good things fall apart • sirius black

1st August 1978

They were getting married tomorrow... Well, today, it was about one in the morning and Ellie couldn't sleep.

Since her friends had graduated after their exams at the beginning of June, her and Sirius had been living together in his flat undisturbed, every morning and every night spent between each other's thighs. But now, Euphemia had separated them.

"It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding," she'd said, so Sirius was sleeping back in his old room at the Potter's, whilst Ellie was back in hers in the Gryffin House.

And it was torture.

You would've thought that the beautiful girl could've lasted one night without him, for she'd lasted the whole school year, but a lot had changed in the months that Sirius had left school, and saying goodbye to him for any amount of time had now become very difficult. So, in her exhausted state, Ellie decided she'd risk it all and rebel against Euphemia's wishes. What was she going to do? Ground them? They were adults now and didn't even live in her house. Tell them they couldn't get married? Definitely not. Getting a good few hour's sleep was far more important than keeping with some old superstitious tradition. Nothing about their wedding was going to be traditional anyway.

Climbing out of bed, Ellie breezed by the white dress hung up on her curtain pole with a lazy smile before slipping into her combat boots and creeping as quietly as possible through the house. If she disturbed Clementine, there would be knowing telling the sweet house elf that everything was fine. Remus, Peter, and Marlene also had bedrooms down the hallway, and she didn't doubt that at least one of them would be up listening for Ellie sneaking out. So, she took her time, moving so slowly that none of the stairs creaked, and then she was rushing out of the front door.

Ridiculously, it was only then that she realised, once out in the cool night air, that she was barely dressed. In fact, inappropriately so. What if she had woken someone up? She couldn't have her dad finding her in nothing but one of Sirius' band t-shirts, she couldn't have anyone find her like that, it'd be mortifying. But she was too far gone to turn back now, already out of the house, so she sprinted off towards the path through the forest that led to the Potter's praying that everyone in their house was fast asleep too. The mistake had only been made because, at Sirius' flat, they both always slept naked, so it was habit now. An inconvenient one when they were sleeping in houses with lots of other people for a night.

But Ellie was lucky, thank fuck, and she managed to make it into and through the Potter's without any disturbances. Quite a feat when the house was smaller. She took extra care padding past James' room, knowing that Lily was in there with him, and then finally, she was slinking around the door of Sirius' old room.

It was a surprise to find him sat up in bed, staring out into the darkness.

"You're awake," she whispered once she'd shut the door behind her, a smile curling up the corners of her lips.

"Can never sleep without you," he mumbled as he shuffled over to his usual side of the bed - the nightmares he'd had whilst he'd been at Hogwarts without her were horrific, but he'd never told her, because she didn't need to worry.

Ellie slipped both her boots and her t-shirt off by his bed before crawling under the sheets. Her hands found his skin immediately, pleased to find he'd gone to bed naked too, and Sirius wasted no time in scooting as close as possible.

"You should've come to me," Ellie hummed, gently pushing him onto his back whilst she crawled on top of him.

"Mum said I wasn't allowed and I didn't fancy facing her wrath."

"Pussy."

"Pussy," Sirius mimicked in a poor attempt of her voice, pinching her sides so she squirmed. "Clearly though, I didn't need to come to you... Why are you here, beautiful?"