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Magical History Lesson

Elladora Ketteridge (1656-1729): doting daughter, acclaimed herbologist, discoverer of the properties of Gillyweed, aromantic asexual

Elladora, affectionately called Ella by one of her mothers and Dora by the other, grew up in a greenhouse. Her parents were herbologists, well-known but recluse. They preferred to study their plants and raise their child away from prying eyes. Elladora loved life in the small cottage and enormous greenhouse beside the ancient forest and the dazzling river. She wasn’t lonely even though she rarely saw another child. How could she be lonely surrounded by so much life?

One day Elladora’s mothers brought home a plant she had never seen before. They said it had just been discovered in the Mediterranean Sea, and a traveler from the area had brought it to them believing they had the best chance of discovering what it could be used for. But no matter what they tried they couldn’t discover its properties. They attempted everything shy of ingesting it because their safety spells predicted it would prove fatal to humans. (And it had baffling effects on the few animals they fed it to. For spiders and mice it proved fatal; for fish it did nothing.) Elladora watched every experiment fail and felt just as much frustration as her parents. Eventually the witches put a preservation spell on the plant and moved onto other things. Everyday Elladora would look at the bubble of water containing the Gillyweed when she entered the greenhouse.

When she was old enough, she set off on her own. She went on an adventure to learn more about the plant that had puzzled her family for more than a decade, and she decided to start where the traveler had found it: Tunisia, near the city of Sfax.

Elladora was overwhelmed and amazed by the city of Sfax. It was grand, beautiful, and the majority of its denizens were wixen. She found the herbologists she was looking for as she was wading through the shallows of the Mediterranean Sea at 3 a.m. (as one does when harvesting the plant). They were happy to show her their research and their greenhouses above and below the sea. They had figured out how to distill essence of Gillyweed, which could be used as a potion ingredient, to treat certain skin conditions, and which was the main ingredient in a delicious adult beverage they were calling Gillywater. But while the herbologists of Sfax had made much progress with the plant, they too had been unable to discover the effects of ingesting it raw. It was too dangerous for any wix to attempt without further study, they said. Elladora dejectedly agreed. She joined them in thinking up new experiments and testing new theories. (She realized how limited her mothers’ experiments had to be because they only had the single bubbled plant instead of an underwater greenhouse full of Gillyweed.) Elladora found this new work difficult but liberating.

Her time in Sfax wasn’t all work though. She became friends with many of her fellow herbologists, who took her around the city and to a few other parts of Tunisia. She saw beautiful sights and learned new ways to cook, dance, and think about the world.

A few people became interested in pursuing something other than friendship with her. At any mention of their nonplatonic attraction to her, she would drop whatever she was doing and leave in a panic. Once she even apparated on the spot. After a particularly upsetting encounter, Elladora secluded herself at home (with some Gillyweed to study of course). Her friend Dhia believed she knew what was going on and went to visit her. They sat together as Elladora released years of pent-up frustration and confusion about things she didn’t even speak to her mothers about. She had never cared for romantic or sexual relationships. As a child she hadn’t even cared for friends. Her mothers’ love and the great, wide forest was all she needed. But when she got a little older and was allowed to travel with them to exciting places, she discovered that she did like making friends with children her age. Years on they still exchanged letters and sometimes visited one another by floo powder. It was nice.

But now that she was older things were different. Friendships came with risks. Learning that a friend was attracted to her made her feel many things, none of them good. In a panic she often cut off communication with the person, temporarily or permanently. And she had never once felt attraction for someone else. She had spent years trying to understand why she wasn’t “normal.”

Dhia took Elladora’s hands and assured her that nothing was wrong with her. And, it was likely that her distress about others’ attraction towards her would disappear once she believed that fact. Nothing was wrong with her, and she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do.

Looking back, Elladora realized that Dhia’s visit that day truly changed her life. She began to accept her feelings rather than trying to understand why they existed or why they weren’t “normal.” She learned to set boundaries with her friends and fellow herbologists, who completely understood and apologized for any discomfort they may have caused. She felt truly happy for the first time in her adult life. It resonated through her and fueled her passion for her work. In the following year she made several breakthroughs with the Gillyweed, coming closer and closer to discovering the effects of consuming the raw plant.

On the third anniversary of her arrival in Sfax, she decided that it was time. She would put her rock-solid theory to the test in the only way she know how: she ate the Gillyweed raw. Almost instantly she felt as though she may die. She couldn’t breathe. She turned to the bucket of water she had set up to test her theory (and hopefully save her life).

She plunged her head into the water... and breathed.

Author’s Note: According to Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean by Hadrian Whittle, “Gillyweed is a magical plant native to the Mediterranean Sea. When it is eaten by a witch or wizard, one grows gills and webbing between the fingers and toes, allowing them to process oxygen from water and navigate underwater more easily. Elladora Ketteridge was the first witch to discover the properties of Gillyweed, although Beaumont Majoribanks was credited with it about a century later. She nearly suffocated after eating the plant, but saved herself by sticking her head into a bucket of water.”

- Ravenclaw Mod

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