InsaneJournal

AS Effie trudged through the front door of the Pepper residence, she felt as tough she was forty-years-old. She was donned in all black, having spent the morning giving her best friend concerned looks and occasionally reaching over to hold his hand. While she didn't know Dorcas Meadowes terribly well, she knew that she would have eventually if Peadar had had his way. And so, Effie had done her best to be supportive and only hoped to Merlin that she had helped him in some way.

Once she got home, however, Effie was about as mentally exhausted as she figured someone could be without truly losing her mind. It probably didn't help that she was permanently antsy with the absence of Quidditch to take up her time, although she knew that her constantly connecting thoughts about Aurors, being a target, and figuring that Pepper's condition probabyl didn't help their situation keeping her up at night only made it worse. She was worn down, she realized as she slipped her heels off and started toward the sitting room.

She had known that she would find Pepper there and the fact that he was came as such a relief to her. With everything being so incredibly unstable right now and it becoming increasingly easier to forget who one could and couldn't rely on, it was nice to know that she could come home and he would always be there. The bit of stability went a long way.

Not even giving any kind of greeting just yet, Effie headed toward the sofa with every intention of falling down onto it. Instead, she went directly to Pepper and slipped into his lap so she was facing him, able to loops her arms around his neck and press her face into his shoulder.

And then, finally, she managed a muffled, "Hey."

Pepper had been dozing off watching the news on the telly, having spent the majority of the day ignoring the evil eyes from Curry who had parked herself under the television tray. At this point Pepper was convinced that she was plotting his doom, because despite how many weeks had passed since his return from the hospital, she still wouldn't give him the time of day, and if he approached her or managed to get her in his arms, she threw a shit fit. So Pepper had stopped trying, instead focusing his attention on his work with Jon and Damo, and improving on his terrible cooking skills (the latter to no avail).

When Effie plopped herself down in his lap he came to with a bit of start. "Oh, hello," he replied, face in her hair. "Alright, love?"

Effie managed to let out something that sounded much like "mrmph" before she straightened up a bit. Her eyes flickered over his face as one of her hands ran through his hair to straighten it a bit, then she just sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine. I guess." She paused for a brief moment, looking much like she wanted to add something somewhat important to that before she just shook her head and sighed. "I don't do well with funerals."

"You guess," Pepper replied, cocking his head slightly and giving her a small smile. "You don't sound so sure of yourself there." He ran a hand up and down her back slowly.

"I don't think I am so sure of myself," Effie admitted, scrunching her nose up a little bit. She didn't look Pepper straight in the eye, instead watching as her fingers sort of twirled around in his hair. "I just... I feel so bad for Peadar. We've not even been out of Hogwarts a year and he had to bury his significant other?"

It was rough, she knew it, which was why she looked back down to meet his eyes and rushed into the next part of what she had been thinking about. "Do you have a will?"

Pepper blinked in surprise at her last question, and then furrowed his eyebrows, considering it. "No. I thought about it, after... after what happened. But I guess I sort of pushed it aside once I got home again and involved with work at the lab." He certainly didn't think that, in times like these, arranging something like that was a bad idea. It was clear to Pepper that there was no rhyme or reason to the way the Death Eaters were doing things, and if they attacked Effie once, who was to say they wouldn't try again? Her father was head of the Auror Department, and they'd attacked another Auror and then kidnapped two Auror's parents. What was, beyond their wards, stopping a few masked assholes from coming in through their front door and taking them hostage, or killing them, or... whatever else?

"It would be a good idea to do one up though, considering."

"Yeah," Effie started with a long sigh, her gaze rising again to look at her fingers. Playing with his hair was somewhat calming, so she kept doing it as she thought this whole thing over. Otherwise, we knew that she would just plain panic. Effie wasn't one for panicking, but it was pretty easy for her to do it as of late. She thought that she had reason enough for it.

After a brief pause, though, she continued, "Yeah, I think so. I don't really have that much and I have no idea how to do it, but... seems like it would make sense."

"We can... we I'm sure you could ask your dad. He probably knows who we should talk to to make sure everything is legal and done right," Pepper suggested with a shrug. He didn't really know a whole lot about the magical judicial system where things like wills and divorces and etcetera were concerned. He knew his dad would know what to do if they were living in the muggle world, but Pepper doubted that that would hold up in a magical court of law.

"Yeah, I'll ask my dad," Effie agreed with a little nod, her brow furrowing a bit. She had a good bit of money from the short stint of professional Quidditch she had been able to enjoy before things got called off, all of which was in Gringotts until she needed it... but if something were to happen to the both of them, it would be good to figure out where it would go. Not that anything would happen to both of them. Oh, she really hoped that nothing happened to the both of them.

Leaning forward again, Effie's fingers slipped around the back of Pepper's head and she breathed out a sigh as her cheek came to rest on her shoulder. "We shouldn't have to worry about this kind of stuff."

Pepper sighed, wrapping his arms around her tightly. "No, no we shouldn't. But. You're right. That's almost twice now since we've been married that one of us has almost lost the other. We should be prepared, just in case. I don't like to think about it, but with your dad and with... me as I am, and then all these deaths and disappearances... we. Well. Who's next, I guess."

"Exactly," Effie agreed, albeit a bit reluctantly. Not because he was wrong, but because she hated that it was coming to this. After a little moment, she asked with a quirked smile (not that he could see it, with her face in his shoulder), "Do you ever think that maybe we should have just never left Austria? I think our lives would have been a lot easier."

"Maybe," Pepper replied, pressing a light kiss to the space just below her ear. "But we wouldn't be with our families, we wouldn't even really know what's going on. I don't think that I would be able to... to leave."

"No," Effie replied quickly, straightening up enough to shake her head. "No, you're right. I wouldn't be able to do that either. Someone has to make sure that Marlene doesn't completely lose her head again, you know?"

To that, Pepper snorted. "Yes, I suppose so," he replied, rolling his eyes from where he'd buried his face in her neck. "I think you went through something more traumitising, personally, and you're not sneaking the cooking sherry or anything so far as I can tell."

"I'm just really good at masking the smell," Effie teased, reaching up to tip his chin up and steal a kiss from him. She looked a little thoughtful when she broke it, though, cringing just a bit. "I don't know. I worry about her. She's not all that much older than me, but I know she likes to pretend she's eons older... but sometimes I feel like I'm the one that's years older than her."

"She's doing better though, you said so yourself. Least she's dealing with her problems," Pepper said, resting his forehead on hers, their noses touching. "And she talks to you instead of yelling. Least you know you can actually approach her now."

"Yeah, it's nice," Effie agreed, her arms slipping around Pepper's neck and tugging him a bit closer but otherwise not moving. "I really hated arguing with her all of the time."

Effie had long since realized that she was just as guilty in some of that as Marlene had been. She just wished that it wouldn't have taken Pepper being bitten by a werewolf to make things all right between the two of them again. It seemed fairly extreme.

Things were quiet for a few minutes outside of the buzz of the telly in the background. Pepper absently started rubbing Effie's back again. "Want to go have a lie down? Might be good to sleep for an hour or two, then maybe we can go see your dad tonight?"

Effie nodded her agreement, pulling away from him with a little sigh. "That actually sounds great," she murmured, looking down at herself and scrunching her nose up as she realized she was still wearing her funeral garb. "I'm going to put on my brightest pair of pajama pants. Maybe those bright yellow ones, to offset the black."

"Sounds good to me," Pepper replied, pulling his arms away from her and stretching upward. Then he grinned. "Come on then. I'll even help you take your clothes off."