ALOHOMORA | CEDRIC DIGGORY

59〝fifty-nine〞

OPENING CEDRIC'S LETTERS WAS LIKE opening Pandora's box. The week-old Chocolate Frog did little to save Ellis from what Cedric had likewise been guilty of—a grave mistake. She had achieved nothing but to aggravate the perpetual pang in her chest and the expulsion of tears so aplenty they would likely fill buckets at a time. It seemed a miracle, what with all the heartache and weeping, that she could even muster the strength to hold a quill sufficiently steady to write anything.

By dinner time Ellis was the unforeseen author of three damp rolls of parchment filled with illegible apologies and rants from distraught scrawls or else smudged ink. This novella, however, was not intended for anyone else's eyes. Perhaps Cedric's increasingly journal-like correspondences had seeded the idea of venting her own feelings by the means of chronicling, which had its merits, if a little risky. Relatively calmer, Ellis managed to bewitch them so that they appeared as blank scrolls to all but her (though she didn't know why she herself would ever want to read something that was simultaneously depressing, tedious, and needy), and it was this habit that sustained her as April faded unobtrusively into May.

Ellis was still adamant not to reply, and Cedric transpired to be quite as stubborn. Thinking it was in his best interests, she lived for the hope that he would stop, that he would put her out of his mind, which was ironic because she yearned just the same for Tuesdays and Fridays, which were the days after Hufflepuff House's Owlery visits, and so the days that post from Cedric came—and to this end, he did not disappoint. It became a sort of addiction to read mail from him; whether she was dependent on the details of how he had spent his days, the sight of his neat, slanting penmanship, or feeling the pain the simplest of his words could inflict just so she knew she was still alive—she seemed mostly desensitized otherwise—it was indistinguishable and inconsequential.

When Professor Snape announced that examinations would commence as usual, Ellis was as shocked as anyone to find June creeping up on them, having operated predominantly on autopilot. It was, however, Professor McGonagall's news of the Mandrakes being finally ready for stewing that truly revived Ellis's senses—in particular, her sense of fear. Despite being completely blameless with respect to the Petrifications, she felt inexplicably apprehensive, as though afraid the Mandrake potion might cause some categorical disaster, or worse: warp the memories of the victims to say that it was indeed her who had made them this way.

This irrational anxiety hit such a height midway through the morning that Ellis was sent bolting to the girls' lavatory and regurgitating her breakfast into a toilet as Professor Binns escorted them down to the dungeons. Slightly lightheaded, she groped her way to the sink. The tap didn't work at the first one she tried so she used the neighboring one to splash her face, only to receive a jolt when she looked up into the grubby mirror.

Wheeling around, Ellis was immediately dizzier but nonetheless thought that the pearly-white figure of a bespectacled girl in pigtails hovering in the middle cubicle and staring petulantly back at her was rather real.

"Myrtle!" cried Ellis, wide-eyed.

"Myrtle!" mimicked Moaning Myrtle, looking still more sulky.

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, if it wasn't obvious—" Ellis gestured vaguely to where she had just thrown up.

"Oh, you're no fun," said Myrtle irritably. "The Baron's forbidden us to play with you."

With a spectacular dive, Myrtle disappeared down the nearest toilet bowl. Ellis leapt out of the way just in time so that only the tail of her robes was drenched in the aftermath of Myrtle's dramatic departure. As she pulled out her wand to dry herself, she heard Myrtle's grumbles dwindling further and further into the floor—

"...kill...rip...tear..."

Her blood running cold, the hairs on her arms rising, Ellis stiffened, clutching dearly onto her wand. This voice, like Myrtle's, had travelled to her from underground, but it sounded nothing like Myrtle, who was typically high-pitched and nasal.

"Myrtle?" said Ellis, darting her eyes around and wishing it was merely the moody ghost who had decided it was an auspicious hour to defy the Baron and prank her now that she was lost to view.

But there was no answer, as was expected of an empty bathroom. Tentatively, Ellis crouched down and pressed her ear to the cool flagstone. She could discern Myrtle very, very faintly, and then, overlapping her distant whining—

"...kill...rip...tear..."

Quite convinced that even spirits couldn't speak with two different voices at once, Ellis made expeditiously for the exit. It had been more than two months since she last heard it in the vicinity of the library, but there was no mistaking it now. Even if her next lesson wasn't Potions, her intention was to head straight to Professor Snape and tell him about the voice, as she had vowed she would.

Before Ellis could reach the door, however, it inched open. For a nervous second Ellis had her wand raised, poised to disarm, but then she recognized the mane of flaming-red that emerged—it was only Ginny, albeit a very pallid one. Relieved, Ellis lowered her wand, under the impression that the Gryffindor had been sent by Professor Snape to find her, but Ginny, as though she might have been sleepwalking, swept past Ellis without any hint of noticing she was there at all.

"Ginny?"

"Stupefy!"

* * *

Ellis felt as if she was waking from a very curious dream. She glanced around: it was neither very bright nor very dark. None of the lamps in the hospital wing were lit, but the ward bathed in a muted orange glow that seemed to be beaming through the windows—it looked to be near sunset.

Parts of her were very sore. Determining that sitting up was too overrated at the moment, she flumped back onto the pillow and closed her eyes. Suddenly, a jet of red light flashed inside her eyelids and they sprang back—she remembered how she had come to lay there in the first place.

Ginny Weasley had Stunned her.

Frantically, Ellis fought to recollect more: Ginny had entered the toilet...Ellis thought she she had come to bring her to Potions...but now she remembered that students weren't allowed to wander the castle unsupervised, and she trusted that even Snape, in spite of his deep loathing for the ginger, wouldn't have delivered Ginny right into the mouth of danger just to get rid of her from his class... Then there was Ginny acting like she was in a daze...Ellis called to her...Ginny pivoted on the spot, her wand aimed...the spell was out of her before Ellis could look at her face...

No, that wasn't it...Ellis had managed to look at her face—and it was Ginny's face that retarded Ellis's reflexes...because her face had been very odd...her eyes had a reddish quality to them...there was something familiar about this, something sinister...a split second in which Ellis thought Ginny would cast the Killing Curse instead...then she was struck, a blast of red light catching her square in the torso...she felt herself fly backwards and black...

Why would Ginny attack her, though? Ellis asked herself repeatedly. She replayed the scene, searching for the tiniest of clues...

The door was opening...Ellis saw Ginny's hair first...then her face—no red eyes yet...Ginny ignored her...Ellis uttered her name...Ginny spun around...Ellis spotted her wand...then her face...no, before her face there was something else...red...red splotches all over Ginny's front...then Ellis glimpsed her face and the red eyes...why did she feel like she had seen them before...?

Still, nothing seemed to explain why she was attacked. Ellis rewound further back...

She was with Moaning Myrtle...it was her first time using her bathroom (the Baron had warned her not to, but overcome with the urge to vomit, she didn't have much choice)...but there was something familiar about it too...how...?

Ellis racked her brains...and then everything came to her as abruptly as the Stunner.