Eleanor was pleased when Silas pulled the table and chairs into the center of the room. It was the most well-lit part of the cottage and it was just far enough from the fire to get the benefit of the heat without being stiflingly hot. Sitting in the chair on the side by the door-- one never knows when you must escape quickly from something like a fire or a crazed murderer who may have lured her in there to kill her (never mind that she came to find him first, of course). A slight moment of paranoia and then Ellie relaxed as Silas's cat, a rather large one at that, came and rubbed against her leg. "Cats are an incredible judge of character. I had one as a child who only liked me. She particularly hated me da, but once I went off to school, she had to like him because she didna take to traveling well." Oh sheesh, her accent was showing.

Then Silas came and sat beside her. Her skin prickled at the sense of someone being so close. No one had sat that close to her since Xander was killed by the flying tigers last year. It wasn't an unwelcome sensation but it was unusual. The tea was soon ready though, and when he got up to get it, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. She had had a hard time focusing on what he was saying about the crystals. Something about a commercial sale excavation site.

"Oh my," she said absently as she got up to grab the maps he'd directed her to get, "Commerical? I'm so glad that the Board stopped them from continuing, Hogwarts is so magical, taking away from it to sell for money is just wrong."

Once she'd obtained the maps, she sat back down and unrolled one. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking at, but it detailed a part of the campus that she'd not covered. She was immediately fascinated and began to pore over it, leaning in close to take in the details.