18 October, 2024—Eleanor

My, that stench was something fierce.

I raised a hand to pinch my nose as I stepped into the shithole of a place I was to call my new home, involuntarily wincing as the old wood croaked an ominous little greeting under my mud-splattered boots. With an unimpressed sigh, I cast a scrutinizing gaze across the ramshackle interiors—a stuffed armchair with some very suspicious looking stains and a couple of cushions that would probably cough up a storm if I were to so much as poke them with a finger, a floor lamp with broken lampshade, a coffee table with no table top, a slanting bookcase and a hideous portrait of some old man holding a bowl of fruit on the far end of the room. All in all, it was a displeasing sight to behold, even if you deliberately ignored that eye-catching spread of perhaps the ugliest wallpaper you'd ever seen…

Welp, someone had forgotten to call in the cleaners before handing the keys over.

I spied a little telephone attached by the lamp and quickly made my way over, pulling out a slip of paper from my back pocket as I placed the receiver against my ears. With an observing glance at the familiar, neat little scrawl, I carefully dialed in the offered number and leaned back against the wall, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up their phone and respond.

Five seconds passed with no answer. I regarded the floor lamp with wary curiosity and then flipped its switch on, staring as the bulb flickered distrustfully before bathing the room with a wash of warm yellow light. Surprised, I found myself unable to display much of a reaction to the voice suddenly hooting its way into my ear.

"Who is this? Hello?"

"Well, the lamp works," I finally said with a sigh. "I suppose that's good news?"

"Eleanor!" the voice squeaked. There was a bit of noise, a thump and a clutter, before the voice resumed once again. "Eleanor!"

"God, don't call me that," I said with a reflexive grimace. "Doesn't suit me one bit, that awful name. I go by Lee; you know that, Aunt Sally."

"Of course, of course," she said with a rather suspicious lack of due repentance, making me roll my eyes with familial exasperation. "I assume you're calling from your new place—how does it look, then?"

I frowned, debating on how to respond, before figuring that honesty wouldn't be all that bad.

"Well, it's a bit of a cesspool," I said.

"Er," Aunt Sally faltered. "What?"

"It's dark, depressing and filthy, and I have never seen a sorrier looking place," I explained furthermore.

"Well." There was a small pause. "That's not good."

"That about sums it up, yes." My lips quirked into an amused smile. "The cleaners forget to call in the rain check?"

"Oh, darling," Aunt Sally bemoaned, making me wonder if honesty had been the right way to go after all. "I'm so sorry, the agent said the place was great for your minimal budget, I was sure it would turn out okay—"

"Aw, Aunt Sally," I interrupted before she got right into her apologising—lovely lady that she was, she had a tough time functioning as a single woman raising a couple of hellions for little children and she hardly needed any more stress rubbing up against those harried nerves. "Don't be silly, the location's great, smack in the middle of London and everything, and I'm pretty sure I can whip it into shape without much of a problem… I'm just surprised it's still standing and all, that's all."

"If you're sure," she sounded doubtful, which made me grin. "I can come help, if you like—it's the least I could do, considering I was the one who suggested the guy—"

"Absolutely not, you're all the way in Bath," I cut in immediately, not wanting to inconvenience her any further. "You think Mum'll be able to take care of the hellions on her own? I've got a few friends I can bully into helping me out, don't worry."

"You'll be coming over for Halloween, yes?" Aunt Sally asked. "The kids want to go trick-or-treating again, and they're all but itching for a day with their lovely Sissy Lee."

My face softened into an affectionate grin. "It'll be hard to get rid of me," I said. "I just called to check in, give you a bit of an update and all. I've got to go now, though. I love you, Aunt Sally. Do give them all a little kiss from me."

"Yes, definitely," she said in response. "I'm sorry, again, about the place—"

"Oh, tosh," I waved off the apology. "You take care, okay?"

"Love you, darling," she said, sounding like she was smiling, before hanging up with a neat little 'click'.

I put the receiver away and turned around, looking about to give the room a slight glare. "So," I exhaled heavily. "What are we going to do about you then?"

The bulb sputtered before fusing out, returning the room to its usual state of death and dismay. I rolled my eyes. "Knew it was too good to last."

And then I Disapparated with a small 'pop'.

"It's a damn hovel," I said in greeting as the pretty redhead dropped her glass with a shocked squeak. Thankfully, the floor had a carpet.

"You should clean that," I pointed as the pumpkin juice began to sink into the lovely blue spread, a painful reminder of that armchair lying patiently in wait for me back in the hovel previously mentioned. I automatically frowned.

With an annoyed glare, Molly Weasley pulled out her wand from the sleeve of her robe and gave it an aggressive wave. Most of it vanished but a small spot remained.

"Too aggressive," I gave her a mocking smile. "It's a gentle spell, love."

"I'll show you gentle spells," Molly said as she began to lift her wand, making me dive behind the sofa as she hurled an old fashioned Jelly-Legs directly where my feet used to be.

"Mol!" I squawked as I reached into my boot to pull out my own wand. "Undeserved!"

"Oh, I'll show you 'undeserved'," she sniped, apparently in too much of a tiff to make a lick of sense as she waved her wand at the carpet once again. The spot disappeared without ado. I shot her a look as I pulled myself to my feet before collapsing onto the sofa I had been hiding behind. There was a beat of silence. "Long day at St. Mungo's, then?"

"Merlin, don't even mention that blasted place." Her lips pulled down to form a little scowl as she picked up the glass and made her way into the kitchen on the side. "Bleeding eighteen years old and I'm already working the nine-to-five—why did I think it was a good idea, again?"

"Technically, it's not quite a job yet," I felt the need to mention. "You're still in training."

"And I'm going to stay in training for a while now, aren't I?" she gave me a lethal glare. I was unconcerned. "The Supervising Healer is a goddamn ass, he is—how am I going to survive a nine-to-five with him to look forward to for every single day for the next two years? He'll feed me a Draught of Living Death and throw me into the morgue and the world would be none the wiser, I'm telling you."

"Aw, come on," I gave her a skeptical raise of an eyebrow as she set the kettle to boil and opened an overhead cupboard to pull out a jar of loose tea. "It's that guy Samuels, isn't he? About five years our senior… a fellow Ravenclaw? I don't quite recall him being that bad…"

"That's because he was a bloody Sixth Year when we were transfiguring matchsticks into needles and we hardly interacted with the Fourth Years, let alone sleep-deprived Prefects stuck in a rut for their bloody NEWTs, now really. Do make sense, Eleanor, your Ravenclaw is slipping."

"Don't call me that, you git," I sank my head into a soft cushion and brushed back my hair. "Is the tea ready yet?"

"Patience!" Molly said, clinking around in the kitchen a bit more before emerging with a steaming mug in both hands. "Say, you were saying something in the beginning, weren't you? I'm assuming you finally got around to checking out that flat your Aunt had been talking about, then?"

"Ech," I took a small sip of my tea. Mm. Ginger. "I did, yes. And the London back alleys are probably a whole lot cleaner than 7B, Dogwood Ave, as far as I'm concerned. You and Kurt are helping me sterilise it."

"And just why do you think I would do that?" Molly asked me with a quirk of her eyebrows.

"Because the plan when we graduated was for us to find a place together and you kind of left me high and dry when Kurt came knocking with a flat in hand, is all."

"Ouch, mate," she sat back into the cushions, looking a bit cowed. "Fair enough."

I felt my lips pull into a satisfied smile, my mind summoning an image of the aforementioned Kurt Donovan as I took another sip of my lovely tea. Blonde hair and pale blue eyes fixed onto a face that belonged in the pages of Witch Weekly, Kurt Donovan had been a fellow Ravenclaw in the Year above—the talented would-be Herbologist had fallen for my best friend the very moment she'd first approached him for help in the subject… and honestly didn't show any signs of snapping out of it any time soon. In fact, the only reason I wasn't all that affected by the whole ditch-the-flatmate deal was because Mol was just as equally head over heels for the man and the only way those two would end up was married or dead, god forbid it was anywhere close to the latter.

(Well hey; if she was going to abandon me for anybody, it might as well be for the man she unreservedly loved.)

I sipped some more. The only downside now was the fact that I would need to find another flatmate to help foot the bills. Central London didn't come cheap, after all.

"Say," I said after enough time had passed. The flatshare business hadn't bothered me, yes, but guilting her was a hell of a lot of fun anyway. "When's the boyfriend headed home? He's apprenticing under Sprout, isn't he? How's he been?"

"Ask him when he shows up," Molly said with relief, her brown eyes clearing of shame and falling back into their usual gleam. "He'll be home in about an hour. He's been missing you a bit, I think."

"Aw," my lips spread into a pleased smile. "The sweetheart."

"Yes, yes, he's a doll," she waved a dismissive hand. "Tell me about the flat. Dogwood Ave, you say? It's a good locality."

"Course," I finished up my tea and set the mug on the floor. "But the place is a dump, I swear to god. It's obviously not been in use for a while. I don't know the story behind it, but I'm assuming they were looking to wash their hands off it as soon as they could—it's the only way I could get it so cheap."

"Hm," she pursed her lips in thought. "It shouldn't be that hard to beat it into shape. There are a few books on household charms scattered around the flat and we can always look for a Refurbisher—how many rooms?"

"Three," I grinned. "One for me, one for the would-be flatmate, and one for a neat little study. It's going to be great once we're done."

"Is it wise to do your work smack in the middle of Muggle London, though?" she began to pull her hair back into a messy bun, her eyes filling with concern. "What with the Statute of Secrecy and all…"

"Eh," I shrugged. Mind speculating, I cast a glance across the length of the room. The fireplace was warm and alive with a nice, crackling fire and Mol had strung up a beautiful arrangement of fairy lights on the opposite end of the living room—they were the only two sources of light in the room, in fact, which culminated to give the atmosphere a soft, soothing feel. A pile of freshly laundered clothes sat on the armchair by the fire. Mol's words floated back into the forefront of my mind, making me realise that I had yet to offer up a reply. "I'll put up a few wards, I suppose," I said, squirming a bit to make myself a little more comfortable. "I know what I'm doing. I did all my research before deciding to go ahead with it, you know."

"Tosh," she poked an elbow into my gut. I groaned. "Just make sure the would-be flatmate's fine with your double life before coming to an agreement—we don't want you getting arrested because their hair suddenly fell off their scalp because of some wayward Runic array or whatever."

"Excuse me, I'm a bit more careful with my Runic arrays than that," I was inwardly amused at the image thus conjured. "Also, I'm not going to open my home to any random idiot, honestly—at the very least, they should be able to understand the consequences accompanying an agreement with me."

"Do you want me to ask around?" Molly asked me, squiggling around to lay her head down on my lap. I felt a bit loved. "The other trainees might be in need of a place, or maybe their friends. Perhaps even someone in the family, Merlin knows."

"Mm," I nodded, feeling a rush of affection for my best friend of more than eight years. "Thanks, love. I owe you one."

"Please," she shook her head. "I'm not even going to address that outrageous statement. Now. We'll go check out the place again tomorrow, okay? I'm sure we can have it habitable by the end of the week."

"Sounds great," I agreed, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. There was a moment of comfortable silence.

Then my tummy emitted an aggressive little growl.

I cracked a lid open. Molly was looking up at me with amused exasperation. I grinned, unashamed. "You hungry?"

She rolled her eyes.

A/N:

Hello.

So this one's going to be a bit slow-building, so don't be mad that things aren't going as quickly as you want them to. I want to explore character with these lovelies, and dialogue so there's going to be a lot of talking.

Also the updates are not going to be regular, so I'll be grateful if you guys can be patient. That being said, I really hope you liked it. I think I'm much happier with how it's going as far as writing goes and I would like it if you told me what you thought. Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read. :)

Love,

R.