The Same Mistake

Ellie sighed shifting her school bag further up her shoulder. The hallway ahead of her was blocked by the unfortunate being named Draco Malfoy. Ellie found it to be severely disappointing that in her month and a half at Hogwarts she already knew to avoid Malfoy when at all possible. His cold draw and malicious eyes were enough to make her cringe.

Ellie did not belong at Hogwarts. She was a Beauxbatons student on one of the increasingly rare student exchange programs between the major magical schools. Ellie had signed up hoping the experience would increase her magical knowledge and prove useful in practicing her English. She had never expected to be harassed by a minority of the Hogwarts students and ignored by the rest. Thus far, Ellie had only succeeded in befriending two girls; a fiery red-head named Ginny Weasley and the vaguely different Luna Lovegood. Both had been very kind to Ellie, welcoming her into their friendship without question.

But it was hard. Ellie was a sixth year so neither Luna nor Ginny were in any of her classes seeing as they were both fifth years. The only saving grace granted was Ellie being adopted in the Gryffindor house in which Ginny resided, additionally since there was no room in the sixth girls dorm, she had been given a bed in the fifth years. The school load was not much different from Beauxbatons, but since Ellie had no friends in her year to ask for help, her homework took her much longer to finish than the other students. All and all, the exchange hadn’t been the best experience of Ellie’s school years.

“I was just telling Goyle the other day, with the amount of trash they keep bringing into this school, it’ll be only a matter of time before all of the true wizarding families send their students elsewhere,” Malfoy’s voice carried down the hallway to Ellie, she looked up to see his eyes pinned on her.

She gripped her bag tightly with one hand and clamped the other on her wand. If Malfoy wanted trouble, Ellie would be only too happy to reciprocate. “Oh mais oui! Ellie the Frog!” Squealed Pansy Parkinson sounding much like the bull dog she was.

Ellie’s facial expression tightened, her lips pursing at the very sound of her adversaries.
She ducked her head down in the futile attempt to avoid detection by the group of aggressive Slytherins. She kept her eyes glued to the floor, watching each foot stepping in front of the other. It wasn’t enough.

One long leg shot out in front of her, Ellie tripped, her entire body falling forward. The book bag wrenched from her chest and spilled all over the cement floor. Her knees cried in protest as her nylon stockings were ripped to shreds. Ellie threw her arms out at the last possible moment to avoid having her face smack the ground. Her wand rolled harmlessly away.

Boisterous and cruel laughter bounced off the old walls of Hogwarts and echoed in Ellie’s ears. Tears of pain fought to emerge but she refused to let this group of bullies see her cry. Ellie straightened up, both her palms and knees bleeding from the fall, her hair tousled and her shirt untucked. The desire to curse the whole lot in French burst into her mind, but knowing they wouldn’t understand what she was saying, she resorted to plain English.

“Prats! You are a bunch of imbeciles!” Anger balled Ellie’s hands into fists that were clamped at her sides. “And you!” she whirled to Pansy who was still shaking with laughter. “Never! In my life have I laid eyes on such an ugly girl! In France you would have been left out with the dogs and not allowed into the house!”

Pansy gasped in shock and before anyone knew what was happening, Pansy slugged Ellie right in the face. A thudding crack alerted all present that Ellie’s nose had been broken. Ellie shrieked in pain while the Slytherins’ cheered.

“Poor form, Pansy,” Malfoy’s drawling tone admonished. “Next time use your wand like the pure blood you are.”

Ellie fell to the ground under the pretense of anguish. Scrapping the ground, one hand found her wand while the other applied pressure to her rapidly bleeding nose. “Allamontée!”

Pansy doubled over in pain. The Slytherins stopped talking, hurrying to their comrades aid.
Ellie didn’t wait for the next attack; she gathered up her things and fled the corridor. Her last glimpse of the scene was Malfoy’s grey eyes glaring after her.

XXX

“Goodness! What happened?” Madam Pomfrey scolded as Ellie burst through the Hospital Wing’s doors.

In furious French, Ellie retold the entire event that had left her in such disarray, though of course Madam Pomfrey didn’t understand a word of it. Yet, years of healing had taught Madam Pomfrey when to cluck with concern during a tale told in any language. Eventually, when Madam Pomfrey had stemmed the bleeding, mended Ellie’s nose, and convinced her to lie down, Ellie spoke English.

“It was that horrible Pansy Parkinson! She hit me!” Ellie seethed, her cheeks bright pink with rage.

Madam Pomfrey raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Hit you? Why would she do that?”

Ellie sulked for a moment, not wanting to reveal her own spiteful words. “I may, possibly, have called her ugly.”

Madam Pomfrey tittered unhappily. “You’re lucky she didn’t use her wand. Pansy has quite knack for disfiguring hexes,” she commented knowingly.

There was a commotion outside the door; Ellie’s heart sank. She had known sooner or later Pansy would be carted up to the Hospital Wing but she had hoped it would be after she herself had left. Madam Pomfrey cast a suspicious look at Ellie before opening the door. Pansy was carried in by Goyle and Crabbe, right behind them, Malfoy stormed in looking murderous.

Ellie desperately wished to Apparate from the scene, but was confined to her own cot. “Oh my!” Madam Pomfrey gasped as she caught sight of Pansy’s face.

“She did it!” Malfoy declared in a particularly cold tone, his long pale finger pointed directly to Ellie whose cheeks were now a bright fuchsia. “That Frog should be expelled!”

“Expelled!” Ellie jumped from the cot, anger coursing through her veins. “You are talentless and foul! The school should expel you if only to raise its standards!”

Malfoy’s wand flashed from his robes to aim directly at Ellie. “Say it again, Blood Traitor!”

“Je ne suis pas Blood Traitor, c’est toi!” Ellie shrieked, her own wand surfacing from her pocket.

Vaguely, in the background, Ellie could hear Madam Pomfrey shouting for everyone to ‘just calm down.’ Malfoy’s lips twisted into a vicious smile; Ellie’s eyes narrowed until barely any of their crystal blue was visible.

“Rictusempra!”

“Furnunculus!”

“Expelliarmus!” a third voice added almost lazily.

Ellie spun around only to come face to face with Severus Snape, his eyes were flickering between Ellie and Malfoy with great interest, in his left hand he held two wands. “What, exactly, is going on here, Draco?”

“She cursed Pansy, sir,” Malfoy explained, a note of smugness in his speech.

“So you were going to rectify the situation on your own?” Snape asked, handing both wands to Madam Pomfrey.
Malfoy blinked dumbly.

“Detention for both of you.” And with a whirl of capes, Snape left.