Ella ○ Harry Potter

Seventeen: Mother

Cedric watched as a tiny black haired person waved at him excitedly from inside a photograph. A moment later, an older woman rushes into the photo and swoops the girl in a hug, and joins her in the waving.

"Is that your mum and you?" He wondered as he looked around Ella's room. It was relatively big, with a separate bathroom and a small balcony. From the short tour in the neighborhood he was given by Ella's step-father, Hakan (though he didn't say a word as Ella simply chatted with one of the people who had a gun to their faces a moment earlier), he had a feeling it was one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood. He always figured his family's house was bigger than they needed, but this house was ridiculously large.

"Hm?" Ella raised her eyes from the closet- she was fetching sheets and a blanket for the guest room, that usually remained unused, as each of the siblings in Hakan's family had his own room in the house, so whenever anyone from the family arrived, they'd have a place to sleep.

"In this photo," he pointed at the two. Ella smiled, and shook her head. She walked over to him and the photo and sighed.

"I don't think I have a photograph with my mum." She admitted. "That's Marina," she informed. "I had this really good friend when I was around three, her name was Harper. She had a one year younger brother, and her father was the driver for Selim- you know, my step-dad's Uncle."

"The Baba guy," Cedric pointed out.

"Yup," she shrugged. "So anyway, let's get your bed all ready. The family won't like us being in a room with a closed door for so long."

"But we haven't done anything wrong," Ced pointed out, and his smile was quite devious. Ella came to know that smile as one that led her heart to malfunction for short whiles.

"They don't know it," she stated, about to turn around and grab the sheets; even though her heart malfunctions left nothing but butterflies in her stomach once gone, she was still scared at some point it won't ever work normally again because of Cedric.

"If I might get caught with a suspicion of doing something bad, I want to actually do something bad," He said simply, and walked to the door, locking it.

Ella couldn't hide her smile as she turned around.

"Ced, we'll both get in trouble," she said simply, yet walked closer.

"I'll hide you somewhere safe," he promised, and put his arms around her shoulders. His smile made her heart beat to quicken, and she suddenly was once more thankful for the moment of dauntless thinking that got her to kiss that boy for the first time.

"Like where?"

"How long do we have before Hakan will hex my arse back to Hogwarts?"

"I'd give it three minutes," she shrugged. Cedric grinned, and pulled her a bit closer.

"What can we do in three minutes?"

"Ced," she started, but looking at his brown eyes made her fall silent. Truthfully, three minutes were a lot.

"El?" He asked. She shut her eyes for a moment, as though internally battling with herself, so he simply stepped back and unlocked the door. "You know I love teasing you, I don't actually want to get in trouble on my first day here."

"I hate you," she pointed out, and he opened the door wide, to avoid suspicion as he moved to the subject he was aiming for.

"So what's the story with Marina and Harper?"

She groaned, plopping on her bed. The woman waving at her made her smile gently, and she stood up to take an album filled with photographs with the family she mentioned before. She pointed to each, showing Cedric who was who, and he simply stayed silent as she told him about how she met Harper.