Always~Sirius Black

chapter one

Sirius awoke with a start in the middle of the night. KNOCK! To be honest he was too tired to be bothered with whatever was going on outside his window. KNOCK! The longer it went on he was growing mare and more fed up until he heard a voice. The voice of his best friend.

"Psst. Siri?"

He hopped out of his big, plush bed with an exaggerated groan, but his grin gave him away. The boy could never be frustrated with Elsie, he simply loved her too much. He opened his window, wondering why the small girl was up at this hour.

"Sorry to wake you," She whispered, a sheepish smile plastered on her face. "Mum said that she wouldn't take me to Hogwarts tomorrow, said it would remind her too much of dad, and then I just couldn't sleep. You know how my mind is."

She climbed through the unusually large window giggling to cover up how guilty she felt for her silly fears, but he didn't care. From the time they were little Sirius could tell that she had anxiety, although it was never diagnosed.

"Don't worry, you can come to the station with us in the morning, I know mother loves you more than me anyway."

He gave her a playful shove, effectively hiding the fact that he was in fact being entirely truthful. To be fair, she always has been more respectful, he mentally noted.

"Come on, let's get some sleep, afterall, tomorrow is the biggest day of our lives."

"I suppose it is."

She nodded thoughtfully, climbing into bed beside the boy who instinctively wrapped his arms around her.

"Always, Els, to infinity and back."

"To infinity and back to you, Siri."

***

"Black, Sirius!"

This is it, Elsie thought to herself, This is where he joins his family, and he changes. He becomes like them. Oh, how I wish I could stop it.

And then a miracle came. It was as if the world stopped spinning just for the two of them.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Along with the rest of the hall, her jaw dropped. He's free, they can't get to him there. He can run if he wants to, he gets a choice. Relief flowed through her body, quickly followed by joy as she saw his face. Sirius Black was beaming.

"Crawford, Elsie!"

Her heart was pounding in her chest as her palms grew sweaty. She didn't know how to survive without him, or what she would do if they were in different houses, but all of her worries washed away as once again the hat called out;

"GRYFFINDOR!"

It had barely even touched her head, and she couldn't be more grateful for that. The very first thing she did was jump off of the stool and run straight towards her only friend, pulling him into a long, warm embrace.

The rest of the night melted away because none of it mattered to either of them, they were free and they were together, and that was all either of them ever truly needed or hoped for. That night, all of their wishes were granted and they could finally live in peace, until the rest of the marauders showed up to ruin it.

***

By their second year the cat—or should I say wolf—was out of the bag and their friend group of five was firmly established. The children were inseparable, always causing mayhem in one way or another.

Elsie also had a few friends of her own, the closest being a very envied girl by the name of Marlene McKinnon. The two girls felt as if they shared an aura, their energies complemented each other in every way that they didn't match. It was meant to be.

They were also friends with their other two dorm mates, Lily Evans and Alice Fortescue, but the room always had suffered a rather large divide.It was constantly a battle of chaos against calm in their dorm, Elsie and Marlene proudly representing the former.

Classes were beginning to grow more difficult and so were pranks, leading to a brilliant idea; The Marauders Map. Elsie began drawing out blueprints for the project while Remus Lupin was tasked with the research, however despite their tireless efforts it would still take until nearly fourth year to complete.

***

As third year was straddling the fence between semesters, James Potter hatched an idea. An idea that albeit rather stupid, they all went along with. He wanted to become animagi. Unregistered animagi.

This was, of course, to help Remus during the full moons, but that didn't make it any less illegal. The group did eventually execute this plan however, and after a month of silence Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Vixen were born.

With these code names secured the marauders were finally able to persevere and create the map just in time for the end of the second and final semester of their third year.