good things fall apart • sirius black

Future weddings and firewhisky

Ellie tugged at Remus' jumper absentmindedly at the mention of the full moon, twirling a loose thread in her fingers, careful not to pull it out any further. Recognising the beautiful girl's attire, James sighed slightly to himself. He knew Ellie would be worrying, and as much as they all didn't like the idea of Remus having to face what he did each full moon, there was nothing they could do for now. The messy haired boy saw the way his best friend blamed herself for them not starting this process last year, it literally ate her up from the inside until you could almost see the cogs turning in her brain as she mulled it over.

    "Keeping him close in spirit I see." Attempting to cheer Ellie up, James did what he did best. Tease her, "You know, Moony might want his green chunky sweater. It's not my favourite colour personally, but he does wear it rather often Cubs."

Ellie shot him a glare.

    "Well, I'm wearing it right now and I'm not about to owl it him back, so sod off." She snapped playfully after seeing James' grin turn cheeky.

    "I'm just saying." He held his hands up in mock defence, "But if I didn't know any better, I'd say it looked as if you were still harbouring feelings for our werewolf friend." James knew this wasn't the case, but it was fun to watch Ellie's face screw up in annoyance.

    "I'm not twelve anymore." She replied firmly.

Her feelings for Remus had been short lived and hadn't amounted to anything more. Looking back, Ellie thought she probably hadn't actually liked Remus as much as she thought she did at the time, for it was extremely easy to let her feelings go for the sake of their still budding friendship. At the time it felt like she was in love with him, when really it was nothing but a crush, and probably more curiosity than anything. He was a new friend, and despite having only grown up being friends with James, she wasn't used to being surrounded by so many boys.

The messy haired boy just snorted at her reply.

    "If you keep stealing our clothes like this though, they'll come a time we have to retaliate. Do you really want that?"

Different scenarios of what this 'retaliation' may look like flashed in Ellie's head: her clothes in tatters strung across her dorm room floor; everything the same shade of garishly bright orange and no way to change the colour back; every piece of clothing she owned handed out to the students of Gryffindor house for free and having nothing but her underwear left to dress in. If her friends were involved it could go in any direction, but would they really dare?

    "I don't think you want to threaten me James Potter." Ellie would never turn down a challenge, "You'll only come off worse!" She spoke in a sing song voice, arrogance radiating around her like some form of protective shield.

    "Who said I was threatening?" James smirked, mischief behind his words which made them both chuckle.

Ellie hummed mindlessly to a tune stuck in her head whilst she sketched, and James flicked through his books on Animagi, both just content in each other's company.

Despite having new scenery to draw now she was home, the beautiful girl found herself scribbling pictures of her messy haired best friend still. She preferred to draw people, more specifically her friends, because she felt they captured people in raw and vulnerable moments. They were like candid photographs, but held lots more love and character - like the drawing she had on the easel of James and Sirius with the ties around their foreheads. That sketch would forever make her heart swell, because she could remember the exact second that she decided to draw them like that, and all the effort that was put in to remember the way they looked in the moment.

She often wondered where she'd be if she put that much effort into other things such as homework. She didn't get bad grades by any stretch, but Ellie also knew she could put at least twice the effort into her work than she actually did. Yet, it wasn't as easy as that. Having James and Sirius jumping and screaming all the time made it difficult not to want to join in, who would want to sit in the library over having a laugh with your mates?