Eleanor Potter ~ My Brother's Best Friend

1972

"Now then, why don't you start from the beginning so we can understand exactly how to go on with this shall we?" Effy said as she handed Sirius a warm hot chocolate and placed a blanket over his shoulders before sitting down on the armrest of the armchair Monty was sat on which was opposite the sofa where James, Sirius and Ellie were sat.

"It's nothing major, not really." Sirius started as he still hadn't really thought about what he was going to say. "This evening my parents were throwing a party for all of our family and well their sort of friends I guess, anyways this was a very important party to my parents and I sort of had one to many dragon balls and threw up in a plant pot." Ellie had to cover her mouth as discreetly as she could to try and hide the small laugh attempting to escape from her mouth. "Point is my parents were angry with me, which is completely understandable I mean I completely embarrassed them in front of some of the most respected families within the wizarding community so they have every right to be angry with me. But I was too scared to deal with the consequences so I ran. I'm sorry, it's stupid. I shouldn't have came I know but it was all just so in the moment and I wasn't thinking properly and-"

"I'm glad you feel like you can come here whenever you need to," Monty cut Sirius off as he was just rambling at this point, "Sirius I want you to know that you are always welcome here no matter what. Whether you just want a day away from your family or you want to spend the rest of your holidays here you are always welcome. And if there's anything else about your parents that you need to tell us just know that you can."

"Thank you," Sirius said with tears in his eyes, no one had ever cared about him like this before. At the Potters he felt welcomed and safe, something he never really felt back at Grimauld place. This is what a home was supposed to feel like Sirius thought. A home should be warm, and comfy, and it should smell like freshly cooked food, and it should have a garden full of flowers, and most importantly the people inside the home should be happy. Potter Manor was all of these things, and Sirius really felt like he belonged there, he never felt unwelcome.

He stayed at the Potters for the rest of the Christmas holidays and on the day before he went back to Hogwarts he wrote a letter to his parents. In his letter, Sirius apologised for his behaviour and informed his parents that he would be returning to Grimauld place at the start of the summer holidays. He also wrote a separate letter to Regulus to check up on him and make sure he was ok, his main concern was Regulus. It always had been. The only reason Sirius ever went back to Grimauld place was to make sure Regulus was safe.

Once everyone had got back to Hogwarts, school carried on as normal. The boys all grew extremely close, they were practically brothers by the end of the year. They told each other everything, this would often include gossip that they had been told by one of the girls, and they didn't keep any secrets from each other. Or so they thought. It was around April time when the four decided they wouldn't keep any secrets from each other, after James revealed that he had a crush on Lily Evans. It wasn't really much of a secret as any time he'd see Lily with Severus Snape he would come back to the common room in a very foul mood complaining about the Slytherin boy and his greasy hair. James and Sirius had now nicknamed him Snivellus as whenever Severus would walk past James with Lily he'd screw his face up in a way that was meant to mock him, but instead just looked like he was smelling something bad in James's opinion. So when James admitted his chrush neither Remus or Sirius were really that surprised. Peter was though as he hadn't caught on to James's crush at all, he was completely oblivious.

As for Ellie, she'd enjoyed her first year a lot more than she had expected to. Firstly she'd made friends for life which she hadn't expected at the start of they year, in fact she was fully prepared to spend the 7 years of her life at school completely alone. However she need not to have prepared herself to be friendless as in her opinion she had the greatest group of friends she could have ever asked for, she had sisters. Especially Lily, the two were incredibly close. They now sat together in every class possible after Lily decided she no longer wanted to sit next to Severus some short time after Christmas. The two had actually organised a few dates to see each other over the summer just the two of them, always at Lily's house though. Lily absolutely refused to go over to the Potters as she knew that James would be there and though James was very fond of Lily, she didn't reciprocate them feelings at all, she felt quite oppositely about James. Lily thought that James was an absolute idiot, all he did was annoy her and prank the first year Slytherins with Sirius and Peter, and on the very odd occasion Remus too. So when Ellie suggested the whole group come over to Potter Manor over the summer Lily refused and instead the group had organised to all go to Marlene's for a day instead.