"Are you trying to tell me that all of that gold goes to that blood-traitor?!" Walburga screeched. "That filthy little blood-traitor and his half-blood tramp?!"
"Of course not ma'am." The lawyer sounded rather chipper. "Some of it is silver, and some is bronze, and I do believe that there are some jewels as well. And whether or not Mister Black shares his inheritance with the young lady is completely up to him."
"This is an outrage! A disgrace!" She roared again. Other people started to chime in as well. They stood up and started to converge at the desk, smothering the man with their proximity and their complaints. While they stormed the poor man the Black family managed to topple over most of the chairs in the room, and a few tables.
In all of the confusion, Kate and Sirius were somehow separated. She tried to find him through the massive amount of bodies and upset furniture, but she couldn't see him anywhere. She felt a tug on her elbow and was pulled from the crowd.
"Sirius I-" She cut herself off once she realized that it wasn't her husband that had helped her.
"You're welcome." Regulus smirked his damn Slytherin smirk. "You are one lucky girl, Keaton. You had better hope he shares with you. Not that I think you'll have any problems with that one, just bat your eyelashes and he'll be willing to do anything for his 'dearly beloved'."
"What is that supposed to mean?" She hissed at him.
"What's what supposed to mean? Excuse me; I have a French villa to enquire about." He smirked even more annoyingly, if it was possible, before walking out the door; thus leaving Kate more than a bit confused and quite nervously alone.
She walked around the room, still looking for Sirius. She couldn't very well leave without him considering the fact that she didn't know where she was. Never mind the ethical issues involved with leaving your husband in a room full of people who would happily and willingly hex him into a lovely coma.
"There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you." She heard Sirius' voice from behind her. She turned around, grabbed his hand, and marched them both out the door. Once outside she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"It seems that you're a rich man, Mister Black." She whispered into his ear.
"What's mine is yours." He whispered back.
"Sorry to interrupt such a touching moment." They broke apart to look at the middle-aged lawyer who was standing beside them while the angry mob was still converged at his desk. "Alphard left me this to give to you also, I hope that it serves you well." He handed Sirius a thick-looking envelope and disapparated.
"Do you want to leave?" He asked once he stuffed the envelope unceremoniously into his pocket.
"Yes, please." She tightened her grip on his neck and nodded to him that she was ready.
In an instant they were gone from the loud little room and were instead standing outside a very expensive looking hotel.
"Where are we?" Kate asked slowly.
"It's already past curfew; the gates will be locked. Besides, we should be celebrating his new development. Now, let me offer you a nice glass of champagne while you soak in the biggest tub you've ever seen."
"Will there be bubbles?" She asked innocently.
"There will be so many bubbles that I won't even be able to find you for all the bubbles."
"Sounds like fun. Have you ever thought about what a funny word 'bubble' is? Think about it for a minute. How many other words are there out there that sound unusual?"
"Quite a few. My favourite would have to be 'lollygagging'."
"That's a good one. What about 'fisticuffs'?"
"Tomfoolery."
"Dungarees."
"Bellhop."
"That's a really good one."
"No, I mean there's a bellhop heading over and we have no bags."
"That's too bad. Do we still tip him?"
"We don't have to, but a few Knuts won't hurt break the bank."
"Shouldn't you check to see exactly how much you have before you start spending it all?"
"I know that there's enough for at least one night in a night hotel as opposed to the Hog's Head. I should probably contact the school and tell them why we won't be there until tomorrow evening."
"Tomorrow evening?"
"We still need robes for graduation and I doubt that we'll get another chance. The worst they could do is give us detention; it's too close to graduation to expel us."
"You're such an opportunist."
"Shall we take this opportunity to check in?"
0O0
About an hour later Kate was in the enormous tub in their hotel room. She had taken at least fifteen minutes to open every bottle of bubble bath that lined the shelf over the taps, she took her time sniffing them and testing a small amount in the running water. Once she was done testing she laughed as she dumped in the bottle of vanilla scented bubbles, then the bottle of purple bubbles that smelled like lilacs.
She took her time splashing around and frolicking in her own vanilla lilac utopia. Then Sirius walked through the door. He had been admiring the rest of the room while she ran to the bathroom to have her promised bath.
"Kitten, why is the floor, and everything on it, so...aqueous."
"It was like that when I got here?"
"These are the only clothes you have and they're soaked."
"Are, or are you not, an of-age wizard?"
"Oh, right then."
"It's hard to believe that I was the one raised by a muggle."
"Be nice to me, unless you don't like champagne or chocolate fondue."
"You know I love anything bubbly, alcoholic, or involving chocolate." She thought for a moment while she let herself drift with the current in the colossal bathtub. "And sex, I like sex too."
"Really, you just 'like' it?"
"Well, I haven't been getting much lately." She replied airily.
"Oh really, is that a challenge?" She chose to stay silent, so Sirius chose to jump into the bath with her.
Naturally, she drifted away from him. And naturally, he tried to get a hold of her. Of course they went around the tub playing cat and mouse. More water splashed onto the floor as Sirius lunged to close the gap between them. His hand started to slip from her arm, so he slipped the other one around her waist and pulled her to him.
"Well, this is odd." She said casually as he pressed her between the edge of the tub and his chest.
"What's so odd about it?"
"I'm usually the one doing the seducing."
"Ah, but you see I'm the one making you seduce me. I am an expert at making women want me."
"Well, maybe you can make some other woman want you tonight then." She pushed him away in his moment of shock and slid out of the tub and stalked out the door.
Well, that was her plan. As the floor was so aqueous she found herself suddenly without anything under her feet and the floor was rushing to meet the back of her poor skull. Just as suddenly, she was back on the tub, with a queasy feeling, sitting on Sirius' lap while he stroked her upper arm.
"How did you-"
"Am I, or am I not, an of-age wizard?" He grinned. "I passed my apparition test a few weeks ago. Have I told you lately that you're bloody gorgeous?" He mumbled into hair behind her ear.
"No, I don't believe that you have. Do go on."
"You are the most beautiful woman that I've ever had the privilege of laying my eyes upon, let alone the things that we've-"
Of course she didn't let him finish his sentence. Why should his lips move like that when she wanted him to kiss her anyway?
0O0
"Sirius...?" A very groggy Kitten woke up the next morning with a slight headache, a fair bit of confusion. "Sirius, why am I covered in chocolate?"
"A bottle of champagne will do that to a person, love." Sirius, having significantly less to drink (though he was still thoroughly drunk) still remembered just about everything that had happened, but was just as happy to let her try to guess for herself. "Would you like another bath before we are forced to go shopping?"
"Shopping? But why?" She pouted and hid her face under the covers. "These are really soft."
"We have to go shopping because you aren't allowed to go to graduation naked. I wouldn't complain...actually I would because everyone else would get to see this and I'm not so fond of sharing." He pulled the blankets away from her and smirked as she curled into the fatal position. "So, shall I run the bath or will you be going out sticky?"
"Give me bubbles, or give you death." She muttered into the pillow. "And maybe a hangover tonic while you're at it."
Sirius laughed and went on with his task.
A few hours later they found themselves at a large robe shop. Most of the attendants ignored them. Two were following them around to makes sure that they didn't steal anything but they never offered any help. Kate was starting to get annoyed with the knowing looks that said things along the lines of 'she's a slut and he's a sucker'.
"These dresses are nice, Sirius, but they're too expensive for my taste." She raised a brow and motioned with her head to the middle-aged witch peeking around a rack of frilly pink nightmare-dresses at them as though they were something smelly on the bottom of her shoe.
"Not too expensive, darling, just too stuck up. I saw another place down the street, maybe they have what we're looking for." He took her hand and led her through the store to the door that led to freedom.
As they left the store Sirius put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, causing her to dump his pocket and the coins therein to jingle. As he casually looked back at the attendants their faces said it all, and hopefully they as idiotic as they looked.
0O0
PLEASE FORGIVE MEEEEEEE!! I am so freaking sorry! I got to college and there is seriously no time to write! It's all about classes, homework, or late-night pizza. I swear to god these guys are going to get me so fat my family won't recognize me come Thanksgiving.
Sadly, I can't promise that it won't happen again. I'm SUPPOSED to be working on an essay draft for English right now, but this was an ultimately better option. :P Just know that I missed you all so much it hurt, so tell me how the heck you're doing so that I know that you haven't fallen off the face of the earth! Love you all!
The Poet's Muse