scars || sirius black

18 - #jilyshiphassailed

As the clock ticked over to 1976, church bells and fireworks rang out over the mountains and they all crowded round to hug each other, cheering and laughing.

Remus set off their own fireworks and they exploded in every colour imaginable, sparks firing off, particles popping and fizzing.

She leant into Sirius' arms around her waist as they watched the sparks fill the night sky, looking up to give him a brief kiss that the others pretended they didn't see.

That's when the sound of a hundred voices singing Auld Lang Syne across the village floated up over the rooftops, up into the fireworks and into the night sky.

No matter how many times she heard it, those first few lyrics never failed to make her well up a little. She could hear her father's gruff voice singing to her somewhere in the depths of her mind.

"For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne..."

She caught Remus' smiling eyes over the campfire and felt something inside her start to heal.

—————

A week later, Emmy and Remus arrived at King's Cross with their trunks and hurried through the crowds to find their friends being jostled by people's shopping bags and briefcases.

As they stepped through the wall onto Platform 9 and 3/4, they were immediately met by their friends. They leapt onto the train together and the Astrals settled into their usual carriage with the Marauders thumping around next door.

"How was everyone's Christmas'?" Emmy asked as she sat down.

"Oh it was great thanks!" replied Alice, then smiled shyly, "Frank came over for a bit too..."

"Did he now?" Emmy smirked. Alice gave her a playful shove but couldn't hide her grin.

Lily laughed, "There's no point trying to hide it, Als. You two are meant for each other."

She sat down opposite them and pulled out her portable radio.

The sound of ABBA's 'Honey, Honey' immediately filled the compartment and within seconds they were absentmindedly humming along. A minute after that they were dancing around the carriage raucously, unable to keep quiet any longer.

At the sound of laughter from next-door, the Marauders and Fabian and Gideon all came to stand in the doorway, grinning at the sight of their friends making absolute fools of themselves.

Emmy dragged Sirius over to dance with her and they spun around singing to each other in a giddy mess. The twins burst out in an animated duet for the chorus whilst Marlene and Dorcas shrieked with laughter at James twirled Remus in the corridor.

The rest of the journey was spent in each other's company and Emmy leant back against Sirius as they joked and chatted with their friends, enjoying just being in his company.

Alice and Frank disappeared together after a while to much eyebrow raising and laughter and as the train flew over the tracks and the glimmering Black Loch came into sight, sunshine flooded through the windowpanes and bathed them in light. In that moment everything just felt so easy, nothing was stopping them.

—————

As they stepped off the train, they reached a gridlock with the fourth year Slytherins in the queue to collect their trunks from the undercarriage. The Slytherin quidditch captain was talking with forced politeness to James as they waited for their teams to collect the broomsticks.

To Emmy's great annoyance both Evan Rosier and Darrell Avery had made it onto the Slytherin team this year as the beaters, and the third member of their trio, Gregory Mulciber, who always hung around the quidditch pitch whenever the Slytherins were practicing, took great pleasure in taunting at Lily and Mary about their blood purity at any opportunity they had.