Hello, hello! I hope you're all staying well during the absolute madness happening in the world right now! Take care of yourselves! Let me know what you think!


Snape paced in Dumbledore's office, trying to think of how to get themselves out of this situation. Dumbledore sat behind his desk, infuriatingly quiet. "You're going to turn me in, aren't you?" Snape questioned, trying not to sound panicked. Dumbledore shook his head.

"No, I'm not going to turn you in." Dumbledore answered calmly. "You will, however, not be welcomed in the Order anymore."

"I figured as much." Snape nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I didn't know Draco knew this much."

"I will tell them that I found no evidence of you being a Death Eater, but as a precaution, I obliviated your memories from the Order and will keep a close eye. I will give you any information that you might need to relay to Voldemort." Dumbledore decided firmly. "You might have some students who view you as an enemy this year, Severus."

"I suppose it's nothing new." He rolled his eyes. "Taking Draco under your protection is sending Voldemort into a bit of a frenzy. His carefully laid plans for the two of them are being disrupted, he doesn't know how he is going to get into the school this year." Severus let out a sigh and looked at Dumbledore's hand, where a slight rot was beginning to set in. He knew they only had a limited amount of with the assurance of Eleanor and Draco doing his bidding inside of Hogwarts gone, the Dark Lord was particularly unpredictable. "What about Pettigrew? They won't let the memory of him go so easily."

"I found no evidence, Severus. They're going to have to trust me."

"You're not giving them much reason to. The girl is seeing right through you. She's scared and angry and now will find you untrustworthy." Snape pointed out.

"This is all for the greater good, Severus. They just don't know it yet."


At the next Order meeting, Draco was invited. It was unspoken that he should stay quiet, and it was outwardly spoken several times that Eleanor should also. Dumbledore revealed to them his conclusion with Snape, and Sirius got up and left the room. Everyone pretended that they didn't hear glass shattering, then him getting scolded by both Kreacher and the portrait of his mother. Eleanor and Harry exchanged sad glances at his obvious pain. Eventually everyone dispersed, but Tonks decided to stick around and make sure everyone was doing okay. Eleanor was thankful for her presence. It seemed to be helpful to both Remus and Sirius to have another adult around, and Eleanor wasn't entirely opposed to having another woman around either.

"Are you all still going to your home tonight, Eleanor?" Remus asked as he was making some tea.

"Yeah, we're about to all head out actually." Eleanor said.

"I think Sirius has resigned himself to the attic for the night, the day's not been easy on him." Remus said remorsefully.

"Well, I'll stick around and keep you company, Remus." Tonks put in with a smile. "Can't let you go lonely."

"Oh, you don't have to." Remus shook his head. "I'm sure you have far more fun plans to partake in."

Tonks shook her head with a tinkling laugh. "More fun than you, Remus? I don't know if I'd be able to handle that."

Eleanor smirked as the two of them began to joke and took it as her sign to leave the kitchen. Her friends were all standing around the Floo expectantly. Eleanor Floo'd them all into her home one by one until the twins, Ginny, Ron, Harry, Hermione and Draco were all standing in her living room, looking around at the size of where she grew up.

"Your living room is bigger than our whole flat." Fred let out. Draco felt oddly humbled watching the genuine shock on the faces of her friends. He'd grown up being in and out of Eleanor's home so the size had gotten lost on him. Her family was centuries old and had always been well off. This castle had been established with the early Cordarri's and only got updated as the centuries went on. Eleanor rubbed her neck uncomfortably.

"Uh, how bout a tour?" She suggested. They all nodded silently. Eleanor walked them through the grandiose kitchens, the entertaining dining room, a few dens, and living spaces, the ballrooms, then she walked them up the stairs and showed them where the many rooms were, though she only went into her own. She showed them the huge library, which excited Hermione beyond words. Draco noted how she left her parent's bedroom and study off of the tour. Eleanor was most excited to show them the gardens, which she lovingly maintained. She had a real green thumb. They walked the ground for a bit, there were several acres of fields, and old barns that had held animals in them a few decades previously, but Darius' mother and Olga both were severely allergic, and the barns had since been empty. She walked them to the dock and the boathouse, which Draco had nearly forgotten was there. It had been a long time since they spent any time on the lake, but when they were kids, it was their favorite place to be.

"In the summers when we were kids, our parents would sit on the dock and me and Draco would be sitting in inner tubes on the lake and they would charm them to go fast, do spins and fly up in the air and me and Draco would have competitions to see who could hold on the longest." Eleanor laughed at the memory as the group sat on the dock and stared out at the vast, but private lake.

"Who would win?" Ginny asked.

"Me." Eleanor stated quickly. "Every time."

The group looked to Draco, expecting a protest from him, but he nodded. "Every time." He repeated. "She would not let go for the life of her."

"I think I gave myself whiplash a few times by simply refusing to let go. I was terrified of falling in the water." The group chuckled lightly, but were still in complete awe of Eleanor's home.

"There's just so much room." Harry said quietly, looking out over the lake.

"You could fit a whole army here." Ron added.

Eleanor shifted a bit. She knew her home was extravagant. Centuries of buying land, adding on, her ancestors becoming richer, some becoming more greedy had left the Castle to become a huge expanse. And Eleanor had always just called it home, she'd never really taken into consideration how many people could fit in the home. It had always been just her and her parents.

"I can see why Voldemort wants all your money." George eventually joked. "You seem to have a lot."

Eleanor shrugged with a small smile. "Took a few centuries for the family to get here, but here we are, I guess." She paused, feeling uncomfortable and very unworthy of the great expanse her friends were in awe of. "I'm ready to start drinking. Have we decided if Harry is taking a shot for every year he's been alive, or just every year that he's almost been killed?"


Back at the house, and a few hours later the group was sufficiently drunk. Draco was trying to integrate himself into the madness but was still rather sober, at least comparatively, and had remained quiet. Small talk with Harry was something he had been able to achieve on occasion, but entering into the seven-way banter between the Gryffindor friends was proving itself difficult. As everyone began setting up Eleanor's dining room table for a Muggle game Hermione was determined to teach them, Eleanor slunk to be by Draco. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were glassy, and her smile was wide when she saw him.

"You're not still thinking about sneaking away, are you?" She asked playfully.

"I'm always thinking about sneaking away when you're concerned." Draco returned, wanting to plant a kiss on her rose tinted cheek, but hating the idea of anyone else seeing it.

"At least pretend like you're trying to keep up, this is almost embarrassing." Eleanor joked, reaching for a bottle for him to take.

"I really just enjoy watching you have so much fun." Draco countered, not accepting the bottle from her hands.

"Bullshit." Eleanor rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be sharp tonight. No reason to keep your wits about you, we're all friends here, remember?" Draco sighed inwardly, hating and loving that she was reading his mind. He took the bottle from her and began drinking it quickly, to Eleanor's delight.

"Okay, this game is ridiculous, why would I drink out of a cup that a ball that everyone has touched has been in? That's just disgusting. There is no way that Eleanor doesn't have a pool table around here somewhere." Fred told Hermione loudly, pushing the plastic cups back into her hands.

"Billiards room is down the hall." Eleanor returned, grabbing a large bottle off of the table, and Draco grabbing a few smaller ones as they made their way down to the Billiards room. Eleanor's father was horrendous at it, her mother was rather good but had no one decent to play against, except on occasion, when Narcissa would accept. Eleanor had been told that her grandfather was an expert player, and had made the Billiards room his office, and every man he had a meeting with had to play him.

"Alright," Fred clapped excitedly at the sight of the pool table and George began to set up the balls. "Boys versus girls plus Ron."

"Hey!" Ron shouted out.

"That's stupid." Ginny shook her head. "You can't play pool with eight people you dolts. Two versus two then two versus two then winners play."

"That's a lot of pool." Fred shook his head.

"Good, then Hermione and I will get you out quickly so you don't have to play it all." Ginny laughed. Eleanor didn't mind the set up, she had hoped for a moment or two for Draco and Ron to be able to talk. She was betting on Harry warming him up but from the unimpressed glare Ron had been giving the blonde all night, Eleanor was not convinced he had.

With the sound of pool balls smacking and loud banter between the twins and Ginny as background, Eleanor strived to make small talk.

"Looking forward to school?" She asked hopefully, her drunk head spinning slightly. She wondered if they were even drinking given their current silence. Harry was usually quiet when he was intoxicated, save for a few wicked jokes that he unleashed at the right time. But Ron being quiet was something new, he and Eleanor were both very happy drunks and found lots of joy in laughing with each other. "I really just need to get the results from my OWLs back." Draco wanted to roll her eyes at her obvious trying, but remained stoic and continued to drink. "How do you think you all did?"

"I mean there was a bit of a distraction during our last one." Ron muttered out. Eleanor laughed a little.

"That's true." She nodded. "That was rather brilliant of your brothers, I must say. I didn't really appreciate at the time because we were, uh, panicking."

"And planning how to break into the Ministry." Harry put in. Draco stiffened beside Eleanor, knowing this was the night his life changed forever. The night they were talking about was the night he lost respect for his father.

"Yeah, that." Eleanor huffed out. She took another sip of her drink. "That happened this year." She nodded slowly. She chewed on her lip slowly and tried to find another topic to talk about. "I'm glad you could all come over and see where I grew up." She finally tried, settling for meaningless small talk.

"Yeah," Harry breathed. "I'm kind of angry about that." Okay is maybe not so meaningless.

Eleanor looked blankly at him for a moment trying to keep her thoughts from jumbling. She grabbed Draco's hand when he had opened his mouth to say something. "What do you mean?" She asked carefully.

"Seeing this place just makes me angry." Harry repeated, earning a nod from Ron as if the two had been in cahoots about this.

"What about it?" Eleanor was biting down on her cheek, anger flashing through her. Her home made him angry? What did that even mean? It was her home, not anyone else's, it didn't matter what they thought. The alcohol mixing with her dedication to home was making her feel like spitting fire, but she was trying desperately to hold her tongue.

"It's so big." Harry stated simply, as if that was enough of an answer.

"Yeah, it's big." Eleanor snapped. "Sorry my house is big, I guess."

"I don't care that it's big." Harry snapped. "I care that it's big and you never once thought that maybe Sirius would like to live here."

Eleanor stared at him, dumbfounded. She had truly never thought of that. She had thought for a while of asking Remus, but didn't want him to be away from Sirius. Why couldn't Sirius live in her home? They had a lake to swim in, grounds to walk on, barns that they could fill with animals for him to interact with and take care of. His mother wasn't on the wall screaming at him, Kreacher wouldn't be muttering at him. It would be bright and open and new.

"I never—" Eleanor started to say.

"You were just keeping this place a secret so you and Malfoy could sneak away and snog each other while Sirius has been losing his mind in there!" Harry continued, his irritation showing clearly on his face and in his words and Ron nodding along in agreement. Draco was being uncharacteristically quiet in the face of Harry and Ron's anger, which Eleanor supposed was a sign of progress but still made the situation odd.

"I wasn't thinking." Eleanor retorted. "I'm sorry I wasn't thinking." She shook her head, trying to think of how she could have been so stupid, so selfish. It wasn't like her. "I'll talk to them, of course. It's a wonderful idea."

But Eleanor could only feel shame and guilt because perhaps Harry was right, that somewhere in her brain, she wanted an escape plan with Draco.


Eleanor had never felt more selfish in her whole life than she did at the moment she sat across from Sirius, Remus, and Harry the next day at breakfast. She had pondered all night what Harry had told her, and the timing of the realization of Snape's untrustworthiness made for the perfect time to transition.

"I realized that I haven't been thinking." Eleanor finally let out to the group around her, who were all interested, and a little worried, as to why she called a family meeting. Draco and her had talked it over for the majority of the night, and while he still felt a sense of ownership over the memories Eleanor's home held, he knew the right choice was to move there. "It makes more sense for us to live in my home than here."

"What?" Remus asked, he had not expected this to be what they would be discussing. Harry narrowed his eyes at her slightly, trying to figure Eleanor out.

"Well I was just thinking, there is so much room to spread out, and we've got massive grounds. The protection spells on that place are no joke, so we'd be safe, which is really important now with Voldemort, and with Snape being shifty. We could still have the Order headquarters here, but we wouldn't be living here, which would maybe be nice for you, Sirius?" Eleanor rambled, looking at the table to avoid seeing their looks of annoyance of how long this took for her to ask. She was positive that they had been thinking this the entire summer thus far.

"Are you sure this is something you're comfortable with?" Remus asked cautiously, eyeing Sirius in suspicion. "That's your home, we know it's very special to you." Eleanor's eyes snapped up to meet his in shock. She was expecting nothing but annoyance from them as she had received from Harry the night before.

"You don't have to give up your safe haven just for us, love." Sirius put in, smiling at her with gleaming eyes. He almost seemed proud of her, Eleanor refused to believe it as she had just spent the greater part of the summer being extremely selfish.

"I think it's the right decision." Eleanor said with a firm nod. "I've been selfish and haven't thought about any of you. I know we are a bit cramped here and having headquarters here is another added stress." She began listing reasons again. "And I want to go home again. Live there with people I love again."

Remus and Sirius smiled widely at her. "We'll be there within the day."