Chapter 3
FROM AMERICA, WITH LOVE: Remus and Sirius Flaunt Friendship NEW BROMANCE ALERT? Pics of FSOTUS and Prince Remus PHOTOS: Sirius's Weekend in London
For the first time in a week, Sirius isn’t pissed off scrolling through his Google alerts.
It helps they’ve given People an exclusive—a few generic quotes about how much Sirius “cherishes” his friendship with Remus and their “shared life experience” as sons of world leaders.
Sirius thinks their main shared life experience is probably wishing they could set that quote adrift on the ocean between them and watch it drown.
His mother doesn’t want him fake-dead anymore, though, and he’s stopped getting a thousand vitriolic tweets an hour, so he counts it as a win.
He dodges a starstruck freshman gawking at him and exits the hall onto the east side of campus, draining the last cold sip of his coffee.
First class today was an elective he’s taking out of a combination of morbid fascination and academic curiosity: The Press and the Presidency.
He’s currently jet-lagged to all hell from trying to keep the press from ruining the presidency, and the irony isn’t lost on him.
Today’s lecture was on presidential sex scandals through history, and he texts Barty: numbers on one of us getting involved in a sex scandal before the end of second term?
His response comes within seconds: 94% probability of your dick becoming a recurring personality on face the nation. btw, have you seen this?
There’s a link attached: a blog post full of images, animated GIFs of himself and Remus on This Morning.
The fist bump.
Shared smiles that pass for genuine.
Conspiratorial glances.
Underneath are hundreds of comments about how handsome they are, how nice they look together.
omfg, one commenter writes, make out already.
Sirius laughs so hard he almost falls in a fountain.
*****
As usual, the day guard at the Dirksen Building glares at him as he slides through security.
She’s certain he was the one who vandalized the sign outside one particular senator’s office to read BITCH MCCONNELL, but she’ll never prove it.
Kingsley tags along for some of Sirius's Senate recon missions so nobody panics when he disappears for a few hours.
Today, Kingsley hangs back on a bench, catching up on his podcasts.
He’s always been the most indulgent of Sirius's antics.
Sirius has had the layout of the building memorized since his dad first got elected to the Senate.
It’s where he’s picked up his encyclopedic knowledge of policy and procedure, and where he spends more afternoons than he’s supposed to, charming aides and trawling for gossip.
His mom pretends to be annoyed but slyly asks for intel later.
Since Senator Orin Black is in California speaking at a rally for gun control today, Sirius punches the button for the fifth floor instead.
His favorite senator is Xenophilius Lovegood, an Independent from Colorado and the newest kid on the block at only thirty-nine.
Sirius's dad took him under his wing back when he was merely a promising attorney, and now he’s the darling of national politics for (A) winning a special election and a general in consecutive upsets for his Senate seat, and (B) dominating The Hill’s 50
Most Beautiful.
Sirius spent summer 2018 in Denver on Xeno's campaign, so they have their own dysfunctional relationship built on tropical-flavored Skittles from gas stations and all-nighters drafting press releases.
He sometimes feels the ghost of carpal tunnel creeping back, a fond ache.
He finds Xeno in his office, horn-rimmed reading glasses doing nothing to detract from his usual appearance of a movie star who tripped and fell sideways into politics.
Sirius has always suspected the soulful brown eyes and perfectly groomed stubble and dramatic cheekbones won back any votes Xeno lost by being both African American and openly gay.
The album playing low in the room is an old favorite Sirius remembers from Denver: Muddy Waters.
When Xeno looks up and sees Sirius in his doorway, he drops his pen on a haphazard pile of papers and leans back in his chair.
“Fuck you doing here, kid?” he says, watching him like a cat.
Sirius reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of Skittles, and Xeno's face immediately softens into a smile.
“Atta boy,” he says, scooping the bag up as soon as Sirius drops it on his blotter.
He kicks the chair in front of the desk out for him.
Sirius sits, watching Xeno rip open the packet with his teeth.
“Whatcha working on today?”
“You already know more than you’re supposed to about everything on this desk.”
Sirius does know—the same health care reform as last year, the one stalled out since they lost the Senate in midterms.
“Why are you really here?”
“Hmm.” Sirius hooks a leg over one armrest of the chair. “I resent the idea I can’t come visit a dear family friend without ulterior motives.”
“Bullshit.”
He clutches his chest. “You wound me.”
“You exhaust me.”
“I enchant you.”
“I’ll call security.”
“Fair enough.”
“Instead, let’s talk about your little European vacation,” Xeno says.
He fixes Sirius with shrewd eyes. “Can I expect a joint Christmas present from you and the prince this year?”
“Actually,” Sirius swerves, “since I’m here, I do have a question for you.”
Xeno laughs, leaning back and lacing his hands together behind his head.
Sirius feels his face flash hot for half a second, a zip of good-banter adrenaline that means he’s getting somewhere.
“Of course you do.”
“I wondered if you had heard anything about Prewett,” Sirius asks. “We could really use an endorsement from another Independent senator. Do you think he’s close to making one?”
He kicks his foot innocently where it’s dangling over the armrest, like he’s asking something as innocuous as the weather.
Gideon Prewett, Delaware’s kooky and beloved old Independent with a social media team stacked with millennials, would be a big get down the line in a race projected to be this close, and they both know it.
Xeno sucks on a Skittle. “Are you asking if he’s close to endorsing, or if I know what strings need to be pulled to get him to endorse?”
“Xeno. Pal. Buddy. You know I’d never ask you anything so unseemly.”
Xenophilius sighs, swivels in his chair. “He’s a free agent. Social issues would push him your way usually, but you know how he feels about your mom’s economic platform. You probably know his voting record better than I do, kid. He doesn’t fall on one side of the aisle. He might go for something radically different on taxes.”
“And as for something you know that I don’t?”
He smirks. “I know Malfoy is promising Independents a centrist platform with big shake-ups on non-social issues. And I know part of that platform might not line up with Gideon's position on healthcare. Somewhere to start, perhaps. Hypothetically, if I were going to engage with your scheming.”
“And you don’t think there’s any point in chasing down leads on Republican candidates who aren’t Malfoy?”
“Shit,” Xeno says, the set of his mouth turning grim. “Chances of your mother facing off against a candidate who’s not the fucking anointed messiah of right-wing populism and heir to the Malfoy's family legacy? Highly fucking unlikely.”
Sirius smiles. “You complete me, Xen.”
Xenophilius rolls his eyes again. “Let’s circle back to you,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject. For the record, I won the office pool on how long it’d take you to cause an international incident.”
“Wow, I thought I could trust you.” Sirius gasps, mock-betrayed.
“What’s the deal there?”
“There’s no deal,” Sirius says. “Remus is … a person I know. And we did something stupid. I had to fix it. It’s fine.”
“Okay, okay,” Xeno says, holding up both hands. “He’s a looker, huh?”
Sirius pulls a face. “Yeah, I mean, if you’re into, like, fairy-tale princes.”
“Is anyone not?”
“I’m not,” Sirius says.
Xenophilius arches an eyebrow. “Right.”
“What?”
“Just thinking about last summer,” he says. “I have this really vivid memory of you basically making a Prince Remus voodoo doll on your desk.”
“I did not.”
“Or was it a dartboard with a photo of his face on it?”
Sirius swings his foot back over the armrest so he can plant both feet on the floor and fold his arms indignantly.
“I had a magazine with his face on it at my desk, once, because I was in it and he happened to be on the cover.”
“You stared at it for an hour.”
“Lies,” Sirius says. “Slander.”
“It was like you were trying to set him on fire with your mind.”
“What is your point?”
“I think it’s interesting,” he says. “How fast the times they are achangin’.”
“Come on,” Sirius says. “It’s … politics.”
“Uh-huh.”
Sirius shakes his head, doglike, as if it’s going to disperse the topic from the room.
“Besides, I came here to talk about endorsements, not my embarrassing public relations nightmares.”
“Ah,” Xeno says slyly, “but I thought you were here to pay a family friend a visit?”
“Of course. That’s what I meant.”
“Sirius, don’t you have something else to do on a Friday afternoon? You’re twenty-one. You should be playing beer pong or getting ready for a party or something.”
“I do all of those things,” he lies. “I just also do this.”
“Come on. I’m trying to give you some advice, from one old man to a much younger version of himself.”
“You’re thirty-nine.”
“My liver is ninety-three.”
“That’s not my fault.”
“Some late nights in Denver would beg to differ.”
Sirius laughs. “See, this is why we’re friends.”
“Sirius, you need other friends,” Xenophilius tells him. “Friends who aren’t in Congress.”
“I have friends! I have Regulus and Barty.”
“Yes, your brother and a boy who is also a supercomputer,” Xenophilius deadpans. “You need to take some time for yourself before you burn out, kid. You need a bigger support system.”
“Stop calling me ‘kid,’” Sirius says.
“Ay.” Xeno sighs. “Are you done? I do have some actual work to do.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sirius says, gathering himself up from his chair. “Hey, is Em in town?”
“Vance?” Xeno asks, crooking his head. “Shit, you really have a death wish, huh?”
*****
As political legacies go, the Malfoy family is one of the most complex bits of history Sirius has tried to unravel.
On one of the Post-it notes stuck to his laptop he’s written: KENNEDYS + BUSHES + BIZARRO MAFIA OLD MONEY SITH POWERS = MALFOYS?
It’s pretty much the thesis of what he’s dug up so far.
Lucius Malfoy, the current and supposedly only frontrunner to be Sirius's mother’s opponent in the general, has been a senator for Utah nearly twenty years, which means plenty of voting history
and legislation that his mother’s team has already gone over.
Sirius is more interested in the things harder to sniff out.
There are so many generations of Attorney General Malfoys and Federal Judge Malfoys, they’d be able to bury anything.
His phone buzzes under a stack of files on his desk.
A text from Reg: Dinner? I miss your face.
He loves Regulus—truly, more than anything in the world—but he’s kind of in the zone.
He’ll respond when he hits a stopping point in like thirty minutes.
He glances at the video of a Malfoy interview pulled up in a tab, checking the man’s face for nonverbal cues.
Blond hair—natural, not a piece.
Shiny white teeth, like a shark’s.
Heavy Uncle Sam jaw.
Great salesman, considering he’s blatantly lying about a bill in the clip.
Sirius takes a note.
It’s an hour and a half later before another buzz pulls him out of a deep dive into Malfoy's uncle’s suspicious 1986 taxes.
A text from his mother in the family group chat, a pizza emoji.
He bookmarks his page and heads upstairs.
Family dinners are rare but less over-the-top than everything else that happens in the White House.
His mother sends someone to pick up pizzas, and they take over the game room on the third floor with paper plates and bottles of Shiner shipped in from Texas.
It’s always amusing to catch one of the burly suits speaking in code over their earpieces: “Black Bear has requested extra banana peppers.”
Regulus is already on the chaise and sipping a beer.
A stab of guilt immediately hits when Sirius remembers his text.
“Shit, I’m an asshole,” he says.
“Mm-hmm, you are.”
“But, technically … I am having dinner with you?”
“Just bring me my pizza,” he says with a sigh. After Secret Service misread an olive-based shouting match in 2017 and almost put the Residence on lockdown, they now each get their own pizzas.
“Sure thing, Bug.” He finds his — margherita—and Reg's — pepperoni and mushroom.
“Hi, Sirius,” says a voice from somewhere behind the television as he settles in with his pizza.
“Hey, Leo,” he answers.
His stepdad is fiddling with the wiring, probably rewiring it to do something that’d make more sense in an Iron Man comic, like he does with most electronics—eccentric millionaire inventor habits die hard.
He’s about to ask for a dumbed-down explanation when his mother comes blazing in.
“Why did y’all let me run for president?” she says, tapping too forcefully at her phone’s keyboard in little staccato stabs.
She kicks off her heels into the corner, throwing her phone after them.
“Because we all knew better than to try to stop you,” Leo’s voice says.
He peeks his bearded, bespectacled head out and adds, “And because the world would fall apart without you, my radiant orchid.”
His mother rolls her eyes but smiles.
It’s always been like that with them, ever since they first met at a charity event when Sirius was fourteen.
She was the Speaker of the House, and he was a genius with a dozen patents and money to burn on women’s health initiatives.
Now, she’s the president, and he’s sold his companies to spend his time fulfilling First Gentleman duties.
Walburga releases two inches of zipper on the back of her skirt, the sign she’s officially done for the day, and scoops up a slice.
“All right,” she says.
She does a scrubbing gesture in the air in front of her face—president face off, mom face on. “Hi, babies.”
“’Lo,” Sirius and Regulus mumble in unison through mouthfuls of food.
Walburga sighs and looks over at Leo. “I did that, didn’t I? No goddamn manners. Like a couple of little possums. This is why they say women can’t have it all.”
“They are masterpieces,” Leo says.
“One good thing, one bad thing,” she says. “Let’s do this.”
It’s her lifelong system for catching up on their days when she’s at her busiest.
Sirius grew up with a mother who was a sometimes baffling combination of intensely organized and committed to lines of emotional communication, like an overly invested life coach.
When he got his first girlfriend, she made a PowerPoint presentation.
“Mmm.” Regulus swallows a bite. “Good thing. Oh! Oh my God. Ronan Farrow tweeted about my essay for New York magazine, and we totally engaged in witty Twitter repartee. Part one of my long game to force him to be my friend is underway.”
“Don’t act like this isn’t all part of your extra-long game of abusing your position to murder Woody Allen and make it look like an accident,” Sirius says.
“He’s just so frail; it’d only take one good push—”
“How many times do I have to tell y’all not to discuss your murder plots in front of a sitting president?” their mother interrupts. “Plausible deniability. Come on.”
“Anyway,” Regulus says. “One bad thing would be, uh … well, Woody Allen’s still alive. Your turn, Sirius.”
“Good thing,” Sirius says, “I filibustered one of my professors into agreeing a question on our last exam was misleading so I would get full credit for my answer, which was correct.”
He takes a swig of beer. “Bad thing—Mom, I saw the new art in the hall on the second floor, and I need to know why you allowed a George W. Bush terrier painting in our home.”
“It’s a bipartisan gesture,” Walburga says. “People find them endearing.”
“I have to walk past it whenever I go to my room,” Sirius says. “Its beady little eyes follow me everywhere.”
“It’s staying.”
Sirius sighs. “Fine.”
Leo goes next—as usual, his bad thing is somehow also a good thing— and then Walburga's up.
“Well, my UN ambassador fucked up his one job and said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize. But the good thing is it’s two in the morning in Tel Aviv, so I can put it off until tomorrow and have dinner with you two instead.”
Sirius smiles at her.
He’s still in awe, sometimes, of hearing her talk about presidential pains in the ass, even three years in.
They lapse into idle conversation, little barbs and inside jokes, and these nights may be rare, but they’re still nice.
“So,” Walburga says, starting on another slice crust-first. “I ever tell you I used to hustle pool at my mom’s bar?”
Regulus stops short, his beer halfway to his mouth. “You did what now?”
“Yep,” she tells them.
Sirius exchanges an incredulous look with Regulus.
“Momma managed this shitty bar when I was sixteen. The Tipsy Grackle. She’d let me come in after school and do my homework at the bar, had a bouncer friend make sure none of the old drunks hit on me. I got pretty good at pool after a few months and started betting the regulars I could beat them, except I’d play dumb. Hold the stick the wrong way, pretend to forget if I was stripes or solid. I’d lose one game, then take them double or nothing and get twice the payout.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sirius says, except he can totally picture it. She has always been scary-good at pool and even better at strategy.
“All true,” Leo says. “How do you think she learned to get what she wants from strung-out old white men? The most important skill of an effective politician.”
Sirius's mother accepts a kiss to the side of her square jaw from Leo as she passes by, like a queen gliding through a crowd of admirers.
She sets her half-eaten slice down on a paper towel and selects a cue stick from the rack.
“Anyway,” she says. “The point is, you’re never too young to figure out your skills and use them to get shit accomplished.”
“Okay,” Sirius says. He meets her eyes, and they swap appraising looks.
“Including…” she says thoughtfully, “a job on a presidential reelection campaign, maybe.”
Regulus puts down his slice. “Mom, he’s not even out of college yet.”
“Uh, yeah, that’s the point,” Sirius says impatiently.
He’s been waiting for this offer. “No gaps in the resume.”
“It’s not only for Sirius,” their mother says. “It’s for both of you.”
Regulus's expression changes from pinched apprehension to pinched dread.
Sirius makes a shooing motion in Regulus's direction.
A mushroom flies off his pizza and hits the side of his nose. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Walburga says, “this time around, y’all—the ‘White House Trio.’”
She puts it in air quotes, as if she didn’t sign off on the name herself. “Y’all shouldn’t only be faces. Y’all are more than that. You have skills. You’re smart. You’re talented. We could use y’all not only as surrogates, but as staffers.”
“Mom…” Regulus starts.
“What positions?” Sirius interjects.
She pauses, drifts back over to her slice of pizza. “Sirius, you’re the family wonk,” she says, taking a bite. “We could have you running point on policy. This means a lot of research and a lot of writing.”
“Fuck yes,” Sirius says. “Lemme romance the hell out of some focus groups. I’m in.”
“Sirius—” Regulus starts again, but their mom cuts him off.
“Regulus , I’m thinking communications,” she goes on. “Since your degree is mass comm, I was thinking you can come handle some of the day-to-day liaising with media outlets, working on messaging, analyzing the audience —”
“Mom, I have a job,” he says.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, of course, sugar. But this could be full-time. Connections, upward mobility, real experience in the field doing some amazing work.”
“I, um…” Regulus rips a piece of crust off his pizza. “Don’t remember ever saying I wanted to do anything like that. That’s, uh, kind of a big assumption to make, Mom. And you realize if I go into campaign communications now, I’m basically shutting down my chances of ever being a journalist, because, like, journalistic neutrality and everything. I can barely get anyone to let me write a column as it is.”
“Baby boy,” their mom says.
She’s got that look on her face she gets when she’s saying something with a fifty-fifty chance of pissing you off.
“You’re so talented, and I know you work hard, but at some point, you have to be realistic.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just mean … I don’t know if you’re happy,” she says, “and maybe it’s time to try something different. That’s all.”
“I’m not you,” Regulus tells her. “This isn’t my thing.”
“Regggieeeeee,” Sirius says, tilting his head back to look at Regulus upside down over the arm of his chair. “Just think about it? I’m doing it.”
He looks back at their mom. “Are you offering a job to Barty too?”
She nods. “Mike is talking to him tomorrow about a position in analytics. If he takes it, he'll start ASAP. You, mister, are not starting until after graduation.”
“Oh man, the White House Trio, riding into battle. This is awesome.”
He looks over at Leo, who has abandoned his project with the TV and is now happily eating a slice of cheesy bread.
“They offer you a job too, Leo?”
“No,” he says. “As usual, my duties as First Gentleman are to work on my tablescapes and look pretty.”
“Your tablescapes are really coming along, baby,” Ellen says, giving him a sarcastic little kiss. “I really liked the burlap placemats.”
“Can you believe the decorator thought velvet looked better?”
“Bless her heart.”
“I don’t like this,” Regulus says to Sirius while their mother is distracted talking about decorative pears. “Are you sure you want this job?”
“It’s gonna be fine, Reggie,” he says. “Hey, if you wanna keep an eye on me, you can always take the offer too.”
He shakes Sirius off, returning to his pizza with an unreadable expression.
The next day there are three matching sticky notes on the whiteboard in Lily's office.
CAMPAIGN JOBS: SIRIUS-BARTY-REGULUS, the board reads.
The sticky notes under his and Barty's names read YES.
Under Regulus's, in what is unmistakably his own handwriting, NO.
Sirius is taking notes in a policy lecture when he gets the first text.
This bloke looks like you.
There’s a picture attached, an image of a laptop screen paused on Chief Chirpa from Return of the Jedi: tiny, commanding, adorable, pissed off.
This is Remus, by the way.
He rolls his eyes, but adds the new contact to his phone: RJL Prince Dickhead. Poop emoji.
He’s honestly not planning to respond, but a week later he sees a
headline on the cover of People—PRINCE REMUS FLIES SOUTH FOR WINTER—complete
with a photo of Remus artistically posed on an Australian beach in a pair of
sensible yet miniscule navy swim trunks, and he can’t stop himself.
you have a lot of moles,
he texts, along with a snap of the spread.
is that a result of the inbreeding?
Remus's retort comes two days later by way of a screenshot of a Daily Mail tweet that reads, Is Sirius Black going to be a father?
The attached message says,
But we were ever so careful, dear,
Which surprises a big enough laugh out of Sirius that Lily ejects him from her weekly debriefing with him and Regulus.
So, it turns out Remus can be funny. Sirius adds that to his mental file.
It also turns out Remus is fond of texting when he’s trapped in moments of royal monotony, like being shuttled to and from appearances, or sitting through meandering briefings on his family’s land holdings, or, once, begrudgingly and hilariously receiving a spray tan.
Sirius wouldn’t say he likes Remus, but he does enjoy the quick rhythm of arguments they fall into.
He knows he talks too much, hopeless at moderating his feelings, which he usually hides under ten layers of charm, but he ultimately doesn’t care what Remus thinks of him, so he doesn’t bother.
Instead, he’s as weird and manic as he wants to be, and Remus jabs back in sharp flashes of startling wit.
So, when he’s bored or stressed or between coffee refills, he’ll check for a text bubble popping up.
Remus with a dig at some weird quote from his latest interview, Remus with a random thought about English beer versus American beer, a picture of Remus's dog wearing a Slytherin scarf.
i don’t know WHO you think you’re kidding, you hufflepuff-ass bitch,
Sirius texts back, before Remus clarifies his dog, not him, is a Slytherin.
He learns about Remus's life through a weird osmosis of text messages and social media.
It’s meticulously scheduled by James, with whom Sirius is slightly obsessed, especially when Remus texts him things like,
Did I tell you Shaan has a motorbike?
or
Shaan is on the phone with Portugal.
It’s quickly becoming apparent the RJL Prince Remus Fact Sheet either omitted the most interesting stuff or was outright fabricated.
Remus's favorite food isn’t mutton pie but a cheap falafel stand ten minutes from the palace, and he’s spent most of his gap year thus far working on charities around the world, half of them owned by his best friend, Evan.
Sirius learns Remus is super into classical mythology and can rattle off the configurations of a few dozen constellations if you let him get going.
Sirius hears more about the tedious details of operating a sailboat than he would ever care to know and sends back nothing but: cool.
Eight hours later.
Remus hardly ever swears, but at least he doesn’t seem to mind Sirius's filthy fucking mouth.
Remus's sister, Ariadne—she goes by Ari, Sirius finds out—pops up often, since she lives in Kensington Palace as well.
From what he gathers, the two of them are closer than either are to their brother.
They compare notes on the trials and tribulations of having annoying siblings.
did ari force you into tea parties as a child too?
Has Regulus also got a fondness for sneaking your leftover curry out of the refrigerator in the dead of night like a Dickensian street urchin?
More common are cameos by Evan, a man who cuts such an intriguing and bizarre figure that Sirius wonders how someone like him ever became best friends with someone like Remus, who can drone on about Lord Byron until you threaten to block his number.
He’s always either doing something insane—BASE jumping in Malaysia, eating plantains with someone who might be Jay-Z, showing up to lunch wearing a studded, hot-pink Gucci jacket—or launching a new nonprofit.
It’s kind of incredible.
He realizes that he’s shared Regulus and Barty too, when Remus remembers Regulus's Secret Service codename is Bluebonnet or jokes about how eerie Barty's photographic memory is.
It’s weird, considering how fiercely protective Sirius is of them, that he never even noticed until Remus's Twitter exchange with Regulus about their mutual love of the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie goes viral.
“That’s not your emails-from-Lily face,” Barty says, nosing his way over his shoulder.
Sirius elbows him away. “You keep doing that stupid smile every time you look at your phone. Who are you texting?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and literally no one,” Sirius tells him.
From the screen in his hand, Remus's message reads:
In world’s most boring meeting with Castor. Don’t let the papers print lies about me after I’ve garroted myself with my tie.
“Wait,” Barty says, reaching for his phone again, “are you watching videos of Justin Trudeau speaking French again?”
“That’s not a thing I do!”
“That is a thing I have caught you doing at least twice since you met him at the state dinner last year, so yeah, it is,” Barty says.
Sirius flips him off.
“Wait, oh my God, is it fan fiction about yourself? And you didn’t invite me? Who do they have you boning now? Did you read the one I sent you with Macron? I died.”
“If you don’t stop, I’m gonna call Taylor Swift and tell her you changed your mind and want to go to her Fourth of July party after all.”
“That is not a proportional response.”
Later that night, once he’s alone at his desk, he replies: was it a meeting about which of your cousins have to marry each other to take back casterly rock?
Ha. It was about royal finances. I’ll be hearing Castor's voice saying the words “return on investment” in my nightmares for the rest of time.
Sirius rolls his eyes and sends back, the harrowing struggle of managing the empire’s blood money.
Remus's response comes a minute later.
That was actually the crux of the meeting—I’ve tried to refuse my share of the crown’s money. Dad left us each more than enough, and I’d rather cover my expenses with that than the spoils of, you know, centuries of genocide. Castor thinks I’m being ridiculous.
Sirius scans the message twice to make sure he’s read it correctly.
i am low-key impressed.
He stares at the screen, at his own message, for a few seconds too long, suddenly afraid it was a stupid thing to say.
He shakes his head, puts the phone down.
Locks it.
Changes his mind, picks it up again.
Unlocks it.
Sees the little typing bubble on Remus's side of the conversation.
Puts the phone down.
Looks away.
Looks back.
One does not foster a lifelong love of Star Wars without knowing an “empire” isn’t a good thing.
He would really appreciate it if Remus would stop proving him wrong.
RJL Prince Dickhead
Oct 30, 2019, 1:07 PM
i hate that tie
What tie?
the one in that instagram you just posted
What’s wrong with it? It’s only grey.
exactly. try patterns sometime, and stop frowning at your phone like i know you’re doing rn
Patterns are considered a “statement.” Royals aren’t supposed to make statements with what we wear.
do it for the gram
You are the thistle in the tender and sensitive arse crack of my life.
thanks!
Nov 17, 2019, 11:04 AM
I’ve just received a 5-kilo parcel of Walburga Black campaign buttons with your face on them. Is this your idea of a prank?
just trying to brighten up that wardrobe, sunshine
I hope this gross miscarriage of campaign funds is worth it to you. My security thought it was a bomb. Shaan almost called in the sniffer dogs.
oh, definitely worth it. even more worth it now. tell shaan i say hi and i miss that sweet sweet ass xoxoxo
I will not.