Ink and Parchment ~ blood and bone

47

The summer holidays, the time of year every student eagerly waited for. Six blissful weeks of nothing, no homework, no early starts, no professors.

No, anything.

Eliza was so bored. So, incredibly, bored.

Sirius had banned her from practicing necromancy two days into the summer holidays after one of her skeleton rats had escaped her room and ran into Sirius on the stairs. Dead things gave Sirius the ‘heebie-jeebies’ and he said if he saw another re-animated skeleton he’d cry.

Eliza knew it wasn’t an empty threat and so she packed her one lonely necromancy book away and started focusing on other things, namely sneaking around the Black library with Kreacher. She had found many old texts stuffed in all sorts of crooks and crannies. Remus had taken one look at her tower of books and had sighed, offering her some tea to go with her reading.

They were the best.

Today was different however, today Eliza wouldn’t be bored because today Blaise finally arrived. Sirius and Remus had been remarkably calm about the news that Blaise would be living with them for the summer. Sirius fully supported anyone’s rebellious phase and was more than happy to open up Grimmauld to Blaise. Remus hadn’t even batted an eye and had just asked when the boy would be arriving. It made sense, Remus had witnessed all their boggarts first-hand after all.

He knew how dysfunction her court’s families could be.

“Pup would you please stop pacing”

“Shut up” she responded easily, but did in fact stop pacing, and perched herself on the arm of their sofa as they all waited for Blaise to arrive through the floo. His things had arrived early this morning. A few suitcases had arrived from Italy and Eliza wasn’t surprised that half of Blaise’s things were already stored at her court’s manors. Alexander had sent over quite a few boxes and Narcissa had dropped in herself to deliver a suitcase of Blaise’s things.

She also stayed for ‘afternoon tea’ which was essentially a very entertaining hour of Sirius and Narcissa slagging off almost every politician in wizarding Britain. Eliza and Remus had sat across the table badly trying to muffle their own laughter as they sipped on their cups of tea.

She really loved her family.

Eliza leapt to her feet when the floo flared and before Blaise had even fully stepped out of the fireplace Eliza was already hugging him. He towered over her now because even though Eliza had stopped growing sometime in her fourth year Blaise just hadn’t stopped. She felt the tension slowly drop out of him and she pulled away with a smile.

It was odd seeing Blaise so nervous, he was usually so confident in himself, but Eliza remembered how nervous she was when she met Draco’s parents – or even Theo’s grandfather.

Parents were intimidating.

“Blaise!” Eliza said happily as she dragged him further into the living room “you know Sirius and Remus – obviously” she rambled on but was interrupted when Sirius abruptly joined the conversation.

“As if little Zabini could forget me”

“He’s almost as tall as you Sirius” Remus cut in and Eliza snorted at their usual antics.

“Thank you for letting me stay here sir, professor” Blaise said seriously, inclining his head to both of them and Sirius faked gagging in the corner.

“Don’t call me Sir kid, it makes me feel old. Just call me Sirius – or padfoot” he tacked on as an afterthought and Eliza watched when Blaise smiled back looking more comfortable.