Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

5 July, 1995 - Looking Back

Lavinia ended up sleeping in a bland spare bedroom that had little to no character whatsoever save for a blank portrait on one wall. It smelled a bit odd and was definitely very dusty but after several rounds of some of the more powerful cleaning spells she knew, Lavinia deemed it at least habitable if admittedly not much more than that.

Sirius bid her a very awkward goodnight on the stairs that she returned and for a moment, she watched him finish climbing up to the next landing where his bedroom was, noting the slump in his shoulders, the tired drag of his toes with every step. She wanted to take him far away from here. To find a way for him to never have to set foot in this place again, but... but she couldn't. So the best she could do for now was be there. And help him try to make this place something other than the prison it had been in his childhood.

This was no easy feat. In part because this was a prison of sorts, at least in the sense that he couldn't exactly leave whenever he wanted to which she was sure would make the job of making him feel comfortable a whole lot harder. Especially since he had spent too many years in prisons of various forms. And Merlin, she so hoped this wouldn't feel like one. It was part of why she was here in the first place. Why she had decided to come. Because she rather hoped that if he had company, and if that company was someone who... well someone he knew was on his side, then maybe it wouldn't feel so terribly constraining.

But the other reason that convincing him this wasn't a prison would be hard was because this place really did feel like one, with the gloomy halls and dusty chairs and antiques plucked right from both their memories. And while she might have been able to try explaining them away... well. This place also happened to feel a whole lot like the prison Lavinia had had as a child.

Which was perhaps why she found herself slipping out of bed in the middle of that first night, searching for a window. Between thoughts of home and thoughts of Regulus and thoughts of Sirius... She wanted to see the stars. She wanted to look up at the sky and remember that they would make it through. Because they were small and the universe was vast. Because this was a mere moment and life was very long. Because the stars were clear when her head was a mess.

Finding a window, however, was a spectacularly difficult thing to do in this house as Lavinia learned very quickly. She tried downstairs first and nearly jumped out of her skin when she found a hallway lined with the heads of old house elves. And standing at the end of it was a live one that was none too pleased to see her. So Lavinia turned around and decided to try upstairs instead. Which was how she found out Sirius had brought his hippogriff and was storing it in the attic, something distracting enough to make her completely forget about her quest to see the stars.

For a long moment, she just stared at the creature, which fluffed its feathers at her slightly menacingly until she remembered she was supposed to bow. Apparently placated by the gesture, the hippogriff stuck its head out towards her and Lavinia, against her better judgement, reached out and touched its feathers. They were surprisingly soft and she stepped closer, stroking them as she watched the creature's fire orange eyes pinned on her face. They weren't the stars, of course, but they were entrancing in their own way and their burning depths were somehow comforting.

"How on Earth did you fit through the halls?" she asked quietly, chuckling to herself at the mental image of the massive creature pressing past the photographs on the walls. Walburga's portrait must have loved that.

The thought stilled something in her and she sighed, her hand stilling on the side of the hippogriff's face.

"He didn't," a voice said suddenly and Lavinia jumped violently away from the creature before her, her eyes scanning the darkness past the feathered beast and finding nothing at all in the moonlit room. "Here," Sirius chuckled, lighting his wand so she could find him where he sat on the other side of the hippogriff from her.