Sirius Black: The boy who laughed

Sorry that this has taken so long, I've had an overload of school work to do and then I got stuck on the second flashback. Since I couldn't think how to make Sirius laugh. I'm not really sure if wizards have elastic bands, but for the sake of this story they don't. It's not very good, but please let me know what you think of it. KatieBellaTrix, thanks for reviewing, I tried to make this flash back longer, but I'm not sure it's very good. Thanks everyone for reading.

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There lay a cut out newspaper article from the daily prophet. A photo of a man, laughing like a maniac took up most of the page. Lily scanned through the article that went on about Sirius Black, the mass murder, traitor and Azkaban escapee. His cold dead eyes stared out of the page at her. She gazed sadly at the photo. Harry had told his children the true story about his Godfather and the betrayal of his parents, yet Lily felt slightly shocked by the photo. His wild, reckless expression disconcerted her.

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His best friend was dead! James was dead. He couldn't believe it. Lily was dead. He felt dismayed. Peter…. his friend. Quiet, harmless Peter a Death Eater? Peter had betrayed them. He had suspected Remus, he couldn't have been more wrong. And Harry… his Godson, what was to become of him. As he heard his sentence, despair overwhelmed him.

He laughed. Laughed wildly, mirthlessly, madly, trying to forget, trying to escape from his thoughts.

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But the photo underneath the article reassured her. The same man, but younger and without the maniacal expression. He was lounging on a sofa beside a fire in a room Lily knew to be the Gryffindor Common room. He was rolling around with laughter.

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Sirius was bored. It was a miserable evening in January and Quidditch practise had been cancelled due to the bad weather. Not that he would have mind playing in the storm, but Mrs. McGonagall had forbidden it and James had said it wouldn't be worth risking any of the players getting injured. Sirius had an essay due for tomorrow, numerous essays in fact, but he could do that later.

He glanced over to a table in the corner where Remus was busy with his own homework; maybe he could borrow it later. James was off with Lily, doing what, Sirius didn't know. They'd mumbled something about head duties or a prefect meeting - he didn't catch which - and had left the common room. They seemed to have had quite a lot of these 'meetings' recently.

Last time they had given this excuse he'd checked on the map and Sirius didn't think the prefects had their meetings in Filch's broom cupboard!

He didn't know where Peter was. Actually, he didn't know where Peter was quite a lot these days. His friends wouldn't see him for hours and would be very evasive when they questioned him about it. He was probably having extra lessons, or being tutored or something. That was probably it; Sirius had noticed that he had improved quite a bit in DADA. He pitied whoever had the arduous task of tutoring him, Peter wasn't the brightest of Wizards.

A chorus of giggling drifted down the stairs form the girls' dorms. Mary had mentioned something about a 'girls evening' that the older girls were having. It was a shame, he thought to himself, there wasn't even anyone to flirt with!

The common room was a lot quieter than usual. A couple of first years were playing exploding snap and two third years were playing wizarding chess. A few fourth years were sitting in a circle, chattering quietly. One of them was holding a camera. A worried second year was struggling with some transfiguration homework, Edgar Bones, a sixth year who was a fellow Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, was looking glumly out of the window at the storm. Sirius wasn't the only one regretting the cancelled Quidditch practice. Several people were reading, but the atmosphere was very subdued.

Sirius found an 'elastik band' in his pocket and began absentmindedly to twist it round his fingers. Lily had had it in her School bag and had given it to him when he had found it so fascinating.

He flicked his thumb up and it flew off his fingers.

It hit Remus on the head, and he promptly jumped two feet off his chair, knocking his bottle of ink and a pile of parchment on to the exploding snap playing first years. To add to the confusion, the cards exploded and a now rather blue looking first year fell onto the third year's chessboard.

Pieces flew everywhere, angrily barking commands at everyone.

The bang startled Edgar and he stepped backwards, tripping over a fourth year who was lying on the floor, studying an astronomy chart. He knocked a table holding various books, an essay, a couple of chocolate frogs, some gobstones, a quill and a goblet of pumpkin juice. The contents flew into the air.

There was a clatter of feet as the girls ran down from their dormitories in their pyjamas to enquire as to the cause of the commotion. Several of whom were splattered with the flying Pumpkin juice. Mary, holding a glass of water in one hand and a magazine in the other, angrily asked Sirius what was going on.

Unfortunately Mary didn't see a rather scared looking first year huddled over their charms textbook. She tripped and the water flew out of her glass. Just then the portrait swung open and Peter clambered in. He was hit full in the face by Mary's drink and promptly fell back out of the portrait hole.

The fourth year holding the camera was about to take a photo of the funny scene but was hit with a wayward flying chess piece and ended up taking a picture of Sirius rolling around in hysterics.

Muggles were really very clever, Sirius thought to himself. He began to see why Arthur Weasley, who'd left a couple of years ago, found them so intriguing. He'd have to ask Lily if she had any more of these 'elastik band's.

He was still laughing when James and Lily returned, looking slightly more dishevelled than when they left.

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He came to Hogwarts, the sorting hat put him in Gryffindor, Sirius laughed and got up grinning. He got onto the Quidditch team in his second year, in the first match he got hit by a bludger but laughed when he was told to go and see Madam Pomfrey. In his fifth year he ran away form home and his parents disowned him, he turned up on the Potter's doorstop. He laughed when he explained what happened to James, but the laughter didn't reach his eyes. In his seventh year Lily and James finally got together, Sirius just laughed when he found out. He lived to laugh, he loved to laugh, he died laughing. He'd always been Sirius Black: the boy who laughed

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The photo reminded her of one of the pranks that her brother had told her about over the summer. She giggled, and turned the page…