June 3rd, 1895 - Grimmauld Place

Belvina thought she was being generous in giving Phineas a few days to settle back into home. Sirius had not been so lucky, she had practically accosted him the moment he walked through the door, but that was expected. He was an adult and she was his baby sister, there was no getting around it. Phineas however, she still needed to figure out how best to get him to talk. It had been incredibly hard, but she rather thought not bombarding him with questions would work better in the long run.

And so they were the only two sat at the breakfast table currently. Everyone else would be along soon enough (maybe even Father?), but Nan was hovering somewhere behind her like she was incapable of scooping some summer fruits and eggs onto her plate. Honestly. She had tea poured and a glass of pumpkin juice and she was trying so very hard to be nonchalant about the whole thing, even if there were a hundred, no a thousand, questions on her mind.

Passing him a small smile, Belle finally asked, "How was it?" She didn't think she needed to specify what she meant, honestly what else could she mean? She looked at him more directly over her teacup and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

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Phineas Black II

  

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Phin already wanted to go back to school. He'd been making due the last few days by holing up in his bedroom. If anyone asked--and he didn't expect them to--he was studying to get ahead of next year. It sounded like a very Ravenclaw thing to do, and to be fair, he was doing a lot of reading, but that was mostly because there wasn't much else to do in his room. It was still better than the alternative to him.

Even so, he had to come out of his room sometimes. Mostly for meals. At the moment, it was just himself and Belvina at the breakfast table, which was probably the best possible of the company available to him at home. Not that Phin felt particularly close to his sister. She just didn't seem to hate him outright. He really needed to find alternative plans for school holidays if his standards were this bad.

Phin looked up at Belle's question, mid-spread of jam on a piece of toast. "It was good," he said. "Really good." And then, maybe too honest, "Better than being at home."

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Better than being a home. Belle had to wonder if Sirius agreed. Surely it wasn't that good. Here they had everything they wanted, people did exactly what they asked them to. "I'm glad you enjoyed it." Belvina was practiced in diplomatic responses. She could be annoying on purpose, but she never felt the need with Phineas. He always seemed to get it from everyone else, even Mama sometimes. She didn't really know why.

"What's Ravenclaw like?" Everyone else in their home had been sorted into Slytherin. That Phineas had found himself elsewhere was not a complete shock, but it left her with plenty of questions. Belle took a dainty bite of her fruit while she eyed her brother critically.

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"Mostly good," Phin said, because he didn't think there was much difference between the houses that would be interesting to share. "But--instead of a password or something to get into the common room, you have to answer a riddle every time." He made a face. It was the worst part--annoying at best. "Sometimes they're easy, but not always."

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Cross Ravenclaw off the list of potential houses then. Truthfully it was the only other acceptable option, other than Slytherin, but if she had to figure out a riddle every time, there was no doubt Belle's patience for that would wear thin. "I don't think I'd like that," but it did sound like something Phineas might enjoy, well, most of the time.

She wanted to ask about how much he saw Father, but wasn't quite sure how to phrase it without it being weird. "What class was your favorite?" Belle was still trying to figure out what she might be good at, besides music.

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Phin shrugged. "I think the other houses just have passwords or something, so hopefully you get one of them." He didn't say what he really thought, which was that he'd rather enjoyed being in a house that he didn't have family in. He was already hoping Arcturus got sorted somewhere else in the fall.

"Transfiguration's pretty interesting," he said. "Hard to do right, but it feels good when you figure it out." Some classes were just hard, period, but Phin thought he'd done well enough overall to not completely embarrass himself.

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Bella almost chuckled; as if she'd be anywhere other than Slytherin. She didn't want to be disowned, after all. She was sure Phineas' sorting into Ravenclaw hadn't helped him at home much. Not that she was going to hold it against him, in fact she felt a little bad, but maybe some separation would be good for him.

"What's the best spell you learned?" She was so curious about the day-to-day at Hogwarts and Sirius had never been very forthcoming with information. Waiting two more years was going to be torture, especially after Arcturus left this September and she was left with just Cygnus for company.

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"Umm." Phin screwed his face up. "I don't know about 'best,' but Rictumsempra is pretty funny." Not when it was directed at him, of course, but as far as spells that could incapacitate someone, it was probably one of the kinder ones.

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It did sound quite funny, which led Belle to giggle a little bit. "What does it do?" Her knowledge of spells was minimal, mostly what she observed around the house, and even then she did not often hear what was being said. The help were the ones more often doing the magic around the house, she wasn't even sure she'd ever seen her mother lift her wand for any reason.

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"Makes you feel like someone's tickling you," Phin said. "I've seen it a few times, you'd be surprised how hard it is to do anything through that." At least it was funnier than some of the debilitating spells out there.

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"That sounds awful." Bell pulled a face. Like pure torture. Belle did not like to be touched much, and the feeling of being tickled was terrible. "I imagine it's quite difficult to do anything." The uncontrolled movements, feeling like you were trying get away from the sensation. She hoped to never endure something like that.

She ate a few more bites of her breakfast, contemplating Phineas for a moment. As much as she loved being a pest, he seemed to be a little less-than-enthused about being home again, considering how much he'd been hiding. "Do you want to take a walk in the gardens after breakfast?" Despite their differences, she had missed him. Belle loved all of her brothers, even if she didn't always understand them.

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"Sure." Phin probably would have said no if it had been any of his other siblings. But then again, his other siblings wouldn't have asked, anyway. "We can go as soon we're done, if you want."

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Belle smiled widely at him, taking one last bite of her breakfast. "I'm going to go get my shoes, I'll meet you out back!" She couldn't very well go outside in her slippers. She hadn't any idea what they would get up to out there, but she thought it might be nice to get some fresh air at they very least and she thought Phin might like getting out of the house too.

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