Lady Stardust

21. April, 1976

April 14th

Ariene was happier than she had been in a while. It was a strange feeling if she was being honest. She would be laughing with Mary and Lily and suddenly she would realize that she was perfectly relaxed at the moment. She loved the feeling, but she wasn't quite used to it. She had "made up" with Sirius. It was a strange way of putting it, considering that they both had basically ignored what happened. Ariene had talked with Remus about the whole situation and he said it was best to just ignore it and move on. Ariene knew this wasn't a solution, exactly, but it also wasn't really her business, so she stayed out of it. A very challenging thing to do. She was having a lot less of her anxiety attacks, and Remus was constantly checking in with her about them. Ariene and Marlene barely talked about the whole love situation, but Ariene knew she wanted to. She tried to ignore it, not wanting to change things but also not wanting to hurt Marlene at the same time. March has passed by nicely and Ariene celebrated James's birthday with the Marauders. She had no idea how she had become so close with the most popular boys in the school so quickly, but she didn't mind.

She sat on her bed talking to James, who was laying down, hands behind his head.

"Don't you think you could come over for the summer at all ? Surely your family would let you leave for a week?" James said. Ariene smiled.

"James," She said softly.

"No! I'm serious! It would be so much fun, and you could meet my parents and we have a spare bedroom," James said, smiling.

"James, it sounds lovely but-"

"And you could go record shopping! There's this muggle record store that Sirius loves and it's a little out of town but it's no big-"

"James, I don't think so." Ariene sighed.

"Did you hear me? I said record shopping , Ariene! There's a pond by my house where we go swimming sometimes, and my dad is allergic to cats, but we could sort something out, and we can't not bring Bowie. He's part of the Marauders now as well. We could go shopping in Diagon Alley and you can see all the stars outside of my house at night. You love astronomy, right?" James turned to her to see her face.

Ariene did love astronomy. She loved record shopping, and she loved swimming, and she had heard loads of things about Diagon Alley, but she knew she couldn't. She imagined the conversation in her head. " Dad, Mum, I was invited somewhere over the summer," "Where?" "The Potter's house..." She could perfectly imagine her parents' faces. The Potter's ? How dare she spend time with, what, blood traitors? A rich family that wasn't power-thirsty or validation craving? A family that didn't believe in stupid rules about blood purity and legacy? Ariene hated her parents for being such snobs.

"James, I really can't. I'd love to, but I can't. With my parents, it's never that simple." Ariene said. James bit his lip, concern flooding his expression.

"They won't, er," James started. Ariene frowned and turned to him.

"What?"

"They wouldn't do something, right?" He asked. Ariene blinked, unsure of what he was talking about.

"I don't know what you mean." Ariene examined his expression. James sighed.

"When Sirius came back from his family, at the beginning of this school year, there were-and then at Christmas..." James looked at Ariene wincing. Ariene raised her eyebrows.

"Oh. James, don't worry about me. My family wouldn't," Ariene said. She wasn't sure if she was lying for herself or for James.

April 19th