The Belacqua/Skeeter Residence

THE HOUSE:

Spoiler:

MASTER SUITE: Rhea Belcqua
GUEST SUITE: Chelsa Skeeter
BEDROOM1: Damian Skeeter

Smiling weakly, Cyrus nodded. He had hoped that the separation wouldn’t have as big an impact at it had, had on the children. He loved his kids but he had hoped that the present thing wouldn’t be divided and some of the simplest things that he did with his family wouldn’t end but like the marriage, they had too. It had affected him negatively for a while but he soon got over it, reminding himself that he wasn’t a family man and never had, had a need to reproduce. Of course, that had happened and Cy would always cherish his babies but even now, seven years down the line, he was still getting over the divorce. It was depressing but it was still difficult for him. “Is he alone?” Cy asked, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. “But I’d love to go and see him now if you don’t mind me being there, of course.”

"Chelsea is here somewhere of course." Rhea said gesturing weakly around the castle. "But I left Damian home alone for a bit." As Rhea said it she realized how bad of an idea this was. "Bloody hell, Cyrus! I left Damian home alone" Leaving the party now was essential. "I have to go." Then Rhea realized she had come by Portkey. There was no instant return for her. Rhea's brain was frazzled. What had possesd her to do such a thing. "How did you get here?" she asked Cyrus calmly. But only if you knew Rhea well could you tell the extent of her stress. A slight wrinkle on the bridge of her nose. The way her eyes seemed not to be able to hold the gaze of something for long, and flickered around the room. The very slight twitch of her pinkey finger, something that only happened when she was so angry she was about to kill something or was stressed out of her mind. Rhea knew these things and knew that they would be visable to Cyrus but she did not care. Before he could start talking she pulled out a cell phone out of her purse. Yes, some muggle technology was very useful. No service. How she hated Hogwarts. Absentmindedly she started moving slowly towards the door. Damian was fine, she felt that instictively. But that did not stop her from being scared out of her skull. Now Rhea was not a bad Mom. She had picked out a baby sitter and everything. But there was that one thing that she had forgotten to do.. Call her. "Shit" Rhea murmered again, still staring at the No Service sign on her phone.

It was sometimes useful to still be around Rhea. Cyrus forgot how frazzled she could become in an instant and it almost made him smile to see how worried she was about Damian. He knew the boy would be fine as long as he didn’t blow up the microwave or something equally stupid. Following her as she headed to the door, Cy put a hand on her shoulder; hoping that he didn’t startle her. “Rhea....Rhea! Look at me. He’s fine. Repeat after me: Damian is fine.” Cy waited for her to repeat it before speaking again, “Trust me – he’s probably microwaving your favourite shoes or plotting world domination. Maybe he’s doing something completely mundane and watching TV. I think the first two would be more interesting but pay me no mind. Just focus on these words: our son is fine.” Cy resisted to urge to hug the worried woman and he released her shoulder. He held his wand up and smiled shyly. “I apparated. We could go side-along....” He offered weakly.

(Haha this is soo Rhea)

Rhea was still freaking out when Cyrus put his hand on her sholder. "Damian is fine" she repeated. Her head was becoming clearer and clearer the more Cyrus talked. It was sometimes useful to have Cyrus around at times like these. He was the only person who had been willing to spend 7 years constantly with her after she went Slythirin. Therefore he was the only person who really knew how to calm her down (or work her up) and that made him quite valuable to her sanity. It was funny how much she relied on him constantly. Dispite their compltely opposite personalities Rhea knew that Cyrus might be the only person she would ever love. Not that she still loved him.. No that would be.. crazy and.. insane and.. completely wonderful. But no matter how she felt when he let go of her sholder her skin tingled where he had touched her. "Apperation?" she said, her voice loosing some of it's shakiness. "I know how to apperate. Let's go home." Gently she took his hand to prepare for departure. Dispite the fact that she was older than him his hand was larger than her. It felt so natural that for a second Rhea felt like crying.

Home. They said home is where the heart is. Whoever they were, they were dead wrong. Cyrus completely disagreed. Home was where the life and soul of the person belonged. Where he belonged. Rhea called it home. Where was his home? He knew where hers was, where Damian and Chelsea’s was. But where was his? That one, he was sure, was obvious. It was wherever in the world they were. Where his family were and he didn’t care whether they lived in the same house as him or the other side of the universe, he belonged with them. Nothing in the world was as important as his family. His home was with them – always.

Cyrus dropped Rhea’s hand and wrapped his arm around her waist. He pulled her close to him and pressed his lips to her temple. He reached up with his other hand and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear before taking his own wand out of his pocket. He was definitely the calmer of the two and as much as he loved her, he didn’t want to lose a leg as a result of her splinching the both of them. Blinking a few times, Cyrus shook the thoughts of love out of his mind. It was over between them but he still wondered what the bloody hell had gone wrong for them. It was probably his own fault.

With a crack, he apparated the both of them away and they appeared in front of the house that he had once called his...home. Cy slowly released Rhea and tucked is wand back into his pocket. The house was still standing so Damian hadn’t blown it up or anything of the like. That would have really added to Rhea’s hysteria. “Home.” He said it as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world instead of the most obvious. But nothing could have prepared even himself for what he did next. “DAMIAN!” Cyrus’ shout was loud and fierce but he wasn’t angry with the boy as long as he didn’t come out hyped up by sugar. Cy just wanted to prove to Rhea that their son was okay. He reached over and squeezed her hand. “He’ll be out in a minute. Shall we go in? You look like you need a cuppa.”

With his legs crossed, Damian sat in the middle of his bedroom, a large quantity of coins lying on the carpeted floor in front of him. He was counting, his small, thin lips only barely twitching with each word, though his voice was still audible; “seven-hundred and twenty-eight…” he spoke to himself, touching each small coin with the tip of his index finger, moving it slowly into the pile it belonged in. It wasn’t that Damian actually needed to count the amount of money his mother had left lying around the house, he did, however, feel a great need to separate the Galleons, the Sickles, and the Knuts from each other, feeling much more content upon seeing them each in their own, separate pile.

He pushed himself up off of the ground with his palms, and stared down at his work; there were six groups there on the floor, each of which a good amount of coins were placed in. Each group had its own traits, and every coin that had been sorted into that group, had said traits- much like the houses at Hogwarts, which Damian himself was anxious about- such as Old Galleons, New Galleons, Old Sickles, New Sickles, Old Knuts, New Knuts, Bent Galleons, Dirtied Galleons, and so on.

Proud of a job well done, Damian turned and left the coins to lie there on the floor, each stacked neatly in their own groups, and headed towards his mother’s room. Damian knew he would find that his mother wasn’t in her room upon entering, for she had spoken to him about how he would be spending the evening at home while she and Damian’s sister attended the Hogwarts graduation ceremony, but Damian decided to enter the room anyway. He looked around the place, his innocent but yet someone incredibly wise eyes, scanned the room slowly, stopping on a note which was laying there beside the phone. The young boy stepped forward, a curious expression taking over his facial features as he read the untidy letters that were scribbled on the white paper:

Call the babysitter at this number….

The corners of Damian’s lips twitched slightly; it was just like his mother to prepare everything and then forget one of the most important details- Damian loved his mother greatly, but by then, he knew that remembering such things wasn’t his mother’s forte. He took the reminder in his right hand and slipped it into his right pocket, patting his jeans just below the pocket to make sure that it slipped down far enough so that it would not find a way to jump out later. He would keep the note for the time being, for he himself saw no particular reason for a nanny to watch him; he was capable enough to put up with his older sister… that alone took quite a bit of mental capacity.

Only a few moments after exiting his mother’s room, someone from downstairs called his name. He had frozen in place and his eyebrows had risen as he tried to comprehend what he had just heard; his father’s voice- now why on earth would he be here? Whenever we go to visit Father, Mother takes us to him herself, never the other way around. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I have heard that voice in this house…

Damian made his way down the stairs and towards the door in record time, stopping just before the door only to see both his father and his mother standing there in the doorway. “The nanny must be late, Mother,” Damian joked, his lips curling into a smile. “Father? Are sis and I coming with you tonight? I haven’t had the chance to pack- I hadn’t known that you were coming…” He greeted, tilting his head to the side, further expressing his confusion.

There were a few moments that worried Cyrus slightly but soon enough he saw the familiar mop of untidy dark hair and he felt a smile teasing the sides of his lips. He looked smugly at Rhea and leaned closer to her ear. He muttered, “Told you so,” and purposely let his lips linger by her earlobe for a few moments before pulled away. He curved a strand of her hair around the back of her ear and smiled before turning his attention to his son who had just suggested something that probably wouldn’t be possible. He hadn’t really prepared himself mentally for the idea of having his children in his home for a set amount of time, neither had he prepared the house and he was sure Macy, the ‘delicate little flower’ he’d hired as a housemaid, would thank him for bringing the children home with him.

He stepped away from Rhea and mussed up his son’s hair before gesturing to the house. “Why would you want to come to mine when you’ve got your mother and a nice house like this, eh?” He cast a sly look back at Rhea before whispering to his son, “Probably because I’m better.” He smirked and patted the boy on the head again. “Right, how about we go and procure that tea that your mother probably needs. Right now I’d go for a Whisky. Lead the way lad.”

"Oh thank god" Rhea said with an expression of pure happiness on her face. Gently she squatted down and pulled Damian in for a small hug before letting go of him. Damian had always been an adorable little boy but at this moment he was the most wonderful person Rhea had ever seen. "I'm so sorry, honey" she said. Clearly nothing horrible had happened in an adult’s absence. She placed the palm of her hand on his back and very lightly put pressure there as if to signal him to keep walking.

Turning around she gave a sad little smile to Cyrus. “Thank you and I’m sorry. I just really freaked out.” she said with a slight downturn of the head to show her shame. “Tea would be very nice.” With a exhale of breath she started following Damian into the house next to Cyrus. She rested her head on his shoulder. It made her tired to freak out.