ALOHOMORA | CEDRIC DIGGORY

4〝four〞

HALLOWE'EN WAS NOT USUALLY CAUSE for worry but Ellis was compelled to feel differently. While she never did have a thing for festivities, for they meant feasts and feasts meant a great deal of people gathering—and Ellis was as close to being a people person as Professor Snape was of smiling at any given moment—this one, this year, she dreaded irrationally and all the way to her gut.

Her lack of comprehension for her sense of trepidation rather distracted her. Ellis could not remember another time in her life when she felt nearly the same as whatever this was making her feel. She had been upset or disquieted before, no doubt, but there had always been a reason for it. This was more than uncomfortable.

It lost her sleep, though that she was grateful for. The nightmares that visited her regular like clockwork could wait. Her only escape was to further engross herself in study, which, despite the exhaustion, allowed for her to keep up her exceptional academic streak. Even then, her growing eye bags were so unmistakable that Professor Snape kept her back one morning after Potions to issue his concern.

"Miss Grindelwald," he said, "I've noticed a certain...weariness to your recent demeanor. I wonder...if there's anything"—he paused deliberately—"you wish to tell me?"

Ellis hesitated, considering this, and then it was too late.

"Would it be—"

"It's nothing to do with the rumors," said Ellis hastily. Snape shot her a look somewhere between taken aback and offended. "I assure you, sir, it's just...nightmares and homework."

Snape examined her, his eyes narrow and menacing at first. Suddenly, Ellis felt weak and yielding—and she hated it. But at last he took a breath and, with that, seemed satisfied.

"Very well," said Snape, "but you will visit the hospital wing"—he snatched a piece of parchment off his desk and began scribbling—"where you will receive a Sleeping Draught from Madam Pomfrey." There was a swift scratch of his quill as he signed off. "And I will know if you haven't," he warned as he held out the note to Ellis.

Instead of taking it over, she stared at him blankly but Snape simply said and, if Ellis didn't know any better, in a rather fatherly manner, "It will be dreamless."

She had been afraid of that.

And now no longer notwithstanding, the prospect of being in the hospital wing for any length of time was still not one Ellis fancied for several reasons: First, and foremost, she would miss lessons, her sole purpose of even being at Hogwarts. Second, it would present her as weak, her most loathed identifier from Britain to Uranus. Last, and most ironically, rumors would fly that she was weak, which was far worse than actually being weak. Ellis never cared for what others thought about her, unless it was that she was weak—and she was having none of it. She started to protest.

Apparently, Snape wasn't having any of it either. He rose from his chair so abruptly it toppled backwards with a deafening din. Amidst the echoes of crashing, Ellis heard what sounded like, "Why do I have to do everything around here?"

Without warning, Snape seized her hand and dragged her towards the exit. By magic, the doors flew open with a boisterous bang; the crowd outside was shocked into silence. A brief scan told Ellis she didn't know anyone—albeit there was no telling as to whether they knew her. Everyone was taller, presumably seniors waiting to enter.

"In!" ordered Snape, and they hastened to obey. "Begin working on your antidotes. You should all have prepared your recipes now. I will be back to select someone on whom to test one."

The entrance to the dungeons shut with a reverberating slam. Snape and Ellis hurried along, hallways after hallways, staircases after staircases. She had never seen the castle like the ghost town it was, and was glad she did. It was serene, it was nice; it took her mind off things. She liked it very much. Hardly anyone saw them, besides Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington and the Fat Friar. The Slytherin pair were passing the entrance hall when Ellis jumped—Mrs. Norris had just brushed her ankle.

"Not a cat-lover, are we?" drawled Snape softly.

Ellis peered up, found her Head of House staring at her, then found herself clinging onto him as if for dear life. She let go as quickly as she could, avoiding his gaze, mortified.

"No," she lied, "not really."

Mrs. Norris scuttled round a corner and out of sight. Snape resumed ushering Ellis along. Finally, at the foot of the stairs leading up to the hospital wing, Ellis stopped short. She had refrained herself from jumping once more but couldn't help gaping at the flight of marble steps.

Something clicked inside her head, which made her heart pound and her breathing heavy and drained blood from her face.

Never had she been about these parts of the castle but those stairs, those stairs she had seen before. Those stairs whereupon laid one Colin Creevey, camera clutched to his face and next to a limp bunch of grapes, as though frozen in time. An image that had burdened her since the eventful flying lesson, an image she had been wary to decipher, was now unraveled: Colin Creevey would meet his demise on those very stairs, just as Mrs. Norris would meet hers hanging by her tail from a torch bracket along a flooded corridor.

"We're almost there," said Snape, who thought her sickly complexion but an after effect of their long walk.

He sent the note ahead and, with far too much on her mind, Ellis didn't fully register what happened next: Snape had scooped her into his arms, carrying her up and into the ward.

Inside, she saw Madam Pomfrey bustling out of her office with a stoppered vial in her hand. The dark purple liquid within was most uninviting, especially when inches from her face in a goblet the matron conjured out of thin air.

"Drink this, now," said Snape firmly.

Fearing that he might—and deep down knowing that he would—pour it down her throat if she waited, Ellis threw back the indigo solution in a single gulp. To her surprise, it didn't taste half as bad as she imagined. It reminded her vaguely of a juice box she once had.

"Now, sleep," said Snape.

Immediately drowsy, Ellis complied. As she hit the pillow, she glimpsed Snape whispering something to Madam Pomfrey, to which she nodded, and then his billowing black robes faded away, as did everything around her.

Meanwhile, back in the dungeons, Cedric and his friends had settled into their usual places. The atmosphere amongst them, however, was every bit unusual. Their frolicking moods prior had been quelled without a trace. Podrick could barely take out any of his Potions things before he succumbed to the urge to lean in close to the table, egging the rest to do the same.

"Did you see her eyes?" he asked.

They all looked at one another; the answer was clear.

"That's what death looks like, I reckon," said Margaery.