Windows of the Soul

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: This story ignores HBP and DH; it starts the beginning of the summer before Harry’s seventh year. Thank you to my beta Sometimeselkie for all her hard work. Sorry this is a short one.

Chapter 15 – Patterns

School quickly fell into a pattern. The boys were still a curiosity for some, but for Harry and Draco, life together was good.

Draco had all but moved into Harry’s rooms and had surprisingly become fast friends with Hermione. He had a truce with Ron and the Gryffindors had an alliance with him too. Pansy had forgiven him and had become friends with Harry and even tolerated Hermione and Ron. The other Slytherins he could ignore as best he could.

Harry was happy. He and Draco were together and never better, and his sister had new friends and was happy in her house. His friends accepted his boyfriend and his new family. Remus and Snape had decided to reveal their relationship as Snapes spying had been revealed; they had even talked about bonding at Christmas. The only blight in Harry’s life was...Voldemort.

Voldemort had not been happy when he had found out about Snape and had tortured him through his mark. Harry had had many nightmares through his scar, many that he hadn’t told Draco or his parents about, as they all had become very protective of him. Voldemort had also become quite active lately; his Death Eaters had staged many attacks in the last few weeks both in magical and Muggle areas. Harry had been living on many Pepperup potions, a habit which he knew he had to stop before Snape realised, and it was also making him sick some times.

The Order of the Phoenix had managed to stop a few of the attacks before they had caused serious damage, due to the information given to them by their ‘spy’. Harry had been upset to find out that Elli was the person meeting their ‘spy’ and passing the messages to Snape, but his sister had been adamant that she was capable of doing this. But if she ever got hurt...well.

Harry and Draco had become quite good at dodging Draco’s old housemates, except in Potions, but there they had help in the guise of Snape. Now that he didn’t have to be a spy anymore he could be a little less severe and he helped the two boys and Elli when needed. The other Gryffindors just had to flounder around on their own; there was only so much he could stomach.


Life went on for the school. Days turned into weeks, and Halloween came and went. It wasn’t until the first Quidditch match of the year that things went wrong. The match was Hufflepuff against Slytherin and Draco was Seeker on the Slytherin team. He had been captain last year, but stepped down to concentrate on his N.E.W.T.s for the present year. When he turned up at the Slytherin changing rooms that morning, he was confronted by his team-mates all glaring at him. Draco straightened his back and with his best Malfoy smirk, pushed his way through the group.

“Oi, Malfoy! Where do you think you are going?” shouted Montague, who played Chaser.

Draco turned towards him and raised his eyebrow. “I thought that there was match on today, and as I am Seeker I thought that you might like to win it.”

Blaise Zabini stepped forward, smiling. “I’m sorry, Draco. You must have missed the owl that was sent. We had a vote to get you off the team, now that you are not really in Slytherin anymore, and it was unanimous.”

Draco took a look at his former associates and noticed a few of them with unhappy faces, but with all the Malfoy pride he could muster he nodded at them and walked out of the changing rooms with his head held high.

Draco walked quickly to his and Harry’s rooms, and when the door had shut and he saw that there was no-one there he threw himself on to the sofa and let the tears that had threatened to fall roll down his face. He jumped when he felt a pair of arms come round him, but relaxed when he heard his boyfriend’s voice soothing him. Harry never asked him what was the matter, but Draco knew that he knew. He just let Draco cry and be held until finally, totally drained, Draco fell asleep and Harry carried him to their bed, undressed him, carefully laid him in bed, undressed himself and curled around the love of his life.


Elli, meanwhile, had found some good friends in Hufflepuff now that most of her house had accepted her. She spent a lot of her free time either in her room or Harry’s rooms with her friends. She had found a surprising close friendship, and that was with Neville. You could find the two together most of the time. Elli was very happy with her friends and family, and as the weeks wore on her relationship with her ‘Zaytche’ progressed and they fell deeper in love.

One evening Elli was in her room going over her Defence against the Dark Arts homework with Neville. They had to write an eight inch essay about defensive and offensive curses, and the differences between the two. Elli threw her quill down in disgust.

“I don’t know how I am meant to do this, especially as I did so horribly in class today with that Jelly-Legs Curse. I mean, I can do quite a strong Shield Charm, but I just can’t seem to get offensive curses.” She let her head fall to the desk with a thud.

Neville rolled his eyes at Elli’s theatrics. “Orri, stop being a drama queen. I’ll help you with your essay and with the spells too. If I can get them so can you. Now go to chapter forty three in your text book. It has some really good questions and answers in it.”

Elli lifted her head from the desk took her wand, and wafted it over her textbook. Neville watched as the words disappeared and little dots appeared. Elli proceeded to run her fingertips over them and read the page. Neville was still fascinated by how Elli was able to read the dots. She had told him that it was a Muggle way for the blind to read called Braille, which had been adapted for wizards. He had been so interested that he had convinced Elli to teach him, so she had; even Remus had learnt a little. When she had finished, a quick spell returned the book back to normal.

Neville looked at Elli and watched her as she read.

Neville understood her reluctance to use offensive curses, even if she didn’t. Even though she had her “gift”, she only had a limited amount of time to use it, so she was unconsciously scared of hurting anyone when she was, in all essence, blind. He thought he might have an answer to her problem, but he needed to talk to Hermione and Pansy first to see if it was viable.