I Was Made For Loving You - James Potter

12: feast

Sixth year. She was not looking forward to the amount of studying she was going to have to do. She was not looking forward to leaving in hardly any time at all either - Hogwarts was a safe space for her. She twisted the ring on her finger, listening to Marlene talk about her summer when Dumbledore clinked a glass, and the Great Hall fell silent for a moment until the doors opened to reveal the First Years.

Elodie waved at Poppy as she walked by, and she returned a nervous smile. "Who's that?" Mary asked. "This first year I ran into at Diagon Alley, she's lovely - her name's Poppy." El had answered.

She zoned out for most of the Sorting Ceremony, but diverted her attention when Poppy's name was called. Her eyes nervously scanned the tables as she looked among the peers she'd spend the next 7 years with. Elodie remembered being that young and nervous, wishing with everything in her for Ravenclaw, then the fear hitting her when the hat called a different house.

But she wouldn't change it for anything, now. Much to Poppy's delight, the Sorting Hat called for the house she had wanted, a wide grin spreading across her cheers as she skipped over to the Gryffindor table, which had erupted into cheers. A couple more kids were called, 2 Slytherin's, 4 Hufflepuffs, 5 Ravenclaws and 2 more Gryffindors.

Finally, the feast had began, and Elodie ate like she had been starved for the summer. Which wasn't far from the truth, realistically, her meals were always strict and monitored when she returned to her house for the summer. It was nice to not worry about judging eyes for every meal.

"Oh my god, I have missed this." Marlene sighed, digging into a chicken wing with pure glee on her face.

"I just hope James doesn't start another food fight again." Lily sighed, watching the group closely. Elodie joined her, watching the 4 boys banter while James started subtly dragging a couple plates closer to him.

"He has that look on him when he's going to do something that'll get him into trouble." Elodie voiced out, "And I'll be damned if I don't take those pancakes away from him before he does." She got up without a word, and made her way over to the lads who were a little farther down the table from her.

She picked up the plate of stacked pancakes, and immediately dropped it when she felt the bottom of the plate burn her hand. "Mother fucker-" She seethed in pain, but contained herself when a first year glared at her. Calm down, you've been here ten bloody minutes.

"Shit, Els - are you okay? " James looked up at her in concern, and gently grabbed her wrist to look at her hand. Her fingertips were a little red, but nothing too serious. "Be careful, Merlin." She smiled at his evident worry, finding it absolutely adorable.

"Hi, El! How was your summer?" Peter beamed at her as he grabbed a pancake from the plate she just dropped. "It was good, thankyou Pete, and yours?" El sat next to James, wrapping an arm around his.

"It was alright, we travelled to France, then Spain and spent the last few days in Ireland. I wish we could stay in Britain for a little while so I could meet you lot one time. Did you do anything fun?"

James was confused to say the least. Out of the Marauders, Pete was the one least closest to Elodie, and here he was talking to her as if they had been friends for years. Don't get him wrong, he was glad to see two of the most important people in his life talking, but it just threw him off. He hadn't even taken this much interest into Remus' summer.

"Not much, my parents would rather me spend as much time as I can with them." The lie slipped off of El's tongue with ease, fooling everyone but him. (It would've gotten him too, If Elodie hadn't told him otherwise the year prior.) "But they let me go to Diagon Alley with Jamie and Sirius. Introduced them to McDonalds."