Season One

Elena at the cemetery. "Pilot"

Elena and her younger brother Jeremy were being raised by their Aunt Jennaafter their parents died in a car accident. After the death of her parents, she broke up with her childhood best friend, first love and boyfriend, Matt Donovan. After the tragedy of losing both of her parents, Elena makes an attempt to start over and learn how to cope with the tragic loss and start to regain some of her happiness again. When the school year started, Elena meets Stefan Salvatore and is immediately and undeniably drawn, intrigued and attracted to him. Meeting Stefan immediately brought things back to normal for Elena again. Her best friend isBonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes. Unknown to her, she is also a doppelganger of Katherine Pierce, someone from Stefan's past

Elena dances with Stefan. "Family Ties"

Shortly after meeting Stefan, she started to bond with him. Later on, she asked Stefan to escort her to the Founders' Party, but became angry when he began to keep secrets from her. Eventually, she discovered that he and Damon were vampires, causing her to become hostile towards both of them, until they gained her trust again. When Vicki Donovan was turned into a vampire, she attempted to convince both her and Jeremy to stay away from each other, only to be threatened by Vicki and reprimanded by Jeremy.

Jeremy grieves Vicki's death."Haunted"

At the school's Halloween party, Vicki was killed by Stefan when she lost control of her vampire side, devastating both Elena and Jeremy. As a result of this, she asked Damon to wipe Jeremy's memory of Vicki's death, making him believe she "Had left town and was not coming back. It was for the best." She and Jenna noticed that, as a result of this, Jeremy had stopped doing drugs.

Damon "kidnaps" Elena. "Bloodlines"

Elena was also a witness of Lexi's death at the hands of Damon and of thedestruction of Bonnie's talisman in order to prevent Damon from freeing the vampires underneath the tomb, after which she told Bonnie the truth about everything. She got into a car accident when swerving to miss a vampire after spending the night with Stefan, subsequently discovering the photo ofKatherine. He almost attacked her, but Damon appeared just in time to save her life. A pizza guy named Noah came one night and Jeremy invited him inside. He later turned out to be the vampire that was following her. He showed up at a dance and threatened to kill Jeremy if she didn't leave the dance. Elena ran into the hallway with the vampire following her. She ran into the cafeteria and managed to fight back, stabbing him with pencils, until Stefan and Damon arrived and killed him after interrogating him. He was shown to have been friends with Anna and Ben, fellow vampires. He knew Katherine, which was why he was stalking Elena.

Elena dances with Damon. "Miss Mystic Falls"

After the tomb was opened, and the vampires were released, she helpedDamon save Stefan from Frederick and the other vampires who were torturing him. When Frederick stabbed him, Elena gave Stefan her blood so he would survive. She consoled Matt when the news of Vicki's death had been revealed. However, Stefan became addicted to human blood, since he never learned how to control his cravings, and started drinking human blood that he stolefrom a blood bank behind Elena's back. When Damon told her what he'd been doing, they got into a fight, and Stefan attacked Amber, a girl in the competition for "Miss Mystic Falls," drank her blood, and almost killed her. Elena and Damon locked Stefan in the basement to try to get him back to normal.

Elena dresses like Katherine on Founders day. "Founder's Day"

When Bonnie's grandmother died, Bonnie left town for a while. After shecame back, she started to blame Stefan and Damon for her grandmother's death and was angry with Elena. Elena tried to fix things, but Bonnie told her there was nothing she could do, and to just leave her alone. Bonnie came back to school and resents Stefan and Damon because the tomb vampires came out and there was no Katherine, so "Grams died for nothing." When Elena's mother came to town, she and Bonnie repaired their relationship and Bonnie pretended to unspell the Device. It was eventually activated on Founder's Day by John Gilbert. Damon caught up with Elena (who in fact was Katherine) on the porch of her home & they shared a passionate kiss, which was interrupted by Jenna.

The night ended with Elena arriving home after someone had taken her stuff. After entering the house, she heard a noise in the kitchen and went to investigate it, unaware that Katherine was in the room.