long way to heaven || marauder ff

4- pas aujourd'hui

As they entered the building through a courtyard, James led them down a staircase just right of the Great Hall and through a dark corridor. As they passed a huge wooden door, Remus whispered to Elaine: "That's the Hufflepuff Common Room"

Nodding, the French tried to find something special about the door that would distinguish it from any other door. However, it seemed like there could be literally anything behind it. 

Suddenly, James stopped in front of a portrait that showed a basked full of fruits. "Watch and learn, Savvy", he instructed the girl, as he started- tickling? a pear. 

Said fruit started laughing and the portrait swung open to reveal an enormous room behind it, that looked like a replica of the Great Hall, only that it was way lower and not as sumptuous. The room was filled with hundreds of dozens small house elves all running around, cooking, cleaning and carrying multiple plates at once. 

As soon as they spotted us standing in the door, a couple of the small creatures came running to us. 

"Masters Black and Potter! Oh, and Master Lupin and Pettigrew! Miss Sternsland, it is an honour!", they all started bowing and ushered us to a corner where a single table was standing.  

"Ginni is so happy to see you here!", one particular house elf exclaimed, who seemed like she was close to crying. As she spotted Elaine in the group, she started bowing excessively again. "Ginni is so sorry! Ginni didn't see Miss standing there as well. Ginni is such a bad house elf!", she cried out, attempting to hit herself with a pan she fetched from as passing elf. 

"Oh no, Ginni, it's not a problem! I'm very sorry to have not introduced myself to you. I am Elaine.", the girl explained carefully, squatting down to where Ginni was standing. The house elf stared at her with big eyes, before she slowly stopped crying. 

"Ginni is so happy to get to know you, Miss! Ginni is going to bring all of her best food, so Miss is happy with her!" With those words, the small figure of the house elf disappeared between her comrades. Elaine slowly got up to ass standing position again and sat down on the free spot at the table, next to James, who was smiling at her softly. 

"What?", she asked him confused. 

"Nothing, it's just nice to see a pure-blood treat a house-elf as kind as you just did", he answered her, smile becoming more James-Potter-like again. 

"Dude you treat house-elves nice as well", Sirius tuned in. "I was just saying!", James defended himself. Soon, a bickering match erupted between the two, only ending when three house-elves appeared air the table again, carrying a year supply of food. 

"Thank you so much, Ginni and-", Elaine began, only to cringe as she realised she didn't know the names of the other two house-elves accompanying Ginni. 

"Bella is the name, Miss!", one of the exclaimed, adding, "And his name is Bobby", she pointed to the third elf. 

"Well, thank you very much as well, Bella and Bobby", Elaine smiled. During her exchange, the others had already taken it upon them to fill up their plates to the rim. As she chose to grab some still warm baguettes, Olivia scooted over to her slightly from where she was sitting in the corner. In a low voice, the Sternsland asked Elaine in French: "What happened to your arm?" 

Elaine froze in her movement of getting some salted butter. "What do you mean?", she asked back, also switching to her native language.