Ellen tries to remain calm, but a crazy step-mother and father make that really difficult for her. When she finally manages to get to King's Cross Station, her parents leave and she attempts to isolate herself; however that doesn't work when you befriend marauders.

Ellen's insomnia goes away, but at what cost? She's about to discover how insomnia might be better than sleeping, especially with classes starting the next morning.

Remus is able to piece together snippets of gossip an old girlfriend told him to figure out Ellen's "trigger" of her depression. What he finds is so much more than he could ever imagine happening to her.

Ellen squeezed her eyes shut tightly. That memory wasn’t as painful as the ones involving…Damien. She felt herself internally flinch. Well, she thought grimly, a step’s, a step.

“You shouldn’t go,” he argued.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I know I shouldn’t” she whispered. “But I’ll regret it if I don’t.”

She gave a small laugh. “That’s the thing though, I don’t know what I want from him or if I don’t want anything from him.”

He sighed. “Only you can answer that.”

She nodded. “I know. Just…don’t hate me if you don’t like my decision.”

[Ellen] swallowed, then nodded. “I just hope he doesn’t hate me for any of this…”

He stopped at the scraping of a bench. Ellen was breathing heavily and fleeing from the Great Hall. Her temper was beyond boiling point. She could have hexed Becca right there and then if she hadn’t left her wand in her bag upstairs...

"...Never again will I ever talk to you or acknowledge your presence. You have no one to blame but yourself.” She turned on her heel, not caring about his feeble arguments. She was done, she didn’t give a damn about what he had to say anymore. Like Remus had told her, it just kind of hits you in the face one morning...

Her eyes snapped up to his face. He let go of the pumpkin juice, then re-entered one of the conversations going on around them. She sat there stunned for a moment, then poured the juice into her goblet, shaking her head. There wasn’t any chance of her hurting him, but him hurting her? Well there was every chance of that.

Ellen realizes going out with Sirius will have a lot of consequences, like starting a war with her old group, dealing with rumours, and making her parents believe she hates Sirius.