Say It Again

Ellie sleepily blinked her blue eyes open. Overhead, the bed curtains fluttered in a chilly breeze. A slight hiss whistled through the cracked open window; she identified it as the noise that had roused her from sleep. Moving on tip-toe, Ellie slipped to the window and eased it shut. As she moved to return to bed, a noise from the Common Room below caught her attention.

“Ouch! Bloody hell this hurts.” Words of that nature were never heard from Neville. Ellie was instantly alarmed.

“Ginny!” She whispered, creeping up beside her friend and waking her.

“Wha-?” A bewildered and wild haired Ginny jolted upright.

“Something’s happened to Neville,” her blue eyes were wide. “Come on!” She grabbed her best friends elbow and dragged her from bed.

The two girls sprinted down the curved stairs. Ellie held out her arm, stopping Ginny, then peered around the corner. Neville and Seamus collapsed onto the couch before the fire place. Seamus poked at the ashes with his wand, prodding them into flame.

Ginny pressed her face close to Ellie’s. Together they observed the boys, assessing the damage and whether or not they should intrude on the scene. After several inflammatory curse words, Seamus diverged into coherency. “Not much of a bloody duel with those tossers, more like a brawl.”

“Yeah, but your curse on Draco was worth all of this,” he gesture to himself and Seamus, and then grimaced at the action. He shoved one hand against his nose, trying to stem his heavily bleeding nose.

Ellie’s heart plummeted. She wished more than anything else that she didn’t care whether or not Draco was injured. But she did and she saw that as an unforgivable weakness. “Come on,” Ginny sighed quietly. “Let’s go mend them before they attempt to themselves.”

Together they inched down the remaining steps and declared their presence by coughing. Both boys jerked their heads upwards at the noise. “What are you two –“ Seamus stopped, wiped his bleeding lip, and continued, “doing up?”

Neville and Seamus were looking particularly guilty. Ellie hiked up one eyebrow as Ginny’s hands went to her hips. “We might be asking the same thing.”

“While also adding, why in the name of Merlin are you both bleeding . . . profusely?”

“Uh, right.” Seamus mopped up his gashed eyebrow. “Well, you see –“

“We dueled Malfoy and Zabini!” Neville declared, not bothering to sound ashamed. “And we might look banged up but –“

“You should see them! Zabini’s walking with a decided limp. Neville got him good in the knee cap!” Seamus picked up the thread, grinning proudly.

“Yeah, but Malfoy’s left eyes is swollen shut! He won’t be dueling anyone else anytime soon! Seamus hexed him right in the face.”

Ellie forced her anxiety over her ex-boyfriend to the recesses of her mind. “How lovely.”

“And no one caught you?” Ginny asked skeptically.

“That was the best part! We convinced Peeves to take care of the Carrows for us which left us completely open to handle the Slytherins.” Neville leaned back with a satisfied smile, then winced in pain at the motion.

“Oh, come here,” said Ginny trying to sound irritated but failing miserably.

Ellie took up a position kneeling beside Seamus and tendin to his wounds. “I’ll run up stairs and get the rest of the pain relief potion Madame Pomfrey made for us and the remaining bandage wrappings we have. She gave Seamus a critical look, “We’re going to need to send for more from our . . . families.” She said the word with some hesitation, her friends knew about her precarious family situation, but she still tried her best not to talk about it.

As she went up the stairs, she bumped into a shadow. “Ellie!” Lavender gasped in surprise.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asked curiously.

“I heard all the noise; I came down to see what was going on. Is everything okay?” Her concern sounded genuine. Ellie had never had much to do with Lavender or Pravati during her first year at Hogwarts, but both girls seemed nice enough.

“Neville and Seamus have been dueling. I’m on my way to get bandages and such.”

“Can-can I help?” asked Lavender tentatively.

Ellie looked at her in surprise. “Uhm, of course.”

“I have some ointment that my grandmother sent me. I’ll go get that and wake Pravati. She might have more bandages.” The other seventh year traced her steps back up to her dormitory.

Ellie smiled to herself. It was good that everyone was coming together. More than ever, the Gryffindors needed unity.

When she arrived back downstairs, Pravati and Lavender were tending diligently to Neville. Ellie joined Ginny in caring for Seamus. The group of six chattered through the early hours of the morning discussing the situation in Hogwarts and the dangers outside their school.

When they all eventually straggled back up to their dormitories just two hours before classes would start, Ellie’s thoughts traveled back to Draco. Were his injuries as bad as Seamus had propagated? She sincerely wished she didn’t care because she knew if their roles were reversed, Draco wouldn’t.