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Eleanor elected to ride in a compartment alone on the ride to King's Cross. Her mind was fixated on the thought of riding in a car with the Malfoys after not speaking consistently to Draco since their fight, nearly a month and a half prior. Despite her conversation with Hermione, Eleanor still felt very out of place with her friends. Hermione was making efforts, but it never felt like she was meant to be among them. She felt like an inconvenience. And she was still being kept in the dark.
She didn't really feel like she was meant to be anywhere. Her friends didn't trust her because of her relationship with Draco (even though she assured them it was no longer an issue) and she couldn't be with Draco because of the way he thought of her friends, not to mention the pair's mutual stubbornness. She had Remus, but she didn't feel like she really did. Remus was very good about writing frequent and substantial letters and Eleanor did really appreciate him, however she didn't feel comfortable going to him for things like troubles with Draco and especially not troubles with Harry, Ron and Hermione; all of whom, Eleanor was sure, Remus trusted and valued far beyond her.
The holidays, usually her favorite time of the year, felt empty and painful without the only people she truly belonged with. With each passing day Eleanor grew more and more empty. Her chest felt hollow and cold. She tried very hard to not let this sadness show, but she crumpled at the sight of Lucius and Narcissa waiting for her on the platform. She didn't expect to cry at the sight of the two tall, stern looking blondes, but her eyes grew glassy and Narcissa's face lit up and gave a small yet excited wave. These were two people who loved her, she believed, with no conditions. Like her parents once had.
Eleanor dropped her trunk clumsily at her feet as she clutched Narcissa tightly, tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes. She hadn't realized how much she truly needed a comforting hug and gentle words of welcome. Eleanor wiped the wetness from her cheeks and pulled out of the warm embrace when she heard Lucius greet his son pleasantly. Narcissa smiled at Eleanor once more before putting an affectionate hand on Draco's cheek.
Eleanor looked at Lucius with a vague sense of hope, she searched his distracted face for any sign that he had information to share, but he was too busy asking Draco about the Inquisitorial Squad to notice Eleanor's eyes.
The drive to Malfoy Manor was bleak. Eleanor suffered silently as Lucius and Draco exchanged stories and laughs about his adventures as a Prefect and also as a member of Umbridge's club. Eleanor stared longingly out the window, wishing to be outside of the car. She would have ridden in the trunk if it meant she didn't have to endure this conversation. The whole while she was hating herself because she knew this was exactly what she expected to happen. In the end, she could only blame herself.
Upon arrival at Malfoy Manor, Eleanor silently retreated to the room she had stayed in over the summer and slowly unpacked her necessities in the bathroom and mindlessly wrapped gifts she had been collecting the past few months - a task that normally brought immense joy, but was now hollow and heartbreaking. This time last year she was dancing with Draco at the Yule Ball, the pair laughing without care as they had always done. Draco flirting the way he always did with her and Eleanor paying next to no attention. Then she returned home and wrapped gifts with her mother and drank cider, and her father read A Christmas Carol and they had decorated the tree as they prepared to welcome friends into their home. If Eleanor had known then that it was their final Christmas, she would have cherished it so much more. She would have made a note to remember how her father's voice sounded, or not gotten annoyed with her mother for trying to play Christmas songs on the piano and executed it very poorly.
There were so many things Eleanor would have done differently if she knew that this Christmas she would be laying in the cold in front of an unlit fireplace feeling empty and alone as the laughter of the Malfoys drifted up the stairs. She was physically and emotionally frozen. Maybe it was intentional, maybe she could only feel close to her parents if she were cold and lifeless like they were. Tears leaked onto the rug as she stared at the logs in the fireplace. She was too drained to start a fire and unsure if she even wanted to.
She had never felt less merry and bright.
"Eleanor?" A soft voice asked from the door, Eleanor didn't know how long she had been laying there. The room was dark now, it was night. She hadn't eaten dinner. She pretended to not hear Narcissa, she pretended to be asleep. She couldn't talk to them, not now. "It's freezing in here." Narcissa whispered to herself, apparently believing that Eleanor was sleeping. Eleanor was both relieved and saddened by this, which she didn't understand. Sparks flew from the end of Narcissa's wand and the fireplace was ablaze, warming Eleanor's cold nose. A warm wool blanket was draped on her and she heard footsteps leave the room and stop in the doorway.
"Don't bother her with dinner, let her sleep." Narcissa's quiet voice instructed as she disappeared down the hall.
"I know you aren't asleep." Draco's voice came to her with a condescending sneer after a few moments passed. "You don't have to brood. We're only trying to help."
Eleanor's numb mind blazed momentarily with all of the things she should say to him, but she remained still and silent as more tears leaked out of her eyes.
After laying on the floor for hours, Eleanor realized that the Manor suffocated her. Disoriented, hungry and cold, Eleanor made her way down to the Floo and went home well after two in the morning. There was no food in her cabinets, which had been abandoned since September. Eleanor didn't care, she simply dragged her sad body to her parent's bedroom. She rifled through the closet for old sweaters and blankets the held pleasant memories and started a fire in the hearth to keep her warm. She snuggled deep into her mother's side of the bed wrapped in her father's favorite winter sweater. The ice inside her chest was beginning to melt. She felt at home.
The smell of hot chocolate hit her nose as she was pulled from a dreamless sleep. Before she opened her eyes and was fully awake she wondered if her awful loneliness had all been a nightmare; that maybe her mother was making her hot chocolate to wake her gently before they decorated their home for the holidays. It was a nice thought, but it wasn't reality.
In reality, the only two people it could be were Hermione and Draco. Considering Hermione was assuming that Eleanor was at Malfoy Manor and Draco knew that to be untrue, that only left one option. Draco was reading in an armchair by the dwindling fire and a cup of cocoa steamed by her bedside. She didn't know how long he had been there.
She stared at the back of his head, anger running through her veins. Anger and sadness. She saw the blonde hair and all she could think about was how he had joined the Inquisitorial Squad and was becoming more of Umbridge's pet every day. She thought of all the awful things Umbridge said and stood for. She thought of his stupid song that had been a torture for one of her dear friends. She thought of all the times he called Hermione a mudblood, or all of the times he had tormented Harry. Why had she ever been so enamored with him?
But then there was that stupid cocoa. He knew exactly where she was and he came to her with cocoa. Who was he? Was he the boy who tormented her friends to feel important, or was he the man who brought her warm cocoa when she felt otherwise lifeless? Did one of his personas outweigh the other? Could they live in harmony, or was he at war with himself the way her world was turning into a war?
Despite all of these questions, she blurted the one thing on her mind. "Are you sleeping with Bridget?"
Draco jumped at the sound of her voice and turned around to see her calmly laying under a pile of blankets, unmoved from the position he saw her sleeping in that morning. Her eyes looked different than they normally did. They weren't wide and inquisitive and kind and welcoming. They were cold and accusatory and empty. He knew he had assisted in that shift. He knew he had hurt her. She wasn't innocent in all of it, she had been rude to him as well. She partook in the fights and arguing just as much as he had. She hadn't communicated consistently either, she was just as content entertaining a physical engagement rather than growing emotional one. But Draco felt guilty, he owed her the truth - both to be a good communicator and because it wasn't totally his fault and she needed to know the consequences of her actions. His consequences were her harsh words and bitterness towards him and her consequence was:
"Yes, I am."
Draco didn't know what reaction he expected from her. More yelling was a definite possibility, he had selfishly and darkly hoped for tears. He got nothing. She simply stared at him and stayed locked in her position for several minutes.
What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to say? She knew that he was, she had heard it around the castle and he never came to the Astronomy Tower, though there were several times she had waited there until nearly dawn to see if he would show. She couldn't be angry with him for sleeping with Bridget, she stopped seeing him because he was acting cruelly and she didn't agree with such behavior. That was a valid and mature reason, it wasn't stupid or childish to want to be seeing a man who was kind and good. But that train of thought always left Eleanor a little confused because he was good, he had just now brought her a hot chocolate as she hid away. That was kind. He had stayed by her all summer and beyond, he told her kind things. Was a person either all good or all bad? Could she love the good in a person and hate the bad? Was she bad if she let the good win out?
It didn't matter. He was sleeping with Bridget. That hurt Eleanor deeper than she ever would have thought, to know that Bridget was Draco's first. Not first everything, that's for sure, but first real partner. Even Eleanor hadn't been the first with the acts that they committed in random nooks and crannies of the castle, but she never dwelled because she knew in her heart that her and Draco would be the first ones to be with each other fully, eventually. But she had been wrong. It was Bridget.
Eleanor stared at the cup of cocoa, seeing his peace offering, his kindness, his goodness. It was all as small as that mug that sat on the table getting colder and more useless the longer she looked at it. What good was a cocoa? What did it prove? It wasn't real kindness. He would give her a cocoa, but he wouldn't dare give one to Hermione, or Ron or Harry or her father or anyone else. He wouldn't even smile in their direction. His kindness was hollow, just like Eleanor's chest and life. It wasn't overflowing, it wasn't abundant, it wasn't full.
In her confusion, she grabbed the mug from the bedside table and marched into the bathroom where she poured the contents down the drain. She ran the water and let the faucet splash away any remnants of the liquid, then wet down her face and dried it with a towel before facing him again.
"Why did you leave?" Draco questioned, apparently unphased by Eleanor's rejection of his olive branch - which disappointed but didn't surprise her.
"I couldn't sleep." Eleanor shrugged. "I wanted to be home."
"Here meaning wanting to be far away from me." Draco pointed out. The pair kept their voices just above a whisper. Eleanor didn't have the heart to yell anymore, she couldn't give him the satisfaction.
Eleanor simply shrugged again. "That could have been the reason I couldn't sleep."
Draco fought hard against rolling his eyes at her. She looked disheveled as she stood in the doorway to the bathroom. Her emotions didn't reach her eyes, her heart wasn't on her sleeve, her shoulders sagged. This wasn't Eleanor. "What's been going on with you? Since our fight?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." Eleanor scoffed, returning to the comfort of her parents' bed. She stared at the ceiling in silence for a few moments as she contemplated what to say, if anything. What had been going on with her? She was lonely, at the root of it. Her friendship with the others felt like a shell of what they once were and she knew they were keeping secrets from her. They didn't trust her because she had been fraternizing with the enemy. She missed them and her connection to them which had been ruined because of her relationship with Draco - and now she had nothing to show for that.
She felt like a complete fool.
"I was almost a Hufflepuff, did you know that?" Eleanor finally let out. Draco blinked in surprise at her words but she didn't look at him. "Probably not, I only told my parents, and was especially careful not to mention it to you." Eleanor sighed a bit sadly. "The Sorting Hat told me that I was going to make a great Hufflepuff, and example one. I was so petrified. I said that you would hate me forever and I would lose you. I requested to be put in Slytherin. The Sorting Hat laughed at me, actually laughed." Eleanor chuckled a bit to herself too at the memory. "It told me that I wasn't nearly cunning or ambitious enough to be a Slytherin, not even close. Although, it showed bravery to be asked to put there, but it also showed loyalty to my friend, so perhaps Gryffindor would be a good fit. It was a tough choice really, The Hat went back and forth quite a lot and eventually asked me where I saw myself; given the choice. Again, I said Slytherin. He then put me in Gryffindor because only a brave and stupid fool would want to be where they didn't belong. It wasn't a pleasant sorting experience, but one rather indicative of my Hogwarts career so far."
"Meaning?" Draco asked, feeling a bit confused. He seemed to remember the two of them fighting rather viciously before that so it was difficult for him to imagine his proud Eleanor begging the Sorting Hat to be close to him. He was fairly certain that had she been put in Slytherin that night she would have spent the entire evening trying to be as far from him as possible and shooting death glares at him.
"I make a lot of sacrifices trying to be where you are. I just don't know how far I'm willing to go. I went against the Sorting Hat, I lost all my friends, I lost my home just to be around you and make you happy." Eleanor paused. "To make me happy too, I suppose."
"Sorry that being around me is such a sacrifice for you." Draco spat the word back at her like the insult it was. He had always felt less than next to her and up until a month ago she had banished those fears, then she let them fester, and now she confirmed them. He tried not to show how much he was hurting.
"It isn't, that's my point." Eleanor snapped out of her calm facade at Draco's snark. She glared hard at him as she sat up from the bed. He was now standing at the foot, staring down at her. "I've never felt like I have given up things. I've always been happy to do it because you're worth it. I fight for you in front of my friends and I was happy to do it because I knew you were good and I knew that I was right."
"And now?" Draco questioned.
"Well you've just proved my point, haven't you?" Eleanor had to keep her strength by not sobbing out her next words. "You're sleeping with Bridget."
"We haven't spoken in weeks and you didn't make an effort to reconcile." Draco pointed to her, not wanting to have Bridget - his biggest regret - thrown in his face.
"Because you didn't change. Why would I try to reconcile when you didn't even try to see things from my perspective. I'm always the ones making changes, Draco. I'm not saying you don't do things for me, obviously you do. I'm just," Eleanor huffed, she wanted to scream at him but she took a deep breath to try to control her emotions. "I don't know who you are. I don't know if you are the Draco that is sleeping with Bridget and is on the Inquisitorial Squad and torturing Harry Potter and his friends for sport, or are you the Draco that I spent my summer with, the one who is sweet and kind. I can't be with both of them."
"You apparently can't be with either." Eleanor looked away, convinced that he didn't understand. "You have flaws too. And you don't work on them either. You have a terrible temper, you are proud, you are a huge hypocrite, you always turn everything into this huge emotional event when it doesn't have to be. I could go on, do you want me to?"
"Go ahead." Eleanor challenged. She didn't relish in having all of her shortcomings yelled at her but a foolish part of her felt that if Draco got this out of his system now then perhaps they could move on from this. And she stubbornly wanted to prove that she could listen to her flaws without getting defensive, like Draco always did.
"You keep secrets. You're always trying to change people. You think that if people aren't as good as your parents than they are automatically bad. You've become extremely wishy washy. You can't let people have emotions without lecturing them on it." Draco was running out of breath and running out of things to say. "You're too reliant on others and when they aren't perfect you get angry. Which is what is happening right now."
"I'm angry for a lot of reasons." Eleanor bit out, ignoring all he had said about her flawed character (though she knew she would dwell on them later and probably every moment after). "The truth is, Draco, that I am extremely embarrassed to be associated with someone who is cruel to those around him. What kind of friend does that make me? What kind of person does that make me?"
"You care too much about what others think." Draco added to the list. The amount of times she called him cruel was unfortunately not enough to reduce the sting of the words. If all-forgiving Eleanor thought he was cruel, he was inclined to believe her.
"I care about the way other people feel. Outside of me and apparently Bridget now, you don't make people feel good."
"Enough about Bridget, you jealous little-" Draco yelled but stopped himself short. It still caused Eleanor to shrink back into the bed. He had never yelled at her like that before. They'd always partaken in arguments, and more recently, those arguments got quite heated. Both were guilty of raising their voices, but his intention behind these words was different. He saw the fear in her eyes, it was the same fear, he was sure, that was in his eyes whenever his father yelled at him. Which, granted, wasn't often, but was often enough to have lasting impressions. "El, I'm so sorry." He immediately rushed to her side and tried to sit next to her. "I shouldn't have yelled like that I'm so sorry."
His eyes were changed. He was a different man sitting in front of her, his hands holding hers. Eleanor's heart ached, she wished that he could always be this man. Her heart softened and she put her palm on his cheek. She wanted to sob. She was terribly lonely and she missed her best friend, but she couldn't give in because he showed a sliver of kindness, a sliver of regret
"I think we both have a lot of work to do on ourselves." She let out in barely a whisper. Draco hung his head in anguish. He knew her forgiveness was not so easily won. He was so frustrated by her and by himself. He wasn't sure how to make peace with either. All he knew was that he wanted to be with Eleanor more than anyone else.
"What does that mean for us?" He asked in a small voice. Eleanor was reminded of the young boy she once knew, so unsure and insecure of who he was and where he stood.
"I-I don't quite know." Eleanor admitted. "I don't think there can be an us right now. For a while." She regretting saying it the moment it left her lips. She missed him so badly that she ached. But it had been going downhill since the moment they left London in September and she just delayed the hurt. She knew that until they were both different people they would always have something to fight about.
Draco was quiet for a long time before finally taking a breath. "Come back home." He whispered. Eleanor nodded once and got up from the bed, put out the fire and walked with Draco to the Floo. He watched her walk, noticing again how very hollow and sad she was. He was determined to be different for her, he would have to be. She was too proud to take him any other way.
The pair quickly realized upon entering the Malfoy Manor that there were more people present than were expected. Instinctively Eleanor was embarrassed about how she was fresh out of bed but when she saw the ghoulishly pale face under a wild mop of black curls standing next to Draco's mother, her embarrassment turned to intense fear.
Through gritted teeth, Narcissa forced out: "Draco, you remember your aunt, don't you?"
