Giselle's first day back went terribly, it came close to being possibly the worst day of her life tied with the day Junior tried to lure her into a werewolf's house and the day she left Hogwarts.
She spent the entirety of her lessons (Giselle was beyond livid that he shared four out of seven of her classes) either avoiding Sirius' sneers to keep the blush from her cheeks or revelling in her anger and meeting his sneers with her own perfected bitch face. She chose the former most of the time though, looking Sirius in the face was extremely agonising and her poor heart could only take so much. She never thought she'd see the day he looked at her like she was a literal piece of shit and as much as she denied it, a part of her broke every time they locked eyes. Needless to say, Giselle learnt very little in class on her first day back.
Dinner had not long ended and Giselle couldn't face going back to the tower yet, being in his presence made her feel physically sick so she decided to spend her evening in the last place Black would dare to hang out - the library.
Clutching her books tightly to her heaving chest to stop the oncoming bouts of nausea, Giselle strolled into the cavernous room decked with snaking rows of tomes, twisting and turning off in the distance where misplaced books floated back to their original places. Madam Pince watched her carefully as she ventured further through the library but she soon lost sight of Giselle when she climbed up to the balconies above in search of a private section. The smell of old parchment and musty fabrics was pleasant and sparked hazy memories of her messing around on the ladders that were supposed to aid in student's book searches but she bit her smile when she remembered the time she snapped a few rungs of the ladder and blamed the destruction on Lily.
Stifling a yawn, Giselle finally found the perfect spot - a small round table hidden behind a nook in the biographical section lined with four leather armchairs for comfortable reading. She dumped her handbag on the table and threw herself into the nearest chair with a deflating sigh. Pretending she didn't care was a lot more draining than she thought.
The silence played with her mind, she was super sensitive to every little noise and she kept glancing towards the break in the bookcase, it was the only entrance into her private quarters. If, by some heinous curse, she happened to run into him again she would have no choice but to face him. For his sake, she prayed Black was out in the grounds, as far away from her as possible. Giselle was flicking through the Potions syllabus for her NEWTs when she heard several voices float up over the high wall of the section and she froze, straining her ears to pick out any familiarity.
"-but if that fails then we might have to take her to the Room," tittered James. Giselle rolled her eyes and slammed her face into the book on the table, exhausted. They were relentless!
"It's gonna fail, I don't see this going well at all!" said Remus, louder and less cautious than James. They were heading her way. Giselle swore and blindly shoved her quills and ink pot into her handbag with no regard for any spillages, she'll deal with that later.
"I think our conversation with Padfoot earlier was an omen, Elle's not going to react well to this either," assessed Peter, their footsteps echoing on the balcony floor. Giselle groaned and gave up - too late.
"Here she is!" exclaimed James, suddenly appearing in the entrance, his silhouette broadening against the lantern light as he put his hands on his hips, observing Giselle like a proud father. "The very girl we've been looking for!"
"How?!" whined Giselle, stomping her foot in a rage, "how did you find me?! I specifically went out of my way to find a spot where I could be left alone, I haven't told anyone I'm here and somehow you've tracked me down!" She didn't realise how distressed she was until she started shouting.
"Shhh!" scolded Remus, fighting a smile, "no shouting in the library!."
"Yeah, listen to the prefect," warned Peter with a tut, "he'll write you up."
"But I can hand out detentions," boasted James and he took a step towards Giselle. "Don't make me put you in detention, Elle."
"No you can't-," interjected Remus, ruining his fun immediately.
"Leave me alone!" droned Giselle, succumbing to the defeat as they continued to yammer on by taking a seat at her table. They took her actions as an invitation to join her, completely disregarding her whines.
"Absolutely not, we just got you back," protested James, sobering up slightly to assure her that they had good intentions. "Honestly, we just want to catch up with you, we've missed you."
Giselle hesitated and rolled her swollen lips together as her mind raced with pros and cons. She knew Potter was lying, she knew they wanted to talk about Black but she couldn't stop herself from saying, "Fine."
"Atta girl Crouch!" cheered Peter but Giselle cringed, gagging at the name..
"Legally it's Prewett now, I do not associate myself with them. The dickhead of Magical Law used my former name when he enrolled me just to piss me off," she drawled with a touch of venom, displaying her intense hatred for her family. The three men around the table shared a sneaky look and nodded, interpreting her expression correctly.
"Still a Daddy's girl then?" joked James automatically, making Giselle smile slightly.
"Mhm something like that," she muttered vaguely, tapping her nails anxiously on her book without realising.
"I heard you got expelled for setting fire to Beauxbatons," blurted out Peter, unable to keep it in any longer and he earned two hard shoves from the men beside him.
"Are you kidding?! Why did you ruin it?!" moaned James, sulking back in his chair with a small scowl.
"We were building up to that!" scoffed Remus, "way to spoil the plan!"
Giselle's shoulders sank and she stared at them incredulously. "What plan? And how did you find out?"
James grinned and stretched his arms behind his head, flexing his biceps to emphasise his smugness. " Lily told me," he sighed, "she confided in me. She confides in me now."
Giselle's jaw dropped. "She told you?! " Her eye roll was so exaggerated that she almost pulled a muscle. She should have guessed, Lily's crush seemed to be a lot hotter than she let on but weirdly Giselle didn't mind, it was quite charming that the pair of them were finally getting along, even if they were gossiping about her. Trying to maintain friendships between two people that were caught in a childish kiss chase was draining, she remembered the many arguments over whose turn it was to hang out with her.
"You're extremely lucky that I support whatever is going on between you and her," sniffed Giselle, crossing her arms and shifting in her seat so she could shun James, "so I won't hunt Evans down and shout at her for letting that slip. I hope you haven't told anyone else?"
"Not a soul," promised Remus, crossing his heart, "we respect your decision to keep that a secret," he slammed his hands on the table and leant towards her as his face lit up, "but we are going to tell everyone that you stole the Durmstrang ship!"
"Technically I didn't steal it," she countered, fluttering her eyes at them, "but I did get the ship out of the bay and into open water before I got caught which counts as attempted theft sooo-,"
"This is insane! It's true?!" gasped James, his hazel eyes brighter than a child's on Christmas Day, "You actually stole a pirate ship?!"
"I guess that makes me a pirate?" mused Giselle, viewing her experience from a different angle, "maybe I should get a hat."
"You've already got the bird so you don't need a parrot," noted Peter, sending sharp pains of grief through Giselle. She winced and dropped her smile; getting over the loss of her beautiful barn owl Eris ripped her apart and she still wasn't over it. Eris was a birthday present, a gift presented to her by her aunt Cecelia on her tenth birthday and she cherished her pet dearly, she taught her how to steal letters from her father and how to attack Junior on command - she was the perfect companion.
And now she was in the hands of a stranger, an elderly woman Bartemius worked with - Giselle hadn't seen her in over a year.
"How is Eris?" wondered James casually, leaning on his hand to gaze at his friend, "don't suppose she's the reason your brother is walking around with a bandage wrapped around his arm?"
Giselle's arched brows furrowed and she pouted at him, yielding to her real emotions. 'I don't know, Father gave her away. Junior hurt his hand trying to attack me a few days ago but I assumed he was fine now," she confessed but she couldn't stop her smirk at the idea of her brother still feeling the effects of her aggressive disarming spell. Remus snatched her hand and stroked it, genuinely taken aback at her loss.
"I'm so sorry Elle. I know how much you loved her, we loved her too," he muttered and the pain eased. Giselle thanked him by squeezing his fingers, no one else had even acknowledged her pain over her father's unreasonable punishment let alone comforted her and speaking to people who genuinely cared was rather freeing. It felt good knowing her decision to come back to Hogwarts wasn't a mistake.
"I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to her, he stole her the night I came back from Beauxbatons for the summer, he just handed her to some old bat who won't look after her properly. She must have been so confused and scared, he wouldn't have bothered to try and explain to Eris what was going on since he's the world's biggest prick," her voice trembled and she growled, slamming her potions book shut to release some of her boiling resentment.
"That's awful," tusked Peter but he tried to lighten the mood, "I'm sure she's fine though, she's a fighter, just like her mother."
"Father did come down for breakfast with scratches on his face the next day, she didn't leave without a fight" snickered Giselle, agreeing with his belief.
"We'll get Eris back," asserted Remus, sitting up in his chair as he glanced at his boys, "I doubt it would be that hard to track her down and steal her."
"It'll be a piece of cake!" agreed James, interrupting Giselle's flustered gasps of admiration. She considered hunting down Eris' new owner and breaking into their house but she knew she would need extra eyes and a few helping hands to succeed with that idea. "Eris is a treasured member of this family, she's lost us house points in the past so that makes her a Gryffindor and we can't leave one of our own behind," justified James, wanting only the best for his friends.
"She's saved our arses a couple of times too," Giselle beamed, suddenly excited by this marvellous plan, "remember when we got locked out of the tower and she flew through the windows to let us in?"
"Ah the good old days," said James, wiping away a non-existent tear.
"I still don't understand how she did that," said Remus dubiously.
"Remember when she dropped those dungbombs on Snape that time at dinner?" added Peter with a cruel snicker. Giselle gasped, the name of the Slytherin suddenly conjured a wave of nostalgia, she hadn't thought about Snivellus in years!
"Gosh, I forgot Snape existed," murmured Giselle, her nose wrinkled at the memory of her old potions partner. Slughorn had purposely paired them up first as a joke as they both were inspiring potioneers with drastically different views on the subject but due to the high level quality of the work they produced he made sure that they only worked with each other. She prayed for the sanity of her classmates that Slughorn would change tactics and allow her to pick who she worked with this year, she didn't want to mess up her potions career by squabbling with Severus again.
"Mhmm that must be nice, you lucky git," James spat sourly, visibly irked that Giselle had the honour of forgetting the thorn in James' side.
"I wouldn't call it luck," snorted Giselle.
"Remember when Eris stole Mary's homework for us to copy?" interjected Peter, still reminiscing. "Do you think she found out?"
"She definitely found out, I have the scars to prove it!" grumbled Remus, absently rubbing the back of his neck as he thought back to her Bat-Bogey hexes.
"Do you remember when we were in detention for setting those fire-breathing chickens loose in the Slytherin common room and Sirius-," James began to say but at the mention of his best friend's name, the quill in Giselle's hand snapped. They were doing so well, his name hadn't emerged yet but that glorious streak ended abruptly.
"Oofft," chuckled Peter, eyeing the broken equipment, "here we go-,"
"What happened?" Remus spat out, desperate to know the truth.
"I don't know what you're talking about," growled Giselle, unusually calm.
"Stop playing games, Giselle," warned James, vehemently frustrated with her stubbornness to avoid the conversation that needed to take place, "we're going to get to the bottom of this."
"Why don't you ask him? " She suggested, her dark eyes constantly darting to the door with scattered ideas of escaping forming in her head.
"We did but that got us nowhere," sighed Peter, fiddling with his bag's strap to avoid any awkward eye contact, "he won't talk about it either."
"Then take that as a sign to drop it!" urged Giselle and she clasped her hands together in order to beg, "please stop!"
"But it doesn't make sense!" exclaimed James angrily, his spectacles flashing in the dim library light, "one minute you were dry-humping in the kitchens and the next you're sworn enemies!"
Giselle swore her face caught on fire. "Dry humping?!"
She couldn't believe that arsehole told them everything that happened that night. Her stomach erupted with butterflies and she covered her face to further shield her shame, mortified that he broke his promise to keep quiet - their impromptu make out session escalated quickly with the help of the stolen fire whiskey and Giselle ended up straddling his lap with his hungry hands down her shirt. She could still remember how rough and hot his fingers were and goosebumps ravished her body. It was one of her biggest regrets.
"Don't get shy now," smirked Remus, wiggling his eyebrows, "we're all friends here."
"He shouldn't have told you, that was private," scolded Giselle, taking their amusement to her discomfort incredibly personally.
"We tell each other everything, you already knew that," defended James with a shrug of his shoulders. The compulsion to argue got stronger within her and she growled at him.
"If you tell each other everything then please explain to me why he never wrote?" Her rage made her stutter but she assumed her resting bitch face and watched them gawk at her in confusion.
"What are you talking about? He wrote to you," stated Remus as though it were a famous fact, but Giselle vigorously shook her head.
"No he didn't," she said.
"Yes he did," said Peter.
"You never wrote to him," revealed James seriously, "it's very rich for you to accuse Sirius of being unresponsive." His words struck her hard in the chest and she gasped, catching her breath from the intensity of his statement. The audacity, the sheer cheek of James made Giselle laugh.
"Excuse me?! " she cackled, throwing her head back. "I never wrote?! I sent him a letter every single day, sometimes twice, for an entire year. Three hundred and sixty five days," her voice started to shake as their faces were stripped of their humorous expressions but she refused to give up, "I didn't hear from him once the whole time I was there, and come to think of it, I never heard from you three either."
"We wrote too," swore Remus, more stumped than agitated at this point, "we all did. We sent letters, howlers, postcards, the lot; you never replied."
"I can't do this," Giselle was trembling head to toe, vibrating from her fury, "really, I can't." Their lies were too much, her head started to get fuzzy and small stars twinkled in her vision, she needed to be alone. She understood that they were his best friends and they had been inseparable for years but to convince them that she never wrote him a letter? That hurt worse than a dagger to her back. She never thought Sirius would stoop so low and twist the tale and play the victim. The next time I see him I'm punching him in his stupid face, she thought bitterly.
When she jumped to her feet the three men mirrored her, scared that they had ruined their pleasant catch-up.
"Please don't run away," pleaded Remus, panic-stricken, "we'll shut up."
"I meeean-," James sounded unsure.
"Well, we'll shut up," Peter gestured to himself and Remus, "we don't have to talk about him."
"You better or else I'm off," said Giselle eventually, slowly sitting back down while she eyed them cautiously. She wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but she promised herself to give them only one more chance, her tremors were getting worse with every mention of his name.
"On a much happier note, let's talk about Quidditch!" burst James, keen to get the ball rolling, "tryouts are in two weeks and I hope to see you there?"
Giselle's salty pout dissolved into a grin of delight and she scoffed, gobsmacked that he phrased it as a question. "Do you even have to ask?!" she squealed, embracing the rush of excitement that tackled her anxiety.
"Yes! I knew I could count on my girl! The dream team will be reunited once more! This is brilliant!" whooped James, smacking Remus on the arm in a display of flustered exuberance. "Has your dickhead dad banned you from trying out again?"
"Yup," she said brightly.
"And you're going to regardless of what he says?" clarified Remus proudly.
"Yup," she repeated, "although I'm gonna have to borrow a broom."
James looked horrified. "Why?! Where's Flash?!"
Another bolt of grief struck Giselle. "Gone, he was tragically murdered before I left for Beauxbatons," she sniffled, pouting at the memory of Flash, her trusty Cleansweep Six, crackling as her father set it alight. She stole the ashes and kept them safe in a small airtight jar, she had won countless games on that broom and she wanted to keep it as a reminder of her determination to keep going. She wanted to become a famous Quidditch player, she needed to play with the greats and earn a name for herself but her father didn't believe that she could do it and sought to stamp out her dreams before she could make them a reality.
"I'm buying you a new one," proclaimed James, slamming his clenched fist onto the table as she started to protest, "you have no say in this Elle, I need you on my team and I can't have you playing on a shitty substitute Silver Arrow, not on my watch!"
She dazzled him with a beautiful smile and grabbed his large hands to show her appreciation. "You're ridiculous, Potter. Thank you."
"Aw I love you too," he cooed and teasingly pinched her cheek.