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002.
IT ALMOST FELT like a violation – finding out that her old favorite professor and the convicted mass-murderer were close with her father. Esme couldn't help but feel unabashedly angry – at her mother, for keeping the information from her, but also at herself, for not pushing Felicity for answers to questions she did not know how to ask.
George Goodwin was someone who Esme knew existed – he was her father, of course, and that didn't go away with death. Yet the man was a complete mystery, and Esme longed for pieces of the puzzle her mother had taken away from her when she was merely one year old.
And now, Sirius Black sat across from her, fiddling with a chipped blue mug full of tea, looking anxious and out-of-sorts. Esme probably looked no better – her lip was starting to bleed from where she had been chewing on it and the sounds of Mrs. Weasley yelling at the twins set her teeth on edge. The Black family home was remarkably big, yet very old – which meant Esme could hear creaks in the floorboards from where someone was evidently moving around upstairs. She was located in the basement, with the kitchen and the dining room, feeling very strange indeed to be sitting in a house unfamiliar to her with a man she had only seen in tarnished newspaper clippings.
Sirius was answering her questions with ease, however, and Esme appreciated that. Her mind was going a mile a minute and she felt like her heart was going to fall out of her chest, but she managed to murmur comprehensive sentences like, "How?" and "When?" and "How?"
"Does Felicity not talk about him?" Sirius asked after recounting a time when he was at Hogwarts with George. From what Esme had heard, her father had been a troublemaker. It made her skin crawl, knowing something like that wasn't passed down to her – how many things did she even acquire from her father? What if she was nothing like him, and there was nothing to remember him by?
Esme swallowed before shaking her head. "No, she... She doesn't."
Sirius hummed, his furrowed brows giving away his disappointment. Esme did not blame him, but also didn't push it. She had been privy to Felicity Goodwin's tendencies to block out Esme's past her entire life; it did nothing to get angry about it now.
"George was... your father was always exceptionally close with Remus," he said quietly. "I'm surprised..."
Esme was eager for a subject change. "Do you..." yet she struggled with the words on the tip of her tongue. "Do you see him in me?"
Sirius looked taken aback for a moment, then he relaxed into an easy smile. "One day I'll show you a picture. You'll see."
Lupin chose that moment to interrupt. He did so quietly, opening the kitchen door as softly as he could, but the hinges still creaked and whined with age and misuse. He limped over with a handful of letters in his hand, shuffling through them until he evidently found what he was looking for.
