Authors Note: Probably the longest time I've gone between chapters… hope people will still read! Not that I'm using it as an excuse but just FYI to readers: I'm currently 39 weeks pregnant (I don't think I've actually updated my entire pregnancy which means it's been nine months!) and waiting for my little son or daughter to be born any day now. In the meantime I'm currently writing the next chapter, so fingers crossed I get around to publishing that too. Thank you so much for all the reviews and favourites I've received in the meantime - all of them mean a lot to me. Thank you.

Let's get to it.

The Pureblood Prince

Chapter 41

Welcome Home

It was dark when the Knight Bus came to a violent stop outside Diagon Alley. Eileen was somewhat thankful that another woman followed her off at this stop, for she had forgotten how to enter from the Muggle street. She stepped off the bus and halted in her tracks to allow the witch to move on by; she turned and gave a half-quizzical stare, but upon seeing the state of Eileen's clothes and face it transformed into a more softer, pitying gaze.

Eileen followed the woman across the street and through an entrance between a Muggle book and record shop. And it was this that turned out to be her very ordinary welcome home party back into the wizarding world. The two women arrived through the entrance and into a dingy pub; a pub Eileen vaguely remembered from years ago. It was not like coming home to an old friend… the people here were staring at her with looks of extreme unease. She needed to find a bathroom. That was her first necessity amongst a long list of others…

"Drink, love?" the barman asked with trepidation as she approached the bar.

Drink. I want to bottle all of the damned stuff and harpoon it into the sun…

"Where might I find a toilet?" Eileen queried without acknowledging his question.

This time the barman stopped and had a better look at her… well, the best look of her he could in this dimmed lamplight.

"You need St. Mungo's – not a toilet, my dear."

Upon her continued, exasperated stare, he added: "up the stairs, to your right. Do y'want me to send an owl to the hospital at least?"

She didn't bother answering him. She turned and headed up the stairs.

"You silly cow…" she murmured to herself as she finally caught a look at herself in her reflection. She could have very well have been caught up in an epic battle with several Death Eaters for all anyone knew… With no wand to fix herself up and no intentions of going to a wizard-run hospital for help, she resorted to spending the next fifteen minutes furiously scrubbing her face with wet toilet paper; the occasional witch would come and go, but no-one stopped to help… sadly, she was not all that surprised. Now where to sleep? She supposed she could enquire about a room here.

"All full I'm afraid," was the man at the bars answer upon her request when she had finished up in the toilet. "We do have some folk checkin' out tomorrow though if you need a room for more than a night?"

"Right," Eileen said with a nod. She then realised that she had no money to pay for the room anyway, so with a sigh she continued, "never mind. Thanks."

Desiring very much so to get out of the pub anyway, she made her way onto the cobblestoned Diagon Alley, where she merely wandered aimlessly, one boot slowly in front the other, not particularly sure of her destination. She kept her head down so she didn't create too much of a spectacle of herself. The rain that was originally bearable was slowly starting to disturb the moderately large gathering of people that crowded the North Side alleyway. Slowly everyone began to disassemble into various nooks and crannies. Eileen decided she may as well take a gander in Flourish and Blotts… no point being bruised, bloodied and wet.

The manager did not look all too happy with the amount of soggy people flicking through his books nonchalantly, with no intention of buying. As she was the only one looking at him and not at a page, their eyes met from across a pile of books that were curiously spouting puffs of sparkly pink smoke from their pages. His inquisitive gaze lingered for a while – Eileen assumed she had not cleaned up as much of her face as she would have liked – and then he had vanished behind the counter in a flurry. Eileen frowned. Usually, she would have shrugged something like this off and continued her business; but after all that had happened, numerous thoughts and worries began swirling through her head. Someone might've got wind of what had happened at Spinner's End… and even though she was fairly certain that she had done nothing that would place her in any danger of breaking magical law – she felt condemned as a fugitive.

Pushing past the hoards of cloaked figures that crowded and deafened the bookstore, Eileen hastily made her way back out onto the alleyway, it was much easier to move and breathe here now that it had gone from sprinkling to pouring. With a clear destination now in her mind, it felt much easier to walk with her head up.

"Oi, Ma'am!"

The call could have been for someone else, she was under no obligation to turn around.

"Ma'am! Stop!"

This time, the caller had made the grave mistake of grasping her arm. Eileen quickly removed her already rather sore limb away from him before he had chance of seizing it any harder. "Get off me! I didn't permit you to touch me!" she snapped as she faced him. It was the very same bookkeeper from Flourish and Blotts, and he seemed quite taken aback from her outburst.

"Oh, er, sorry. Just wanted to catch up to you is all, Ma'am… could you follow me back into the shop for a few minutes? Only it's pissing down out here…" he raised his cloak to cover his head.

"And why would you ask me such a thing?" she queried with her arm still up in the air. "Pretty persuasive spruiker, aren't you?"

"Huh? Oh no, I don't want to sell you anything, it's just… someone was looking for you, I think. You fit the description at least."

"Description?" That all sounded rather official. She'd rather not get involved with that…

"Look, just come back out of the rain – you're soaked and shivering, look at you!"

"That is no concern of yours," Eileen barked, trying not to pay any attention to her long sopping hair that was currently fashioning a miniature waterfall down her back and sides. "I will be on my way now, thanks." She turned and tried to make her escape as fast as possible, despite the objections from the bookkeeper - now further and further behind her.

"Leenie?"

Now that second voice made her stop in her tracks. She hadn't been addressed by that nickname since… she couldn't even remember.

"Rubeus…" she whispered before turning to face her second caller. When both their black eyes met, she saw an instant change in his. It was full of heartbreak.

"Oh Leenie…" he whimpered. "What's happened to yeh?"

And just the act of someone asking, of being genuinely upset for her, opened up the floodgates, which had been bursting at the seams since she had left her shattered home. Eileen put a hand over her mouth to stop them from hearing her whimpers, Hagrid was already halfway to her when she fell on all fours.

"Come 'ere…" the size of him compared to Eileen quickly sheltered her from both the rain and peering eyes from out of the shop windows. He helped her stand and wrapped his monstrous fur coat around her. "Thanks for yeh help, Gus. Get outta the rain…" – the shop owner needed no further incentive than that.

Together, Hagrid and Eileen stumbled onward, back into the Leaky Cauldron and into warmth again. The bar area was almost deserted when Hagrid made his way over to the fireplace.

"I don't want to go back there," Eileen finally piped up from his coat.

"I ain't taking yeh back to Hogwarts Leenie…" he reassured. "There's a room in Hogsmeade fer yeh. I promise no one will bother yeh unless yeh want 'em to. Alright?"

Eileen remained silent in her approval. She really had no other option, and this was as best an option as any. Hagrid threw the powder into the fireplace and placed them both inside – commanding "the Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade!" as he did so.

When they were safely inside one of the private rooms at the inn, barely a word spoken between them, Eileen went straight into the bath while Hagrid waited outside. She could not bear to look at herself in the mirror both before and after she had scrubbed off all of the remaining dried blood and dirt from her hair. The bruises and dark circles under her bloodshot eyes were still as evident as ever when she walked past her reflection to fetch a towel. Her clothes, which she had haphazardly thrown into her little rucksack along with her old lone Potions book, were slightly damp from the rain, but it was a right side warmer than what she previously had been wearing. She had no choice in the matter, really. She threw on a thin black sweater and a long black skirt and thought that would do for now… still looked like a Muggle, though.

Hagrid was sitting patiently in an armchair by the crackling fireplace when she finally emerged. His gaze was still a pained one, as if he had expected that she could wash everything off with soap and water and look like the same person she did when they were at school together.

"How… how yeh feeling now?" he enquired.

Eileen took a seat at the end of the bed, tucking her wet hair behind her ear. "Warmer..." she replied.

Hagrid nodded; as if it had been the best he had hoped for in such circumstances.

"Yeh can stay here as long as yeh want, just so's yeh know," he reassured, leaning forward in his chair which creaked underneath the pressure. "It's bought n' paid for by the school. Dumbledore thought it were-"

"Dumbledore?" she quickly chimed in. "So Dumbledore's behind this manhunt, or womanhunt as it were, is he?"

"Womanhunt? No! He just heard about yeh… struggle. He was worried."

"Well that's lovely of him, taking such an interest in my home life," she sneered. "And I don't suppose you know how he found out about what had happened inside the walls of my own house?"

But then, forgoing her previously darkening attitude toward the entire plot, another more hopeful thought struck her.

"Did Severus speak to him? Is he at Hogwarts with Dumbledore?"

Hagrid bit his lip and hesitated for a few seconds before answering. "… No. He ain't there. And we wanna find him as much as you do, we really do."

And there it was. Her heart sank back into the ground. "I doubt that somehow."

"Sorry," Hagrid replied. "I didn' mean that. I mean I'm sure yer worried sick about him… yeh wouldn't happen teh have - ?" but apparently upon further thought, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Never mind. I think yeh need a good sleep more than anything at the moment."

I need you to stay with me more than anything at the moment, her insides were crying. I can't be here alone and be expected to sleep.

She stayed silent and watched him draw the curtains. Now there was only a shred of light from the lamppost outside glimmering in over the bed.

"Yeh have a nice rest now, Leenie, it's been a terrible day for yeh," Hagrid said gently. "I'll come back in the morning and then we can talk about things…"

Before his unsettled hand had reached the doorknob, Eileen decided to pluck up the courage to ask: "Stay with me?"

Hagrid's hand immediately dropped and he turned to look at her distraught face.

"Yeh don't wanna be alone?"

"No. I don't."

Hagrid appeared somewhat hesitant, but nonetheless complied with her request. He pulled a few objects out from his coat and placed them onto the table, Eileen was barely paying attention but something caught her eye.

"You kept the umbrella," she croaked.

Hagrid looked down at the pink-clad object that he had just hooked around the back of the chair. "Yeah…" he replied. " but o'course I did. It was a present from you. Kept the note you left on it n' all too."

Eileen could no longer see the umbrella, she couldn't see anything much. She cursed her eyes. She had shed enough tears today.

"You mawkish fool," she rasped, wiping her red-raw face.

"Leenie, I'm sorry!" Hagrid apologised for absolutely no reason. He came over and sat on the other side of the bed where she had curled up. The springs squashed themselves so deeply that she almost had to clutch onto the table to stop herself from rolling into him.

"I didn't mean to make yeh sad!"

"You couldn't make me sad if you tried," she replied. "Just… come here… please."

" 'kay…"

The silent tears continued to flow as she felt the biggest, warmest pair of arms wrap themselves around her frail body. She curled up even tighter and let the weight of her old friend take her completely.

"Don't yeh be worrying," Hagrid whispered gently. "I'll make sure no-one hurts yeh. Sleep."

And after one of the worst days in her life – it came surprisingly easy with such company…