"How was Quidditch?"
"It was fine. Everyone was quite nice. Harry's very skilled."
"Don't let James or Harry hear you say that. They've both large enough egos as it is. Firewhiskey?" He asked, summoning a clean glass. Electra nodded. "So, do you play Quidditch at school?"
"Beater. I'm actually captain of one of the teams. I've played since my first year." She took a long drink of her firewhiskey. "Remus and James didn't have to leave just because I came in." She stared at the table as she said that, and Sirius reached over and covered her hand with his.
"Love, they didn't. Well, they did, but they did it because I told them that I was looking forward to talking with you more. Blame me, not them." He withdrew his hand from hers. "You look much more comfortable in Gen's clothes than you did in that dress last night."
"I've never worn jeans before. In fact, I've never worn anything except awful dresses and skirts." Electra said with a smile. It was true that she looked much more relaxed in her jeans, Gryffindor Quidditch shirt, and trainers, with her hair pulled into a ponytail and no makeup. "I've never even played Quidditch in clothes like this."
"I remember those days. My mother wouldn't let me wear anything except full, three-piece suits after I turned thirteen. I stole clothes from James and Remus all the time. They didn't fit, but they were still better than those itchy things. I was a beater, too, by the way. I started as a chaser, but our head of house recommended that I switch to playing beater as an attempt to get out some anger and aggression. It worked."
"That's why I wanted to play beater, actually. There's just something about pretending that the Bludgers are my parent's faces."
"I had it better. Rather than pretending the Bludger was Regulus, I just hit it directly at him. I don't think there was a game between us where one of us didn't knock the other off of his broom. A few of our cousins played as well, Narcissa and Cassiopeia." Sirius is partly reminiscing on his years on the Quidditch team, partly fishing for information on Electra's family. "Of course, Cassiopeia was not only our cousin, but also our half-sister. I was to marry her – I'm not sure whether her parents promised her to me or the other way. Of course, that never happened."
"Of course not. She married my father instead." Electra said bitterly, staring into her glass. Suddenly, she perked up. "Wait! Does that mean you're my uncle on both sides? And does that mean that he was my father and my uncle and that she was my mother and my aunt?!"
Sirius barked a laugh. "I've never heard anyone sum up Black family inbreeding quite as accurately or succinctly."
"Of course, there are many more layers to the Black family inbreeding that are just too convoluted for words."
"But of course." The two sit in silence for the briefest of moments. Sirius unabashedly stares at Electra, trying to piece together what he's observed thus far. She rarely looks at anyone directly, and yet she still has an air of haughtiness, arrogance, of being the eldest child in a Black family. She seems to withdraw into herself when she's touched, or when someone brandishes a wand when she's in the room. Loud noises made her flinch. Sighing slightly, Sirius realized that, in the 15 or so hours that she had been here, that was all he had noticed about her. "I'm not going to force you to tell me anything, Elle, but if you want to tell me what happened, or anything else, I'll be happy to listen."
"I'm not sure you really do want to hear it." For the first time, Electra met his eyes. "I'm not sure what your family was like and what happened to get you disowned, and I can tell that Regulus isn't your favorite person in the world, but he's still your brother and I'd rather not ruin any pleasant memories that you do have of him."
"Elle, you won't ruin any memories."
"Why did you start calling me Elle? No one has ever called me anything other than Electra. After all, the Black family hardly considers nicknames appropriate."
"I just thought it suited you better. It's less harsh, less – pureblood, for want of a better word. It's kinder, prettier. If you'd like, though, I'll revert to calling you Electra."
"No. I, I like Elle. It's different." After a beat of silence that was just a tad too long, Electra looks up at Sirius's eyes again. "Ae you quite sure I won't ruin any memories of Regulus or Cassiopeia?"
"I haven't many good memories to ruin, love. I'd be honoured if you chose to tell me any or all of what your childhood was like and what your parents did to you."
"I imagine you know quite what my childhood was like. Lots of shouting, lots of formal dinners, lots of our family being better than everyone else's."
"Loads of punishments, as well, simply for being a normal child?"
Again, Electra laughed her humourless, bitter laugh. "Black children aren't permitted to be normal." She perfectly mimicked the look of disgust that Sirius recognized as his mother's and the disdainful tone that he remembered Cassiopeia, her mother, his cousin and half-sister having. "I should be preparing for my wedding right now, rather than sitting here, drinking firewhiskey with my long lost uncle."
"Your – your wedding?!" Sirius half-shrieks. "They kicked you out two nights before your wedding?! That's low, even for our family."
"Well, not exactly. The wedding had been planned for tomorrow for, well, probably ten years. Unfortunately, in September, when he came to visit me at school, he became rather – incapacitated. No one could ever prove that I had anything to do with it." She took a deep breath and looked into her now empty glass. "Would you mind terribly if I made a cup of tea?"
"Of course! Tea it is," Sirius said and, with a few flicks of his hand, a steaming cup of (brewing) tea was in front of Electra.
"The plan all along was to wait until the set wedding date passed, and then offer me to another man."
"Oh? I suppose they had that other man in mind already. Do you know who it was?"
"You."
"What?" Sirius yells, spitting a mouthful of firewhiskey all over Electra. "They were going to offer you to me?"
"It was meant to be a reconciliation. An olive branch, if you will. That, and you obviously have a pure enough blood-line to carry on the family name."
"Electra," Sirius says fervently, once again covering her hands with his. "I never would have agreed to that. You're my niece. You're twenty years younger than me. Perhaps most importantly, though, I doubt you'd have wanted to marry me."
"You say that as if anyone has ever cared about what I want. I'm a girl. My job in life is to marry well and have sons and maybe a daughter or two."
"Oh, Elle. You're brilliant, and lovely. You should not be this bitter. What did they do to you?" Sirius asked under his breath, Electra barely able to make out the words.
"You don't want to know," she replied darkly, angrily, bitterly.
