Wednesday, around 7:30 a.m.


Eirene munched on a blueberry muffin contemplatively. She was wide awake and ready to start the day, but she had a lot on her mind. Her eyes kept straying to her watch, then to the Great Hall doors. Munch, munch, check watch, check doors. As the minutes crawled by she kept repeating this pattern, finally putting down her half-eaten muffin when the clock struck 7:30. Class started at 8:00. To get there on time, she had to leave at 7:50. Usually, she went to breakfast at 7:15, and Effie arrived at around 7:20. But not today. Today, Eirene had watched the doors like a hawk and hadn’t seen any sign of her best friend.

She couldn’t help it if she’d memorized Effie’s habits like she’d memorized her History of Magic lessons. Effie was still ignoring her, so watching her from afar was the only way she felt like they were friends. Eirene was tired of sitting alone in the front row. She didn’t understand why being sorted into different houses could matter so much- at least, that’s why she thought Effie gave her the silent treatment. Worst of all, her best friend had started hanging out with a boy in her spare time. Eirene had seen them in the library! It was the ultimate betrayal.

Said boy, called Elias, was sitting alone at the Slytherin table. She glared at him for a few seconds and then looked away. His quiet, sullen personality seemed to match Effie’s eerily. He shared the same House with Effie, and Eirene strongly suspected Effie liked him better than anyone else in the school. All of this made Eirene hate him and want him to accept her at the same time. He’d barely spoken two words to her since the start of the school year, but she heard him snickering sometimes, when she talked in class.

With a huff, Eirene abandoned her breakfast and strode purposefully towards the Slytherin table, feeling nervous but resolute. Without asking, she sat next to Elias and hugged her books to her chest. Perhaps, for the sake of her friendship with Effie, she and this boy would learn how to get along, but she couldn’t be sure until she made the first effort. 

“Hello,” she said loftily, though her eyes looked uncertain. “I hope you have been enjoying your breakfast.” Eirene shifted in her seat and got to the meat of the matter. “Have you seen Effie? It’s getting late. She could miss her meal if she doesn’t get here soon. We have Charms at 8:00, you know,” she stated the obvious, peering over the table at the Great Hall doors, as if that would bring Effie to her.

There was a breakfast, there was a silence, and there was an annoyance. When Elias ate his breakfast he preferred to poke at his meal in the quiet. That was of course when Elias found himself not in the company of Effie, when sitting together the pair was known to get lost in their own little world. When beside her, Elias opened up more bringing up topics others found off color or morbid, Effie understood and eager would join him huddling over a book during a meal ignoring those around him.

Poking at what he could only assume was eggs on his plate, Elias pushed them past the center of the china seeing a trail of egg run off in it's wake. Grumbling something about who did you have to hex for a decent breakfast, Elias looked about for some dry pieces of toast. With the use of butter and heavy pepper, he placed the eggs on his two triangles in hopes of making them palatable. Squeezing the eggs together he took a small bite and chewed slowly, it was better than it looked at any rate.

Elias wished that his crazy aunt liked cooking like much of his housemates mother's did. Then he would have something to store away in his trunk, instead what she sent him were guides to tea leaves and crazy doodads that were supposed to ward off the evil eye. If he gave two sickles about the evil eye it would be too soon, the woman was batty and out of her bloody mind, however she took him in. So instead of cutting her down, he accepted her for the insanity she brought into his life, she was given a piece of him that no one else was allowed.

Breakfast was par for the course until of course a voice broke his blessed silence. Like a squawk of annoying seagulls during low tide at the pier a sound he knew only from classes and his misfortune of being in the same year.  The girl who came up to him to exchange pleasantries had been a thorn in the side of Hogwarts since the sorting ceremony. This time she was neither starting fires or sopping wet, a change for the better it seemed. Well it would have been the better if she hadn't approached him much to his dismay.

“Have you seen Effie? It’s getting late. She could miss her meal if she doesn’t get here soon. We have Charms at 8:00, you know,”

"Of course I have seen Effie..." he drawled out lazily taking a sip of what he had hoped was orange juice. Pineapple, bloody hell. "I am fully aware of when Charms is as is she. Do you have any other settings like silence on that alarm clock mouth of yours?" Muggles relied on those things so heavily according to his muggle studies book, and his aunt. Elias couldn't figure why they would bother when you could just go to bed at a proper time. "Are you lost Ravenclaw is in that direction," he pointed, "I would tell you where the Headmistress's office is but something tells me you have already been there to polish her wand or cauldron." Whatever those bloody brown-noser sorts did.

He gave her the barest of glances, paying more attention to his toast and his pineapple juice than he did to her arrival. When he finally spoke, Eirene wished he hadn’t. It took her a second to figure out what he meant by alarm clock- she thought it was one of those muggle contraptions- but it was pretty clear what he wanted, anyway. He wanted her to be quiet, shut up, or ‘shut yer trap’ in Keegan’s words.

Eirene shot him a dirty look and then flung her nose in the air. “I know where the Ravenclaw table is, thank you,” she butt in, ignoring the hypothetical nature of the question. It was especially mean of him to comment on her House placement because he knew that she had wanted to be with Effie. His next insult was just as hard to hear. Most kids seemed to hate it when she raised her hand in class and tried to be friendly towards her professors. Eirene didn’t mean to brownnose- she simply saw it as putting in that extra effort!

“I was only worried that she wouldn’t have enough time to eat,” she snapped at him, glancing at the doors for the fiftieth time. “That’s what best friends do. They look out for each other,” Eirene raised her eyebrows at him knowingly and flipped a braid over her shoulder. It was her way of saying that she wouldn’t give up her best friend spot so easily.

Without Effie, she didn’t know what she would do. The other kids didn’t seem to like her very much, but she had no idea why. She hated being laughed at, insulted, and teased, and it felt like the only people she could relate to were older students and teachers. One or two of her peers were nice to her, but they were both boys, not purebloods, and boys! She couldn’t possibly stoop so low.

Somehow, though, she had to make this Elias boy like her, or at least tolerate her. Maybe if she pretended to be his friend she could convince Effie to drop him later.

“You have completed your Charms homework, haven’t you?” she asked, trying to wipe the sour look from her face. “We could compare answers and make sure we have the same ones. I’m certain I’ve done everything correctly, of course, but just in case you-" she paused, struggling not to insult him. "It could be helpful.”

Eirene thought she was being very gracious. No doubt, Elias would feel the same!

Elias was starting to think his pineapple juice had more social brain capacity than Eirene. The bird didn't catch that he was not in the mood to talk to her, and maybe she should try back, well never. Elias felt certain there would never come a time when he found her interesting enough to talk to. Maybe it was a snap judgment in the beginning, the initial feeling was not being contradicted as he found himself in her company more than he wished.

“I know where the Ravenclaw table is, thank you,”

"Could'a fooled me considering where you are standing," Elias gave her a look that could be considered nothing less than icy. If Effie was here he was certain that she would tell Eirene to hit the bricks much the same he had. Obviously taking a hint wasn't in those bloody books she toted about and read from so annoyingly during class.


“I was only worried that she wouldn’t have enough time to eat,”

Rolling his eyes he took another bite of the sandwich he had created. Chewing slowly he ground down on the bits and pieces to keep himself from spouting something nasty. Elias damn near choked on his food with the next bit of blather escaped her ever flapping lips;

 “That’s what best friends do. They look out for each other,”

Coughing a little he took another swig of his pineapple juice, "Best friends? Are you delusional there batty, she barely looks at you. From all outward appearances one would assume you have no friends." Nor was she gaining any by annoying Elias during his meal. Hoping she might shut down after bothering him and not getting the answers she desired, Elias found that all dashed.

When she asked if he had completed his charms work, he glared at her. "I don't need your ruddy answers, I can completely my course work solo. In fact, I already compared my answers with my class partner, Effie and I did that before we started on our Defense Against the Dark Arts work." Grinning darkly he added that in order to cut her down a little more. Elias didn't feel like hearing anymore of this best friend nonsense.

Eirene swallowed hard, his insults hitting way too close to home. She drew back from him a little, thinking about returning to the Ravenclaw table where she belonged, or hiding in the corridors until class so he couldn’t sneer at her.

She felt a tight, unpleasant feeling in her chest and compressed her lips together, falling into silence for a while. Her eyes strayed towards the doors again. Effie had to come in soon. She couldn’t miss breakfast. It was the most important meal of the day. Being preoccupied with Effie made it easier not to think about what Elias had said to her, but there was only so long even she could worry over a friend who barely made eye contact with her anymore.

Eirene glanced down at her Charms book, flipping it open on the table so she could pretend to be extremely interested in its contents. The text on the page barely registered, though. She sneaked a glance at the boy- sitting quietly, unperturbed and collected. It made her so angry. She hated to admit it, but she could understand why Effie liked spending time with someone who was so similar to her.

A sense of dread filled her. She knew she’d have to write her weekly letter to her parents soon and inform them if she was making connections with the right sort of people. Eirene highly doubted that her textbooks and teachers would pass as satisfactory friends.

Finally, when the tightness in her chest started to go away, she looked at Elias and cleared her throat in a significant manner. “I’m not moving from this seat,” she hissed at him fiercely, eyes a bit too bright. “When Effie arrives she can tell you…” she faltered for a moment. “… to stop being so mean.”

With that she resumed studying her book, hoping that he hadn't thought of another way to insult her while she'd been ignoring him.

Euphemia was running a bit behind schedule but that was because last night with use of the handy spell lumos and her drawn curtains she had spent hours buring the midnight oil as she investigated in a book she had taken out of the library. She had been researching the involvement of the Dolohov’s in the first war and the second, there was so much information to go through and so much of it was about Voldemort and this Harry Potter bloke. Euphemia wanted to learn more information about her grandfather Antonin Dolohov without having to talk to her parents about it, Euphemia wanted to discover it and research it on her own. She had been doing her research not only on her own but with Elias’ help because he was just as interested in the dark and dangerous.

Due to lack of sleep Euphemia had over slept her normal wake up time, leaving her running around to make sure she still looked as prime and proper as she normally did. She spent her time fixing her hair before applying a black ribbon in her hair. She had worried about her uniform hoping that it was wrinkle free and making sure her tights were run free. She had to look as posh and rich as she was.

When ready she finally strolled to breakfast, hoping to get a muffin and maybe some bacon in her before class. She hated running behind but at least she was never a big eater. Euphemia had not expected her friend Eirene to grow so concerned about her in the few minutes that she had been late for breakfast. Euphemia also probably would not have taken kindly to the worry because Effie was her own person after all.

Strolling up to Elias at the Slytherin table she noticed that Eirene was there. What was she doing there? She didn’t usually come and bother Elias like that. Euphemia sat down next Elias as she reached for a muffin and started breaking piece off. “Morning.” She said before washing it down with some milk. “So I found out some facts about my grandpa last night,” she said to Elias completely unaware of what they had been discussing before she had arrived.

Summoning the strength to tell off the most annoying bint he had come across in his short time at this school, Elias felt his sharp tongue coming out again to snipe at her. Instead however his planned mental barrage on this pain, was put on the back burner. As he opened his mouth to give her what for, instead his eyes peered across the still filled Great Hall. There coming from the dissipating crowd was his best mate, Effie.

While others were looking to make connections, some made the only one they needed. Elias didn't need a needy follower grabbing onto his arm like some pathetic border collie who needs to be loved. There was no trike he wanted to learn how to ride, Elias was a two wheeler type without use for a third wheel. Hell, Merlin knew if it wasn't for Effie being present in this school he might very well be riding a unicycle in this metaphor. That of course would require him to be outside, or worse yet do something athletic, Elias was not all about that.

Giving her a small nod he took another bite of his own breakfast ignoring Eirene entirely when Effie sat beside him. "Morning," he drawled out lazily sipping his sour juice to get the taste of the eggs from his mouth. Tomorrow morning he would certainly need to go with a bran, or perhaps an oatmeal mixture. He pushed aside his plate so that he could concentrate on Effie rather than his food intake. Elias listened intently while Effie opened her mouth to speak, "Really?" he replied a tingle of intrigue hit his spine, "What did you find out?"

Eirene perked up when she saw her friend walk in, as composed and well-dressed as ever. Effie was a little late, at least in comparison to her usual time, but she calmly walked over to the table and sat next to Elias.

“Hi Effie!” She piped up immediately, brightening at Effie’s brief greeting, though she couldn’t tell exactly who she was speaking to. When she spoke to Elias about her grandpa, Eirene felt a rush of disappointment. So she had been telling him secrets, and worst of all, Eirene hadn’t been let in on the news. It wasn’t fair! Eirene had known Effie for a long time, and she could even keep her mouth shut about some things if it was really important to her, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore.

In an attempt to hide how crushed she felt, she did what she did best, and poked her nose into their conversation.

“Yes, what did you find out? And which grandfather are you talking about? And why are you researching him?” She leaned forward eagerly, purposefully invading Elias’s space so she could be included and hear about what Effie had been up to.

The whole reason Eirene was out of the loop was because Effie was sick and tired of her as of late. Eirene was a great friend, or so-called friend in Effie mind. She was turning into an annoying Professors pet, but she was an asset in the battle against those nasty stinky Gryffindors, even if she was a bit of a coward at times. Still Euphemia had decided that the research of her families past was something for she and Elias to do; after all he was interested in the dark and mysterious. Elias was willing to delve into the dangerous and the rule breaking, but Eirene on the other hand not so much. Eirene seemed to shy away at the morbid side of Effie or so Effie appeared to assume.

A smirk appeared on her face as she looked over at Eirene. To see her jealous made that smirk appear wasn’t she just so cute. Still the line up of questions grated against her mind. It was obviously none of her business if she was speaking to Elias and not both of them. “My grandfather Antonin on my father’s side,” she said in an annoyed tone as if the answer to the question was completely obvious. “I am curious about him, now shush.”

Turning to look at Elias again. “I found out why he was imprisoned in Azkaban before his escape. He killed Fabian and Gideon Pewett. I researched them to find out they were not all that important but the brothers of an Order Member in the second war, Molly Weasley.” Effie was so proud of herself for finding this information. “I also uncovered the attack he favoured, which was a jet of purple light that was cast in a zigzag pattern and caused serve internal injury.” Effie’s eyes lit up, obviously she wanted to learn such an attack one day.

A small snarl seemed to cross over his lips as he heard the chirp chirp chirping of the annoyance known as Eirene. The more that girl blathered on and interrupted the more he considered naming her the 'after thought' in his head. Would he pay attention to her? Only as an after thought. Would Effie pay attention to her? Only as an after thought. If there was to be a common friendship to form between them Elias felt it would only amount to the affection someone felt for a pebble in his shoe or a tear in his trousers. Eirene was not easily removed from his life, it appeared he would have to make extra effort to free himself.

Elias snickered when Effie told off the ever talkative twitter bird Eirene. "Oi, dung for brains she was talking to me..." he whispered in a low hiss as Effie brought to light what she had found. Listening to her, Elias hung on every word with growing curiosity alight in his eyes. If only he could look into things himself like that.

There was no interesting Gates past, his other family side was even less thrilling. The cousin who couldn't stand him for his connection to her blood line only caused him desire learning about it even less. "Weasley, really? Your grandfather was a fascinating man," he mused a little as he sat upright,"Does it say anywhere what the name of the curse was?" Severe internal injuries, it had his attention.  Elias had an interest in the darkness that could only be matched by his close friend who sad beside him. No one else seemed to understand why they felt how they did, but Elias could careless what the others thought.

When Effie told her to shush, she shushed. Eirene pursed her lips and glared at Elias, as if this was all his fault. As Effie continued talking to him, her resentment turned into confusion, then worry.  Antonin Dolohov. She had heard of him before. She knew that he had done bad things. Until now, however, she hadn’t known the specifics.

Eirene shuddered. He’d killed two people, but it wasn’t just that. It was the way Effie talked about him. Eirene had never seen her so… delighted. Her voice was full of pride and her eyes gleamed. A part of Eirene wanted to smile at her and be happy with her, like a friend was supposed to do, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d just learned. Two people killed. Favored attack. Internal injury.

Elias’s reaction also disturbed her. He called Effie’s grandfather fascinating, and wanted to know what the curse was called. Why would he ask that? Why would he care? It wasn’t like they were going to use it…

Eirene glanced between the two of them, her discomfort showing clearly on her face.

As Eirene shushed a smirk crossed Euphemia’s lips, she always loved how much control she had over the girl maybe that was why she let her hang around. Life was so much nicer with someone to meld to her will, and Eirene was that person for Euphemia. She was always the one she could count on being there and doing what she wanted, and her new friend Elias was the one who was a kindred spirit and had the same ideals as she did. Elias was the one she was growing to value more as he was helpful and enjoyed the same things she did. Eirene was just someone comfortable to have around and what was life without the one you got used to being there and bending over backwards to please her.

“I know! I am excited to find out whether he was imprisoned or not.” Effie’s sinister smile snuck up on her lips. “I have yet to find out the particular curse but I am interested in finding out what it was.” Perhaps one day she would be as strong as her grandfather with magic and use it. Keegan would be good practice, same with that filthy Turkey. Euphemia looked to Eirene hoping to see fascination in her eyes, but she was let down. “Eirene show some interest.” She sneered as she looked back to Elias. Why was she stuck with the friend who didn’t like things her and Elias did.

“I am curious to know if my grandfather ever broke out of prison, if he was in there.” She looked at Eirene again and back to Elias. “Want to help me research today?” She was speaking to Elias but no doubt Eirene would want in on the deal, that was unless she was too afraid to delve into such a subject. Her friend was such a baby, but still she remained important to have around. Innocence was always a good factor to have and she was sure Eirene would back her up if she ever found herself in trouble, even if the idea of Effie in trouble was laughable at least to Effie.