Author's Note: This is for the "What If?" challenge on the HPFC forum. My prompt was What if Bella and Sirius were best friends until the day he died? This was actually really hard to write, I've never written completely in the hypothetical tense, so please leave your thoughts in the reviews!

What if?

"You're haunted by those two most terrible words, What If."

---"The Time Machine"

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What if?

What if Sirius had never left her? Hot tears pricked her eyes at the thought. What if, after he ran away to the Potters, she hadn't screamed that he was a worthless blood-traitor who was dead to her, and what if he hadn't yelled back that he thought she was an evil bitch, and what if their friendship hadn't immediately died? What if it had survived?

She would have forgiven him, eventually. He wouldn't have come back to the Blacks, Sirius was never a true Black, ruthless and corrupt down to the core, but he would have come back to her.

They would have gone to Hogsmeade together, giggling as they swiped sugar quills and chocolate frogs. They would have spent long evenings by the fireplace, talking about what they wanted their future to be like. She would tell him her dream of becoming a Death-Eater, the Dark Lord's favorite subject, and he wouldn't be disgusted, he would nod and tell her his dreams of doing something different, something nobody expected him to do. She wouldn't tell him he was crazy, she would encourage him and then she would hug him and he wouldn't pull away.

Sirius would have been at her wedding, making a face as she kissed Rodolphus. She would have pestered him to find a girl, setting him up with dates, and he would have complained but would have grudgingly accepted all the dates.

They would have teased Narcissa about a single strand of gray hair, and would have spoiled her son together. They would have gone to Regulus' grave together, and would have mourned together. They would Apparate by Andromeda's house, and Sirius would have tried to convince her to ring the doorbell, and she would have considered it but refused.

He would have waited for her while she was in Azkaban. He would have made it bearable.

They would have been best friends, forever and ever.

They would have been happy.

What if?

He wouldn't have gone to Azkaban and wouldn't have lost his reckless laugh, his innocence, his everything that made him Sirius.

She wouldn't have sworn to the Dark Lord that she would kill him.

He wouldn't have vowed to his friends and anyone that would listen, that he would kill her.

They wouldn't have been mortal enemies, in a race to see who could kill the other first.

They wouldn't have been dueling that night in the Ministry, exchanging deathly curses with cold jeers.

He wouldn't have laughed so cruelly, she wouldn't have lost what little grip on sanity she had left.

She wouldn't have shot that blaze of red light directly into his heart; he wouldn't have fallen, fallen, fallen.

She wouldn't have killed him, oh Sirius. She wouldn't have killed him.

What if that's how it really happened?

And she closed her eyes and pretended as hard as she could that those two little words contained the undeniable truth, that those two little words weren't just a cover for wishes and dreams that would never come true, that this was what truly happened. What if?

Fin.