"You're her girlfriend, aren't you? That means you have to give her a gift. It's Christmas!"
Eleanor Branstone made a face at her friend across the table at the Bad Owl Cafe, one of the newest shops to open up in Diagon Alley. Ordinarily, she wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this, a veritable monument to Christmas covered in red bows, tinsel and holly, with dancing life-sized candy canes that visited each table every five minutes. If the Bad Owl didn't have the best flavored blends she'd ever tasted, she would be miles from here and all of the hustling, bustling shops during the holiday season. But then Trisha Buttermere was right. She needed to get a Christmas gift for Laura.
"I don't even know what she wants," Eleanor said, peeking over her cup of Dark Enchantress blend. The hint of blackberry and chocolate overtones numbed her irritation as the dancing candy canes retreated to the back of the shop and disappeared behind the counter.
"You know her best, Eleanor." Trisha Buttermere smiled encouragingly. The Seer knew Laura almost as well as she did, having been roommates with them in Hufflepuff. Now that they were all out in the real world, it was harder to stay in touch like they once did. The Ministry had given Eleanor a full two weeks off, and it seemed like as good a time as any to catch up with her friend.
Trisha's Knut-sized crystal ball earrings swung merrily around her cheeks as she picked up her own cup, sipping at something the menu had called 'Sweet Venom'. Eleanor caught the distinct aroma of maple and jasmine from across the table and mentally added the flavor to her list of coffees to try next. "I guess I'm supposed to, yeah?"
Her entry-level job as a Ministry Clerk paid just above dirt, but it was the best path towards her dream job as Head Archivist. She had a meager savings, which she was more than willing to spend on her girlfriend, but Laura had just scored a hefty commission, selling a set of practice brooms to the Keeper of Puddlemere United and was already talking about how she was going to use the sudden windfall.
"It's just that Laura is the kind of person who knows what she wants and doesn't wait for someone to hand it to her. She's practically got everything she wants. What do you get someone like that?"
"I'm sure something will come up," Trisha said.
"Yeah? Was that in your crystal ball?" Eleanor teased. She sighed as a group of customers came into the cafe, smiling and laughing and singing carols. "Ugh. Here we go again," she muttered into her coffee.
Eleanor didn't like Christmas. Hated it. Didn't see the point in spending the Galleons she didn't have on things no one needed just for smiles and hugs that she knew she'd get in spite of what she purchased.
But the fact was that her girlfriend seemed to love everything about the season, from the trimmed trees to the garlands and lights. Eleanor had put her foot down on the chintzy decor and refused to have wreaths and bows in their home, but she'd compromised on the candles. There wasn't a level surface in their flat that wasn't adorned with a small, wax-fueled flame. Laura's face lit up, bright as the tiny pools of light each night they relaxed after dinner, burning with the joy of all the beauty around her, so bright that Eleanor kept her mouth shut about how even thinking about the entire month of December brought back the old memories that she was able to force herself to forget for the rest of the year.
So when Laura announced that she had an entire two weeks off of work and wanted to spend it canoodling in front of the fireplace, ice skating in the park, and filling their flat with the aromas of spiced cider and sugar cookies, and most of all, to spend some quality time with her (something they usually never had together because the Ministry opened early, and the Quidditch Shop closed late), Eleanor wasn't going to complain. For the rest of the world, it seemed, Christmas was a glorious time. Regardless of her own dark thoughts, it wasn't fair that her lack of enthusiasm should spoil someone else's holiday.
Especially their first holiday together, which was to start tomorrow.
They'd been together off and on since they were fifteen, more casually than official. But over the summer, after finishing Hogwarts, when Eleanor and Laura had chosen to admit to each other that they were more than school roommates in Hufflepuff, and that they wanted to stay together after graduation, not because they were roommates, but by choice, that had all changed. It was a change for the better, and Eleanor loved it. She loved Laura, and Laura made her feel loved for the first time in a long time, and the last six months had been the best and brightest time in her life. She wanted this to last for as long as forever.
But over the last three years, Christmas had turned into the time in between terms where Eleanor locked herself in her dormitory, pretending that there was such a thing as 'safe'.
"Ugh!"
"There is no 'ugh' in Christmas," Trisha said, rolling her eyes yet again as Eleanor's face contorted uncontrollably. The dancing candy canes were back, their life-sized red and white shapes twirling in between the tables. Everything cheery made her duck her head, swear under her breath, and wish that the entire season could stay the way nature had intended: cold and unfeeling. It would at least match the cold sweat she woke in when the nightmares wouldn't leave her alone.
"It happened again, didn't it? Have you talked to her?"
"Not in words," Eleanor admitted, wishing that Trisha wasn't so stellar at her job as a Seer. How could she spoil the mood when Laura appeared out of the shower, humming happily and giving her a morning kiss before Apparating off to work?
"She's your girlfriend. She cares about you. She would want to know how you feel."
Eleanor knew this, but somehow voicing her fears when Laura was so happy didn't seem right.
"It's not right to keep her in the dark," Trisha said.
"How are you doing this? It's like you're in my head!" Eleanor wailed.
Her friend smiled. She'd always had a knack for Divination and was doing very well for herself performing readings and spiritual consultations a few doors down. "I don't need a crystal ball to read you, Eleanor. We've known each other for too long."
That was true. Trisha had been on the Hogwarts Express, coming home for the Christmas holiday in fifth year when it happened. Somehow she'd not been as affected as Eleanor, but then she hadn't been in the same compartment when Luna Lovegood had been abducted by Death Eaters. Right off the train.
"I don't know," Eleanor said, feeling faint as the memory came up fresh, catching her off guard as it always did. She looked down at her shoes and trying not to cringe as the singing candy canes came by for another round.
"I do," Trisha said. "And it would do you a world of good." She patted Eleanor on the shoulder. "I've got to catch my ten o'clock appointment. See you later this afternoon? You're still helping me with the storage room, right?"
"Yeah," Eleanor said, watching her friend leave and wishing the candy canes would leave too so she could finish her coffee in peace.
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The best thing about Saturdays for Eleanor was that the Ministry was closed. The worst thing about having time off while Laura worked weekends at the Quidditch shop was that it gave Eleanor too much time to think. The season always drew her into a melancholy cloud that didn't lift until the blatant cries of joy and good will faded away into the new year.
Logically, she knew that it was all in her head, but that didn't stop the way her spirits sank while everyone else became overly enthusiastic. It really wasn't fair to Laura either, who loved the season as much as anyone. The very least that Eleanor could do was to find a decent gift for her girlfriend. So after coffee with Trisha, she spent her time browsing through Diagon Alley, avoiding the shops that had too much Christmas, and coming up empty-handed by two o'clock in the afternoon.
She ate her packed sandwich from home on the steps of Gringotts Bank and felt the disgustingly cheerful crowds suffocate her with happiness. Only Laura was allowed to do that, Eleanor decided. And Laura wasn't here, so everyone just needed to stop.
Eleanor gave up on the shopping scene and went back to the flat, wandering from her small bedroom to the living area, to the kitchen nook, hoping that it would spark ideas. She opened the door to Laura's room, mostly used for storage and office space, and stepped inside, looking at the broom boxes lining the wall. Laura loved Quidditch. Her lack of professional flying skills was overcome by her enthusiasm, which the Quidditch shop recognized as a talent for getting people excited over the features of new model brooms. In return, along with her sizeable commissions, the old brooms that were slightly off or didn't fly well came to Laura for Knuts on the Galleon. In her spare time, she reset the calibrations to make them good as new, but no one wanted refurbished brooms. Laura joked that one day she'd take the collection on tour, showing the historical progression of flying technology.
"It'd be just like the Astrology Museum in Leeds," Laura would say, "Except instead of telescopes, it'd be brooms!"
Laura's ideas always made Eleanor smile. Being a big history buff, her studies were also her hobbies, and on the opposite wall of Laura's room, hand-spelled shelves held her own collection of historic texts and reference tomes that overflowed from the living room bookcases. It was one of the things they had in common, Eleanor decided. They both liked the old, looking back into history and discovering how the past continued to shape the world of tomorrow.
Her eyes lingered on the historic texts for a while longer. She'd lived through the takeover at Hogwarts and both of them had gone back after the rebuild, because she wanted to finish her studies, and because the remaining Death Eaters were everywhere else except the magical school. But still, that one ride home stayed with her, etched into her subconscious like a bad stain.
Death Eaters belonged in the pages of the history texts, but inside her mind, they still tormented her. Eleanor felt the familiar clench of her gut and tried to shake it off. The longer she stayed here in her flat alone, the worse she was going to feel.
Eleanor grabbed her wand and coin pouch and headed straight for the door. "There's nothing here that is going to help me get over Christmas."
At five o'clock in the afternoon, Diagon Alley was even more crowded than it had been in the morning. Eleanor pushed her way through the crowds to get to Horizont Alley. She brushed past the fake trees at the entrance of the Divination Shop, adorned with trinkets and baubles and other useless knick knacks and passed the barrister bookcases that held an assortment of 'practical crystal balls for any price range' to find Trisha dumping a burlap sack at the base of a tall pile of discarded items.
"You're just in time!" Trisha said, embracing Eleanor in a friendly hug. "I've managed to clear out the first store room, so we have floor space to do some sorting. But oh my Merlin, most of this has to go!"
Eleanor followed her past the makeshift curtain where her friend did her private consultations.
"Serious patrons will want an actual room for privacy," Trisha said, bringing her into the second room that was still piled high with a mass of things so cluttered that Eleanor couldn't make out what anything was. "If we get this cleared out, I'll be able to set up a table and do Tarot readings as well."
Eleanor spent an hour stacking a strange assortment of full-length mirrors against the wall. And each time she dropped another jewel-adorned hairbrush or pocket watch into the miscellaneous box, some other unusual item would appear. It was like an archeological excavation.
"What are you going to do with all this stuff?" she asked.
"Unfortunately, most of this is trash," Trisha said, unaffected by the mountains forming around her. "Seer Mopsus was blind, so he took most anything for payment. Gringotts already sent an auditor to cash out enough of his possessions for a secure retirement and to pay off the building. Can you believe that this is all leftovers?"
Eleanor remembered meeting Seer Mopsus several times while Trisha had been working under him. She understood why he wanted to leave. Sometimes the memories of a place clung to the walls and it was impossible to separate the place from the event. That's why she never set foot onto the Hogwarts Express ever again. Laura couldn't even get her to ride a Muggle train to visit her parents across the country.
By eight o'clock that evening, after a take away dinner of Chinese food (something decidedly un-Christmaslike for Eleanor), she yawned.
"I guess I'll come back tomorrow, since we're only halfway done," she said.
Trisha frowned over her chopsticks. "Doesn't Laura's vacation start tomorrow?"
"Oh. I'd forgotten about that. And I never managed to find Laura a gift." Somehow, the thought of spending two weeks with her girlfriend without having found the perfect present marred the perfection vibe she had been going for.
Trisha shrugged and threw her empty carton on top of the rubbish pile. "I mean, you can come back if you want to. I'll be here. And working. But you shouldn't."
"You need help, if you're going to have that room before New Year's!" Eleanor said, gesturing to the piles around them.
"Well, let's see." Trisha snatched her Tarot deck from the counter. She turned over the top card and began laughing. "Even the cards say to go home now!"
She held up the card, a picture of an old knight who was clearly glaring at Eleanor and gesturing wildly to the front door.
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Back at the flat, it was nearly nine o'clock before Laura came home. Eleanor had waited up for her, partly because she hadn't seen her all day, and partly because she didn't want to face her fears in her dreams again.
As they shared hot cocoa on the sofa, Laura nudged her foot. "What's going on, Eleanor?"
Eleanor looked up to see her girlfriend watching her. "I guess it's back, like always," she said. "You know how I get at this time of year."
"I know," Laura said. "But I hoped that this year it would be different. We're not at Hogwarts anymore, and the war's been over for two years."
"I'm still having the nightmares," Eleanor mumbled into her mug. She felt Laura's arms around her and allowed herself to get pulled into a hug.
"You should have told me," Laura whispered.
"I didn't want to ruin Christmas for you," Eleanor said.
"Oh Eleanor. You could never ruin anything for me."
"How did you know?" Eleanor asked.
"You've been acting out of sorts for a good week and a half," Laura said.
"No, I mean… how did you know, back in school, that I liked you?" Eleanor had never been the one to instigate things, but luckily for her, Laura had always known just what to say at all the right moments.
"Oh, that part was easy! We were the only two girls in our House who didn't have a crush on Neville Longbottom." The pain behind the laughter was only slightly masked by the years they'd put behind them. Bittersweet memories of those difficult times at Hogwarts were the one thing they both clung to, yet rarely spoke about.
Eleanor felt that familiar swell within her, part fear and nerves, but also a sense of calm that only came when she was with Laura. Usually, just the fact that they were still together was enough, but this time, Eleanor needed to voice her heart.
"I wouldn't have survived that year without you," she whispered.
Laura only nodded. She didn't have the words, but her silence was confirmation enough. They hugged tightly, and Eleanor let go before the tears could mar the moment.
"Oh! I have something for you," Laura said, trying to brighten the mood.
"But we weren't going to exchange gifts until later," Eleanor said, taken by surprise.
"I know we weren't, but this is the absolute best thing, and I couldn't wait to give it to you."
"But I don't have your gift yet."
"It's okay. You have another day." Laura looked sheepishly up at her. "I have to work tomorrow."
"But your holiday was supposed to start tomorrow," Eleanor said. "You were looking forward to it, and they promised you a full two weeks off!"
"Yeah," Laura said. "But the latest broom release date got pushed to tomorrow instead of after the new year. They're throwing a special event tomorrow evening at Chudleigh Field. Since I know so much about brooms, they want me there to explain all the new features."
Eleanor knew what a new release meant. "So you're working tomorrow. All day. And late into the night."
"I'm sorry, Eleanor," Laura said. "You could come with me. We'd be riding the train in the morning." She sounded hopeful, but as Eleanor shrank away from the idea, Laura let it go. "Anyway, starting Monday, I'll be with you. For two weeks. This is for you."
She handed Eleanor a thin box wrapped in elegant gold foil. When Eleanor saw the silver quill inside, she fell in love all over again.
"It's for when you get your promotion and you have to sign off on all the Archive entries."
"This is perfect!" Eleanor cried, and hugged Laura tightly.
That night, the Death Eaters in her dreams faded quickly, replaced by the nightmare of getting Laura the wrong gift for Christmas.
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Sunday morning, Eleanor kissed Laura goodbye and found herself standing in the door of the Divination Shop with two Bad Owl travel mugs.
"I know you told me not to come, but Laura's working, and you need help. So here I am." Eleanor handed Trisha a coffee and followed her into the storage room where a large area had been cleared away. "You did a lot of work since I left last night. We can finally see the back wall!"
There, a single item remained, a box as tall as a person was leaning up against the wall. It had an inscription in outdated calligraphy script that read, 'Moontrimmer, 1901'.
"I can't believe it!" she exclaimed, opening the box to find a broom inside, marked just like the outside of the box. On the handle was a loopy signature of Gladys Boothby, the broommaker.
Eleanor had read Quidditch Through the Ages. This was the highest flying broom of its era. In fact, the latest edition of Quidditch Through the Ages had it listed as one of the top ten brooms for altitude, even over a hundred years later.
"I left it out for you," Trisha said. "You can have it."
Eleanor waved her hands in front of her wildly. "Oh Trisha, I can't take this. Do you know how much this broom is worth?"
"No, and don't even try to tell me," Trisha said firmly. "I know that you know someone who would know exactly what to do with that broom. It isn't me or you, and it certainly isn't the old goblin who overlooked it in the property evaluation."
Eleanor was at a loss. "But I can't pay you for it. It's worth too much."
"I was going to trash it anyway," Trisha said, unaffected. "Alright, here." She picked up a crystal ball, dusted it off with her elbow, and began massaging it with her hands.
In no time, a hazy picture appeared. Eleanor recognized Laura at once, eyes glistening with pure joy, holding the broom in her hands.
"There you go. The crystal ball says you can have it. The crystal ball never lies."
Eleanor couldn't believe it. She had her perfect present. For the first time in a long time, she was excited about Christmas. Or at least excited about giving Laura her gift.
But Laura wasn't home and wouldn't be for a long while.
As the day wore on, Eleanor's thoughts began to descend on her like a dark blanket. When she was finished here, all she had was an empty flat to go back to and hours of waiting. She didn't think that the hot cocoa would last her that long, and she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to stay awake waiting for Laura if all she was doing was sitting on the sofa.
If she could make herself get on the Wizard Train, she'd be in Chudleigh in an afternoon. If she called the Knight Bus, she could be there in an hour. Then she could at least be in the same place as Laura and she wouldn't feel alone. But both options would mean sitting in a cramped compartment, waiting and waiting, and every time the door slid open, she'd be petrified of someone coming to snatch her away…
Eleanor picked up a push broom and started sweeping the floor as hard as she could. It shouldn't matter anymore, but ever since that ride on the Hogwarts Express, ever since she witnessed Luna Lovegood's abduction, she was afraid that Death Eaters were waiting somewhere in the shadows to grab her too. Even after the announcement that the last of the Death Eaters had been captured and sentenced, she couldn't shake her insecurities.
"It's not fair that I got a perfect gift, and Laura has to wait for hers," Eleanor said to herself. "It's not fair that they did this to me and it's messing up our first Christmas together."
A lot of things weren't fair, Eleanor decided. Including having to wait for whatever had happened to her to stop affecting her so badly. "They didn't even come for me," she muttered. "They were never going to come for me. So why am I still so afraid?"
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That afternoon, after Vanishing the mountain of junk from the Divination Shop and presenting Trisha with two cleared out, cleaned up rooms for private consultations, Eleanor walked past Bad Owl Cafe. She peered inside at all the excited people in line, realized that she didn't want to be home alone, and decided to take a risk.
According to the map of England, there were three locations Eleanor knew well enough to apparate to between London and Chudleigh Field. She landed across the street from the Buttercross gazebo in Chipenham, the marketplace where her grandmother used to take her as a little girl. The normally crowded market was eerily quiet, and Eleanor had to remind herself that the outdoor market had been closed for at least a few hours. She rose from her crouch behind a set of beer barrels and counted the lit windows of the shops around the perimeter of the square. Inside the bright, happy stores, shoppers were picking up last minute items before the square closed completely for the night. The sleepy village atmosphere seemed so easy-going that she naturally relaxed her grip on the broom box. Everything was so quaint and wholesome that she couldn't imagine anything bad ever happening here at all.
After making sure the coast was clear, she spun and landed inside the chapel at Glastonbury Abbey. The property was closed to the public for the evening, but the chancel lamp still glowed softly behind the altar, casting a comforting red glow in the peaceful space where her cousin had gotten married last Fall.
Saying a quick prayer, she left in a swirl and reappeared at the front gates of the Chudleigh Quidditch field, a place she only knew in pictures, but one that Laura had described to her many times. Eleanor shivered from the rough December wind and scurried through the gates to find a semi-sheltered area out of the way. Now that she had arrived at her final destination, she checked her belongings. The broom was safe. The travel mugs of Basilisk Brew from Bad Owl Cafe had stayed steaming hot through her mini-adventure of apparating to little-known locations to avoid being followed by her fictional phantoms.
Somehow, she'd made it in one piece. Eleanor sighed a shakey, yet happy sigh. She still wasn't ready for the train, but if she could make it here without things going awry, there was a chance that she and Laura could go and visit Laura's family in Flamouth this holiday. The map showed that Laura's family lived not much farther west from here.
Settling into the first row of stands, Eleanor re-charmed her coffee and her cloak and watched the group of young hopeful fliers loop around the stadium on the new broom models. Below them at the end of the field, Laura stood with the waiting group of professionals who had come out to try the broom as well.
Eleanor surprised herself at how many players she recognized. Oliver Wood shook Laura's hand before getting on his broom and doing complicated acrobatics, no doubt testing the turning radius and reaction speed. Aidan Lynch and Darren O'Hare from the Irish National Team came on the field with swift precision, flying from goal post to goal post at incredible speeds. Eleanor also recognized Meaghan McCormack from the Pride of Portree and realized that she'd paid more attention than she thought to all those times that Laura had talked about the professional leagues.
She even saw Ginny Weasley mount a broom, who she didn't need to recognize from the Holyhead Harpies. Ginny had been a year above them in school, and had also been on the train with her when Luna had been taken. Eleanor shuddered at the sudden recurrence of the memory, and kept her eyes glued to Ginny, who flew her broom with ease in a zigzag pattern across the field. Ginny had been ruthlessly interrogated that year by professors and Ministry officials. Eleanor remembered how Ginny had hid in bathrooms and created her own rebellious trouble, even in the face of danger. Then she caught sight of a dark-haired wizard in a hooded cloak, hiding behind the crowd and trying not to be noticed. She was sure that was Harry Potter, Ginny's fiance', the one who had risked everything to save them all.
They all had loads of reasons to be terrified, but there they all were. And Eleanor was there along with them. Or at least she could say she was in the same stadium. She scoffed at herself and her situation. All those players could probably afford portkeys. And they probably weren't afraid to travel.
Or maybe they were, Eleanor thought. But maybe, just like her, they had come out anyway because living with their fears out in the open was better than hiding away and not living at all.
As the evening wore on, Eleanor finally caught Laura's attention and gave her a small wave. Her girlfriend's face broke out into an incredulous smile as she returned the wave and then put her attention back into filling out safety waivers and queuing up the players to take turns. When it was all over, the players gathered on the sidelines and talked amongst themselves. Even from the stands, Eleanor could tell that the new broom had made a big impression.
Laura pushed her way to the crowd and sprinted to the front row where Eleanor was sitting.
"Eleanor! What are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd surprise you," Eleanor said. "And I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to give you your gift."
"But…" Laura looked at her quizzically. "How did you get here?"
"Loads of apparition," Eleanor admitted. "And great coffee. I got you some."
Laura took the travel mug eagerly and inhaled the sweet aroma. "I have a few minutes while the players mingle. This smells fantastic!"
"So you have a few minutes to open this?" Eleanor showed Laura the box she'd carried all the way from London.
Laura didn't have to be told that it was a broom box. Her smile split her face in two as she tore into the wrapping, and then she froze as she saw the inscription.
"Is this? It can't be!"
"It's a Gladys Boothby original," Eleanor said with a satisfied smile, and watched Laura's face shine.
"A Moontrimmer!" she exclaimed. "How on earth did you even find one of these? They're at least a century old and there were less than a hundred made!"
"A crystal ball told me to take it home," Eleanor said cryptically.
Laura carefully laid the broom back in its box and pushed it gently under the stands. "I'll be back for this. And you." She beamed at Eleanor, and then went back down to the crowd that had started to break up for the night.
Eleanor felt a happiness bubble up inside her, warming her from the inside. As the night wore on and the professional Quidditch players slowly disappeared from the field, each with their own broom and thirty day trial contract, Laura was left behind to pack up the remaining brooms. When she was done, she stopped to admire her new, yet old treasure that Eleanor had given to her.
"We should go," Laura said. "Because we sold so many, they gave us a portkey to get home."
"You should try it out," Eleanor urged, toeing the box with her boot. "There's a whole empty field and I know you're dying to see if it lives up to its name."
"You don't mind?"
Eleanor held up a second travel mug. "I've got this. I'll be fine."
She watched Laura take the broom up in the dark sky. The moon shone down and the stars seemed to shine brighter, but nothing was brighter than Laura's smile.
"This is the best present I could have ever hoped for!" Laura said as she dismounted and carefully put the antique broom back into its box. "But all I want to do right now is go home with you."
Eleanor didn't have trouble taking the portkey with Laura back to the Quidditch Shop. And she didn't mind the side-along apparition back to their flat where they hurried into the warmth and comfort of their home.
As they settled onto the sofa with mugs of hot cocoa and the calm glow of candles everywhere, Eleanor got even warmer as Laura beamed at her. She gave her wonderful, patient girlfriend a tight embrace. If their first Christmas together made her feel like this, she had every reason to look forward to the next one. Finally, she felt as if she might actually be experiencing that Christmas spirit everyone was talking about.
"Maybe next year, we can put up a few wreaths and garlands around the place," she said softly.
Laura pulled back from the hug and gasped. "I never thought I'd see my Eleanor smiling at Christmastime."
Eleanor felt herself grinning uncontrollably, and snuggled into her girlfriend's side. "With you, anything is possible."
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This was written as a gift fic for starspangledpumpkins and Dojh167. Merry Christmas!
Secret Santa 2018 MC4A Forum
Also written for The Happier Holidays Challenge on HPFT
I used the following information to shape this story:
Bad Owl Coffee - a Harry Potter themed shop in Las Vegas, NV circa 2018. They have an assortment of bulk coffee available at their online store. I've never been, but I wish I could go, even though I'm not a coffee drinker.
Eleanor Branstone was a witch who started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1994, and was Sorted into Hufflepuff. Eleanor would share a dormitory with Laura Madley who was also sorted into Hufflepuff that year. (Goblet of Fire, Chapter 12)
Laura Madley (born c. 1983) was a witch that started attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1994, and was sorted into Hufflepuff. Laura would share a dormitory with Eleanor Branstone who was also sorted into Hufflepuff that year. (Goblet of Fire)
Trisha Buttermere was a Hufflepuff student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the 1990s. She was extremely fond of Butterbeer and kept a large supply of it at Hogwarts, which allowed her to trade bottles of the beverage for chess pieces, Chocolate Frog Cards, and Gobstones during the 1996–1997 school year. (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban video game, PS2 version only) Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince video game, NDS version only)
Gladys Boothby was a broom-maker known for creating the Moontrimmer in 1901. She was a skilled broom-maker, as her Moontrimmer could achieve greater heights then other period brooms while still remaining controllable. (Quidditch Through the Ages)
The Moontrimmer was a broomstick created by Gladys Boothby in 1901. Designed with a slim ash handle and the ability to fly higher than other brooms, revolutionary design, great demand by Quidditch players. Working on her own, Gladys was never able to keep up with the demand for them and went out of business. (Quidditch Through the Ages)