I Fear Your Name Will Haunt Me Forever

When Ellie awoke she felt so warm and comfortable she snuggled closer to her pillow wishing she didn’t have to wake up. She was perfectly contented before the pillow she was lying on started to move. It was then she also noticed that the pillow had a heartbeat. It was at that point that Ellie recalled the night before. She was emotionally numb. She didn’t know how to feel. She was still upset and somewhat angry and Dimitri yet she was also pleased to be waking up in Oliver’s arms for the first time. The butterflies which until this point she had been resolutely ignoring were now so strong that she could not longer disregard them. Ellie attempted to move slightly to get a little more comfortable but Ellie was constricted by strong sinewy arms. His grip simply became tighter until she gave up and just lay there in his arms taking in the moment.

In the moments that followed Ellie started to feel like she was being watched and if she listened closely she could hear chuckling from the other side of the room. Ellie’s blue eyes opened slowly and took in the other beds in the room. She realised that the curtains which were there for the students privacy were all open, clearly Oli had forgotten to close his last night. The quiet chuckling was now slightly more audible and Ellie turned her head to look in the direction the sound was coming from. The Twins and two males that Ellie didn’t know were standing together fully dressed whispering excitedly while watching the couple in the bed. By this point in time Ellie no longer felt comfortable she felt more like a caged animal in a zoo and all she wanted to do was escape the watchful eyes. She managed to wiggle free of Oliver’s grip picked up her clothes from where she had left them and made a run for it.

When she arrived in the common room she saw about ten people waiting on friends to go down to breakfast. Ellie realised how late it was and started to make her way to her room in the fastest way possible while running. En-route as she wasn’t looking where she was going she ran straight into Minerva. Ellie fell and let go of her clothes to help break her fall.

“I am so sorry” Ellie said as quickly as possible while rapidly retrieving her clothing. “I wasn’t looking where I was going” it was at this point that she finally looked up and saw Minerva standing as crisply dressed as ever watching Ellie with her eyebrows raised.

“Good morning Ellie, how are you? More to the point where have you been?” Ellie stood up tongue tied trying to answer the question without insinuating that anything happened between herself and Oli. Just as she had thought of the correct sentence to answer with Minerva started speaking once more. “Why exactly are you wearing Oliver Wood’s top?” Ellie flushed at the question no matter what she said no Minerva will think something is going on. Ellie opened her mouth hoping to deny the accusation when Minerva stopped her from speaking once more. “Don’t even try to deny it Ellie, his name is on the back.” Ellie laughed nervously and left the one way conversation there, running away from situations seemed to be her quirk today.

Once she arrived in her room she picked up her bag which already had the books she would need inside and was about to start getting changed however she looked at the time and realised if she did she wouldn’t have enough time for breakfast, so she just picked up her bag and ran to the Great Hall where her tiny breakfast was waiting for her. When she arrived at breakfast she made her way to her friends noticing that the hall had gone peculiarly quiet. Ellie just thought that it was because of her, and she was right, but the other students were more interested in how she had captured Wood’s attention and nobody else could do so.

“Morning guys” she stated as she sat down. She grabbed what seemed to be anything within reach and the boys just looked at her slightly shocked. They all replied with the obligatory greeting and went back to chatting between themselves while Ellie stuffed herself full of food before her only lesson of the day, unfortunately for her it was Defence Against the Dark Arts. As soon as Ellie had finished eating the group stood up and starting walking through the busy corridors.

“Hey Marie!” Ellie said loudly hoping to get the attention over the noise of other conversations taking place in the bustling halls. She was concentrating so much on Marie she failed to notice another student who she walked right into, she quickly apologised and Marie looked at her impatiently. “Sorry,” she didn’t really know whether she was addressing Marie or the complete stranger, once out of their hearing range which admittedly wasn’t far due to the background noise Ellie looked closely at Marie. Some of her hair had escaped the bobble she had placed it in earlier that morning, preferring to have her hair out of her face for the day so she could concentrate on her work. Ellie started talking once more after Marie had tucked the offending piece of hair behind her ear. “Would you like to stay in my room tonight?” Marie made eye contact with Ellie for a few moments and then a joyful look graced her face.

“Of course I will.” Marie said, the two girls had become very close and Marie couldn’t help but be curious about Ellie’s state of dress and her apparent rush to leave the Gryffindor tower that morning considering nobody saw her enter it last night. Ellie smiled and turned to see three offended looks on three different male’s faces. Oliver was clearly about to say something but Ellie interrupted him before he could start.

“I suppose if you three want to join us you can.” Ellie said looking at Marie for confirmation. Marie subtly nodded her head and this was all the confirmation that Ellie needed to not add as long as it is ok with Marie. The twins got identical looks of joy on their faces. Before the twins got any bed ideas she instantly said “No pranks of any kind or I will never invite you again.” Their happy looks fell slightly but there was still a glint of joy in their brown eyes. Ellie didn’t have to look at Oli to know he was happy she could just tell. She glanced at him in spite of this and made eye contact with him. The delight in his eyes was undiluted and she knew just how happy the invite had made him. The group stopped talking about the subject once they had approached their class. Ellie was dreading it. Lockheart hated her and she didn’t really understand why. All she had done was undermine all of his teaching skills in front of the class. After all he did it to himself a few days later by letting some Cornish Pixes loose having not taught the class how to deal with them before. He just took what she had said too seriously.

Once the lessons of the day had finished it was lunch time as everyone got Friday afternoon off. Ellie suggested that they all take their overnight bags into her room, and spend the afternoon with her. Fred George and Marie all gave her the same answer. They couldn’t due to Quidditch practice. Ellie frowned she didn’t know who their captain was but he sounded ruthless and like he didn’t care about his team having some down time. Ellie was disappointed but knew it left her with some time to complete her homework. She was putting off replying to her Bulgarian friends. She didn’t know what to write. She wasn’t sure she would be allowed to attend the wedding. In fact she was hoping she wouldn’t be as that way she wouldn’t have to make the decision herself.

When practice was over Marie found Ellie sitting in the quiet Library. She knew that whatever that was on Ellie’s mind was serious. She watched Ellie for about Five minutes watching her stare at the piece of parchment on the desk before her still empty. Marie approached her cautiously. She needn’t have bothered Ellie was numb to the world around her she had no idea what was happening nor did she want to she just wanted to compose her letter in a way that would make her feelings about Dimitri’s up-coming nuptials clear. The problem was she didn’t know how she felt anymore.

“Ellie, what’s wrong?” Ellie jumped startled back to her surroundings the musty smell once again reminding her she was in the library. Ellie looked at Marie, her hair was windblown and it seemed like as soon as she came inside form practice she made her way there. Ellie turned her head and Marie saw she had a couple of tear tracks on her usually happy face. “Ellie.” Marie stated simply sympathy in her voice. She rapidly closed the space between them and wrapped Ellie in a hug. Ellie crying worried Marie, Ellie had held her emotions behind strong walls even during the telling of her story, so seeing her sitting in the middle of the library crying. Ellie just took in being hugged by a woman, it didn’t happen often to her. The two main influences in her life were male. After taking it in Ellie once more got a tight hold on her emotions. Following Ellie getting a hold of her feelings Marie looked at her in questioning not wanting to ask but wanting to know what was wrong.

“Ellie, I want to know what happened last night” Ellie looked at Marie fearful for a few seconds. She didn’t want to spill her heart out to this girl. Well to anyone really the only reason she did last night was she was still emotionally raw from telling the story. Ellie shook her head not wanting to explain the situation. “Then will you answer me this, why were you in Gryffindor tower this morning?” Ellie just stood up from her seat abandoning her piece of parchment there and started walking out of the library a small grimace on her face.

“Come on let’s get your stuff and get to my room. The boys can catch up” Marie sensed that the subject was closed and she was right. Ellie just wanted to get on with the night and enjoy the evening with her friends. When everyone arrived in her room Ellie had already asked the house Elf Daisy to supply her room with sweets and favourite savoury foods and it seemed her room had been temporally turned into a kitchen. Food was crammed on every stable surface, there was even some crammed on her overly full bookcase. Once everyone had settled Ellie realised she hadn’t thought this through. She didn’t have a clue where everyone was going to sleep. Clearly her face betrayed her thoughts as Oli quickly made his way over to her. He wrapped her in a hug hoping to help with whatever was wrong with her.

“What is wrong Ellie?” he whispered in her ear. His breath warm against her ear and she felt a shudder run through her body. If Oli realised it had occurred he didn’t say anything about it just waited for her reply. She shook her head. It wasn’t important she could get some house elves just before they turned in to transfigure something. Marie then decided to talk to offer her opinion on what to do that evening.

“Let’s play truth or dare!” she suggested without a thought. Ellie heard Oliver groan and instantly knew he didn’t want to play as much as she didn’t.

“Let’s vote on it” Ellie suggested giving her and Oli a slim chance of getting out of it. However as soon as she told those in favour to put their hands in the air three hands were instantly thrust up wards towards the ceiling. Ellie knew that her and Oli never really had a chance. Ellie exhaled noisily and knew that the people in her room understood she was unhappy about this situation.