After Sirius had asked her to the party the rest of class had gone by pretty uneventful for Ella. They practiced turning things to stone for a bit longer, took some new notes. The only thing close to exciting was when Mara got detention for having gum and James Potter turned around and proclaimed her to be his and Sirius's new detention buddy which made Mara moan in dismay and slam her head against the desk with an audible thunk. Ella felt bad for her friend but couldn't help but find it funny since Mara had the biggest crush that bordered on a stalkerish obsession with James Potter in fifth year. And now two years later and Mara was completely over it and now Lily Evans of all people was starting to pay attention to James? What was the world coming to?

As soon as class was dismissed Fletcher walked over to where Ella, Mara, and Mary's table. At the sight of the tall Slytherin Mary, who seemed to get increasingly nervous around Slytherins these days, quickly said goodbye and darted out the door and Mara grumbled something under her breath about how she was going to go and get dumped by Jasper Alarcon, the guy she'd been going out with for the past week. It was sad that Mara had gotten to the point where she wasn't even fazed by break ups anymore, they were so frequent and often that she had just gotten used to it by now.

"Who does he think he is?" Fletcher asked crossly as Ella struggled to shove her books into her bag.

"Unless he's going through an identity crisis or has amnesia or something, he probably thinks he's Sirius Black. Hold these," she told her boyfriend simply, handing him a couple of her textbooks.

"So?" he growled, taking her books.

"Oh all he needs is just a good ego check," sighed Ella, tucking a tendril of chocolaty hair behind her ear and taking her books back after managing to put the ones she had been struggling with into her book bag. "I mean, he's probably not that bad. In the common room he just sort of hangs out with his friends, they're pretty funny. He's just really full of himself and automatically assumes that every girl in school wants to bear his children because he's good looking."

"I don't think he's that good looking," complained Fletcher. "I mean, I'm better than him, aren't I?" Ella stood up straight, having at last won the battle against her textbooks, and smoothed out her skirt. If she had known he was joking should would have laughed, but it wasn't hard to tell that he was being serious.

"Oh calm down, I don't like him," she told him, rolling her eyes. "And yeah, sure, you're pretty."

Spencer sighed, clearly not satisfied with the end results of the conversation.

"Yeah, well I've got Charms," he told his girlfriend, kissing Ella quickly before picking his things up. "I'll talk to you later." Ella smiled slightly and nodded and watched him walk out the door but her smile had turned into a frown as soon as his back had turned to her. Jealousy isn't a good look on him, she thought before heading out the door to go to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Ella sat at the Gryffindor table at lunch, sucking on the end of a sugar quill while she waited for Mara. Whenever one of them showed up to a meal early and started eating without the other they always ended up yelling at each other, jokingly but still it was just easier to avoid conflict. Mm…sugar.

"Where were you, I'm starving," complained Ella as soon as Mara sat down"

"I have free period. I was running around the school like an idiot. Duh," Mara said with an eye roll before grabbing a sandwich. It was such a pity that Mara had dropped Herbology, Ella missed her in that class. But at least she still had Lily Evans. "Oh yeah," Mara said suddenly. "Did I tell you about how I saw Black and Garry Brown arguing in the hallway?"

"Oh my God!" said Ella, sitting up straighter and holding her hands out to stop her best friend from talking. Mara raised an eyebrow. "I just realized... both of their last names are colors!"

"My mother's maiden name was White."

"It's like a colored rainbow of friendship!" said Ella, clapping her hands happily before staring at her sugar quill, deciding she'd had enough, and putting it back away. "Even though we don't like Brown. So why were they fighting?"

"It is! And I guess Black snogged with Brandie Sinclair even though she and Garry are still technically dating," Mara explained.

"That sixth year girl he cheated on you with?" Ella asked. "Ha, I told him she was a slut." Mara laughed and nodded in agreement.

The two girls spent the next couple of minutes just talking about what had happened in the hour they hadn't been together, laughing every once in a while whenever one said something funny or did something stupid. Suddenly Mara stopped and narrowed her eyes.

"Bleh, look who's coming," she complained. Ella turned around to see Sirius coming over from his end of the table. "Want me to get rid of him?"

"No, trust me, I've got this under control," said Ella. Why did everyone think she couldn't handle this guy herself? Yeah, Ella played dumb a lot, but she was pretty clever when she chose to show it and part of her cleverness was the fact that she acted dumb to throw people off and enjoy the looks on their faces when she said something smart after they were convinced that she was genuinely stupid.

The two girls resumed their previous activities and acted like they hadn't noticed anything until they heard Sirius call out her last name. And he even got it right this time. Unfortunately he also got the attention of half the people in the Great Hall, half of which were jealous looking girls and the rest of the people were divided between those who looked amused and those who looked irritated. Thankfully Fletcher didn't appear to be in the Great Hall.

Rather than rotate her body around to look at him, Ella vouched for tilting her head backwards so that he appeared upside down in her eyes.

"Hello Sirius," she said pleasantly. Mara gave her a "What the hell are you doing" look as Sirius squeezed himself between Ella and a small second year boy that he quickly apologized to after he accidentally elbowed the kid in the side of the head.

"So it seems like we never really got a chance to talk much in class," the dark haired boy stated, running his hands through his hair as he spoke. "But anyways, this is a chance of a lifetime we're talking about here. Me. You. Together. At a party."

"Well we're talking now," Ella told him, pointing out the obvious.

"Chance of a lifetime?" snorted Mara. "That's like the chance of every five minutes for any girl isn't it?"

"Notice that I've never asked you out?" said Sirius coldly. Buuuuuuuurn, Ella thought, looking at the offended look on her best friend's face.

"Yeah, well why- hey!" Mara began, cutting herself off as Ella wrenched the fork from her hands and threw it halfway across the Great Hall. Sirius's head whipped around to watch the spoon fly through the air.

"Mara, I think you dropped your spoon. Better go get," said Ella casually.

"It was a fork, genius," sighed Mara, beginning to stand up.

"Yeah, whatever. Fetch!" said Ella. Mara walked away, heading towards a group of very confused Ravenclaws, grumbling "I am not a dog" underneath her breath. At the word fetch Ella had noticed Sirius flinch and begin to stand up.

"No not you!" she laughed, pulling him back down.

"Yeah so anyways what I was trying to say was-" Sirius began to say before the brunette girl snapped her head over to where Lily and James were talking.

"Sssssh, shut up for a second, I love this show," she said, holding out her finger to tell Sirius to be quiet even though he wasn't talking and staring intently at James and Lily like she was trying to read their lips or something. She didn't have lip reading down to a perfect science or anything but she was good enough to get the just of it. Basically James had asked out Lily again and instead of shooting him down she gave him either what was a reluctant no, or a cautious yes. It was hard to tell.

"Aw, that's cute," Ella crooned, resting her face on her palm as she continued to watch. "Just... kind of disappointing. I rather enjoy watching her shoot him down. But I'm kind of on the fence about what to think about it. Like I kind of want her to actually say yes because honestly it's just sad and she should just give the poor guy a chance. And then again it's like... does that boy know the meaning of the word no?" Ella shook her head sadly, gave once more glance at James and Lily and then back again to Sirius. "So what were you saying?" she asked blankly even though she knew exactly what he had been talking about before.

"Uh…." Sirius said, looking back and forth between James and Lily and Ella, his facial expression making it clear that he had no idea what just happened or how to respond. Mission accomplished.