Chapter 289: Fleur's Unnecessary Feelings; Ethan: Is an Obscurus Born Live or Hatched from an Egg?
Hogwarts, hospital wing.
Morning light filtered in.
Warm winter sunshine slipped through the grey clouds and fell across a pot of ivy on the windowsill, coaxing its leaves to unfurl.
"Mm… don't come any closer… I don't want octopus… Ethan…"
Fleur's eyes flew open, and she bolted upright in bed.
A wave of vertigo slammed into her.
She froze, clutching her pounding head, lips bloodless.
Why in Merlin's name had she dreamed of being grabbed by an octopus with Ethan's face?
Was there something wrong with the very foundations of Hogwarts?
"I… this is… the Tournament! How did the Tournament end?" she blurted.
Her last clear memory was a tide of scarlet lightning sweeping the earth like daylight, the black dragon rearing between heaven and ground, roaring at the sky.
And the lone figure hanging in the air.
That image had burned itself onto her retinas.
When she recalled those cobalt eyes looking down at her, Fleur could not help shrinking into herself, heart hammering.
She had, unmistakably, developed unnecessary feelings.
"Ethan… you have shamed me again," she muttered through clenched teeth. "Just you wait. I will bury you in my garden."
She tried to swing her legs off the bed.
The moment she lifted her gaze, she met Madam Pomfrey's very interested eyes.
Madam Pomfrey's eyes lit with the unmistakable shine of gossip. "Oho."
Fleur's face went up in flames. "N-no! It is not—"
"I understand," Madam Pomfrey said in a tone that said she absolutely did. "Mr Vincent does have a remarkable face."
"I don't—that is not—"
"But his personality is dreadful," Madam Pomfrey huffed. "Look at how much extra work I have had since he arrived."
Fleur ducked her head and mumbled, "Ethan's not that bad. His thinking is just… different."
"Honestly," Madam Pomfrey sighed, giving her a look of pure exasperation, as if yet another lovestruck lamb had queued up to be trampled.
While she measured out a potion, she told Fleur the results of the first task.
Seeing Fleur's frustrated, downcast expression, she added, "I will tell you now: for the rest of this week, you can forget about going to 'have a word' with Ethan."
"Hmph. Who cares about Ethan?" Fleur sniffed, tipping her chin. "I am not interested."
"Even so," Madam Pomfrey went on, "there will soon be an excellent chance to see him."
Fleur said nothing, but her ears twitched.
"The Christmas Ball. The champions will lead the first dance. You could always invite him."
"I have no desire to invite that brat," Fleur said at once.
"If you don't hurry, another girl will beat you to it." Madam Pomfrey murmured.
Fleur froze.
Two seconds later, she lowered her head. Through the curtain of gold hair, it was just possible to see how red her face was.
"Pa… please," she whispered, almost inaudible, "may I have a sheet of parchment…"
With much tutting and muttering, Madam Pomfrey supplied paper and quill.
At that moment, there was a rush of wings overhead.
Fleur turned, lips parting in surprise as owls flooded past the windows in flurries of feathers.
A newspaper crashed down out of nowhere and landed squarely on her blankets.
"The Daily Prophet?" she read aloud, confused.
Her eyes dropped to the headline.
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall, Hermione slapped the same paper down on the table.
"Darkness Begins! Ethan Vincent Has Already Lost His Edge?" she shouted. "This article actually claims you blew everything on the first task—and that the next two will fizzle out? Absolute rubbish!"
Heads turned all along the tables.
Breakfast was in full swing on the morning after the first task.
Ethan calmly stacked fried eggs on his toast and used ketchup to draw a skull on top. He took a bite. The slightly runny yolk, the char at the edge of the bread, the sweet-sour tang of tomato.
A sip of hot coffee washed away the richness.
Perfect.
He shut his eyes in contentment.
Hermione glared. "Ethan! Listen to me! That Rita woman is slandering you!"
Ethan turned his head, took a crisp slice of apple from Luna's fingers with a crunch, and leaned lazily against her shoulder.
He watched the "furious chipmunk" fuming in front of him.
Only once he had swallowed did he say, very gravely, "This is serious."
Hermione's eyes lit up. "Exactly!"
"Tell me," Ethan said, "do you think an Obscurus is live-born or egg-laid?"
"…What?"
Hermione stared.
Ethan frowned in thought. According to Professor Scamander, it is a parasitic magical creature made of dark energy. But energy obeys conservation. What transforms into the Obscurus?
"If that could be answered, we might be able to solve it in reverse."
He muttered to himself, already following the trail, leaving Hermione standing alone as her face slowly turned red for a completely different reason.
"Hermione," Luna said gently, tilting her head, "I heard you have been working with house-elves."
The lifeline snapped Hermione out of it. She shot Luna a grateful look, then could not help protesting, "Not 'working with', 'helping'. They are a miserable people, not laboratory rats."
"Helping," Luna agreed pleasantly.
She tilted her head a little farther, her clear blue eyes resting on Hermione with unclouded curiosity.
"If you care about house-elves so much, you must have visited their kitchens here at Hogwarts."
"Ah—what?"
"The ones under the Hufflepuff common room," Luna said. "Behind the painting of the bowl of fruit."
After classes that afternoon, they followed Ethan and Luna down to a corridor in the dungeons and stopped before a still-life of fruit.
Unlike most paintings, the fruit looked alive. Stare long enough, and the grapes seemed to roll in their bowl, while juice as red as wine trickled from a bitten apple.
It was faintly unnerving.
That style…
Hermione, Ron, and Harry all turned to stare at Ethan in silence.
"Hehe. I did make a few adjustments," Ethan said. "You noticed."
This was the artistic equivalent of a direct Floo connection to the underworld. It could not possibly be anyone else's work.
"Heh."
No one was complimenting you.
All three howled internally.
Luna had already reached up to tickle the painted pear. It shivered and giggled like a baby, then popped into a green doorknob.
Creak.
She pulled the door open.
The sight beyond made all three of them gasp.
Mountains of plates were stacked everywhere, steam billowed from pots and filled the vast room, and more house-elves than they had ever seen in one place scurried to and fro, preparing dinner for all of Hogwarts.
The smells wrapped around them.
Ron swallowed hard. His stomach growled loud enough to echo.
The sound made the nearest elves look up. They froze for two seconds, then squealed with delight.
"Oh! It is wizards from the castle! What would the wizards like to eat?"
They swarmed over, and in the blink of an eye, everyone's hands were full—biscuits, bread, hot meat pies thrust at them from every direction.
Hermione, face pink, tried to protest, but another voice cut across the babble.
"Egg."
Ethan was staring fixedly at the hard-boiled egg in one elf's hand.
"Yolk and white," he muttered. "Soul and body."
"I know what I want."
He snapped his head up, eyes blazing.
"The Obscurus's egg!"