"Dylan Jolie Potter! Get in your room and pack, for goodness sake's!" Mother shouted up the stairs. I miss those days of summer where I didn't have to worry about packing for Hogwarts. And the days where when mother hollered at me for not packing, I had a valid comeback.

I walked down the hall to my brother's, James, room. The curtains were permanently open, letting the sun flood through. I always thought he was odd like that. My room was always darkened from the closed curtains. I threw open the door. On the walls of his room were mostly posters from Quidditch magazines and pictures of his friends. In fact, there was barely any space of bare wall. Before he packed (which was two days before) his room was littered with clothes and books he needed for school. We don't have much in common, but one thing we do is that we were quite messy.

"Dad!" I called as I ran to the other end of the hall into his office. He turned away from his work. I snickered as quietly as I could for his glasses were extreamly crooked, making him look quite ridiculous. "Um... where's James?"

"He's down stairs, but honey-" I cut him off by running down the stairs.

Our house was quite modern. The stairs however were not. The wood had several creaky spots, which seemed to change every day, giving it an old-slaughterhouse sort of feel. The wallpaper was dark and faded, just like the pictures that were nailed into the wall since long before I was born. Our parents were always talking about getting the stairs either fixed up or replaced. They had been since I was three and fell down them, resulting in a scar on my eyebrow. No action was taken, however, to repair the creaky fixture. Despite my hatred for using these stairs, I made my way down them, falling about four steps down.

After finishing my tumble at the bottom of the staircase, I stood up. A sharp pain shot up through my back. But I ignored it. After all, I desperatly needed my brother to help me pack for school.

"Hey, James can you help- oh..." I blushed like crazy. Apparently he wasn't alone. The rest of the Marauders were sitting around the living room. Just to make the situation worse, they were all staring at me.

Even though I was quite friendly with the Marauders, I always felt a bit uncomfortable with them. First off, they're all boys and I was (and still am) a girl, which is a huge factor. Also I was James' little sister. Sure it was only by a few minutes, but I was still the little sister. Little sisters are not supposed to be hanging around with their big brothers friends, but they let me. They say I'm fun to be with, like my brother. In addition, my brother loved me. Lots of times he viewed me more as a friend. A person who he chose to assoiate himself with because he enjoyed my company.

"You ok?" he asked before I could casually sneak out, "I heard you scream."

"I'm fine." I say trying not to blush

"The stairs?" he asks, understanding where I was coming from. I nodded in response. "So what did you need help with?"

"Oh um..." I looked down at my feet, trying to hide the blush that was now covering my face with my hair. "I was wondering if you could helped me pack, but you're with friends, I'll do it myself." I started to walk away feeling embarrassed.

"I'll help you pack." Sirius chimed in. He didn't have his usual smirk. What I didn't notice at the time was that, compared to everyone else, he barely smirked while talking to me.

"That's quite perverted, mate." Reamus Lupin pointed out, "You offering to go through all her stuff and all."

"That's not what I meant." He said shooting Reamus a look. Was he blushing? Out of all the people in the world to blush at Reamus' statement, Sirius Black was not my first guess. Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. I decided it was. He turned back to me, "You can do that stuff later but I just wanted to help you gather your things."

"Um… no really, it's fine." I ran out of the room before he could protest, tripping on the stairs again. Despite my stumble, I kept going

I quickly ran into my room, shutting my room door and looking around. My heart thumped heavily in my chest, making me angry. It was, after all, not from running up the stair case. I wasn't that out of shape. This was no time to get all love-sick-puppy. Sirius Black was like my brother after all, it would be wrong to fancy him. …I don't fancy him, I just… I recognize how attractive he is. I always had, but that was all. There were never feelings. Sure, we flirted, but that doesn't mean I fancied him. And it sure as hell didn't mean he fancies me.

I look over at the picture over on my desk, in a boring, black frame. It was from last year, my mates and I were studying in the courtyard. The lot of us always has a camera, and take pictures of everything. But the one on my desk was my favorite. It was slightly windy that day, so my hair was waving. My mate, Jenna, was taking the picture. Lily was sitting beside me. I remember Jenna was trying to get my attention, so Lily gave her a crumpled paper to throw at me. In the picture I watched myself turn to see what was happening. We all laughed, quite loudly. The moving picture started over.

I was just about to turn away to pack when I saw something I hadn't noticed in the picture before. The Marauders were in view behind us. As we laughed some of them looked over at us. None of them really cared. But Sirius kept looking. I picked up the picture and held it close to my face to see better. Sirius hadn't just been looking at us, he was looking at me. And for a long time.

Ignore it, Dylan, he was probably looking at something else. I flipping the picture over so I wouldn't have to see it. For once in my life, I didn't mind packing. I wanted my mind to be free of thoughts. Free of Sirius. For the time being, anyway.