jemina // sirius black

twenty-seven

chapter twenty-seven -  father

Taking Esme straight to St. Mungo's and then taking Lilian and Aubrey home proved to not be the best course of action. 

Arlo insisted on keeping her overnight due to the concussion, and she insisted that I needed to take her sister's home so they could get some sleep. Aubrey and Lilian both tried to protest, but they couldn't pretend they weren't exhausted. 

None of us had slept since the night before the match, not even Lilian. 

Esme also insisted that I needed to let Remus and Sirius know what happened. If I stayed with her for the night, they would likely panic. I was already considerably late, and I knew that Remus had to have seen the Daily Prophet's article about the riot. I knew they would both be worried, it wouldn't be fair to keep them waiting another whole day. 

I relented when I noticed that Esme was dozing off. She would sleep the entire time we were gone, and by the time she would wake again, I would be back to pick her up. 

She would be woken up every thirty minutes, just as a precaution due to the concussion, but I knew she needed any sleep she could get. 

Arlo promised that if anything happened, he would get ahold of me.

I thanked him for always taking care of my family before I floo-ed back home. Lilian and Aubrey had gone first, and so when I stumbled out of the fireplace, they were being swarmed by Remus and Sirius. 

Both of them seemed freaked out, but I could tell that neither of them mentioned Esme being at St. Mungo's. 

They, of course, left that to me. 

There had been very few times that I have wished that I wasn't a responsible adult. Few times that I have wished that I wasn't responsible for myself and others. There had been very few times that I wished I could be a mother without having to ground them, give them bad news, scold them, and take responsibility for them.

Sometimes, I hated the parts of being a mother that required me to be an adult. 

This was one of those moments. I just wanted to go to sleep. I knew that Lilian and Aubrey would likely end up sleeping beside me, and all I wanted was to skip to the part where I hold them to my chest as the three of us fall asleep. 

I wanted to skip the part of this where I had to a responsible adult. 

While I sometimes wish that I could let someone else do the adult things, there has never been a single moment where I have wished that I wasn't a mother. 

I just didn't exactly like the whole executive part of it.

But who else was going to tell Remus and Sirius that Esme was hurt? Who else was going to stop the latter from running out the front door and getting himself arrested trying to see her? Who else was going to walk Remus off the edge of blaming himself?

Nobody else could, not like I could. Nobody else would go through the trouble. That is, excluding the girls, as they should never have to. 

"Where have you been? Where is Esme?"

"Please calm down, both of you," I knew that I didn't have enough patience to coddle them. I knew that if they didn't calm down enough for me to get two words in, I would likely lash out. I didn't want to do that, as neither of them deserved it. I had a much shorter fuse when I was tired and stressed, not that my fuse was that long to begin with. Sirius took my direction immediately, taking a step back and just watching me with wide, worried eyes. I knew he could hear the exhaustion in my voice. Remus, clearly, didn't hear it or didn't care. He took a step closer when Sirius stepped back, and he grabbed my arm as he asked where Esme was, again. I could not help the strike of fear that shot through me. I had hoped that the fear would have gone away by now, but it hadn't. Still, I met his eye, clenching my jaw as I stared at him. I didn't have the energy for this, "Please let go of my arm. I will explain when you give me a second to breathe."