Make Me.

Book 1 - Chapter 16

As winter faded into spring and the Gryffindor trio was still set on the idea that Snape was trying to get his hands on the Philosopher's Stone, only being held off by a fidgety Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Ellie was unwillingly cast as the poster child for 'Operation: Distract Quirrell.' Whether she was walking to class, eating her breakfast, or on her way to the bathroom, every time she was within shoving distance of the professor, Ellie, without fail, would feel three pairs of hands pushing her in the direction of the twitching man. Confronted with the girl he feared, he would begin to tremble and sputter incoherent words even if Ellie had yet to say anything. She would turn around, meeting three pairs of eyes, Ronald usually whispering something along the lines of:

"Show him your fangs!" as he would hold his pointer fingers up to his mouth like they were tusks, and wiggle them back and forth. 

Usually Ellie would just turn back around and smile at the Professor, who, nine times out of ten, would collapse onto the floor, earning her three big thumbs up from her friends. The Gryffindors were sure that this tactic of keeping Quirrell distracted, and unconscious, along with constantly checking the third-floor corridor for Fluffy's growling, and affirming Snape was sporting his usual bad temper, meant that the Stone was still safe; Professor Quirell couldn't talk to Snape if he was constantly being revived by Madam Pomfrey and the Gryffindors didn't trust his bravery, so this was the only option.  

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Despite having already discovered the identity of Nicolas Flamel and the contents of the grubby package, this did not stop Ellie and Hermione from constantly dragging Harry and Ron to the library, sometimes Neville in tow. Hermione was incessant on making up study schedules for the four of them and color coding all of her own notes. Ellie didn't mind her best friend's antics, but Harry and Ron were getting annoyed at Hermione's nagging and Ellie was taking a more "hands off" approach to studying for her exams; she wasn't, nor did she plan on it. 

"Hermione, the exams are ages away," Ron whined. For once Ellie agreed with him. It was easier to agree with the boy when he wasn't lying or calling her mean names straight to her face. 

"Ten weeks,' Hermione snapped. 

The pair continued to bicker as Ellie squirmed in her chair, sliding down and propping her feet up on the table in front of her. From her left she felt Hermione swat at her boots mid-conversation. Ellie ignored her, twitched her feet in Hermione's direction to nag her back and flipped to the next page of the book she was reading. 

By this time, Ellie was weeks ahead on her homework while the other students were starting to drown in the end-of year assignments. Her afternoons and evenings were usually spent in this fashion: Ellie reading a book, sometimes falling asleep only to be awoken by Neville next to her, asking for help on his homework, to which she always obliged. Hermione was constantly reciting the twelve uses for dragon's blood or practicing wand movements, flicking and swishing her wand around the table, hitting people's ink bottles over in the process. And, Harry and Ron were just trying to get through the extra work that they usually put off until last minute. 

"I'll never remember this," Ron burst out a few hours later. He threw his quill down across the table as he looked longingly out the library window. It was a nice day out, the first in a while, and his outburst had woken Ellie from one of her naps. She seemed to be much more tired on the days the sun was streaming, warm and happy through the windows.    

Harry was browsing One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and Hermione had her nose buried in a length of parchment that looked longer than she was tall. Usually Ellie would ignore Ron's outbursts, which were very common, but this time decided to take the book off her face that was shielding her eyes from the sun, when Ronald spoke again.