Elegantly Wasted: Sirius Black

26-Wonderful

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23rd December 1976

Lily watched as the girls in her dorm ran around chaotically. The train home left in two hours and for whatever reason, Lily and Mary were the only ones that packed a trunk before they had to.

"Marlene that's my top!" Laurie shouted as she caught the blonde sneakily placing Laurie's red, striped top in her trunk.

"It's not!" She argued back.

"It is! Lily tell her!" Laurie cried, pointing an accusing finger at Marlene.

"Marlene will you just give her the top back," said Lily like a mother whose children wouldn't give her a break.

"Ugh! Fine" Marlene balled up the top tightly and aimed right at Laurie's face then threw it.

Laurie put her top in her trunk then looked at the blonde witch and ran for her.

"Get off her!" yelled Mary and got up to break the fighting girls apart.

Marlene and Laurie, we're in a fit of giggles on the floor of the dorm room.

Lily sat down on her bed and let a thought that hadn't settled in her mind yet, become the only thing she could think about.

"Are you alright Lils?" asked Mary.

"Yeah you look very pale" Marlene's voice was filled with concern for the redhead.

Lily's eyes went wide and she went even paler "I have to meet James's parents, today. What if they hate me?"

"Oh Lily, they aren't going to hate you. James has talked you up to Mia and Monty for years" Laurie say beside her and comforted.

"That's my point! What if he's talked me up so much that I'm not what they expected, that I'm not as great as James told them I was?"

"That's impossible because you are even better than how James describes you. You are the most wonderful which I've ever met" told Laurie.

"Most wonderful?"

"Absolutely!"

Lily took a deep breath and recollected herself "Right, I think I should go help James pack"

"Merlin knows he's nothing done" Marlene added with a laugh.

"I'll see you at the train station," she said as she started to leave the room.

"Wait!" said Laurie "I'll go with you"

"Bye," said the remaining girls.

Lily and Laurie made their way through the common room and up to the boy's dorm.

Lily knocked and Peter answered the door and greeted them. They walked in to see Remus sitting on his bed, Peter on his, James and Sirius were playing passing with a ball while their trunks sat empty on the end of their beds.

"James Potter!"

James immediately dropped the ball and turned to look at his girlfriend.

"Why is your trunk completely empty?"

He looked in his trunk "not completely" and pulled out a single sock.

"James!"

"Alright woman!" the couple began to pack up James' stuff.

Laurie walked over and sat down at the top of Sirius's bed. Sirius moved to lie next to her "it's like they're already a married couple" she whispered.

Sirius draped his arm over Laurie's shoulder "Maybe they got married in secret and didn't invite any of us"

"I doubt it. James would never get married without me"

Sirius scoffed in offence at the girl's comment "Excuse you, I am and always will be James' best friend. He would never get married without me"

"For the first eleven years of his life, I was his only friend. You wouldn't get married without your first friend, would you?" she boasted, still talking in whispers.

"You were my first friend" he smiled when she turned her head to face him.

"No, I wasn't. It was James"

"Nope. It was you. Remember when I came into your compartment and you were waiting for James to come back, you were the first person that wasn't afraid to talk to a black" Sirius reminisced back to when they were eleven.

What he hadn't mentioned to her was that it took him about ten minutes to gather the courage to walk into her compartment because as he walked past he caught a glimpse of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

"Will I be at your wedding then?" she asked.

"I hope so" Sirius nodded. She smiled at the boy, she hoped she would be there too.

Laurie looked at the time and saw that the train was leaving in an hour.

"The train is leaving soon"

"So?"

"So you still have an empty trunk" she got up from the comfort that had fallen between them, not listening or caring about anything else in the dorm.

"It's not empty" he got up and pulled out the matching sock to the one James had pulled from his trunk earlier. It was even his, James owned them both.

"I'll help you. C'mon"

"Thanks"

"It's fine really"

"Not for helping me with this. For letting me stay at yours, it means more than you might think"

"If you honestly thought I'd let you go back to that horrid house, I'd have to hit you for thinking I would be so cruel"

"I hope you're mum doesn't mind too much"

"She'll be fine. Besides she goes to America on boxing day till new year's day"

"Why?"

"She has a friend over there that she visits. She lives on a commune in San Francisco"

"Oh"

It was astonishing how fast the pair of friends could fall back into how they used to be. Just yesterday morning, Laurie was refusing to speak to him and after a long period of fighting they could just move on like it didn't happen.

Laurie, of course, hadn't forgotten about her plan to make him grovel for her forgiveness. But for now, she was glad they were friends again.