#eleanorgreengrass

Ashling both loved and hated the parties her parents constantly attended. She loved the wonderful dresses she always wore, and the way her mum would always help her with her make up to make sure she looked pretty enough. Sometimes she even helped her with her hair if she asked in just the right way. She just wished that she could’ve brought one of her friends from school along...and that everything around her didn’t always seem so breakable. 

The sophistication in the air seem to hang like the various glass chandeliers throughout the house. It always set her a bit on edge, worrying to bits about acting improperly. One wrong word, unwatched step, or messy bite of food could muck up her parents already struggling reputation. She didn’t understand at all why her parents were so infatuated with blood purity or how it ‘tarnished’ the Macmillan family name, but she would do her best to be exactly the way her parents wanted in these moments. She just wanted to make them happy, after all.

She set her empty glass in what she hoped was a safe space and looked around at the party going on around her. Everyone seemed to be already engaged in conversation. She walked slowly through the many circles of people, careful to be as courteous as possible as she did so. Everything was so grand and eloquent, and she just...wasn’t. It was all she knew, and it all still seemed so foreign to her.  As she reached the opposite end of the room, she began to look for a place to settle out of the eyes of others. She didn’t want to bother anyone by cutting into their circle, and at least if she kept quiet she couldn’t say something inappropriate. She let her eyes wander around the far end of the room, taking in the beauty of the space when she noticed a girl in the corner across from hers. She was dark haired and seemed to be a bit younger than her. She was alone and...and she was crying. 

Severus raised an eyebrow, a snort punctuating the dull rumble of the party around them.  “You have an interest in her?  Well, I highly suggest you think twice before going after her.  She happens to be married with a little one on the way.  So unless your a pompous Frenchman named Greengrass, I advise you move along.”  Severus eyed the may up and down, a smirk on his face.  “Besides, she prefers her men to have some sort of grooming, and by the looks of you now, she’d shoot you down before you got a word out of your greasy mouth.”  

@eleanorgreengrass said:  🔪 for the eulogy my muse would give for yours.

(Slightly AU because of reasons)

"All of you are here today to remember the life of Mrs. Eleanor Greengrass.  The number of us here is a testament to how much good she has given the world.  I don’t know why she wanted me to speak here, but it was included in her will.  Perhaps her last way of attempting to annoy me I suppose.  But, for her, I’ll give it my best effort.”

“I had the opportunity to know Ellie for quite some time.  At first through her brother Evan, but soon as the beautiful woman who came to be an important part of my life.  I have always felt as if she included me into her family, though the difference in our standing and my distaste for some of those she kept in her company.“

“Ellie was a bright spark that will be missed by all of us.  The world is darker, knowing she isn’t in it.  Ellie... gave me hope there was something worth fighting for, something that deserved to be protected and preserved.  She... she was brilliant.”  

5 September 1978

Today was another pointless day in the potions shop.  It’s a wonder I even keep writing in this blasted thing.  It’s not as if my day-to-day life, other than the missions I suppose, is anything worthy of remembering.  Just one pointless day after another at the shop.  

I did get a letter from Eleanor, though.  Merlin, I don’t know why she still bothers with Elis, the annoying french prick. She wrote to tell me that they found out she was having a boy.  That’s good I suppose, for both of them.  Producing a male heir is one of the most important things a pureblood couple can do.  That and not bringing shame upon the family name.  

I would say I’m glad Ellie is having a child.  If anyone deserves a bit of happiness, it’s her.  Often times I think of her as the embodiment of everything we are trying to protect here.  She is kind, compassionate.  A fiery personality, and a bit of softness.  She’s the reason we’re fighting, to create a better future for people like her.

At least, that’s why we’re supposed to be fighting.  Most of the time I’m not really sure.  

eleanorgreengrass said: 📷 for what my muse would say to the paparazzi about yours

Alastor Moody was a man who could fall asleep anywhere, anytime, if he put his mind to it.  If he decided it was time to get his rest--really decided--then that was it. So much the better if he was already fucking exhausted. 

Moody had been that tired the night before. He had been too tired to even make it to his bed before passing out, lying lengthwise on his couch.  He had thought to look over some files before bed, but his body had decided otherwise. He had fallen asleep with papers on his chest, and his shoes still on. 

When he woke, it was to gentle fingers running through his hair. As eyes blinked blearily open, he looked up into a pale face surrounded by dark hair. He shifted, realizing his head was not resting on the couch, but in the woman’s lap. 

He smiled, and closed his eyes again, enjoying the sensation of her fingers on his head. 

“What are you doing here?” he yawned. 

“You said you’d owl when you got off work,” she replied, her tone gentle, but with a hint of reproach. 

“It was late,” he explained, opening his eyes to look up at her. And, if he were truthful, he had forgotten, too tired to think of much else besides getting home.  Besides, he didn’t want to be so conspicuous. And Eleanor receiving an owl in the middle of the night would draw attention. 

“I was worried,” she told him sternly, tapping him on the nose with a finger. 

He caught her wrist and placed a kiss to it before letting her hand come to rest on his chest. 

“No need to come check on me.” 

“I know. But I did anyway.”

The Black Family Tree reached onward and upward, spreading its branches into nearly every line of the Sacred Twenty-eight families. Marriages, in Walburga’s mind, were not about love-- not when you were a pureblood. Of course, if love should bloom from the arrangements, then the young couple could consider it a bonus; however, all newlyweds recognized the precariousness of their situation until they produced heirs. 

Much to Walburga’s shame, none of the younger generation of the direct Black line had added to the family. With Bellatrix serving as the Dark Lord’s right hand, and Narcissa--well, Walburga wasn’t exactly sure of Narcissa’s excuse-- childless, and Regulus too young to marry yet, Walburga’s dynasty seemed to be crumbling before her eyes. 

Until she heard of Eleanor Greengrass’s pregnancy. Although Eleanor was not directly related, Walburga considered her part of the Black family, especially as she had proven herself a fertile, proper pureblood lady. With her honorary niece preparing to continue the duties of a true lady and taking up the mantle of motherhood, Walburga had thought it her duty to invite the girl to Grimmauld Place and do the same thing that her mother had once done: pass out as much motherly advice that Eleanor could handle. 

Although normally Walburga would allow Kreacher to escort the young lady into the drawing room, her eagerness to expand the Black morals and traditions to a new generation overcoming her propriety. As soon as she heard a knock at the door, she opened it widely, a rare half smile on her lips. 

“Welcome, niece.”

“Calm down, Cissa, you’re safe here.” Narcissa heard her cousin’s voice but didn’t quite recognise it straight away through the heaviness of waking after a deep sleep. Full of the nightmares that had come back again and wouldn’t go away. 

It wasn’t until she opened her eyes that she recognised the soft face of her cousin. So pretty, so graceful. Like Narcissa. They were kindred spirits. They had grown up and gone through a war together so why didn’t Ellie look like she was falling apart like Cissa did from time to time? Never in company, if she could help it, but she couldn’t always help it. Not when she was asleep and all her defences were down.

Narcissa raised her hand to cover her eyes. “I know,” she mumbled. “I know I am it was- it was just a dream. Just a memory, I know that.”

She is everything we both should be. She has the light that isn’t in me.

Severus looked down, parchment from years ago, already turning a faint yellow and edges becoming worn.  He hadn’t written her much, mostly during summers.  It had been a way to pass the time when he was suffering at home, and a way to keep her updated on things after she had left.  They had lost touch since she had graduated, the letters becoming less frequent between the two of them.  

“I wish I could say the same…”  It touched him in a strange way, that she had kept them all over the years.  His fingers ran over the pages, the parchment rough and dry to the touch.  “Why on earth have you kept them all these years?”