Never take yourself too seriously. You may be interviewing the President today...
Lavender hitched her bag higher on her shoulder before she rose her arm, knocking briskly on the door she'd been given instructions to. This was the last part to her interview and her deadline was quickly approaching. She needed to speak with Sirius Black, and the timing was getting dire.
When no one appeared at the door in a timely manner, she sighed before knocking again.
Sirius tossed a grease-soaked rag into the rubbish bin as he made his way to the door. He'd been working on the Bonnie, and it had been slow going. Undoing a couple of decades of neglect was harder than he'd been expecting. Opening the door, he was confronted with a pretty, curvy young woman. "Ms. Brown, I presume?" he asked. His old flirty smile made an appearance for a moment, before he remembered that he was quite happily attached. "I'm pleased to finally meet you."
From what she'd read in the papers, and heard from in school, she had not expected him to so... fit. Of course, the WANTED posters that had been plastered over Hogsmeade hadn't really done him justice. She was sure thirteen years in Azkaban could make anyone a bit scruffy. She smiled in response to the grin on his face. "Yes. Finally. I was wondering if you'd gotten my owl at all, or if you were just offended and decided to ignore it."
"Of course not," Sirius replied with a smile. "Actually, I've been busy dealing with some of the legal issues associated with my unexpected return to the land of the living."
"Conveniently for me, that is exactly the topic I've come to speak to you about. Mind if I come in? The hallway is not the ideal place to conduct an interview," she said, hopefully giving him a winning smile.
"Oh! Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's been a very long since I've been a host." Stepping back, he motioned her inside. "It seems I'm a bit rusty at it."
Lavender entered the flat, giving it a once over. Were she here under a non-business reason, she'd have snooped a bit more. You could really tell a lot about the person by the type of place they lived in. She wasn't sure what the Loft said about herself and Justin. Not that he lived there. Not that she'd asked him to live there.
Focus, Lav.
She turned back to Sirius, pulling a pad of parchment and a quill from her bag. "Since you've been busy, I suppose I can make this quick. Unless you have a habit to get wordy."
"I have been told from time to time that I love the sound of my own voice a bit too much," Sirius said with a chuckle, "but I'll try to refrain from babbling too terribly much."
Sitting on a sofa, not wanting to wait for an invite because, as he'd said, he was a rather lousy host, Lavender looked up at Sirius with a calculating look on her face. Diving right in seemed like the best thing in this situation. She couldn't imagine drudging up these memories would be pleasant. "Most people know about you from what they've read in the papers. Doing a little research tells them what they need to know about your life at Hogwarts. What about pre-Hogwarts? What was life like in the Black household growing up?"
"Painful," Sirius replied dryly. "The Blacks were depressingly typical for an old pureblood family - stern, rigid, unforgiving... bigoted." He shook his head. "I shudder to think how I might have turned out it I hadn't have had James about growing up, or Remus and Hestia later." He sighed. "Probably just like Bella." Or Narcissa, he though sourly, though he knew better than to say that on the record - she'd not hesitate to crucify him for it.
Nodding, her quill scratching across the parchment, Lavender considered her next question. "Most of what happened after graduation, and before your incarceration," she said, carefully avoiding directly talking about James and Lily Potter's deaths, "was reported by Harry when he fought for your pardon and exoneration. It's public record. However, you didn't get to know him for that long before your 'death'. What was it like to learn about who he was, who he'd grown up to be?"
"It was wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. Getting to know him was amazing. It was as if someone had taken the best of James and Lily, and created this amazing little person." Sirius' expression darkened. "When I found out about his life outside of Hogwarts, it was all I could do not to hex those damned Dursleys into oblivion."
"I also felt guilty as sin." Sirius sighed heavily. "If I'd not chased after Peter like a damned fool, he never would have been subjected to that."
"You were going after the man who had killed two of your best friends. Would you have felt better if you'd done nothing?"
"I'd have felt better if I'd taken care of my best friends' infant child, instead of running off like a selfish, bloodthirsty berk," Sirius responded a bit sharply. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Sorry. It's still a bit of a sore spot for me."
Lavender knew making Sirius Black angry was not the best idea, but she knew talking about his past wasn't going to kittens and rainbows. None of the stories in this article would be easy. Percy's, perhaps, but only because the information was hard to get in the first place.
"I can't imagine," she finally said. "Let's jump ahead then, alright? What do you remember of the night you 'died'?"
"I remember dueling Bella in the Death Room. I had her beat, but instead of putting her down like I should have, I played with her like an idiot. One bludgeoning hex later, and I was sailing through that damned Veil."
The stories of what had happened in that room were fantastic in an almost unreal way. The only battles Lavender'd ever been a part of where the Final Battle at Hogwarts and the raid on the French Camp. She couldn't even picture a fight strictly between seasoned Order members and Aurors and trained Death Eaters. She imagined it was very colorful, with all those wands flashing and the hexes flying.
"What do you remember of the time where you were, and how long did it feel like?"
"It was three very long days of gray, surrounded by the dessicated husks of the others who'd been tossed through. From what the researchers at the Department of Mysteries said, the Veil was just an early experiment in space expansion charms. I'm not sure of the mechanics, but they said that it apparently expanded time as well." Sirius chuckled. "I spent eight years in what was basically amounted to a prehistoric larder."
Lavender stuck her tongue out. "You were surrounded by dead bodies for three whole days? Gods, you and my boyfriend would get along brilliantly."
Sirius thought for a few moments, then began laughing. "Tall bloke? A bit sober? Unspeakable? Spends too much time around dead people?" He grinned. "Actually, he was the first person I saw once I got out. He was waist deep in mummified bodies at the time, so having one of them start speaking to him was a bit of a shock. I remember telling him that I'd be happy to leave, if he'd like a little 'alone time' with them."
The sickened look on her face didn't lessen. "Oh, you really didn't have to tell me that. He came home to me that night. Waist deep in mummies,," she whispered to herself, looking back down at her parchment with a look of great distaste crossing her features.
"Oh. Oh, damn," Sirius murmured with a grimace. "Sorry. If it makes you feel better, he wasn't actually touching any of them. He was covered head to toe in protective gear."
She tried to imagine Justin wearing a bright orange suit, covering everything except for a small square hole where you could see his eyes. It brought a smile to her face.
Shaking her head, Lavender looked back up at Sirius. "Thank you for the mental imagery, Mr. Black, but we best get back to the interview."
Sirius grinned in response. "If we must." He thought for a moment before resuming his story. "At any rate, I spent three days walking toward the exit. It was basically a monstrously huge, featureless gray room. Near the end, I was getting a bit nervous. Three days without food or water, and the exit was still a long way off. Then suddenly, the light at the exit started rushing towards me. It turns out that the Unspeakables studying the Veil accidentally unraveled the charms on it. The room collapsed. It ejected me and the rest of the unfortunate bastards at fairly high speed. I cracked my head on the arch along the way, and got knocked out. I woke up to your boyfriend grumbling about not being able to get home to his girlfriend because of the 'damned eggheads'."
Lavender let out a bark of laughter, sitting forward in her chair, the interview forgotten for a moment. "Bollocks! Now you're just having me on!"
Sirius grinned. "I'm afraid not. Granted, I didn't know who 'Lav' was at the time, but he was less than thrilled about having to work when he was supposed to be home with you."
She shook her head, rolling her eyes a bit. "Justin's job is the most important thing to him. He's very loyal, and he's been doing it for years. It's his priority. Trust me, you were a puzzle, and he was happy to try and piece it together."
Letting out a breath, her eyes roving over the notes she'd already taken, she nodded, sorting out what other questions she had to wrap up. "What was it like, coming back to a world where it felt like only three days had passed, but realizing that it had actually been eight?"
"Disconcerting," Sirius said, his expression pensive. "Pretty good though, on the whole. Voldemort is gone. I've been exonerated, at least to an extent, so I'm not on the run anymore." Plus Hestia and I stopped dancing around each other, he thought with a smile.
"Brilliant," Lavender said, adding a period to the end of that sentence. "What do you plan to do with your new found freedom? Any large plans?"
"Aside from getting my things back from the Ministry? I hadn't really thought too much about it yet, to be honest."
Lavender laughed a bit, "well, Mr. Black, you might want to start thinking about it."
Sirius chuckled. "Do you think that Fred Weasley is in the market for a partner?"
Summary: Lavender gets her final interview for her story from Sirius.
When no one appeared at the door in a timely manner, she sighed before knocking again.
Sirius tossed a grease-soaked rag into the rubbish bin as he made his way to the door. He'd been working on the Bonnie, and it had been slow going. Undoing a couple of decades of neglect was harder than he'd been expecting. Opening the door, he was confronted with a pretty, curvy young woman. "Ms. Brown, I presume?" he asked. His old flirty smile made an appearance for a moment, before he remembered that he was quite happily attached. "I'm pleased to finally meet you."
From what she'd read in the papers, and heard from in school, she had not expected him to so... fit. Of course, the WANTED posters that had been plastered over Hogsmeade hadn't really done him justice. She was sure thirteen years in Azkaban could make anyone a bit scruffy. She smiled in response to the grin on his face. "Yes. Finally. I was wondering if you'd gotten my owl at all, or if you were just offended and decided to ignore it."
"Of course not," Sirius replied with a smile. "Actually, I've been busy dealing with some of the legal issues associated with my unexpected return to the land of the living."
"Conveniently for me, that is exactly the topic I've come to speak to you about. Mind if I come in? The hallway is not the ideal place to conduct an interview," she said, hopefully giving him a winning smile.
"Oh! Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's been a very long since I've been a host." Stepping back, he motioned her inside. "It seems I'm a bit rusty at it."
Lavender entered the flat, giving it a once over. Were she here under a non-business reason, she'd have snooped a bit more. You could really tell a lot about the person by the type of place they lived in. She wasn't sure what the Loft said about herself and Justin. Not that he lived there. Not that she'd asked him to live there.
Focus, Lav.
She turned back to Sirius, pulling a pad of parchment and a quill from her bag. "Since you've been busy, I suppose I can make this quick. Unless you have a habit to get wordy."
"I have been told from time to time that I love the sound of my own voice a bit too much," Sirius said with a chuckle, "but I'll try to refrain from babbling too terribly much."
Sitting on a sofa, not wanting to wait for an invite because, as he'd said, he was a rather lousy host, Lavender looked up at Sirius with a calculating look on her face. Diving right in seemed like the best thing in this situation. She couldn't imagine drudging up these memories would be pleasant. "Most people know about you from what they've read in the papers. Doing a little research tells them what they need to know about your life at Hogwarts. What about pre-Hogwarts? What was life like in the Black household growing up?"
"Painful," Sirius replied dryly. "The Blacks were depressingly typical for an old pureblood family - stern, rigid, unforgiving... bigoted." He shook his head. "I shudder to think how I might have turned out it I hadn't have had James about growing up, or Remus and Hestia later." He sighed. "Probably just like Bella." Or Narcissa, he though sourly, though he knew better than to say that on the record - she'd not hesitate to crucify him for it.
Nodding, her quill scratching across the parchment, Lavender considered her next question. "Most of what happened after graduation, and before your incarceration," she said, carefully avoiding directly talking about James and Lily Potter's deaths, "was reported by Harry when he fought for your pardon and exoneration. It's public record. However, you didn't get to know him for that long before your 'death'. What was it like to learn about who he was, who he'd grown up to be?"
"It was wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time. Getting to know him was amazing. It was as if someone had taken the best of James and Lily, and created this amazing little person." Sirius' expression darkened. "When I found out about his life outside of Hogwarts, it was all I could do not to hex those damned Dursleys into oblivion."
"I also felt guilty as sin." Sirius sighed heavily. "If I'd not chased after Peter like a damned fool, he never would have been subjected to that."
"You were going after the man who had killed two of your best friends. Would you have felt better if you'd done nothing?"
"I'd have felt better if I'd taken care of my best friends' infant child, instead of running off like a selfish, bloodthirsty berk," Sirius responded a bit sharply. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Sorry. It's still a bit of a sore spot for me."
Lavender knew making Sirius Black angry was not the best idea, but she knew talking about his past wasn't going to kittens and rainbows. None of the stories in this article would be easy. Percy's, perhaps, but only because the information was hard to get in the first place.
"I can't imagine," she finally said. "Let's jump ahead then, alright? What do you remember of the night you 'died'?"
"I remember dueling Bella in the Death Room. I had her beat, but instead of putting her down like I should have, I played with her like an idiot. One bludgeoning hex later, and I was sailing through that damned Veil."
The stories of what had happened in that room were fantastic in an almost unreal way. The only battles Lavender'd ever been a part of where the Final Battle at Hogwarts and the raid on the French Camp. She couldn't even picture a fight strictly between seasoned Order members and Aurors and trained Death Eaters. She imagined it was very colorful, with all those wands flashing and the hexes flying.
"What do you remember of the time where you were, and how long did it feel like?"
"It was three very long days of gray, surrounded by the dessicated husks of the others who'd been tossed through. From what the researchers at the Department of Mysteries said, the Veil was just an early experiment in space expansion charms. I'm not sure of the mechanics, but they said that it apparently expanded time as well." Sirius chuckled. "I spent eight years in what was basically amounted to a prehistoric larder."
Lavender stuck her tongue out. "You were surrounded by dead bodies for three whole days? Gods, you and my boyfriend would get along brilliantly."
Sirius thought for a few moments, then began laughing. "Tall bloke? A bit sober? Unspeakable? Spends too much time around dead people?" He grinned. "Actually, he was the first person I saw once I got out. He was waist deep in mummified bodies at the time, so having one of them start speaking to him was a bit of a shock. I remember telling him that I'd be happy to leave, if he'd like a little 'alone time' with them."
The sickened look on her face didn't lessen. "Oh, you really didn't have to tell me that. He came home to me that night. Waist deep in mummies,," she whispered to herself, looking back down at her parchment with a look of great distaste crossing her features.
"Oh. Oh, damn," Sirius murmured with a grimace. "Sorry. If it makes you feel better, he wasn't actually touching any of them. He was covered head to toe in protective gear."
She tried to imagine Justin wearing a bright orange suit, covering everything except for a small square hole where you could see his eyes. It brought a smile to her face.
Shaking her head, Lavender looked back up at Sirius. "Thank you for the mental imagery, Mr. Black, but we best get back to the interview."
Sirius grinned in response. "If we must." He thought for a moment before resuming his story. "At any rate, I spent three days walking toward the exit. It was basically a monstrously huge, featureless gray room. Near the end, I was getting a bit nervous. Three days without food or water, and the exit was still a long way off. Then suddenly, the light at the exit started rushing towards me. It turns out that the Unspeakables studying the Veil accidentally unraveled the charms on it. The room collapsed. It ejected me and the rest of the unfortunate bastards at fairly high speed. I cracked my head on the arch along the way, and got knocked out. I woke up to your boyfriend grumbling about not being able to get home to his girlfriend because of the 'damned eggheads'."
Lavender let out a bark of laughter, sitting forward in her chair, the interview forgotten for a moment. "Bollocks! Now you're just having me on!"
Sirius grinned. "I'm afraid not. Granted, I didn't know who 'Lav' was at the time, but he was less than thrilled about having to work when he was supposed to be home with you."
She shook her head, rolling her eyes a bit. "Justin's job is the most important thing to him. He's very loyal, and he's been doing it for years. It's his priority. Trust me, you were a puzzle, and he was happy to try and piece it together."
Letting out a breath, her eyes roving over the notes she'd already taken, she nodded, sorting out what other questions she had to wrap up. "What was it like, coming back to a world where it felt like only three days had passed, but realizing that it had actually been eight?"
"Disconcerting," Sirius said, his expression pensive. "Pretty good though, on the whole. Voldemort is gone. I've been exonerated, at least to an extent, so I'm not on the run anymore." Plus Hestia and I stopped dancing around each other, he thought with a smile.
"Brilliant," Lavender said, adding a period to the end of that sentence. "What do you plan to do with your new found freedom? Any large plans?"
"Aside from getting my things back from the Ministry? I hadn't really thought too much about it yet, to be honest."
Lavender laughed a bit, "well, Mr. Black, you might want to start thinking about it."
Sirius chuckled. "Do you think that Fred Weasley is in the market for a partner?"
Summary: Lavender gets her final interview for her story from Sirius.