September 28th, 1888 - Earth Magic Classroom after walking from the Great Hall...

…Woopy found his spot and watched as she spoke. Unblinking, unwavering, and entirely unfazed by her threats. If anything, he found himself willing her to make him as hard as a rock. He watched as the next moments continued and she taught her class. He hadn’t really done much work: - he was far too interested in watching her wave her wand around.

As soon as the class was over and the students left, Woopy apparated directly in front of her and smiled widely.

“You teach so good!” Woopy exclaimed loudly, “Woopy think you teach him things, too!”

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For a brief moment, just long enough for the class to be taught, Ellie had forgotten about Woopy. She had gotten lost in her teachings, as she loved to do, and all else had faded away. They were talking about the hardening charm, one that could turn plants into a substance almost as hard as stone. It was a particular favorite of hers and she grew very enthusiastic about it, demonstrating time and time again, correcting each student's attempts individually instead of calling them out and telling them what they were doing wrong in front of the class. She felt it was rather humiliating and since she had been taught that way, she had vowed when she started at Hogwarts not to do that to her own students.

But as the last student filed out, Woopy appeared right in front of her. Since he wasn't clinging to her--yet-- she was slightly more inclined to not want to shove him out of her room and lock the door. Not that it would matter, since house elves were the only creatures in the castle that could apparate in the vicinity but it would give her peace of mind for a few moments.

"Really, Woopy?" she sighed, "What did I teach you?"

  

What did she teach him?
He pondered on that for a moment and found himself coming to a standstill.
She hadn’t taught him anything really. When it came down to it.
She had taught him nothing that he did not already know.

And then he surmised and supposed in his ever-wise Woopy wisdom, she had taught him everything that he needed to know.

“That you and Woopy are great together!” He exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air and allowing a wide beaming smile to take a prominent place on his expression, “You teach Woopy that you love him! And Woopy love you! And that Woopy need-” His eyes widened as he realised he hadn’t bought her a gift today!

“You need present!” And with that Woopy blinked a very determined and deliberate blink which caused a half-dead lily pad from the courtyard to fall onto the desk.

“I think it as pretty as you!” And there was some truth in that, really.

He liked half-dead things. She did remind him of dead frogs, after all.

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Ellie watched as Woopy's brain churned and then a realization hit her, she had stumped him! She had made him think. Apparently it wasn't something he did very often because as he thought, his eyes brightened and instead of talking to her about the lesson she'd taught he blathered on about how she belonged with him. No. No she did not.

And she most definitely did not need a present. But before she could say anything, Woopy had brought a lily pad into her classroom and onto. Her. Desk. A strangled yelp escaped her chest and Ellie's hands fluttered in front of her. "Bad Woopy! No! That's not okay! I have papers there!!" Rushing to it, she yanked the half-dead plant off her desk and flung it into a corner. Her mind raced for a spell that would dry the papers before they got too ruined. Then she remembered the hot air charm and cast it immediately, pointing her wand at the papers and wincing at the smudged ink. She would be struggling to read her students' papers this afternoon.

Pointing at the lily pad in the corner, Eleanor glared at Woopy. "Take that outside. It is not a present and it doesn't belong in my classroom!"

  

Heartbroken and absolutely mortified, Woopy’s mouth flung aghast with shock! That was terribly rude of her to throw his present away like that! But then he supposed she must have had good reason to. And that reason came to light very quickly!

Of course. It wasn’t a present fit for Eleanor Rigby.
“Woopy silly!” He nodded frantically; unsummoning the plant and then summoning a half-eaten pie from the great hall to her desk. Humans like to eat food and he’d heard good things about the pies the elves served!
“That better, it better present now!”

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A sigh of relief as the lily pad disappeared and then an exasperated one when Woopy summoned food from the Great Hall. Especially once she realized, her mouth opening slightly with horror, the food had bites taken out of it and obvious teeth marks on it. Gagging on the realization that Woopy had literally just stolen food from someone's plate to give to her, Eleanor gingerly picked it up and moved it to a location that she wasn't looking at.

"Woopy?" she said tentatively, cringing as she said his name. She was getting to where there was a reflex ingrained in her that whenever the house elf spoke, or the sound of him apparating near her happened, Ellie would flinch and grit her teeth. Would this last forever? Flicking her wand behind her back at one of the potted pine trees in the corner, Ellie forced herself to smile. "I do believe one of my trees has fallen over. I know you love to clean, would you mind taking care of that while I grade some papers in my office? It doesn't need to be tipped over like that for very long or the root ball will die. I can only entrust this to you, Woopy. I dare not trust anyone else."

  

Her sudden change of tone and demeanour was something Woopy found to be most exhilarating.
It was exciting, amazing and most importantly, it proved that she did indeed care for him as much as he did her.

Nodding at her request, Woopy jumped from the desk and began working on cleaning the soil and sorting out the toppled over tree. He did it slowly and without magic to ensure as much time as he could spend was spent doing stuff in service of this wonderful, beautiful, and angelic woman.

She was his and he was hers and nothing could stop that. It was as if destiny had taken a hold of both of them and stapled them together with really big staples. Like, really big staples that held to beings together for eternity. They had to have been strong, too.

Almost as strong – though not quite – as his feelings were for Eleanor and as he dusted up the soil, Woopy found himself thinking on their future together and by gosh golly, did it seem amazing to think about.

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[FIN for Woopy