"Alright, let's get her back on her feet...one...two...three!"

With Fred and George on either side of her and under Grandpa Lyall's direction, Eleanor was hoisted back onto her feet. The sudden rupture of sound of everyone yelling "happy birthday" at her, paired with the shock of seeing everyone gathered had been enough to cause her to trip backwards and fall off the front steps of the house. The household grew silent and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of Eleanor groaning from her fall. Quickly, Fred and George hurried out first to find her lying on her back, trying to catch her breath after the wind had been knocked out of her.

Once back on her feet, Eleanor lightly pressed her hand to her back as she felt the onset of pain. When she looked up, she could see the sea of apologetic faces as her parents made their way over to see if she was okay.

"This reminds me of Remus' surprise seventeenth birthday party," Sirius said to Nixie, loud enough for others to overhear, "the whole Gryffindor tower heard him scream that afternoon."

As he came to stand next to Eleanor, Remus rounded in the direction of his friends. "For the last time, you all jumped out at me from behind the sofa and I backed into the fireplace! You'd scream too if your arse caught on fire!"

"Oh, Remus, you don't have to keep defending yourself," Nixie told him, "Sirius has no room to talk. We all remember what happened on his seventeenth birthday or need I remind everyone of how he- "

Suddenly, Nixie's mouth was covered by Sirius' hand as he glared directly at her.

"You swore! We all swore to never speak of it! We used pinkies!"

She placed her hands up in surrender but as Sirius pulled his hand away, he was met with an innocent grin that he knew was anything but. However, the attention was returned to Eleanor as she made her way back into the house, greeting everyone, even though she had seen the majority of them just a few hours prior. All the adults gave her a hug, wishing her a happy birthday, although, between Molly and Lyall, Eleanor couldn't decide who had given her the strongest hug.

But the real fun began as Lyall led the chorus of "Happy Birthday" a total of seventeen times. Throughout it all, Eleanor's face was reddened with a deep blush as she wasn't really sure what to do with herself as everyone continued to sing around her. She managed to laugh a few times as Fred took her by the hand and started spinning her around. And just when she was starting to grow dizzy the singing came to an end and Fred steadied her back on her feet. As if her face wasn't red enough, she felt as though she was the colour of a tomato when Fred kissed the side of her face before letting her go.

With the promise of opening gifts in a little while, Eleanor was free to move around and interact with everyone, but she didn't even know where to start. She hadn't seen her grandfather in months, and he seemed thrilled to see her, wanting to talk all about her internship with Amelia Bones.

"It's a small world, I tell you," Lyall told her, "I remember when Amelia was just an intern herself at the Ministry. She looked after your father and Nixie when they were little ones whenever they were in the office. You're going to love her, she's tough but she's a sharp woman, you'll learn plenty working under her."

"I hope so," Eleanor said, "I just have to pass the Apparition Test before I can do anything."

"And you'll do so with flying colours," he said, "we can do it tomorrow if you'd like? I'll take you myself."

It sounded like a plan before Lyall shooed her off and told her to enjoy her party. She proceeded to make her way over to where Cedric, Marnie, Fred, and George were waiting patiently, talking among each other. She approached Cedric first, glad to see him up and moving, pulling him into a hug.

"It's good to see you, Queenie."

"Ellie, it's only been a couple of days since I went home," Cedric replied, "and I told you in my last letter that I was doing fine."

"And yet, even when you're supposed to be resting, you still managed to learn of my surprise party? You never cease to surprise me, Queenie. Always one of the first to know about everything."

"Excuse me, but I'll have you know that I was actually the last to know about this surprise party," he said. "Well, last before you. But it was Marnie who told me about it only yesterday."

Eleanor turned to Marnie. "How long did you know about it?! And you had me believe that it was going to be a while before we saw each other!"

"Well, that's the whole point of a surprise party, you dumbarse!" Marnie laughed. "It's supposed to be a surprise. "Come on, Ellie, you're of age now, the baby of the group is finally an adult, we needed to celebrate and go all out. I sent an owl to your mum, and she thought it was a great idea. I got Fred and George to ask their family to come too. It worked out that Nixie and Sirius were already staying here, and I made sure Cedric was up to coming before bringing him over."

"You did this all for me, Marnie?"

"Of course, I did," she said in a softer tone, "you're my best friend and after everything you've done this year for me...for everyone really, it was the least we could do. Now stop getting emotional on me and let's just enjoy this party, alright?"

While everyone seemed to be enjoying the party, whether they were dancing to the music that was being played or talking amongst themselves, it was Remus who sat in the kitchen to himself for a bit. Every so often he would look over in Eleanor's direction watching as she laughed at something the twins said to her or asked Ron to dance, leaving the young Weasley boy to blush furiously. She seemed to be enjoying herself and for that, he was more than thankful but he couldn't ignore what Margaret had told him upon arriving home. She pulled him aside in private and explained that Eleanor had suffered a panic attack on the drive home, exposing her fear that her life was in danger.

Of course, it was clear that Margaret had done a good job at calming her down because it didn't seem to be on Eleanor's mind. However, it had been on Remus' mind since the night he had been summoned to Hogwarts after being told Eleanor had been attacked. It was shocking enough to learn that she had been attacked by Barty Crouch Jr, a Death Eater who had been posing as Alastor Moody with the help of Polyjuice Potions.

Suddenly, all of Eleanor's previous letters where she explained the smell of Fluxweed and Knotgrass made sense, as well as her speculations that Moody was acting quite odd. He mentally kicked himself over and over once everything was revealed, feeling as though he should have pieced together all the clues sooner to prevent anything from happening to his daughter. But it didn't stop there as it was revealed that Eleanor's knitting went above and beyond anything Remus had previously theorized.

The fact that Cedric had survived the Killing Curse due to Eleanor's knitting placed her own life in danger. Dumbledore noted that if word was to get out about her capabilities, Voldemort would more than likely go after her and he was never known to show mercy. But Dumbledore also made it clear that he didn't wish for Eleanor's knitting to cease either, it was powerful enough against the strongest Unforgivable Curse, they couldn't let that go to waste.

Old members of the Order of the Phoenix were being summoned from all over, a fight was going to eventually come, and Dumbledore hoped that with Eleanor's addition, there would be fewer casualties this time around.

"Stop thinking about it," Lyall's voice interrupted his thoughts, paired with a cuff behind the head, "now is not the time, Remus."

"Is there a better time to think about it?" Remus huffed, rubbing the spot before looking up at his father.

"Yes, after your daughter's birthday party. You heard what Maggie said, the poor dear is already spooked by all of this. She has it in her head that she's in danger, if she looks in here and sees you like this you think that's going to put her mind at ease? For Merlin's sake, Remus, I thought you had a bit more sense than this!"

"Well, she is potentially in danger," Remus whispered harshly, "Dumbledore said it himself-"

"I don't give a damn what Dumbledore said!" Lyall argued. "It is her birthday party, a special one at that! We've missed out on so many birthdays with her before, we need to make these the best ones she'll remember for years to come! So, here's what you're going to do, you're going to stop sitting in here with that face of yours, you're going to put on the best reassuring smile, and you're going to go out there and pretend everything is alright for her sake. Because that's what you're supposed to do as a parent. Even if the entire world has gone to shit, she's supposed to look and you and feel like everything is okay! Do you understand me?"

There was a moment of silence between the two Lupins and the look on Lyall's face said it all, if Remus dared to argue with him at that moment, he would not win.

"Yeah, I hear you, Dad," Remus sighed finally, "I get it."

Picking himself up from his chair, Remus did as he was told, forcing a smile to his lips as he ventured out to the party scene once more. He found Eleanor settled on the sofa, talking with Nixie.

"So, Grandpa was telling me that you and Dad knew Amelia Bones growing up..."

"Yes, we did," Nixie said, "We met her one morning when our fathers took us in for one of those "bring your children into work" days. They ended up getting called onto a case together, I think it was a poltergeist harassing a herd of centaurs. My father was a talented magical linguist and of course, your grandfather's speciality was non-human spirituous apparitions. So, once they were called out, they left us with Amelia for the day. She's great, very fair, and just, takes no nonsense from anyone. I wasn't surprised at all to learn she became Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Eleanor smiled before leaning in to whisper. "Back to you knowing Dad while he was in school, did he really get into trouble a lot?"

"Well, if I'm being completely honest, Ellie, he didn't get into trouble as often as he should have," she laughed. "He was a lot sneakier than the others; he was able to get out of detentions because he didn't get caught as much as James and Mr Black."

From where Remus stood, he noticed how Nixie didn't dare to mention Peter's name, more than likely because it was still a very sensitive subject and Sirius was standing close by.

"You were friends with all of them then?"

"Initially, no," Nixie said with a shake of her head. "Your father and I became fast friends. Got our Hogwarts letters together, sat on the Hogwarts Express together, and once we were sorted into Gryffindor, we were practically inseparable. When it came to the others, it took a bit of warming up. They were nothing but trouble and always doing something they weren't supposed to be doing."

"So, what made you become friends with them eventually?"

"Despite all the chaos and trouble, they caused, they were and still are some of the most caring people I've ever come to know, Ellie."

When it came time to open presents, Eleanor sat between Margaret and Remus as one by one gifts were handed to her. She could only laugh to herself when most of her presents turned out to be knitting supplies. The Weasley family had come together and supplied her with enough yarn that she figured would last her for years. Her mother and father gifted her with patterns for all sorts of new projects she could try. Grandpa Lyall gave her blocking mats and a wrist ruler and while Eleanor was thrilled to receive so many supplies, as her eyes scanned over the room and spotted Cedric standing next to Marnie, she couldn't help but feel a lump in her throat develop.

She had tried so hard to put thoughts about her knitting's abilities out of her mind for the evening, but it suddenly came flooding back in full force to tie her stomach in knots. Quickly, Eleanor thanked everyone for the gifts before placing them aside in her knitting basket.

Fred seemed to be the only one who noticed the flicker of discomfort on his girlfriend's expression, bringing him to abruptly ask when they were due to have some cake. It earned a scolding from his mother for being rude, but it got the job done as Margaret invited everyone to the kitchen to get a slice of cake. Eleanor took the opportunity to slip outside and get some fresh air with Fred following behind her. They came to stand on the front steps with Eleanor looking out at the field in front of her house. He could only assume that she was growing sick and tired of people asking if she was okay, so he decided against it.

"My mum dyed that yarn," he said, bringing Eleanor to look over her shoulder at him, "she's pretty good at it even without magic. She thought you might like the gradient yarn, whatever that means."

"It means that the yarn fades from one colour to another and she was right, I do like it a lot. It makes beautiful patterns, especially with socks. I liked all of my gifts and this party; it means a lot to me. I'm glad you could make it."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world, Ellie. But had I known that you'd go flying off the steps, I would have suggested not yelling. Although I'll admit, it was funny."

Eleanor lifted a brow in his direction as she tilted her head slightly. "Oh really, you found it funny?"

"Just a little," he said, holding his fingers shortly apart.

"Fred Weasley," she took a step towards him, causing him to back away, "how...wait! Fred, stop!"

It was too late, in attempts to escape Eleanor's "wrath" Fred failed to realise how close he had been standing to the steps and ended up toppling backwards. Similar to how Eleanor landed, he found himself staring up at the night sky for a few seconds in a complete daze. A few seconds later, Eleanor was peering down at him and seeing that he was fine, a smile formed on her lips.

"You're right, it is a little funny."

"Oh, you think so?"

He suddenly scrambled to his feet causing Eleanor to squeal before she took off running with Fred chasing behind her. She thought she had a good head start away from him; however, she was quickly outsmarted as she turned around and noticed that he was no longer chasing her. Frozen in place, Eleanor thought maybe he was hurt and thought about going back to see if Fred was okay, but before she could there was the sound of a small popping noise from behind. Suddenly, she was grabbed as Fred's arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her into him.

"No fair! That's cheating!" she laughed as he proceeded to tickle her. "I can't apparate yet!"

"That sounds like a you problem," Fred countered, "and it's not cheating just because you can't do it! It's called an advantage!"

"Sounds like cheating to me," Eleanor said stubbornly as she reached back and tickled his sides. Fred let out a screech as he tried to get away but before he could say anything Eleanor had already locked him into a kiss. He went to wrap his arms around her again to bring her closer but as soon as he did, Eleanor's lips left his. Fred opened his eyes to see the cheeky grin.

"And that's not considered cheating?"

"I think it's called an advantage."