Childhood || Born in the cold winter of 1926, Elise had a rough child. A babe she was who never stopped crying and eventually drew her father to drink which only made matters worse in their household - not that the crammed shoebox apartment with three generations living together could be called a house. There was never enough food. The heat was often turned off. They shivered around a fire in the living room - unsafely lit because it's their only source of warmth. And they all slept together in that very room during the cold months. It was this, the cold and lack of nutrients from her mother's milk that left Elise a miserable infant who was simply inconsolable.
Life did not get better. Scrawny Elise was often sickly. Sometimes, the other merchants on the street would take pity on her and offer her a warm meal. It's never enough though. The trouble with hunger is that it always comes back and if she's not lucky, Elise has to suffer the pains of it.
The grandparents are growing older and more feeble. Her father eventually leaves with promise of looking for a better job. He never comes home and a year later news of his death comes to their family. Her mother tries but she is well past her prime to make anything off selling herself to feed the family. It's a hard childhood. Elise has nothing and she has no one. A starved, scared kitten. Her mother once had an opportunity to sell her for enough to get through the winter but she did not.
Her only solace in this cold, dark world, is watching the dancers in the studio a block away from the hovel they live in. Elise can ignore the gnawing aches inside while imagining she is among them. Sometimes the instructor even let's her come in from the cold. Sometimes Elise tries to learn the dances on her own. She has no idea they will be salvation one day.
School Years || Her letter for Hogwarts comes. Elise's family cannot afford all she needs to attend. There's a fund in the school for that thus the scrawny redhead is whisked away to a world she cannot imagine. She's in robes that don't fit. She has a second hand wand that does not work right for her but it's all they can afford. All her books are borrowed from the school. She doesn't care. Hogwarts is warm and Hogwarts has an abundance of food.
That first night after her sorting, Gryffindor by the way, she eats so much she makes herself sick but wants to try everything. She does not understand that her years of living in starvation made it difficult for her to adjust to such abundance of rich, delicious food. She is found in the bathroom puking by her house Prefect and taken to the hospital wing. Elise finally gets the care she needs from the Matron of the hospital wing and is on the mend.
Her first year is a huge learning curve. She now knows of a world better than the one she came from. She hasn't made many friends because she is so sickly, but the Prefect who helped her on her first night continues to be a constant companion. A mentor. Someone she can turn to. Elise does not understand how much she relies on this person until they graduate and she's left behind years later.
She does not wish to leave Hogwarts after her first year. Returning to that hovel of a home is devastating but when she does return she learns her grandparents have died. Her mother did not write for fear of interrupting her learning. She wanted Elise to succeed so she would have a better life.
Second year is better. Elise makes a friend. Her name is Sharon. She is a year older and she introduces Elise to a group of girls who are destined for good marriages and fine partners. Elise is envious of this. She belongs with them. She is a pureblood as well, after all, even if her family is poor and barely rank among the elite in society. Elise sees their wealth and poise and now has something to strive for.
Over the course of her educational years, Elise focuses on Charms and Transfiguration. She wants to be able to impress a future husband and turn her hovel of a home into something better. She could transfigure it to be bigger, warmer, with lavish furniture, there is so much she can do. But it's dance that still fascinates her the most. The girls she befriended, they all got to take lessons. Elise did not but they taught her. She outdid them. She shined when she danced, even if she is still too skinny.
The Prefect who helped her is still around. They still offer her support and friendship and is the only person Elise really trusts but when they graduate she feels a sense of emptiness knowing she may never see them again. It will be years before she actually does and he will be a new person.
Adulthood || Elise graduates with no job prospects but she pursues her dance at the local bar. Dancing on tables and poles earns her enough that she can help her mother out. Her figure has filled out and men are taking interest. Her mother gives her a new dress that she handmade and told Elise to leave. She said there is nothing for her there. Her mother is dying. Her advice to Elise is to find a man who can take care of her. Find him by any means. She just wants Elise out of this life she has never been able to climb out of.
Elise succeeds.
That Prefect who cared for her, well, he finds Elise one night dancing her heart out on a countertop in a packed bar. He remembers her. Despite their age difference he has not forgotten. He returns. Night after night until he works up the nerve to ask Elise on a date. She agrees.
Her mother's plan is put into action. His name is Falco Tremblay. His family is originally from France but his father moved to England to expand their business. That is how he ends up at Hogwarts and not Beauxbatons. Falco is wealthy and he adores Elise. It's not long after they begun seeing each other regularly that he takes Elise as his wife.
She struggles in pureblood society. It's not easy being the talk of all the other trophy wives. They call her a gold digger. They say she married above her station. They claim she has diseases and that she'll taint the Tremblay name further. The Tremblays, she learns later are a branch related to the prestigious Lestrange family. They have a stake in the elite pureblood world. Elise uses that.
At nineteen, Elise has her first daughter and decides she will ensure her daughter gets everything she never had. At twenty-one, she births her son. At twenty-three, her second son is born. Their little family is complete. Elise raises her kids to be proper and dignified and despite her own upbringing, she succeeds in ensuring they are not talked down to like she has been by those pureblood women who initially rejected her from their circle. Her kids are her world. Her heart and soul goes into raising them. If ever someone has a bad word to say about them Elise snaps like a Venus fly trap.
Her children learn to dance. They are taught proper manners. They are exemplary, upstanding witches and wizards and before long, it's clear that Elise has a way with mentoring young men and women to be exactly as they are brought up to be. She begins work with a local charity group, The Society of Gilded Ladies, who focus helping those less fortunate and ensuring the children of the wealthy are brought up good and proper so that by the time they are ready to come out into society they do it good and proper.
One by one, Elise and Falco say goodbye to their children as they go off to Hogwarts, each of them making the family proud by doing well in their classes and earning Prefect positions. However, it's 1961, and the world seems to come crashing down on the Tremblay family for a brief moment. Their eldest daughter becomes pregnant by the boy she is intended for. Sixteen years old. Her life hasn't even begun and now she cannot debut into society because of this.
Well, it's the talk of the social circles but Elise has it handled. Reminding everyone that it could be their Jenny or Josephine next and what good would it do if they can't marry her off? At least the eldest Tremblay girl is pregnant by the man she intends to marry. Only, they never get married. The poor bloke ends up involved in a dark affair and soon shipped off to Azkaban for suspected crimes against muggles that threaten to exploit the Wizarding World. Elise and Falco take on the role of helping their daughter to raise their grandchild; a girl named Lena.
It's ten years later, Elise has secured her position as Head of The Society of Gilded Ladies. The rumours are put to rest of her jaded background and acceptance is finally theirs. The struggle to be seen as proper purebloods has been won. There is no question about the allegiance of the Tremblay family any longer. This is about the time for another tragedy strikes. Falco takes ill. He becomes bedridden. Elise is completely shaken with grief. Her daughter steps up to the plate to look after her ailing father and Elise's son steps in to take over the family business.
Now widowed, Elise is learning to live without her husband and carry on. Over the past five years, she has been a visiting Professor at Hogwarts teaching etiquette classes.
