Summary- The darkness is drawing in and threatening to envelop their world. Six students have to grow up quickly amidst the chaos that is shattering everything that they know. Can the hold onto the pieces; fight for friendship and find love throughout it all?

Chapter 1

She had not been on the train, or even on the platform. He hadn't seen her dive in into a carriage. He would have remembered.

Where was she now? He had looked up and seen her as she was on the bottom stair of the flight she had been descending into the entrance hall, where the students were gathering ready to go into the Great Hall for the feast that would mark the start of the new school year at Hogwarts.

Sirius pushed a lock of his shoulder-grazing jet- black hair out of his stormy blue eyes and craned his neck, though being tall he could easily see over the heads of his fellow students (with the exception of the odd Slytherin meathead). He desperately tried to spot her, but he searched in vain. He could not see her; she was plainly not in the entrance hall.

Suddenly, a well-known voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Looking for us, Padfoot? We thought we'd lost you after we came out of the school carriages" said a young man with messy dark hair of Sirius's own age.

Sirius spun round to the grinning face of his best friend James Potter, who was accompanied by his other best mate, Remus Lupin.

"Hey guys!" he answered, then added cryptically "Now you're here, I won't have to"

Remus shook his head slightly and quite audibly muttered "You have some strange logic Pads…"

James put his own curiosity aside and inquired of his friend " You haven't seen Peter, have you Sirius? He scurried off somewhere just after we got out of the carriage together…"

"Nope Prongs, I haven't" Sirius didn't add that he'd been slightly preoccupied with the fleeting vision of a girl he'd never seen before in his life than wondering where Wormtail had gotten too. He'd figured he'd probably be attached to James as was fairly usual at the start of term. In fact, Sirius reflected, Peter had been disappearing off randomly during last term as well, after their end of year exams. And though he, James and Remus had hung out together for a fair chunk of the summer, and owled each other frequently when they were apart, they'd hardly seen Peter or heard any news from him, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Their last school summer, and the only owls they'd gotten were full of excuses. He'd always had "something to do", jobs and events to keep him preoccupied.

"Hello, earth to Padfoot!" Remus' voice snapped him out of his musings

"Merlin's Beard! Sirius, were you actually deep in thought about something just then?!" ribbed James. Then his tone changed from teasing to serious, concerned "Everything ok in there?"

"Yeah, yeah everything's cool guys" he hastily replied, slapping on his lopsided grin, although his friends noticed it didn't reach his eyes.

They gave him a Look.

Sirius for a moment considered giving his troubled family relationships as a reason for his despondency, it usually being pretty high on his list of things that (despite his pretence that they didn't) bothered him. But then he thought, these guys are my best friends, my real brothers.

"It's just…" Sirius twisted his hands nervously. James noticed and inwardly frowned- "Sirius Black, nervous?"

"Well, I don't know quite how to put this, you know Peter's our friend and all…Shit this is hard…"

"Spit it out Sirius" stated James clearly, but not harshly.

"Yeah, well Peter's been disappearing off a lot lately- you noticed it too Remus, at the end of last term he started going off for hours on end, and sometimes on my way back from the kitchens I'd see him skulking round near the dungeons, and then he'd come back to the tower with awkward, lame excuses about where he'd been- you know how crap a liar he is… and well it's just weird"

"What are you suggesting Padfoot?" questioned James warily. After the events that had marred Sirius' summer, he wanted to work out if he had justified suspicions, or if it was just paranoia. He knew it had to be one or the other, though he hoped with all his soul it was neither. Either way, he was concerned more than ever about his best friend.

Before Sirius could answer, feeling that was time to move the conversation out of these dangerous waters, at least until they could be more private, Remus said, in an unusual display of Prefectorial authority to his his friends "Leave it. Let's just enjoy the feast. We'll talk later."

Before either Sirius or James could respond, Professor McGonagall came bustling through from an offset corridor to shoo them into the Great Hall.

A/N- So, first chapter of my first fanfiction!! I find writing introductions for things a lil' bit tiresome; but I have loads of (hopefully!) good stuff in my notebook!

I hope people have enjoyed the first chappie, and will continue to read!

Constructive critiscism please!