Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything else

A/N: This story is mainly focused on Sirius Black, but the Marauders are all included anyway. Will contain angst or triggering topics so if you can't handle that then I don't recommend reading this story. Also I might have some of the dates wrong for the events in this story, but it's a story so what do you expect?

Chapter 1

Sirius looked out of the window of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Everything had been getting to him lately. Every letter he got from his friends that had been discovered was thrown into the fire without a second look, he had lost the mirror so he couldn't talk to James at the moment, and Regulus was finally starting to become dark. He sighed and slammed the window shut. Two more weeks in this hellhole and I can finally get back to Hogwarts.

It was a few minutes before Regulus opened the door, a solemn look on his face. That was the only expression he had lately.

"Dinner's ready." He said before walking out, leaving the door open much to Sirius' dislike.

He rolled his eyes and went downstairs. He hated this place. It was so cold, even on the hottest summer days when he had to wear a t-shirt he couldn't help but shiver. But when he got to dinner, the atmosphere seemed different. Not dramatically, but he felt something was off.

"Sit." Was all his father said.

Sirius complied, not wanting to anger his father, "What's wrong?"

"We didn't say that you could speak!" His mother shrieked, and Sirius jumped, not expecting to be shouted at so soon.

"We are having a meeting with the dark lord tomorrow. You are coming with us."

Sirius saw red. The idea of Voldemort being called a 'lord' even though he's murdered innocent people was bad enough, but being forced to actually see him in person just filled him with rage.

"I'm not going! I can't go!" He yelled, standing up.

His mother stood up too, but he had the advantage, being the taller one.

"You will not make an embarrassment of our noble house once again! You will come! You will whether you like it or not!"

A few hours later and Sirius found himself in bed, breathing heavily out of anger and disappointment. He had a cut right above the tip of his nose, and one across his left cheekbone, but they were fairly light slashes. There was a few deep gashes across his hand where his mother had gripped him so hard that her nails had dug into his skin. It was still aching the next day.

The were going to see Voldemort at 11AM, and it was already 10:30AM. He had to get out of there before it was too late. Suddenly he heard his name being called. Was he going crazy?

"Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot are you there? Padfoot!"

Was that James?

As he kept hearing his name, he used he sound to find his mirror, and low and behold, James was there.

"Padfoot! You haven't spoken to me all summer! What happened?"

"Look, I need to get out of here. Can I stay at yours for the rest of today, and then we'll be at Hogwarts in two weeks and- damn I don't know how I'm gonna get out of this place..."

"Why? What happened? Is everything alright?"

"My parents want me to meet him, James. I'm afraid I'll crack and do something stupid that will cost me my life if I go. I don't even want to see him anyway, he's a murderer-"

"Are you on about Voldemort?"

"Yeah, oh god James how am I gonna get out of here? I have 20 minutes now!"

"Wait there, I'll get my dad, he's really fast at riding on his broom. We can come and pick you up-"

"No James! I don't want to be a bother..."

"Don't be stupid, Pads, you're about to meet possibly the darkest wizard out there, the least he can do is get you out of it- DAD!"

"James!"

"DAD!"

The next 10 minutes happened in a blur. James' father came to his window and carried his trunk, and Sirius followed him back before his parents got suspicious of why he was taking so long to get ready.

"Mr Potter, you didn't have to do this..."

"Nonsense! You're basically a second son to me, Sirius. This was the least I could do!"

"Well, Thanks."

"No problem, now let's get back and we can settle down. How does that sound?"

"Great!"

Sirius was too ecstatic about what had just happened that he couldn't focus on one thing for more than 3 seconds. It was amazing! This was why he loved James' parents. When they finally arrived, Sirius saw James sat on a chair, and across the table was a girl with hazel eyes, platinum blonde thick hair, and cherry red lips. He didn't recognise her for a second, before- Marlene?! What's she doing here?!

"James, hi, um..." his eyes flickered to Marlene and James seemed to have got the message.

"Oh, the McKinnon's are staying round for dinner. They're our neighbors, I thought you'd been here enough times to know that and- what happened to your face?"

"I knew you were close but I didn't think you actually had dinner at each others houses kind of close..." Sirius muttered as he glanced at McKinnon once more.

"That doesn't- oh- Sirius that- never mind..." he shook his head exasperatedly.

"Her rings are really sharp." He answered finally.

Marlene didn't understand but James did, "damn that vile woman."

Sirius smiled and blinked his eyes a few times, getting rid of the blurriness. Anyway, how didn't James see that when he called him on the mirror?

"Do you need to lay down? You can stay in the guest room-"

"James I'm fine. Do you want a game of exploding snap?"

Marlene looked at him. This was a Sirius she didn't see at school. He was quiet and obviously wasn't as fine as he said he was. She didn't know much of his home life, but then again neither did most of the school it seemed. Maybe he wasn't treated like the king at home most people thought him to be.

"Lets do it Classical." James agreed and suggested.

"Okay, go get them then." Sirius ordered jokingly.

James came back a moment later with a pack of cards in his hand.

"Want me to keep score?" Marlene spoke up, causing them both to jump.

"Sure," Sirius said with his normal tone of voice again.

He's back to being the same, Marlene sighed to herself as she sat pretty much as far away as possible from them.

OoOoO

James won.

"I totally let you win!"

"Yeah yeah, that's why you said, 'I'm gonna beat you!' at the start of the game!" James argued, and Sirius blushed.

"Yeah, well, oh yeah..." they both laughed.

It was moments like these where Marlene realised just how close they were. They were basically like brothers. Well, brothers that rarely argued and didn't have the same blood type brothers.

Later on that night, it was time for dinner. Sirius had told Mrs Potter that he didn't want anything to eat since he didn't want to be a bother and force her to go out and get more food. She had disagreed at first, initiating he at least have some of it, but he told her he wasn't hungry. The majority of the McKinnon's didn't even know he was there anyway and it would just be awkward for all of them.

As soon as he got up to the guest room he fell onto the bed and went right to sleep. He didn't even hear James calling him to ask if he was up for a ride around the garden on their brooms. The McKinnons had left about three hours ago and it was now 11PM. Sirius didn't even wake up until about 9AM, which was unusual as he usually got up early (well, earlier).

The next two weeks went by quickly. Sirius was the most happiest he'd been all summer when he'd heard the words, 'you're basically our son now, Sirius. Of course you can stay here at Christmas.' He nearly cried out of joy hearing those words, and James, sensing the tears, quickly tackled him to the ground in a bear hug to distract him.

During his first day of school as a seventh year now, he'd gotten a letter from his uncle with some pretty bad news, Narcissa had ended up in hospital because of Bellatrix when she'd avoided going to meet the dark lord. She hadn't gotten the dark mark like they all expected her to. Also, most of the family was invited over for a dinner to witness Sirius get blasted off of the family tree. His uncle was decent enough to not attend.

He wrote back a reply along the lines of 'glad to be out of there', 'feel sorry for Cissy' and 'thanks for not going to see that', later in his dorm.

James walked in and slammed the door, sitting on his bed and yanking the curtains shut. Sirius shared a look with Remus. Peter was out doing 'other things'.

"James, what's wrong?"

"Snape is what's wrong!" He said angrily, "and Evans! God she's annoying."

This shocked the other two boys to no end. Sirius had choked on his own saliva.

"You- I- you called her annoying..."

"Well, she is! Snape called her a- the derogatory word for muggleborn, so I gave him detention, being head boy and all, and she had the audacity to defend him and give me a detention and- URRGH!" He grabbed his hair and pulled on it, obviously stressed.

"I told you ages ago mate, she doesn't deserve you, yet you still go ahead and try to protect her..." Sirius told him.

"I would give anyone who said that a detention, and tell Dumbledore or someone, but... I'm just so angry."

"Do you want me to get you a glass of water?" Remus asked.

"Thanks, Moons." Remus got up and walked into the bathroom, grabbing a cup on the way.

"Honestly, you'd think a girl would be pleased that the second most attractive guy in the school was chasing after her but apparently not." Sirius told him, and James couldn't help but smirk.

"You're not the one chasing after her, the most attra- I mean- I am." He said proudly, and Sirius swore he saw his friend's head physically increase.

The next day, James and Sirius had a talk.

"I don't get the attraction to her. She's nothing special, she hates you even when you defend her, I just don't get the appeal." Sirius said.

"I don't know, I just- there's something about her. Maybe if I stop even looking at her I'll get over her..."

"I hope you do Prongsie boy, anyway, we should get to class. Transfiguration first, then... Arithmancy."

"Damn. Okay, let's go."

So for the rest of the day Lily Evans felt different. She hadn't felt anything wrong at first, but when she noticed that there weren't any occurrences with Potter, she knew something was up. He was probably just too distracted with some huge prank.