ADDICTED | j.p x oc

50

They found a spot to pitch their tents with a clear view of the beach and sat down on the grass to wait for Marlene and Peter. Eventually, the pair, along with Dorcas came trudging round the corner, sweaty and out of breath.

"Ahh, they're not dead!" Sirius exclaimed, jumping up and bounding towards them to help carry their bags.

"What took you so long?" Remus asked.

Marlene dropped her bags and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Well we decided to bring Dorcas," she panted.

"I hope that's fine, i brought another tent," Dorcas smiled, to which everyone smiled back and nodded.

"You decided," Peter grumbled, "now i'm the only person here without someone."

"Aww don't worry, Pete," James said, wrapping his arm round Peter and ruffling his hair, "I'll come sleep in your tent if you get lonely."

"Sharing a dorm with you was bad enough, i'm not sharing a tent," Peter replied with a joking shiver of disgust.

"That still doesn't explain where you guys were for the last two hours," Remus chuckled.

"Well, this idiot-" Marlene pointed at Peter, "-apparated us two fucking miles south of where we were supposed to be!"

"Why didn't you just apparate again?" said El.

"Oh, we did! And we ended up being three fucking miles north!"

"How many times do you want me to apologise?! If you two bothered learning how to apparate we wouldn't have this problem!" Peter squeaked, panting out his words.

"They've been bickering like this the entire time," Dorcas muttered to El while massaging her temples.

"Well, at least we're all here now," James grinned, before clapping his hands together, "let's set up our tents."

El remained seated in her camping chair and opened a bottle of beer with the ring on her finger before throwing the cap off into the hedges.

"Are you not gonna help me?" James asked, flailing the tent around to try find the corners.

"No," El said before taking a sip of beer, smirking when Remus sat down next to her, having an almost identical conversation with Sirius.

It took the remaining five almost an hour to get all four tents up, the whole scene being great entertainment for El and Remus, who laughed so hard they nearly fell off their chairs when Sirius got trapped under one of the tents and thought he was going to suffocate. The four were pitched in a small semicircle around a pile of wood, ready for a fire, facing the beach. Seven camping chairs were positioned around the wood, as they chatted and waited for sunset before lighting the fire.

A few beers in, everyone began to get more rowdy and the music from Remus' muggle radio was turned up louder so they had to almost shout to be heard. Several empty beer bottles sat at each persons feet, the piles growing as the sky got darker.

"I have a question actually," Dorcas interjected, taking a sip of beer before speaking again. "How did you two-" she pointed at El and Marlene, "-end up being friends with this lot for so long?"

"Good question," El chuckled into to rim of her beer bottle, "We met them on the train, then Sirius had a crush on Marlene for all of first year, so they kind of followed us around for a while."

"Should i be worried?" Dorcas laughed, squeezing her girlfriend's hand teasingly. Marlene shook her head with a laugh.

"We weren't really friends for most of it anyway," El chuckled at the memory.