maple syrup | remus lupin [1]

prologue

SHE HAD TO cancel the noise out. She couldn't stand it, the loud and agressive yelling.

If there was one thing Claudia Natalia Maple hated it was loud yelling. A belief she inherited from her mother, who always used to say "anger is more effectively expressed if one does it in a calm tone."

Her father never agreed with that saying. He let out a scoff each time Claudia repeated her mother's words. He believed that anger couldn't be expressed without raising your voice. It wasn't even anger if you didn't yell. He believed that it did not count if your point didn't come across with your face going red, your veins popping out on your forehead, and your mouth accidentally spitting at whoever you were angry at.

Eventually Claudia gave up with trying to let her mind shut the noise out, so she got out of her bed and put her book down. She paced over to her record player and dragged her fingers over her selection of records, as she picked out the one she knew she needed.

Some damn Jackson 5.

"Never can say goodbye", started playing, and Claudia adjusted the volume to a reasonable one for shutting out the noise her father and aunt were making as they yelled at one another.

"Even though the pain and heartache seems to follow me wherever I go," she hummed as she walked right back to her bed and picked up her book, "Emma", again.

Claudia had as of recently, during the summer, started to read all of her aunt's muggle books. She had so far read ten books, but there was a long way to go with the hundreds of books that lived on her aunt's shelves. Her aunt, Gemma, had turned the whole thing into a 'challenge' for the thirteen year old girl. Gemma wanted to see how much she could read during the summer, and Claudia wanted to prove that it was a lot.

"Never can say goodbye" had drifted into a song called "The Wall", as the yelling stopped and her bedroom door opened.

In came her father, Charles Maple, and her aunt, Gemma Rowe.

Just as she assumed, a vein had popped out on her fathers sweaty forehead. His face had also gone red, but Gemma looked exactly the same, just as peaceful as always.

Claudia sat up from the bed as her father turned of the music, the so-called "despicable muggle-music".

"Claudia," he coldly greeted his daughter as her aunt sat down next to her niece on her bed.

"I have arrived to bring you home," he said. Claudia's stomach dropped. She was already home, where would she go?

"I thought you made it clear that I will stay here, with Gemma?" Claudia asked.

"My decision has changed. Pack your things," he said with a tone of disgust as he walked out of the room, presumably also out of the house that the girl had lived in with her aunt for the past year.

"Where am I going?" Claudia asked her aunt as panic struck her. She wasn't going to live with him, was she? With him and his horrible, horrible family?

"I'm so sorry sweetie, I couldn't convince him," Gemma said with tears in her eyes, caressing her niece's face. Claudia swore her stomach had dropped down to her knees at this point.

"What do you mean?" She said as tears welled in her eyes as well.

"He wants you out of my house, because of my work," her aunt explained sadly.

Because of her work.

Gemma had recently been hired at the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic. It was a risky move to make of her aunt, but she loved her job. Being a half-blood witch with a muggle father, all she really ever wanted was to connect with that side of her. The muggle side. That's why Gemma and Claudia always listened to muggle music, read muggle books and took interest in muggle things.

Claudia's father hated this. He hated muggles, and he even hated halfbloods. He was what one would call a blood supremacist. He was ashamed to have a halfblood for a daughter, which was why he discarded her completely and left her to live with her aunt. Before then Claudia had lived with her mother. She had never lived with her father, she only saw him on rare occasions.

Claudia, truth be told, despised her father. His views and the way he treated her and her aunt, and the way he had treated her mother made her sure of it. Claudia knew for sure that her father was a horrible human being.

Charles Maple was at first not aware of Claudia and Gemma's interest in the muggle world, which was always a good thing since Claudia got to stay put with her aunt. But, he had found out of her work and now things would never be the same.

"I'm so sorry Claude," her aunt said in a guilty tone.

"It's not your fault, I'll be alright." Claudia didn't even believe herself when she said that. "I love you, aunt Gemma," she said as she hugged her aunt.

"I love you kiddo, we'll keep in touch every day, alright?"

"Alright."

Gemma helped Claudia pack up her room, leaving the books and records behind since she would not be allowed to bring them to her father's manor. The entire time they packed, they cried. They didn't want to leave one another, and both were scared of how Claudia's life would be at Maple Manor, with her father, his wife and her two sons.

The goodbye was the hardest part. They hugged and they cried and they promised things to one another.

Before she got the chance to leave, Gemma discreetly plopped a book into Claudia's bag, and then it was time to leave.

Her father grabbed her arm tightly before she got the chance to hug her aunt one last time, and then he apparated straight to Maple Manor.

The coldest place on earth.

Only a month left before you can go back to Hogwarts, Claudia thought to herself.

Only a month.