Chapter Five:
Eleanora sighed and lay her lissom form down on the vast expanse of her four-poster bed. The hanging tapestries cast long shadows over the bed and she closed her eyes in a mixture of fatigue and relief. Hogwarts felt like home. The moment she had arrived in Dumbledore's office, she had felt a calm descend over her that she had not felt since before the Death Eater attacks the previous year. Despite the distinctly unfriendly countenance of the potions master, she felt certain that she would greatly enjoy her year at the school.
Though she doubted whether she would ever be able to negotiate the cavernous corridors of the school without losing her way. As she walked with Dobby, she gazed around her in interest at the mischievously moving stairwells, and the excited flurry of movements that issued from the portraits that hung upon the walls. Their occupants followed the elf and the girl from frame to frame, whispering animatedly about the identity of this beautiful young women. Dobby had stooped outside a heavy, ornately carved oak door, and opened it with a large key that whistled shrilly as he removed it from the pocket of his red and black striped football shorts. He stuffed it quickly into the keyhole and unlocked the door. It had swung open to reveal a high cloistered room, in which an impressive four-posted bed stood regally. The walls were painted a deep royal blue and the tapestries surrounding the bed were richly embroidered in a myriad of silver and cerulean. A high window dominated one wall of the room and Eleanora rushed to it, dropping her diminutive luggage haphazardly onto the bed. The window overlooked the great lake and from her elevated position she could see the Giant Squid gently lapping the cool waters against the shore.
"Is the room to Miss Eleanora's liking?" piped up Dobby. She turned from the window, reluctantly tearing away her delighted gaze.
"Oh, yes. It's utterly splendid! I adore it."
She smiled widely and returned to the bed, and made to pick up her luggage to return it to its proper state. However, she remembered her promise to Dumbledore and she instead turned to face the door to the far side of the bed. She gently pushed it open and gasped in delight at what she saw. A huge sunken bath, surrounded by golden taps dominated the room, decorated entirely in black marble.
She faced Dobby, and cried, "I could stay here for ever!"
The elf smiled at her delight and said "Dobby will be returning to the kitchens now. If there is anything that Miss Eleanora needs, she must only call."
She smiled warmly at him. "Thank you, Dobby."
As he skipped out of the room, shutting the door behind him, she returned once again to the bed. Pick up her luggage, set them on the floor and pulled out her wand. A murmured incantation later, the hotchpotch of cases were returned to full size and she deftly levitated them to stand in the far corner of the room. She was too tired to unpack right now, and she resolved to do it after supper. Having caught sight of herself in the grand full length mirror that stood next to the dressing table, she scowled at her reflection and decided a little freshening up was definitely in order. Her hair was wilder today than usual, no doubt due to the slightly rough apparation she had earlier undergone.
She had wandered slowly into the bathroom, running a graceful hand over the cool, smooth marble of the walls. The very fortifications of Hogwarts seemed to teem with a kind of benevolent magic, she thought to herself, as she stared disapprovingly into the mirror.
"Very nice, m'dear," a female voice countered.
Eleanora started in fright, her hand instinctively brought above her head in a defensive move, then giggled in relief as she realised that it was the mirror who had spoken. She mentally rebuked herself for her rashness and addressed the mirror in a jovial voice that gave away nothing of her still erratically beating heart.
"Hello there." Eleanora was of course used to enchanted mirrors, but in her experience they kept quiet, save for an occasional snore and approving comment. This one however, was loquacious to the last degree.
"You must be Eleanora." At the girl's frown, the mirror added, "Violet from the portrait on the second floor told me. Quite tired herself out, the poor dear, rushing up those stairs. Ran smack into Sir Cadogen she did! Bet he wasn't best pleased. Gets very uppity about folk rushing through his pasture, so he does."
Eleanora grinned. She and Dobby had passed the landscape containing Sir Cadogen on the way top her room and he had rushed to the foreground, loudly challenging them to "bear your arms, lest you scurvy knaves be captured in the name of the king!"
"Yeah," she answered with a grin. "He seemed a little on the defensive side when we passed him."
The mirror tut-tutted disapprovingly. "Always rushing about challenging folk to a duel. Anyhow, about your hair. No offence m'dear, but it is looking rather unruly now, isn't it? How about a quick taming spell on it?"
Eleanora looked down at her watch. She had half an hour before her evening meal in the Great Hall. She quickly decided to perform the taming spell on it now then sink into a hot bath when she returned after supper.
Not bothering to use her wand, she pointed a finger at the top of her head and muttered, "docilarius." The stippled mane, shining in the late afternoon sun that streamed though the window was instantly transformed into a sleek, manageable cascade that hung down her back in a ceaseless spill almost to her waist. She nodded at her reflection approvingly, only frowning as she heard the mirror's astonished gasp.
"Where's your wand, young lady?" it asked in a censorious tone.
Eleanora looked at it reproachfully.
"Not you as well," she muttered. "Look, no one is here apart from me an I'm certainly not going to shout it from the battlements that I used wandless magic to straighten my hair now am I?"
She raised her eyebrows at the mirror, daring it to make a argument, and it conceded, "You just be careful my girl. It won't do to let folk see that sort of thing, you mark my words."
Its tone changed hastily to one of maternal concern. "Now, m'dear. Are you going to change your robes?"
"Yes!" Eleanora called already having swept into the bedroom. She flipped open the lid of one case with a well practiced flick of a hand, and stood there, surveying her collection of dress robes.
"Which do you think," she cried into the bathroom, "the black or the crimson?"
"Hmm," came the contemplative reply. "How about the black? Never does to be too showy on first impressions after all." Eleanora twirled her hand and the black velvet robe twirled up out of the case and flew neatly over to bed where it draped itself ready to be shrugged on over her clothes.
She picked it up and appreciatively caressed the sumptuous fabric. She draped it over he shoulders and as an afterthought added a large onyx brooch to fasten the high neck. She paused again in front of the mirror, this time apparently pleased with the reflection. She gazed at the brooch affectionately. It had once belonged to her mother and was all she had by way of a keepsake. Her memories of her mother were hazy and indistinct but she remembered inquisitively fingering the brooch as it adorned her mothers robe, one day in her infancy. Her mother had died when she was eleven, and since then she had been placed under ministry supervision in the absence of another obvious guardian. Her father, whilst loving and generous, was often away on ministry business as he was now, and she was spent much of her teenage years in the care of Cornelius Fudge and his wife Esmeralda.
The couple had no children of their own and Eleanora had come to regard Esmeralda as a sort of mother. Cornelius however was a pompous and haughty man, who regarded Eleanora as a particularly errant child. He despaired of her headstrong ways and had been in the middle of chastising her that very morning when she had stormed from the room, hurriedly packed her bags, said her goodbyes to Esmeralda, promising to keep in touch, and left the Fudge household. The sudden chiming of a near-by clock roused her out of her thoughts and she quickly dispelled her sentimental reminiscences and strode towards the door, then turned on her heel and grabbed her wand from the bed, tucking it into a hidden pocket in the cloak.
"Bye!" she called to the mirror, its reply of "Be good m'dear!" echoing down the hall after her. She spun on her heel and called back before the door clicked shut," If I can't be good, I'll at least be careful!"