Hello, friends. I know, it's been an inexcusable amount of time since I have posted. Summer got very busy all of a sudden. However, here I am, and the next chapter won't be too far behind.
Again, reviews are greatly appreciated. Please enjoy.
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Chapter 10: Fight or Flight
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"Eleanor . . .?"
The voiced called to Eleanor from a world away, trying to force itself through the fog encircling her. She instinctively recoiled from the possible human contact.
Her mind was picking up where Sirius's narration had left off. She remembered it clearly; she had arrived with Remus to the Order headquarters. No one was there except for Molly, who told them that Mark was missing. Eleanor and Remus had left that stupid girl—Arola?—there and joined the search party. She was soon sent home by overly concerned friends and had spent the remainder of the night pacing. And then Remus had come.
"Eleanor?"
Eleanor's mind was ticking in at 200 kilometers an hour. Her imagination was in overdrive, trying to process the emotions teeming through her head. She imagined that she was teetering on the edge of a black chasm. The despair she had felt the night Mark died, that she had pushed back for years, was threatening to engulf her.
Wet drops fell onto her cheeks. She put a hand up to the tears. Where they hers?
Eleanor looked up to see if anyone else was close enough to her to claim the tears as their own. No one was. The only other person in the room was Sirius, who was still in the chair opposite her own, palely staring at her.
He tentatively reached a hand out to her, but she leaned away from him. She refused to be comforted, especially by him.
She soon discovered that the leather chair into which her face was smashed was quite comfortable. Granted, it was a little slick, but it was comfortable.
Awareness of her surroundings snuck through her insistent shroud. Books . . . she was in a library. Ah, yes. She remembered storming in here. Oh, look. There was the wet spot on the rug where she had stood over Sirius, allowing the river of rainwater to pour off of her as she had yelled at him.
Eleanor fought fiercely to remain wallowing in her sadness, but the warmth of the stacked shelves refused to let her.
She darted a surreptitious glance to Sirius. The prick of satisfaction she felt at the sight of his head resting gravely in his hands alarmed her.
She was actually happy that he was unhappy.
She was a monster.
Eleanor surged to her feet in a panic. The man was driving her crazy. She had to get out.
She turned on her heel and found herself hobbling stiffly to the door. Only now was it hitting her that she had walked for miles in the rain and that dried out jeans made it impossible to exit an awkward situation gracefully.
It felt like her thighs were encased in plaster. One of her pant legs actually creaked as she made her way to the thick, oak door.
Sirius's head snapped up so quickly at the sound that Eleanor heard it rebound off the back of his chair from her position near the door.
"Eleanor?" he said again, unable to keep a shred of hope from creeping into his hoarse voice.
Damn. There were only a few steps left! Eleanor paused, took a deep breath, and . . . could think of nothing to say. The air in her lungs wheezed out, as if trying to prompt her to speech, but her vocal cords remained unmoved.
It escaped as a rather pathetic, dramatic, heart-wrenching sigh.
How embarrassing.
Eleanor heard Sirius stand up behind her.
Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Fight or . . .
Her feet took off with a healthy stride—well, as healthy as could be managed under the circumstances. Flight it was.
She stiffly twisted the doorknob and wobbled out. These rigid jeans were ridiculous. Eleanor quickly scanned through the list of household spells she had accumulated over the years. None of them could fix these bloody jeans unless she took them off, which clearly isn't an option when one is trying to escape.
She reached the first landing successfully . . . only to hear Sirius call her name again from the library door.
When is it going to hit you that calling my name does no good, Sherlock! she thought viciously, ignoring him and making her way down the second flight of stairs to the foyer.
She successfully reached the bottom as Sirius started on the second flight.
"Eleanor, is that you?" called a voice from the kitchen, but Eleanor merely winced at the doorway. She turned slowly—her cardboard-like jeans refused anything other than snail-like movements—and teetered to the front door.
"Damn it, Elle, stop! Talk to me!" Sirius leapt over the last few stairs and grabbed Eleanor's arm before she had made it more than a few steps to the door. He spun her around to face him.
Eleanor braced herself. She didn't know what was coming, but she didn't want to deal with it. That's what it came down to. Yes, she had asked for an explanation, but now that she had it, she flat out didn't want to deal with it.
She squashed the not so quiet voice in her head that insisted, That's not fair to Sirius.
Oh, who bloody cares what's fair to Sirius and what's not? she demanded petulantly of herself.
You do.
Do not.
"Elle! Answer me. Please."
Eleanor flared her nose, an old habit that generally gave it away when she was feeling insecure. She hadn't heard the question, but she could guess what it was.
"Sirius . . ." Her voice cracked and tapered off into a squeak. She suddenly realized that she hadn't spoken since before Sirius had started his retelling.
Eleanor cleared her throat and tried again. "Sirius, I don't know what to say." There. She'd gotten a sentence out. Baby steps.
Sirius tightened his grip on her arm and frowned. "Try," he demanded. His eyes burned with a peculiar light. It was hypnotic.
Eleanor wrenched her gaze away and looked down the passageway . . . to the open kitchen door. Oh, God.
They can hear us, she mouthed to Sirius.
He flinched.
They stood awkwardly in the hallway, each unsure of what to do next. Sirius could hardly press her for a reaction when he knew the crowd in the kitchen was holding their breath, listening just out of sight.
Eleanor, of course, wanted to avoid a dialogue of any kind with Sirius. Especially since his grip on her arm was tighter than ever, affecting her thinking as well as the blood-flow to her hand.
Sirius sighed heavily, and Eleanor turned her attention back to him. He looked haggard, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "Upstairs?" he asked in a low growl.
Eleanor gave a small frown and shook her head. If she went back upstairs, they'd end up in a long talk about their feelings, which she was anxious to avoid at all costs. Besides, it would be harder to escape later when the house began filling up with Order members as it inevitably did in the evening. "No. Outside?" she whispered in return.
It was Sirius's turn to shake his head. "I can't leave."
A small blossom of hope budded among the swarm of emotions in Eleanor's chest. Maybe she could get out of this.
In an instant, she pictured herself free from the complications the last few days had arisen. Could you "give notice" to the Order of the Phoenix? She could go back to Oman and happily spend the rest of her days digging through artifacts, free from Sirius, Voldemort, and ghosts from the past.
Her dreaming was abruptly cut off when Sirius stepped closer to her. Eleanor's shoulders immediately tensed to the point of pain.
Sirius leaned down the few inches he boasted over her to whisper in her ear. "You asked for the truth, and I gave it to you. Now I'm just asking for a reaction, not a fight."
Eleanor swallowed loudly. She could feel Sirius smirk just above her shoulder. Damn that man; he was so infuriating! Eleanor knew that she owed him. The story of Mark's death had been hard enough for her to hear, and she could imagine how difficult it was for Sirius to relive it.
A shred of sympathy bubbled in her mind, breaking through the wall of hatred she had built around Sirius.
Oh no. No! This man killed her brother. Well, got her brother killed. Well, provided the information that her brother used to get himself killed. Well . . .
Eleanor mentally slapped her own face. No more "wells."
"I've got to get out of here," she mumbled.
Did he have to stand so close to her?
"Eleanor, you owe me," he growled. "Don't even think about walking out on me now."
"Why are you so desperate to talk about this?" she snapped.
"I—" Sirius stopped, the words getting stuck in his throat. "Because—"
Eleanor couldn't help herself. "Yes?" she prompted.
"We just need to talk," he concluded lamely.
Suddenly, Eleanor understood.
"Oh. My. God."
Sirius pulled his head away from her ear to stare at her face. She flushed hotly, but refused to back down.
"I can't believe it."
"What?" he asked warily.
"It makes sense now. When you agreed to tell me, I didn't ask, but now it makes sense. Are you serious?" Her voice was rising, but she didn't care. Let the whole damn neighborhood hear her if they wanted to. She let the flood gates up on her emotions and channeled them into her outrage.
"Eleanor, what are you talking about?"
"You are unbelievable," she quavered, gaining confidence in her partially unfounded outrage.
"Damn it, just tell me!" Sirius was visibly frustrated now.
Eleanor waited a beat before continuing, just to torture him.
During that beat, though, they heard a "What did he do now?" escape from the kitchen.
"You want me to forgive you!" she exclaimed, half triumphant, half horrified.
Sirius opened his mouth furious—and snapped it shut again. He thought for a minute. "So?" he eventually responded.
"W-what?" Eleanor stammered. She had been expecting a few protestations at least. It was Sirius, after all. He took nothing lying down, least of all an accusation of weakness.
"So? What if I do want your forgiveness?"
Eleanor stared hotly at him. He was just going to cave like that? That was cheating. Well, she didn't know what game he was playing, but she was not letting him win.
"Well, you can't have it."
He nodded slowly. "Fine. But don't ask me to do anything else for you."
"Fine."
"Good."
Eleanor glared defiantly at him. He stared stonily back.
"Anything else?" she bit off.
"No," he responded coolly. "You got what you came for."
Eleanor ignored the twinge in her conscience. She deserved to know. He was just being childish.
"Fine. I'll go."
"Fine."
"Good."
Eleanor rolled her eyes and turned back to the door. Before she could resume her hobbling, though, she noticed the three figures standing in the foyer: a short girl with bubblegum pink hair, Mad-Eye Moody, and Remus.
Her face burned with embarrassment. "What the hell are you doing?" she demanded to no one in particular.
Remus spoke for the group. "Well, you seemed busy. I would have been rude to interrupt."
"Buy a TV," she barked, resuming her dilapidated walk to the door.
"You might want to sit that teetering arse of yours down, you bone-digging bore," rasped Mad-Eye as Eleanor came abreast of him.
"Hello to you, too, Moody," Eleanor sighed wearily.
"What, you're not going to give an old friend the satisfaction of asking why?" he continued.
"Not tonight, Mad-Eye."
"What about a hug then?"
Eleanor started in surprise. "A hug?"
The bubblegum head shared Eleanor's shock. "Hug! You going soft on us, Mad-Eye?"
"Keep it down, girl. When you save my life four times, you can hug me all you like."
Eleanor obligingly gave Mad-Eye a light hug.
The short girl, bobbed over his shoulder in Eleanor's eye line. "You must be Eleanor. It's brilliant to meet you. I've heard a lot about you already. I'm Tonks, by the way. Are you coming with us tonight?"
"No, she's not," supplied Remus.
Eleanor broke her hug to Moody. "Coming where?"
"Nowhere," Remus responded.
"To get Harry from his aunt and uncle's. He got in a spot of trouble. Dementor attack or something," the girl—Tonks—eagerly answered.
Mad-Eye growled, "Girl's a bloody security threat."
"What, I'm not allowed to know Order plans?" asked Eleanor, only half joking. Dementor attack? She raised her eyebrows at Remus, indicating that he had better have a bloody good answer or else.
Remus sighed heavily. "You are, but we're just trying to limit the amount of people we take. This is supposed to be a covert mission. You'll be filled in along with the rest of the Order at the briefing."
"Well, Eleanor was just leaving," added Sirius, who had crept up to the group while the chaotic introductions and greetings were being made.
"You were?" Tonks asked, visibly disappointed. "I thought you'd want to stay around, see Harry, and stuff. Oh, and the briefing tonight while we're getting him. Mandatory."
"I—" Eleanor was really trapped now. The briefing was mandatory and it was her first since coming back, but that would mean staying here . . . with Sirius.
Sirius saved her the necessity of answering by saying—dryly, Eleanor noticed—"I doubt she'll be able to make it. There's a pot somewhere desperately in need of dusting."
"So funny, Siri—" Eleanor stopped. Damn it! She had totally forgotten about the urn! "I have to go," she said hastily, rushing to the door—well, hobbling. Her jeans were unforgiving. Thankfully, she was calm enough now to Apparate, so she would be home as soon as these bloody people got out of her way.
"What's going on?" asked Remus.
"Nothing. Just a professional matter. I'll come by tomorrow if you like." She would have promised to bring brownies, too, if it got her out of there.
"Be back for the briefing! Seven," reminded Remus.
"Don't bother," Sirius called as Eleanor reached for the door. He turned to Sirius and added, "I warned you. What use is an archeologist going to be in a war?"
Eleanor turned and smiled. "About as useful as a convict in hiding." And she snapped the door closed.
--
"Where the hell have you been?!"
Eleanor cringed as her sister's outrage lashed out. "Um . . . on a walk."
She sped past the kitchen where Mysti was cutting fruit. Great. She had a knife.
Mysti stomped out of the kitchen and followed Eleanor across the room—thankfully, she left the knife behind her. "A walk? That's all the bloody information you're going to give me after disappearing into a damn rainstorm and not dropping a damn line all day?"
"I lost track of time."
"Was the sudden appearance of night your first clue?"
Eleanor waddled to her make-shift dresser by the bookshelves and selected a pair of sweats. "Sorry, Myst. I just needed to clear my head."
"For seven hours?"
"I had a lot to clear." She awkwardly yanked her stiff jeans off and slipped into the sweats. "Did a letter arrive for me?"
"It's on the coffee table. Where did you go?"
Eleanor hurried to the table and snatched up the beaten letter. "Huh?" she grunted disinterestedly, tearing the letter open.
It was from Archie.
"I said, where did you go? God, Eleanor, what the hell are you playing at? You show up on my doorstep with an army of trunks, invade my living room, storm out in the middle of a very serious discussion . . . have you really been alone in the desert that long?"
The letter was surprisingly short.
Ellie,
The inscription is a spell. Do not read it aloud. Do not let anyone read it aloud.
"Clay from Apsu's dark domain
This glassy oracle sustain.
Distinguish the one from chaos entwined;
Open a gate to share his mind."
I believe that wiith this spell, a wizard can access anyone's mind. It can be used for mind control as well as extracting information. On the bright side, old girl, it would seem that the caster must have the urn in hand or something. Not sure on the details as yet.
It pains me to suggest it, but try to destroy the urn. If you can't . . . well, do something.
Archie
At least the letter lacked most of his usual buffoonery.
"Elle, are you even listening to me?"
Eleanor dropped the letter onto the table. Her sister's irate voice was muffled by the pounding in her ears. She looked at the urn, innocently gathering dust on the table. If anyone—if Voldemort got his hands on this . . .
The thought didn't need to be finished.
Eleanor picked the urn up delicately. It seems so harmless. How to destroy it?
Mysti was getting increasingly anxious. "I am not feeding you tonight unless you talk to me, Elle."
Eleanor could either destroy the urn with a hammer (but that was too messy) or she could simply drop it from the balcony. Mysti's apartment was six floors up, so the chance that the delicate pot would survive the fall was slim.
She stifled a regretful sigh as she walked the plain urn over to the balcony.
"Elle!" Mysti snatched her sister's arm and dug her nails in. "Talk to me right now," she hissed, slapping the urn from Eleanor's hands.
It tumbled inelegantly to the floor and clattered loudly on the tiles, but it remained intact.
Eleanor stared at it, unfocused fear shimmering into life in her mind.
Mysti sighed with relief. "Oh, I would have died if it had broken."
Eleanor scooped it up and turned to face her sister's wrath. "Don't worry about it, Myst. I'm throwing it out the window anyway."
Mysti looked at her sister in confusion. "Out the window," she said flatly.
"You'll thank me for it later." Eleanor resumed her march to the balcony. Once outside, she hung the urn over the side of the building, took at deep breath, asked forgiveness from the Archeology Gods, and dropped the priceless artifact six floors to its doom.
It clattered ominously against the rough asphalt—and didn't break.
"Damn it!" Eleanor snarled, angrier at herself than anything else, and whirled away from the edge to sprint back through the apartment.
As she reached the door, Mysti's brain seemed to catch up. "Thank you how?" she called after her sister, who was pounding down the stairs as fast as she could.
She needed to get the urn. How stupid was she, to think that she dropping it out of a window, into a London alley, was good idea. After all, it had remained unscathed for thousands of years in the desert. She definitely should have gone with the hammer.
All she could think was that the urn was lying unprotected on the street. She was supposed to be a bloody professional, not a panicked child trying to get rid of a brandy bottle before her parents caught her.
Eleanor burst from the building's doors in a flurry of discarded newspapers. She rounded the corner to the alleyway below her sister's balcony only to find it empty of anything but yellowed Chinese cartons.
The urn was gone.
--
"That bloody woman!"
"You said that already," Remus said patiently.
"Do you have any idea what she did to me today?" Sirius hissed, turning his back on the recently slammed front door.
Mad-Eye fixed him with a one-eyed frown. "You been moping around all day again?"
"Stay out of it, Mad-Eye," snapped Sirius.
Mad-Eye's eye widened with surprise while his other one whizzed somewhere in the back of his skull. Tonks, noticing the steam boiling under the wizened wizard's surface, started to pull him away from the foyer toward the kitchen.
Sirius turned his attention back to his friend. "Do you have any idea, Moony?"
Remus sighed. "I believe I can guess."
"Betrayal!" exploded Sirius. "That's really what it comes down to. The flamin' proverbial knife in the back!"
"You should be used to it by now. Look, we have more pressing matters than your and Eleanor's latest spat. Like the imminent retrieval of your godson."
"'As useful as a convict?'" Sirius fumed, following Remus toward the kitchen.
"I believe she said, 'as a convict in hiding,'" supplied Tonks helpfully, only a few feet ahead of them, still struggling with Mad-Eye.
"Thanks, Tonks." Sirius snarled silently at her retreating back.
"Calm down, Sirius," Remus said soothingly. "You're still adjusting."
Sirius stopped, grabbing Remus's arm to indicated that he should do the same. He waited for Tonks and Mad-Eye to disappear into the kitchen before speaking.
"No, I'm not. I'm all adjusted. How the hell long is she staying, Remus?"
Remus kneaded his forehead with the heel of his hand. "She's staying, Sirius."
"How long?"
"I don't know!" Remus burst in hushed tones. "Until Voldemort is gone, until the wizarding world isn't about to implode, until she bloody well feels like leaving. She's not a seventeen-year-old fresh out of Hogwarts anymore, and neither are you. Something you would do well to remember."
Sirius chewed his lower lip furiously. "That's the way it is?"
"Yeah. There's nothing either one of us can do about it. And to be honest, this petulant child thing is getting old. Get. Over. It." Remus turned his back on his friend and stormed into the dimly lit kitchen.
Sirius clenched and unclenched his fists. "She's bloody rubbing off on all of them. Life would be a hell of a lot better if I was in bloody Tibet like I'm supposed to be," he muttered before following the troupe into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
--
Sirius was fidgeting again, earning him a disapproving look from Molly. He took a deep breath and schooled himself back into stillness.
The meeting was going nowhere. Dumbledore was insisting on reviewing security measures for the Department of Mysteries, a topic that irritated Sirius at the best of times. (Snape stared oily at him with an eyebrow cocked every time for the duration of the discussion.
Of course, the hot topic tonight was the dementor attack. Dumbledore had tried to assure the anxious members that he had the situation under control, but pessimists like McGonagall insisted on revisiting the topic.
She (or someone similar) would interrupt a momentary silence with a simple, "Harry's hearing—will it go our way?"
Dumbledore would smile patiently, if a little wearily. "Since I've been removed from any official standing in the Ministry, I believe the system shall have to judge on its own. The situation is bleak, and yet we have weathered worse than this."
Then, another enlightened servant, such as Molly, would rejoin (while pointedly staring at Mundungus), "We wouldn't have to weather this if someone was doing their job."
Mundungus—on cue—would throw up his hands. "It was a bloody business opportunity. I don't meddle in your house cleanery, do I, woman?"
Molly then would swell with indignation. "How dare you speak to me like that, you delinquent—"
And they were off.
Sirius couldn't focus. His thoughts bounced between Harry and Eleanor, hoping the one would arrive safe and the other would never come back.
His musings were interrupted by Dumbledore, unexpectedly asking him, "Sirius, do you happen to know why Eleanor is not with us this evening?"
The silence that followed was thick and awkward.
Finally, Sirius choked out, "I think she had to see to something."
"Yes, something certainly caused her to abruptly leave earlier," Molly supplied scathingly.
"Oh, really," drawled Snape, speaking for the first time since he gave his report two hours ago.
A memory of jealous coursed through Sirius's heart. "I don't believe Eleanor's schedule is any of your business, Snape."
Snape's mouth twitched upward, reveling in the power of his goading. "I am deprived to seeing an old friend, Black. I'm merely curious as to why."
"I don't believe it matters much. She'll likely be here next time." Sirius sat on his hands, preventing them from fidgeting away his cover.
"You mean you don't know? Tsk," chided Snape.
Sirius's hands gripped the edge of his chair. "No," he growled tightly.
Snape's thin smile widened. "Women, eh, Black? Irrationally unforgiving of their brother's murderers, aren't they?"
Sirius was standing before he realized it.
"Sirius," warned Arthur, also rising.
"Burn in hell," Sirius snarled.
Snape glared insolently up at Sirius.
The front door opening and closing echoed through the house.
Molly jumped to her feet. "That'll be Harry. I'll take care of this."
Snape broke his gaze, fixating it instead on the wooden table. Sirius felt a soothing hand on his shoulder. He glanced at its origin. Dumbledore was watching him sympathetically.
Sirius broke the gaze and sat back down, allowing silence to rule the kitchen.
The door opened, and Harry's guard marched in.
Dumbledore addressed them as soon as the door was firmly shut behind them. "Did it go well?"
Mad-Eye responded first. "Give them a few minutes to catch up, and we'll see."
Tonks rolled her eyes. "We doubled back more times than an Irish country road, Moody!"
Remus stepped forward. "It went well. Harry's depositing his things upstairs."
Dumbledore nodded. "Then I should be leaving." He bowed formally to the room before sweeping out of it.
The Order members who had cheerier places to spend their nights left in his wake. Snape was the last to leave, sending a sneer specifically to Sirius. "Do give my warm regards to Eleanor, Black. She was always such a dear friend."
Before Sirius could retort, Snape was gone. Sirius collapsed heavily into his chair.
Remus patted him supportively.
"Remus," Sirius sighed softly, "was it only last week that I complained of monotony?"
"I believe so, old friend."
"Well, I take it back."
"As would I."
Sirius nodded and waited for his godson.
--
Eleanor hesitated only briefly before pushing open the door to number twelve Grimmauld Place. She knew what kind of reception was waiting for her, but the missing urn took precedence over her personal squabbles.
As usual, the elf-lined hallway was deserted. Eleanor made a beeline for the kitchen. How appropriate it was that in Sirius's house, the kitchen was the hub of social interaction.
She heard voices—mainly male—coming from the dimly lit doorway.
Any other day, she would have stopped and eavesdropped, but the imminent mind-control of London's inhabitants made her a little hasty.
She pushed the door of the kitchen open and stepped in.
Sirius looked up at her from the end of the table, directly opposite her position by the entrance. His smiling face imploded.
"Oh, God, no," he groaned.
On cue, every head in the room turned to examine the newcomer. She almost heard a snicker from one of the twins, but they thought better of it.
She took a deep breath to respond, but held it. "No time," she eventually snapped. "We have a crisis."
"Something bigger than the Dark Lord sending dementors to attack my godson?" Sirius responded archly.
"Way bigger," she shot back reflexively . . . and paused. "Your . . . your godson?"
Sirius smiled, and Eleanor saw the first vestiges of the old Sirius. He clapped his hand to a young, dark-haired teenager's shoulder. The boy was tall and thin, as if riding a growth spurt. His dark hair was tousled and his green eyes curious.
Eleanor's stomach swooped and threatened to unleash a day's worth of empty calories on the stone floor.
"Oh. Harry," she breathed, words abandoning her.
Sirius continued, "In fact, now's as good a time as any to introduce you two. Harry, Eleanor Mahan. Elle, meet your long lost godson."
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