ADDICTED | j.p x oc

28

True to his word, James stormed into El's room bright and early the next day, receiving a pillow to the head in response. He did successfully manage to get both Sirius and El out the house by 10am however, which felt like a miraculous victory.

"What's so special that we needed to be out the house so early in the morning?" Sirius grumbled.

"Well," James stood between his friends and threw an arm over each of their shoulders, "I wanted us to do something fun,"

"Could that fun not wait until after midday?" El gave an overdramatic yawn and shrugged off James' arm.

He apparated them to a small beach where they went on a fairly long walk, playing fetch with Padfoot along the way.

"This is a nice beach," El commented, looking at the view out to sea, "We should come here in summer,"

"That's actually not a bad idea," he replied while throwing the ball across the beach for Padfoot to collect, "Go camping or something."

"I've never been," James looked at her in shock, "Don't look so surprised. What about my mother screams 'family camping trips'?" she laughed.

Padfoot ran towards them and transformed back into Sirius to continue their walk.

***

The day soon came for the students to return to Hogwarts, packing up all their things from the Potters house and heading to Kings Cross in time for the train.

They made it to the platform with twenty minutes to spare, due to Euphemia chivvying them along all morning, and bid their goodbyes before stepping onto the train and finding their usual compartment.

El put her bags on her seat, "I'm gonna go find Theo," she walked back out to the corridor in search for his group of Slytherins.

"El!" Marlene wrapped her arms around her bestfriend without giving her time to think, "Potter told me what happened, are you okay?" she released El from her deathly grip and held her face in her hands.

"I'm fine, Marls, have you seen Theo?"

Regulus stepped out from behind the blonde girl, also giving El a hug, "No, but i know where he might be. I'm heading that way," he nodded his head in the opposite direction they'd just come from.

They walked to a compartment containing several Slytherin boys, El poked her head in the door. Before she even had to call Theo's name, he stood up from his seat and embraced her tightly.

She hugged him back, "Thank you, so much," she murmured, neither of them moving to separate.

Eleanor soon returned to the marauders compartment, taking her seat next to the window, leaning her back against it and throwing her legs over Remus' lap. James, who was sat opposite her, was in the same position with his legs over Peter. Sirius sat in front of Marlene on the floor as she attempted to braid his hair into two french plaits, wailing dramatically when she'd pull too hard.

The welcome back feast passed as it usually did, everyone seemingly excited to be back for another term. Dumbledore gave his same cheery speech about 'Dark times ahead', before everyone finished their dinner and head to their respective corners of the castle.

***

The next quidditch match of the season was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, meaning tensions between the houses were even worse than normal.

The day after everyones arrival back at Hogwarts, Rosier had everyone ready at the quidditch pitch early in the morning for several hours of training. El decided to stay for a while afterwards to get some extra flying in, but her attention was drawn to a group of boys standing by the Slytherin quidditch captain.