Post by Madison Renée Black on Oct 17, 2009 17:25:22 GMT -5
Stifling the urge to curse as everything seemed to go wrong at once, Madison shoved the front door of 12 Grimmauld Place shut with a growl. A pair of shoes had been left in the middle of the hallway - one of the twins', by the look of it - and as she wasn't really looking that closely at the floor when she walked in, she tripped over them. That, of course, had sent her close enough to the troll-leg umbrella stand to knock it over - it hit the floor with a predictable BANG! As if all that wasn't bad enough, the portrait of Walburga Black at the end of the hall started shrieking the run-of-the-mill slurs - which also set off all the other portraits in the hallway.
"Vile half-bloods, polluting the honorable house of my fathers! Wretched thieves, curs-!"
"That's quite enough from you." Making it down the hall while the other portraits hadn't worked up quite enough steam to raise that much of a din, Madison forced the curtains closed across Walburga's portrait and waited for her to go silent. The next task was making the other portraits go silent as well, which took all in all ten minutes.
"Always a struggle just to come in the door.." Blowing an errant whisp of hair out of her face, she then made straight for the kitchen. She'd unceremoniously shoved the shoes that started all that mess into the umbrella stand, vowing to deal with it later once her nerves weren't curved as tight as a bedstring beneath the weight of a elephant.
Sirius was out as seemed to be the way of things, and by the silence meeting her little struggle in the hall, so were the kids. Thus alone for the time being, she snuck one of the secreted bottles of Firewhiskey - one she'd hidden from Sirius due to his recent binge-drinking stint - from its hiding place in a cabinet.
Tempted not to bother with a glass, she pulled one of the heavy mugs out and poured a full measure of the fiery liquid, downing close to a quarter of it in her first draught. Hard days at work were more punctuated now, since she had been taking lesser hours on - a promise to her husband saw to that. Less work meant more to do when she was actually sent out, and this time she was actually nursing curse damage from a near-miss with a suspected Death Eater. That would be something for her to see to later.
"Siri's gonna kill me." She groused to the mug of liquor, speaking to it due to a significant lack of any other living creature in the house - except perhaps the old house-elf, which more or less lived in the attic. When in need of something to talk to, inanimate objects were the next best thing - and certainly were better than talking to oneself.
Taking another few swallows from the mug, she contemplated the wood grain of the old table, absently picking at a groove with one fingernail. Always cleaning to be done, especially in the Black household. Mind already going to how much she would end up doing that afternoon, she half-rose to get to it - then sank back down as she remembered talking to Lily a few days before. They had agreed to meet up on one of her early-off afternoons..and she had hit the first one since that promise.
"Guess I won't be alone after all." she murmured to thin air, eyeing the bottle that was set across the table from her.
"Vile half-bloods, polluting the honorable house of my fathers! Wretched thieves, curs-!"
"That's quite enough from you." Making it down the hall while the other portraits hadn't worked up quite enough steam to raise that much of a din, Madison forced the curtains closed across Walburga's portrait and waited for her to go silent. The next task was making the other portraits go silent as well, which took all in all ten minutes.
"Always a struggle just to come in the door.." Blowing an errant whisp of hair out of her face, she then made straight for the kitchen. She'd unceremoniously shoved the shoes that started all that mess into the umbrella stand, vowing to deal with it later once her nerves weren't curved as tight as a bedstring beneath the weight of a elephant.
Sirius was out as seemed to be the way of things, and by the silence meeting her little struggle in the hall, so were the kids. Thus alone for the time being, she snuck one of the secreted bottles of Firewhiskey - one she'd hidden from Sirius due to his recent binge-drinking stint - from its hiding place in a cabinet.
Tempted not to bother with a glass, she pulled one of the heavy mugs out and poured a full measure of the fiery liquid, downing close to a quarter of it in her first draught. Hard days at work were more punctuated now, since she had been taking lesser hours on - a promise to her husband saw to that. Less work meant more to do when she was actually sent out, and this time she was actually nursing curse damage from a near-miss with a suspected Death Eater. That would be something for her to see to later.
"Siri's gonna kill me." She groused to the mug of liquor, speaking to it due to a significant lack of any other living creature in the house - except perhaps the old house-elf, which more or less lived in the attic. When in need of something to talk to, inanimate objects were the next best thing - and certainly were better than talking to oneself.
Taking another few swallows from the mug, she contemplated the wood grain of the old table, absently picking at a groove with one fingernail. Always cleaning to be done, especially in the Black household. Mind already going to how much she would end up doing that afternoon, she half-rose to get to it - then sank back down as she remembered talking to Lily a few days before. They had agreed to meet up on one of her early-off afternoons..and she had hit the first one since that promise.
"Guess I won't be alone after all." she murmured to thin air, eyeing the bottle that was set across the table from her.
