Ink and Parchment ~ blood and bone

33- what happens in the common room stays in the common room III

Eliza was an odd girl.

Sirius loved her, of course he loved her but she really wasn’t what he was expecting. Living together was a lot different than occasionally meeting up in the forest after all but slowly Sirius learned how to live with his god-daughter.

Rule Number 1. If she told you to drop something you had to leave it alone.

There were some subjects Sirius just couldn’t talk to her about unless she was in a good mood. Namely the Dursley’s and the orphanage. She didn’t like talking about her future plans either and whenever Sirius brought up career prospects she’d get a very strange look in her eyes.

Rule Number Two: don’t talk about her parents.

She didn’t really seem to mind when Sirius reminisced about his Hogwarts days but the second he strayed into the ‘oh and your parents’ talk Eliza would always shut down. He understood why, in the beginning he had suspected she was simply compartmentalising but he soon learned that Eliza simply just didn’t care. It wasn’t in a bad way, she was just like that. Loyal to a fault to the people in her life but not overly empathetic towards anyone else. Sirius was like that too, he could understand.

Rule Number Three: Treat her like an adult or don’t bother trying.

Eliza wasn’t used to being treated like a kid, she just wasn’t. And Sirius couldn’t step in as some parental authority figure. She trusted him to an extent and obviously respected him but Sirius knew were the boundaries were. At least now he did. He wasn’t going to ground her or restrict her reading list or make her eat tea with him every night but he would express concern for her, ask for her opinions. If Eliza felt like she was getting the respect he deserved she had no problems listening to him. He could see why she had a hippogriff patronus.

Rule Number Four: Eliza loved duelling.

Any time she looked like she was feeling down or subdued Sirius only had to offer to duel her and she immediately perked up. They had turned an old dusty drawing room into a dulling area and he and Eliza could spend hours in there. Remus was less than impressed by his non-standard parenting practices but Eliza seemed to enjoy it which was the most important thing.

And Rule Number five which was kind of similar to rule number one: Don’t confront her.

Sirius knew she was hiding something. He knew how violent she must be even if she glossed over it in her stories. He also knew that she was a Slytherin and there was no way she had that much power in that house without prescribing to some of their ideals. Sirius was also well aware that she was a dark witch. But he wasn’t going to mention any of that to her. It would only end in her lying or a massive argument and Sirius didn’t want that.

He just wanted her to feel safe.

But then the quidditch world cup happened.

When Eliza walked out of the woods covered in blood Sirius almost had a heart attack. He was thankful that Narcissa was there – he had no idea how to handle the situation. Because Eliza had just- just killed a man, two actually if he wanted to be specific.

It wasn’t like they had been nice men but that wasn’t the point.

Killing someone, it changed you. It placed a burden on you, a burden Sirius had never wanted Eliza to bear. But there was no changing what had happened, the only thing he could do was to be there for her now. To let her know that he wasn’t going anywhere no matter what she did or what path she chose. She was his little pup, his family and Sirius had always been loyal to the end. He hadn’t cared for his batshit mother or push over father but James had been family.