Ella ○ Harry Potter

Sixteen: Unicorns and Butterflies

Harry grew obsessed with the idea of Ella's secret, almost as obsessed he was with the idea of Sirius Black murdering his parents in cold blood. Or at least, being the reason for it.

So when Easter rolled around and he still couldn't catch Ella for a chat, he was very close to exploding, and Ron was feeling it, so he did the one thing he swore he would never.

"Fred, George, you're friends with Ella, right?" the twins nodded, not raising their eyes from a paper they were writing on together. "And you actually see her, right?"

"Yes, Ron," Fred raised his eyes, speaking slowly. "Ella is not invisible, as far as we're concerned. Why? Can't see her?"

"No, just... We had a weird chat with her at the beginning of February, and Harry really needs to talk with her about this, and she just disappears at the end of each class. She even stopped meeting with Hermione to go over notes for Herbology."

"Yeah, her and Diggory are pretty much together all the time now," George shrugged. "If she likes lame friends, she can enjoy his company."

"But you two meet her?"

"Yeah," Fred nodded. "Every day, almost."

"We meet by the lake."

"Really?" Ron asked, "like, today too?" Fred shook his head.

"She said she'll be MIA for a few days, you know, Easter break," he shrugged.

"Yeah, techincally we can go home, just that no one ever does."

Ron scowled, and walked off to where a sulking Harry was sitting, reading through a book about Slytherin's bloodline.

"You're still with this?"

"It's just weird," Harry pointed out, rubbing his scar out of habit. When he thought about the possibility of Ella being related to the family of Voldemort, the scar itched. "I mean, what if the voice was really the Basilisk? And a basilisk fang as a core? You heard the Ravenclaw kid, no one since Slytherin himself had it as a core."

"But it's Ella," Ron said simply. "I mean, she's all fun and games and cupcakes."

"The sorting hat did place her at Slytherin for her bloodline, if you remember," Hermione said simply, sitting next to Ron.

"Where did you come from, woman?" Ron wondered, and Harry nodded. "Look, you guys all have good points here. But I'm gonna be the one to say it; Even if Ella is like, You-Know-Who's cousin or something, I'm down with her. She's cool."

"You just like her cupcakes?"

"No, I mean it!" Ron tried. "Look, her best friend is a Hufflepuff, no matter how much we don't like Diggory, most Hufflepuffs are decent people," he pointed out.

"Well, I wouldn't say their relationship is exactly best friends," Hermione started, but was cut off.

"She's got that weird alpaca that she cares about, I don't think a bad person would take care of a sick creature like that," he listed off. "The twins like her, and they don't like half the people in the world. Hagrid and Lupin like her enough, and to top it all off, Hagrid told me that last year she got a detention with the weird Care of Magical Creatures professor, the one with barely any limbs?" Hermione nodded, intrigued, while Harry was trying to focus on the book. "They went in, the three of them, and they saw a unicorn. Hagrid swears he's never seen a unicorn ever approaching a human so fast, no matter of what age or gender."

"So?" Harry asked, looking at loss with the information.

"Unicorns prefer a woman's touch," Hermione explained, "but the young ones are usually more trusting and do not mind men as much."

"It was a fully grown one, Hermione, Hagrid assured."

"It doesn't too much."

"Well, I grew up in the Wizarding world, unlike you guys." Ron sighed, "so I will tell you that there is an old legend that unicorns choose the companionship of those purest of heart."

"I heard the same about butterflies," Hermione said simply. "Look, I like Ella. But something doesn't add up."

"Maybe she's your sister, Harry," Ron shrugged simply, standing up and walking off towards his room, making Harry raise his glance.

"She... she does kind of look like my father, right?" Harry asked, and Hermione sighed.

"Harry, you should pick a war to fight," she said simply. "I've got a lot of essays to write, but good luck with this."

::

"I can't believe I came here with you," Cedric sighed as he walked into a small alley. Ella stopped in her tracks and turned to him, grabbing his hands.

"I'm really happy you did, Ced," she assured.

"I know," he sighed, kissing the top of her head. "Let's go, I want to finish this."

"It's not gonna be that bad, I promise," she tried, and pulled at his hand. The two were carrying small bags on their backs, and were quite regretting their decision to take the Hogwarts Express and then use Floo from the Leaky Cauldron, because it turned out to be a bigger hassle than expected.

"Why are we still carrying our bags, by the way?" Cedric wondered, and Ella shrugged. He sighed, but kept following her as she peeked her head around corners. He turned his head to the right and saw a soccer field, a group playing there and seemingly celebrating something, and on the left there were a person holding a gun and aiming at one of three people. "Holy hell, Ella! You said it's slight criminal activity! What the hell? We've been here a minute and already guns to their faces."

"Well, you know what they say," she grinned. "If we were afraid of metal we wouldn't have wielded it in war."

"I don't know that saying," Cedric said simply, and before he could even proccess what happened Ella walked towards the gun group, and the man tucked the gun into his trousers, greeting Ella. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he saw Ella bowing her head to kiss his knuckles and then pressing his hand to her head. "Oh, fuck, I'm in too deep. Come meet my family, she said. It'll give me a reason to come over to your place at summer, she said. Fuck me."

"Cedric!" she called, waving him over. "Come here!"

"Coming, El!" he said cheerfully, taking a deep breath. "Merlin, help me."