Síomha stepped out of the swirl of green flames and into the sitting room — and then hitched to a stop, blinking. It was dark in here. She spoke the activation key, the lights flicking on, revealing the room more or less as she'd left it some hours ago. There was no sign of anyone else on the wards, but she still didn't really trust herself to read that sort of thing correctly. She ducked her head into the kitchen just to be sure, but there was no one here, clean and empty save for the basket of apples and bundles of autumn herbs on the counter. Stopping near the front door quick to remove her shoes — she teetered a little in the process, tipsy — checked the office, and lastly the lab space up in the loft. No Ceasaí.
That was odd. Síomha had expected Ceasaí to beat her home. Obviously she would never have had any cause to visit Azkaban before, so she couldn't guess how long this sort of thing would be expected to take, but Ceasaí had been there plenty of times, she'd talked Síomha through the plan for the day. It was nearly seven in the evening, she should be home by now.
...Something must have happened. For a second, Síomha had a paranoid thought that something had gone wrong with the dementors, and Ceasaí had— But no, that was ridiculous. Even if the guards messed up and there was a horrible accident, Ceasaí, at least, would be fine — hell, she could probably destroy dementors if she really had to. (Normally that required light magic, or at least elemental sunlight, but with the kind of Dark Arts Ceasaí was capable of Síomha wouldn't put it past her.) Maybe there'd been some last-minute complications with the arrangements of the interview — honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere tried to stop Ceasaí from speaking at all with Sirius Black, of all people — maybe something came up in the interview itself, it was really impossible to guess. She was sure Ceasaí was fine, though, just delayed.
Her slightly-inebriated brain was being a bit stubborn about it, though — it was Azkaban — so a distraction would be nice. Síomha picked up one of her notebooks and her radio from the office, dropped them in the sitting room. Soon she was sitting cross-legged in the armchair, the radio tuned to a muggle music station and a steaming mug of coffee in her hands, staring down at the notebook splayed across her lap.
She knew she was close to something here. She'd stumbled across the idea quite by accident, going back over the arithmancy for the anchoring elements to the ritual she'd described in her submission — as very rude as the response from some Greek enchanter she'd never heard of before had been, she might not have had the thought at all, so she should maybe almost thank him for being such a condescending bastard. Just last month, she'd finished a commission to manufacture some oversized perfect diamonds to be used as reservoir stones in a ward scheme, the relevant expressions had been fresh in her mind, so when she'd looked back at her ritual she'd abruptly realised how similar the structure necessary to contain her photoreactive alterations happened to be to the fundamental description of a reservoir. Which gave her ideas.
She thought it might — might — be possible to describe a mechanism by which materials might be alchemised to function as a reservoir...in the general case. There were various rituals out there to grant some degree of reservoir functionality to specific materials, though they were often somewhat inefficient, and couldn't be generalised, each ritual too specialised for the particular medium. If she was correct, it might be possible to alter all manner of materials to be perfect reservoirs — or relatively perfect, imperfections in the performance of the ritual and the physical structure of the object itself would inevitably result in minor inefficiencies — the implications of which to all kinds of crafts and industries would be...
Well, she wasn't sure, honestly — Síomha was an alchemist, not an artificer. The threshold clothing enchantments could tolerate would be greatly increased, and defensive amulets could be made significantly more powerful, were the possibilities she came up with off the top of her head. And, theoretically it could make a variety of potions far easier, and possibly open up whole new avenues of experimentation... It was hard to imagine what it might lead to, honestly, the entire field of enchantment could be changed forever.
It was big, bigger than just altering silver. They hadn't been that far away from accomplishing that anyway, more papers about it had started coming out in the last couple months — and only some of them were basing their process off of her work, others were using original techniques. She'd only gotten out ahead of it by maybe half a year. This, though, was unimaginably huge, literally unimaginable.
But she couldn't quite get the formants to line up. She'd come at the maths from multiple angles, and every time she was left with remaining energetic reactants or translating interference. She knew it was possible, she could feel it, but she couldn't quite...
At this point, she thought she needed extra eyes on it, but she had to be careful about that. This was big, she had to be conscious of the possibility that someone might try to take the idea and the work she'd already done and pass it off as their own — as new as she was, she didn't have the weight necessary to defend herself if something like that happened. Pretty much anyone in the guild were out. Too many of them didn't like the attention she'd gotten for her submission, or marrying into the Blacks, she couldn't predict who might take the opportunity to stab her in the back. And she couldn't just take ages to figure it out on her own, either, if she took too long someone might notice the same thing she had...
Perhaps she could find someone with the Hartwrights who'd be willing to work with her — people in cults like the Mistwalkers generally didn't give a damn about their academic standing, she wouldn't have to worry about being taken advantage of. Or, maybe she could ask Ceasaí to arrange an introduction with Snape. Spectral mechanics weren't his specialty, but he was brilliant — she knew the subject area well enough for the both of them, she just wanted a second opinion — and with his position at Hogwarts he was busy enough to hopefully be satisfied with the second author spot. She'd prefer not to have to lean on Ceasaí like that...though, she probably could just write him directly, but there was really no telling how he was filtering his post? Ceasaí could get her in the door at least...
Before she did that, though, she wanted to see if she was on to something. She was having trouble figuring out the maths in a general case, sure, but she thought she could smooth it out if she tried applying the mechanism to a specific material — or she could add a secondary process to clean it up, anyway. And hey, in the process of experimenting she might realise what she was missing, so, there was that. This wasn't quite at a point it was actually useable, though...some of these terms might simplify with certain volcanic sheet rock...mica, maybe mica...
At the soft snap of expert apparation, Síomha twitched, nearly spilling coffee all over her notes. She forced out a shaky sigh at the near miss, her heart suddenly jittering in her chest — this was the only copy she had of the arithmancy, she'd have to start over — once it was safe she looked up. The sound had been rather quiet, but it was from the kitchen, she heard footsteps—
Ceasaí stepped around the stairs into view — she'd half-expected her to still be in the duelling-style trousers and jacket she'd left in, but apparently she'd found time to change, now in a plain blue wool house dress. "There you are," she said as she spotted Síomha. "I thought I felt you come home."
Despite herself, Síomha felt herself pout a little. She had no idea how Ceasaí could feel activity on the wards from hundreds of miles away, Síomha could barely interpret messages from the wards when she was physically in the house. "I got home, ah, twenty minutes ago, maybe. Did you get held up?"
Ceasaí grimaced. "Something like that." She came further into the room, but she didn't take a proper seat, instead leaning against the arm of the sofa nearby. Now that Síomha was paying attention, she seemed...not tense, exactly. Jittery, maybe? Not quite nervous, but something was going on, definitely. "What's that you've got there?" she asked, leaning forward to get an angle on the notebook — her face creased in a little confused frown as she made out the interwoven mess of arithmancy, obviously nonsense to her.
"Just an idea I've been working on." Folding the notebook closed, Síomha didn't say anything more than that. Ceasaí probably didn't know enough about spectral mechanics to understand what she was trying to do in the first place, and also she...kind of didn't want her to know, yet, in case it didn't work out. This was maybe silly, but she'd prefer Ceasaí only ever hear about the successes — thinking she'd stumbled on a big, world-changing idea only to realise it'd been a mistake would be rather embarrassing. "Is something wrong?"
"Not wrong, no, but— Before I get into that, how was your visit with your school friends?"
...Well, that wasn't an obvious change of subject at all. "It was all right. A little awkward at first, but." That was maybe underselling it, just a bit.
This hadn't occurred to her until literally just today, but Síomha had maybe been neglecting her friends somewhat. She'd been given a flat in town after finishing academy — in large part just so she'd have a private place to practise during her Mastery study, where some cousin couldn't walk into her alchemy workspace and ruin a project in progress (and possibly poison themselves) — and while it was perfectly fine as a place to sleep and study in, it was hardly a very nice place, and not really large enough to comfortably have friends over. But Nuala, Saoirse, Aibhinn, and a rotation of roommates had been renting a house together starting around the same time, thanks to Nuala landing a good deal on one thanks to...some connection with some relative, Síomha had honestly forgotten the details. She used to spend a lot of time there for the first few years after academy, often multiple times a week, just, hanging out and chatting and doing whatever.
Without really noticing, the frequency of her visits had declined, until she'd just...kind of stopped showing up. She wasn't entirely out of contact with most of her school friends, they still traded letters, but in-person visits had somehow grown quite rare. It'd happened gradually, first with getting increasingly absorbed in her Mastery study, and then with Ceasaí inviting her over more, and then travelling with her and Sailí...and then so much of her time was wrapped up in preparing for her submission, pretty much any time she wasn't doing that she'd been here, and then she'd finally just moved in, and...
Well, she hadn't seen them much. It turned out, in the lack of any available explanation, they'd come up with some...rather uncharitable suspicions about Ceasaí, and Síomha herself. She wasn't entirely sure what those suspicions had been, exactly, but she'd been able to feel it on the air when she'd arrived, cool and hostile.
(Saoirse had two children now — she knew about that from letters, of course, but she hadn't actually met baby Brónach yet.)
Anyway, after a brief, awkward, confusing conversation, the other women seemingly talking around the point... They didn't approve of her relationship with Ceasaí, she could tell that much, though she couldn't put her finger on why. Taking a stab in the dark, she'd explained that, no, they were really getting married — Ceasaí was going to be baptised so they could do it properly and everything. They were even planning on having children, no, no blood magic, Ceasaí was a metamorph, you know, there were ways. The mood on the air had turned practically in a blink, suddenly almost back to normal, much more...
They'd assumed she was changing, Síomha thought, being brought into the culture of the English aristocracy, becoming one of them. (Ceasaí was actually Cambrian and not English, of course, but she wasn't certain they realised that — she hadn't known the Blacks were still culturally Cambrian before meeting Ceasaí.) Which, that was a sort of peculiar thing to assume but, she guessed, they hadn't seen much of her in person, it was possible that in her absence they could have started thinking she was...becoming someone else. Someone they might not like much.
Instead, Síomha was very certain that she'd given them the impression that she was the one changing Ceasaí, making her more like a normal person...which maybe wasn't entirely wrong? Though there probably hadn't been as much changing necessary as they might have assumed — Ceasaí had been anonymously socialising with commoners since before any of their parents had been born — and Síomha would honestly credit very, very little of the change in Ceasaí's character over the last several years to herself. The war was really the bigger influence, she thought, so much of her family dying off, and then taking in Sailí...
It maybe also helped that Síomha might have let them come to the assumption that Ceasaí's baptism was more...earnest than it really was. If someone were to ask her, honestly, she didn't think it made that much of a difference? Ceasaí had volunteered to be catechised — no one had even suggested she do it, she'd been told they could skip it, that'd been her choice — and had agreed to raise their children with it, so... Well, that meant something. But when she'd mentioned the baptism and their future family and everything, the way especially Aibhinn had reacted, suddenly babbling about how sweet and romantic it all was, Síomha had gotten the very clear feeling that they thought she'd somehow managed to bring Lady Cassiopeia Calliste Nymphadora of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to the Church. Which was not exactly true.
But, when she'd noticed that, she'd just...not said anything, left it alone. How weird and hostile they'd been acting toward her at first had been confusing, and honestly kind of hurtful. Afterward, it was clear they still had mixed feelings about Síomha marrying into one of the Founders of the Wizengamot — but they were reassured enough about the character of her and Ceasaí's relationship that they were actually happy for her now. (Hence still being a bit tipsy, they'd gone out to celebrate, there'd been cider.) Obviously she preferred the latter above the former.
She did still feel a little guilty for...lying by omission, sort of. But it was close enough to the truth, it wasn't as though the little misunderstanding would be hurting anyone, so, she was sure she'd get over it.
(Besides, she honestly couldn't help feeling that certain things really weren't any of their fucking business.)
Pulling herself out of her circling thoughts (tipsy), she noticed Ceasaí had started frowning, maybe a shade concerned. "I got a few bridesmaids out of the visit, so, I'd call it a success."
"...Good. That's good." It was obvious from her tone, the frown lingering on her brow, that Ceasaí could tell that Síomha wasn't telling her something — but she didn't press her about it, just moved on. "Ah, they do know I'll be covering their expenses, right? I expect dress appropriate for a society wedding would be a bit much for them."
Normally that would be the bride's family's responsibility, of course, but Ceasaí was helping out her family in the first place, so. "They know that, yes. I'm warning you now, I have a feeling Aibhinn is looking forward to getting as much as she can out of you."
Her lips curling in a little smirk, Ceasaí shrugged. "That's fine. It is a party — let the girl have fun, I say. Is Aibhinn seeing anyone? I can pass along word to the decent young men in attendance that she's available."
Síomha rolled her eyes. "I'm sure she'll do a fine job finding them herself, don't worry about that." Unlike Saoirse, Aibhinn at least hadn't managed to get herself knocked up, but she was an incorrigible flirt — even if she had absolutely no interest in dating any of them, Síomha expected she'd find a wedding filled with handsome wealthy noblemen very entertaining. "So, enough about the silly silly girls I'm unfortunate enough to be friends with, how'd your mission for the day go? I thought you'd beat me home, I was a little worried when you weren't here."
"Ah, I thought I would too, sorry about that..."
"It's fine," she said, waving it off, "it's just Azkaban, you know, I was being silly. What happened?"
Ceasaí didn't answer right away, eyes turned unfocussed to the left, her face scrunching in a grimace. "It... I'm sorry, love, I may have...made things complicated. This is going to be very messy."
"What do you mean? Messy how?"
"Sirius is innocent. I've claimed provisionary custody."
For a long moment, Síomha just stared at her, silent — Ceasaí still not quite facing her, looking to the left, tense, her jaw clenched. It took a couple tries for her to find her voice. "What do you mean, innocent? You told me you don't think he betrayed the Potters..."
"He didn't do Edinburgh, either. He's totally innocent, he was framed by Peter Pettigrew for the whole thing."
That... She meant, the man Sirius killed in Edinburgh? the one they'd admitted to the Order of Merlin after his death? Ceasaí's personal theory, she knew — she'd explained all this before, years ago, all the way when they'd just started seeing each other — was that Pettigrew had betrayed the Potters, and then Sirius had killed him in revenge, taking half the street with him. She wouldn't normally think that kind of magic was possible, but Sirius was a Black — there were all kinds of stories of the feats of mages from particular families going back centuries, the Blacks one of the more frequent subjects. And it wasn't just fictional, some of the things Ceasaí did, just casually, like it wasn't anything special...
Síomha had never been sure what to think about Sirius. The drama around the death of the Dark Lord had been widely publicised, of course, and the disaster in Edinburgh... Sirius was one of the most intensely reviled criminals in modern Britain, perhaps only exceeded by monsters like Greyback and the Dark Lord himself — the deaths laid at his feet were relatively few for the era, but to many betrayal was seen as a greater violation than simple murder. But it hadn't been very long after the common story came out that Síomha had been getting to know Ceasaí, and...
Well, she might have ordinarily thought Ceasaí was simply biassed in favour of her nephew, but she'd never claimed Sirius was fully innocent — simply that he wouldn't have betrayed James. Unlike pretty much everyone telling the popular story, Ceasaí had known Sirius personally, so it'd seemed reasonable to trust her judgement of his character. And, talking about it, she'd always seemed so...not really sad or angry, just, tired...
Still, with everyone else she knew, in public conversations and media whenever Samhain came around again, Sirius was spoken of in the most extreme terms possible. Less like a man and more like some spiritual evil, a demon walking the earth. The thought that he might be completely innocent was...
She didn't think Ceasaí was lying to her, it was just...hard to believe.
"Are you sure? I mean, have you checked?" Not that Síomha was sure how you would check...
"The Unspeakables sent a truthspeaker along — we're certain."
"...I see." Síomha hadn't realised the Ministry even had truthspeakers anymore...though if they were Unspeakables, she guessed that explained why she wouldn't have heard of it. "Ah... So, what happens now? I mean, provisionary custody, I don't know what that is." Ceasaí had even switched to English to say it, but a lot of English or Cambrian legal terms didn't have official Gaelic translations, so...
"Noble privilege. As the Lady of the House, if I believe a member of the Family is being unfairly prosecuted, I can assert the right to hold them myself until such time as the Ministry or the Wizengamot can assemble the evidence to press a case. It's a sort of house arrest, I suppose. Sirius is confined to the Family's lands until a trial can be arranged — he's at Ancient House right now."
...She hadn't even known the Lords of the Wizengamot could do that. Though she couldn't exactly say she was surprised, that was exactly the sort of self-serving exemption she'd imagine them carving out for themselves. Normal people awaited their trial in Ministry holding — or even Azkaban, if the DLE thought they were a potential threat.
(Saoirse had a cousin who'd been accused of a violent robbery in Charing, he'd been held in Azkaban — and he'd died there, before he'd even gotten a chance to defend himself. He'd been in Glaschú at the time, he couldn't possibly have done it...)
"Ah. So..." Síomha tried to straighten out her jittery thoughts, bouncing all over the place, trying to focus. (The cider probably didn't help.) "So, what, there's going to be an inquest, then?"
"Not an inquest — he never had a trial, so there isn't any standing conviction to interrogate. Honestly, I'm not even certain there will be a hearing at all. There is going to be an investigation, but the Aurors assigned to it might come to the conclusion that they don't have enough evidence to charge him with anything. The interview we did in Azkaban does have official standing, so, that might have been everything needed already. There might be a hearing, but I expect it will end up being in one of the Ministry courts, a quiet thing."
"You don't want it to be quiet," she said, feeling her own voice go a little sharp. "It isn't... Love, I don't think you understand how much people hate Sirius — he's all but been made into some storybook villain over the last decade. You'll want it to be public, so everyone can see that he's being found innocent, hear his side of the story. So he can actually have a life when this is over."
"...That's a good thought, I suppose. Though I imagine my demand for compensation will be very public — if we let the Ministry get away with imprisoning an innocent man for an entire decade, it will set the precedent that that sort of behaviour is acceptable, and we can't have that."
Despite herself, Síomha scoffed. "The Ministry imprisons innocent people all the time, sometimes for a lot longer than a decade."
Ceasaí's lips twitched a little, an edge of humour cracking through the rigid discomfort. "Whatever one might say of his cause, Dáire Ó Broin was a criminal. Though the length of his sentence was obviously political. Are you all right?" she asked, her voice sounding thin and flat. "I mean, I know this is going to be a fucking mess, I didn't mean to spring it on you, but..."
"No, no, it isn't—" Síomha cut herself off with a sigh, her eyes tipping to the ceiling for a second. Setting her notebook and her still half-full coffee cup aside, she stood up, moved to stand in front of Ceasaí. She took her hands — her fingers were twitching, Síomha noticed now, belatedly picking up on how weird and tense she seemed, anxious over Síomha's reaction. Forcing her voice low and soft, trying to push past the shock, she muttered, "I'm fine, love, I just... I'm surprised, is all. It's big news. I was only thinking."
The tension didn't lift all at once, but she could see it start to trickle away, Ceasaí's face softening, the twitch in her fingers fading. "Right, of course. It is going to be a major scandal. And it's not going to be contained to me and Sirius, people are going to trouble you with it."
"You're trying to talk me into being angry with you again, Ceasaí." At the observation, Ceasaí winced, her eyes flicking away to the side. She had a habit of doing that, this was hardly the first time Síomha had pointed it out. It did get rather exasperating at times, especially since it'd only seemed to pick up since she'd asked Síomha to marry her.
She'd figured out years ago that, more than anything, that kind of thing came out of a place of insecurity — she expected Síomha to be unhappy with her, so when it seemed like she wasn't, Ceasaí was compelled to double- and triple-check just in case. It was a little annoying, but honestly it was more sad than anything.
"Sometimes having to deal with the consequences of you offending half of the country all at once was something I knew I was getting into when I agreed to marry you. Besides, you don't have to feel badly about doing whatever you feel you have to to take care of your family. That's one of the things I love about you, remember."
A wry tilt to her lips, Ceasaí drawled, "Honestly, I feel I already failed Sirius terribly. First Sailí and now Sirius, I always seem to come to the rescue late..."
"But you did come. You saved both of them, once you learned they needed you, that's what matters."
"...I suppose." Ceasaí still seemed rather down, worried and distracted. Síomha had absolutely no idea what she could possibly do to help — she couldn't imagine how she'd feel if her nephew had been in Azkaban for a decade, and she learned she could have gotten him out at any time, in the space of a few hours, if she'd only known to try — but she figured a kiss couldn't possibly hurt.
It took a moment, but eventually the rest of the tension went out of Ceasaí's body, her arms lazily looping up around Síomha's shoulders and gently tugging her closer. So, not the worst thing Síomha could have done, she guessed.
After some seconds, Ceasaí's hands moved to her shoulders, gently pushed Síomha a couple of inches away. "Thank you, mo chéile."
"Mm, what for?"
"You know." Ceasaí didn't say anything further than that — possibly because she realised she'd just be trying to talk Síomha into being angry with her again. "I have dinner waiting under stasis, at Ancient House. I was in the middle of it when I felt you come home."
"...Ah." She hadn't missed Ceasaí saying that Sirius was at Ancient House right now.
"If you don't feel up to meeting him yet, that's fine. I can bring your portion back here, and, save the introductions for later, I suppose..."
"No, that's all right, I can come. It's, just—" Síomha sighed. "I trust you, but, I've heard a lot of...unpleasant things about Sirius, over the years. I might be a little awkward about it, is all. He's your nephew, so, I'll get over it."
Ceasaí's lips twitched, pulling into a reluctant smirk. "Grandnephew, actually — Pollus's daughter's son. He's five, six years older than you."
Yes, Ceasaí, thanks for reminding her that her grandchildren could easily be older than Síomha, that was never at all awkward to think about. "All right, old lady, let's not leave him waiting then."
"Pfft, the youth these days, such disrespect..."
Before they left, Síomha went back upstairs to put her notebook away and use the toilet...and also change, though she hadn't said she was going to do that out loud. It was maybe a little silly, but she always felt terribly self-conscious when meeting Ceasaí's family — even, apparently, when she'd believed they were mass murderers just a few minutes ago. She was well aware that they came from very different backgrounds, and she always wanted to make a good impression, was all. That she seemed to mostly have had success so far, and that all the family Ceasaí actually talked to at least didn't actively dis-like her — though she was less sure about Narcissa than, say, Andi, hard to read — was rather beside the point, she still got a little nervous every time.
It didn't help that she had absolutely no idea how to make a good impression with Sirius in particular. He'd grown up in incomprehensible luxury, sure, surrounded by the nobility with all their silly stuck-up society nonsense, but she knew from Ceasaí that he had never really fit in with them very well. All leather jackets and motorcycles and muggle rock music — Ceasaí once told her (one year around Samhain, when horror stories about him had been making the rounds again) that teenage Sirius had gone through a phase where he'd been consciously trying to copy Jimmy Page's look, which was weirdly funny. So, Síomha wasn't very good at meeting the nobility's standards, when it came to presentation, but she had a feeling that passing as a noblewoman would actually be a bad first impression with Sirius...
Regardless, she'd changed into pyjamas after arriving home, so she needed to put on something else anyway. She'd decided to not make a whole big thing of it, just went with a pair of denims and a hand-knit jumper. Her great-grandmother had made this one for her ages ago, she'd made it oversized on purpose but it was just a bit small on her now...to the point that it was kind of obvious around her breasts, enough she normally didn't wear this in public anymore. But it was comfortable, and warm, and she thought the inappropriateness of muggle-made trousers and a cheap, slightly-too-small jumper would actually make a good first impression on Sirius in particular, so.
Yeah, this would do. She took an extra second to straighten her hair in the mirror before going back downstairs again — while she'd been changing, Ceasaí had washed out and put away her coffee cup, because of course she had. Once Síomha confirmed she was ready to go, Ceasaí took her arm, and they apparated away.
Ancient House was enormous, almost a small town in itself, innumerable wings connected with a confusing maze of passages. Síomha had gotten lost here more than once already, had been forced to call a house-elf for help. They'd appeared in an unfamiliar hallway, dark, lit only by intermittent enchanted light fixtures every several metres, the glimpse of an internal courtyard of some kind through a patch of window ahead murky in nightfall. By the green in the floor tiles and the orange lining the walls just under the ceiling, she thought they were in the south of the complex somewhere...maybe. Honestly, this place was just so confusing, she could never remember where anything was...
"Sirius is staying yn y cwrt just here," Ceasaí said, pointing at a door just to their left. "Do you know where we are?"
"No, not at all. Sorry."
"That's all right, it takes some getting used to. Maybe I should have Sailí draw some maps," with a little bit of a teasing bounce to her voice. "Anyway, the nearest kitchens are down over that way, I'll have to go get the food. But let's introduce you first, quick..."
Leading Síomha by the hand, Ceasaí stepped through the door into the rooms. She knew from previous visits that, back when Ancient House had been fully inhabited, the different family groups here had each had their own households, bedrooms and salons and the like grouped together, sometimes even forming multiple storeys like a detached house, connected to other households and common areas by the many many hallways. There were dozens of these smaller homes, along with kitchens and baths and workshops for various crafts, all of which could be reached from any other without even needing to step outside, sometimes enveloping little outdoor spaces, courtyards and gardens.
She claimed that the whole complex had been used once, which was honestly sort of hard to imagine — the place was enormous, it could easily house hundreds of people. The place was practically abandoned now, since Arcturus died the only full-time residents were the house-elves, the sprawling structure kept clean and quiet and sterile as a museum.
Ceasaí first led her into a sort of salon/office/library, a few padded chairs around, a sizeable desk toward one side, bookshelves along the walls. The lights were on, but there was no sign of life, kept free of dust but with no evidence anyone actually lived here, bare of any character. (Like most places in Ancient House, it was honestly just a little creepy.) But, after a moment, she realised there was a sign of life: she could hear the buzzing voice from a radio, burbling its way from another room, half-muffled.
After that was a dining room, as clean and un-lived-in as the previous. At first she'd thought she couldn't make out what the announcer on the radio was saying because it was too far away, but no, one room closer and it was clear it wasn't English... French, maybe? Through the opposite door they came into a sunroom of some kind — a wall of glass looked out into a garden, half of the ceiling overhead nothing but glass panels, the material frosted along the edges to form little curling spiralling designs. It was approaching full dark, the faint traces of dim colour against the clouds that'd been still visible at home had vanished — Ancient House was some couple hundred kilometres to the east, the sun would have set somewhat earlier here — the flamelight lamps casting wedges of faintly orange-tinted light out into the garden, stars peaking out through the clouds overhead.
And Síomha laid eyes on Sirius Black for the first time.
She'd expected she might be, maybe, embarrassingly intimidated, given all the horrifying stories she'd heard about him over the years, but honestly it was difficult to be, given the state the man was in. Gathered up in a thick, plush armchair, he seemed more a lump of blankets than a human being, with his legs gathered folded up on the chair, layers of blankets wrapped over his lap and around his shoulders, one even draped up over his head like a shawl. He was all but entirely hidden, the only bits showing were his hands, gripping a thick clay mug, and his face, his head tipped over the back of the chair to look up at the stars.
His face was clean-shaven, and terribly pale, an unnatural porcelain white that clearly showed the blue of veins beneath the skin, emaciated enough to easily make out the bones of his jaw, the ridge of his nose and his cheeks, his eyes sunken. The fingers gripping the cup were skeletal, Síomha thought she could almost count the bones in his wrists.
Ceasaí led her further into the room, weaving around a chair. There were plants on this side of the wall, herbs and vines nearly escaping their boxes, the pair of taller trees scraping the glass ceiling she thought might be citrus of some kind? She knew those didn't really grow outdoors in Britain, so. There were a few chairs around, a coffee table and a couple taller side tables, some cabinets toward the back of the room under the shelter of a proper roof, a sink and what she thought might be an enchanted hob of some kind — Síomha realised by now that some newer homes of the wealthy would have tea/coffee-rooms that looked out into the garden, or were themselves some kind of greenhouse space, a popular trend in the last couple centuries. It seemed peculiar to her, that should take quite a bit of upkeep, but, as she was occasionally reminded, these types all had house-elves to manage that sort of thing.
(It was amazing how much of a difference having a team of enslaved faeries could make when it came to maintaining a household — these people did not live in the same world she did, sometimes the implications didn't occur to her until it was explicitly spelled out.)
Nearing the chair he was in, Ceasaí said, "Counting stars, there, Sirius?"
"Been a while since I've seen 'em." His voice was thin, weak and hoarse from disuse. "Couldn't see from my window, dementors too close."
...Someone really should do something about that place.
She could tell Ceasaí did not like that, her hand twitching tighter around Síomha's, but she didn't say anything. "Well, if you can stand to pay attention to something closer to home, Síomha is here."
"Mm?" His head swaying down to look at them, Sirius blinked a couple times. He had the same light blueish-grey eyes as Arcturus — that wasn't so unusual, though, she'd noticed the colour got around in certain other noble families too. His eyes wandered down and then back up, eyebrows gradually stretching upward as he went. "Younger than I thought. How old are you?"
Síomha somehow managed to hold in her exasperation over that being the first thing Sirius commented on. "Twenty-five."
He scoffed, lips twitching. His eyes flicking over to Ceasaí, he said...something in Cambrian, about finding something in, um, not sure what that was... "She wasn't quite that young when we met," Ceasaí replied, in English. "And let's not be rude, Sirius, Síomha doesn't speak much Cambrian — stick with English. Or, how's your Gaelic?"
"My Gaelic is fine. I was a little rusty, but Dáire helped me freshen it up a bit. After hew as gone, Carlotta and I kept chatting in Gaelic to annoy Bella and the idiots." Sirius clearly had a bit of an accent, but it wasn't that bad.
But what Síomha said was, "Dáire? You mean Dáire Ó Broin?"
"Sure, his cell was just... I'm not sure how many cells down he was. In shouting distance, at least. Clever bastard, was still coming up with sharp insults for the Death Eaters around us after...however many years that was by then."
...Síomha didn't know how to feel about the implication that Sirius Black had apparently struck up something of a friendship with Dáire Ó Broin while in Azkaban together. It just seemed like such an unlikely thing to happen.
While she completely failed to figure out how to respond to that, Ceasaí disentangled her hand from Síomha's. "Well, I'm going to go wrap up dinner and bring it over. I assume you'll behave if I leave you alone together for five minutes."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yes, Auntie, I'll behave," he grumbled, back in English again. "I'm not going to scare off your little girlfriend here." He frowned up Síomha, his head tilting a little. "No, you're quite tall, actually. Compared to me, anyway — I guess that's what we get for all the bloody inbreeding, eh?"
"I'm certain it doesn't help, no." With a last reassuring smile at Síomha, Ceasaí turned and started her way out. "I'll just be five minutes or so."
Alone now, Síomha just stood there for a moment, self-consciously fidgeting with the cuffs of her jumper. She startled once she realised she was doing it, moved over to a nearby chair and flopped down to a seat — she was being silly, there was no reason to be anxious about this. He was Sirius fucking Black, sure, but don't think about that, he was just Ceasaí's nephew...
Sirius had taken a sip of whatever was in that mug — the smell from here was too subtle, maybe coffee, or hot chocolate? — his neck thin enough she could see things moving in there, which was honestly slightly creepy. His eyes following her, once she'd settled in he said (in Gaelic), "So, you're the woman my aunt's shacking up with, then."
Síomha gave him a look. "That doesn't sound like behaving to me."
"This is behaving. If I was mis-behaving—" He'd made that word up, but close enough. "—I'd be asking how she does...does...does..." Sirius frowned. "My Gaelic isn't even good enough to make crude comments? That's just sad."
She hesitated for a couple seconds. "I think you were looking for how is she in bed."
"Ha! That sounds about right, let's go with that. So?"
"So what?"
"Gonna answer it?"
"I mean, I could brag, but then that would be me not behaving."
"We can't have that," Sirius drawled, his lips curling. One eyebrow turning up, he glanced over at the radio — apparently listening to whatever was going on, but it was still in French, so. Síomha did catch a few words now and then, she thought it was a duelling match? There was a tournament going on at the moment, somewhere in Spain, she thought. After a moment he let out a short breath and turned back to her. In English again, he muttered, "Showy bastard, should have known that wouldn't have worked. You follow duelling?"
"Sure, a bit."
"I'm like a decade behind now, I don't recognise half these names," he complained, giving the radio a nod. "Is Árgos still playing? Árgos Petríðis."
"Ah, no, he retired a few years back." Argos had been one of the big names in international duelling while Síomha had been growing up, but he'd been getting somewhat up in years. Duelling was a young person's game — it took tight reflexes, and it could be rather physically strenuous, so.
"Damn, I liked him. Zahra al-Masri?"
"She's still around — I actually met her, once, at one of the events Ceasaí was in. Um, I think that one was in Asia somewhere, I don't remember where..."
"Ooh, jealous. Is she as sexy in person as she is on her posters?"
"More, definitely." Sirius coughed out a thick laugh, shaking his head to himself with a little smirk. "Did you have a Zahra poster that long ago?"
"Ugh, making me feel old here, Auntie."
Síomha scowled. "That was revenge, wasn't it."
"Yep. Anyway, yeah, got one when I was thirteen. Mother wasn't exactly thrilled — Zahra isn't respectably European, you see — but she hated that one less than the muggle women I started plastering the walls in my bedroom with a couple years later. How about you?"
"Not Zahra, but I have a few." Though they were in storage now, she'd taken them down when she'd moved out of her flat and never put them back up anywhere. "Ah, I've got Cassie Lovegood, Muireann Ní Aodháin, Orsula Licitra..."
His lips curling in a smirk, Sirius asked, "I don't suppose it's a coincidence those are all feminine names."
"It's not a coincidence. Also, shut up."
"Couldn't possibly. I don't know Licitra, she wasn't a name in my time, but she's in this tournament here. Not in the next round, but I think she's up again in the one after that?"
"I don't speak French."
"Oh, of course, sorry. Hold on, there should be an English commentary channel..." Síomha tensed a little when Sirius, carefully balancing his mug on the arm of his chair, pulled out a wand — but he just pointed it at the radio, gave a little flick. "That's Aquitanian...Venetian...there we go, English. You know, it'd probably be good idea to pick up some French, in the circles you're looking to walk in."
Síomha grimaced. "I know. I read it all right, but I just can't get a handle on it spoken. And I thought I should probably learn some Cambrian too."
"Probably. Ah, Licitra's the next one," Sirius said as the announcer named the duellists taking the stage. She only knew one of them off the top of her head, José Luis had been in the game for a while. "I'm guessing English is already your second language."
"It is, I didn't start learning it until craft school. Were the Blacks still raised with Cambrian by your time? I know Ceasaí was."
"I didn't follow that," Sirius said, in English. "Where are you from? That's a different accent than I'm used to."
...She might have slipped into dialect without thinking. The Gaelic around where she'd grown up was a bit different than what they spoke at the Refuge — she hadn't started learning that until she'd started at craft school either. She normally spoke 'proper' Gaelic when not at home, but sometimes she slipped. Matching the switch to English, "My family are rural farmers out in Contae an Chláir, southwest of an Inis Laoi. I grew up in one of the small villages outside of town."
"Oh, you are from way out there, aren't you?"
"Sure. Anyway, I asked if you grew up with Cambrian, like Ceasaí."
"Oh, yeah." Setting his mug aside, Sirius leaned back in his chair, his head tipped over the back of the chair again, hugging his blankets tighter around himself with one arm. With the other, he held up one hand, counted off on his fingers. "Grew up on Cambrian and French, started with English during primary tutoring, started on Latin during craft tutoring, studied Greek and Arabic while I was in Hogwarts, picked up a bit of Gaelic and Northern while I was an Auror. Also learned a little bit of Tuscan, Saxon, and Spanish, but I doubt I could even try to hold a conversation in any of those anymore, been too long. That's, what...eight? Seven if you only count spoken, didn't have anyone to practise Arabic with, can only read that one."
"...Fuck me, that's a lot."
His head rolling to the side so he could smirk at her, Sirius drawled, "I appreciate the offer, but I'm not in any fit state at the moment. Besides, I don't think Aunt Cassie would like that much."
Her first reflex was to just snap at him to shut up — it was reflex, she'd had to shut down flirting from men an annoying number of times — but she managed to catch herself. "I'm not so sure about that. The House of Black has a reputation, you know."
"Well shite, turning inappropriate flirting straight into an incest joke. Welcome to the family, I guess."
By the time Ceasaí returned, Orsula Licitra's match was up, Sirius politely fallen quiet to let Síomha listen to it. Well, honestly, she didn't know how much of that was him being considerate, and how much was him just being tired — his head tilted over the back of the chair, his eyes had dropped closed, slowly breathing. There was a small cloud of plates and bowls and mugs floating around Ceasaí, walking over toward where they were sitting, she said, "Occupied by the match, I see. Who's up now?"
Síomha was a little startled when Sirius answered, he hadn't spoken a word for a couple minutes now. "Orsula Licitra and Ljosha Lisjónok."
"Ah, the Little Fox, I've fought him. Been to a couple events with Orsula, but we've never ended up matched together." Ceasaí started setting down plates and things, some onto the coffee table and others directly to the side table next to Sirius's chair. Síomha noticed that their meals were different — Sirius had a bowl of soup, with a few bits of cheese and some crisp-looking things, maybe bits of fried flatbread, while hers and Ceasaís were...lamb stew, she thought, poured over potatoes with peas and carrots, and little circles of what looked like blackberry shortcake for afters.
Which was a bit much, maybe, but Ceasaí tended to do that when Síomha was home on Sundays. Though, it was also possible that she was feeling anxious, over the controversy around Sirius about to hit. Síomha had come home more times than she could count to find the surfaces in the kitchen absolutely covered with fresh baking, an over-involved dinner nearing completion — when Ceasaí was worked up, she found something to do...which was an improvement over her previous coping strategy of drinking the nerves away, so.
Ceasaí seemed somewhat distracted while setting down the various dishes, apparently listening to the radio. "My money's on Orsula."
Sirius scoffed. "No bet."
Once everything was down, Ceasaí swished her wand in Síomha's general direction — she twitched as the armrest on one side suddenly slid away, the chair extending out into a two-seat sofa. All right, then. "I hope hot spiced mead is good with you. Sirius shouldn't be having anything heavier just now."
"Yes, a leannáin, I don't mind. You're the wine person in the household, remember."
"What, you planned drinks around me, but not dinner? You wanna trade your cake there for my soup?"
"No, your stomach won't be able to handle something that starchy just now." Ceasaí sank down into the spot next to Síomha, letting out a little sigh. "You can have some cake in a week or two, if you're a good boy."
"Fine, fine..."
There was a pause in the conversation as everyone turned to their dinner — though Síomha was a bit slow and distracted about it, listening to the commentary on the match. Ljosha was light enough on his feet to dodge most of the hexes Orsula was throwing at him, but he wouldn't be able to keep that up forever. Finally, Orsula caught him flat-footed, he managed to get a shield up in time but it shattered with a single hit, a multiplicative curse of some kind — Orsula had a knack for elaborate complex spell effects like that — pummelling the field with a hail of strikes, the announcer couldn't see through the dust...
And also maybe with watching Sirius, a little bit, the emaciated man awkwardly poking at his soup with a spoon. It seemed like he was having trouble holding it properly — it'd been a good decade since he'd used one, perhaps his fingers didn't quite remember how.
He didn't seem at all like the stories she'd heard about Sirius Black, terrifying battlemage and half-mad traitor. As weak and small and quiet as he was, it was kind of hard to imagine he could have... Well. Sure, a lot of that was because he had obviously not done well in Azkaban, but she didn't think it was all that. Like, he would have never guessed he'd be such a little shite, for example — he wasn't even twelve hours out of Azkaban yet, and he was already getting into sarcastic teasing and inappropriate flirting. Nothing like the Sirius Black in the stories, honestly.
She realised this was going to be a mess, probably for months — and she would have to deal with people losing their minds over it, it wasn't exactly a secret she was marrying Ceasaí. But it was good Ceasaí could help him.
Even if she was already getting the feeling he could be a damn pain. Still a good thing.
Her voice light and casual, Ceasaí said, "So, did Síomha get around to telling you that she alchemised silver for her Mast—"
She was interrupted by Sirius spitting out his gulp of mead in a spray of droplets.
omg guys I'm so tired. For some fucking reason sleep hasn't been working correctly, I don't know for how long — probably going on for a month now. If my writing has been getting shittier, that's why. Or if I missed typos, there were so many while I was reading through, fuck...
Anyway, until next time, bye.