good things fall apart • sirius black

We're bad for each other

The day of a full moon is not the time be thinking about this. 

Ellie made her way to the Orangery without even stopping to drop her trunk off in the house. Facing her father was a task she wanted to do after tonight was out of the way. Right now, she needed some more sleep. As soon as she flopped onto the mattress tucked into the corner of the glorified greenhouse, the earthy scent of all things green filling her up, the beautiful girl crashed.

Her dreams were filled with snake tattoos as they had been since Camille was killed. With Rabastan now on the verge of pledging his allegiance to Lord Voldemort in aid of the Order of the Phoenix, Ellie seemed to see coiling snakes in everything from Nicolas and Lamar's telephone wire to the way ivy grew around the support beams across the roof of the Orangery. The dark mark was everywhere, it haunted her now, and a nightmare about it appearing amongst Sirius' tattoos had her jolting awake in a cold sweat.

She wasn't alone in the Orangery any longer.

"You can't run away like that ever again. Do you hear me?" Said her father from where he sat on the end of the bed, voice rumbling.

Cyrus hadn't looked as rough as he did now even after Adelaide had died. His dress robes were creased, his beard grown out more, untidy, littered with grey, and his skin had a sickly pallidness to it which make the crescent moons under his eyes even darker.

Ellie rubbed her eyes and sat up, stiff joints protesting.
 
"I didn't go far."

"To London is far." He looked to her for the first time, "And dangerous too. Did you not hear about the attack on Diagon-"

"I heard. It didn't worry me. Besides, me and my friends spent our time in Muggle London, so everything was perfectly fine."

All of their conversations recently were as clipped and awkward as this. They had yet to reconcile over him pulling her out of Hogwarts and then Beauxbatons, but no matter how angry she was at him still for cooping her up like a prisoner in her own home, Cyrus was still her father, and she need him always. Even when she thought she was old enough to fight her own battles.

"Are you sure it was? You look rough." He hummed.

"Thanks, dad." So do you.

"And not just because of the full moon tonight."

"Well, in case you forgot, my Aunt was murdered."

That was the elephant in the room, and now Ellie had said it, a thick silence fell. After Adelaide, the pair had grieved in a silence like this, together but with no need to reminisce or talk of their feelings, for Cyrus was a man of wisdom but very few words. He only spoke to keep his daughter happy, as he had done with his wife, and her babbling was enough to keep him entertained, to keep him talking too. When she went silent like this, he didn't always have the capability to continue on without her.

Cyrus opened his arms out instead, and not a beat passed before Ellie was flinging herself at him. Hugs he knew how to do, and her tears were falling instantly.
 
"Why have you trapped me here? Why must you control my entire life?" She sobbed, and he smoothed a hand over her hair now so much shorter again, so pink.

"I would never." But he knew he had.

"Then why can't I go to school? Why do you treat me like I'm incapable of looking after myself?"

"Because the way magic is with you scares me and I won't leave anything to chance."

"But you can't mollycoddle me." When Ellie was sobbing like this, it was difficult to believe otherwise.

"I don't know how else to keep you safe." Cyrus told her, and that was the truth in it all.

He didn't want to seem at a loss, vulnerable, but he'd despaired for countless hours now over how he was going to make sure his untameable daughter remained out of harm's way. You can't force her to comply in adulthood when you nurtured her wild side as a child, Adelaide would've said. Oh, how he wished she was still here. This would all be easier with her; he wouldn't be stepping through the dark unknown everyday if she was there to light up the world. Adelaide would know what to say to their daughter when she was hurting like this.

"I'm sorry." Ellie wailed, clutching onto him tighter, "I'm sorry for being difficult, and miserable, and just- just horrid. I loved Beauxbatons and I should've thanked you and I'm sick of arguing with everyone."