~
"Bill, how are we doing with the goblins?" Lupin asked, leaning against the table in the front of the room and looking out at the Order members scattered on various armchairs and couches.
Bill was sitting cross-legged on the arm of Tonks' chair, gazing intently at Eleanora, who was standing right next to Lupin at the front. "Ummm," he said after snapping out of his daze, "I believe we're making progress. Shifty creatures, goblins are, though."
Eleanora looked up from her notebook and as her eyes met Bill's they shared a knowing smile. Bill had been trying to recruit the goblins since the early days of the Order, and the two of them had a lot of running jokes about the miscellaneous answers he received.
"Right then," Lupin said, clearing his throat and looking back and forth between Bill and Eleanora, who both immediately looked down at the floor to keep from laughing out loud. Lupin gave them a teacher-level look of disapproval and then continued on with the meeting. "Deadalus? How's protection going?"
"Very well," Deadalus Diggle said pompously. "Very well. Hestia's visiting in on Potter's aunt and uncle as we speak."
"Good," said Eleanora, recovering and looking up again, careful not to look at Bill. "Tonks, any news from Hogwarts?"
"Things are bad," Tonks said simply, then she leaned forward with some struggle to grab a cookie from the spread on the center table. "Getting worse by the day."
"Fantastic," Fred called from his corner of the room, leaning against the wall next to George with his arms crossed over his chest. "Exactly what we need."
"Shut up, Fred," said Eleanora, going back to scanning her notes. "How's Potterwatch?"
This time, Lee was the one to speak up. He had been lounging in an armchair in front of the twins, feet propped up on the table, but as soon as his radio show was brought up he straightened looked suddenly intent. "We haven't been caught yet, so I'd call it a win," he said more seriously than Eleanora usually saw him. "I've been thinking about getting a little more... risky with it... but I wanted to run it by you guys first."
"What do you mean by risky?" asked Lupin.
"Giving more information, you know? Sort of like... Order meetings but anyone can listen. -Obviously I wouldn't say anything too classified, but what if Harry's listening?" He looked around the room, trying to gauge people's expressions.
Eleanora nodded her head slowly. "I like that idea. We can talk more about it this afternoon- we're doing lunch, right?"
"Yes!" Fred jumped in, "And if you cancel on us again, I'll personally summon the Death Eaters-"
"Fred!" Mrs. Weasley scolded, aghast. "Don't even joke-"
"Thank you, Molly," Lupin said, trying to diffuse the situation before it began. "Now, if there's no more formal business, I think we can adjourn..." He looked at Eleanora for confirmation.
"Yep, sounds good. Everyone okay with adjourning?"
There was a chorus of yes's, and then people started standing up and moseying towards the door, stopping to chat on the way. Eleanora and Lupin turned around to the table behind them, setting their notes down side by side to make sure all of the bases were covered. "Forgot to mention Hestia cancelled on us for patrol duty next week... shit..." Lupin muttered under his breath.
"I'll take it," said Eleanora. "Where?"
"One of the hiding places. You sure?"
"Mhmm." Eleanora paged through her notebook, trying to get rid of the constant feeling that she was forgetting something.
Beside her, Lupin seemed to be having a similar struggle. Finally, he snapped his notebook shut and let out a deep sigh. "I can't get used to him not being here," he said heavily, and Eleanora knew exactly who he was talking about. It had been months since Moody's death, but things still didn't feel right without him.
"He always had things in order," she murmured, shaking her head in wonder.
Lupin let out a somewhat choked laugh. "But he never took any notes."
"The man was a genius."
"Who was?" Tonks asked, making her way towards them. The baby was due in just a few weeks, so she was moving with some difficulty.
Lupin hurried to help her and Bill joined Eleanora, taking Lupin's old spot. "Mad Eye," Lupin said absently, taking Tonks' arm and leaning down to kiss her softly.
Eleanora folded her arms and leaned into Bill's side. He put an arm around her and picked up her notebook with his other hand, flipping to the front, where Eleanora had tucked a page from her last notebook between the cover and the first page. It was written in the code they'd made up before Eleanora left for her first mission. "Dear Bill..." the top read, and below was a short letter about her time in Malfoy Manor. Bill hated reading about how his wife had been tortured in the basement of the Manor, but he understood why she kept the page. It was a reminder of what she'd come from, and what she was fighting against. "How late d'you think you'll be with the twins?" he asked, running his fingers through the tips of Eleanora's hair.
"Dunno. Probably pretty late, you know how they are."
Bill smiled. "Yeah, I know. I think I'm going to eat dinner at Mum's, you want anything?"
"I'm alright," Eleanora murmured, interlacing her fingers with his and looking up at him with adoring eyes. "Want me to bring anything back from Diagon Alley?"
"No, thanks. Should I wait up?"
Eleanora shrugged. "Only if you want to. You look tired, though, you should try and get some sleep."
Bill tilted his head back laughing. "Maybe I would, if you weren't always keeping me up with-"
"Alright, alright, enough!" Lee said, he and the twins striding towards them with bright smiles. "You two are disgusting, come on, El."
Eleanora raised an eyebrow at him, then pulled Bill down to kiss him. "I'll see you later, okay?" she said when the broke apart, her hand still settled on the back of his neck.
"Yeah, you will." Bill winked at her and let her go, watching her leave the room with Lee and the twins, a sunny smile on her face.
When Eleanora, the twins, and Lee were all gathered in the sun-lit apartment the twins shared over Weasley's Wizard Wheezes; snacks at hand and a fire burning in the fireplace, they started planning out the next episode of Potterwatch. "I was thinking about encouraging wizards to put protections on muggle houses in their areas," Lee said thoughtfully. "You know, because the muggles don't even know what's happening right now."
"That's good..." said George, chewing on the end of his quill. "We should have some more guests, too. Those are always fun."
"El?" Fred said, looking up at Eleanora expectantly.
She shook her head. "I'm on duty. What about Bill?"
"Yeah, we could get him," said George. "We could have him talk about international correspondences and getting neutral species on our side."
"No, no," Eleanora said, "We can't have people trying to convince neutral species like goblins. Bill says there's a really tricky way to do it... we can't have just anyone..."
"Well then we can have him talk about that. The right way to talk to neutral parties about the war, I mean," said Lee.
Eleanora nodded. It was odd to go this long with Lee and the twins without cracking a joke, but she also liked seeing them so invested in something. She knew Potterwatch was their way to feel involved in the action of the war, and she was more than willing to help them out.
As the day wore into night, the conversation strayed from the Order and Potterwatch. "I heard from Alicia Spinnet the other day," Lee said, tossing an apple into the air and catching it with ease.
"Really?" Eleanora looked up in interest. "I thought she was in hiding with her family."
"She is." Lee grinned at her, looking immensely proud of himself for being the reason Alicia had broken hiding. "But she wanted to check in on me, see how I was doing."
"Ohhhh," George said with a knowing smile. "Now that's a sure sign."
"So does this mean you'll stop 'moving on' with a new girl every week?" Eleanora asked, one eyebrow raised.
Lee gave a noncommittal laugh. "Oh, come off it, El. We're young! There's a war going on! Not all of us can just get married when we feel like it."
"You're just jealous," Eleanora said with a superior air, swiping the apple from Lee's hand and taking a bite. "
When Eleanora left the twins' apartment late that night after much protest from all three boys about her traveling home alone so late, she was finally feeling a sense of normalcy. The twins and Lee always made her feel young again, like they were all back in the Gryffindor common room discussing classes and what pranks to pull next. It was a nice feeling. She'd considered just spending the night, but she was excited to get home to Bill. She knew he'd try to wait up for her, but he really had been looking more tired lately and Eleanora always worried about him. He'd recovered fully from his illness of the year before, but he'd never fully gained the weight back or the life in his face. She never wanted to see him that sick again.
Eleanora strode quickly up Diagon Alley, planning on stopping at the Three Broomsticks to pick up some food to bring back to Shell Cottage, but before she could get there, a figure jumped out from Knockturn Alley and, forgoing all magic, slammed his elbow into the side of her head. Eleanora crumpled to the ground, half from pain and half from shock. For a split second, she was frozen, unable to react in any way at all.
The figure leapt over her and pulled out his wand, his hood slipping back to reveal mangy brown hair and beady eyes. It was Antonin Dolohov, one of the Death Eaters who had originally tortured her at Malfoy Manor. In the past, Eleanora would've cowered in fear upon seeing one of her old attackers, but she felt stronger now. She'd endured hardships greater than getting jumped by a Death Eater by the time she was eleven years old.
Eleanora snapped out of the daze and whipped her wand out of her pocket, putting up a protection spell just in time. As Dolohov tried to get through it with spells of his own, Eleanora recovered enough to pull herself to her feet. "Stupefy!" The spell was blocked a ricocheted ou of sight.
The duel picked up, one on one for the first time, and Eleanora finally felt like she was at an advantage in a fight. Dolohov seemed to be at the same skill-level as her, maybe even less, and Eleanora managed to hold her ground even with an injured head. She cast spells left and right, defending herself against Dolohov's spells and sending her own flying at him at rapid-fire speed.
Finally, Eleanora noticed that Dolohov seemed to be getting tired. "Locomotor Mortis!" she cried, sending a jet of purple light straight at him, hitting him square in the legs. They seized up and Dolohov toppled over backwards onto the snow. Eleanora let out a triumphant laugh and pushed her hair out her eyes. Her hand came away wet and in the light of the street lamp, she could tell it was blood. She sighed and wiped it away on her jeans, then pulled out the little communicator advice she shared with the rest of the Order. "Got one," she sent out in code, "Diagon. Come quick. Leaving scene." Then, casting one last satisfied look at Dolohov, she turned on her heel and apparated back to Shell Cottage before Lupin sent the aurors to retrieve him.
When she let herself into the house, Bill was sitting in the living room with a book. When he saw Eleanora, he jumped up and hurried over to her. "I saw the message- are you- what happened?"
"It's fine," Eleanora said, wetting a rag and beginning to dab it onto the cut at the top of her head. "Little skirmish."
Bill let out a frustrated sigh and took the rag from Eleanora, gently moving her hair out of the way and helping her wipe the blood away. "That's been happening more often," he said in a dreading voice. "You sure you're alright?"
"I'm okay," Eleanora said softly. "Just got hit pretty hard in the head. Other than that, I won."
"I figured." Bill finished with her injury and set the rag back on the counter, tilting Eleanora's chin up gently with his hand. "You always do."