Ch 3: A squeaky little mouse
"You're looking for her," Sirius laughed, playfully punching his brother's shoulder, "You're totally looking for her."
"Who? Honestly, Sirius, I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about," Regulus ducked his head, clearly embarrassed.
"The Rosier Freak, you're scanning the crowd for strawberry blonde hair," he accused, "Or ginger, or blonde, or whatever she is now."
"I'm not!" Regulus growled, "I'm just trying to find Avery and all of them."
"Sure, so you aren't going to go over to that beautiful blonde over there?"
Regulus whipped his head around to follow his brother's gaze and found the girl he had been looking for despite all his protests, "She hardly looks freakish today."
"What did I tell you about that nonsense," Sirius swatted his brother's head, "She doesn't need you ganging up on her too."
"You literally just called her the freak!" he exclaimed, aggravated by his brother's hypocrisy.
"That's different, I'm on her side. Now, if you're not going to go talk to her, I am," Sirius laughed and took off towards the forlorn girl.
Regulus watched as his brother dove into the crowd, which quickly managed to obscure his vision of both Sirius and Elsa. He hadn't seen her since the day in Diagon Alley, but their brief encounter had run through his mind endlessly since. She had been so shy, so withdrawn, and yet there she was, still stuck in his mind. So inappropriate for him to associate with, but something about her was so tempting. He couldn't stop thinking about how beautiful she'd looked in the afternoon sun or how his stomach had erupted in battling butterflies every time she'd laughed at one of his jokes. He knew he should go find his normal Slytherin friends, but he managed to catch sight of her again. Everything stopped for one clichéd second, and all his doubt dispersed. How could he let Sirius go to that beautiful girl standing all by herself with a horribly morose look marring her features? It didn't matter that she was "the Rosier Freak" or that every pureblood family at Hogwarts could see everything, she was all alone in the crowd looking like someone had just killed her cat. And he just let his popular, womanizing brother go to her, like the biggest idiot in the world.
The thing about trunks, when filled with everything one might need over the next nine months, is that they are heavy. They are extremely, ridiculously, unmanageably heavy. So, when one attempts to lift said trunk on her own, despite being a slight fifteen-year-old girl, it begins to look slightly farcical, as Elsa was rapidly finding out. Ideally, a quick levitation spell or, at worst, a cart would come to her aid, but she found herself presently without access to either. The first, because of the Ministry's laws on under-aged magic, and the second because Dahlia had managed to get the last cart, after their house-elf apparated them to the station, before sweeping off to the train leaving Elsa with nothing. She felt a faint tingle travel across her iris, and fought the urge to rub, what she was sure were now orange eyes. With a calming breath, she reminded herself of the night before, when Dahlia had been trembling with her in bed the way the two sisters hadn't in years. Her sister never came to her for comfort anymore, so the past night had made waking up to her sister's berating over her freakishness almost bearable. However, her current callousness hardly made Elsa warm with affection. In truth, she'd hoped Dahlia coming to her again meant a new start, a return to the way things had once been. She should have known better, of course, she couldn't have her sweet younger sister back, it was her own fault she had lost her in the first place.
She shook her head, attempting to disperse the rather morose thoughts. Instead, she focused on her current problem, the pressing matter of the overweight trunk. It had to make it onto to the train somehow, but lifting it seemed to be out of the question. Ideally, her older brother would have appeared by now to help her with her luggage, but she had been seeing less and less of him these days. His absence combined with her all too apparent absence of friends at Hogwarts left her with the slow progress she's managed to make by dragging her trunk about 4 cm at a time. With a rather unhappy sigh, she wrapped her hands around the worn leather handle once more and prepared to strain against the weight.
"Struggling, Rosier?" she jumped at the question, quickly straightening to turn and face the tall pureblood.
"Sirius!" her hair was once again beginning to flush pink to match the developing blush on her cheeks, "I'm fine, just my sister took the last luggage cart, but I'll be fine."
"Love, I think you and I both know there's no chance of you ever lifting this," he nodded his head towards the offending trunk, "you're hardly 7 stones soaking wet, but watch this. All will be solved in just a minute."
He stooped, eager to put his quidditch developed muscles to use, as she fretted over allowing him to help her, her blush ever-deepening. She also found her anxiety-filled mind drawing her eyes up to the crowd. She found herself searching without consciously meaning to, just incidentally glancing frantically about.
"Merlin, you're just as bad as him," Sirius laughed as he checked to make sure she was watching but found her gaze wandering, "He's over there by the train."
Elsa's gaze followed his head nod and landed on the other Black brother before she remembered herself, "I wasn't looking for Regulus!"
"Of course, love, I never said you were," Sirius laughed as he attempted to hoist the trunk, only to find it far heavier than he'd expected and fail nearly as miserably as she had.
It was Elsa's turn to laugh as he flailed uselessly against the weight, "What was that? 'It will all be solved in just a minute'?"
"It would if your trunk wasn't filled with bloody bricks!" he exclaimed as he adjusted his grip a final time and strained against the weight to finally lift the hefty trunk, his face growing pink with exertion.
"Or maybe you're just not as strong as you thought you were," she laughed and followed him towards the train.
Sirius cast a curious sideways glance despite the strain, "Such sass, I wouldn't have expected it from the Rosier mouse, who could barely manage a squeak at our last meeting."
Elsa did find herself surprised, what on earth had made her make those jokes, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Hush, little mouse," Sirius cut in, "I wasn't asking for an apology, you're actually pretty funny when you let yourself talk."
"Thank you," she murmured as a tingle crept up her scalp alerting her to the fact that her face and hair had probably both flushed bright pink, "And just so you know, I wasn't looking for him. Regulus, I mean, I wasn't looking for him."
"Of course not," Sirius smirked and readjusted his grip on the trunk a final time, as they neared the train, "But I was serious about the bricks, this thing must weigh a tonne!"
The scarlet engine let out a loud whistle as Elsa turned to enter a compartment, only be stopped by a hand on her wrist. She jerked her hand away, quickly putting distance between her and the sudden contact.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you there," Sirius murmured, his grey eyes taking in her huddled stance, "I just… what were you doing? Come sit with me."
Elsa took a few deep breaths to steady herself, "It's fine, you helped me with my trunk, you can go off with your friends now."
"Can you just stop for one moment with the self-deprecating stuff?" he sighed, "Just come sit with us, not in the compartment all alone. I think they'd like you, even if your hair is turning all pink again."
She ducked her head at the mention of her blush, "If you say so."
Sirius flashed his brilliant smile, but resisted grabbing her hand again, "Follow me!"
They came to the last compartment on the train, away from the prefect's compartment and any other source of authority. Elsa stopped short, as she attempted to follow the activity inside through the frosted glass of the compartment doors. There was so much laughter and chatting, such boisterous happiness, she wanted to run in the opposite direction.
"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Elsa sighed half-turning from the door.
"Hey, you can't chicken out now, you're here," Sirius argued softly, "Just open the door already."
She took a deep breath and mostly oblivious to the chaos inside the compartment, reached for the door handle.
"Moony, I swear on your future unborn child, if you do not deliver this note the love of my life during your prefects' meeting I will destroy everything that you hold dear!" James declared as he flourished an envelope at his sandy-haired friend.
So, when Elsa gently opened the compartment door, she was met with an odd scene as James stood gallantly on the plush velvet cushions addressing a rather wane looking Remus.