- Chapter Twenty-Eight -
"You're smiling."

Elladora, Hope, Euphemia and Penny spent a couple of more hours in Diagon Alley, they visited different clothing shops, where they bought lots of white shirts and hoodies to brighten up the young girls wardrobe instead of her usual dark clothes. They even went to an ice cream shop, where she hungrily devoured the chocolate flavoured treat.

It was a very enjoyable day for the girls that were staying in the Potter household, it must've looked off for the passers by as they watched four grown women and a teenage girl walk past. But Elladora wouldn't have it any other way, these women had complimented and cared for her more than her mother ever had and she was extremely grateful for that.

"Potter house!" Euphemia announced clearly and threw some of the green powder on the ground of the fireplace. They had all agreed to go home after a long day of shopping and gossiping. Elladora had learned that a woman called 'Molly' is apparently having trouble with her latest son 'Percy' who had been born 4 months ago.

Bright green flames erupted all around Euphemia and she disappeared from sight, letting Elladora step in afterwards, dressed in a white jumper and grey leggings. Her hair was pushed back by a white headband that Hope had bought her from another shop. It certainly got all of her baby hairs out of her face.

"Potters house." Elladora threw her powder into the floor and let the warmth indulge her and the next thing she knew she was greeted with the Potter's living room as she stepped out, seeing Euphemia greeting Lyall in the kitchen. She waved a quick hello to the two before disappearing up the stairs toward the 'marauders man and woman cave'.

When she got to the door, she had to awkwardly bend her body to press the door handle down slightly before hitting the wood with her hip, letting it open slowly as she made her way in. "Hi." She muttered to the boys whilst placing the bags in her hands down on the floor.

Her eyes looked up to see all four of them gaping at her. Instantly, she raised a hand to her face, wondering if she had a bit of chocolate ice cream smudged over her face. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No." Peter shook his head, still staring with wide eyes. "You- you look pretty, I mean, cute, I mean, not cute but you're definitely really beautiful right now. Wait- no I didn't-"

"What Peter means to say is that you look different." Remus smiled and stood from his place on the floor. "A good different, white looks nice on you." He said and she nodded, adjusting her headband slightly.

"I had fun." She told them, sitting on her lilac bed covers, looking around at the boys who were all sat on their designated quilts.

"That's good." Sirius came past her and ruffled her hair, making the headband fall off of her head, which she glared at. "The party starts in about three hour-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as Penny Pettigrew came rushing in, banging the door open and picking up the bags before grabbing Elladora by the arm. "We need to get you ready, you're going to look beautiful." She smiled and lightly pushed her towards the door without letting her get a word in before turning to her son.

"She's even better than you described in your letters." She winked and disappeared down the stairs, following the sixth-year.

All at once, Remus, Sirius and James erupted into laughter as Peter burned a bright shade of red. "Even better than you described in your letters." Sirius quoted Penny and received a pillow to the face from the boy himself.

"Shut it, Padfoot."

Remus joined in on the teasing, raising his voice to mimic Peter slightly. "Dear mummy," He started and they all laughed. "Elladora is the nicest girl I've ever met. The way she gets confused at the simplest things makes me smile like I've never smiled before. I'm so glad we made the decision to be her friend, because I honestly don't know what I'd do. It's like my eyes are drawn to her every time she enters a room and no matter what she's wearing, she always looks...perfect."

"Yeah." Sirius laughed before doing the same. "Elladora is smart, funny when she doesn't even try to be and honestly has the most adorable chubby cheeks that you could just squish for hours on end. She's so adorably small that she literally drowns in any of the clothes you offer her but she's a total badass and can and will jinx you into next week."

Peter grinned and continued. "What I think I said was something along the lines of," He started. "There's a girl that I've never spoken to before, but I keep finding myself glancing over at her at breakfast tables. She seems very stern but is actually just an adorable tiny ball of obliviousness and confusion."

James glanced between them all with his eyes narrowed suspiciously, they weren't wrong, but it didn't seem to be like they were mocking Peter anymore. He didn't think they realised that they were being so unbelievably obvious right now, so he decided to save them the embarrassment of working it out for themselves. "She's like a sister?" He joined in and they all laughed together, before falling silent again.

"She's come so far, hasn't she?" James spoke up again. "I mean, it feels just like yesterday when she was interrupting me with mandrakes." He sighed.

"Or dodging our pranks."

"Or making clocks moved with her mind."

"Or stuffing her face with bread rolls."

"She still does that." Peter pointed out with a smile and all four of them chuckled at their friend's bread obsession. "Oh, her porridge addiction too."

"Honestly, I regret telling her to eat it, there's none left anymore." Remus shook his hand and they laughed once again.

"We've done a good job." Sirius grinned and put two of his fists out to his sides, where James and Remus bumped their fists with him and Peter. It was basically a fist-bump with all four of them.

"Yes we have."

•*•*•*•*•

"What is that stuff?"

Elladora was sat in a chair opposite Hope Lupin as the woman emptied out a small bag on the vanity desk of the guest room that she and Lyall Lupin were staying in whilst at the Potter's. The young girl was pointing to the array of different tubes and what looked like sponges, all cluttered together with a couple of...brushes?

"It's makeup." Hope smiled as best as she could. Throughout the day, Elladora had noticed her getting weaker and maybe even walking a bit slower. She was in pain.

"What's makeup?" Elladora furrowed her eyebrows slightly, looking at the woman

Hope laughed softly and grabbed a wipe from a packet that sat on the desk before she edged closer to the girls face, wiping it over slightly. "It's something you put on your face to make you look nicer than you already do." She smiled and Elladora looked quite cautious already. She had used some type of makeup to cover her bruises, because that's what she thought it was for, but...obviously not. There was more stuff on the desk that Elladora had ever known there to be.

"Is it safe?"

Hope paused for a moment, tilting her head at the young girl before smiling fondly. "It's completely safe. Now relax." She breathed and the girl did her best, shutting her eyes for the best search of peace. A cold liquid was dabbed onto her cheek and her eyes flew open to see Hope with an irregular-shaped sponge thingy.

"You're fine, honey." The woman soothed, placing a hand on Elladora's knee. She nodded and relaxed, closing her eyes once again as the sponge dabbed over her face.

After about half an hour of more liquids, on her cheeks again, and powders, on her eyes, Hope was applying some black stuff to her eyelashes to apparently make her eyes 'pop'. Whatever that meant. It finished with a watermelon pink sort of stick things being swiped across her lips.

The woman sat in front of Elladora was practically glowing with joy at the sight, grinning as she clicked the lid back on the tube.  Hope moved out of the way so that Elladora was staring straight into the mirror in front of her, her skin looked smoother and her eyelashes looked longer, there was a kind of brown colour painted over her eyelids, which made her eyes more noticeable, which is what Hope probably meant by 'pop'.

"She did a good job."

Elladora turned her head quickly to see Penny and Euphemia at the door, smiling and nodding at the makeup on the teenagers face.

"This is so fun." Penny continued. "It's like the last night of Hogwarts all over again." She laughed and so did Euphemia as they walked in, with some other stuff in bags that made Elladora quite nervous as they held them up.

The next hour went by and the young girl's hair was tied back into a long beautiful plait with a white hair decoration that was clipped in subtly. Now all she needed to do was get in her dress, and she did. She felt as beautiful as she did the first time, especially with her styled hair and face doused in different products.

The mothers had left her alone, seeing her deep thought they thought it might be best to leave her to it.

Elladora had stationed herself in front of a body mirror, examining herself. She loved it, her dress didn't outline her curves or make things seem bigger than they were, the skirt wasn't too big or too thin, her hair wasn't in her face or too tight. Her cheeks were covered in makeup but not for the purpose of covering bruises. It was perfect.

"Holy shit." A voice said from behind her and she turned slowly to see Remus stood in some casual, but formal, black robes, hairbrush in hand with his mouth agape as he stared at the girl in front of him. "H-hi, Dora." He stuttered, walking in and shutting the door with a click.

"Hi, Remus." She waved and faced the mirror again, seeing him still stood there. She glanced between their two outfits and felt kind of overdressed. "Am I overdressed? Your mother said I looked perfect but I'm not sure."

"Oh, these are just for me...you should see James and Sirius, I'm surprise that they haven't got canes and top hats." He laughed and the door flung open once again, revealing James and Sirius is matching fancy grey dress robes. James had a white shirt and a black tie whereas Sirius had a black shirt and a white tie, they looked like twins. Peter came in last, huffing as tried to flatten out his hair, his robes were navy blue and he had a pinky sort of tie.

All three of them had the same reaction as Remus did, looking up and then freezing with their mouths agape. "Oh, shit." Sirius muttered, eyes wide. Elladora became quite nervous and fiddled with one of the lines of material that draped from the back of her shoulders.

"Boys are going to be lining up." Euphemia waltzed in, wearing a dress that looked the same colour as Madam Malkin's usual robes. She glided over to Elladora and took her hand, spinning her around slowly.

"And they'll meet my fist when they do." James held up a hand and it was lowered by Peter, who was still staring open-mouthed at Elladora. "They'll be all like 'my lady' and then I'll be like 'bam bam!'" He punched his balled up fist in the air twice.

"If she wants to dance with a boy, she can." Euphemia glared at her son, who rolled his eyes and lowered his fist.

"But..." Sirius piped up. "There's all sorts of horrible men in this town. No offence to Fleamont, but I've heard nasty rumours it'll be better if she-"

"I'm not dancing with any boys." Elladora cut in, looking back at herself in the mirror and playing with the long skirt of her dress, fiddling with it. "I don't care what other ladies do on Christmas. I wont be dancing with any strangers."

"Good on you." Euphemia patted her shoulder and left the room, presumably to go and finish getting ready for the ball.

"Beauty that cannot be measured on ones fingers." James sang as he strutted over, grinning madly.

"That doesn't make sense." Elladora protested, narrowing her eyes at him slightly.

"Did it need to?" He asked and chuckled, looking over at the other three who were smiling back at them.

•*•*•*•*•

Music blasted all across the room as people danced around with their friends, their husbands or their wives, even the boys had gone off somewhere that Elladora didn't know. She was just sat on a chair, fiddling with the material of her lengthy skirt, whilst watching some girls flirt with Sirius from across the room.

He didn't seem all that interested though, he was being friendly, but not in a normal, Sirius Black kind of charming way.

She hasn't been to any other parties before but she was pretty sure that you weren't meant to be sat on your own with a glass of water in hand whilst everybody else was up and dancing. They didn't even have bread rolls on the buffet table which was disappointing.

That wasn't even the worst part

A slow song started to play and she just wanted to bury her face in a pillow and scream into it, fall asleep and never wake up again. Girls approached boys and husbands wrapped an arm around the waists of their significant others, she could see Fleamont and Euphemia dancing somewhere, as well as Penny and Paul.

Hope and Lyall had danced at the start of the night, but now retired to a table, sat together whilst smiling at the couples that were slow-dancing with each other.

Sirius had disappeared from his group of girls, who were looking around cluelessly and Elladora couldn't see any of the other boys either. Until one of them came and sat next to her.

"Hi." Peter smiled and she nodded at him, tucking a stray strand of baby hair behind her ear whilst continuing to look out onto the couples. "You've been sat down all night." He acknowledged.

"I don't think parties are really my thing." She clasped her hands together, looking down at her lap. "And I feel bad because Euphemia spent all that money on this stupid dress and I could've just stayed back home."

"Home?"

"I meant the Potter's house."

Peter nodded and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes, the slow songs seemed to drag on and the couples were all staring at each other with pure admiration in their eyes.

"Would you, um-" He started but obviously wasn't sure on how to announce the question because he kept stammering. "Y'know, like, what I mean is- dance with me?"

It was safe to say Elladora was taken aback as her eyes widened with both shock and fear, she didn't know how to dance, she would make a complete fool of herself.

"I don't know how." She admitted.

"I'll teach you." Peter stood, holding out his hand. "I, Peter Pettigrew, will teach you, Elladora Hargreaves, to dance." He promised and she stared at his hand, watching as it shook slightly.

After a moments hesitation, she placed her hand in his and let him pull her out of her chair and onto the dance floor. "Just trust me, okay?" He asked. "I'm gonna put my hand here."

His hand made its way to her waist, pulling her slightly closer since they were stood about two feet away from each other. "And my other one will hold yours." He interlaced their fingers. "Your other hand will rest on my shoulder, and we just sway."

And so they did, the two of them swayed slowly on the spot, Peter smiling at her whilst her eyebrows twitched. Elladora saw Penny over Peter's shoulder and lifted her hand off of his shoulder, waving slightly. The woman waved back with enthusiasm, before turning to her husband and pointing them out to him, he smiled and then whispered something back to his wife.

"Mind if I cut in?"

A new voice joined and Peter was hip-bumped away by James, who slid in and took his place, making sure she didn't fall. The blonde stayed for a moment before turning on his heel and heading back to the table, head hung down slightly as James kept a good hold on the girls waist as they swayed together now.

"This is too slow for my liking." He frowned slightly and swayed a little bit faster, but still in time to the music. Elladora followed his lead accidentally stepping on his toes.

"Sorry." She winced and looked down at their feet.

"It's okay, I'm sorry I'm advance for stepping on yours too." He shrugged and she was pretty sure he was no seer, but he did actually step on her foot after that. "Oh, well I'm sorry but now it's time for you to go."

She furrowed her eyebrows momentarily but didn't get a chance to voice her confusion until she was twirled around and let out of James' grasp. "James!" She gasped slightly and stumbled, ready for the embarrassment of hitting the floor.

But another person grabbed her instead, this time it was Sirius in all of his glory, bopping his head along to the music like it was some wizard rock band instead of classical music. "Well, hello there." He smirked and swayed faster than James, but still a little bit slower.

"Y'know I don't appreciate getting thrown around like a Quaffle." Elladora huffed, stepping on his toes purposely. He whined slightly and spun her around before dipping her, making her yelp in surprise, but he held her up so she didn't hit the floor.

"You're wearing heels." He whispered breathlessly. "That hurt."

His breath was on her face, since their heads were only a couple of inches away from each other and she was afraid that she would fall any moment.

"Bring me back up or I'll step on you again." She glared and he laughed, keeping her dipped, the laugh fanned onto her face too and she had to avoid his eyes to prevent it from being awkward.

"Is that a promise?" He smirked in a whisper again and she actually met his gaze this time with an unimpressed stare, though there was amusement twinkling deep inside of them.

"It's a threat." She whispered back.

Sirius smiled and pulled her back up again, twirling himself under her arm before pushing her away slightly, causing her to stumble again as she cursed them out under her breath.

But once again, she didn't trip as another person caught her and she turned to see Remus, holding her by the waist. "This is the last time, I promise you." He grinned and released one hand from her waist, holding up a pinky.

"Why are you showing me your finger?" She asked.

"It's a pinky promise, you link your pinky with mine." He explained, grabbing one of her hands, and her pinky from that and, locking it around his own and shaking them. "Now, I believe it's my turn for a dance."

But then the slow song ended and another upbeat one came on, causing his smile to drop. James, Sirius and Peter joined them, singing the lyrics obnoxiously and Remus was smiling again, singing right along with them. Elladora stood with them, swaying her body slightly along to the tune whilst her very own thoughts were being deafened by everyone.

It must be a popular song.

They were having fun, despite not knowing the song or not being able to dance as energetically as the boys, Elladora was having fun. This kind of fun was different to the stuff at Hogwarts, at school she had to be watchful for her fellow Slytherins, she had to keep up her scores, she had to sit through boring hours of History of Magic. But here, here she was free, which is why she got moving a little bit more, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her heels clicking against the floor sometimes, but overall, she was happy.

Her lips started to twitch and they didn't stop until a full blown smile was painted on her face.

Lips were spread open and her white teeth were on display as she danced carelessly, not seeming to notice that all the boys had stopped. "What?" She stopped dancing, brushing hair out of her face as the ghost of a smile remained. "Why aren't we dancing?"

"You're smiling." James stated, shocked as the other boys nodded. Elladora furrowed her eyebrows slightly before clocking onto what was happening and her expression turned from confusion to wonder.

"I'm smiling."

"You're smiling."

"Me. I'm smiling."

"Yes you are."

I might seem pathetic to others but not for her. Her eyes stung with tears, happy tears, really really happy ones as she cupped her hands over her mouth staring around at the boys with her eyes wide before a small laugh left her lips and she smiled wider than before.

"I'm smiling!" She cheered, taking her hands away from her mouth whilst she looked around at the boys who were actually also staring to tear up too.

"I'm smiling!"

Elladora lunged forwards and pulled them all into a group hug, laughing happily. She can't believe it, she had never heard her own laugh before yet she couldn't really stop, she couldn't stop laughing or smiling, or just being happy in general.

"Didn't know you had it in you." James joked, wiping her happy tears off of her face, but he couldn't stop himself from smiling at her smile.

It was truly beautiful and they were happy. All of them.

•*•*•*•*•
A/N: SHE SMILED. I REPEAT, SHE SMILED. This chapter was...not as good as I thought it would be because my mind was kind of blank even though I had all these ideas, but i managed to get them all down!! Sorry for this long chapter, but I really wanted a big one for her to smile!

Hope you enjoyed. And here's some gifs of her smiling because I can't get enough of it!

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