Ernie's big news; Abbott's [EM, HA, HJ, DA] WHO:Ernie, Hannah, Hestia, Dominic WHERE: the Abbott's WHEN: Wednesday, 12 January, 2000; lunchtime SUMMARY: Ernie has some big news but it isn't received how he imagines it will be. COMPLETED LOG. RATING: High PG-13 for language
Later, as he examined the situation, Ernie would probably discover that he had been woefully unprepared to tell his girlfriend and his trainer (though Hestia had long ago become far more than just another Auror trainer to him) about his good news. He had not even counted on Dominic being at the Abbott house, even though the Minister was normally there in the middle of the day. No, in his mind, he'd come in, tell them about his induction into the Order and they'd both congratulate him, feel proud of him, and then they would go out to lunch--his treat of course. Some things, however, were destined to not go as planned, and this was one of them. He couldn't see how anyone could not be pleased that he had made it into the prestigious Order of the Phoenix, and, in his naiveness, he had no idea what was coming.
Raising his hand, he knocked on the door, choosing the most formal method of going into the house because this event was, if nothing else, a very formal one.
"I'll get it, I'm tired of staying in bed," Hestia yelled as she appeared at the top of the stairs and started down them. It wasn't as though she was actually getting the door anyhow, the Aurors and guards now did that, but really, she had spent two days in bed now and that was enough. It wasn't even fun in-bed time in the usual sense either. Grr. Protective men.
Hearing Hestia yelling about something, Hannah popped her head out of the small library in the house, expression curious.
"Is that Ernie?" she asked.
Ernie nodded to the Auror who let him in. Though he didn't remember the man's name, he did remember the face of one of the people who were working more regularly with the minister's family. “Hannah! Hestia!” he rushed into the house. He almost ran into Hestia, and though normally he might have teased her and fussed at her for being out of bed, today there was none of that. Like a child eager to spend a few small coins in his pocket, the secret was eating at Ernie, making the anticipation almost ravenous enough to devour him alive. He locked eyes with Hannah, his eyes warm. He was looking forward to telling her most of all. “I've got a...”
Dominic came out of his study, startled by the vocal commotion as well as the sound of Ernie stampeding into the house. He had just been trying to prepare his paperwork for that evening at the office, and now wasn't the time for Ernie to annoy him. “Hannah, your small elephant is here, about to tear the house apart, try to house break him in the future, will you? He DOES have a trainer but it seems she's been sadly defeated when it comes to that.”
Stepping neatly back to avoid being trampled, Hestia eyed Ernie curiously. She hadn't thought much of the insistence to have lunch before, but this was a bit overeager. "Maybe if I was allowed to work instead of forced into bed for days on end," she groused, but it was mostly good-natured. Despite the statement to Dominic, even as she moved close to him, her eyes remained on Ernie, studying him.
"Dad!" Playfully scandalized, Hannah emerged entirely from the library and came down the corridor. This was the second time in two days Ernie had arrived here in such a mood, she was beginning to wonder
"Hi," she greeted sweetly, popping up to give him a light kiss on the lips before smiling at him curiously. "Now what do you have?"
Hestia elbowed Dominic lightly in the ribs a second after lips touched. "Say nothing."
Dominic watched as Ernie entered HIS house. Ernie kissed Hannah, he let his hands settle on Hannah's waist as though he was going to lift her up and swing her around, but at the last moment he didn't. However, Dominic's watchful eyes didn't much appreciate the fact that his daughter's hips were being touched by this rash Auror boy, and he might have said something about it had Hestia not elbowed him and reminded him to stay quiet.
The Minister cleared his throat. “Yes, Ernie, please, tell us why you've come here in such a...very jubilant mood.” His tone clearly held disapproval, but Ernie was too excited to even notice.
“I can't just tell you here, and I can't tell you when I take you to lunch. You, Hestia, you should sit down. We all should.” It was more formal that way, Ernie thought, and this was, if nothing else, a rather large, important moment. He threaded his fingers through Hannah's, still beaming. “and then I'll tell you.”
Hestia's eyebrows shot up. Yes, this definitely wasn't just some good mood for the day. Either that or he was fussing, which wasn't quite working for her. "I should sit down? Suddenly I'm not liking this all this much," she grumbled, yet turned and headed for the family room just the same. Stupid men, thinking she was as fragile as glass and needed to sit down for everything.
The smile of curiosity on Hannah's face from before had intensified now. "Well, come on," she said, tugging him after Hestia. Once they were in the room, she watched Hestia take a seat on a sofa, but she continued to stand next to Ernie.
Ernie allowed Hannah to tug him into the family room, then led her to the sofa across from Hestia. He sat and pulled her near him, and waited as Dominic settled next to Hestia. Well, he thought, this was certainly awkward. The silence hung for a moment as he tried to decide how to approach the act of telling them. Damn, but he had not been planning on Dominic being home. There was no reason for him not to be home, he knew the Minister's schedule almost as well as his own because of the lengths they had gone to to make certain someone was home with Hestia and Hannah since the attacks but it was still just...jarring.
“It's actually not that big of a deal.” he said quietly, though the excitement on his face belied the modest statement. He just didn't want Dominic to think him a braggart. “It's just that since you've been gone, Hestia, I've been...well sort of promoted. I spoke with McGonagall and everything's all set.” He paused, curious if Hestia could guess it from there. She was, after all, the one responsible for him succeeding at his job, it would be fitting if she figured out this surprise a bit before everyone else.”
Blame pregnancy brain. Blame a moment of willful ignorance that might have been a mental self-defense mechanism. Whatever it was, at the outset Hestia simply didn't get what he meant. Had she paused a moment or two it might have occurred to her, but at the outset, it hadn't yet.
"Promoted? How in the world did McGonagall promote you, she's the Headmistress."
Hannah's eyes had widened when Ernie mentioned Headmistress McGonagall. Was Ernie being promoted to some sort of school security? The idea at once filled her with a wondrous kind of glee and she squeezed his hand, he expression hopeful. "You're coming to work at Hogwarts? This is brilliant! When do you start? How did you finish your training all ready?"
Understanding was slowly dawning with Hestia with Hannah's questions, however.
Hannah's excitement was contagious, making Ernie's smile grow even wider. “No, not Hogwarts, it's even better!” The thought of working near Hannah every day was enticing indeed, but he liked his job, the excitement of it, the fact that he was very literally on the front lines between people like Hannah and the bastards that they all were trying to catch.
“I have been accepted into the Order of the Pheonix. Though Miles is likely going to try to take all of the credit for it, you have a lot to do with this, Hestia, because you've taught me everything that I know when it comes to being an Auror, and you've also let me take risks that perhaps other trainers wouldn't.” He was beaming, his secret out, as he looked between the three of them.
Dominic groaned softly the moment after the idiot boy stopped talking. This wouldn't be good.
"YOU WHAT?!" There was no warning, just that explosive statement as Hestia shot up from the sofa.
Hannah simply blinked, as though the words had not processed. It was not entirely unreasonable, as it was quite a leap from thinking her boyfriend would be coming to work at Hogwarts, a level of safety for her and much more safety for him, to thinking now he would be out fighting for a cause, not a job. It was only as it sunk in that her lip began to tremble.
Meanwhile, Hestia was working herself into an epic froth of pregnant fury as she crossed the space between the two sofas and glared down at him.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she all but screeched, looking for a moment as though she might shake him. She had worked so hard to keep all of them safe and then he had to go and do something this dangerous and foolish at a time when those around him needed him in one piece the most. There was a reason he hadn't been involved before and that was because she had never, ever mentioned him. He did enough fighting as it was.
Dominic sat back on the sofa, startled by Hestia's anger. Well, more accurately startled by the force of it more than the anger, but still, it was surprising. That was not to say he didn't think she had a right to be angry, he did, but he decided to stay out of it for the moment. She needed to vent her anger, and he needed to listen for a moment. If she got too out of control, he would convince her to calm down for their child's sake, and he would certainly talk to the boy on his own later, but for now, she deserved to yell at him, and have at least that mean of expressing her emotions.
Ernie blinked when met with the force of Hestia's fury, and looked to Hannah for support only to find her bottom lip trembling. Damn, but this wasn't going as planned at all, as evidenced by Dominic's smirk. “You don't understand!” he said, foolishly laughing softly, because he thought this all some mistake. “It's an honor to be in it, certainly you know that, Hestia. It IS a risk, yes, but so is my job, so are a lot of things.” he looked at Hestia, studying her hard for a moment. “I'm finally going to be able to make a difference, Hestia...isn't that what we've been working for all along?”
Hestia herself might have been startled by her own fury if she hadn't been in the thick of it, but she was and she knew only that fury, fiercer and more unexplained than any she had ever felt before because of the strange edge to it. And Ernie laughing? Well, that pushed her over the edge she had been teetering on.
"NO!" she shrieked, waving her hands. "No! No, no, no, no NO. You were never working for the Order, never intended to be working for the Order. You want to be a big shot Auror? Fine. I couldn't have stopped you even had I known then what I know now. You go to work, do your job and come home. Risk yourself for the job you do and the difference you make there. But this? Oh no, NO. This? I can stop. I will stop. And I will put an end to it starting up again after I stop it."
Even if she had to end half the Order to do it.
Ernie frowned. Hestia was being unreasonable. She was out of her mind. “You can't stop this...” he said, and though he intended for it to sound authoritative, determined, it sounded a bit unsure, because for all he knew she could very well stop this. “Yes, I want to be a good Auror, but I want this too. I want to make up for the time I was lazing about in Greece, I want to...” he wanted to work extra hard to make sure the people who would hurt Hannah to get to Dominic were put away, because he had a cause now, HANNAH was his cause. More than most of the people in the Order, who were fighting to preserve good or help the Muggleborns or whatever their own personal reasons were, Ernie had a damned good one and he didn't like it second guessed, not even by his mentor.
“You can't stop me.” he said, his voice more determined this time. “Because they already accepted me, and you know as well as I do that I deserve to be there. Whether you let me sit in on meetings or guess at what they're up to is up to you,but I'm part of the Order now and I am going to be a part of things even if I have to play catch up to do it. Personally I think it would be far safer if you just let me do it instead of guessing at what's going on, but that's your decision.” He scowled for a moment, the excitement he had felt only moments ago now weighing on his chest like a huge stone. “I thought you were going to be happy at the surprise.”
Hestia snorted, actually rolling her eyes when he told her she couldn't stop this, because to her mind, she very well could and had every intention of killing at or threatening whoever necessary to make this all go away, get things back to how they were. How stupid was he to think this was any sort of good idea, knowing how he was depended on, knowing how little training he had to take on the added responsibility of being in the Order? Those in the Order did what they did at all hours on all days in a war and they? Were in a war right now. She wouldn't let him, she would stop this whole thing. And if he didn't know it off, she would start with him.
And then she made a choked half-laugh of disbelief at his last statement. "Happy? What part of this could you possibly think would make me happy? For that matter, what part of this did you think wouldn't make Hannah cry like she is right now."
The observation was true. Hannah's trembling lip had turned to silent tears, ones that she hid as Hestia pointed them out, her long hair slipping forward like a wavy curtain as she ducked her head.
Opening his mouth to argue, Ernie realized that she was right. Hannah was crying. Merlin, how had this all gone so terribly wrong? “I thought that you would be proud of what you had taught me, how one of YOUR trainees had grown from someone who ran away at the sight of war to someone who is willing to...” he trailed off, this topic not seeming at all appropriate with Hannah sitting next to him anymore. “Hannah, I'll be careful.” he reached out, taking her hand between both of his. “This is no different than your volunteer work at the Centre, it's just another step forward in the right direction. It's a bit risky, yes, but most everything is.”
“Hannah's well aware of the risks, as is Hestia. It seems to me, Ernie, that you are the only one in the room not aware.” Dominic said, his voice careful but his eyes worried, both for his crying daughter as well as Hestia. “Hannah,” he said softly. “Don't cry, sweetheart.”
With a stifled noise, Hannah jerked her hand back. How couldn't he understand this? Hestia had only been kidnapped two days ago and rather than everyone stay safe, something he had promised, he was making it worse!
"Just... don't," she whispered, withdrawing as she slid off the sofa and slipped quickly out of the room. She couldn't sit there right now and listen to him defend it because, despite her horror, she could tell how much it meant to him.
That drew more of Hestia's ire and she delivered a sharp smack to Ernie's shoulder. "Now see what you've done? Rather than think this out, you had to out-do Stebbins again, this continue one-upping that is going to get on or both of you killed, and now you've made her cry."
The smack hadn't stopped at just one, strangely, and even more strangely was that by the time she had smacked him the third time and finished talking, Hestia too was sniffling.
"Damn you, you foolish idiot child," she cursed, turning away as she wrapped one arm around her, propping the elbow of the other on it to rest her hand in her face.
Hannah leaving the room, combined with seeing Hestia all but fall apart, was nearly enough to make Dominic throw the boy out on his ear, but the fear that his daughter or fiancée would follow him gave Dominic pause. Instead he just glared at the mystified boy, and went to pull Hestia close. “Shhhh...”
“Stebbins has been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have...” Ernie rubbed his shoulder with one hand, and though he had intended his words to sound frustrated, instead they sounded tired. “Stebbins is just fine, and yes, I love Hannah, and I love you like family, Hestia, but the fact that I love and am loved doesn't make me any more, or any less than you, Hestia, or Miles. Damn it, I want this! I want to do something to catch the ones who hurt you, who would hurt Hannah, and I'm not a fucking child!” Though he was hardly prim when it came to his language in front of Hestia, speaking like that was normally reserved for Miles. He raked his hand through his hair. “I'm going to find Hannah.”
Hestia, however, hadn't entirely decided only Ernie and Miles were to blame for this nonsense. No, Dominic had done his part over the months. Stupid men.
"You leave me alone!" she snapped, slapping at him. "This is partly your fault too! Acting like him leaving after the war was over was such a terrible thing, constantly fighting with him, adding to this entire thing that's nothing more than boys trying to outdo other boys at being the strongest, bravest and best. You're all idiots, the entire lot of you and I'm going to find Hannah."
With that, she exited the room too. Our in the corridor, she caught the familiar colour of Auror robes disappearing quickly, which was likely best for whoever it was who might have been, as she would have handed them their arse too while she was at it. Hannah was not hard to find, the sound of quiet weeping was clear from the open door of the library.
"Oh baby girl, they're all stupid. All of them," Hestia murmured, dropping next to Hannah on the floor where Hannah must have earlier built a cushion nest to read. She pulled her close as she settled more comfortably next to Hannah. "Men are all bloody gits."
"He's not thought! He's not doing anything bad," Hannah cried even as she rested her head on Hestia's shoulder.
"Oh, he is. Bad and foolish and wrong," Hestia growled.
Shaking her head, Hannah's shoulders hitched with her tears. "No, he's trying to do a good thing, and it means so much to him, I can tell."
Dominic winced as Hestia lit into him. Really, he had no idea why she was so angry with HIM. The boy had been in over his head in the first war, and, rather than admitting it, he had fled. Now he was in over his head yet again and Dominic didn't think there was anything wrong with pointing it out, particularly when Ernie would likely just leave again and leave Hannah heartbroken. When this child managed to make himself vital to everyone Dominic cared about, Dominic thought it became his business what the child did, and what he had done in the past. When Hestia left, both men surveyed one another silently, both sporting slightly bruised egos.
“Don't you d....” A sharp look from Dominic silenced Ernie before he could even really begin speaking.
“We're going to find them.” Dominic said, his voice firm and a little dangerous. “We're going to find them and you're going to tell them that you're resigning from the Order, you're going to make this right.”
“I'm not going to just quit and run away. I know they don't like this right now but you didn't like it when Hannah started volunteering at the C--”
“Hardly the same thing.” Dominic's voice was soft, little more than a hiss. “I'm through discussing this. Either follow me and follow my orders or find your way out of the house, I've little preference just now.”
Dominic was pleased, as he turned and walked toward where he had seen Hestia go, that there was the sound of footsteps behind him. The boy might not possess the good sense that a goat could boast, but at least he did have at least a little.
His breath caught at the sight of Hestia and Hannah curled together, and, not waiting to see if Ernie was following him into the room or waiting, he quietly moved into the room. “Oh Hannah..” he crouched next to her, his hand moving to rest on her shoulder. “I'm sorry.”
Looking up at the sound of footsteps, Hestia scowled and then almost hissed as Dominic reached out to Hannah. Later she would recognize this hadn't been particularly rational, this rabidly fierce and near-motherly protecting of Ernie and Hannah that had made her lash out. Right now, all she cared about was that for all she knew, Ernie had taken part of Dominic's attitude and focused it into this attempt to "prove" himself. Idiot men.
"We've both had enough of your ridiculous testosterone-driven fighting and posturing, you two can just go-"
"Hestia." Though softly sobbed, the word was accompanied by a tug on Hestia's shirt because Hannah wanted her attention. While she hated this, the very idea of Ernie risking himself more now that there was nowhere or no one safe, she didn't want Hestia yelling at Ernie more and especially not including her father in it for whatever reason.
Dominic was startled, to say the least, at the way that this was his fault when it had been Ernie who got them into this mess, and, it was Dominic's opinion, that it should be Ernie who got them out of it.
Only Ernie could not see the way to help them out of their mess, all that he wanted to do was make things right with Hannah, and then Hestia, and Dominic Abbott could do whatever he did when he wasn't busy throwing fits that would make most toddlers envious. “I'm sorry...” he said quietly, looking every bit like a dog coming back from a misdeed with his tail between his legs. “I misjudged how you would both react to the situation.” Not, of course, that he intended on changing the situation itself and leaving the Order, but he did feel badly for the pain he had caused them.
Hestia could only glare stonily at both men, though that was turned on Ernie as he spoke. "You're bloody right you did," she snarled, hugging Hannah tighter. "And if you thought at all-"
"Hestia, please," Hannah said softly, but no means denying the hug or moving at all from it, but insistence just the same that Hestia stop yelling at Ernie. "I don't want to fight, please." That was the last thing she wanted at all. For once, she almost felt like she wanted to be alone, because she knew this wasn't something that could be comforted. She wanted to sob harder at the idea of Ernie out there more than he was as a trainee, but there wasn't an alternative that she could see. She loved him, and liked to think she knew him, so seeing him had already told her there wasn't a 'stop and everything go back to how it was before' option. She just didn't know how to deal with that.
"Fine," Hestia grumbled, stroking Hannah's hair and conjuring a handkerchief, which she handed to Hannah before scowling at Ernie again. "Well, you've made a real mess, haven't you, Macmillan?" she said, unable to avoid being totally quiet.
Ernie had been friends with Hannah for many years, and though their relationship was still in the beginning stages, their friendship was certainly not. Even if you wanted to get pessimistic about it and suggest that they wouldn't be dating forever, he knew that Hannah would be a part of his life, in one form or another, for the rest of his life if he had anything to say about it. That wasn't to say that he was thinking about marriage, because he knew that she wasn't ready to leave her father, and that they weren't ready for that just yet, but he did know that she was important enough to consider her feelings in such a major change, and he should likely have done so before.
“If it really means that much to you, if it's going to make you this upset, if you don't want me to do this, then I won't."
At that, Hestia started to splutter but Hannah pulled back, shaking her head as she wiped her face with the back of her hands. Vision cleared somewhat, she looked up at Ernie, her expression hurting but perhaps a bit determined. She wouldn't do what he was asking of her.
"Don't," she said quietly, shaking her head. "Don't put me in the place to make your decision for you, I can't do that. I can't have you resent me."
Face still scrunched angrily, Hestia stared Ernie down, as though the sheer force of her expression would make him change his mind all on his own. While Hannah seemed to be above being a deterrent to this madness, she certainly wasn't.
“I want this.” Ernie said, his eyes staying on Hannah's for a long moment. “I want this more than I know how to say. I want to help and learn how to stop them, I want to catch them before some moron gets the idea to come after us again, I want...” something out of the corner of his eye drew his gaze to Hestia, and he snorted. “Well I don't want Hestia to kill me in the process, but you know I'm not a child, Hestia.”
He swallowed deeply. He didn't like her being so angry, but he didn't know how to fix it now, short of stepping down from the Order. He might be prepared to do that for Hannah's sake, but he wasn't going to do it for Hestia. She was a very different part of his life, someone who he almost thought of as a sort of young, fun parent, and though he admired her and respected her, her opinion on this was going to be more about protecting him and their little odd sort of family than the bigger picture.
“We can make this work, Hestia, you know we can.”
Dominic snorted at the boy's words, resting his hand in the small of Hestia's back. We can make this work indeed, he thought. This boy was concerned of nothing more than proving himself, and now he had Dominic in trouble as well. The only thing that was going to 'work' was buying thread and a needle to sew the boy's mouth shut before he dug himself an even deeper grave.
Hannah looked at him a moment longer. "I know you do," she said quietly and then turned away, drawing her knees back up to her chin. She had known it from the moment she realized what his mood recently had been from, which meant on top of the worry, he had both considered and accepted the Order without even telling her. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Hestia, however, was very certain how she felt. Scrambling to her feet, she folded her arms in front of her.
"We? We are not doing anything, Macmillan. You are in over your bloody head and I'm not about to see you get yourself killed because you think being in the Order is so much more noble than doing your job."
She snorted, far from amused. "Do you want to know what the Order involves, Macmillan? It involves fighting when it looks as though there is no hope, when even the Auror in charge would call a retreat to save personnel for another fight. It involves secrets, so many secrets between you and those you say you care about. It involves doing things you cannot tell them about, no matter how much you want to, and if you don't come back from it? Those people will never know what happened. As an Auror, if you die on a mission, your family will at least know some of the how and why, but in the Order? You just die."
Behind her, though Hestia was too furious to think on what she was saying, Hannah let out a strangled noise and pressed her face further into her knees.
Dominic opened his mouth to speak, realizing that Hestia had gone too far. Hannah might not have been the one to find her mother that night, but her death had hit Hannah hard. Ernie getting hurt in the Aurors had hit her hard, Hestia getting hurt, getting kidnapped...all of them had been a blow to her. Granted, their wounds were relatively minor, but bringing up the idea that Ernest Macmillan might be killed, and that no one would know when or how.
However, before he could speak, before he could even think of what to speak, Ernie spoke.
“No.” He said, his jaw clenching. “You aren't going to scare me out of this, and you sure as hell aren't going to scare Hannah enough to make her cry and use that to manipulate me out of this.” He knelt down, his hand going to cover Hannah's. “If there were two of us in the Order instead of just Hestia, we could look out for each other, the way that we looked out for each other in the training center. You're taking the same risk that I'm taking, Hestia, and I know how to be careful. You've taught me that if nothing else.” His eyes lingered on Hannah's. “I do know how to be careful, Hannah.”
Not meeting his gaze as she wasn't even looking up at this point, Hannah continued to press her mouth firmly to her knees to keep sound from coming out. His reassurance weren't helping, anymore than Hestia's or her father's ever had. Despite knowing they all did as they did for good reasons, she couldn't stop the selfish desire to want them all to just stop and stay safe rather than finding more reasons to involve themselves further.
Too furious and, were she conscious of it, scared to back down now, Hestia pressed on relentlessly. "It's called facing facts, Macmillan, and it's time you did it if you think this is such a fantastic move to make. I'm not taking the same risk, in case you've forgotten, as the Order isn't sending me out to fight when I'm not even on full duty at my job. And training or not, you are still just an Auror trainee, you're a baby when it comes to the Death Eaters you'll face. You might as well put a fucking target on your robes now."
Unable to sit and listen anymore, Hannah got to her feet. "I have to go upstairs, please don't follow me," she whispered then dashed out of the room.
Ernie's face fell as Hannah left the room. He wanted to make this better and now that she had left again and asked them not to follow her it would be damned hard to do that. He whirled, going to face Hestia again. Dominic silently moved to close the door, ignoring Ernie entirely as the boy geared up for a speech. “You might not be on active duty now but you know when you can be you will be. You've done nothing but bitch and moan about how you're not on active duty ever since you got pregnant and now...”
“ENOUGH.” Dominic roared, certain the silencing charms he had put on the room would hold. “Enough from you, Macmillan, and Hestia...enough from you too.” He began to pace, fury seeming to drift off of him in waves. “Have you two any idea what you've done? YOU, Macmillan, with your typical adolescent desire to get yourself killed. You don't even SEE why they might be upset, I could personally care less if your desire is to walk headfirst into your own funeral, but they do, and you Hestia. YOU of all people know how sensitive Hannah is, and you know how pigheaded your trainee is. Shouting at him like this and threatening his life and explaining in very graphic details how he may be found hexed to bits might be the only way to get through his thick daft skull, but Hannah certainly doesn't need to hear that after you were nearly killed.” He growled, raking a hand through his hair. “I don't want either of you getting killed or kidnapped or anything of the sort, because I care for you, Hestia, and I care for Hannah, Macmillan. You, Macmillan, are going to resign and--”
“The hell I am!”
“You will resign, Macmillan,” Dominic said, his voice dangerous. “Or I will find some way to make you resign. I won't have you running out and getting killed and making Hannah cry again. You're not worth it.
At the words 'bitch' and 'moan' Hestia's temper was entirely lost and even as he continued, she was already nearly in his face growling out her words. Upstart little boy. Ridiculous, cheeky, foolish, argumentative idiot. "I think you should leave now – wait, WHAT?"
The sharp 'what' followed not Dominic's roar, but the 'enough from you, Hestia' part. Where in the world did he even begin to get off talking to her like that?! Loudmouthed, idiot git. She ignored the guilt already begun to be felt at his words, ignored the rightness of what he was saying, ignored everything but the fact he was yelling at her and spun on him instead, her fury now directed at both men even more so than before.
"Fine then," she all but yelled right back. "I'm going back to my flat and you, Dominic Abbott, can stuff it and you, Macmillan, you can go on being a fool for all I care!"
With all the hormonal flounce skills she possessed, Hestia stormed out of the library, slamming the door soundly behind her.
Dominic stared after Hestia for a long moment after she was gone. Perhaps he should have been a bit more calm with her, perhaps he should not have shouted at her like that, but honestly, what had there been left to do? Let her and Macmillan carry the fight downstairs for Hannah to hear it again?
Hannah...
“Get out, Macmillan, I think you've caused enough trouble for one day.” He didn't even bother to shift his gaze to look in the boy's general direction, instead his eyes were locked on the door that Hestia had just flounced out of. Even as the Macmillan boy sighed and left, Dominic's gaze didn't shift. Now he had to clean up the mess that Macmillan had made. He would give her a few moments, and then go find her. Someone had to be around to pick up the pieces.
At the stairs, Hannah hesitated. She should just go up to her room, give herself time to think about this all from the comfort of bed, but she found herself instead heading down the corridor and slipping into her mother's sitting room. Though the room was immaculately kept, it had the feel of disuse to it. One hand out, she traced a finger along one table and then the back of the sofa before moving around to the front of it and settling down on one cushion. It wasn't her mother's favourite chair, which might have been a bit too much right now.
Not far away, things were a bit more lively. "What do you mean, no?!" Hestia spluttered from the room with the Floo which she had been trying to get use of to leave.
Apparently what the Auror she was facing down with had just said. No.
"You can't tell me no! Bloody Christ!" Always with the invocations of her grandfather's religion when thoroughly riled. "I outrank you!"
Yet, still a no and continuing to be a no as she kept on arguing.
Ernie went out the front door, going to Apparate from the boundary to his flat. He couldn't believe how very wrong this had all gone. He had thought that it would go so differently, that Hannah would be proud and pleased for him, and that Hestia would tease him and ruffle his hair a bit but be proud too that she had led him to this, that she taught him how to be this competent.
His fist clenched, his jaw clenched, and then he was gone. He had to contact Hannah, but he had told her that he wouldn't follow her. He'd journal her when he got home, send her owls, do whatever he had to to make it up to her. Damn. This was so wrong, all of it.
Dominic smiled when he heard Hestia fighting with the Auror. He was glad that the Auror wouldn't let her leave, because she needed to stay. He was also glad that it was the Auror getting shouted at and not him, perhaps Hestia would wear herself out before he was ready to talk to her. He just didn't want her to leave. He wasn't ready for her to be out there yet, where anyone could steal her away again. He would go and calm her down too, but he had to make certain that Hannah was alright first.