Eleanor Branstone

OOC

Game	Journal	Portrayed By
The Professors' Lounge	ellie_cooks	Shiri Appleby

Basic Stats

Full Name: Eleanor Sara Branstone
Nickname(s): Ellie
Gender: Female
Age: 26
Date of Birth: April 26, 1983
Zodiac: Taurus
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Single
Bloodline: Halfblood
Hometown: London, England
Current Residence: Rose Cottage, Scottish Highlands
House & Year: Hufflepuff 2001
Occupation: Cook: Remus Lupin Academy of Magical Education
Wand: 10 in, maple, unicorn hair
Pet: Golden retriever (Trouble)

Family

Father: Eniale Branstone (wizard; Hufflepuff 1980; co-owner of CC Bakery)
Mother: Helana Branstone (née Cichewicz; witch; Hufflepuff 1980; co-owner of CC Bakery)
Brother: Gabriel Branstone (wizard; Gryffindor 2002)
Brother: Leon Branstone (wizard; Gryffindor 2002)

Paternal Grandfather: Alberto Branstone (wizard)
Maternal Grandmother: Gloria Branstone (née Acardi; witch)

Maternal Grandfather: Bernard Cichewicz (muggle)
Maternal Grandmother: Marta Cichewicz (née Chlebek; muggle)
Uncle: Harvey Cichewicz (wizard; Hufflepuff 1980)

History

In September of 1939, Aron and Marcelina Cichewicz fled their home in Poland as the Germans were invading, bringing their six-year-old son Bernard with them. They hid with distant relatives in London, afraid to even attempt contact with family and friends who were still in Poland, for fear of the Nazis. The relatives also had another family hiding with them, the Chlebek family: David and Gracja Chlebek with their five-year-old daughter, Marta. Bernard and Marta grew up together, often only having each other to play with. In 1943, David and Aron started a bakery (CC Bakery, for Chlebek and Cichewicz) together in their small neighbourhood. The families also began arranging for a marriage between Bernard and Marta, although they were only ten and nine (respectively) at the time, so that the bakery would stay wholly in the family. Bernard and Marta were agreeable to the match and on 18 July, 1954, when they were 21 and 20, they were married.

After several miscarriages, they finally welcomed twins Helana and Harvey into the world on 14 December, 1961. The twins were brought up in and around the bakery, with the expectation that Harvey, the elder of the two by a half hour, would take over the bakery when he came of age, and that Helana would make a marriage that would benefit the bakery. All that changed in the summer of 1973, when the twins were eleven. An owl arrived bearing two letters. The letters proclaimed Helana and Harvey to be a witch and wizard, and invited them to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Bernard and Marta were rightfully skeptical, but when a professor from the school came to the bakery and explained things to the family, they reluctantly agreed that the school would be the best place for the twins, so they scrounged up the money to buy used sets of robes and supplies for Helana and Harvey. On 1 September, 1973, the twins boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

When Helana and Harvey arrived at Hogwarts on 1 September, 1973, Harvey was sorted first and ended up in Hufflepuff. When the hat was placed upon Helana's head, she begged it to put her in Hufflepuff with her brother. The hat agreed that Hufflepuff was indeed the best fit for her, and so off she scampered to sit next to Harvey at the yellow-and-black table. Helana loves the Hufflepuff common room, feeling like she's closer to the earth and plants with it than the Gryffindors or Ravenclaws must, with them being up in those tall, scary towers. Although she missed home, Helana came to love Hufflepuff as a second-home, particularly after she found that the kitchens were right nearby.

It was at Hogwarts that Helana met Eniale Branstone, a halfblood wizard who was roommates with Harvey. Eniale's life had been a lot different than Helana and Harvey's had been: he had grown up in the wizarding world, so he regaled the twins with all sorts of stories about growing up with magic and all the things you could do with magic. They also traded stories: Helana and Harvey telling Eniale about all the muggle fairy tales that they knew, and Eniale sharing with the twins the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Eniale became a close friend to both Helana and Harvey, and in their sixth year, Eniale and Helana began dating.

When the three finished Hogwarts in June, 1980, in the midst of the war, they retreated home to the CC Bakery, where Harvey began learning how to take over the business, and Helana spent most of her time, when not with Eniale, in the kitchen with her family, learning all the secret family recipies. In the summer of 1982, Eniale and Helana got married, and Eniale was welcomed into the Cichewicz family like another son, and he was invited to help take over the bakery with Harvey and Helana.

In April of 1983, Eniale and Helana's first child, a daughter they named Eleanor, was born. She was followed just over a year later by twins Gabriel and Leon. As their mother and uncle had, Eleanor, Gabriel, and Leon grew up in and around the CC Bakery. Unlike Helana and Harvey, though, they grew up knowing about Hogwarts and expecting to attend. Eleanor in particular was excited about Hogwarts; she was desperate to be sorted into Hufflepuff, like her parents and uncle. Even from a young age, she was taking after her mother, cultivating a deep love for the kitchen. Sure enough, on 1 September, 1994, as the Sorting Hat was placed upon her head, it called out Hufflepuff for her, and Eleanor happily joined the very table that her parents and uncle had first sat at twenty-one years before.

In her first letter home, Eleanor (or Ellie, as she preferred to go by) was positively glowing with the news of her new home in Hufflepuff, and that quidditch wasn't going to be happening that year because of some big event that would be starting in October, and everyone was wondering what it was going to be. She added that she had followed her mum's directions and found the entrance to the Hogwarts kitchen, and she was positively tickled pink about it. In all, it seemed as though Hogwarts would be a wonderful experience for Eleanor.

But then, at the end of the year, the Tri-Wizard Tournament (the event that had everyone so excited at the beginning of the year) ended tragically in the death of Cedric Diggory, an older boy in Eleanor's house. Ellie was really upset by it, and Helana and Eniale spent hours debating whether to send Ellie back the following September, thinking about maybe home-schooling the three kids instead. Ultimately, though, they decided to go ahead and send the kids back to Hogwarts. As the new batch of first years were being sorted, Ellie was hoping for her brothers to be sorted into Hufflepuff, but instead, they were both sorted into Gryffindor. Although she was sad that they weren't in the same house as her, she was happy that they were at least together, and they seemed happy to be in Gryffindor.

Ellie didn't mind the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher too much, though she thought she seemed really strict. For Ellie, at least, the year passed without too much of particular note. Ellie and her brothers both flew more or less under the radar of Professor Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad. Likewise, her third year passed seemingly well, though naturally there was concern about her family back in London, but the whole family flew under the radar. The biggest, most shocking event, stunned the whole family, though: the death of Albus Dumbledore and the battle at Hogwarts. Ellie and the twins were distraught, and Helana and Eniale began seriously considering keeping the kids home the following year. However, all children of magical birth were ordered to attend Hogwarts that year, and Eniale had just enough magical lineage to save Eleanor, Gabriel, and Leon from the stigma of being "muggleborn." They were still on the low end of the totem pole at Hogwarts, but they were saved having to run and hide, or be thrown into Azkaban, like their muggleborn friends. Helana and Harvey left the country, to stay with relatives who had stayed in Poland during World War II, and Eniale was ready to take the children and join them if anything happened.

Luckily, the Branstones kept their heads down, and although they were treated poorly by the Carrows and the purists, there were some older students in both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor who helped them, and that was how Ellie first really found out about the DA and the Room of Requirement. They didn't take part in the battle; Ellie, Gabriel, and Leon all joined the other kids who were smuggled out of the school through the Room of Requirement and into the Hog's Head. An older student helped them contact their father, and Eniale took them to Poland to join their mother and uncle, while they waited for word on what happened. There was celebration when they got word that Voldemort was gone, for good this time, and they returned to their home and the CC Bakery in London.

That September, Eleanor and the twins returned to Hogwarts, and though they had the option to repeat the previous year, they all opted to continue on with their fifth and fourth year, respectively. Hogwarts no longer held the wide-eyed intrigue that it had for Eleanor at the beginning, and there were so many bad memories, particularly of the previous year, that she just didn't want to stay there any longer than she had to. Eleanor's last three years passed much more smoothly than her first four had, and after finishing in 2001, she decided to travel. She still loved cooking, and she wanted to branch out. She started by returning to Poland, staying with the same relatives that her mother and uncle had during that dark year, and earning her keep by studying under a great chef in the area. After a year and a half there, she decided to travel some more, and ended up spending time in France, Italy, and Switzerland, working with great chefs in all three countries, before returning to England in early 2005.

Eleanor still had no idea what she really wanted to do with her life. She knew that she wanted to cook, but she wasn't sure where, exactly, she wanted to do that, if she wanted to stay at the Bakery with her family, start her own restaurant, or what. After hearing about the new school that would be opening that year, the Remus Lupin Academy of Magical Education, and that they were still hiring professors and staff, Eleanor decided to apply for a job there as a cook, remembering her fond memories of the Hogwarts kitchen, and of sharing with her friends the baked goods from the care packages that her mum sent every week. She got the job, and has been working at the school ever since. At first, she still lived near the CC Bakery with her parents, but once she had the money saved up, she bought herself a small cottage in the Scottish Highlands, though she still visits and floo-calls her parents often, and she frequently goes home to the family bakery on Sundays to help out.