She followed Sirius up a dark staircase passing many shriveled heads of house elves and portraits of warn looking witches and wizards who seemed to be comfortably sleeping. Fred and George had agreed to sleep in Harry and Ron's room upon the request of their mother, so Elle would be given that room for the night.
"Dumbledore mentioned to us that you and a few others who went missing might be joining us in a few months time to work for the Order," Sirius explain in a soft voice, "but I mean I never really believed I'd actually be seeing you again."
"Like I said before Black," she told him in an equally quiet voice, "you of all people should know that even when the whole world feels you're gone for good, it's not always so. You understand though, don't you? Why I couldn't come back until now?"
Sirius let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck as his gaze left hers and met with the ground. He seemed to be thinking hard about the answer he was going to give to the question that she has just asked.
"I know it must have been hard for you." He said finally, "I know that you wouldn't have stayed away from the people and life you love for so long if it wasn't truly necessary."
A wave of relief came over her knowing that at least one of her dear friends sympathized for her, believing her reason for absence. She smiled at him appreciatively, and hugged him quickly before retiring to her room for the night.
"He'll come around." Sirius added as he continued up the stairs to the room he shared with a Hippogriff. "He took it hard when you left before. Only natural that he take it hard when you return after so long."
She opened her mouth to reply, but simply nodded. Sirius smiled and made his way to her room and once again, she was alone.
The room she entered into was neither warm nor cozy, but she wouldn't rather be in any other room anywhere in the world. Her trunks which were filled with all her belongings were waiting for her there. She was glad she was able to finally give up hiding, and was allowed to live the life she had only mere memories of. Fifteen years of living under a fictional identity had made her realize how lucky she had been to once be in the company of so many gifted caring people. Yet she was unsure if she would be able to just pick up where she had left off .She had changed. Her once carefree temperament had hardened and she was now cautious and almost cold. She had seen so much in her young life that her maturity level and wisdom were that of a person way beyond her years. This made her lose her youthful exuberance and vitality that she was known for so many years earlier. Even physical features about her had changed. Her voice which was once light and airy, like her spirit had become hard. Her face, which was clear to show sign of once being breathtaking was now worn. Her beauty had been dimmed by the years, but also by stress of always living in fear. But it was evident, that when something which brought her great joy, like the sight of Harry earlier in the evening, her face would light up and for that brief moment her face would restore all the life it had once had and it would seem as though she hadn't aged a day.
Tired from her journey, Elle began to undress and change into her pajamas in order to hopefully have a very long awaited and well deserved good night sleep. As she removed her cloak which was still wet she gently tapped it uttering the word Impervius. This instantly dried out the cloak and herself.
Examining her arms in the light, she gently ran her fingers over all the scars that were left there from previous battles. She removed her watch to reveal the most obvious of these scars which was located on the underneath of her right wrist. It bore the shape of a V whose tail was longer than the other. Almost to form a check mark. She closed her eyes recalling the day in which she was given that scar but quickly opened them, taking a deep breath and shaking her head. She was given fourteen years to forget about that incident, yet not one day had passed since it happened that she hasn't thought about it.
She snuggled deep under the covers after quickly changing and getting into bed. For once she felt comforted falling asleep. There was a pain that she had carried with her for almost half of her life that had now been lifted. It seemed that now she would finally be able to sleep well.
She woke he next morning to the loud sounds of running feet, and two angry female voices.
One yelled "Fred and George Weasley, you get back her this instant and clean up the mess you've made! I told you it's not safe to just Apparate to wherever you see fit!" She recognized it to be a louder angrier form of Mrs. Weasley's voice, yet the other was new to her.
It screamed, "STAINS OF DISHONOUR! FILTHY MUDBLOODS! CHILDREN OF FILTH! BLOOD TRAITORS!" The voice was loud as it screeched these words and it echoed all throughout the house.
She rose to her feet stretching out her body and the kink in her neck. Unfortunately, despite her optimism, her sleep had been neither deep, nor sound. It was filled with unpleasant images of her past, and horrifying predictions of the future. But she knew better than to look too deeply into dreams and was in no way letting it affect the outcome of her day.
She quickly got dressed buttoning up her white collared shirt and slipping blue sweater overtop of it. Untieing the braid she had left in overnight, her hair fell down on her shoulders with soft curls. She shook her head once running her fingers through her long hair attempting to tame it. Slipping on some jeans, and putting on her watch, she walked out of her bedroom closing her door behind her.
The yelling continued as she made her way down the stairs. Passing the picture of the witch who had be so peacefully sleeping the night before allowed her to identify the mystery voice. Covering her ears with her hands she simply walked by it right into the kitchen.
"She'd awfully vocal for a painting isn't she?" Elle said to all the faces beaming back at her.
"Good morning dear." Mrs Weasley said, her voice now having returned to that which it was last night. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes thank you." she lied.
"Sit down," offered Mrs. Weasley, "have some breakfast with us all."
As she walked around to the other side of the table she could feel all eyes were on her. She took the only available seat in between Mr. Weasley and his daughter.
"So, Albus tells me that you had to live like a Muggle all this time." Mr. Weasley asked, before she could even take a bite out of her toast. "What was it like? Fascinating I would imagine."
"Arthur, perhaps it's best to save our inquiries for later." Remus said as he arrived, walking into the kitchen and hanging his coat on a chair. "I'm sure she'd like to get settled in first."
"Right Remus. Absolutely right." Arthur said, continuing to read the Prophet sprawled out on the able.
"I don't mind." said Elle in a polite voice. "It was quite fascinating. A little hard to get used to a first what being surrounded by Muggles. They have the most absurd set of rules and laws. It took Perkins a great deal of time to prepare me."
"Hey, I work with him." Arthur beamed. "Didn't know he ol' git had it in him."
"What was yo-your job in he Muggle world?" Mr. Weasleys daughter to the left of her asked in a somewhat timid voice.
"I waited tables. It wasn't very glamorous and a whole lot more challenging than the way we do things here. I had to use a minimal amount of magic. The only thing I could to so the Muggles wouldn't notice was put a bewitching charm on my tray. But other than that, everything was done by hand." she smiled at the many pairs of astonished eyes that started back at her. She smiled at the thought of them being so intrigued about a simple job description. She glanced at Lupin and noticed that his eyes were no where on her but busy scanning a newspaper. His lack of interest was enough to wipe the smile from her face.
"Well that simply astounding." Arthur said after a few seconds of contemplation. "Thoset muggles, they never cease to amaze me."
"Where were you living?" Hermoine asked curiously.
"In Northern Europe." she replied simply.
Hermoine's eyes lit up when she said this. "Anywhere near Durmstrang?"
"For a year I lived in the vacinity of it. But every year or so I had to pick up and move. Safety precautions."
The morning continued on like this. Slowly everyone around her became more comfortable and asked a whole range of questions. Ron once even asked her if she'd ever met any famous Quidditch players. The whole table had giggled and his face had turned an even deeper red than his hair. After their breakfast questioning session, everyone in the house seemed to go about their own business. The twins immediately ran up to their rooms and every so often you could hear then run across the hall into the bathroom in what sounded like a vomiting fit. Harry, Ron and Hermoine all sat round the fire; Hermoine reading while the other two played chess. People from the Order kept coming and going. Everyone who came greeted her warmly, especially Mad-Eye who had trained her to be in the Order.
Once the excitement wore down, she set out to find either Harry or Lupin. She felt she owed then both and explanation. She found Remus first, sitting in the kitchen sipping on a cup of tea still entranced by his newspaper.
"Remus, can we talk?" she said softly, hoping her gentle voice might enable him to let his guard down.
"What about?" he said looking up from his paper, trying o dodge the undeniable tension between them.
"Can you think of nothing that we might have to discuss?" Elle replied slyly with a playful smirk. She slowly made her way over to the table and sat in the chair beside him.
"You already thoroughly explained yourself during breakfast Eleanor. There's nothing left to talk about." his words were calm and rational, well suited to the way in which Lupin regularly spoke, but she noticed a frostiness about them he was trying to hide.
"I couldn't tell you." she said, despite his response. "You could've been hurt, or worse, killed."
"So you thought it best to lead me-" he began in a somewhat passionate, but corrected himself, and returned to his previous voice, "to lead us to believe that you had been?"
"I had no choice." Elle pleaded. "Do you think I wanted to leave you? Do you think it was easy for me to just leave everyone that meant anything to me?"
"Well at least you lived with the inclination that we were all okay." Lupin said with a hint of pain, "I had to-we all had to accept that fact that you were gone, dead, and never coming back."
"Remus, you have to understand." she extended her arm to place her hand on his comfortingly, "They killed my family because of me. That pain and responsibility will stay inside me forever. I couldn't stay and watch them do the same to you and everyone else I cared about."
"That wasn't your fault Ellie." he repied consolingly. It was obvious that he was trying to maintain his cold expression, but his eyes betrayed him and expressed his true compassion. "We could've taken care of ourselves. Your family was defenseless. We could've fought it together."
"I wasn't willing to take that chance," she replied looking away, "and there was no way I was going to allow you all to take on my burden."
"We would've willingly." Lupin said smiling and looking deep into her intense blue eyes. Then his smile faded and he removed his and from her grip. "We would've preferred that to suffering the pain of losing you."
Sensing that she had gotten about as much emotion out of him as she could she rose from her chair and turned to leave. Then she stopped, reproached him and kissed him gently on his forehead. "I'm sorry for any pain I have caused you Remus."
As she left he kitchen she felt a hand softly grip her shoulder. She looked into the deep black eyes of Sirius.
"He loves you, you know that don't you?" Sirius whispered.
"He did once. But too much time has gone by. I hurt him too badly." she replied gazing back at him.
"All wounds eventually heal Ellie." Sirius said with a wink. "Come on, lets go talk to Harry. We'll tell him the story about he six of us and that bartender in Hogsmeade."
They both smiled at the memory of their youth. She followed Sirius into the den but not before looking back into the kitchen. She saw Remus gazing into his paper mesmerized, but she knew that he wasn't reading it.
