Make Me.

Book 3 - Chapter 2

"You're sure Hermione doesn't mind?" Remus asked, gripping Ellie's shoulders. 

They were stood in a familiar place, Ellie with her trunk in one hand and schoolbag on her shoulder. In the corner of the room sat the bucket Ellie had thrown up into about a million times after hopping out of the fireplace behind her. 

"Yes, I'm sure. It's only one night. Are you sure you don't mind?" Ellie replied, rocking back and forth on her heels. 

Remus sighed. 

"Like you said, only one night. I'll see you on the train tomorrow. Alright? Just pop your head in to let me know you haven't died?" he asked with the crack of a smile. 

"Of course. I love you." Ellie put free arm around her father's side for a half hug without having to drop her trunk. 

"I love you darling." Remus kissed the top of his daughter's head before retracting from the hug. "Oh, hold on -" He dug around in his pockets for a moment. "Can't forget this." He handed over Ellie's Gringotts key. "And, remember to pick those things up for me. I've wrote them on the bottom of your book list," Remus said, holding out a small pouch. 

"You're funny," Ellie said, not laughing, pocketing the key and leaving her father's hand hanging in the air between them. "I'm not taking that," she said with the shake of her head, dragging her trunk over to the empty fireplace. 

"C'mon, just take -" Remus stepped forward, shaking the bag in her direction. 

"Nope." Ellie threw down a dash of Floo Powder. "I love you!" she called before she was engulfed in a curtain of emerald-green flames and disappeared from the fireplace. 

~~~

Her father must've warned Mr. Weasley, because when she tumbled out of the fireplace and onto the ground in the Leaky Cauldron, there he was waiting, with a white plastic bucket in his hands. The rest of the Weasley crew was getting ushered upstairs by a stressed looking Mrs. Weasely. Through heaving glances, Ellie caught sight of the twins for merely half a second, and in the next glance, Mrs. Weasely was having to drag them by their collars back up the stairs.

As Mr. Weasley tottered around cleaning up the sick that Ellie had failed to aim into the bucket, she caught her breath, looking around at the people who were filling the Leaky Cauldron this morning. There was a group of funny looking little witches from the country, out for a shopping day. Next to them, was a group of venerable-looking wizards arguing over the latest article in Transfiguration Today. And Ellie was quite when glad Mr. Weasley had began leading her upstairs, as she spotted a group or raucous dwarfs and a suspicious looking hag, who had ordered a plate of raw liver at nine o'clock in the morning. 

"Hermione's right in there," Mr. Weasley said, one hand on Ellie's shoulder, the other pointing to a door with a big number '13' on the front. She shot him a thankful smile before pushing the door open, dropping her trunk, and standing, arms wide, her body stretched tall. 

Instead of Hermione landing in Ellie's arms from her front, from behind her, two bodies slammed into each of her sides, sandwiching her in the middle and toppling her to the floor. Ellie heard Hermione screech before making a huffing sound. 

Ellie's face was full of ginger hair. 

"Ge'off me," she grunted, teasing the two boys that had tackled her to the floor. "You're not Hermione." Ellie was grasping at a chair in the room, trying to climb out of the pile of tangled limbs. 

"Oh!" one of them screeched in a high pitch Hermione-like voice, pulling her arm away from the chair and back down to the ground. "How rude! You don't even recognize your best friend!"