My Dearest
Chapter sixteen
Ella sat next to Lily in Flitwick's class, trophy polish in each of their hands as they buffed and polished the smudges off the school's various awards. Years of tarnish and grime stuck to the shiny metal as they scrapped away the damage to the beauty.
She had sat stiffly at her desk awaiting the punishment, dumbfounded as she watched the head girl walk into the detention room, the world felt like it had gone cold as Ms. perfection passed the Ravenclaw head her slip.
Flitwick seemed more confused than Eleanor, his eyes bulged out of his head as she took a seat and waited for his further instructions.
The two girls sat awkwardly next to each other, lily tapped her foot as she waited for the time to pass. Eleanor drew tiny stars on her knuckles as the minutes seemed to pass by like drawn-on hours.
"May I ask how you ended up in here? Rule-breaking doesn't seem very on-brand for you" Ella whispered lowly. Lily was startled at the loss of the quiet.
"It was an accident" she sighed with a laugh as she recollected the memory of her ending up in detention, Ella opened her mouth to throw in some sort of snarky comment before Lily looked up with these glaring eyes, shutting her up quickly.
"Enough chatting, today the two of you will be polishing the trophies on the back counter" Flitwick cut off their shots conversation and pointed off to the back of the room where their task awaited.
And that is how they ended up in this position, the two of them sat quietly next to each other o the floor, rugs in hand, Flitwick quickly pooped out of the class to go and have a conversation with Madame Temple.
"Snape was trying to get me to talk to him, after our falling out he hasn't stopped pestering me" the buffing she was doing on the trophy in her hands sped up as she grew aggressive, "he does this irritating thing where he waits outside of my potions class, he waits at the door until class is over and when I step out of the room he tries to talk to me, and he made me late to my arthimacy class."
Ella nods, she distinctly remembers the day of the infamous outburst, it had been a turning point in the marauder's lives, the day James Potter saw red.
Flashback
Ella and Remus had been lazing down by the black lake, partially discussing their final potions project, partially talking shit when they heard James and Sirius' loud laughter, a sign of trouble.
Snape's body dangled around ten feet in the air as he threw hexes at the three other Marauders, a look of rage on his face as crowds began to form. It was like watching a show, Snape being the puppet of Sirius and James' most recent prank.
Lily let out a shriek as she walked up to James and starts hitting him in the chest, "let him down you arse!"
Snape went to aim his next hex at Peter who was laughing at him while making inappropriate commentary to the girl standing next to him, a small laugh leaving her lips which made Snape's temper skyrocket.
One of Lily's many hits to the abdomen made James lose his balance for a split second, to which he nearly dropped Severus out of the air.
Snape's hex flew right past Peter and skinned lily's cheek but missed her by a mere centimetre, a large gash across her face making her start tearing up.
She seized her punches, bringing her hand up to her face to feel the damage to her cheek, blood covering her fingertips as a hiss left her mouth.
James catches lily's chin in his hand, examining the gash on her perfect face and starts to purposely drop the Slytherin boy, "apologies to her!" James spun lily around so Snape could see the pain he had afflicted on her, "she was trying to help and look what you've done"
Remus lets out a desperate plea to Sirius to convince James to drop the whole situation and take lily to the hospital wing, teachers now start to charge the clump of students who are surrounding the area.
Sirius watched the urgency grow on Remus' face as he flicked between an angry-looking Minnie and Sirius who was stuck in a state of shock at the scene unfolding in front of him.
Snape scoffed with disgust watching as his new Slytherin friends start to make their way to the front of the crowd, anger and disbelief filling their senses as they watched the Gryffindors make a fool out of the boy.
"I don't need help from the mudblood or her filthy blood" he shouts out making the whole schoolyard go silent, it was as if time went still, even the teacher paused their ambushes to cringe at the tension in the air.
Lily let out a short gasp before wiping the blood off of her cheek, "fine, let him fall" she said with a slight quiver in her voice before straightening her posture and walking away from the clump with composure.
Ella remembers the walk back to the school, her hands in her pockets as Remus followed after the emotional girl, pleading that she go to Pomphrey to see if the hex would leave any sort of magical damage.
"He is a huge asshole, you were just blind," Ella said with a faint smile, "and he was a bad friend, I'm happy to see you have a life separate from him"
Lily looked at Eleanor with a look of shock, never had she heard such the girl be so mature and sincere, "thank you" she smiled, returning to her task.
Lily stared at the trophy, looking at the distorted version of herself in the bronze-coloured reflection, her brows furrowed as she looked up at Ella watching as she took some of the polish and aggressively rubbed off the dirt "was I a bad person to be around? I mean like when he and I were friends?"
Ella let out a short laugh, "I wouldn't say bad, I would lean more towards stuck up," lily's face dropped at Ella's serious tone.
"I didn't like myself much back then either" Lily quietly said, taking Ellas' tone as a cue to be quiet and do her work.
Ella watched as her shoulders fell, "okay, my wording sounded rude, in the nicest way possible you were like his little henchman," she grimaced at the thought of a younger lily who followed him around dismissing everyone's cries for her to open her eyes to the truth, "I mean Lily you constantly defending his horrendous actions" she gave an awkward, tight-lipped smile as the colour in lily's face drained.
"Really?"
"I mean that's just from my perspective, but I and you have never had a great relationship, to begin with," Ella looked the redhead up and down, biting her tongue to hold back her words.
"That's not all on me! You're not an overly pleasant person" Lily defended herself.
"I can agree with that, I'm a cunt, but you used to hang out with a bloke who tormented my brother, I wasn't a fan of your friend" her tone borderline defensive as Lily's mouth shut, her words dying in her throat as she thought back all the mean words that Snape had said both to Peter's face and behind his back.
"I'm sorry okay, I just saw comfort in him, he was my home for so many years!" Lily instantly retaliated.
I know but that doesn't excuse his actions," Ellas sat with her words for a moment, silence filling the gap in the conversation as she thought of what to say next, "I'm sorry about how I acted when we were younger" Ella surprised herself, a genuine apology was not something that she just thought around, "we just didn't align that's completely normal."
"I guess," Lily said, her eyes meeting Ella who had a subtle smile on her face, "I'm also sorry, truly" she smiled back gaining a light feeling in her chest.
-
"Ella your grammar is absolute shit, I mean there's no way that you wrote this while conscience!" Remus laughed as he revised her essay for McGonagall, groaning in frustration as he went through each and every sentence fixing everything wrong.
Her legs draped over his as they laid back comfortably in the Gryffindor common room, no one else in the room as curfew slowly started to creep up.
"You have no room to talk to me like that Lupin, that chicken scratch you call writing is barely legible!" she laughed waving his essay in front of his face.
"Bitch" he mumbled with a grin as her jaw dropped, she took the pillow off her lap and smacked him square in the face.
He went to grab his pillow but she grabbed him by the wrist before he could even think about hitting her with it, "watch yourself Lupin" she warned him before letting go of his arm.
He let out a sigh of defeat, returning to her essay that he now found himself rewriting. She smiled contently, bending down to get her cup of tea off of the coffee table, "so how are you and Romeo?" she said in a sing-song voice.
"Do you want to gossip? Or would you rather your essay be finished" he looked up from the parchment to see her roll her eyes.
"Spoilsport"
Remus picked up his pillow quickly and smacked her upside the head, a grin tugging at his lips as she let out a squeal at the surprise impact.
"You're lucky you didn't spill my tea, dickhead" her hand reach out for his leg to brace herself, the tea in her cup swishing around.
Remus smiled at her foul language, her vocabulary embedded with all sorts of insults, it truly was one of her interesting traits.
From the corner of his eye, he watched as she let out a yawn, placing her mug back down and leaning against him. Her eyes closed as she climbed to his side, watching the slight rise and fall of her chest as she calmed herself.
Wondering how in the fuck she went from hyper to nearly falling asleep.
Remus finished her essay in silence, small snores leaving her lips as she lay half asleep on him, the sound of the fireplace crackled in the background as Remus sat focused on the final paragraph.
"Moony!" Sirius yelled, the doorway to the hallway slammed open in his hands was a small rat, "he's stuck"
Remus startled, bringing Ella back to consciousness as Sirius waved the small rat in his hands in front of her face, "what the fuck do you mean he's stuck?"
James followed right behind Sirius, the two of them trying to explain a story at the same time, their words jumbled together into chaos as they both did a dramatic retelling of what had happened.
"One at a time you dickheads!" Ella yelled making both of the boys shut up and stare at her as she wiped her eyes of any sleep left over.
"James you first" she motioned for him to get on with the story.
Sirius let out a scoff and narrowed his eyes at her, "of course, you pick him to go first," he pouted as she glared at him.
"Okay so we just finished setting up for a prank on the Ravenclaws, beautifully planned by me might I add, and Peter heard filch around the corner so he transformed into a rat."
"Why a rat?"
"That's him in animagus form! Keep. Up. Ella!" Sirius clapped in between his words as he intently stared at James.
"Anyways... so he transformed into Wormtail and now he's stuck, we've tried to help him but he hasn't turned back!" Sirius put Peter in Remus' hands and stared at the lycanthrope.
"Well I don't know what to do with him," he said offering the rat back.
"Try shaking it!?"
"Shaking it! Do you want to give him brain damage?" Ella questioned the long-haired boy with disbelief.
The tiny rodent struggled in Remus' grasp before biting down on the flesh of his hand, "the bastard bit me, Ella take your brother," Remus said shoving the rat into Ella's hands as he inspected the chunk of skin that Peter took out of him.
Ella held him in his hands, staring at the rat, "fuck he's an ugly little thing."
A gasp erupted from James as he ripped Peter from her grasp, "don't be mean, he can still hear you!" James shielded the rat's little ears as he glared at Ella who laughed at his dumb antics, his frown softened as he watched her grow flush under his glare.
"I can't believe you guys left me back there to fend for myself!" A voice emerged from the entrance of the common room, Peter ran in out of breath, his chest heaving as he held onto the wall for support.
The boy's brows furrowed as he watched James cradling a rat in his arms, a deer in headlights look stuck on hoist face as he looked down at the rodent in his hands.
"If you're there then who is that?" Sirius asked with a shriek making James throw the rat on the floor.
Peter's jaw dropped with disbelief, "you thought another rat was me! My best friends don't even know what I look like! Unbelievable!"
"YOU LOOK THE EXACT SAME!"
A gasp erupted from the mousy boy, "we do not, I am much more handsome!" He said folding his arms with disgust and turning away from his best friends to his sister.
"I'm still not over the fact that his animagus form is a rat, how unfortunate for you" Ella laughed as she pinched the soft flesh of the apples of his cheek, as her brother glared at her.
"So like now that we are on the topic, what are your two animagus forms?" She asked, returning to her comfortable position, laid up against Remus again
"Well Sirius is a dog"
"Makes sense"
"Hey!"
"And James is a stag" Remus finished cutting Sirius off from the long rant the group was about to encounter.
"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, yeah makes sense," she nodded with a thinking face on, "you guys did one of the lost illegal things in the wizarding world because?"
"Well Moony used to do his transformations all on his own, and after some extensive research done by me, we found out that animagi can safely be around Werewolves without harming their human forms" Sirius smiled as he patted Remus on the head.
Eleanor looked up at the boys who had bright cheesy smiles on their faces as they all looked at Remus who flipped them off, the scowl on his face very apparent as Ella fixed the mess of curl atop his head.
The three boys were idiots, but they were the most caring and thoughtful idiots on the planet.
She smiled back at Remus and watched as an expression of pride appeared on his once sour-looking face, "only the best for our Moony" she smiled placing a kiss on his cheek.
"No kiss for me?" Sirius asked with a smirk as she collected her essay, getting ready to head to bed.
"Only in your dreams" she walloped him on the forehead with her rolled paper as he pouted, she rolled her eyes and stared at the frown that only seemed to grow with time before placing a wet kiss right on his cheek as well.
She then awkwardly hugged her brother goodnight, and at the end of the line of boys stood James who awkwardly stared at the ceiling.
Ella rolled her eyes before standing up on her tip-toes and pecking him on the cheek, to which he froze in place, blush rose from his cheeks up to the tips of his ears.
"Goodnight idiots," she said walking up to the girl's dorms.
James' hand travelled from his pockets up the spot of chapstick residue on his cheek, the skin still warm from the contact that left him slightly giddy.
"She's made him speechless," Sirius said laughing at a fluster James, his hands now covering his face to conceal his blush, as he marched up to the couch to sit down and hide from the chirping that Sirius had begun to do.
"Leave him alone," Remus said as he picked up his things and put them in the satchel that Sirius had deemed a 'man purse', "he's in love."
James nodded before registering what the lanky boy had said, "Hey! I'm not in love!"
"Keep telling yourself that!"