epiphany || james potter

twenty three

Eloise was done with NEWTs to say the least.

She was constantly studying and luckily for her she was coming to the end of exams.

The others also felt the same way. They could barely be teens anymore it felt like their life was dedicated to studying.

Then with the war on the rise they knew this was only the start of stress.

"Eloise when we leave can we run away to France and open a random bakery please, then we can live off baguettes and those weird dessert sandwich things." James asked in a stressed tone.

"Honestly after the past 3 weeks I'm down to do that. Then we can go to those big library's in the middle of paris!" Eloise said excitedly.

The two only had a DADA exam and then they were done and they felt as if the weight once on their shoulders was almost gone.

The next morning they all sat in the hall, James was at the front of the hall and Eloise was further back, whilst she was trying to calm down she saw 2 familiar hazel eyes send her a reassuring look.

The exam passed with ease for the entire group. After all DADA was their favourite subject (well aside from transfiguration with Minnie).

"We did it boys! School is pretty much over." Remus said is an excited tone.

"You know what that means..." Sirius said.

"PARTY IN THE COMMON ROOM!" Everyone chorused.

Eloise wore a cherry red slip dress to show some house pride with a matching cherry lip. Her hair cascaded down her back neatly and she looked stunning.

Lily wore a dark green v neck dress with light makeup and curled hair. Marlene wore a light pink dress that fell off the shoulder, her and Lily looked like the perfect couple to say the least.

Once they walked down the stairs the party was in full swing. James turned to see Eloise walking down the stairs and he mumbled the words "holy shit" when he saw her.

"Cant kiss you with this lipstick Jamsie." Eloise whispered in his ear.

He lightly held her waist whispering back "Hey reds my colour I don't really care." Causing Eloise to send him an eye roll with a peck on the lips.

The teens were getting slightly more tipsy as time went on but none of them wanted to get blackout drunk, they wanted to remember this day as long as they lived.

"Prongs mate you do realise you have lipstick in the corner of your lips." Remus laughed.

"Hey she left a mark, what can I say." James said sarcastically.

"Gross." Remus just shook his head getting a laugh out of Peter and Sirius and a smirk out of James.

James and Eloise were dancing, along with Sirius and Remus and Lily and Marlene. That was until 12am when they promised they'd stop the party so the younger years could get at least 8 hours sleep.

"James, can I sleep in your dorm tonight?" Eloise asked with puppy dog eyes that made James melt every time.

"You didn't even have to use those eyes." James answered. And with that they went up his dorm and almost immediately fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, attempting to block out peters snores and the sounds coming from Sirius' bed that they chose not to take notice of.

When they walked downstairs the next day there was a note wrote to: Eloise, James, Sirius, Remus, Lily, Marlene, Peter, Frank, Alice and a girl named Dorcas.

"What is this about?" James asked mid yawn.

"Well the note says: please meet dumbledore in his office at 12pm before going to lunch." Eloise said to the people huddled round.

"Oh merlin, you don't think he found out about the party, I'm screwed!" Lily said pacing the room.

"Lils, calm down I'm sure he'll be fine with everything just breathe." Marlene offered a comforting hand.

"Even I'm worried at this point, merlin knows what this man wants." Sirius said rubbing his eyes after getting little to no sleep.

"As long as I still get lunch I'm fine." Peter spoke up getting a laugh out of everyone there. "What? I really want a sandwich."

The ten students walked to his office and James said the password revealing a huge room with a spiral staircase. It had painting on the wall of old head teachers.

"Please take a seat. Now you're probably wondering why I summoned you all here, looking at your grades especially in DADA it seems the majority of you want to be Aurors and healers." The teens nodded their head still extremely confused. "Well, I recently set up a organisation called the Order of the Phoenix. It's a group that will be fighting in the war, fighting against death eaters. I want to ask you after the term ends fully would you be willing to join the order?"

They knew a war was brewing. It was inevitable. But did they know they'd be fighting so soon. No.

They were still in school. Still children. They didn't even have a career yet.

But they would be fighting in a war.

"I want to join." Sirius spoke up first.

"Me too." Remus said afterwards holding his hand.

"I mean I'm going to be auror training, may as well put it to some use." Eloise joked even though she was unbelievably worried.

"I'm joining." James also agreed.

It didn't take long before the rest of the group said yes to joining. It was then the war finally sunk in. It was then their childhood was over.