- Chapter Seventy-Nine -
"How he looked at you."

The heat continued to attack Elladora on the way back up the castle, her legs were practically melting under the fluff of the black sweatpants she was wearing and she wouldn't be surprised if water started leaking out of the long sleeves of her top any time soon. She craved desperately to roll her sleeves up but knew that she couldn't, not now anyway. The one thing she had been relieved of was the boiling heat on the back of her neck which was covered by her hair as Sirius, once he had found them after the match, had leant her the hair tie he used to tie his own hair up.

She would've tackled him into a hug if she didn't feel too disgusting. Instead, she snatched the hair tie off of him and gathered all of her hair in her hands and tied it up into a ponytail. Her hair was very rarely ever anything but down but desperate times called for desperate measures, she could've done with a nose plug too after getting a whiff of James' sweat when he threw his arms up in victory right near her face.

With all of the heat, stench and just pure commotion of the match, she was surprised she hadn't passed out yet. After receiving a face full of James' body odour, she had turned her head away with a grimace and still tucked under Remus' arm he had put around her shoulders, the sweat was quickly replaced by his pleasant deodorant that smelled similar to something she had smelt in the Potions classroom the previous lesson. Remus had only laughed at her face and removed his arm to congratulate James too, hugging the boy despite the burning heat.

Elladora didn't see much of Regulus before they all realised that the specks of green had gone off of the pitch already. She assumed that meant that the rest of the Death Eaters had left too to show their support for the team or their anger towards the Gryffindor Team. They probably knew about the meeting already but if not, she hoped that she wouldn't have to tell them because she wanted very little to do with them but knew that she wasn't going to happen any time soon so just decided on limiting her communication.

"Party in the Gryffindor Common Room!" Someone had yelled out, Elladora couldn't tell who but the cheers around her made her flinch as it roared in her ears. James laughed and ran a hand through his close-to-dripping hair as Elladora smiled half-heartedly whilst people started to run back off to the castle at the news of this party.

"Save me a dance, Evans?" James grinned as she went past but all she gave him was a small smile and walked past him. His grin faltered and turned into a frown as he watched where she walked away from him.

"What's up with her?" Sirius furrowed his eyebrows as Lily's hair shone brighter than ever in the summer sun whilst she walked next to Marlene McKinnon. "I thought everything was going well."

"It...it was." James rubbed the back of his neck, frowning as Lily became another speck of red in the distance. He then turned around quickly to face the rest of them with a look of defeat and hopelessness on his face. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Surely not." Peter tried to reassure. "Maybe she didn't quite hear you, wanted to get ready for the party, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah okay." James muttered to himself, nodding his head as he looked back over to the castle. "Okay, well, I'm gonna go shower and get ready for the party. I'll see you all there." He waved and so did Sirius before they set off for the Changing Rooms.

Elladora watched as they both walked away to the changing rooms, the trophy had been taken by Professor McGonagall and would supposedly be put up in the awards room with the rest of the trophies. Elladora doesn't go near there much but she knew that James often went in to look at pictures of Quidditch Captains that came before him; there was one time where he had come back from looking in there and brought up the plaque that displayed one familiar name.

Sebastian Hargreaves. Holding the record for highest O.W.L scores ever to be achieved at Hogwarts, full marks on every test except for his Herbology test where he only had one lost mark. She had been so proud when he had told her that he had gotten that in one of his letters when he went back for his sixth-year, the year he died. When James had brought it up, she simply hummed in acknowledgement and he immediately knew not to push her any further, her brother seemed to be a sore spot for her and he assumed that Sebastian had left for America on a bad note.

"Dora," Remus put a hand on her shoulder, taking her out of her thoughts as she whirled around, her ponytail almost smacking him in the face if he hadn't leant back in time. "You coming to the party?"

"Yeah." She nodded her head with a small smile, making a mental note not to have too much alcohol so that she could still control what she talked about. "I just need to go to Madam Pomfrey first though."

Remus nodded and they set off up to the castle with Peter by their side. When they got to the entrance hall, the boys went towards the stairs that would take them up to Gryffindor Tower and Elladora went towards the Hospital Wing with her hand on her stomach subconsciously. It hadn't given her that weird feeling since Remus had put an arm around her shoulder but she supposed it was better to have it diagnosed sooner rather than later.

"Miss Hargreaves." Madam Pomfrey greeted her with a nod as she walked into the room, there was only one other person in there; a first year with their hand in a bandage. "Is everything all right? Mr. Lewis, you can go."

The first year got up off of the bed and scurried out with his bandaged hand being held carefully in his other. Madam Pomfrey looked back at Elladora and raised her eyebrows slightly; after she had spent a whole three weeks in here after Christmas, Elladora felt as though she was indebted to Madam Pomfrey and her amazing abilities.

"I was wondering if you could diagnose something for me." She asked quietly, Madam Pomfrey nodded and gestured to a bed that Elladora made her way over to and lay in hesitantly and once the older woman had gotten a clipboard off  of a trolley and given her the go ahead, Elladora started. "My stomach, it's been feeling very odd recently. Like this weird buzzing and then a kind of like jittering before it feels like it's...jumping? I know that sounds ridiculous but I've never felt anything like this before and I'm actually really confused."

"Hm." Madam Pomfrey hummed once and put the clipboard to the side, Elladora eyeing it warily. "How do you feel when that happens? An emotional way, not physical."

"Uh," Elladora furrowed her eyebrows. "Kind of...nervous. I don't know, like I've had it before when I was anxious about something, something bad and that made me feel sick but this feels different to that." She squinted her eyes slightly and heard Madam Pomfrey hum again. "It's not as infectious and it doesn't make me feel sick. A little bit giddy. It feels...better."

"Tell me, Miss Hargreaves." The woman spoke and Elladora looked over at her, narrowing her eyes slightly at the small smirk on her mouth. "Who are you normally near when you get this feeling?"

"Well the first time I was stood in between Remus and Peter in Defence Against The Dark Arts, that was just after we came home from Easter." She listed off, thinking back to all the times she had felt the odd turning. "Then that same lesson when I was taking to Remus, it happened one at dinner when I looked over at my friends, uh...it happened today when Remus and I celebrated the win of Gryffindor and then when Remus put his arm around me when watching James celebrate."

After her words, she realised that Madam Pomfrey had gone silent and she turned her head to see the woman now smiling  completely and not half attempting to hide a smirk. Elladora furrowed her eyebrows and gulped nervously, she was actually starting to get a bit worried now that Madam Pomfrey wasn't saying anything and just smiling at her. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the woman began talking.

"Well, Miss Hargreaves, I believe I have a diagnosis." She said and the young girl sat up straighter with an eager and curious look in her eyes. Madam Pomfrey sat at the end of the bed next to Elladora's feet and smiled again. "I believe that what you're feeling...is love."

The two of them stared at each other just for a moment. Nothing happened, they just stared. Madam Pomfrey was still smiling at Elladora who just blinked blankly at her for a couple of moments before she started laughing. The woman's smile faltered slightly as Elladora laughed, it was forced and a bit confused and Madam Pomfrey felt her heart begin to crack slightly as the teenager in front of her began to talk again.

"It's not that, it can't be. I can't..." Elladora shook her head, her own smile forced as her eyes dimmed in their glints and her head shook more firmly. "Love is not something that I-"

She cut herself off and avoided Madam Pomfey's gaze and settled on looking down at her lap instead. The burning gaze of the Mediwitch was still prominent on Elladora's head as she looked down at her lap in pure confusion. Love? Love. It was impossible, Elladora thought. What even was love? She didn't know because she's never felt it before, she doesn't now how to feel it. She can't feel it and anyway, surely there was nobody that she could love and not know it.

"I think I'd know if I was feeling...love." The word was almost foreign on her tongue as she looked up at Madam Pomfrey, the hair tie was doing nothing for her now as she felt her hairs stick to the back of her head with a small anxious sweat added to her sweat from heat. "Wouldn't I?"

"Not if you've never felt it before." Madam Pomfrey shrugged and Elladora gulped once more, taking her gaze away from her again and looking all around her again. "I knew it from the moment I saw."

"Saw what?"

"How he looked at you." She said with a soft smile and Elladora furrowed her eyebrows, shaking her head in misunderstanding. She didn't know what she was talking about, she was confused. Love?

"How who looked at me?"

"Mr. Lupin." Madam Pomfrey patted the duvet of the Hospital Bed before getting up whilst Elladora's eyes widened in disbelief, her head snapping up to face the Mediwitch incredulously. "When you were in the Hospital Wing after Christmas, he sat with you and held your hand so delicately it was like you were a piece of glass that was going to slip through his fingers at any moment. He never took his eyes off of you, the constant glassy look of being on the verge of tears because of the way you looked like you wouldn't wake up, his nervousness when the full moon was coming up and you weren't awake yet and his smile the next morning when you all came in with him. That's right, Miss Hargreaves, I know that you know."

"Eating something as simple as a bread roll and doing something as simple as talking had all of his attention on you and he stared, I have never once seen anyone look at another person like that without the two of them ending up getting married. If my husband had looked at me the way Mr. Lupin does you, we would've stayed together. And now, from what you've told me, your own heart is beginning to find it's way to where it belongs. The feeling your stomach was having, Miss Hargreaves, was butterflies. A common term for the fluttering in ones stomach when near the object of their affection."

Elladora stared at the woman, straight-faced but internally panicking. The first time it had happened, Remus had stepped closer to her and she could smell his scent, the second time he had leaned down to whisper to her. They hugged in the Quidditch stands and he had put his arm around her at the celebration. She had smelled his deodorant in the Potions classroom because Slughorn had brewed Amortentia to show his next class and she had been working where he stored it. Her reassurances for his insecurities had come so easy to her over Easter because she was...

Silently, she flopped back down in the bed after having been sat up as she was hit with a sudden realisation.

She was in love with Remus Lupin. Maybe.

•*•*•*•*•
A/N: yeah❤️

also in one of the early chapters, remus' amortentia was faint because elladora couldn't smell anything so that affected his too if you hadn't picked up on that