Persecution paranoia — a chronic condition characterized primarily by systematic, organized delusions. Patients with this disorder are convinced that certain individuals or specific groups are out to harm them.
They often become extremely cautious and guarded, taking even the most ordinary, everyday incidents and blowing them out of proportion, turning them into the core of their delusions—seeing them as signs of an impending attack.
Eda's behavior did somewhat resemble this illness, and her past experiences could easily have caused her to develop such a condition. Maybe those people had merely glanced at her once, or a few times, and her suspicious mind took it as proof they were tailing her, watching her.
After all, Eda wasn't the sun—the Earth wouldn't keep revolving around her—and the wizarding world certainly wouldn't revolve around a perfectly ordinary little witch like her.
But Eda could swear to Merlin that the surveillance by those three was not her imagination or paranoia—it had been very real. She had quietly observed them for a long time and could confirm their watchful behavior. What she truly couldn't explain was why they had suddenly vanished.
The only explanation she could think of was that they had realized she'd noticed their surveillance, and in order to avoid confrontation and ease her suspicions, they had temporarily stopped following her.
Or perhaps they had already obtained the information they wanted and no longer needed to waste resources on her.
Of course, it was also possible that they had switched to more skillful "eyes" to continue secretly watching her, and she simply hadn't noticed—creating the current lull.
After realizing she was being tailed, Eda had tried to figure out who might have sent the three. But the conclusions she reached through deduction were far from satisfying.
The first to come to mind was the Fawley family behind Benedict Fawley. This pure-blood family from Hampshire possessed astonishing wealth and enviable connections, yet they lived in remarkable low-key fashion.
Aside from Benedict, there had been no word of any other member of the family ever following Voldemort.
In Eda's first year, Benedict had tried to attack her, only to be defeated by Dumbledore and sent to Azkaban. That alone gave the Fawley family motive to keep her under watch.
A year later, the Auror Hart—who had tried to drag Eda back to the Ministry for trial—had been nothing but a lapdog of the Fawleys.
Since Benedict's imprisonment, the Fawleys had been working their connections, hoping to lessen his sentence, but thanks to Dumbledore's influence, Cornelius Fudge had never budged.
It wasn't unreasonable to think the family might be nursing resentment. Unable to provoke Dumbledore directly, they could very well have shifted their attention to the far weaker Eda.
Next were the parents of students Eda had crossed at school—Avery, Flint, and possibly even Malfoy. Over the past three years, thanks to her personality, Eda had managed to offend quite a number of people at Hogwarts, and she had particularly alienated almost the entire pure-blood-heavy Slytherin House.
While Eda considered "telling the parents" to be a shameful act, the Slytherins she constantly suppressed had little recourse other than running to their parents.
Seeing their children bullied, those parents wouldn't care what had actually caused the conflict with Eda in the first place. Out of parental protectiveness, hiring a few people to shadow her—and maybe give her a scare—wasn't beyond possibility.
And besides, Eda knew full well what these families had been involved in before—they'd all run with Voldemort. Targeting a child was exactly the sort of thing they were capable of.
These families were Eda's main suspects. She had conflicts, large or small, with all of them. In their eyes, the solitary and powerless Eda was nothing more than a slightly sturdier ant. They wouldn't care about an ant's life—snuffing out one that happened to appear in front of them was as easy as lifting a finger.
Compared with these ancient pure-blood families, Eda's current strength was indeed nothing to speak of. They had many ways to deal with her.
Unless she possessed enough power to make others wary, or had a formidable background to shield her, they could deal with her anytime and anywhere they wished.
It was also possible that the ones tailing her were the relatives or friends of the people she had killed. Although The Daily Prophet had never published Eda's name, so many Aurors knew about the matter that finding out her identity wouldn't be difficult.
That would be a grudge of life and death—probing into Eda's background to prepare for revenge was more than enough of a motive.
The problem was that Eda couldn't even confirm whether such "relatives and friends" truly existed, nor what their capabilities were. She knew nothing about them and thus couldn't analyze them.
Eda never suspected Dumbledore. Although in her eyes their relationship had cooled considerably, the Headmaster had no reason to do such a thing.
She had considered the Ministry of Magic as well—the thought had crossed her mind. After all, those Aurors had all been from the Ministry.
But the Ministry's motives and reasons seemed insufficient. Eda couldn't think of a time when she had offended them; on the contrary, she had even helped them capture Death Eaters hidden among the crowd.
For someone who had once assisted them, not only had they failed to award her the Order of Merlin, but they had allegedly sent people to tail her. Given the current circumstances, that didn't make much sense.
Unless Cornelius Fudge thought that exposing Benedict Foley's identity as a Death Eater was creating trouble for him, and, annoyed with Eda, decided to send people to watch her so she wouldn't keep causing him problems.
But the lofty Minister for Magic probably wouldn't bother with a poor student like Eda—such a small matter wasn't worth his effort.
These were the only possible masterminds Eda could think of for now. She couldn't come up with any other suspects; to keep trying would truly be slipping into paranoia.
Counting them up, Eda realized that in just three short years of her wizarding life, she had made countless enemies. She used to say Marcus Flint was too much of a troublemaker, but it turned out the real troublemaker was herself.
No matter which family had sent those three people to tail her, none of them had taken the chance to strike when she was alone. This was Eda's greatest puzzle—she couldn't determine their intentions. Could it really be that they were just gathering information on her?
She shook her head to clear away the thoughts.
Whatever the case, life had to go on. She couldn't let this sudden, inexplicable surveillance—and its equally sudden disappearance—stop her from living normally.
To forge iron, one must be strong oneself. As long as she had enough strength, any underhanded tricks would be nothing to fear—mere paper tigers that would crumble at a touch.
That evening, Eda walked alone along Charing Cross Road.
Her clothing wasn't strange—just a little unconventional—so she didn't attract any stares from passing Muggles.
It wasn't until she reached a quiet street corner where no one was paying attention that Eda vanished from Charing Cross Road. Still, no one jumped out to attack her. It seemed her watchers had truly given up.
Drowsy, hungry, and exhausted, Eda appeared on the small road of St. Catchpole village.
Here, there was even less chance of anyone following her—The Burrow was just up ahead, and no one would be foolish enough to make a move so close by.
When Eda returned to The Burrow, it happened to be mealtime. The whole family was gathered around the dining table, making for a lively scene.
Ginny's face was no longer quite so red, but she still didn't dare look directly at Harry, only stealing glances at him. Her shy, hesitant manner made Eda find the whole thing rather amusing.
Ginny, usually so open, cheerful, and quick-tongued, had actually turned into this—truly, the power of a crush was formidable.
The family happily enjoyed a plentiful dinner. Harry's plate was piled high with food, all served by Mrs. Weasley herself.
Eda didn't feel jealous over Mrs. Weasley's obvious favoritism; instead, she focused intently on tackling the steak on her own plate. If she didn't eat more now, those steaks would either end up in the bottomless stomach of Ron the Food King or get transferred to Harry's plate.
The twins were chattering away, complaining about Percy. They wanted to borrow his owl, but Percy absolutely refused, saying he was saving it for his own use.
The warm, homely atmosphere of The Burrow never failed to wash away Eda's fatigue. Here, she could forget those bothersome troubles; all she heard was the sound of family laughter in her ears.
As night deepened, Eda and Ginny both drifted into deep sleep, each of them dreaming.
Ginny's dream was of Harry, so even in her sleep the little girl wore a sweet smile.
Eda's dream, however, was stranger.
First, she dreamed of the witch who had been watching her—someone she clearly had never met before, yet somehow felt faintly familiar.
Then, she dreamed of another woman entirely, one she had never seen in her life—a complete stranger.
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