Sirius had woken up especially early the next day, still feeling the growing tension between Jane and Sloan even during the earliest hours of the morning. Molly was whisking up eggs while he helped chop up potatoes for the stew when Jane had walked in, who looked like she had just gotten out of bed.

She fumbled for one of the few clean glass cups on the rack for a refreshing drink of water when Sloan walked in, and in anger, Jane had purposefully dropped the glass, which shattered to a million pieces. Molly jumped back in surprise, her bowl of whisked eggs spilling to the floor as well.

Sloan huffed, eyeing the mess on the floor, "Don't tell me. That was my fault too?"

Jane slammed her hand on the counter, "It is your fault. You shouldn't have come here in the first place."

"And why not? Please, Jane, I've been in the Order longer than you. And also a more important correspondent. Between the two of us, you're the one who has no use being here—"

"Godric's sake, you two, will you cut it out!" Sirius yelled, the two growing silent, Jane still glaring at him menacingly.

"Both of you, go change in to decent clothes and get the hell out of my house." He ordered, their eyes widening in confusion. "Sirius..."

"No. Be quiet. No one says a word until you're out of the door. And no one comes back in unless you've sorted your shit out." He said firmly, looking at both Jane and Sloan straight in the eye. He may be the youngest of the lot, but he knew that if they couldn't get along, it would mean a bad summer for Florence, who was still clearly so confused with everything. They owed her lots of explanation, but they couldn't do that if they had different versions of the same story, fueled only by the strongest resentment that one has for the other.

Remus walked in to the kitchen just as Jane and Sloan stomped out like toddlers getting scolded. He eyed them, brows raised in question. "What's up with them? Why's the kitchen a mess?"

"Remus, dear, would you so kindly fix up another batch of eggs and whisk them? I'll go find something to sweep the glass with then I'll take over."

He agreed, setting his mug down on the kitchen island, reaching for the egg carton when he heard the door slam close very loudly, to be followed by Mrs. Black screeching.

"Fucking hag..." Sirius muttered, sprinting to the hall before anyone else was awoken by the noise.

The house was serene yet again, the smell of Molly's breakfast meal wafting into the hallways and up the stairs. Soon enough, some of her sons had awoken, and then Arthur, all of them helping her out in setting the table.

Sirius thought it would be a good idea to wake up Florence too, as a meal with a group of people might be a good thing that could help lift her spirits from yesterday's breakout.

He trudged up the stairs, now partially clean due to everyone's efforts.

"Florence?" Sirius whispered, carefully opening the door as he peeked inside, "Florence, Molly made breakfast. It's time to get up." he could barely see her from under the thick duvets of the bed, Sirius cautiously stepping inside. "Florence," he whispered this time, reaching out his hand to gently tap her shoulder, "Time to wake up—" his hand fell flat onto the bed, as if it was vacant. His brows furrowed in confusion, before lifting the duvets completely off of the mattress.

It was empty, the brown haired girl nowhere in sight. Sirius trudged over to the bathroom door, knocking loudly, "Florence? Are you in there?" No response. He clutched the doorknob. It was unlocked.

A swirl of panic starting brewing in the pit of his stomach, charging out of the empty room as quickly as he could. "Moony!" He shouted from the stairs, scurrying into the kitchen only to be chastised for the racket he was making. "No, don't shush me. Florence isn't in her room. She's missing, Moony. What if she ran away?"

"Florence is not missing, and she didn't run away," Remus reassured the now panicking man, "She's in Fred and George's room."

Sirius nearly choked on thin air. "Fred and George's room?!"

"Yes," said Remus nonchalantly, whereas his best mate was on the verge of hyperventilating, "She spent the night there, I think. I saw her and Fred head to bed last night—"

"Why didn't you stop them?" Sirius half yelled, before running back up to the stairs. Remus' eyes widened, following him, "Padfoot, you're being ridiculous. Nothing happened to them, they just slept together."

"Slept together," Sirius repeated with a slight worry in his voice.

"In an innocent manner!" Remus corrected.

"She shouldn't be sleeping in the boys' room."

"Why  not? Last time I recalled, Fred is Florence's boyfriend—"

"Especially not in her boyfriend's room!" Sirius said, walking down the hallway to the last bedroom, where the Weasley twins slept.

Remus scoffed, "Yeah, you'd think like that, wouldn't you? After all, before, we couldn't leave you and Marlene alone in a room without you two getting your hands down each other's pants—"

Sirius threw the bedroom door open, to see two heads of fluffy red hair peaking beneath the covers on the two separate queen beds. Florence was curled up beside the boy on the right corner of the room, her brown hair sprawled almost artistically on the white pillows. She was even snoring lightly, a hand resting on Fred's chest.

"See?" Remus whispered as lowly as he could, "Both of them are fully clothed, "Now get your arse back down to the dining room before you wake them—oh, for goodness sake, Padfoot!" he sighed, watching as Sirius grabbed a pile of heavy leather books from a stool, before dropping it loudly onto the floor, causing everyone to jerk awake in surprise.

Florence emerged from under the covers, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes before peering at what it was that made noise.

"Sirius, what are you doing in here?"

"Being nosy, that's what." Remus replied, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Get over yourself, Moony."

"No. You get over yourself." he threw his hands up, "Always putting malice is innocent things..." he muttered, exiting the room.

"Sirius," Florence repeated, "What are you doing in here?"

"Checking to see if any of you were naked." his straightforwardness made Florence flush into a deep shade of red, the redhead boy beside her staring at Sirius half incredulously and half amused, whereas George was fighting back the urge to laugh.

"Yeah...no. We're just sharing the same bed, Sirius," Florence tugged at her pajama bottoms and sleeping shirt, "See? Clothes still intact."

"Well fine. Breakfast is ready, incase any of you are hungry." he said, before leaving the room to follow Remus.

"Well that was a bit uncalled for." Fred said in a half chuckle, once Sirius was out of earshot, the mortified look on Florence's face indicated that she agreed wholeheartedly. She left the twins to change, slipping on a casual shirt and left her pajama bottoms on, before trudging down the stairs, ultimately dreading having to deal with her newly met uncle and, her now cousin, Julien Fransson.

But her mother nor uncle were nowhere to be seen, much to her relief. It was only Julien, who ate his share of breakfast along with Tonks and Moody on the living room table since the dining room was crowded. Sirius pulled up a seat for her, which he had reserved, Florence thanking him as she sank down and reached for the platter of toasted bread.

Ron, who was wedged beside his mother and Fred, was the first one to start the conversation at the table, "So...I know Hermione is arriving in a few days...but I don't suppose anyone's mentioned when Harry's going to get here?"

"He won't be, I'm afraid, or atleast maybe not for most of the summer." replied Arthur, Florence hearing Sirius sigh in disappointment beside her.

"Why not?" asked Ginny, who had stopped pushing a piece of bread back and forth across her plate. "Well...Dumbledore says it's best that we don't drag him in yet. It will only make the boy worry."

"But he's the biggest part of the whole thing, is he not? I mean for one he was the one who saw Voldemort come back."

"Dumbledore has his reasons, I'm sure. Now eat up. We'll have plenty to do today. Cleaning duty, all of us."

There was a collective amount of groans at Arthur's words, knowing that it would take them quite awhile for the house to be spotlessly clean.

Florence leaned closer to Sirius as Remus began to strike up a new conversation, "Where did mum go?"

"Don't worry. I made her and your uncle run some errands. Hopefully when they come back, they'll have their arguments settled."

"You kicked them out of the house?"

"To put it blatantly, yes, I did. It's for the best."

It was a comforting feeling, knowing that she had a few hours in peace, however realized that she still had Julien to deal with. She had many questions that she wanted to ask him, starting from whether or not he knew who she was the moment they first met, or of Alanna knew anything.

And she was given the time to ask, as everyone started to slowly contribute to sterilizing the whole house.

She was scrubbing at the stair hand rails when she saw a figure looking over her, nearly loosing her balance and toppling over from her crouched position when she saw him.

"Sorry," he said rather sheepishly, ploping down on one of the steps as Florence tried to avoid eye contact, scrubbing violently at the same spot over and over. "Hey, I'm sorry this is all very strange, I didn't really think of how you would be affected—"

"Did you know?"

"Pardon?"

"In Hogwarts. When you first introduced yourself. Did you know I was your cousin?"

He fell silent for awhile. "Turthfully? Yeah I did know we were related."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't allowed to. My dad said that I'd get to introduce myself again in due time, he figured that your mum mustn't have told you about him yet. They were on bad terms when your father died...as you saw yesterday..."

Florence gazed at him intently, "He told you everything?"

"Everything." Julien confessed, almost hesitantly. He felt that it was unfair to Florence, being kept in the dark about things that were revolving around her life. "But you shouldn't get mad at your mum for keeping all these things from you. She was really hurt, atleast that's what I understand from everything."

"I'm not mad her..nor will I ever get mad." she tossed the dirty rag into the bucket of sudsy water, eventually plopping down beside Julien, her fingertips now wrinkly from all the water, "In fact, I'm more worried for her now because everything she's kept back for the past decade is flooding back to her all at once, I mean, I didn't even think that there was anything more to the story of my dad's death..." she trailed off, "What did your father do? What is my mum blaming him for?"

He looked down at his shoes before giving out an audible sigh, "That, you'll have to ask them yourself. It's not for me to tell you."

"I...okay...I guess I'll have to listen to you on that one."

"Don't worry." he put a hand on her shoulder, "You'll get your answers very soon. Maybe when they come back from wherever they went off to."

"Sirius kicked them out of the house, you know." Florence told him, half amusedly. Julien's brows went up, "For real?"

"Yeah. Said he won't let them come back in unless they stop squabbling."

"Well there you have it," Julien chuckled, "Expect the explanations they owe you when they get back."

"You know, there's an upside to this whole thing." she told him, a small smile on her face. "Atleast now I'm not alone, and that I'm not the last generation of the Prices to exist ever."

"True. I always felt that way too, that I was alone. Even if I had Alanna, there were always these moments where I'd look around during family dinner...and all I see is her, my mother, and her father. Just, one happy family, then I'd feel utterly excluded from everything. Like I was a visitor dining with them."

"And they've all been nice to me, Alanna having my back no matter what. Her father, Erik, fed me, clothed me, gave me his surname to use, kept a roof over my head, paid for my school fees, in a way that my real father never did. But when my dad would visit, it was just three times every year. He'd take me out to ice cream when I was younger, and eventually to a store to buy me stuff... Those were the moments where I felt as if I belonged to something. It might be ungrateful to say—"

Florence shook her head, "No, I don't think it is. Sloan's blood is the same blood that runs through you. It's normal, I guess, to feel the sort of paternal connection the way you never felt with Erik."

"Well... We kinda have the same blood too. Do you feel a sort of kindred connection with me?"

"Not at first, no. But, yeah, I would think so, considering the fact that I'm supposed to be cleaning and not having a really deep first conversation with you."

"It's nice, though, having to finally meet another family member, Cousin."

"I feel the same way, cousin." Florence chuckled, pushing herself up, "As nice as that was, I'd say we should pick up the conversation next time? When the house is spick and span? They might think I'm slacking off."

"Same here... I was supposed to clean out that creepy looking dresser in Tonks' room."

------

Sloan and Jane came back to headquarters an hour after the sun had set outside. Florence was partially worried that her mum would refuse to settle the feud, as Sirius seemed dead set on keeping them outside until she could stand being around her brother in law. Merlin knows that he might even have to let them sleep outside if that's what it took.

But eventually, they had arrived back home in one piece, Jane making a beeline towards Florence who was lounging on the couch, exhausted from the afternoon's worth of mopping, scrubbing and sweeping. She was startled as her mum pulled her in to a hug, stroking her hair as she did so.

"Florence, honey," Jane sighed, as soon as she pulled away from the hug, "I'm sorry, for keeping you in the dark for so long. I should have told you, everything, that something was wrong."

"You should have told me," she agreed, "You should have told me that you were hurting, mum. I could have helped. I was there with you all these years that I could have helped ease the burden... You know I was there, and I'll always be here for you, right?"

"I know, dear, thank you. I love you." Jane looked as if she was on the verge of crying, swiping away the tears that were brimming in her eyes before they fell.

"I love you too, mum."

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