Hogwarts had been, initially, an exciting but uncomfortable adjustment for Ellyse. On one hand, she had always looked forward to going. On the other, she had always thought her father would be there with her. On a third hand, the freedom of the castles and dormitory life was enticing. On yet a fourth, there would be no one to hold her when she had nightmares or keep her occupied through her insomnia. That was why, upon entering the school as a first year Ravenclaw, Ellyse hadn't really made any friends.
Now, yes, she had a timid and slightly skittish personality. And maybe spending all her time with her face buried in books made her a little unapproachable. It certainly didn't help that she hadn't the slightest clue as to how to start or hold a conversation with people she didn't know. It was probably a failure on all accounts.
So, instead of socializing, she spent her time in class making notes, and her time outside of class studying them. She found her way to various nooks and crannies within the bones of the school and she wrote letters to her mother and sister every night. If she got lonely, she'd read books out loud to her owl Odysseus, who would look at her with nothing but his most patient expression, as barn owls tended to do.
And every weekend she would practice the spells and charms her father had taught her until her voice fell horse and her wand arm lay limp.
Out of all the first year courses Ellyse had taken, Defense Against the Dark Arts had perhaps been her easiest mark. She grasped spells easily, reacted quickly, and never let her guard down against an opponent. It hadn't surprised her much when Professor Zailles had chosen her to demonstrate basic duelling skills to the class.
âMiss Jones,â he'd said, locking eyes with her as she stepped forward. âAnd...â His gaze scoured the crowd of students, but quickly fell upon a group of snickering Slytherins. âMister Rolland.â
The snickering stopped for a moment. One boy looked up, the rest looked at him.
âStep forward, please.â
The snickers began anew as the center of attention, a Caucasian boy with dark eyes and darker hair, made his way to the front. He was not much bigger than Ellyse herself.
âYou and Miss Jones will demonstrate to the class how to properly initiate a friendly duel.â
A loud laugh burst out from the group of Slytherins, and Professor Zailles tuned in as though he had a mental radar. âMister Bates!â The laughing muffled only slightly, but it was too late. The professor stormed through the students to his target, and the pair was left at the front.
The boy turned to Ellyse, smiling a humoured smile. âBonjour,â he greeted.
Ellyse blinked at him, frankly a little startled that he had spoken to her. âHello.â
He put one hand over his chest. âI am Simon, but call me Rolland.â
âEllyse,â she replied.
He took her hand lightly then, bent to bring it to his lips, and kissed the back of it. âEllyse,â he repeated. âA lovely name to go with a lovely girl.â
The amount of blood that rushed to her face was potentially dangerous. Ellyse took her hand back, bringing it close to her body and hiding it in her sleeve.
âDon't worry,â he added. âI promise I will go easy on you. Wouldn't want to hurt that pretty face.â
She stared at him. Professor Zailles had made it back to the front, and was now addressing the two of them once more. âWands out, you two. Up on stage.â
Ellyse broke the stare, turned harshly to get to her position on one end of the stage as Rolland took the other. They faced each other once again. The boy winked, smile dancing on his lips. Ellyse remained straight-faced. They bowed, wands held at the ready.
He was slow. Left an opening. Put his guard down. Ellyse had him stunned in one spell and knocked down in another. With barely a third he was pinned. The match was over. She had hardly done anything.
And all Rolland could do was pull himself up and stare at her as if she had grown wings from her back and would fly off at any second.
The second time Ellyse saw Rolland, she had been in the halls on her way back to the dormitory from her afternoon classes. It was the small commotion that drew her attention, off down the hall, Rolland and another Slytherin boyâBates?âwere being pulled along by the scruffs of their robes out of a classroom by one rather peeved-looking Professor Smelt.
Some students had stopped in the halls to look. Others had stopped to overhear. Some just wanted to know how many house points would be deducted. Ellyse wasn't sure why she stopped. Not because it was Rolland, certainly, though it was his face she would remember, the way his guiltless smile would peek at the edges of his mouth when the professor turned away. No. It hadn't been for him.
A girl exited the classroom on her own, covered head-to-robes-to-feet in blistering pink powder that had probably caked into her everything. Voices were raised. Fake apologies were ushered. A total of forty house points were deducted from Slytherin. Ellyse turned down a different hallway to take a longer route to the tower.
Flying was probably the most interesting of classes. It wasn't something Ellyse was able to practice on her own, or study for like a test. And likewise, she wasn't the best in the class. She wasn't the worst, not by far. She was average. Just average.
But flying was fun, and so, so calming.
That is, when Madam Handmon wasn't letting the class have a free-for-all and go crazy. Or sorry, it wasn't Madam Handmon. Madam Handmon was sick and had been quarantined to the infirmary for the next three days. Professor Lane was taking her place, temporarily.
Which was a complicated way of saying it was a free afternoon with the brooms.
Some idiot had snuck a quaffle out to class with him, and many students were now gathering in groups to play a very stripped, very fake game of Quidditch. Or catch. Depended on your view of it.
Ellyse had sat out of the game, favouring instead the idea of a slow aerial tour of the outside of the castle. She had disconnected herself so much from the other students that she hadn't noticed the sounds of the game getting closer. It was only when a brown ball bigger than her head whipped past her ear and another student nearly barrelled into her that she realized the game had migrated towards her.
Cheers came from behind her. She looked forward, and not a few feet in front of her had Rolland managed to catch the quaffle and stop just in time to avoid hitting the stone walls.
He smiled at her sheepishly. âSorry,â he said. His cheeks were a little pink, his chest moving in and out to make up for lost breath.
âIt's okay,â she responded. And because they kept looking at each other, she added, âGood catch.â
His face broke into a genuine grin, and she might have been fooling herself but it was possible the colour of his cheeks darkened by two shades. âThanks.â
Rolland turned back to the other students then, flying back to them and giving the ball a hard throw in another direction. Ellyse stopped her tour of the castle to watch the rest of the game play out.
May was a bad month for Ellyse. It was almost impossible not to be. Every year since her father's death, she had experienced crippling insomnia paired with even more crippling nightmares. She had slept less than eight hours the whole week, and the sleep she did get was restless and terrifying, leaving her in a worse state when she woke up than when she went to sleep. She couldn't bring herself to think enough to decide whether she preferred one hour of tortured sleep or twenty-three hours of waking torture.
But somehow she had made it that far. Seven days. She had kept her problem to herself, so she thought, and reassured herself that it would pass on its own if she just made it through her classes.
And currently, her class was Potions.
She had taken a seat near the back, so as to avoid suspicion from the professor, and managed to get lucky with a Hufflepuff partner who seemed to know what she was doing anyway. Various ingredients were thrown into the cauldron, hands took to stirring and simmering. Steam was nearly constantly rising. Ellyse at least had enough sense in her to view what her partner was doing, looking over the cauldron to check the colour of the mixture. First it went fuzzy. Then it went dark.
And soon enough she couldn't feel her feet.
She woke up a day later in the infirmary to a story of a handsome Slytherin boy who had volunteered to help carry her all the way to the medical wing. No one would confirm the story, or who it was.
