Life is not easy when you're a teenager.

Especially when you fancy your best mate, who you know you can't become emotionally attached to because you know in the end, you will get hurt.

Said best mate, AKA Sirius Black was a ladies man, he was never in a steady relationship, but he fooled around with the majority of the 5, 6 and 7th year girls at Hogwarts.

My longest relationship was in 4th year.

My relationship to Andrew Bennett lasted about 3 months, and to be honest, it wasn't all that serious either.

Everyone else got a boyfriend or girlfriend at the time and it was nice to have a snogging partner.

After three months, we decided to break it off, and just be friends.

I think I started liking Sirius somewhere between 4 and 5th year.

What can I say? He grew up.

Not in the sense that he became more mature, to be honest I never think he will grow up in that way, but he became, well, fit.

"Madeline, there's two letters for you. One from Hogwarts and one from your secret admirer!"

My eyes snapped open and I rolled out of bed. Finally it was time for the book list from Hogwarts, which meant it was almost September 1.

I ran downstairs and pulled the letters out of my little sisters prying hands, and poured myself a cup of coffee while I was in the kitchen.

I sat down by the kitchen table and opened the first letter.

"Dear nugget, hope your holiday's been nice.

Mine was miserable until I finally had enough of my bloody parents and moved in with the Potters, sorry I haven't written much this summer, but to be frank, you haven't written much yourself.

I have a lot to tell you, but I just don't have the patience to write it all down, so you'll just have to accompany me and the rest of the Marauders in Diagon Alley tomorrow, and while we're there we can shop for the books on the hopelessly long book list we got this year.

Hope to see you there

Sirius O. Black"

I folded the letter and looked up at my sister standing a few inches away from my face.

"Sooo, what did it say?" she said, staring at me with big green eyes.

"Abigail Sophia Sawyer, keep your nose out of your sisters business, if she doesn't want to tell you she doesn't have to" said mum as she set down four plates on the table.

She called my dad in from the living room and we all sat down to eat breakfast.

My mum picked up my book list and looked at it for a few seconds, "so when are we going to Diagon Alley?" she asked.

"I was thinking I'd just meet James, Sirius, Remus and Peter there, and we'd shop for books together. Oh, and I need a new uniform, after 3 years, mine is a little small." Mom looked at me for a bit,

"I don't know Mady, Diagon Alley gets awfully crowded at this time of year, and I really don't think you should be going there alone, besides Abigail needs books too." I looked at dad begging him wordlessly to talk to mum.

"Honey, Madeline is 16 years old, she's not a little girl anymore, I think she is quite capable going to Diagon Alley by herself, besides she'll be there with her friends, so she won't be alone, and she can just take Abbie with her."

I gave him a thankful look, before turning to mum with pleading eyes, she sighed and nodded, "okay, as long as it's alright with Abigail."

Abigail nodded vigorously, I rolled my eyes.

Of course Abbie didn't object, at 12 years old she has just started noticing boys, and her boy of choice, James Potter, sometimes I felt bad for her, knowing she didn't have a chance in hell with him.

He was 4 years older than her, and he was completely smitten with one Lily Evans.

After breakfast I went back to my room to write a list of everything I would need in Diagon Alley.

Books, uniform, quills, ink and a new book bag, my last book bag got ruined when Sirius tried to steal my Charms notes and we ended up having a tugging war in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

It ended with my bag ripping in two, my books and notes flying everywhere and one huge git running away with my notes.

Thinking about Sirius I decided to reply to the letter he sent.

"Dear booger, you moved out from your parents?

You have to tell me everything when we get back to Hogwarts!

I finally talked my mum into letting me go to Diagon Alley without her and dad, but Abigail is tagging along, I feel sorry for James already.

I'll see you in Diagon Alley in a couple of days.

Madeline J. Sawyer"

I folded the letter and sent it with my brown and white barn owl Archibald.

After watching him fly away for a while I closed my bedroom window and looked at the huge mess of clothes lying on my bedroom floor waiting to be put in my trunk. I sighed before getting to work and folding them.

While I was at it I decided I'd clean my trunk, throwing away all the random rubbish that had been taking up space in my trunk for the past 6 years.

There were broken quills, old text books and random drawings I'd drawn while bored in class.

At the bottom of the trunk I found a picture of me and Sirius from the first day at Hogwarts, standing with our arms around each other at Kings Cross station, smiling widely to the camera, I looked at the picture and saw an 11 year old Sirius trying to tickle my 11 year old self, we were almost the same height at that time, now he was almost a head taller than me, and he loved to remind me of how short I was. I smiled to myself remembering back to that day.

Sirius and I met when we were 7 years old.

We lived a couple of streets away from each other in London, and we had met in the park one day during summer.

I was there with my parents and then 3 year old sister, and had seen a boy with short black hair sitting on a swing by himself, I'd walked over to where he was sitting and asked if he wanted to make a sandcastle and we've been friends ever since.

We didn't find out until later that we were both magical, but he's pureblood fanatic parents didn't care for us being friends since I was a half blood, from a fullblood mother and a muggleborn father.

So we'd usually just stay at my house.

When we started Hogwarts we both got our own friends, but we still managed to keep contact with each other, sometimes even hanging out with both his and my friends.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time, when we were both carefree. Before I started fancying him, I knew it was just a matter of time before he'd find out, and that he would at some point break my heart, I was just putting it off for as long as I could.