Twice Chosen | Esmerelda Potter

19. Addy Pennison

All four of us walk down to breakfast the next morning, our breathing heavy. We stop at the doors of the Great Hall while Hermione tries to spot Addy. 

"There! The one with the blonde hair!" Hermione shouts. 

"Where?" Ron stands on his toes. "There's about ten of them where you pointed!"

"The one sitting by herself."

That's when I spotted her. A tall, blonde girl with her shoulders slouched, reading a short book, frowning into her plate, which had nothing on it. 

We all look at each other and nod, shuffling between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. 

"Erm...Addy?" Hermione squeaks. 

She turns around with a look of annoyance, then confusion.

"Who the hell are you?" she asks, looking between the four of us. Her eyes land on Harry's scar on his forehead and she rolls her eyes. 

"Oh, I see. You've come to talk to me about my dead parents! Like a little support group! But no thanks, I'm not interested." She turns around, her back facing toward us. 

"No, we just have some questions for you," I say. 

"What?" she says, keeping her back towards us.

"About your, um, father," I continue.

"I said I wasn't interested!"

"No, not about him, about a certain wand he picked up," Hermione cuts in, speaking quickly. 

"Oh, that thing? He found it while doing work for the Aurors. He sneaked it back home, because he could tell it was a special wand. He was saving it for me." She sighs. 

"I was at my grandparents at the time. You-know-who killed them right as they were about to leave to get me and my older sister. The wand was missing when we got back."

"But weren't you pretty young at the time?" Ron asks. "How do you remember this?"

"My older sister. She was eight at the time and I was only two. She said all the wands were missing, including my parents's wands. I didn't realize the wand belonged to a dark wizard prior. My sister told me that right when she read it one day when she was in the library. I was horrified. We both speculate that it's why my parents were killed." Addy wipes her eyes. "I hate that thing..." she trails off. 

"So you don't know where it is?" Harry asks. 

"No, not really. I do know that You-Know-Who's collection of wands was raided by the Ministry of Magic and is kept in the Ministry of Magic itself. However, I couldn't tell you where if I tried."

"Is there a way you could get us that wand?" Hermione asks.

"Why the hell would you want it? To kill someone with?"

"N-No," Hermione stammers. "We want to destroy it."

"How are four useless first-years going to destroy a wand?"

"I thought you could just break it in half," Ron says quietly. "My cousin broke his wand once. Clear in half. It didn't work at all after that."

"How will I trust you all? How do I know that you aren't going to use it for a bad cause?"

"Because..." I start. "We want Voldemort dead as much as you." 

At the mention of Voldemort, Addy jumps in her seat.

"Don't say his name!" she whispers. 

"And besides, you're going to deliver the wand to us, right? You'll watch us destroy it. But we're just a bunch of 'useless first-years,' right? So your older, wiser expertise could beat us first-years. So that's how you'll trust us."

She ponders for a moment. "Okay. As long as you destroy it instantly. My older sister works in the Ministry of Magic. I could owl her and ask her if she can search for them. According to her,  no one has cleaned out that pile in at least fifteen years. So theoretically, it should be there." 

She turns back around without another word. We all look back at each other and shuffle away back to the Gryffindor table to eat breakfast.

==========

I couldn't focus in Herbology. Thoughts were swimming around in my head but I couldn't piece them together. Something was missing. Why did Voldemort want the wand, especially since it's not any more powerful than the other blackwood wands that existed. Why was this one so important?

"Esmerelda," Professor Sprout shouts harshly. I snap up, meeting Professor Sprout's narrowed eyes. 

"Please be listening to the question asked. Where can you find Dried Nettles?"

I shrug my shoulders. I had no clue. I wasn't paying attention at all.

"Neville Longbottom! Where can you find Dried Nettles?"

"Austria," Neville stammers. 

Austria. Where Eglyn Grindelwald was buried. 

Professor Sprout gives Gryffindor five points while the rest of the house claps Neville on the back. 

Class ends rather abruptly, with a nine-inch essay assigned about Dried Nettles. Hermione is writing hers while walking back to the common room, reciting Professor Sprout's words onto the paper. 

"You three need to pay better attention," Hermione lectures us. 

"I'm too preoccupied thinking about the danger we're in!" Ron shouts back. "Because I'm not sure that I trust Addy."

"Me neither," Harry agrees. 

"Can't you three just wait until the owl arrives? There's honestly not that much to lose," Hermione says in an exasperated tone. 

"There's plenty to lose!" I blurt out. "She could be against us!"

"I doubt it. She's in Hufflepuff. There's no way the hat would have put her there unless he thought that she was trustworthy enough. Besides, Hufflepuffs are good finders."

"Yes, but I think you could manipulate the hat easily enough," Ron argues. 

"Just be quiet," Hermione says flatly. "I'm trying to finish my essay. I'm not going to talk about this any more until the owl shows up."

My thoughts are still bouncing around in my head, still unorganized. 

Just don't think about it until the owl comes. Easy.