It was well past midnight when Heather knocked on the door of Ethan's apartment to bring Jasmine home. Lavinia had barely left her house by the sea when she'd realized that Heather would be looking for Jasmine there and that simply wouldn't do. No one could be allowed into that house just in case Sirius was still there because the wanted posters were everywhere and... well. She didn't want to have to explain any of it, selfish though she knew that was.
So she'd aparated to town, gotten a bit of paper and a pen from a barista at the coffee shop on mainstreet because she wouldn't be able to explain to Ethan how she'd managed to get across the hills and back in the span of a few minutes, and written a quick note informing Heather that she and Jasmine were at Ethans. Then Lavinia had returned to the house and stuck the note to the front door with a wave of her wand. She might have sent an owl, too, just to be safe, but as hers was currently halfway to France, delivering a letter to Kama and Miriam, who were on vacation there, it wasn't exactly feasible. Besides, she would have had to go back into the house to get the bird and... well. She didn't want to do that at all.
Thankfully, however, it wasn't at all out of the ordinary for Lavinia and Jasmine to end up at Ethan's so she didn't suppose it would raise any suspicions from Heather. Indeed, the young woman didn't ask any questions when she arrived at Ethan's door and didn't seem to notice that Lavinia's heart wasn't really in it when she reminded her friend for the hundredth time that Jasmine was more than welcome to stay the night and Heather needn't worry about picking her up if things went late.
Once Heather was gone with the girl, Lavinia dropped down onto the couch with a long sigh, dropping any pretense of normality she'd maintained for Jasmine's sake as she covered her eyes with her hands. A few moments later she felt the couch depress next to her and knew Ethan must have sat down too, but Lavinia didn't move. She was so tired. And with Jasmine now gone... all the guilty thoughts that had been sparked by that disaster of a conversation with Sirius rose up again and she didn't know what to do with them.
It wasn't like they were new. She knew she was awful for not saying anything to help Sirius, knew she was awful for keeping the information from Remus, for not condemning Peter, for giving Harry away, for so many many things. But knowing it didn't make it any easier to deal with, didn't make it sting any less to be reminded of it. And Merlin, did it sting.
It was like being back there again, in those days when everything had gone to hell and the words had danced circles around her head until she'd wished she could drown herself just to shut them up.
Remember I love you.
Her fault.
I don't want him.
Over and over and over again and the truth was that Sirius was right, at least about some of it. Harry should have been the one by her side. Even if he couldn't live here, he should have known who she was, should have known her as someone safe, someone he could trust. Because she should never have spoken those words.
I don't want him.
Not that it meant Jasmine shouldn't also be by her side but... But Harry should have been there. Should have known her. Because she should have wanted him.
And Sirius was also right that she had forgiven Peter far more easily than him and... and it didn't make sense. It didn't make any sense at all. Except... except Peter had never made her any promises. And Peter, she understood. There was very little in the world that fear couldn't make a person do. And Peter, like her, had always had a coward's heart. Peter, like her, would have sold the whole damn world just to know that the people he loved were safe. So he had. He had sold James and Lily and Lavinia didn't think for a moment that her friend hadn't gotten something else in return. She could only wonder, really, who it was he had bargained for. Who it was he had tried to save. Who he had still counted among his friend when it seemed like all of them had walked away.
But Sirius... Lavinia didn't understand that. Didn't think she would ever understand that. How could a heart switch so suddenly? How had it been so easy for him to believe that Peter had done this? How had he ever thought that anything would be made better by revenge? How could he ever try to harm someone he had known for so long?
And the truth was that it probably would have been easier to write it all off and forgive him if it weren't for the fact that she had been there. She knew what it felt like to know people on the other side. To love people on the other side. To watch her friends hurt her friends and yet... she had never once thought to punish them for it. She had never once thought to turn her own wand on them. Never.
And true, it wasn't the same because those friends had never pretended to be anything but what they were so they had never betrayed her, never shocked her. But even knowing Peter was guilty... no part of her had thought he had deserved the death she'd thought he'd been given. No part of her had wished him dead at all. And yet it seemed that each and every fiber of Sirius had. And she simply did not understand that. Did not understand how the hate in his heart could have overwhelmed the love she knew he was capable of.
And, she supposed, it was that lack of understanding that made it so much harder to forgive. So much harder to forget.
But that also didn't mean it was right for her to yell at him, to condemn him. Just because she didn't understand it didn't necessarily make it wrong. Besides which, she had taken some very cheap shots. She had said things that she knew would hurt because some awful, selfish part of her had wanted to make sure he knew that he wasn't blameless either. That even if she had made mistakes, and plenty of them... well. He had too. And he didn't get to pretend to be a saint while condemning her as the sinner. Which was awful and selfish and all that, but... but her heart had been screaming and she hadn't known how to make it stop.
And then, of course, there was the problem of Remus, who had been caught in the crossfire of two who had loved and lost and didn't know how to reconcile their broken hearts. Remus, who had come home early and she didn't know why. Who had looked so happy sitting next to his friend when she'd walked in and so heartbroken when she'd left. Remus. Who she had lied to, if only by omission. Remus. Her friend. Who had deserved the truth all along and hadn't had it because Lavinia herself was small and selfish and hurting.
She would apologize to him. Over and over. She would get down on her knees and beg his forgiveness if she had to because it had been awful of her and she knew it. Had known it, even when she'd made that choice. And yet she had still done it. And now... now she didn't remember why. Didn't know how to explain it, even to herself. So all she could do was ask forgiveness and promise she would never do it again.
And as for the rest of it... she didn't know what happened now. Innocent or not, the ministry was still hunting Sirius and it wasn't safe for him to stay here. Surely they would think to look in the house by the sea eventually and he couldn't be there when they did. He would need to be on the run for... well forever, really. Perhaps eventually, the search would die down, but he would still have to be careful. He would still have to tread lightly and... and she didn't know if she would ever be able to see him again, once he left here. She didn't know if they would ever get the chance to repair the many broken things between them. She didn't even know if she wanted that chance.
"I take it whatever you needed to do today went well," Ethan observed sarcastically after a long moment of silence, pulling Lavinia from her thoughts.
"Spectacularly," she replied with equal sincerity, dropping her hands from her face and giving him a flat look as she pushed herself into a proper sitting position.
Ethan chuckled slightly for a moment, then sighed. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently.
Lavinia sighed and shook her head, looking away from her friend. She didn't know how to talk about this. Not with him and not with anyone. How could she possibly explain that her ex fiance was a convicted murderer, but had come back and was apparently innocent and now she was confused and hurting and didn't know what the hell to think of him. What to feel for him. Besides which, if she did have that conversation with anyone, which she didn't think she would, Ethan was not the person it would be with. She loved him dearly but this... this was not his area of expertise. And this was not the sort of relationship they had.
"Distraction, then?" Ethan suggested lightly, no hint of any sort of judgement in his voice. Lavinia opened her mouth to say yes. To say please. But her eyes snagged on the clock on the wall and...
"It's nearly one in the morning, Ethan," Lavinia pointed out with a sigh and a frown. "If you want to go to bed, you should."
Ethan just waved a dismissive hand at her. "I can sleep any time," he pointed out simply. "You, I get to see far less."
Lavinia chuckled slightly and shook her head, her chest feeling rather warmer and brighter than it had all evening. "Alright," she replied with a shrug. "What do you have in mind?"
"Well," Ethan started, excitedly enough that Lavinia turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised, wondering what on earth she had just gotten herself into that he sounded so over the moon about it. "Beatrice gave me a set of DVDs of this American TV show called The Joy of Painting and-"
Lavinia laughed outright, shaking her head and covering her mouth with her hand and choking out an apology for interrupting him. It was just so... so Ethan. So incredibly Ethan to be so excited over a show called something like The Joy of Painting. And it was a blip of normalcy in this day that had been so hectic and... well. And it felt good to laugh. To pretend her entire day hadn't gone to absolute horse shit earlier.
"Hey," Etan protested, whacking her lightly on the arm and frowning in annoyance. "You haven't even seen it yet!"
"I'm sorry," Lavinia apologized, trying and failing to school her features into a straight face. "It's just... very you," she explained, unable to contain a teasing little smile.
Ethan narrowed his eyes at her for a moment then pulled a face. "You'll see," he told her, standing up with as much dignity as he could muster. "It's absolutely perfect."
He wasn't wrong, exactly, though Lavinia had never thought that she would consider half an hour of watching an afro-ed American stranger painting a landscape 'perfect'. But it was very relaxing and there was something almost nostalgic about it to Lavinia that she supposed was probably due to how much it reminded her of how Ethan described the world, of how he had showed her the beauty of the little things. No wonder he loved this show, she thought. This here was another man who saw the world with eyes that made the smallest things beautiful. And who tried to show others that. Just as Ethan had done for her.
It wasn't an entirely pleasant line of thought, actually, because it made her compare, rather unfairly, she knew, how those years with Ethan had been versus the years she'd spent with Sirius. And Merlin, how different they had been.
Sirius had never shown her that life could be art because Sirius had never seen life that way. But he had shown her that there were things worth fighting for at a time when she had needed desperately to fight. And Ethan... Ethan had come into her life when she had been sick of fighting. And he had showed her that sometimes, all she needed to reach for was a moment, a breath, a tiny space of time in which to look out at the world and remember that no matter what was going on, no matter how much everything had fallen apart, the world was still beautiful.
So while Sirius had taught her bravery in the battlefield of her own head and heart, Ethan had taught her courage, had taught her endurance. And she would be a fool to forget that she had loved both of them for it. That she still loved them, for what they had offered her without ever meaning to. That even if he had left, Sirius had given her so much before then. And even if the world had fallen apart and he had fled... that wasn't the only thing she should remember of him.
So maybe she should try again. Try to smooth things over. And maybe... maybe she should start sooner rather than later. Maybe she should brave this battlefield too.
"I should go home," she murmured into the long pause that followed the end of the show, glancing towards the door.
Next to her, Ethan sighed and nodded vaguely even as he stifled a yawn. "You're welcome to stay if you want to," he reminded her and again Lavinia's chest went rather warm because she knew he was being honest. Knew that if she asked it, he would have let her stay here indefinitely. For as long as she needed to be away. Even if he had no idea just what she needed to be away from.
But... but she wasn't going to let this chase her from her home. She wasn't going to let her coward's heart win. She was going to remember what Sirius had taught her. What Ethan had taught her. She was going to go home with her head held high and she was not going to apologize for it. For other things, certainly, but it was her home. It was her life. She wouldn't apologize for not interrupting it just because Sirius decided to show up today.
"Thank you," she replied, looking now at Ethan and hoping he knew that it was for more than just the offer to stay. That it was for anything and everything and more because she wasn't entirely sure what she would have done if she hadn't had him to go to tonight. If she hadn't had him to remind her that even in the middle of so much chaos... there were still normal things. And just because her old life had come knocking didn't mean her newer one had vanished. "But," she continued, "I really should be going. Remus is home early and... well. I should be there with him." Which was all true, even if it wasn't all of the reason she knew she should go home now. Because part of her felt like if she let herself run for tonight... well she might just keep running.
Thankfully, Ethan just nodded in understanding and offered her a little smile. "I'll see you soon, then?" he asked as she stood up and made for the door.
Lavinia smiled, the expression genuine, and nodded. "See you soon," she replied and left to return home through the balmy night.
Perhaps five minutes later, when she pushed open the door to the house by the sea, she stopped dead in her tracks. Because there, on the couch, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in from the windows and the open door behind her was Sirius, who Remus must have offered the couch to for the night.
Her heart tripped and stumbled as she looked at him, at the mess of black hair on the pillow beneath his head. At the features that were somehow softer, younger, in rest. At how he looked almost exactly like she remembered from all those years ago when she had fallen asleep and woken up by his side nearly every day.
It took her a very, very long time to pull herself together enough to close the door behind her and it was a force of sheer will to walk past him, to turn her back on that peaceful image that stirred so very many memories, that made her want to brush that stray lock form his face. That made her want to remember how his skin felt under her fingers and his love felt in her heart. But she did not remember. And she did not look back. But even so, her dreams that night were haunted by stormcloud eyes that were as soft and as lovely as the first day she had fallen in love with them.
A/N: Shout out to Bob Ross, who is, as Ethan believes, utterly perfect. When I did a random google search to find out what shows had aired by early 1994 and found out that the Joy of Painting was one of them... well. I wasn't going to pass that up. So now we have this and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
In other news, I may have had a stroke today. Not literally, I just don't have a good explanation for the utter stupidity of me. I forgot I had one of my classes today. Not like I misremembered the time or thought it was on a different day or anything like that. No, I straight up forgot it existed. Like, did not remember I was enrolled in it. Until, of course, my friend texted me and asked for notes on a topic she had missed in lecture and I was like 'hahah that was a thing. fuck'. And really, if that doesn't sum up home this week is going, I don't know what does.
Anyway, as usual, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'll be back again soon!