Royalty [A One Direction AU]

{5} The Opening Banquet

You know how I said five days of dorm arrest can't possibly be that bad? I take everything back. It's only been three days and I'm going to die of boredom. Especially since I can't even entertain myself with magic. I'd go into detail about what I did the past few days, but I was literally sitting in my room the entire time. All I learned is that the school year started almost a month before I got there, and the opening ceremony takes place on the first Friday of September, so today. Yay. Everyone but Louis is still pissed at me, but everyone but Zayn and I get to go out this weekend, while we're still stuck in our rooms.

Currently I'm deciding what to wear for the banquet, which I'm having a bit of trouble doing. I mean, I've never been to one of these before, how am I supposed to know what to wear?

"Niall, need some help?" Louis asks, knocking on my door. I walk over and open it, and one look at my clothes-covered room is all the confirmation Louis needs. He walks over to my closet and rummages through my clothes. If there's one thing being locked in a room without magic achieved, it was getting me to put all of my stuff away, so I no longer have three suitcases in my closet full of clothes. "Here." Louis says simply, handing me a nice shirt, a pair of slacks, and some dress shoes. "Meet me outside the cafeteria in fifteen minutes." Louis says, leaving my room to get dressed himself.

~•~•~•~•~

Fifteen minutes later, I run around the corner to see Louis, Harry, Liam, and Zayn waiting for me outside the cafeteria. Wait, Zayn?

"Hey, Niall. I wanted to say sorry about Wednesday, I overreacted." Zayn says, putting out a hand. "Friends?" He asks, and I grin, pulling him into a hug instead. Zayn is a bit shocked at first, but then he wraps his arms around me and hugs me back, smiling.

"Friends." I say, pulling away. "Now let's go in. I've never been to a banquet, I'm curious." Zayn grins, opening the door.

"Then let's make your first banquet memorable!" Harry exclaims, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the room. As soon as I see the room I stop, looking around in awe. The round tables I've only actually eaten at once are gone, replaced by long rectangular tables filled with students. Every seat has a name in front of it to say where to sit.

"We usually sit with our hallway." Liam explains, taking us over to the end of one table. "This is where we usually sit, but as you can see our names aren't here." I look at the table, and instead of our names I see some people named Luke, Ashton, Calum, and Michael. Well, that's all I see before Harry pulls me away so four boys can sit down. I recognize one of them immediately, and he grins at me.

"Hey Niall!" Luke says, waving. "These are some of the guys in my hallway. Guys, this is Niall, he's the new kid in my Spellcaster class." The other three boys look up, suddenly interested.

"What level?" Ashton asks.

"He's a Wizard. Beat Cher on his first day." Luke says, and suddenly everyone at the table is staring at me.

"Wow, you can teleport?" Calum asks. I nod, a bit confused, and Luke grins.

"How did you discover your powers? I started a campfire with my hands." He says, making me laugh.

"I set my uncle's pants on fire." I reply. Luke is about to say something, but someone puts their hand on my shoulder and spins me around.

"Niall, I found our seats." Harry says, pointing to a table in the middle of the room. I see a bunch of seats that aren't labeled at one end, and our seats are at the other. Harry and I make our way over to the table, and I find my seat right next to the empty seats, with Louis across from me. We all talk for a while, ignoring the seats, until my aunt clears her throat, leaning toward a microphone that's on a stand in front of her.