Sirius Black had been visiting James and Lily and his one year old godson, Harry, who had somehow managed to make Sirius' stained, torn and tattered t-shirt look worse than it did before he arrived. It was Harry's birthday, and Sirius was delighted that his present had gone down a storm. He had given his godson a broomstick that could fly no higher than a metre off the carpeted floor. It came with a whole assortment of safety features and equipment, although Lily has somehow still managed to find fault in his gift.

Sirius couldn't help thinking that maybe, once this war was over, the two parents of the little child could be him and Hecate, a girlfriend whom he had become rather serious about. However, only James knew of her. The couple both decided that it was best for her to remain unknown to the rest of the wizarding world as Sirius was deeply involved in the war. James remembered the look of absolute ecstasy on Sirius' face as he ranted about his new girlfriend -

'She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen... Her eyes sparkle as if there are stars trapped within them...-'

('Sirius, you sound like fourth year me making up poems about Lils-')

'Her hair smells like the prettiest flowers, and, get this, mate, She. Loves. Dogs. I can just tell she's something special about her...'

Hecate was a half-blood witch named after the Greek goddess of magic, Sirius had been told. She had attended the American wizarding school, which was why Sirius had never once come across her in his twenty-one years. Sirius had been with Hecate for about two years, something that James was extremely proud of. It was a personal record, and Sirius was sure she would be 'the one'.

The young man apparated home, excited that he could once again see his girlfriend. They had not seen each other for three months and Sirius was bursting with things to tell her. He made his way upstairs, grinning like a maniac when he saw her lounging on the sofa. 'Hecate!' he called, and she turned to him and smiled, accepting with happiness a powerful hug. 'It's been too long' he murmured, taking in the beauty of her unique starry eyes and stroking a hand down her long dark hair. He leant in for a gentle kiss, losing himself in the moment. But when they pulled away, Sirius saw the grief in his partner's eyes.

'Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, gliding a calloused thumb over Hecate's cheekbone.

'Sit down, we may be here a while... NO NOT THERE' she screamed as Sirius went to rest upon a bundle of pink blankets on the sofa. The wizard looked down, and sure enough he saw a little pink head poking out of the side. His expression changed swiftly from shock to his 'happy baby face' as he liked to call it. ('Padfoot, that face is absolutely terrifying!', 'Shut up, Moony, it's cuter than yours will ever be').

'Hello there!' the buff Black cooed, leaning over the tiny figure in the blankets, stroking her soft black tufts of hair. 'You didn't tell me you were on babysitting duty! Whose is she? What's her name?' he asked, directing his speech towards his girlfriend once more.

'That's what I'm here to talk to you about,' the girl sighed. 'She's mine, and, by extension, yours. It's up to you to name her'. Sirius turned to look at her so fast his neck cricked, but he gave it no thought. Then his wide eyes narrowed.

'She can't be... ours. I haven't been with anybody else in the past two years, and I saw you only three months ago and you were by no means pregnant! So unless you managed to have some super speedy, abnormally magical pregnancy then I think you have made one incredibly stupid mistake'.

Hecate chuckled quietly at his wording, before becoming serious once more at her boyfriend's death glare. 'And that "super speedy, abnormally magical pregnancy" is what we need to talk about.

'I have lied to you about a number of things, and I hope you'll forgive for what I must do, but it is written in the Ancient Laws. Just know that I love you, and I'm sorry it was you I had to fall for'. She could feel the wizards glare boring down on her, but carried on. She knew that if she stopped now she would never have the courage to continue. 'First of all, I am not a half-blood. Nor am I an alumni from the American wizarding school. I am, in fact, not a witch at all-'

'Your magic is some of the most powerful I have ever seen! What do you mean you're not a witch? Don't go all Loopy Lupin on me with the whole "I'm not a wizard, I'm a monster" because that doesn't change a thing...'

'I'm coming to that' Hecate responded. 'I am also not twenty years old. Yes, I look twenty but I'm actually about 150 times older...' she chuckled to herself.

'A bit of an over exaggeration'

'No, pretty accurate really... Now, have you heard of the Greek Gods?'

Sirius sat in stunned silence. After listening to Hecate's story and ordering proof (which came in the form of an Iris Message to Chiron at Camp Half-Blood) Sirius could see no way that Hecate could be lying. When he finally found his voice, all he could manage to say was 'Our child is going to have luscious locks, huh?' stroking the back of one finger against his daughter's fine hair. 'What a life she's going to have - Sirius Black as her father and the Greek Goddess, Hecate as her mother. She'll be mighty talented, I can tell you that'. The initial shock was beginning to wear off. He picked up the tiny bundle and rested it gingerly on his muscular arms, kissing her forehead. And in that moment, he felt as if a fog had been cleared from his vision. He looked at the sleeping child, and saw not a nameless baby, but his daughter, his own child, and he knew that she would be his light when the going got tough, and he knew that he would do anything to protect her.

'What will you call her?' Hecate asked softly.

'What's the Greek word for 'light'?' Hecate chuckled once more. 'Hey, 'Te, Why are you laughing? You're Greek, and she is a beacon of light in the middle of a Dark war. It makes sense!'

'I don't think you want to call her that, Sirius. It's Φῶς (Phos).' Sirius grimaced at the thought of that being his daughter's name. 'How about a Greek name that translates rather than the word itself?' Hecate proposed. 'You could have... Helene? Elena?'

'They're pretty, but not very unique. Our daughter, however, is. Is there anything more-' He snapped his fingers. The goddess furrowed her brow as if searching through her mental book of Greek baby names before a smirk found its way onto her face.

'How about Elektra?' Sirius thought about it for a second as he looked down at his daughter. Her eyes squinted open for the first time, and she looked up at her father and gurgled.

'Elektra... I like it. Nice to meet you, Elektra Black'.

Sirius was sitting comfortably on the couch, bouncing Elektra gently. Hecate was knelt beside him, her arm wrapped lovingly around his shoulder, knees tucked up against his bobbing thigh. She had just told him about the Ancient Laws, banning the Gods from letting their child grow up with them. Once the lamp, mirror, wall, and Sirius' knuckles had been fixed, he agreed to take a seat and a warm butterbeer.

'I can stay for a few months' Hecate decided. 'But I doubt Zeus will allow much more. I'll visit as often as I can-'

'How often's that?'

'At first a couple of times a year, it will get less frequent from there I'm afraid. I can still visit you, just not Elektra. I am not one of the Olympians, so her demigod scent should not be strong enough to attract many monsters, but it will grow stronger if she begins to learn that she is a half-blood. If this happens, and monsters become a frequent worry, send her to Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York. You have a number of years yet, however, before you need to worry about that.

'Now, what do you say to visiting James and Lily tomorrow and letting them meet their new family member?'

'Can James know about you? About who you really are?'

'I shall give Lily and James that knowledge. I think it is time for Remus and Peter to find out about me too, but not of my true identity. They may be your brothers, but you all must meet a crossroad soon, and the possibility of the Marauders coming out the other side as one is zero to none. It would be best for us all to keep my true self unknown.'

Sirius wasn't sure how to react to Hecate's statement. Was one of them to die or be betrayed? Maybe captured? He decided not to let it get to him. None of them had reached those crossroads yet. There was still time to turn the tables.

Elektra Black was exactly a month old today, 27th August 1991, although Hecate hadn't introduced her to Sirius until a few days later. What worried Sirius the most was the constant fright that Voldemort might use Elektra to find out James and Lily's address. While he was not the secret keeper, the other side were bound to believe that it was. It was too dangerous to keep Elektra around incase the Death Eaters found out about her.

That day, Sirius told the goddess about his concerns.

Hecate thought for a while. 'There is one place I can think of where we could hide her. It's called the Locus Hotel and Casino. It is a place in Los Angeles, although you could still visit her. Time is different there. Five minutes in the hotel could be two days in the real world, and although I would be able to change the speed of time for Elektra so she grows up at a relatively normal pace, I could not change it completely. The hotel also meddles with the minds of it's victims, causes them to forget things outside of the casino. If Elektra were to live there for even a couple of months there is no telling what could happen. However, I know of no other way to keep her absolutely protected from You-Know-Who. It is your choice'.

A couple of days later, Hecate travelled their daughter to the Locus Hotel and Casino. The Mist was cast over the other Marauders' eyes, allowing them to forget of her existence. Her place was taken up by a grumpy half-cat, half-kneazle named Crookshanks. His carrot-coloured cat seemed content with the Marauders' company, although Sirius noted he had a strange disliking for Wormtail. 'He can probably scent the rat in you' Padfoot noted at Peter's rejected look. 'All he wants is to chase you down and eat you for dinner' he chuckled.

While Sirius dearly missed the weight of his daughter in his arms, the familiar baby scent he had grown accustomed to, and the sound of her powerful lungs filling up the empty room, he knew that he had done the right thing. He would apparate to Los Angeles tomorrow and visit his daughter, he decided.

Another couple of months passed, and Sirius had tried his best to visit his daughter at least once a week. Hecate wouldn't allow him to enter the Casino for fear of him losing himself within it, so instead she would collect their daughter for him and disappear off afterwards - she didn't want to meddle with the Ancient Laws.

When Sirius was unable to see his daughter, he was able to send dream messages through a special link that Hecate had created. While she was still too young to understand or respond, he knew she could hear him.

Then, on October 31st of that very year, Peter Pettigrew betrayed his brothers. As Sirius arrived at the cottage in Godric's Hollow, his eyes widening in absolute terror at the green smoke spiralling into a skull and a snake, his emotions turned into anger. He screamed and kicked and punched the innocent walls. All he could see was a cluster of red and black, his heart felt so full but so empty, and then he heard the crying. There he saw Harry, his godson, a one year old child who had just seen his parents drop to the floor in a flash of green light. And Sirius thought of his daughter, of Elektra, and knew that he couldn't let Peter - no, that traitor - reach freedom. He couldn't let these two children whom he loved so much, be known of.

Three wands lay around the house - one fallen hopelessly on the floor by Harry's white cot, the cot that the Marauder's and Lily had spent hours trying to put together. The beautiful and elegant wand had belonged to Lily. It chose her at age eleven in Diagon Alley. Another wand sat forgotten on the sofa, thrown to the side by a care-free James, Prongs, Sirius' brother. He would never see his laughter etched across his face again, never hear another dreadful poem he had written for Lily, never see him disappear beneath the invisibility cloak and play peek-a-boo with Harry. Sirius timidly picked up the wand, a faithful companion through their seven years of pranks, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He noticed a jumper thrown messily over the arm of the couch and held it close to him, trying to keep James' familiar and comforting scent close to him. The third wand seemed to have bounced off the back wall from a rebounded spell. Sirius glared at it with all his might, but he couldn't bring himself to touch it. This was the wand that had killed James and Lily Potter.

Sirius wiped a stray tear from his cheek and made his way towards Harry. He lifted his godson from his crib and bounced him gently on his knee.

'What mamma pappa doing?' asked the one year old, staring intently at his godfather.

Sirius looked into those innocent emerald eyes and stroked Harry's messy black hair. He smiled gently and whispered 'They've gone to sleep. They're resting. But they'll be asleep for a very very long time. Just know that they love you so, so much, and so do I. Never forget that, okay? I would never do anything to hurt you. You are one of the brightest lights in our world. You're a warrior, and a fighter, and mummy and daddy would do anything for you'. He kissed Harry's forehead, taking in his scent, trying to make the moment last. He placed Harry back in his crib and looked at him intently, trying to take in every last detail.

'Unc'e Pa'foo' where you going?'

'I have to leave now Harry, and I may not see you in a while. I'm sure Uncle Moony will be here soon. Maybe you can have a sleepover with him' he chuckled, thinking how happy Harry would be living with his tender loving and prank formulating Uncle Moony.

'Uncle Wormy?'

Another bout of hot anger flushed through Sirius' mind. 'You won't be seeing him for a while either Harry' he said, surprised at how steady he managed to keep his voice. Sirius heard shouting and screaming coming from outside the cottage. He peered out the blue curtain of the nursery, decorated with broomsticks and stars, to see a group of people - aurors, Dumbledore, Hagrid... Remus. He's going to hate me. He'll think I did it- thought Sirius, the idea of his favourite werewolf still trusting Peter making his sick to his stomach. 'I have to go now Harry,' he said quickly, preparing himself for apparation. I wish I could take you with me. You'll be safe now, I promise. 'I love you so, so much, and so do your mummy and daddy'. He gave him another kiss on the forehead and apparated out of the house before he would lose his courage.

Elektra would be safe in the Casino, Sirius thought to himself, trying to rationalise his thoughts. It was difficult to say the least with a deep red fog of anger clouding his brain, pushing on the edges of his skull. Hecate would make sure she came to no harm.

Sirius Black was on a mission to avenge the deaths of those he loved, to avenge the lives that the traitor had ruined. Sirius Black would kill Peter Pettigrew.