The summer following Dumbledore's death was Eleanor's most fervent act of desperation. She swam in the lake that bordered Cordarri Castle, letting her mind drift to the different imaginings that she had not indulged since her youth. She ran through the gardens, escaping Draco who attempted to capture her; an act that was nearly a decade old for them, but had long been forgotten. She wore ridiculousness on her sleeve and indulged in laughter as often as she could. She desperately attempted to recreate the most precious moments of childhood, knowing the world as she knew it was plummeting from the final precipice.
Draco played along famously, despite his constant tingles of anxiety. His thoughts were occupied on his mother, his father, whether or not he needed an escape plan; but his actions portrayed a child he'd long since shoved into the deepest crevice of his mind.
Harry managed to stay out of their way. His worries remained with the task Dumbledore left them. He sat with Sirius and Remus for countless hours, writing down everything Dumbledore had ever told him, combing through each detail. Thus far, they'd deduced that Sirius' brother ended up turning on Voldemort and had hidden the real horcrux locket. Though they were still wholly uninformed of how a horcrux might be destroyed.
Hermione was spending the first weeks of summer with her parents. She'd admitted only to Eleanor her plan to keep them safe, and it hurt Eleanor more than she could say to know Hermione would be feeling the loss of her parents.
Ron visited Cordarri Castle often, though it was usually for the selfish reason of wanting an escape from duties around the Burrow tending to Bill and Fluer's upcoming wedding. But Ron was the only one who attempted to remain as carefree as possible throughout preparations for slowly destroying Voldemort's soul. He frequently made lighthearted jokes in an attempt to keep his dearest friend from becoming too weighed down by the responsibilities of the Wizarding World. Though Eleanor and Ron had often in the past found themselves at odds, she only attended meetings for which Ron was present.
"She's like a child we need to keep preoccupied." Harry had grumbled to Sirius and Remus one night after Eleanor had stolen Draco away from a brainstorming session about possible artifacts that could be Horcruxes so that he could entertain her with a game of chess. "Is no one taking this as seriously as I am? I mean, it was literally Dumbledore's dying wish, and she just wants to play chess."
Remus cringed a bit at Harry's voiced frustrations but tried to refrain from rushing to his daughter's aid. He could see the pain hiding behind her eyes, the fear that lingered, the way in which she clung to Draco anxiously. She knew that people were dying due to Voldemort's rise to power, and those deaths hadn't stopped with her parents. They continued to creep ever closer to her shifting senses of safety.
"She's taking this a lot more seriously than I think you realize." Sirius eventually tried to soothe Harry, seeing that Remus felt unqualified to do it. "I don't know how much help she would be, she's so anxious."
"Her and the rest of the Order, but you don't see them spending their nights skinny dipping in the lake with their boyfriends."
"They're -" Remus started, red in the face with embarrassment, "nevermind, wrong time." He rubbed his hands together and looked away from the other two, trying to shake the thought.
"I understand you're frustrated, Harry, I do." Sirius nodded.
"But?" Harry pressed, annoyance clear in his voice.
"But everyone handles their fear differently. Getting angry with each other only forms deeper cracks in relationships. We need to be strong now."
"Why don't we take a break from plotting for a little while. We know we need to find out if Regulus had the chance to destroy it, but we can't let anyone know we are looking for it until we know of a way to kill it. We have a wedding coming up, maybe we could take some of this anxious energy and see if Molly needs any help." Remus suggested.
"I don't-" Harry began to protest.
"You're still 16 for a few more days Harry, which means I'm still technically in charge," Sirius held his hand up to stop Harry's excuses, "and I agree with Moony. It'll be nice to help out and get our minds off this Horcrux business."
"Are you technically in charge if you're still a wanted criminal?" Harry asked.
"Ouch, that cuts deep Harry." Sirius feigned wounding.
"Shall we dare take our chances on interrupting the love birds?" Remus asked, casting a wary glance towards the stairs.
"I've already tried that once and it didn't end well." Harry sighed.
"What does that mean?" Remus wondered if he even wanted elaboration.
"I think the less we know, the better, eh?" Sirius suggested, and the three took leave to the Burrow.
Upstairs, in the vast library, the heirloom Cordarri jade chess set sat ignored in favor of a book about palm reading. Draco and Eleanor sat across the table from each other and Eleanor glanced between Draco's palm and the example given in the time-kissed pages of the old book.
"What's the verdict?" Draco asked softly, amused by the crease in Eleanor's brow as she examined the faint lines on his palm.
"I'm afraid I have determined something rather awful," Eleanor sighed dramatically, "your hands are quite dry." Draco laughed and smacked her hands away playfully.
"Be serious." He scolded. "I'd like to know my fate."
"I've never been good at this kind of thing." Eleanor pursed her lips as she continued to follow the diagram in the book.
"How's my love line?"
"Don't be cheesy." Eleanor chuckled.
"I'm not being cheesy, I've got my eye on a girl, I want to know if it's going to work out."
"Yeah? Well, I think once your pesky girlfriend is out of the picture, you two will be very happy."
"Oh, thank Merlin, that's good to know. On an unrelated note, I'm thinking we're going to have to call it quits." Draco joked as he pushed himself away from the table and stood up into a stretch.
"Oh really? Hmm, that's a bit sad. But, oh well, what's meant to be, right?" Eleanor shrugged. "I wish you the best of luck though, might I ask who is next on the docket to be woo'd?"
"It might be a bit of a longshot as she's rather famous," Draco kept up his sarcastic act, causing Eleanor to giggle, "but what can I say, I'm a bit of a charmer, and my family name and money doesn't hurt either."
"Who is it, inquiring minds want to know?" Eleanor rested her chin on her hand, wide-eyed and ready for his punchline.
"Bathilda Bagshot." Draco answered immediately,
"Don't be gross." Eleanor shot back quickly, barely containing her own laughter.
"What can I say, I like older women." Draco shrugged nonchalantly, finding intense joy in seeing Eleanor smile so radiantly. Fear was always lingering in his mind, knowing that it was nearly inevitable that this joy would be harder and harder to find in the coming months.
"What are we doing?" Eleanor asked abruptly, her entire demeanor shifted. She kept her eyes focused on her hands that she began to wring together incessantly, a tell for her anxiety settling in her body. Draco had been observing her closely over the summer, and she had been diligent in not letting the anxious thoughts that were surely in her mind manifest into her obvious anxious ticks. The ones Draco was familiar with was her biting her thumbnail, biting the inside of her lips, and the hand wringing. Each move she made was like a stab in the heart for him.
"What do you mean?" Draco asked, still attempting to keep humor in his voice. "We're laughing."
"Are we going to laugh forever?" Eleanor wondered, not accusing but heartbroken. "Everytime I feel a bit of joy I can't stop thinking about my parents, about Dumbledore, about Cedric Diggory, and your mum in hiding, and everyone who's lost their lives fighting - or not fighting - in this miserable war, and I can't help but think one of us is next."
"You're too valuable to You-Know-Who, I am too." Draco responded, in a knee jerk reaction attempting to keep thoughts of death away from Eleanor.
"Okay, so we won't be dead but we don't know what's in store but it can't be joy, it can't be safety, it can't be-" Eleanor's eyes began filling with fearful tears, her breaths coming rapidly. Draco stood still for a moment, unable to process the panic that was now coming on at full force. Eleanor sucked in a deep breath, attempting to settle herself. "I think y-you were right," Eleanor nodded firmly. "I think we should run, I think we should wait it out somewhere far away, somewhere where we won't know until everything is over."
Draco recalled a time when hearing those words was all he could ever hope to hear, he'd been unaware that he no longer agreed with her suggestion until he heard it leave her lips. He had spent weeks laying awake, watching Eleanor breathing, and prayed to whatever God might have been out there that she would wake and tell him to run away with her, tell him to take her away and keep her safe, and he would. He'd planned exactly what they would grab to keep them safe, he'd planned where they'd Apparate to, he'd planned how they'd live. He had done research on how to live in the Muggle world, how to go undetected. He had a plan, he'd stayed awake with Eleanor tucked into his side and planned every move meticulously. And now that she was here, telling him just that, he couldn't move a muscle.
Eleanor, who hadn't looked at Draco since her laughter faded, met his eyes. "Where should we go?" She sniffled a bit. "I mean, we should go, shouldn't we?"
"I-" Draco started, then felt immensely guilty for not touching her during this whole exchange. He walked over to her and took her in his arms, and they sat frozen and intertwined for several quiet moments. "I think this is the safest place we can be." Draco told her, honestly.
"I don't think so." Eleanor shook her head rapidly.
"Why not? There are strong spells protecting this place, you decide who gets in and out, we're around family here." Draco began to list. "We can't just go and live out, unprotected and disconnected."
"What if -" Eleanor began quietly, then shook her head, shaking the thought.
"What if what? What are you afraid of?"
"What if people stop coming back?" Eleanor whispered. "What if everyone I love stops coming home and it's just me left in this big house, all alone. Isn't that what he started? When he killed my parents? I can't do it, Draco, I can't just wait by the Floo for people who won't come home."
Draco wished he knew what to say. His heart filled with sadness and longing, he wished he could heal the part of Eleanor that was always expecting for her security to be taken, for the rug to be pulled from under her.
"I love you," Draco breathed, "and I'm not strong enough to protect you on my own. I wish I was, I wish...I wish so much for us. And for everything I wish for us, I think the best way for us to get it is to stay here."
"What kinds of things do you wish?" Eleanor asked softly, "distract me, make me forget how much I want to run."
And so Draco indulged her.
"I wish for us to be safe, and healthy. I wish for dinners with all of our friends, where you can continue to stress me out with how nonchalantly you handle the knife. I wish for us to bring some good to the world. I wish for us to explore the corners of countries we haven't heard of. Eventually, I wish for a ridiculously extravagant wedding. I wish for you to get all of the dogs you've ever wanted. I wish for us to spend every summer day on the lake. And mostly I just want to love you until I'm too old to think about anything but you."
It's been a while! So sorry for the delay, life is so crazy and busy and this project of mine fell to the wayside. We are beginning their last year, and so even though it feels like there are still mountains to climb, we are closer to the end of this story than we are to the beginning! I hope you'll stick with me through the end! Let me know what you think!
