Who: Cassi and Pollux Black What: A difficult conversation Where: Pollux's study When: Saturday afternoon Warnings: None so far
Cassiopeia had always taken responsibility for tidying the study. Allowing muggles in there would be taking too much of a risk; they'd either hurt themselves or start telling tales about enchanted objects. There wasn't much privacy left to them, what with everyone having arrived and the family being the talk of the network, but that wasn't any excuse to let things get worse. She'd salvage what she could, and part of that was making sure that their home was still a safe place. It had always been important, but Cassi wasn't just playing house any longer. She had Arcturus to look after, and everything else.
It was a strain. Of course it was, she was aware enough of her own behavior to have noted it. Cassiopeia Black didn't lose her temper unless things were terribly difficult. Even then it wasn't an excuse. She had slipped; she wouldn't do it again. Arcturus was a child and none of this was his fault. She'd had to listen to him going on about the fact that he was going to be ill, and hadn't she been reassuring? Hadn't she promised him that she'd stay with him and look after him? It was what she was supposed to do, what she had to do, even though she hadn't really the time for it.
She knew what it was to be ill and frightened, after all.
Arcturus was nothing more to her than a long-dead relative she recollected from the tree and the histories, really. But he was here, a child, and family, however distantly. And as much as she hated to admit it, after their fight he'd been if not pleasant to her, then at least not insulting and dismissive as he had been before. At this rate, she knew, she'd be attached to him before too long. Children tended to have that effect on her, whether she liked it or not.
It wasn't Arcturus, however, who was her concern today. It was Pollux. Pollux, who had been locking himself away in the study. Who had been leaving empty bottles in the wastepaper basket, and in the kitchen bin, too, as if she wouldn't notice.
Cassi's first reaction was one of deep sympathy and even deeper terror. It wasn't that she couldn't understand why. Whatever she suffered with, Pollux had it that much worse; he had to be responsible for all of them, and if things went wrong there wasn't anyone at all for him to turn to. That was simple fact. Yet if this continued - and she'd left it several days for that very reason - then someday something would be wrong and Pollux would be indisposed and it would be all on Cassi.
With all their relatives here, there was so much that might go wrong, and more than that, more than her selfish fears, she didn't want to see her brother in such a state. If it was all so terrible that he needed an escape, then she'd have to make things better. She'd have to. The trouble was that she didn't have the first idea how.
The first step, she supposed, was in talking to him. That was hardly going to be easy; he wouldn't want to talk about it and making Pollux talk about something he didn't want to was harder than coaxing a fretful toddler. Yet Cassiopeia knew it was for the best. She waited for him, then, in the study. He'd be along sooner or later. On his desk she'd set two of the discarded bottles. Enough for proof, but not an accusatory line. She wanted to help him, not to scold him. Not knowing how long it would be before he returned home, she busied herself by laying out bits of paper on the desk, then transfiguring them into muggle currency. She couldn't sit about all afternoon doing nothing, after all, and the rent was due soon.