1996: The Beginning of the End

4: Trouble and Thoughts

Theo:

I wasn't bad at Transfiguration, merlin I was taking it for a N.E.W.T but nothing had ever made me feel as useless as being made disappear by Eloise Vance. She had done it with such ease and style, as if she did it every day. Her grin when she made me return in one piece set my teeth on edge, not helped by the fact that everyone seemed to be aware of the fact she had basically buried me by the time lunch had rolled around that same day. Eloise didn't even seem embarrassed when she caught me staring at her, she seemed more intrigued, as if she had just excepted some unsaid challenge between the two of us. She had held my gaze, forcing me to break it first like an idiot running away from something that scared me. Those moments when she had been casting spells and incantations seemed to be the only ones where she wasn't wrapped up in some sort of day dream. She had smiled and laughed and played the game. The rest of the time she appeared the way she had on the train; lost and silent. I was annoyed. She had beaten me and it wouldn't be the last she heard of it and I made sure of that at dinner a few nights later. I would've done it straight away if she wasn't so merlin damned difficult to find. She never seemed to be where she was supposed to be. "can I help you?" she drawled a few moments after I dropped onto the bench. She hadn't even flinched when I had done so, it was only when Ginny Weasley cleared her throat that she spoke at that it was without much vigor. She didn't even turn her head as everyone else stared at the out of place Slytherin at the Gryffindor table. She just added salt to her Shepard's Pie and continued to eat.

"how did you do it?" I muttered,

"how did I do what?" she asked innocently, Hermione who was sat across from her seemed amused at the whole conversation as did Ginny who was leaning forward from Eloise's other side to listen in.

"make me disappear" I retorted sarcastically. To be perfectly honest, I didn't really care how she had done it. There had been something about her since that day on the train that had fascinated me. I had known Eloise for years but we had never spoken and yet there was something about her niggling at me. For the first time in days she had done something other than stare into the abyss. I felt like I knew her, like me and her had some weird connection and I couldn't let it go. So I guess the best way to make sure that I didn't let it go was to talk to her about something, even if it meant dragging up the fact that she had handed me my backside on a platter in front of the some of the smartest people in our year.

"you're a smart boy Theo, you can read a book or two and figure it out" she played with the food on the plate in front of her, "or do you need me to show you how that is done as well?". I sighed. This girl did not let up.

"you didn't learn that from a book"

"why does it matter where I learned it from?" she asked, annoyance biting at her voice, "can't handle loosing?" she finally turned her head to look at me. her hazel eyes were bright with the challenge even though she seemed too tired to even take it.

"I can handle loosing alright, when the playing field is even"

"the playing field is never even" she said darkly, "welcome to the game of life, someone is always stronger than everyone". Funny, she said stronger rather than better.

"so, you're stronger than me?"

"you want me to spell it out for you?" she asked, cocking her head to the side, her eyes scanning my face in a way that set my blood on fire slightly. I didn't break her stare.

"surely you have somebody else to irritate, I want to eat"

"come on, how did you do it?"

"Theo seriously, get lost" she shrugged me off with a harsh tone and to be honest, that time it worked. There were far too many people watching us.

"what's got him so interested in you?" Ginny asked as I held my hands up in defeat to Eloise Vance for the second time that day and walked away.

"I don't know and I don't care" Eloise muttered, "he's trouble and the worst kind".

"where were you at dinner?" Goyle asked when I arrived back to the common room that night.

"trying to have a conversation with someone who really doesn't want to talk to me" I sighed, Goyle looked at me like I had seven heads. He was so bloody thick that I told him it didn't matter so that I didn't have to explain the situation. Draco sculked into the common room a few moments later looking as pale as a glass of milk. "where have you been?". Unsurprisingly of late I didn't get an answer. Something was wrong with him. He was off. He hadn't even taken up the chance of berating the new first years which was normally his preferred back to school activity. The whole school was different since last year but that wouldn't be difficult considering that this time last year we had been just been introduced to what would soon become a tyrannical dictator in pink. Beside the reversal of all of Umbridge's rather ridiculous rules the school was different to what it had been before. Quieter, emptier. There were clearly several students missing from certain classes and that trend continued across all of the years. People were scared, they hadn't let their kids come back to Hogwarts, even though Hogwarts was meant to be the safest place in the country, especially with Dumbledore in charge. But Dad had been gone all summer, like he had just disappeared into thin air. Why? Something big was coming, something important and it gave me an extremely sick feeling in my stomach. So extreme that it pulled me from my sleep at night, that it made me violently throw up. That image of Eloise watching those thestrals with distraught sadness haunted me.