Catching Up (Sinead)

With all the time Aoife had spent wallowing in self pity recently, she hadn't spent much time thinking about anyone else. Having resolved the issue of her completely ignoring Hunter and Phin, it was just Sinead left to make it up to. And since it was currently the Hogwarts Christmas holidays, it seemed like a pretty good time. Sinead was staying at school, so none of the rest of her family would be able to see her, stinking muggles they were. Good thing Auntie Aoife was so positively magical. She'd owled her niece to see if they could meet up in Hogsmeade at some point over the break, for the sake of her not being a horrible auntie who never talked to Sinead. Because that was how things had turned out recently. She would have seen her if she'd decided to go home for holidays, but Aoife totally didn't blame her for staying, and not having to make the tedious journey back to Ireland. She felt like spending time with Sinead was long overdue, anyway.

And totally appropriately for the current season (and the current weather, freezing cold with ice covering everything) she'd decided that they could go for ice cream. In Aoife's defence, she hadn't planned the weather. Anyway, Florean's had plenty of weather appropriate ice-cream flavours. Like her favourite, firewhiskey. Because she was old enough to have it now. And Morgana Gaunt had always said she couldn't. Well nobody was stopping her now. She was an adult. Wrapping a scarf around her neck as she left the house, Aoife apparated to Hogsmeade, a wide smile on her face just from being amused by her own thoughts. A sudden cold blast hit her when she arrived just outside the ice-cream parlour - it was much colder up in Scotland than it had been at home, which she supposed wasn't too surprising.

In a hurry to get into the warm, she speed walked towards Florean Fortescue's, practically leaping through the door and smiling as she felt the warm. Sinead wasn't here yet, but Aoife was, uncharacteristically, a few minutes earlier than she'd said in her owl. So she took a seat, glancing up and pretending to be interested in the sign displaying all the flavours. Like she didn't already know each and every flavour from hours of sitting here staring at it when she was bored. She quite missed working here, now that she thought of it, however bored she'd been at the time. Every week for four years. Hey, maybe her shitty staff discount would still be valid. Probably not, but it might be worth a try. She didn't recognise the kid behind the counter. Probably her replacement. Hearing the bell ringing at someone opening the door, Aoife turned around to look. "Sinead!" she grinned, standing up to give the younger girl a hug. "How's it going?" For all she knew, anything could have happened since she'd last seen Sinead. She was such a shit aunt.

An owl from Aoife came as a major surprise. Sinead had decided her formerly beloved aunt had simply realized she didn't want to see her, and she had convinced herself it was for the better. But of course she missed her auntie, because the older girl was better than knees and bees, or whatever the Americans said. Therefore, because Sinead was a great niece who gave everyone second chances, she sent back a - secretly super excited - yes. Putting her hair up into a very, very messy bun, Sinead walked down the pebbled pathway, the one that would lead her straight to Florean's. It seemed typical of Aoife to choose such a place for their meeting, but because Sinead loved her so much, she wasn't going to say anything about it. Sometimes, she had learned from her mother, love meant not saying anything even if it was weird.

Her indigo winter coat kept her warm, and Sinead snuggled into it, her hands in her pockets. She was excited about having ice cream during the winter season, something she was not going to admit to Aoife. Still, something about the ground being freezing cold and the chilly air mixed with the flavours of peppermint and cinnamon and eggnog and...Sinead took a deep breath. She had to control herself. Aoife couldn't not think of her as an ice-cream hungry alien. Opening the door to the ice cream shop, Sinead was almost immediately greeted by an excited Aoife. Returning the grin, Sinead wrapped her arms around her favorite auntie. "Aoifeee!" She exclaimed, holding on to the older girl a little tighter before letting go. Hugging Aoife was nicer than she had expected, like hugging a long lost relative who had been stranded on an island for a hundred years and had finally showed her face around. Well, maybe that was a bit too exaggerated but whatever.

The question hit Sinead a little harder than it should have. How's it going? HOW'S IT GOING? TERRIBLE. Grimacing a little, she sat across from Aoife. "I guess it's going well." Sinead lied. Well, half-lied. As long as Humphrey, Danny and Dakota weren't in the picture, things were actually pretty great. It was when Humphrey got weird and dumb that Sinead wanted to slap him. And with Danny having pulled a...well, Danny, Sinead was determined to not like any other boys because they were poopy. And Dakota, well she was still a bullying witch, so she definitely had to ask Aoife for personal defense tips. "Anyway, how's it been with you? What have you been doing? Why did you ignore me for so long?!" She said those words a little louder, a little angry. Aoife's absence had been a mystery, because she had suddenly just stopped talking to Sinead. She hadn't admitted it to their family, but Sinead was a little hurt.

When Sinead greeted her with the same enthusiasm and a hug, Aoife suddenly felt much better, and thought that perhaps she could continue being Sinead's favourite auntie after all. Since she was unarguably better than all of her siblings in every way. And she took Sinead out for wizard ice-cream, which was more than the rest of them would do. Now that she thought about it, was ice-cream too childish for Sinead? Aoife often forgot that other people were much more mature/moody teenager-ish than she had been, so maybe this hadn't been a good choice of activity, considering she was trying to convince her niece that she was definitely a really good person even though she'd practically ignored her for months now. Oh well, it was too late now. She returned her attention to Sinead, feeling a lot happier than she had most of the time since graduating earlier that year. Family. Magical.

Sinead didn't sound entirely convinced in her answer. "You guess? Are you sure?" Aoife asked. Although she may not be the most sensitive or nice person, it didn't take a Hufflepuff to tell that Sinead wasn't as cheerful and bubbly as usual. "Would ice-cream make it better?" There were various strangely warm flavours to choose from here, but Aoife was going for firewhiskey, simply because she could. And she was childish in that way. And in most ways.

But then Sinead turned on her, as Aoife had suspected she might, and the same feeling of guilt washed over her at what the younger girl was saying. She bit her lip, unsure of how to answer the question. She wasn't going to tell Sinead not to take it personally because she'd ignored everyone else for months as well, like she had with Hunter. Because Sinead was family and there was no excuse for completely ignoring family for months at a time. What had she even been doing? Frolicking? Looking at sheep? "I guess I just... needed to fall off the face of the earth for a while." To look at some sheep before she made the huge, scary step into the adult world. Yuck. "I'm sorry," Aoife added, genuinely tearing up just a little bit because she was an absolutely horrible person. And she wouldn't blame Sinead if she wanted to shun her, and never communicate ever again. Although, her niece was a much better person than her, so that was probably relatively unlikely.