What Life Could Have Been
A/N: Last update that I can gaurantee until next week, but I'll keep writing while on vacation.
Christmas
James's worries were for nothing when Gryffindor crushed Ravenclaw in November. To Elise's dismay this meant that Lucy Clearwater stuck around, though she sensed a change in Sirius, as little time as she spent with him.
James invited her to have a Butterbeer with them in the Three Broomsticks on the last Hogsmead visit before holidays. She had plans with Lily, Alice and Jane but she told him she's try to make it. The girls finished their Christmas shopping early and Elise bid them farewell and headed for the warmth of the tavern. When she looked the window she saw James, Remus and Peter sitting at a table, Butterbeer in their hands and gloomy expressions on their faces. She went inside and sat down in the fourth chair.
"Where's Sirius?" she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
"Madam Puddifoot's," James said with disgust. "Lovely Lucy's going home for Christmas so she wanted to go there with him instead. How'd your shopping go?"
"Great," she said, glad to change the subject. She showed them the gifts for her parents and her cousins at Chateau de Cygne. When the weather outside turned worse they gathered their cloaks and trudged back to the castle.
Sirius pulled the door of the Three Broomsticks shut against the howling wind. He looked around the busy tavern for his friends; he was only a half hour late, they should still be inside.
"Your friends just left, Mr. Black," Madam Rosemerta said from the bar. "The weather's getting bad, you should probably go too."
Sirius uttered a thanks before pulling his cloak back around him and returning to the cold December weather outside.
Elise woke to an empty dormitory the next morning; the other three girls usually went home for the Christmas holidays. She pulled on her dressing gown against the cold and began to unwrap her presents. Remus had gotten her a beautiful new copy of Les Misérables and James a book of Quidditch moves by the most famous Chasers to play for England, Ireland and Scotland. At first she was surprised to not find one from Sirius right on top, but she figured he was still angry at her for something and she'd find something small on the bottom. When she was down to a single card, Elise began to feel quite hurt. She had been sure that no matter what she had inadvertently done he could have forgiven her by now.
She pulled the festive tab on the envelope and it burst into tiny snowflakes, covering her lap and the bed around her in fake snow. In place of the envelope she now held a tiny packet made of gold paper. Elise opened the packet and a necklace fell into her snow covered lap; the gold paper folded itself into a butterfly and flew in lazy circles around her head. She grinned and examined the necklace. Attached to the gold chain was a gold broomstick pendant with a tiny ruby Quaffle. Elise knew exactly what it all meant. She put on the necklace, extracted Remus's book from the pile on her bed and ran down the stairs to the empty Common Room, grabbing her favorite seat by the fire.
No one else was awake by the time James, Sirius, Remus and Peter returned from the kitchens with a Christmas feast. Elise abandoned all rehearsed forms of apology and threw her arms around Sirius when he had put his load of Christmas pudding down.
"Er, Happy Christmas, Ellie. You liked your present then?" he said awkwardly. She could see James smirking behind his shoulder.
"Yes," she beamed.
"Good." He sounded relieved. "Hungry?"
She nodded and they sat down to the feast pilfered from the kitchens. Elise knew everything between them was okay. After all, she knew how difficult it would have been for him to apologize in front of James, and she really did like the butterfly.
They had snowball fights almost every day for the rest of the holidays, and when it was too cold they played Exploding Snap. Sirius had a great desire to remain busy; Elise guessed he was dreading the Lucy Clearwater backfire when she returned after Christmas.
Many mornings she would wake up to find the Common Room empty of her friends and they would not return until after lunchtime. It wasn't that Elise minded especially, she had many long talks with Venus about the tactics in the book she had received from James; it was the secrecy that bothered her. She knew they would let her in on it eventually. On one of the last days of break her wish came true, but it wasn't what she had been expecting at all.
"Ellie! Ellie, come down here!" Sirius called one morning.
"What is it?" she asked sleepily.
"Ellie, we've done it! We've figured out how to become Animagi."