RP: Dinner for Two

[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

Date: 30. November, 2001
Characters: Cecilia Proudfoot and Sirius Black
Setting: Early evening, Sirius' house
Content: TBD
Status: Open: Private


The basket on the kitchen table had been packed even before Jamie had left to join the rest of his class for the astronomy camp-out. Some of the faster growing vegetables in her own garden were on the verge of being ready for harvesting; another short week or so, she estimated, but they weren't completely right for tonight. So, she had made a round of the market, adding to the things she already had in her cooler and cupboards as well as a good portion of what most of all resembled dark turkey meat. She forgot which animal it came from, but she recognized it as a favorite whenever it was available.

After her shower she had let her hair dry into the stubborn curls she had given up on trying to tame, though she did let it hang loose, rather than tying it up in the usual ponytail. The clothes took a bit more consideration. Dinner with Sirius called for something a bit less casual than her regular everyday clothes, but they would be cooking, which took out some of the formality. She eyed her tank tops and cargo shorts longingly, but those wouldn't even be considered casual; they were her work clothes. Finally she settled on her white tunic with the black lace decoration over her sand coloured denim skirt and comfortable sandals. There, relaxed without being too casual.

With a light jumper draped over the basket, she apparated to Sirius' house, taking a moment to run her fingers through her hair, before she knocked on the door.

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[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

Cecilia had only just turned her head to take a look at the surroundings and the neighbouring houses when the door opened in front of her. "Thank you, Sirius," she greeted him with a smile, stepping through the door and past him into his living room.

He looked different tonight, and not just his clothes, which she would have to admit suited his slim frame very well. No, there was something else; he looked... relaxed, or at least more relaxed than she had seen him the few times they had met. Briefly she wondered if that had something to do with the fact, that the previous occasions had been unplanned, as opposed to tonight when he had been the one to initiate contact... If that was the case, she was willing to let him make the decisions in that area, because it suited him.

"I hope you're hungry," she told and offered him the basket as a sort of present for the host. "I've brought a bit of everything that looked good."

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Closing the door behind her, Sirius wondered once again at just this witch could possibly be attracted to him. His internal demons were loud and consistent in that regard but he closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, pushing those thoughts back to their normal 'white noise' level.

Sirius took the basket from her and carried it to the counter where he set it down. "Do I need fattening up?" he asked with a low laugh, teasing her on the weight of it. Sirius gestured to the cooler. "There's more in there as well. I wasn't sure what to get. I don't do a lot of cooking that doesn't involve an open flame."

"Can I get you something to drink? A glass of wine, perhaps?" he offered. Merlin's ghost but she looked great in a skirt. Nice legs. Sirius glanced away then, trying to shake off the many lurid thoughts that had flooded his mind just then.

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With a hand on the doorframe, Cecilia supported herself as she toed off her sandals before she, barefoot, followed Sirius to the kitchen. "Not necessarily, no," she smirked, taking the offered opportunity to openly give his body a glance over. He was slim, yes, bordering on skinny, but the look of him made her think that he was looking healthier now than he had before, as if he was filling out his body again. "I just figured that it'd be easier to cook up something with a good variation of ingredients to choose from."

She came up next to him by the counter. "A glass of wine sounds lovely, please," she accepted his offer. An amused ripple ran over her forehead at the way he looked her over, not unlike the glance over she had just given him, and then he looked away. "We could make something flambé if you miss the open flame." From the basket she pulled out one of the roots she had found and tested a bit, both at the lab but also at home in her kitchen once she was certain it wasn't poisonous. "But you have to try this one. Peel it, slice it and bake it in the oven with some herbs," pinching her thumb and middlefinger on each finger together, she kissed them tip of them and hummed softly, "it's wickedly delicious. Tastes sinfully delicious even if it's disgustingly healthy."

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

"You're right, of course. You'll have to forgive me, I'm unaccustomed to..." he hesitated briefly. 'Normal. You're unused to normality.' Remus' voice came in his thoughts. 'For Merlin's Sake, you're a bloody hermit.' "cooking for others. I'm barely capable of cooking for myself - if you call roasting fish over a campfire cooking."

She was close enough that he could smell the light scent of her perfume - or shampoo - he wasn't sure which. She didn't seem like the kind of woman who would bother with perfume - she didn't need it. His dark gaze was drawn like a moth to a flame by the movement of her fingers at her lips. He barely heard what she was saying.

The thousands of echoing thoughts in his head seemed to evaporate and Sirius reached out, curling his fingers around her bicep as he bent his head, the soft whisper of her lips under his drew a low groan in the back of his throat. Her mouth was so warm, so soft, and his head swam with confusion. Drawing back, Sirius blinked and released his hold on her arm, giving his head a shake as he apologized. "Sorry, that was out of line of me. Let me, um, get that wine for you."

[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

Sirius' fingers were surprisingly warm, she found, when they closed around her bicep and just moments later she found that his lips were equally warm and much softer than she had imagined. Wait! Had she actually imagined how his lips felt? Cecilia wondered about that for exactly a split-second, then gave into the kiss, accepting it, tasting him. She was just on the brink of losing herself in it, when he broke it off and drew away.

The look on his face was one she hoped to never see there again; the look of someone incorrectly thinking he had done something horribly wrong. That, however, wasn't what made her reach out for his hand, putting herself directly in front of him, keeping him from moving away. "Don't just kiss me and then walk away," she admonished him gently, her eyes on his as her hand came up to the back of his neck and she pulled him down for another kiss... or maybe to finish the one he had started. Slowly she deepened the kiss, taking her time to familiarize herself with the feel of him, seeking the taste of him, committing it to memory as her fingers carded into the soft hair at the back of his neck.

As slowly as she had eased into the kiss, just as slowly did she ease out of it until she could look up at him again. "Only an Englishman would apologize for a kiss," she told him softly, a smile playing on her lips, before she let go of him and returned to where she had been unpacking the basket. "Please, don't ever apologize for a kiss, Sirius."

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

He expected a great many things. For her to slap him. For her to walk out. For a plethora of stinging words to be flung at him. But the last thing, the very, very last thing Sirius expected was for her to scold him for his apology. That is, until she was pulling him down for another kiss - that wasn't even on the list of very last things but Sirius was beyond thought, beyond caring when her lips pressed to his. Cecilia was directing the kiss, mainly because he was too surprised to do anything more for a few seconds.

The soft, questioning swipe of her tongue against his was like an electric shock down his spine and Sirius gripped her hip with one hand as the other sought out the silken threads of her hair. He groaned softly and deepened the kiss more, his fingers tightening as his body woke to the sensations. She tasted of tea and something else, something he didn't recognize, and he pulled her closer, the need for more growing overwhelming in his thoughts just as she began to draw back. He blinked again, mind on fire, as he looked down at her. Her lips were darker from the kiss, the image sparking another cascade of intense desires.

"And only an Englishwoman would scold a man for being polite," Sirius replied wryly, thankful that her focus had returned to the basket because it made him clutch at normal thoughts again. He crossed to the cooler and took out the wine bottle, summoning two glasses from the cupboard before taking the cork out. She looked unaffected by the kiss, and Sirius concentrated on pouring the wine without spilling any of it. "We could bake the fish, with the, whatever you call those potato tasting things, in a bit of wine and butter," he offered, struggling to think straight.

[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

Cecilia's lips tingled. Her whole body tingled, and as she outwardly turned her attention to the basket on the kitchen counter, she found herself grateful that she was standing barefoot, as any sort of heel would surely have made the stumble. She could feel her stomach churning, though not in an uncomfortable way and a spark she had kept dormant begin to glow again. Hiding her smile behind the curtain of her loose hair, she bit her lips to keep from chuckling at Sirius' response. No, she would have to be nonchalant about this, especially because she had no idea what this was.

"Bulbs," Cecilia supplied Sirius with the name he was looking for, pulling one out and holding it up as if she was performing a show and tell. "I am pretty sure that's the scientific name for them." Nodding she failed to keep the neutral look on her face before she shook her head. "It has been named, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is. Sounds good with the baking, perhaps make small packets from baking paper to keep all the juices in. Add a few more roots to spice up the flavour? And you said you only cooked over an open flame..."

Picking out a handful of the roots she believed would go well with the fish, she moved to the sink, carefully beginning to rinse and peel them as each of them required. "So, what is more polite?" she asked in as neutral a voice as she could muster and keeping her eyes on the orange root in her hand. "Paying a woman the physical compliment in a way that makes her feel desired or in a way that makes her think herself the object of a wrong and mistaken desire?"

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

"Bulbs," he repeated, glancing down at the one she held up and then back up again to meet her gaze. She was trying for humor and he silently congratulated her on having that ability just then but it also underscored to him that she was unaffected by his kiss. "Baking paper? I don't know what the is. I don't even think I have that, unless it came with the house," Sirius admitted, gesturing vaguely to the drawers. "Feel free to look."

She moved around him, crossing just close enough that he imagined smelling her perfume. Sirius gave himself a mental shake and summoned the cutting board and a knife, laying the fish out on it before beginning to make a slender cut down the center. He had gotten it to the tail when she spoke again and Sirius stilled the knife in motion. Drawing it free from the fish, he stabbed it into the edge of the wooden block.

"Wrong and mistaken desire? Fuck, Cecilia. I'm utterly rubbish at this. I would think that would be perfectly clear! What do you want me to say? That you're driving me mad? That I want you? I think that's ground we've covered just now rather thoroughly," Sirius growled, taking his wand out. A silent spell plucked the bones free from the fish and sent them to the garbage bin.

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Drying her hands on the dishrag, Cecilia went to go find a leaf or a piece of parchment she could Transfigure into the paper they could use to wrap the fish in. She stopped with a jerk, her eyes wide as she took in Sirius' outburst, torn between walking away and giving him a piece of her mind. She did neither. Instead she just looked at him as he spelled the bones from the fish while her mind was flooded with the same question he had just asked her. What did she want him to say? What had she expected when she had asked him that question? Nothing, was what she had expected; she had meant it as nothing more than a silly comeback to his quip.

With a wave of her wand, she summoned one of the big leaves from a plant outside, and with another swish, she transfigured it into a thin, slightly greased sheet of paper that she placed on the counter with a slap of her hand. "That is baking paper." Try as she might, she couldn't keep the hurt out of her voice, and the humiliation of that realization made her turn around on her heel, headed directly for the door.

The click of the door closing behind her made her stop. Something was wrong, and it wasn't just the fact that she had stormed out of what could have been a nice dinner with a potential friend like an over-emotional teenager. She could feel the tree of the deck under her bare feet, and that discovery had her sigh deeply as she pinched the bridge of her nose and turned around, knocking on the door like she had done when she had first arrived what could only be ten minutes ago.

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

He didn't flinch when she slapped the parchment - paper - down, nor did he respond when it was very, very clear how upset she was. Sirius couldn't have responded. He had absolutely no idea what to say. He'd been honest. Perhaps too honest but what was done was done and he couldn't unsay the words he'd spoken. The click of the door did make him flinch and then sigh deeply. From intense kiss to utter failure in under five minutes. That had to be a record of some kind.

Sirius pushed away from the counter's edge and crossed to the sink, rinsing his hands clean before picking up the hand towel to dry them. His thoughts were chaotic, damning and heavy. Why had he chosen to be honest? What had possessed him to let his guard down like that? Of course she had left, he didn't blame her for that. Hell, he hadn't known why she'd accepted his invitation, or why she'd sought him out before.

A rap came at his door and Sirius frowned, throwing the hand towel to the counter before striding to the door, wondering who the hell could possibly be dropping by at a moment like this. He pulled the door open and the angry words on the tip of his tongue died away when he saw Cecilia standing there. "Damn it," he growled, grabbing her arm and tugging her close, his free hand cupping the back of her head as his lips sealed over hers in a fierce, thorough kiss, pouring the passion he felt into the deep kiss that he broke only when the need for air overrode the need for her. Pushing her hair back from her face, he growled. "I told you I was rubbish at this."

[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

Knocking on Sirius' door after she had left was beyond humiliating for her. A nagging voice in the back of her head kept insisting that she should just open the door and grab her sandals and let that be the end of it, but no matter how angry or disappointed he had made her, she couldn't betray the trust he had shown her when he had invited her to his home by invading his safety zone without permission. Another small voice kept telling her that she should just leave the sandals, but the reasonable part of her firmly pushed that voice down; these were good sandals and who knew when they would be able to get anything like that here again.

Ready to ask for her sandals back and then promise him that she wouldn't bother him anymore, Cecilia barely managed to open her mouth when the door was opened and Sirius pulled her close. She wanted to object, but instead her body overruled her mind when her arm wrapped around his neck and her lips parted under his, inviting him in. She moaned into the kiss, her fingers clenching around the fabric of his shirt, though only when it ended did she managed to draw the breath her body was calling for. The way he brushed her hair out of her face was so gentle and considerate, a stark contrast to the harsh words and the fierce kiss. Looking up at him, her breathing hard from the kiss, from the need he had spurred in her. Yes, he had told her that, but only after she had put her foot well and thoroughly in it. "And whatever possesses you to think I'm not?"

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

She hadn't pulled away, no, in fact, her reaction had been something he could only have dreamed of, the curl of her fingers in his shirt, the soft moan against his mouth. Merlin, but the taste of her was better than whiskey. Sirius was drowning and he hated every second of ending the kiss though the chance to look down into her beautiful gaze was some consolation. "A great many things possess me, Cecilia," Sirius replied gravely, carding his fingers into her soft hair.

"Please," he asked quietly, pressing another kiss, soft and chaste this time, to her lips. "Please, come back inside - dinner... and we can talk. All right?" He drew back then, but kept his hand on her waist, slipping his other hand down, fingers caressing the curve of her jaw and neck. Her skin was so soft, so perfect. "I'll behave - as much as I can - I promise."

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"And which one is making you think I'm not rubbish at this?" she whispered, repeating her question. Looking up at him, Cecilia felt as if she could easily lose herself trying to decipher the haunted look in his eyes. Eyes that she had only seen light up once or twice, but those few, rare occasions were ones she wanted to see again. Even before he had said so himself, she had known he had ghosts, or issues, or he was troubled or whichever wording people chose to use about someone with a traumatic past, such as Sirius. It didn't take a genius or even training in Mind Healing to figure out that a man who had been falsely sentenced to prison for murdering his friends and had spent more than a decade around Dementors and only recently had come back from what she could only compare to death would have a few issues with settling into a regular life. And yet, she felt drawn to him, attracted as she had told him, though to which degree she hadn't known until tonight, when his first, spontaneous kiss had made her see her attraction in a different light.

His fingers were so gentle, his voice soft and the chaste kiss more intimate than she could recall having been with any other man. Letting him draw her along as he stepped back inside the house, she closed the door behind them, though she didn't move away from him. "You shouldn't have to behave, Sirius," she whispered and swallowed down to calm herself and quiet the myriad of contradictory thoughts. "How can I possibly get to know you, if you behave? It shouldn't be an effort for you and if it is, then I'm not the one you... the one you should be... with." Her head was filled with thoughts, wants, needs, reasons she should leave and reasons she should stay and concern for the man who was holding her while looking at her in a way she didn't recognise from anywhere.

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

Unintelligible whispers chased around the edges of his thoughts, conflicting arguments rising and falling over and over again, the same caution of distance swelling loudly even as he struggled to ignore them. He believed he was endangering her, even now, just by being around him - his life was cursed and anyone how had been close to him had been consumed by that curse. 'Is it worth it? Sacrificing her life for a brief moment of happiness' Remus' voice rose up from the chaotic jumble and Sirius jaw tightened. 'I can protect her.' he thought as his fingers smoothed over her skin, silently mapping the smallest curves. "None of them do," he admitted softly. He didn't know her relationship history but he couldn't imagine to be worse than his.

The door closing only reinforced what she was saying but she couldn't possibly understand what that meant to him. He was raised with a certain degree of civility that he couldn't shake, no matter what. Even in Azkaban, those thoughts had strengthened him. "You don't know what you're asking, Cecilia," Sirius cautioned, taking a step away, his hand moving to rest on her shoulder for a moment before dropping away. "That last... involvement I had was just after Hogwarts. I can't - being a gentleman is part of who I am. I can't just step out of that."

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His soft admission made a smile tug at the seam of her lips. Slowly she nodded; she didn't have a whole lot of experience in the relationship department of her life, and the few instances she could actually refer to as relationships hadn't ended prettily.

Cecilia had to draw in a deep breath to hide her disappointment in Sirius' cautioning. This was it, she figured, preparing herself to hear how everything she had learned about him during the limited time she had spent with him had all been a charade. Her eyes narrowed slightly in confusion when he began talking about his last involvement. Okay, so that had been years ago, but so had hers. Granted not nearly as many years as his, but still, it wasn't anything recent. And then came the big issue, the part that had her give a small yelp of relief, before she clamped her hand solidly over her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. This wasn't a laughing matter, this was a matter based on a misunderstanding that she clearly needed to correct.

"Oh my gods, Sirius," she muttered behind her hand before she shook her head, and closed her eyes for a moment. Letting her hand come down from her mouth to take his hand, she looked at him. "In my world behaving and being a gentleman are two very different things. Being a gentleman is something you are, something that comes naturally to you, while behaving is something you do. Behaving is what you tell a naughty child to do to keep from being judged by people around you." Giving his hand a gentle squeeze, she hoped she hadn't ruined everything with their misunderstanding. "The very last thing I want to do, is have you be someone you're not in your own home."

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Her reaction was confusing and Sirius couldn't fathom what her expression could mean, nor was he going to make any assumptions. He'd assumed her rejection and that had turned out to be the exact opposite of what she had felt. The best thing to do now was to listen to her and try to filter out the thoughts that were pounding in his head.

There was a momentary surge of relief when he realized that there had been a basic misunderstanding between them and she wasn't objecting to him. The internal struggle was still there - he wanted her and yet, he believed that being a part of his life would endanger her. Cecilia squeezed his hand and that drew a focus to his thoughts. "I would point out my limited experience with children, now," Sirius joked wryly.

"Why don't we get the food cooking and then you can ask me anything you want," he suggested, nodding toward the kitchen. Sirius hoped she would agree, that they could start this over again on better ground and the evening wouldn't be a total loss.

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Cecilia's lips twitched and her eyebrow arched in amusement at Sirius' joke; his humour was improving, or maybe he was just beginning to relax. At least the misunderstanding had been corrected, despite his supposedly limited exposure to children, and that made Cecilia begin to relax again.

At his suggestion, she paused for a moment. She wanted to stay, wanted to get to know him better, figure out where her attraction to him came from, but it was just minutes ago that a failed attempt at teasing from her side had touched on some insecurity in Sirius, and she didn't want that to happen again. On the other hand, he had just invited her to ask him about anything he wanted to know, and she took that as a sign that he was prepared – at least to some degree – to deal with her potentially crossing the line again. Looking from the kitchen and back to him, she nodded, accepting his offer with a gentle smile. "You can ask, too," she let him know as she kept a hold on his hand and followed him back to the kitchen.

"What was it like?" she asked him as she picked up the roots she had left on the counter when she had left, moving them to the chopping board and began to cut them into small dices. "Coming back, I mean. What was it like coming back?"

[tt_sirius.insanejournal.com]

He let out his held breath when Cecilia moved back into the kitchen with him, letting him lead the way as he focused past their misunderstanding. They were from different worlds - there were bound to be misunderstandings but that one had been a serious point for him and it was a relief that she hadn't left. If she had, he would have understood but he would have missed her companionship.

It was a measure of her trust that she had agreed to finish the evening and he was going to do his best to make her not regret that decision. While she attended the vegetables, Sirius brought out the fresh butter from the cooler and opened a cupboard, taking down several jars of herbs that the Longbottom boy had given him. Her question, however expected, made him pause, his back to her as he looked out the window to the foliage blocked terrace beyond.

"From Azkaban or the Veil?" Sirius asked, his voice gruff as he summoned a glass cooking dish, silently sending a prayer of thanks to whatever deity made the builders stock the houses well. "The Veil was... when I woke up, I was laying on the rock in front of it. I recall hearing Hermione's voice in the distance, like an echo, just seeing the shimmering grey of the opening as it mutated into a deep blue. I... I didn't know where I was. Hermione - she was there when I was hexed into the Veil, you see."

[tt_cecilia.insanejournal.com]

"The veil," Cecilia said softly, scooping a handful of diced vegetables into a bowl. She let Sirius take the time he needed, sensing that he might need it. Perhaps it had been an unfairly hard question to ask him, but asking him what his favourite colour was, she thought, would have been making a mockery of his offer of complete honesty. Besides, she doubted he'd believe it was something she actually wanted to know, after all, a quick glance around the house would reveal a fondness for the colour green.

His answer made sense, in a way, because there was no way she could possibly understand what it was like, but it had affected him greatly, of that she had no doubt, and that was why she had asked the question; to get a better understanding of him. "Hermione..." she muttered, at first not certain who this woman was, when it struck her and she felt a bit silly for not having realised it immediately. "Oh, Hermione Granger, right?" That had to be her, otherwise she doubted he would have named her as casually as he had.

Bringing the bowl of vegetables over to where he had summoned the herbs, she put it down next to him in case he wanted to add some of them to it. "I guess I was more curious if you'd registered anything while you were... behind the veil," she looked up at him. "Like, the time you were there, was it an eternity or the five or six years you were there, or more like a blink of an eye?" Either way, his return was bound to have messed with his mind, though she was certain it would have been different all depending on how long it had seemed. Then again, this was solely for her own curiosity's sake and for her ability to understand him, to some extent, but it wasn't imperative that she knew. "You don't have to answer that, if you don't want to," she assured him with a gentle smile, placing his hand on top of his. "I can ask easier questions, too, if you prefer."

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"Yes, Hermione Granger. Brilliant witch. I'm indebted to her twice over now. She saved my life after I escaped Azkaban and I feel she saved it again to bring me out of the Veil," he replied somberly. There was little doubt in Sirius' mind that even though Hermione claimed the Veil accident had been simply that - an accident - that she had somehow affected the doorway to death enough to extract him from it's grasp.

Sirius glanced down at the bowl, making the assumption that Cecilia thought the vegetables would benefit from the herbs so he sprinkled a couple of fingerfuls onto them. Putting a spoon in the bowl, he tapped it and it began slowly turning the vegetables to mix them with the herbs. "I did say I would answer your questions," Sirius pointed out after a moment, grateful for her understanding but also knowing that she was extending him a trust that he hadn't yet earned.

"It might as well have been an eternity. The only friend I had in this... that world died while I was trapped there," he clarified, his tone taking on a small, but temporary hard edge. "I remember being hit with Bella's hex and feeling the push backward - the cold slip of the Veil as it touched my back. And then I don't remember anything specific. Whispers. Dark... dark whispers that came and went, speaking of vile, foul things." Sirius paused, his body giving a tiny shudder as he drew on those memories. He swallowed and looked down at her, his gaze grave. "I had no sensation of time passing. Just an engulfing sense of evil."

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Satisfied with the amount of herbs Sirius added to the bowl, Cecilia looked back up at him when he set the spoon to mix it. "You did," she acknowledged and summoned a few more of the leaves she had used to Transfigure before she had left. It wasn't only for her curiosity's sake that she was starting out with the hard questions. By asking the hard questions first, the ones she figured a lot of people were dying to know, Sirius would – hopefully – know that if she was staying around, it wasn't to get the answers from him. Hopefully.

One by one, she transfigured the leaves into sheets of baking paper, that she stacked neatly next to the bowl while she listened to him talk. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said quietly, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. For him to first be forced to be in what he himself had just described as an evil place, only to return and find that his only friend had died while he was gone was just more unfairness than a single person deserved in several lifetimes.

"And now that you're out from behind the veil," she started carefully, reaching for the fish and placing a suitable amount in the middle of the sheet on top. "Knowing what you know or remember from how it was there, what does that make you think about the place we've landed in? Is it really the paradise it looks to be, or is that all-encompassing evil still lurking all around?" If what was behind the veil was as evil as Sirius had described it, and she had no reason not to believe him on that one, then where would a time disruption through that very same veil have brought them? Removing the spoon from the bowl, she scooped a small handful of vegetables up, placing them on top of the fish before she meticulously began folding up the sides of the paper until it would hold liquid without it spilling over the edges. "Add a bit of butter and a touch of white wine, I'll close it up and seal in all the flavours while it bakes."