popped up in my head and I was suddenly furious all over again. “Hey!” I shouted after her.
She turned around, at first surprised, then her expression shifted into uncertainty. I hadn’t meant to sound so angry, but I couldn’t keep myself calm. Everything about her confused me and it was completely infuriating.
“What was with you today?” I asked her harshly. “You just stood there as Moody killed that spider and you didn’t seem to care one bit.”
“Harry –“ Ron said quietly, but I waved him off.
Eleanor furrowed her eyebrows in confusion but I didn’t give her the chance to answer yet.
“That’s how they were killed. James and Lily Potter, they were killed with that curse. And you just stood there as he used it like it was nothing.” I was nearly shouting again. I was losing it, but for the first time since Dumbledore had told me about Eleanor, I felt some sort of relief. I couldn’t really explain why I was so angry with her, but I just couldn’t accept that she was truly my sister. It was too impossible. She had been sitting in some home somewhere, away from the Dursleys, away from the truth of what had happened to our parents, away from Voldemort. Yet I had been here fighting against him. I had been nearly killed by him. It all felt unfair to say the least. “Then you just swept that spider to floor like it meant nothing. Like it was worth nothing…”
“Look, Harry. I don’t know what it is, but something is wrong with that man. I can tell, I can feel it. And if you think for one second that I wasn’t hurt by that little display of his, then you’re mad.” She stepped closer to me, glaring as harshly as she had done to Moody earlier. “In case you didn’t notice, I was the one that told him stop using the Cruciatus Curse.”
“I saw you, Eleanor. You were completely indifferent to him using the killing curse!” I ran a hand through my hair, unable to come to terms with how she had acted in that lesson. None of it made any sense. “You looked damn thrilled when he said he was going to be showing us Dark curses, you were excited about it! I can see exactly why you were sorted in Slytherin now!” I was mere inches from her at this point, fury completely taking over my mind. She hadn’t cared about that spider, and there was no way should could have cared about our parents if she was that indifferent to it all, if she was that interested in the curses to begin with.
Eleanor opened her mouth to say something but again I didn’t give her chance.
“Dumbledore was wrong, completely wrong. We aren’t family at all.” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized how far I had gone. I had allowed my anger to control me.
Eleanor was typically composed and quiet from what I had seen of her in classes and in the Great Hall. The only other emotion she really seemed to express at any time was anger, usually toward Malfoy. In that moment though, I saw something completely different. She opened her mouth a couple of times to say something but nothing came out. She had lost her composure, her shoulders slumped forward a bit as she ran a hand through her hair, and her eyes were wide. She couldn’t even look at me after what I had said.
I wanted to take it back, to tell her that I had gone too far and I hadn’t truly meant to say that to her, but she turned and left before I could do anything else.
“Harry…” I heard Hermione mutter from behind me, and I could feel her hand on my shoulder now.
“I know, Hermione…I know…” I said, before pushing her hand away and retreating up the marble staircase in silence.

Eleanor
I’d been avoiding Harry for nearly five weeks now.
I had spent years reminding myself that I had been unwanted and would always be alone, only to find out about a brother I had never known. After our last confrontation, I just couldn’t believe how stupid I had been to believe that he would want anything to do with me. Not once in my life had someone been truly interested in me. I should have known better than to get my hopes up.
Even though Harry hadn’t been very welcoming that first night of term, I had still hoped that he would eventually change his mind. Sure, he had said that I wasn’t a Potter, but that wasn’t necessarily untrue. I had never known Lily and James, I had never known Harry, and I had never known about the complicated history that seemed to be our family. I wasn’t truly a Potter. But I still wanted to know Harry, to have someone out there to call my family.
That hope was shattered.
I had nearly lost it when the words came out of his mouth. I hadn’t expected him to completely deny me so soon. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes that night as I tried to say something, anything. But nothing came to my mind in that moment and I turned away before the tears had a chance to fall. Crying wasn’t something I did, it wasn’t something allowed myself to do. I had spent too much time crying when I was younger, and eventually you’re just too broken to keep crying about it.
By the next morning I had securely built my walls back up. Feigning indifference to the cruelness of the other Slytherins and ignoring Harry’s existence just as he wanted to ignore mine.
Trying to survive as a Potter in Slytherin though was a complicated affair. I was constantly targeted, in classes, in the corridors, in the common room, even in my own dormitory. On multiple occasions I had been hexed by a fellow Slytherin while walking to or from classes. Pansy and Millicent had dumped cold water over my bed as I slept. That was nearly a week ago and they had just done it to piss me off. Malfoy had taken to making rude comments about my appearance on a regular basis. Anytime I passed him in the Great Hall, the common room, or in the corridors he had something wicked to say about my hair or my face or my short stature.
It was infuriating, all of it. But I chose to ignore it as much as I could.
The only person in Slytherin who didn’t seemed bothered by me was Tracey Davis, one of my roommates. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we had become friends, but she let me sit with her in the Great Hall for meals and we had taken to studying quietly together in the common room most nights. We didn’t talk much, I didn’t really know anything about her, but it was enough just to know that someone wasn’t completely put off my by presence.
By early October, my resolve to ignore Harry was waning. I still didn’t understand why he was so adamant about how Dumbledore had been mistaken about me. I didn’t understand what I had done to make him angry enough to act the way he had. I consistently became angrier each time I saw him though. He was always with Ron and Hermione, or chatting with the Weasley twins.
He had been lucky enough to be here for the previous three years while I suffered at the orphanage. He had friends while I had nothing. He was liked, loved even, by the people here. I was rejected for being a Slytherin and ridiculed by the Slytherins for being a Potter. It seemed unfair that he had been so happy for the past three years here while I had been…
I couldn’t bring myself to think about it. I needed to keep my composure. I needed to think of a plan. Just seeing Harry was enough to piss me off, so I wanted to return the favor for him. And I knew just how I could accomplish that.

Draco
“Great, here comes Potter.” Pansy said next to me.
We had been in the Great Hall for nearly a half hour already, dinner was already half way finished, and Eleanor Potter had only just walked into the Hall. This wasn’t the first time she came in so late, and sometimes she wouldn’t show up at all. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something drew my attention to her.
Since I saw her reaction to our first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson this year, I had been watching her more closely. I had noticed that she was indeed skilled enough in most of our lessons. How she had managed to learn so much in such a short amount of time, I hadn’t yet discovered. But I was sure there was something that could explain it. Even Granger couldn’t have accomplished that much, certainly a Potter couldn’t do it on talent alone.
I had also noticed that she had switched from carrying around her Arithmancy and Ancient Runes textbooks, to carry a tattered old book instead. I hadn’t been able to figure out what book it was yet, but the way she clutched it protectively in her hands everywhere she went meant that there was something important about it.
As she came to a stop across the table from me I narrowed my eyes. “What is it now, Potter? Want to discuss whether or not a dementor would be too disgusted by you to give you one of their special little kisses?” No matter how interested I was in whatever secrets she was hiding, she was still a Potter.
She looked down at me, just as unperturbed by that comment as she was by any of the others I had been spitting at her these past few weeks. Her lack of reaction to my taunts drove me mad, but I was determined to find what would set off one of these days. As I continued to wait for a reaction she gave me a smile. It was certainly unexpected.
“Hello, Malfoy.” She said, simple and nice.
What in the world could she be up to now?
“What do you want, Potter?”
“Look, you’re always trying to piss off Harry, and quite honestly I just want the same thing right now.” She said simply. “So I say that we work together on that. I want a truce between the two of us. We act as friends and watch it piss off Harry to no end. It’s a win-win situation.”
My eyes involuntarily went wide. She couldn’t be serious, could she? She was clearly pissed off at Harry for something but did she really want to return the favor to him? Again, I could see how she was sorted into Slytherin.
By the time I had come to a decision on her offer, she was already holding her hand out to me from across the table.
“Are you serious? Why would Draco want anything to do with you, Potter?” Pansy said viciously.
“Shut it, Pansy.” I said, not looking away from Eleanor. The offer was too intriguing, too enticing, and it could just be the way I could uncover her little secrets as well. “I’m in. It’s a truce.”
I reached out and shook Eleanor’s hand once before withdrawing again. She gave me a mischievous smile before she strode down the length of the table and settled into a seat across from Tracey Davis.
Pansy was mumbling angrily next to me, but I wasn’t listening. She had pulled the book out again and had propped it open on the table. I tried to catch the title on the cover, but it was too faded to make out the words. Again, she didn’t bother to touch any of the food at the table, she just sat there quietly and read. But what in the world was she reading so obsessively?

Eleanor
Over the past week, Malfoy and I have been acting our roles well. I had caught Harry watching us talking in class or in the Great Hall, sending menacing glares our way. I knew it wasn’t the nicest thing to do, I knew that it was downright mean to purposefully piss off Harry, but I couldn’t honestly say that I wasn’t enjoying it.
Just a couple of days into my and Malfoy’s ‘convenient’ new friendship, Hermione had mentioned in Ancient Runes that Harry had been wondering if Malfoy and I were friends now. I simply explained to her that it was none of Harry’s business who my friends may or may not be, that Harry and I weren’t friends and we weren’t family. I knew she would pass my words on to Harry, and I knew too that what I had said would also upset him even more.
I couldn’t let me fun of upsetting Harry interrupted with my studies though. As much as I felt I had earned my spot with the fourth years, I didn’t want to disappoint any of the teachers I had worked so hard with over the summer.
When I had left the bathroom in my dormitory I was pleased to find that not one of the other girls from my dorm were currently in the room. Taking the rare opportunity, I curled up into my bed and pulled out my textbooks. I still had a bit more work to do to completely catch up with the fourth years in both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. They weren’t my strongest classes, but I was at least making it through the content well enough.
That was when I heard the large BANG!
I set my work down on the bed and pulled out my wand before opening the dormitory door. As I cracked it open I could hear cheering from common room. Unsure of what was going on I made my way down the hall. As I turned into the common room I was surprised to see nearly the entirety of Slytherin House jam packed into the room. There seemed to be a clearing left in the middle of the students but I couldn’t tell what was going on from where I stood. I spotted Tracey’s honey blonde hair across the room and slowly made way over to her through the crowd of students.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“Dueling.” She answered simply, her gaze fixated toward the center of the room.
Some of the other students shifted and I finally caught a view of what everyone was watching. There were two students in the middle of the room, wands aimed at each other, firing spells.
“Every once in a while the prefects will set up a competition of some sort. This time they chose dueling.” I looked back at Tracey but she was still watching the students dueling one another as she continued to explain. “So two students duel each other, and the winner gets to pick their next opponent. That person can accept or decline. When someone accepts, they duel with the previous winner. Then that winner chooses the next person and so on. We just keep going until someone does well enough that no one is willing to take up the challenge of dueling them. And that’s who wins.”
By the time she had finished explaining, Draco Malfoy stepped into the clearing of students. He immediately began firing jinxes at the winner of the previous pair and within only a couple of minutes he had subdued his opponent. He looked around the room, searching for someone to challenge. His eyes fell on mine and I could see his mischievous smile spread before he called out, “I challenge Potter.”
I froze for a moment, unsure what to do. Then as if warm sparks were shooting up my arm I could feel my wand in my hand and I knew what to do. I made my way through the students and into the center of the room. As I stood across from Malfoy I could sense my wand itching to jinx him. We may have been acting the part of friends recently, but that didn’t make Malfoy any nicer of a person. Sure what I was doing, purposefully pissing off Harry, wasn’t the definition of nice, but I didn’t hex random students in the halls or insult every person I passed. All in all, I was excited for the chance to teach Malfoy a lesson.
An older student standing at the edge of the circle around us called out, “Go!”
I immediately raised my wand, and was pleased to find that my reflexes were quicker than Malfoy’s.
“Flipendo!” Malfoy was knocked off his feet. “Langlock!” I sealed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, preventing him from casting any other spells. “Expelliarmus!” His wand flew out of his hand and across the room. At this point he was looking at me nearly terrified. He hadn’t expected me to be able to properly defend myself, it was obvious from the confused fear he was expressing now. “Levicorpus!” Malfoy was jerked up into the air by his ankle. I watched him for a moment as he struggled to understand what was happening and what was coming next. Then I thought back to the book I had been reading recently. It was cruel, sure, but I could feel my wand ready to throw the hex at Malfoy and it made me feel powerful in that moment.
With my wand still pointed at Malfoy I whispered the incantation of my next spell and watched as a purple jet of light exploded toward him, forcefully throwing him backward into the crowd of students. As soon as he had landed on the floor he began reaching for his throat. His eyes were wide.
I only left the hex on him for a second before lifting it with a jerk of my wand. He looked up at me with absolute terror on his face as I took another step towards him and lifted the Langlock jinx. He immediately started yelling when he had the use of his vocal chords back.
“What the hell was that?!” He shouted. “Did you just…did you use Dark Magic on me?!”
“I may or may not have, but I wouldn’t tell you either way.” I said. “Learn to be a bit nicer to people, and I won’t have to use that last one again.”
Malfoy’s eyes went wide again and got up from the floor and stormed off toward the boys’ dormitories.
“Is anyone willing to duel me then?” I called to the room at large. There were numerous mutters but no one stepped up to the challenge. “Guess I win.”
With that, I returned to my dormitory and decided to turn in for the night rather than continue with my homework. What I had done had been cruel, but I hadn’t truly made Malfoy suffer, even though I could have. In the end, I truly hoped it would scare him into being a bit nicer to people. I doubted it would work, but it was worth a shot.