good things fall apart • sirius black

Say no to Sirius Black

Dragging her feet up to the seventh floor, Ellie felt solace in the unusual quietness of the staircases. With their tendencies to change, there wasn't often a time there wasn't another student shouting about how they were now going to be late to class due to their last-minute diversion.

But now, things were calm and she was very pleased about that.

It was strange to the brunette that the lack of anything loud and obnoxious was actually comfortable to her, for she'd loved chaos for so long and only recently had it felt too overwhelming, but the bizarre events of the day had also drained any energy she'd woken up with. It took two attempts to say the common room's password loud enough before the fat lady even realised that she stood there, but as the portrait swung open, the quiet bubble that surrounded her popped faster than you could say "Hippogriff".

"ELLIE!" The loud shout of the smallest Marauder made the girl jump, but it wasn't that which put her on edge.

Uncharacteristically busy, the common room was filled with people all crowded around the sofa before the fireplace. They were all now looking at her, as Peter rushed forward to grab her arm, dragging her roughly into the centre of whatever the gaggle of Gryffindors where all so interested in. When Peter came to a halt, Ellie finally could see what all the fuss was about, but in her eyes, it didn't really look like there was anything to be fussing over.

It was only the rest of her friends.

Remus was sat against one arm of the sofa with his long legs tucked into his chest, nose in some Muggle book and a slight smirk on his lips, but there was nothing unusual about his position that Ellie thought was worth nearly the whole house having to witness. James and Sirius however seemed less relaxed, the messy haired boy sat staring intently at the fire as if his look alone was keeping it alight.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?!"

Sirius stood hastily, running one hand through his hair - a nervous habit of his. Not knowing how to reply to his violent outburst, also conscious of the stares on their little group, Ellie's mouth opened and closed again almost immediately.

"What? Are you a fish now? Our best friend has gone into some strange state of shock and you can't even explain why you weren't here to help him?!"

Eyes wild, Sirius waved his arms around haphazardly, nearly taking out a petite second year in the process. In normal circumstances, Ellie would feel quite offended he thought she felt so passive about their friendships, but she knew Sirius was prone to a little bit of drama, as was James, meaning whatever had happened probably wasn't that big of a deal. He was just being a drama queen.

"James asked Lily to the ball..." Peter mumbled from behind her, having taken a step back after Sirius' outburst.

This wasn't shocking, nor interesting news. In fact, the whole 'I so desperately want to take her to the ball I might die' situation was starting to annoy her. It wasn't so much the idea of James and Lily together, for she also desperately wanted Lily to wake up and realise that actually James is a really nice guy, with wholesome intentions, who brings out a good side in the sometimes-shy girl. It was more the fact that she heard enough of James pining after the red head on any normal day and this ball had only doubled, if not tripled, the amount he had to vocalise his longing to give her all his love. On the surface it was sweet, but very much less so when you'd spent four years already hearing him bang on about it.

"She said yes."

At first, Ellie believed her ears where playing tricks on her, but Peter wasn't someone good at telling lies and the twitch at the corners of Remus' mouth confirmed that what had been said was in fact true. Lily Evans... saying she'd voluntarily spend time with James Potter... It couldn't be true.