- Chapter Eleven -

Elladora spent all weekend in the library, sat in between the back shelves, not talking to anyone. Why? Because she wanted to. She wanted to finish all her essays and do some extra work too, it calmed her, cramming her brain with knowledge took her mind off of things that she didn't want to think about.

Everyday at breakfast she had sat at the Gryffindor table, purely for the porridge, with a book sprawled open in front of her. Don't think she missed the glances from Sirius Black, she caught them every time, like he wanted to say something to her, but every time he got the chance, she would slip away like she was never there.

Monday came around quickly and potions was first, it was safe to say that Elladora was nervous, she didn't know if they got supplied with more wolfsbane or not, so it could go horribly wrong anyway, but she and Sirius did their best. The Gryffindor wasted no time in leaving his other friends and running over to her.

"Think we did good? It'll work?" He asked nervously, tapping his foot on the floor obnoxiously. She glared down at his foot and he stopped tapping it, she looked back up to him and he softly apologised.

"It might." She shrugged and entered the classroom, sitting in her seat next to Snape, who was also there, nodding at her and getting a glance in return.

"Hello, class, take your seats, take your seats." Slughorn told the class, looking actually quite nervous as he scanned the whole classroom. "So, today we were going to be working with some wolfsbane-"

Remus grew quite anxious now, looking between his friends who also looked nervous, all except for Sirius. He even looked over to Elladora who looked stoic as always.

"-but it seems as though it has disappeared from my stocks, so sorry to Sirius and Elladora, who spent their detention getting that for me, but, uh, we'll have to do something else for today." He said and the three boys heads snapped to Sirius, then to Elladora, then back to Sirius.

Remus looked like he could cry as he patted his best friends shoulder, leaning forward he made sure that the Slytherin was looking at him. Sure enough, she glanced their way and saw his head poking out.

"Thank you." He mouthed and she gave him a nod, deciding that no further discussion was necessary as she listened to Professor Slughorn about what non-practical work they would be doing today.

•*•*•*•*•

It was now a free period and as usual, Elladora was sat in the library, reading over the stimulus for this year. She flicked a page, when she suddenly became aware of a new presence that had joined her, she slowly looked up to see Sirius Black sat next to her.

"What are you reading?"

"Why are you sat here?" She countered, dipping her pen into an ink pot and scribbling something down on a piece of parchment.

"Well, I thought we were friends." He said and of course, he knew that they weren't. This was all part of their plan, by 'their' he meant him and the three other boys hid behind a bookcase.

"What would I need friends for?" Elladora replied after a moment, glancing up slightly at the Gryffindor, who grinned widely at her.

"To talk to," he listed on his fingers. "To cheer you up, to have fun with, to invite to parties, to go to parties with-"

"Are you mocking me?" Her eyes had turned to slits as she faced him fully now, he was suddenly very aware of her tight grip on her quill and stammered over his words.

"No! No, I just- we just and by we I mean, me, Peter, James and Remus would like to be friends with you." He said and she glanced to the bookcase they were hid behind. She whipped her wand from her pocket and flicked it in that direction, some of the books flew onto the table next to her gracefully and now the three boy's heads were visible, all of them having wide eyes and similar innocent smiles.

"You mean them?

"Yes." All four said in unison.

"Why would four boys like you want to be friends with me? Besides, I don't do friends." Elladora sighed and began collecting her books, paper and ink pot.

"Wait. Wait, wait, just hear us out." James pleaded, running over to her and actually kneeling at her feet, looking up at her with his big pleading eyes. "A minute of your time, that's all we ask for." He begged.

"No."

"Please." James pouted and gave her the biggest puppy dog eyes she had ever seen, the glasses only added to it, he looked adorable, and as much as Elladora was hurting, she couldn't say no to cuteness.

"60 seconds and then I'm gone." She sat back down in the chair and James pumped a fist in the air, standing up and sitting on a chair that Remus had brought along with two others so all five could sit around the desk together.

"Before we start our 60 seconds, we ask that you don't get mad until we finish our explanation." Sirius requested and she nodded once.

"55 seconds." She reminded.

"Right okay, well, Remus told us about what happened on the astronomy tower that night-" James started and straight away, the girls head snapped to Remus, who flushed red with embarrassment and regret as he looked away, still fully aware of her eyes burning into her head. "-but we don't want you doing that anymore and we realised that we want to help you."

"Help me how?" She asked, tearing her gaze away from Remus to look at the bespectacled boy. Though it was Sirius Black who spoke instead.

"We'll get to that, but if you say yes to our friendship, then we promise to make your life the best life it can be. Scratch that. Even better." He said and she was silent for a moment, looking down at her lap whilst fiddling with her fingers.

"Better?" She asked quietly.

"Better." Peter spoke up, leaning forward slightly and she looked up to meet his gaze, the boy immediately blushing profusely under the eye contact.

The four boys all leaned slightly forwards at the same time, awaiting her answer as they saw the cogs turning in her brain. She looked between them all, into their bright pleading eyes. Every time she had seen the four of them around school, when with each other, their mouths never seemed to be turned downwards, instead there were always bright grins. Elladora would be lying if she said that she didn't envy their friendship, their tightly bonded friendship.

"Yes."

"Yes what?" James furrowed his eyebrows. She narrowed her eyes at him, seeing that he was indeed not joking.

"Yes, I'll be you're...friend." She said hesitantly and all of their eyes lit up and identical toothy grins appeared on their faces.

"Awesome." Sirius beamed as he stared at her stoic face, a new found glint in her eyes that had never been seen before.

•*•*•*•*•

"Elladora, as friends, we sit with you at breakfast and lunch, we sit with you at classes, we study with you and we hang out with you when we can." James told her as they sat down at the Gryffindor table for lunch. He grabbed a sandwich and took a bite of it, handing it over to her afterwards. "We also share food.

"That's disgusting." Elladora said to him and he shrugged, taking another bite of the chicken sandwich.

"The point is," Sirius plopped himself down next to her. "Friends care for each other, they stick up for each other and protect each other, we will do that for you, but you have to do it for us in return."

"I can't change my ways of life in a day."

"We're not asking you too," Remus assured with a soft smile, looking deep into her chocolate brown irises. "We're helping you to come out of your shell and have fun, have a good time before school ends and you go up into the boring work of the world. We want you to be happy."

Happy. The word was so foreign to her. Maybe when she was a baby she felt a little bit of happiness, but she had grown up enclosed in a dark house, spending most of her time in a dark room, with dark clothes and dark secrets. Happiness came so naturally to others, but it was harder for her.

"We just want you to work with us." Remus continued, reassuring her.

"Okay, I'll try my best." She nodded. "But I'm not used to this friend thing."

"We know," Peter nodded and she glowered at him, causing him to stutter and stammer with flushed red cheeks. "I meant that, we know that we're going to take some getting used to."

"I think I've talked enough to you today." She said quietly and nodded a farewell, walking out of the great hall hastily, it was all too much, she had never talked to four people at the same time, it was overwhelming, she felt her chest being tightened every time they told her a new thing.

She wasn't experienced in the 'friend' area of the world, she hadn't talked to anybody in school except for the Professors and the occasional arguments with the other Slytherins and now she was taking on a friendship with four Gryffindors she had never conversed with before this year. Elladora wasn't exactly sure why they wanted to be friends with her, she had never shown any interest in them before and now they were constantly trying to talk to her over and over again. It was tiring really, her social skills weren't as good as others, yet somehow she managed to talk to them fluently, a little bit hesitant on some words, but the rest were fine, like she knew them all in a past life.

The first time she ever left the house, was to see the Black family, more specifically, Walburga and Orion, she had not seen their children or tried to strike up a conversation with anyone, just as she had been told to. However, both Regulus and Sirius were watching as their mother grasped Elladora's face firmly in her hands and turned her head, as if examining her, to find any imperfections. She found quite a few and slapped the girl, yelling at her when she dared to open her mouth. He had completely forgotten about her, until that day on the prank, when all the memories came flooding back.

The sounds of the skin against skin contact and the screams of his mother flooded his nightmares, but he quickly got rid of them with a simple sleeping charm. They quickly dissipated when he got back into he normal day-to-day routine.

This is the main reason that he wanted to make Elladora's life better, he had heard and seen her pain, and he could not imagine what it was like at her own house. He had seen Cassiopeia Hargreaves' hands gripped tightly onto her daughters shoulders, leaving bruises that would last months, he had seen the way she didn't even flinch when being yelled at, like she was used to it. It had broken her, she had been ruined, her boggart had even proved it, it was horrible to see and yet something that everybody knew was not real, had affected her so much that she had run out of the classroom.

He needed to make her better, and who was better to do so than himself and his own mismatched group of friends, that live for making people laugh and smile thanks to their silly little pranks. If all goes well and Elladora becomes one of the marauders, he hopes that he and the boys could also get her to smile, even if it was the tiniest one, he still wanted to see her lips quirk up in the slightest way, he had the desire to hear her laugh that was probably the smoothest one out of all the girls in Hogwarts.

He wasn't just looking for a shag, and he wasn't just looking for another girl to date to keep his reputation of the 'Hogwarts Heartthrob'. He just wanted her to be happy.

And he wasn't the only one.

•*•*•*•*•