jemina // sirius black

twenty-nine

chapter twenty-nine -  refresh

Esme didn't want to talk about the talk she had with Sirius, and while I wanted to know, I couldn't force her to tell me. 

All I knew was that he had gone to talk to her, and then they spent the entire next two days together. Esme didn't even come to Diagon Alley with me, Remus, and her sisters, she chose to spend the day with her father. 

I was unbelievably happy that they were talking and spending time together, but I was actually dying of curiosity. I wanted to know what he said to make her give him a chance. 

She wouldn't tell me about it, and she had sworn Sirius to secrecy. It was their own little thing, and no matter how curious I was, I didn't want to take that from them. I didn't want to take the only thing those two had that was their own. 

Apparently, Aubrey had her own thing with Sirius too. 

I had been right. He did get the girls matching necklaces, well kind of. All three of the necklaces have paw pendants, but the paws are different shapes and sizes. Aubrey's resembles a cat paw more than a dog paw. Sirius confessed that he had a hard time finding three matching pendants, he also admitted that he had a hard time with the gifts in general. 

He didn't know the girls very well. The only thing he knew about them was what he could pick up from watching them from the forest. Sirius only knew the physically visible things about them, like how Esme's favorite color is purple. He picked up on how Aubrey always had a notebook with her, and how Lilian favored Care for Magical Creatures. He knew that her favorite animal was unicorns by eavesdropping on a conversation between Lilian and Hagrid, but could not find a unicorn in a Muggle shop. 

He had gotten Aubrey that notebook, and when I asked how much it cost, he shrugged and told me that I didn't want to know. I asked how much he had spent on Lilian's horse and Esme's sweater, and he said, "I never thought a stuffed animal and a sweater could be as expensive as they were, but again, you probably don't want to know."

It was relieving to know that he did spend time trying to get gifts for them. It felt really good to know that I was wrong, but I hated that I expected the worst of him. 

Each of the girls knew exactly who the gifts were from. Like Esme, Aubrey had worried that Lilian hadn't gotten anything, so she didn't tell anyone about it. Lilian, on the other hand, was afraid that she was the only one since Sirius hadn't known about her at all. She was afraid that the horse and necklace were his way of apologizing for not knowing she was born. 

At some point, Aubrey asked Sirius about the gift, and he told her that he had gotten her sister's gifts too. 

The fact that he got Lilian what he did for the sole reason that he knew she was Aubrey and Esme's sister was incredibly sweet. He admitted that he was sure that she was Remus' daughter and that there no way that she wasn't mine. Sirius didn't know she was his until Madam Pomfrey Floo-ed to our house to get permission to take blood from the girls. She specified all three of them, and when he realized she had asked his permission to take Lilian's blood, he knew she wasn't Remus' daughter. 

When we got back from Diagon Alley, I had to practically evict Esme from my bedroom so I could talk to Sirius. I needed to make sure he was okay with all of this, with all of us leaving for the year. 

I hated seeing him as sad as the thought of not getting to see me, or his daughters, for such a long time made him. I knew where his mind was; he would be nearly alone for nine months. I couldn't imagine how awful the thought of being so alone again after having an entire family around him was. Part of me wished that I could resign and just stay with him, but... I had a sick feeling about this year. Part of me wished I could stay home and not worry about the girls with every breath that I took, but the Triwizard Tournament wouldn't allow that.