It seemed like forever to sort out the banking arrangements, but maybe that's just because the Goblins were difficult creatures in general, because the process seemed quite easy. Honestly, going to her vault with Bill in tow was torture, considering how much she just wanted to slap Griphook, the little Goblin man taking them through. But Bill had quietly advised her it wouldn't be the best idea, for they needed him to get to the vault.
So in the end she had moved several piles, or mountains, of gold into her own new vault, along with a few nick-nacks that belonged to her ancestors like the jewelery box or rather one of the several, from her grandmother Druella Rosier-Black. She also took a ring she happened to know belonged to someone else and put that in her pocket for later. After she was all sorted out, she, being one of the only successors with the Black name (that wasn't an escaped convict), rearranged some Black vaults, under Order...orders. Turns out Regulus Black still had a vault, though since Sirius was his older brother and one of the only surviving family members, the ownership of the vault belonged to Sirius, who wanted to make sure the other members, i.e Narcissa and Bellatrix, couldn't get in, so she linked his vault with hers and Sirius'. That whole thing was all a little complicated, but the end result was Sirius and Aero, and by extension anyone they came to care for, like Selena, were set for life.
Aero took some money from her vault and headed out, ignoring a grumbling Griphook who was muttering about how one of her rings was Goblin made. Once out of Gringotts they headed over to Diagon Alley and Bill traveled behind Aero, wondering where they were heading.
"We should really be getting back to the house, Aer." Bill stated.
Aero kept frowning, looking at all the shops.
"Not yet."
"You do remember there are people trying to kill you, right?"
She whipped around and glared at him.
"Yes, William, I'm quite aware. Thank-you." she snapped before continuing on.
As if she could forget. She'd never be able to forget. She was supposed to be the one dead, the pair of them, as it was. But they weren't...and she'd live with that knowledge for forever.
"I'm just saying...Tonks is worried as is."
"Tonks will be fine. She's in the house, safe and sound."
"But you aren't. That's the problem."
"Here it is!"
Bill stopped short and looked up at the store they were in front of. 93 Diagon Alley. It was empty inside, a sold sign in the front window.
"Where is here exactly?" he wondered.
"The Joke Shop, Bill. I'm supposed to check it out, and set up and such, even if living here is just for show." Aero reminded him.
She took the key Fred had given her before she left Hogwarts and slipped it into the lock, pushing the door open.
It was quaint. A decent size, and definatley showing the twins' dreams of having a big business. She opened the blinds and ran her hands over the dust-covered counter tops. There were stairs leading to a balcony above it, and following the stairs, which creaked slightly underneath both their weights, they found a small hallway off the balcony and followed a shorter staircase up, finding a loft.
There was a ceiling fan with dangling pulleys and a small light in the middle. There was a small kitchen connected to a small living room area that had two doors branching off to two bedrooms, one for each twin, and another door for a small bathroom.
"Nice." Bill said.
"It is, isn't it?" Aero murmured.
Through the front window she could see Diagon Alley below them.
"They're going to make it big, you know." she told him.
"My little brothers seem to have a knack for whatever they do. Charlie and his dragons, Perce and his career, the twins and business, and Ron and Ginny will no doubt both find their places." Bill said quietly.
Aero glanced over her shoulder and met his eyes.
"You're proud of all of them, aren't you? Even Percy."
Bill sighed and flicked a finger at his fang earring.
"Even Perce. I may not agree with ihs choices but...he's fighting for what he believes in. Which I guess is all I wanted for him, to find something he loved. He was always the odd one out, you know? I used to be afraid he'd never find the spirit to really go for something. Guess I never had to worry...everyone gets put into Gryffindor for a reason."
Aero looked at him quietly. Percy could do whatever he wanted, and no matter what he did, no matter how angry they got with him, he always had people to go back to... the idea was foreign, but hearing Bill say that, it projected a slightly warm sensation.
"It's the same with you and your little mismatched group, isn't it?" Bill asked.
"Hm?" she hummed, inspecting a bent blind.
"Well I mean, you're acquired some strange siblings over the years. Harry Potter and his rival, Draco Malfoy, and the little Neville Longbottom, despite your intertwined histories. Do you ever worry about them, how they'll turn out? After everything is said and done?" he wondered.
Aero frowned, staring hard down at a piece of dust.
"I worry about all of them, constantly. I worry so much at times I feel sick. Neville lacks so much confidence, I wonder if he'll ever believe in himself. Harry is so tortured inside I wonder if he'll ever be able to fight off his demons. Draco is so conflicted, I wonder if he'll ever know what he truly wants. I wonder and worry, possibly more than the average sibling. They're all so involved in everything, and I can't even keep all of them on the same side. At least Percy is more neutral to everything, he's not fighting against you all. Draco and Harry could kill each other, or Neville could get caught in the middle, and then I'm suppose to watch over all three." she admitted.
"It's certainly tough, being the caretaker to so many people. They're all so ruddy different..." Bill said with a grin.
"Can't agree on a single thing." Aero agreed.
"Wouldn't trade them for the world. Aer, I know you just took a big hit, losing Desarie and Shane. I know you've got a lot on your plate, what with raising a kid now. But...you can't lose yourself, alright? I've seen people do that. The grief takes them over. I forbid you to lose yourself. Like we just discussed...you've got three boys who need you, whether they want to admit it or not. And now a kid, plus my twins love you, and they're like over-sized kids anyways..."
Aero snorted.
"They are." Bill said with a grin. "I just...I don't want you blaming yourself. Alright?"
Aero shrugged and nodded at him in understanting. In reality, they both knew she still blamed herself. It was after all her parents who killed them, and it was supposed to be her. But they let the topic drop and Aero and Bill apparrated back to Grimmauld place.
Tonks came out of the parlor room, flinging herself at Aero and nearly knocking her over.
"Where have you been! I thought you were only going to Gringotts! What the hell kind of bank transaction takes four hours! Where on Earth have you been! Honestly, giving me a heart attack like that, I didn't know where you were, and Mrs. Weasley's asking all these questions and she's mad as a raging hippogriff about you two leaving the house without permission!" Tonks ranted.
Aero blinked rapidly at her cousin and Bill looked quite alarmed about the bit concerning his mother and took off up the stairs, claiming he was tired. Charlie poked his head out of the parlor room, around the door just was Mrs. Weasley came shuffling towards them.
"Where is that boy! He leaves without telling me, no note, gone for hours!" she fumed.
"I believe he's upstairs, Mum. Said he's waiting for you." Charlie said with an innocent grin.
Mrs. Weasley huffed, gave Aero a pat on the head, and stormed up the stairs. A moment later there was a banging of a door crashing open, a surprised yelp and a string of motherly insults about being careless and reckless and then the Portrait of her Great-aunt started up and Aero groaned, ducking Tonks' arms and running into the kitchen.
Remus looked up from his tea and raised a curious eyebrow as she came crashing in, flushed. He set the news paper down.
"Rough day?" he asked.
"Everyday." she muttered.
Sirius came out of the kitchen, a thick slice of bread in his hand and half stuffed in his mouth.
"Whar yoo been?" he asked.
Remus made a slightly disgruntled face.
"Sirius, honestly. Swallow first."
Sirius rolled his eyes at the werewolf before plunking himself into a hard wooden chair and kicking back on two legs.
"Been to Gringotts and -" Aero checked over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Weasley wasn't coming in after her " the twins' shop."
"Really? So they're going through with it?" Remus wondered.
"Well, those two are somethin', getting it past Old Yella out there." Sirius said with a roguish grin.
Aero paused and turned to further examine her cousin in her seat while he stuffed more bread in his mouth and she picked off a piece with her fingers. His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot, a sway to him as he moved and a slightly glazed look in his eyes.
Sirius was drunk. Heavily so, she decided, as he missed his mouth and knocked a bread-filled fist into his nose.
Which, Aero thought, meant she had missed something vitally important while she was away. Sirius could hold his liqour better than anyone she knew, including herself and Mad-eye. His alcohol tolerance was high and sometimes you could barely tell he'd ever had a sip that day. He never had the bloodshot eyes or the over-done sway in his step. He never lost his balance or knocked something over. It was natural almost for Sirius to drink. It would be more unnerving if she came home and he hadn't. But whereas usually Sirius would have a natural, elegant sway to him, with clear eyes the color of an oncoming storm, the scent of Whiskey and cologne mixed pleasantly together and a natural charm to him...
He didn't have that now. No. Sirius was heavily intoxicated. Something had happened but she wasn't sure she could voice her concerns in front of him. When Sirius got drunk...he lost his head a bit. He became slightly volatile, some could say. Sirius had different intoxicated states. It tooker her a while to recognize them all, but she had gotten them down.
Sirius was practically naturally drunk most of the time. Just enough to be able to tolerate his new environment. That was always. He would be pleasant, charming and witty. It worked best for him.
Then when he wanted to forget a specific thing, like a round of nightmares from the previous night, he'd drink a little more. He'd just become a little surly and sarcastic.
And sometimes, like the time they both got pissed in her room, it was when he was already trying to get away from the nightmares and then something else would occurr and he'd have an amazingly low tolerance for his liqued friends. When he was just exhausted.
But this drunk, this piss ass drunk Sirius, but one she hadn't seen before, and only heard of from Remus on occassion. This Sirius meant he wasn't fighting one of his demons, he wasn't just tolerating his house arrest. He was apparrently just numbing himself and burrowing his sorrows, whatever they were, at the bottom of the bottle.
"I miss anything?" she asked cautiously, though trying to keep a light tone for Sirius, who was nibbling away on his bread.
Remus cast Sirius a glance before wearily meeting her gaze.
"Some friends came by. Lots of memories." he said quietly.
Sirius gave an ungraceful snort.
"She looks just like her, Moony." he said gruffly, swallowing a rather large peice of bread.
Remus' face softened as he gazed at his friend.
"Chew first, Pads." he advised his softly.
Sirius gave a slight hiccup and brought his eyes towards Remus. Aero was alarmed by the not just glassy-drunk look, but the pained, tear-filled one.
His chin trembled at his effort to keep his bottom lip from shaking. His eyebrows scrunched up and he gave a sniffle.
"Looks just like her, Moony..." he said in almost a low whine, like a dog.
Remus' face crumbled.
"It's alright, Pads..." he soothed, getting up from his chair.
"Why didn't she come?"
"I don't know. I don't know, Padfoot..."
Sirius gave another hiccup.
Remus encircled his arm around his friend's shoulders and hugged him into his side, almost like he was comforting a child.
Sirius cast his gaze towards Aero who was getting up quietly to leave the room, unwilling to crowd her emotionally distraught cousin. He suddenly stuck an arm out, his wand shooting at the door and it closed with a slam and locked. Aero brought her hands up in surprise and turned to look at him questioningly. Some people might be afraid to be locked in a room with a drunk and distraught Sirius Black, but she found she got some sort of relief, knowing she wasn't the only Black who was constantly breaking down.
He hiccuped again and waved his wand and the cabinet opened and several bottles shot out and slid onto the table.
"Sirius no. You've already had too much to drink." Remus protested.
"Not nearly enough." Sirius told him.
Remus glanced at Aero.
"Well why have you insisted on keeping your baby cousin in here as well?"
Sirius picked up a bottle and then slid it across the table and Aero had to move forward to keep it from falling over the edge. She shited the bottle between her hands, looking uncertainly at Sirius.
"Drink." he encouraged.
"Sirius, Selena is just upstairs!" Remus chided him.
"She just lost two friends in one night and gained the responsibility of a child and had to quite her position at the Ministry and leaving Hogwarts. She needs a drink. I would. I did, when Prongs and Lily..." Sirius trailed off, giving a rather loud hiccup this time and grabbed a bottle for himself.
Remus made a pained sound, like a wounded animal.
"Pads, you're not Aero..."
"Damn well close enough. Like looking through a fucking mirror sometimes...only it's like me in a skirt." he muttered.
"I think you could pull one off quite well." Aero informed him, sliped into a chair and tipping the bottle.
"Oh really? You think? 'Cuz James and I were never quite sure and Evans refused to take part..."
"Oh yes. You have better legs than even me."
Sirius gave a bark of laughter, though it didn't hold its usual contagious light to it, at least he was laughing.
He took a large sip of Whiskey and gave a slight cough. Aero followed suite and Remus shook his head at them.
"You know...I think you're right Sirius. Your reality-escaping methods are uncannily similar." Remus muttered.
Aero had stopped listening to Remus by now, which was probably a bad sign, since he was generally right about things though both Black cousins would never tell him that; like when he said Mrs. Weasley probably wouldn't like their methods. Of course she wouldn't. She tended to still treat Aero like she was thirteen and Sirius like an irresponsible teenager. Though she loved her, she could be a little smothering, and right then she had never loved Sirius more for his suggestion to just get pissed.
She felt as if she hadn't exactly had time to feel the full effects of their deaths. She had had so much to do, so much to think about that required her having a level head free of crippling emotions. Like mourning and grief. The grief was crippling. But the guilt was paralyzing. She'd never felt more horrible in her life. Not even all the times she broke down during the school year, which she was still trying to live down. No, this time she couldn't hide from it. There was no curling up in a ball and pushing out the world. She had to take care of Selena, who had just lost her parents. Which she and Charlie still had to explain to her.
And then on top of that, she was now a drop-out. And out of work.
So she was a teenager, a drop out, unemployed, a grieving friend, supposedly living in a flat with her boyfriend and his twin, and a parent of sorts to a recently orphaned toddler with her boyfriend's older brother. All in one night. Merlin, no wonder she was perpetually exhausted.
She blinked the thoughts away and tipped the bottle to her lips again and before she knew it she was on the second one. Her first lay overturned on it's side, somehow steady, beside her, and a new one was in her hand. She and Sirius were bumming cigarettes off each other. Her feet were crossed at the ankles on top of the table, Sirius was still leaning back in his chair on two legs, currently humming a loud, off-key song to them with his eyes shut and head tilted back at he took a shot, and Aero was pretty sure he made that song up himself in two seconds. Remus sat at one of the ends of the table, munching on a ruby red apple and reading the paper, occassionally giving a comment or two or reading a section to them with a furrowed brow, which would then get them all into a spirited debate about the price of cauldrons or shortage of sage.
"I cannot believe they...they have the gall to charge that many galleons for a simple rodent." Sirius protested.
"It is rather outrageous." Remus agreed.
"Oh I don't know...rather depends on the quality rat." Aero said airily, waving a bangled wrist in the air as she followed a fruit fly around the room with her eyes.
"Peter certainly wouldn't be sold for that fucking much, the sodding -" Sirius stated.
"Sirius, do mind your tongue." Remus chided absently while Aero snickered into her bottle.
"You could mind it for me." Sirius suggested with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.
Remus choked on a bit of apple and went wide eyed and Aero made a blowing noise as she tried to keep herself from spraying her drink across the table at the comment, then swallowed and cracked up, coughing slightly.
"Sirius I don't think - oh. More of you two's humor. Could've told me you were being sarcastic." Remus said, frowning at them.
Aero was hunched over in her seat over her knees, still laughing and Sirius gave a loud bark of laughter.
"Oh? Dissapointed? I'm sure we could arrange something, Moony." Sirius told him.
Remus sputtered for a second before Aero spoke, saving him from trying to make a witty retort.
"His tongue is specially reserved for our cousin, Sirius, you know that. I know it's been awhile, but contain yourself man!"
Sirius guffawed and Remus' cheeks grew warm.
"I could get any woman I wanted." Sirius told her then, finally catching her taunt.
Aero rolled her eyes.
"Maybe, if she lived under a rock and had no idea she was shagging a convict."
"Oi! Bad boys are extremely attractive to the female population!"
"Yeah, when you're sixteen and rebelling against mummy and daddy! Now it'd just be illegal."
"It wasn't illegal before one hit adulthood?" Remus asked, trying to recover from his humiliation of the tag-teaming cousins.
"Course not. Teenagers are stupid and don't know what they're doing. Now, Sirius, I reckon I could find you a nice rebellious bird, have to be seventeen thought to be legal -" Aero said thoughtfully.
Remus sighed and groaned up at the ceiling.
"I think he's thinking he's in the clear, whatta you think, Aer?" Sirius said.
Aero smirked and looked at Remus.
"Uncle Moony, do you want to shag Tonks?" she asked innocently.
"What are you doing!" Mrs. Weasley called suddenly, standing just inside the doorway with her hands on her hips.
"They're harassing me!" Remus cried.
"Are not!" they chorused indiginantly.
"Have you all taken the piss?" she shouted.
"I reckon perhaps." Sirius told her, well, seriously.
Remus then started coughing, having a right fit, and Aero and Sirius glanced over at him curiously, to find his face a violent pink and his eyes glued to the table. Both with new glints in their glassy eyes, they turned to see their cousin standing just behind Mrs. Weasley, peeking over the woman's shoulder curiously. And then her eyes grew wide as she saw her cousins staring at her like vultures eyeing prey.
She gave a yelp and sprinted away up the stairs and they heard her trip over the top step and Sirius broke into another fit of laughter. Remus was staring worriedly up the stairs.
"If you go now, she might let you kiss it better." Aero said with a wink.
Remus promptly threw his half-eaten apple at her. Sirius fell out of his chair, laughing on the floor, and Aero knocked over her empty bottle with a crash and looked apologetically up at Mrs. Weasley with a smile. The woman, now assured she was the only sane person with the maturity level higher than a rowdy teenager in the house, gave a large sigh like she was being deflated and raised her eyes to the ceiling as if in prayer.
Uhm, I'd like to start by apologizing for the outrageously long wait for this chapter. I've had a rather lot of domestic drama going on lately that I felt required my attention and therefore left me unmotivated to write. Secondly, I know this is kinda like a filler chapter. We'll get to the actual important stuff again after this one, which will be within the next few days, I swear, I just wanted to get this out there and stop the waiting.
IMPORTANT: Or not really, but I got a tumblr, not one specified for my writing, which I do infact have, but Idon't like that one. I got another one, one I actually check, so if you wanna yell at me if i'm ever late again for an update, or follow me there, because sometimes I'll post previews for one of my stories on there, answer any questions whatever...follow me? I always follow back, and answer every question.
Suckonthatlemon . tumblr . com