Title: Broken Paradise
Author: -MyForever-
Disclaimer: Only the plot and Elise Potter are mine.

A/N: Main Author's note at the bottom, please read!

Poll: I have two polls which I want you to take part in, please put your answer in a review, but please review to the chapter/story as well as just the poll.

1: Who should Harry go out with (it must be a girl, and not a Slytherin.) It doesn't mean I'll go with whoever has the most votes, but I do want your input.
2: Do we mind fluffy bits? Would you mind terribly if chapter 8 was a little fluffy? I feel we need to lighten Sirius, Elise and Harry's life up a bit. So please let me know. Thanks.

Chapter: 7 - Arguing but the offer still stands.

The pair ran in the direction of the Hospital Wing, not stopping for breath. Albus Dumbledore stood at the entrance of the Room of Requirement, chuckling at them, before turning in the opposite direction and making his way to his office. As they reached the Hospital Wing, the doors were already open, and Sirius ran over to Elise's bed.

Looking over at his friends, Harry noticed that they were still all asleep, so he slowly, albeit reluctantly, over to Elise's bedside, where he saw Sirius and the bed's occupant, deep in conversation. Not wanting to interrupt he sat down on one of the available chairs (gracefully for once).

A few minutes later Sirius and Elise looked over to Harry, and by the look on Sirius' face, Harry knew that Elise knew nothing of what had happened over the last eighteen years, she did not know that her brother and best friend were dead, that the one person who she mistrusted the most she had right to, that her fiancée had spent twelve years in Azkaban for a crime he did not commit, that her nephew had grew up in the worst possible way. The world was about to come crashing down on her in any possible minute.

"James?" Elise asked Harry in a shaky and raspy voice. It was obvious that she had hardly used her voice in all those years, and it hurt to use it.

Sirius gave Harry a pained expression, while holding her right hand and said to him, "Madam Pomfrey said it's our job to tell her."

"Tell me what?" Elise turned her head to look over at Sirius; the moon light shone over Elise's face, straying in from the window above Ron's bed, the light made the scars on Elise's face stand out, the red a harsh reminder of what she had lived through against her pale skin. Her curly chestnut hair lay limply around her head, short bits sticking up at the back, just like James and Harry's.

"Elle, this isn't James, the thing to look for, is the eyes, see there, Lily's eyes." Harry was glad that Sirius hadn't mentioned his scar, he had enough people staring at that then he wished for, and even though he had never mentioned his hate of people looking at it, Sirius could tell that he didn't like it.

"That's James' son, Harry."

"Did you know that's my favourite boy's name?" Sirius laughed loudly at this.

"Of course I did Elle; you only told us in every possible minute, that's probably why they picked it."

"Why aren't they here now? I know I'm at Hogwarts, but you're here, and I don't ever think you would become a teacher. Thinking about it I don't remember seeing them at the Ministry either."

Sirius looked away with a pained expression, Harry saw, by the moonlight through the window, that his eyes had welled up and tears were threatening to drop, and then he came to his senses, blinked the tears away and looked back to Elise.

"Well, they weren't going to get married on the day that we were going to at first," Elsie shot a quick look over to her left hand where she saw her engagement ring still on her finger. "Because they didn't think it fair, because you weren't there, but I managed to persuade them to, I said that I thought that was what you would've wanted. So changes had to be made, Remus was no longer my best man, because I didn't have a bride to get married to and James insisted on changing his best man from Peter to me. So they got married and then had Harry here and they made me his godfather. Your parents they died only a few months before Harry was born, just a normal death, old age, you know they were quite old when they had you and James. James was upset, but Lily brought him around, her parents died in seventh year, so she knew what it felt like.

Then Dumbledore came and told us that he had heard that Voldemort was after Lily and James so it was decided that they would go into hiding, they planned to make me secret keeper, but at the last minute I told them to change to Peter. I was a too obvious choice, and it didn't help that dear Regulus was a Death Eater, so Voldemort would know quite a lot about me. Then who would have thought it, but Peter was a Death Eater, had been ever since he was seventeen, he betrayed Lily and James, and on Hallowe'en 1981, when Harry was one, Voldemort appeared at their door. From what I've heard and what I saw in the wreck of Godric's Hollow where they lived, James put up quite a fight, and then Lily died protecting Harry and the Avada Kedavra just bounced right off Harry because of Lily's protection."

Tears were running down both Sirius and Elise's face, thinking about what had happened, even Harry felt moisture behind his eyelids, but he was determined not to cry, he couldn't, he would stay strong.

"So as you know, I couldn't just let Peter get away with what he had done to Lily and James, so that very night, after being told by Hagrid that I wasn't allowed to take Harry, I set out to look for Peter. Two weeks later I finally found him, in the middle of a street full of Muggle's, I was so angry with him, but for the first time in his life, he was better than me, he set out an explosion in the street behind us killing twelve Muggle's and then he cut off his finger, and transfigured into a rat. He made it look like I'd done it; they carted me off to Azkaban without a trial for life imprisionment that very day."

"And you always argued with me when I told you that I didn't trust Peter. I had good reason not too I always knew- wait a minute, if you were in Azkaban, I wasn't there, Mum & Dad and Lily's parents were dead, Peter was supposed dead, and they would never have given him to Remus because of his furry problem, who did Harry grow up with?"

Even Harry looked sheepish at this comment, but could tell from the way that Sirius looked at him, that he had to answer,

"The Dursley's. Lily's sister Petunia and her husband Vernon and their son Dudley, took me in."

"WHAT??? And you let him go there Sirius, I can't believe you, how could you? We went to Lily's parents funeral, we saw Petunia there, how could you even think for one second that his life would be ok there? Oh, I'm going to kill you Sirius Orion Black! Should've done it years ago, but nevertheless I'm going to do it now!"

Elise was already half way out of her bed, oblivious to the excessive amounts of pain she was in, before Madam Pomfrey came to her senses and pushed her back down, the look on Sirius' face was priceless, thought Harry. He was half way between terrified and anger, not really making a decision out of the two. Harry was laughing hard at his, not only had somebody terrified his godfather into speechlessness, but somebody had finally realised that he didn't have a great life at the Dursley's. It had only taken fifteen years, but oh well; somebody had got there in the end!

Sirius finally overcome his shock, and burst out, "Haven't you just listened to a word I said? I was in Azkaban I didn't have much choice, and you know me, anything as unimportant as how a Muggle treated her witch sister, would have been forgotten by me over night. Come on Elle, don't be like that with me."

"Oh god, last time we had an argument, it ended up with us dancing and then a full out battle, please don't ask me to dance, I don't think my body could take it."

Horror washed over Sirius' face again, "Why would I ask you to dance, in front of my godson and his friends?"

"I dunno, Siri, you always did have a weird sense of working in that small brain of yours."

Seeing that this would turn out into another argument, they're as bad as Ron and Hermione, he thought, Harry crept over to the door and let himself out of the Hospital Wing.

It had been later than they thought when they managed to go to the Hospital Wing and now as he walked silently through Hogwarts Castle, the dawn light was silently creeping up through the windows. Making his way out to the lake, Harry sat down and leaned against the tree that he had seen his father and his friends sit in front of and torture Snape in a memory.

He sat there for a few hours, today was a Friday, and as it was the day after their O.W.L's finished, they were given today off, so he didn't have to go to any classes. He sat out there throughout breakfast not feeling hungry, and he heard the bell ring for morning classes. Harry hid himself more effectively behind the big tree, so as not to be seen by the third years making their way to Care of Magical Creatures or the sixth years making their way to Herbology.

Some time later, once classes had gotten well under way, Harry felt two people sit down on either side of him, looking to the right first, he saw Sirius mirroring his position, then on the left Elise had sat – with some difficulty – with her back up against the trunk and her legs stretched out in front of her. Yes Harry thought I can see what Sirius means when he said she had grace, more than me in any case.

"I thought Madam Pomfrey wasn't going to let you out until Sunday at least?"

"Don't you think I know of every possible way to escape the Hospital Wing without getting caught by Madam Pomfrey? And actually I managed to convince her that I wanted some fresh air seeing as I haven't had any in the past eighteen years, so after chucking a dozen pain killing potions down my throat, she allowed me to come outside as long as somebody else was with me, and Sirius gladly took up the offer."

"Right," Harry said, I must get my sarcasm from my Dad's side of the family he thought.

"So then Harry, the offer still stands if you wish it to. Do you still want to live with me?"

"Are you mad?!?! Sirius Orion Black if I ever even hear you mention a little inkling that Harry may have to stay with that old hag and her family ever again, there will be no power on Earth that will stop me from killing you! DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND??"

"Yes, Miss!" Sirius said seriously, making a salute gesture in the process. "But Harry it really is up to you, don't listen to that woman sitting the other side of you. I don't know, you'd think she was related to Lily the temper she's got, or at least have red hair. Never go at her in the middle of the night before exams!"

"Yeah, of course I still wanna live with you."

"SIRIUS, it is not my fault that I unlike you, care about my school work, and that I unlike you, have a few more emotions that I am able to understand better than you do. Why, oh why, did I ever agree to marry you? Scary thing is I'm still willing to marry you!" Elise stood and turned around sharply attempting to make her way back to the castle.

"One difference is to the offer though Harry; there'll be three people in the household, me, you and Elise."

Elise stopped dead in her tracks, not thinking she would hear this from Sirius. She'd been in love with him ever since her first year, but he never noticed her until their third year and it took a horrid teacher to get them together, even before then and after they continued to argue. It had taken him so long to propose, even James and Lily had gotten together as fiancées before they had. Never in all her life did she expect something seen as a commitment to come out of Sirius' mouth of his own accord.

"Come on Sirius, anybody is better than the Dursley's, well ok, maybe not Umbridge or Snape, but I'm sure Elise is fine, and anyway I've been holding you to this offer for two years, I'm not gonna get rid of it now."

Elise turned around and looked at Sirius and Harry who were smiling up at her, questioning in their glances as to whether she also agreed to the offer. Smiling back at them with a small nod of her head, to show the affirmative, Harry ran to her and hugged her tightly.

Yes, life at the moment was good. She thought, while giving her fifteen year old nephew a hug for the first time, and which she hoped wouldn't be the last. And what was going to come will come, and they would face it as a misfit family when it did. Laughing slightly, Sirius threw his arms around the two of them, and joined in their group hug. Not one of three noticed Professor Dumbledore standing at the window of his office looking down upon them, throw a smile at them with a large twinkle in his eye.

A/N: Right thanks to all my reviewers on the previous chapter. Sorry it took a little longer on this one, I've already had to go to two bank appointments this week (I'm only a teenager!) and I went to the opticians yesterday but have to go back again tomorrow, and everything's been hectic, especially as my sister is going to University this autumn!

Basically what I wanted to say is, school starts again in exactly two weeks, and this is a hard and important year for me, I have four major exams (split into smaller segments, but still all very important), ten customary exams, more exams throughout the year, and I also have to pick the courses I wish to take up for the two years afterwards, so I'm not sure when I'm going to have time. Also, I am going to Blackpool on 31st Aug - 1st Sep, so I won't be able to update then. When school has started it will mostly like only be once a week when I can update but in calmer periods I will update quicker, however I don't know my timetable yet, so I can't say which day of the week I will likely be able to update on, so I will let you know on 4th Sep, the day I go back as that is the day I will get my timetable.

The schedule for updating between now and 4th Sep are as follows: Chapter 8 - Thursday 23rd Aug
Chapter 9 - Monday 27th Aug (sorry weekends are getting busy for me)
Chapter 10 - Wednesday 28th Aug
Chapter 11 - Thursday 29th Aug (hopefully, I'm going to try and squeeze in another update for you, as I won't be able to update because of Blackpool.)
Chapter 12 - Tuesday 4th Sep

Thanks for reading, and please review! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.