Chapter 1

"Every now and then
The stars align,
Boy and girl meets
 by the great design,
Could it be,
You and me are the lucky ones?"

"Have you heard?"

I reluctantly turned my head from the sea of green whizzing past, mesmerised with the scenery and thoroughly lost in my thoughts.

"Heard what?"

Elyse slid the compartment door quietly shut behind her as she threw herself down onto the soft cushion of the chairs, her black robes swishing in much the same way as her striking blonde hair.

"We have a new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor this year," she said with a dramatic wiggle of her eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to continue my staring out the window. "If you haven't noticed," I drawled. "We have one of those pretty much every year."

She yawned and slumped in the seat, stretching her long legs out so they were now resting next to me on the chair opposite herself.

"But this one's a recent past student." She grinned, like she knew she was trapping me into being interested all of a sudden. My lip twitched but I refused to give in.

"How interesting," I replied, unimpressed. She gave me a swift little nudge with her foot and I scowled, flicking her leg in retaliation.

"I know you want to know, Eleanor. You may be quiet, but you sure can be a curious little thing when you want to be." She said matter-of-factly. I scowled harder but ultimately knew she was right.

I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes once more for good measure, before smirking and shuffling my body to face her fully to give her my undivided attention.

"Fine. Please enlighten me with all that you know."

She grinned in triumph and then looked away, chagrined. "Well, to be honest, I actually don't know who it is..." she trailed off.

I huffed and flicked her leg once more. "You git, acting all high and mighty like the Queen of England."

"Shush, you! But I do know that he graduated three years ago and that he's highly recommended and quite good." She supplied.

I mulled this over in my head. The new professor must have been around twenty or twenty-one years old, quite young to be a teacher really, making us in fourth year when he graduated. Imagine graduating form the place and then coming back all but three years later. Sounded terrible, I thought.

"Well who do you think it is?" I asked.

"I don't know, really." Elyse said. "Eliza Gilkinson told me in the first place, who heard it from McGonagall herself after receiving her Head Girl letter. She refused to say who though, only saying that everyone would just have to wait until the feast to find out. Eliza said she looked quite fond when she spoke of him, though."

I wracked my brain, trying to think of a list of names who would of graduated three years ago. Ah, that was the Lily Evans and James Potter year, of course. All I could really remember was watching the game of cat and mouse that unfolded around the castle whenever those two were around.

"Well I don't really care who it is, just as long as they know what they're talking about. We're in the middle of a war here and need to be prepared for what's out there," I replied vehemently.

Elyse's eyes widened slightly. "Okay, okay, calm down, El. I'm sure they'll do fine and we'll learn heaps, yada, yada, yada," she babbled. "I just hope they're either easy on the eyes or allergic to the thought of homework."

Merlin, she could be frustratingly naïve sometimes. But as oblivious to the war as she was, she was my best and only friend.

I inhaled the scent that only the safe confines of Hogwarts could entail. The world outside the school was forever changing, attacks and threatening warnings happening all over England, but the solid walls of Hogwarts were a constant that I knew I was going to miss after I graduated later this year. The thought of entering the world in the middle of the Wizarding War rattled my bones, but I quietly kept it contained for the sake of my sanity. Elyse was a free-spirit, in constant denial of the things happening around her. To her, everything worth thinking about included who snogged who and what new potion made her hair silky and smooth. But I couldn't try and take away that happiness, because that would only make me a hypocrite. I envied her for her blasé attitude and ability to clear everything from her head so that the only thoughts left were happy and suitable for the teenage girl that she was.

The girl currently in my thoughts linked her lanky arm through mine as we lined up to enter the Great Hall, surrounded by chatting students.

"The first one to identify the mystery Professor gets dibs," she said teasingly into my ear.

"A Professor, Elyse, really?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't judge me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I'm a teenage girl, I can't help myself. And there's something that's a bloody turn on about sneaking around with a teacher, don't you think?"

"Whatever," I muttered.

"Cheer up, buttercup." She said, bumping into my hip with her own. "I have a feeling this year will be interesting, hot professor or not."

And as we filed into the hall and took a glimpse up at the line of Professor's at the front, I knew that truer words had never been spoken.

Because before us, sitting tall with an expressionless face between Dumbledore and McGonagall, was Sirius Black.

A/N: Hi guys! So this is going to be a little story that I'm making up as I go along. I've got absolutely no idea where this story is going to go, but it's just going to be a piece where I update with short chapters every 1-2 days. Please drop a review and give me some ideas of what you think Sirius is going to be like! R&R people!