Quick Note: Happy Thanksgiving for all who celebrate, and happy day to those who don't! When thinking of my uploading schedule, I didn't intend for this specific chapter to be put out on the holiday, it just sort of fell on today. So with that being said, this chapter is not quite a happy, holiday chapter. It's going to bounce around a fair bit and follow Eleanor through the aftermath of what happened in the last chapter! Just a fair warning on that one in case you were expecting a joyous holiday installment!

Also, I just want to give you all a huge thank you for all of the love I've been receiving on this story! I absolutely love hearing from you, it seriously makes my day! Thank you, thank you, thank you!


Hogwarts was a buzz with word of Draco and Bridget. They apparently weren't an item officially, but neither were him and Eleanor before. Eleanor watched across the Great Hall as the two sat beside each other and chatted quietly. He seemed to think she was funny because Eleanor caught him laughing rather often.

It felt like a knife was being driven through her back. She knew she had brought this on. Draco had asked for weeks after their fight to talk, he'd wanted to meet, and she never responded. She never gave in. Of course he would begin seeing someone else, it was what she had all but invited him to do. Bridget was beautiful. Bridget was a Pureblood. Bridget's friends didn't hate Draco. Bridget didn't ask Draco to change. Bridget was perfect for him, easy as breathing. It came naturally.

In short, Bridget was everything Eleanor wasn't.

She ground her teeth angrily, eyes fixed on the piece of toast in front of her. It was all that she had chosen for breakfast, and it hadn't been touched. She had completely lost her appetite. She dared another glance up at Draco, for a moment their eyes caught. He looked smug. Something snapped inside her as she pushed up from the table.

"Eleanor, you haven't eaten." Ginny pointed out, worried for her friend.

"Not hungry." Eleanor grumbled in return. The seemingly false worry of her friends made Eleanor want to scream. She knew that they were all secretly thrilled that Eleanor and Draco were no longer friends in the slightest. Ron had suspected them of sneaking about, and while no one confronted her about this suspicion, she was sure they all held it. And now Bridget answered their prayers, she proved that Eleanor's ties with Draco were broken.

Bridget seemed to be everyone's saving grace.

"Where are you going?" Hermione called after her.

"I don't know, to be alone." Eleanor replied, not sparing a glance back.

"Oh, okay." Hermione conceded easily.

Eleanor's heart broke. She knew she said she wanted to be alone, she knew she was not being fair, but she wanted her friends to fight for her. The way she had wanted to Draco to fight for her.

She wanted someone to stick around.

Letting out a quiet puff of air, Eleanor began to make her way to the greenhouse. Her Herbology class consisted of keeping a sprout of a Wiggentree alive, she decided to get away from the bustle and crowd of the morning by checking her growing tree.

Eleanor's anger only grew deeper when she saw her sprout dry, brown, and withering pathetically.

"Damn it all to hell." She cursed lowly, angry tears filling the corners of her eyes. She began to poke around at the soil to see if there was anything indicating why it would be dying. She was good at taking care of plants. She might not have had much at this point in her life, but she knew she had a green thumb.

"They're all wilting." A small voice from behind her said. Eleanor spun around to see Professor Sprout carrying two large bags of soil and looking around at all of the plants in the greenhouse, slowly bending and becoming less colorful with each passing second. "My dear, are you quite well?"

Eleanor realized, then, that the wilting flowers was her doing. Her emotions, dark, and angry, and sad, was causing death all around her. "I-I'm sorry." She stammered out, looking at the mass destruction she was causing with her magic responding to her dreadful emotions. "I can't make it stop." She closed her eyes tightly, willing the flowers back to life, trying to will herself back to life. It was like she was a child again, unable to control her emotions, unable to control her magic. And she could not make the flowers rise again. Before Professor Sprout could offer words of advice, Eleanor was walking swiftly out of the greenhouse, knocking her dead plant over in her wake.


Four essays to redo. The week before Eleanor turned in five essays, and the following week she received four essays that needed to be completely redone. She sat in a poorly lit corner of the common room, looking at her awful work, and unsure of how she could make it any better. She'd always been a good student. She was never as smart as Hermione, or Draco, but she made good marks, her professors liked her. And now, here she was with four essays marked up beyond recognition.

She was exhausted. She'd only managed an hour or two of sleep a night, her mind would barely shut off for even that. Her heart was always racing, she was never hungry. Not only was there a loss of hunger, but her stomach was constantly rolling so that there was a huge aversion to it. She looked from her essays to her shaking hands. She didn't recognize who she was.

Her friends, or so they called themselves, were gone. She didn't know where. They had all disappeared somewhere, and they did so consistently. Eleanor never pushed to be invited because she always felt unwelcome, and they never asked her to come along. She hadn't spoken to Draco in weeks, but had watched him speak to Bridget every day.

She wanted to talk to someone. Something wasn't right with her, she could feel it in her bones. Everything was off. She needed to talk to Draco. She would make things right, she had to. She couldn't live like this any longer.

Eleanor stacked her books and her essays neatly on the table in the corner and stood to walk to the Astronomy Tower. She knew for the first bit of their separation, Draco went up there to speak with her. She wondered, she hoped, that maybe he still did. Maybe he was waiting for her to meet him so they could talk. They would be able to figure this mess out.

A dangerously low amount of confidence pushed Eleanor forward as she walked the halls of Hogwarts. It wasn't yet past curfew and the hallways weren't being monitored, though they were rather empty. She tried to think of what she would say to him. She felt secure in her stance on the Inquisitorial Squad, but she could have been kinder about other things. She had words she could take back, amends she could make.

Lost in her thoughts of reconciliation, she came abruptly to a stop when at the end of the hallway, she saw them. Draco and Bridget kissing deeply, lost in each other's embrace. They way they used to be. And Draco apparently wasn't afraid of getting caught with her due to their proximity to the general student body.

Eleanor watched for a moment too long, tears sprang to her eyes. Everything before had been hearsay, she could've convinced herself it wasn't real. But here it was, in front of her.

She turned swiftly up the stairs and ran up the Astronomy tower, her tired and aching chest was heaving for breath as she cried. Nothing was right. Nothing made sense. Everything was completely, and totally wrong. Draco should've been with her. Her friends should've been talking to her. She should've been doing well in school. She should've been happy, and healthy. Her parents should've been alive.

Once she made it to the top of the tower, she allowed herself to sob.

"You stupid girl." She scolded herself. Her body shook from the cold, sadness, and exhaustion.

This was when, for the first time, she realized she was truly and utterly alone.


The feeling of betrayal had never left Eleanor's chest. She was angry that Draco didn't value her enough to lay down his pride. She was angry that he expected her to forget her friends and her morals while he paraded around in the insufferable Inquisitorial Squad.

She was lonely without him. She'd felt lonely for a while but she had been unwilling to face the truth before that night the two had fought viciously. The truth was that he had moved on and had no further care for her.

And then, the worst betrayal of all. When she saw the list of names, all of her dearest friends, her friends that she had fought for, that she had turned Draco away for, the friends he 'tortured', the friends that Eleanor was supposed to be 'smart enough' to defend. They were now all apart of a secret club that Eleanor had no idea about.

"What's this?" Eleanor asked Hermione as her friend exited the bathroom and entered their dorm. Hermione was obviously caught off guard when she saw the thin slip of paper in Eleanor's hands.

"How did you find that?" Hermione asked, sitting next to Eleanor on her bed. Her wet hair made little wet spots on her pajamas, which she normally couldn't stand but she chose to ignore.

"I was trying to find that shirt that I let you loan a few weeks ago." Eleanor huffed. "I found this instead."

"We were going to tell you," Hermione started, but she couldn't seem to finish her thought.

Eleanor looked away and handed Hermione the paper. "No you weren't." Eleanor said, her voice devoid of feeling. She was starting to feel completely empty. No Draco, no parents, now her best friends were keeping her out in the dark.

"We just weren't sure if you would tell…" Hermione regretted her words when she said them, but she knew that Eleanor needed to hear honesty.

"Draco?" Eleanor asked. Hermione nodded once. "Well you don't have to worry about that anymore. Haven't you heard? He's with Bridget now."

"Eleanor, I-"

"I don't want to talk about it." Lie. But Eleanor stood anyway. "What's this Dumbledore's Army?"

"Harry is teaching us Defense Against the Dark Arts, since Umbridge won't." Hermione explained. She wanted Eleanor to talk to her, especially about Draco since it was obviously bothering her, but Hermione knew better than to expect that from Eleanor. "You can join, just sign at the-"

"No thank you." Eleanor snapped, throwing the piece of parchment to the side and turning away from Hermione. "I know where I'm not wanted."

"Don't do this, Eleanor. You don't need to isolate yourself out of anger." Hermione chided softly.

"Oh, I'm doing this to myself?" Eleanor growled. "I decided that you lot should form a secret club and leave me out of it. I thought I was your best friend."

"I thought Draco was your best friend." Hermione retorted defensively, before shaking her head to clear the building anger. She knew it wasn't fair of her to get defensive. "Eleanor, what has been going on with you lately? You aren't yourself."

Eleanor's gaze darted to her, sadness, anger, and perhaps a hint of relief that someone had finally asked flashed behind her slightly red eyes. Her eyes lately had always been a little red, as if she was crying more often than not. Hermione wasn't convinced that that wasn't true, but she hadn't seen Eleanor shed a tear. The great big purple bags brought down her usually happy, and playful demeanor. Hermione wasn't sure if this was Draco's doing or hers, she was scared to admit that it was probably an equal mixture.

"You've heard about everything, you know what's wrong." Eleanor accused. "And yet you still didn't seem to care." Her words were cold and Hermione almost shivered. She was a stranger to her now.

"I'm here to talk about it." Hermione remained calm.

"No," Eleanor shot back. She hated feeling this way, she hated the anger that manifested in her words and actions. This wasn't her, she felt almost feral. She hadn't been sleeping, or eating, or talking to anyone the way she should have been. She was like a shell of who she truly was and she was so tired and so incredibly angry at everyone, including herself. "You aren't here to talk about it, you're here because you feel guilty."

"I do feel guilty." Hermione nodded. "I haven't been the friend that you needed." Eleanor stared at her silently. Nobody had been the friend that she needed, and she knew that she only had herself to blame for that. She had pushed away Hermione, Ron, and Harry in favor of Draco, and pushed Draco away in favor of Hermione, Ron, and Harry. She had always prided herself on compartmentalizing those friendships so well, but in the end, it had been her demise. She could not exist straddling two worlds. She could not be fully herself when only giving those she loved half of who she was.

She thought that she had been multiple people. She was her parent's Eleanor, she was the Gryffindor Eleanor, she was Draco's Eleanor, she was now also Remus' Eleanor. She thought that eventually she would have to choose which one to settle down as, and in doing so would disappoint the others. But as the hurt, confusion, and pain tugged at her heart and was slowly ruining her, she knew that her only option was to just be Eleanor. She needed to be all of them, she was all of them. And everyone in her life needed to be okay with that.

Tears began to fill Eleanor's eyes as she looked at Hermione. She was grateful that they were alone in their dorm. Hermione tentatively reached out to give her friend a hug and Eleanor unexpectedly collapsed into her arms.

"Everything has just gotten so confusing." Eleanor began to cry. "I thought he loved me." Hermione didn't need to ask who. "I mean, he never said it. And we argued a bit, but we've always argued. I thought if I had asked him to stop that stupid Inquisitorial Squad, he would. But instead he went and he's now apparently sleeping with Bridget."

"You don't know that for sure." Hermione tried to console, unsure of what to say. She had never believed Draco to be upstanding, so it was unsurprising to her that he didn't drop out of a club for Eleanor, but she knew that those words would be unhelpful.

"What did I do to make him hate me?" Eleanor began to cry harder. "I was trying, I knew it was hard because you lot hate him. I understand why, I'm not mad about that really, but he knew that I was working through it. And everything with my parents, I was so scared that he didn't want me because I wasn't theirs, I was so terrified to let everyone know we were together because what if people found out about Remus and he was so ashamed that he just left me." Eleanor sniffled here, giving Hermione a pause to think over everything she said. The part about their friendship made sense, but once she started talking about her parents and Remus, she was lost. "And I'm not ashamed of Remus, I'm not. I'm happy about all of that, but it's something I'm still wrestling with and he knew it was hard for me to wrestle with that, and with you all, and with him at once. At least I thought he knew. I know I asked a lot of him, I asked for a lot of change and understanding, but I didn't think not being a huge fucking prick would be this damn hard for him." Hermione cracked a smile at that and let her friend cry, trying to work over everything she said in her head. Hermione wasn't the brightest witch of her age for nothing, so she thought she was understanding the situation right but after a few minutes of Eleanor quieting her crying, she had to ask.

"Eleanor," She began slowly, "I'm not understanding your connection to Professor Lupin."

"Harry hasn't told you?" Eleanor asked, sitting up and wiping her eyes on her sweater sleeve. Hermione looked sadly at her blotched, red face.

"No." She shook her head, shocked that Harry knew all of this before she did. And even more shocked that he didn't tell her.

"Well," Eleanor chewed on her lip. "Basically I found out in the will that my parents aren't my parents biologically. I'm actually Remus'." Hermione's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"I'd wondered why you two were so close." She said. "I just thought he understood your grief."

Eleanor shrugged. "He does. He's really wonderful about taking things slow and working out our relationship as we go. It's just a lot of new. It's hard to balance the grief with the excitement sometimes."

"That's life, though." Hermione shrugged. "Grief and joy all mixed together."

Eleanor smiled a little at her friend, feeling closer than they had in months.

"Yeah, that's life." Eleanor conceded. The words didn't ease her pain, but having Hermione make an effort put Eleanor more at ease.

The two girls were quiet for a while, holding hands and Eleanor still shuddering from the aftershocks of her many tears cried. Eleanor was tired of keeping things from people, she was tired of compartmentalizing. She was no longer going to keep things from anyone to lessen herself into a more manageable, easily liked version of Eleanor. It was too hard on her to be different people all at once. Perhaps she would make her friends angry, perhaps relationships would be more complicated. But she was allowed to be complicated, she was allowed to not make everyone happy all of the time.

"Eleanor," Hermione started slightly, unsure of how her question would be taken, "why did Harry know before me?"


Eleanor crumpled the ministry letter in her hands while sitting in the Great Hall a few days later. It was the same reply she had always received, but with the stresses of Draco still not talking to her, her friendship with her fellow Gryffindors still being rather rocky, and Umbridge being a self appointed authoritarian, the Ministry bullshit was the last thing Eleanor needed.

"Still no answer?" Hermione inquired softly, putting a gentle hand on Eleanor's shoulder. Between Harry being accused of blasphemy and Eleanor not being informed of the reasons for her parent's death, seething hatred for the Ministry was at an all time high for the four friends.

"There is an entire hospital of supposedly highly qualified mediwizards and I am supposed to believe that nearly six months have passed since two high standing wizards died on their premises and they don't know why." Eleanor growled. "Not even an inkling. What kind of tests are these people even running at this point?"

"I'm sorry Eleanor." Hermione soothed quietly, "I can't even imagine." Hermione had been making consistent, small efforts to check in with Eleanor. She was trying to make sure Eleanor didn't isolate herself on purpose, as she was wont to do when she was upset, however the other people in the group of Gryffindors were dealing with their own struggles, and Eleanor hadn't had the opportunity or the desire to sit down with them just yet and explain the hell she'd been enduring that term.

"It's fine." Eleanor rolled her eyes, her tone and tense shoulders gave away the fact that she was definitely not fine. "I'm not hungry, I'm gonna take a walk before class." Eleanor shoved away from the table and walked out of the Great Hall. She was unsure of where she wanted to go, she had ample time before class to go nearly anywhere in the castle and make it back to Transfiguration in time. Eleanor was tempted to just not show up, Professor McGonagall was the most understanding when it came to the continual pain those letters brought. However, Eleanor was also not doing well in that class - or any of her classes for that matter - and she was unsure that McGonagall would be as willing to let her lack of attendance go.

Eleanor found a secluded corner of the courtyard. She brought her robes close to her body to shield against the crisp air that autumn was turning cold. The moment she sat amidst the chilled breeze, she regretted her decision to sit outside, however being able to take deep breaths and smell the surrounding trees calmed her wildly beating heart.

"Bit chilled out here." a distant voice noted. Eleanor rolled her blue eyes at Draco's sudden appearance, somehow his Inquisitorial Squad badge seemed to be the only part of him that she could see, like he was leading with it.

"Come to report me to the High Inquisitor?" Eleanor asked cuttingly as she looked away from him. Draco was glad she looked away so he could roll his own eyes. She was able to do it without fear of him saying anything, but if he dared to roll his eyes, she would have more to say than he cared to hear about it. This wasn't the first words either wanted to say to the other after their fight, but this was what it had come to.

"Don't act like that, Eleanor." Draco sighed, leaning against the wall next to where she was seated. He hated the weight that the badge on his robes carried. Looking back, he doesn't know why he joined. His father encouraged it, and Umbridge was hellbent on getting the unqualified teachers out of Hogwarts, which was something Draco wasn't opposed to; but Eleanor could hardly look at him, let alone spend time with him. Not while he spent time with Umbridge.

"Can you just go?" Eleanor all but groaned.

"You can't ignore me forever, you know?" Draco pointed out in anger. He was tired of Bridget, tired of being alone with a stranger, tired of not talking to Eleanor. If she stopped being so stubborn, he would be sure to talk to her more. "The holiday is coming up. You surely didn't think my parents would let you spend it alone?"

"I won't be alone, I'll be with Remus." Eleanor answered swiftly.

Draco stiffened at the sound of her birth father's name. There were a lot of things said the last time they talked, and Draco could occupy himself with Eleanor's other flaws, however he still wasn't sure how he felt about her being the daughter of a werewolf. He knew she had no werewolf qualities, or he would have known long before, and when he told her over the summer that she was still Eleanor, and it didn't change things, he'd been truthful. He would treat her the same no matter what, but her werewolf father wasn't helping the matter in the slightest.

"Eleanor, don't do that to them." Draco was suddenly very serious. "Not this Christmas."

"Are you really concerned for them?" Eleanor questioned. "I don't see how that furthers your career interests or how that looks for future jobs. You aren't one to put the feelings of others before personal gain."

A million responses flashed through Draco's mind in that moment. He resisted the urge to be exactly the man she thought he was and say any of them. "It would be nice to have you around for this first Christmas without them. Just think about it." Draco swallowed every nasty thing he was thinking and simply walked away.

"They were my parents," Eleanor called after him, her voice rising to a shout. Anger burned inside of her in a way that made her feel she was going to completely lose control. She wanted to scream, and kick, and cry, and be completely ridiculous. "It is not up to you to tell me how to spend my first Christmas without my parents."

Draco didn't turn around to face her, but he did slow his pace. He was curious if she would say something that warranted a further remark from him.

"You just want me around because I'm the only decent part of you." Eleanor snarled out when Draco didn't respond to her initial lash out at him. It was a cruel thing to say, and something that Eleanor did not believe in the slightest. Her heart physically hurt when the words passed her lips, and she would have been lying if she said there was no regret for her callous. But her anger got the better of her, her sadness and anxiety that had been building towards Draco for weeks finally bubbled out in an ugly spew of words she didn't mean, but refused to take back.

Draco stopped at those words, still not turning around. He took a visible breath to calm himself. Eleanor was breathing heavily, her jaw was set angrily, and despite feeling weak and tired and defeated, her body was rigid; she was ready to defend herself. Part of her ached for another screaming match with Draco. At least they'd be talking, at least it would dissolve some of her anger.

Her words cut Draco to the bone but his pride didn't allow him to show that. He knew she wanted a fight, and he desperately wanted to say everything that had been on his mind since the fight, but he knew it would kill her more to hear what he said next, because it would only prove her wrong.

"I want you around for the sake of our parents, nothing else."