The One That Got Away| Sirius Black

008| Walburga Black

December 19, 1974

"How're my favorite girls?" Sirius asks as he peels open the compartment door. Isabella tries her hardest to hold back a groan. "Oh, and my favorite little brother!" Sirius adds when he sees Elliot is also in the compartment.

Elliot's eyes widen as Sirius acknowledges him and a huge grin spreads across his face. "Don't you have your own little brother?" Isabella asks, wrapping a protective arm around Elliot.

"Yeah, but he's not nearly as cool as Elliot here," Sirius shrugs, squeezing into the compartment and sitting between Elliot and Isabella. The other three Marauders follow behind, cramming their way into the seats. James squeezes in on the other side of Isabella, and Peter and Remus sit on the bench with Aurora, Jackie, and Victoria.

"Make yourselves comfortable then," Aurora says sarcastically as she squeezes herself against the window.

"I can fix that problem," James says, pulling out his wand with a devilish smirk.

"We're not allowed to use magic on the train," Jackie reminds him. Her face grew paler as she watched James turn his wand in his fingers. James was a great wizard, but the thought of him trying to enlarge the compartment magically had most of them feeling nervous. Besides Sirius, of course, Sirius had an encouraging smile on his face as he watched his friend with wide eyes.

"Capacious extremis," James says in a serious tone. Isabella watched as the compartment grew a few feet wider and became more comfortable for everyone.

"Great, now the Ministry's going to come for us," Jackie whimpers covering her face with her hands.

"Absolutely brilliant," Elliot breathes, his eyes practically glowing with admiration for James Potter. James seems to notice and smiles back at Elliot. Elliot looks at his sister, his mouth falling open. "Can you believe that?" he mouths to Isabella, and she chuckles at the boy.

"But did it work?" Isabella wonders suddenly. She stands up, and everyone watches as she exits the compartment, the door shutting behind her. The compartment looked as ordinary as ever from the outside, and there wasn't any extra space jutting out into the hallway. Isabella bit back her amazement and went back into the compartment straight-faced. "Well, it looks like you didn't fail for once."

"Aha!" James cheers, and his friends clap along with him; Elliot joins in as well.

The Marauders stayed in the compartment for the remainder of the train ride. Isabella wasn't fond of the idea, but they weren't too bad for the most part. James was talking about some mystical card game with Elliot. Isabella was happy to see Elliot happy, and her hatred for James lessened by a smidge. Peter was eating sweets and offering them to everyone every time he brought out a new one. Elliot was also happy with him, and Isabella felt terrible for thinking Peter was pathetic this whole time. He was rather sweet and almost reminded Isabella of her little brother. Remus was curled up by the window, reading a book, and Sirius was opposite him, staring out the window.

Isabella couldn't think of a time when Sirius had been quiet for so long; she was convinced he even talked in his sleep. But he seemed so deep in thought. A wrinkle was even forming on his forehead. His bright blue eyes were glued to the window like it might disappear if he looked away. Isabella felt terrible for the boy; it was apparent something was troubling him. When he was like this, she could almost forget how annoyingly arrogant he was the rest of the time.

When they finally arrived at the station, everyone was eager to get to their families. Elliot was shuffling his feet impatiently as he waited for his sister to pack her books in her backpack. The Marauders seemed to hang back slightly as if they needed some privacy. The girls picked up on this and told them to have a good holiday before they exited the compartment.