black coffee | remus lupin [2]

66. help is on the way

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"WE ARE GOING TO entertain ourselves tonight," Voldemort said proudly as he paced towards the head of the table, by the second nearing where Claudia and Regulus were sitting. "Doesn't that sound...agreeable?"

Around the table, the people were nodding. Claudia, however, was staring at her hands, trying to get her mind straight from thinking about the weird woman who was, once again, repeatedly taking glances at her.

It was the same woman who had been at Maple manor after the interview Claudia had had with Tina Skeeter. The pale woman who always stared - whose name was memorably Mollie Carrow - seemed to find it both embarrassing and amusing that Claudia was so uncomfortable under her eyes, but even so she made no effort to stop.

"It has come to my attention that a certain group of young wizards and witches will be gathering tonight to plan their next ambush on us," Voldemort said with a dry chuckle. "We're going to pay them a little visit."

Regulus took a quick glance at Claudia, who still wasn't paying much attention. In fact, she was singing a song inside her head as she waited for the night to finally come to an end.

What Claudia didn't know, however, was that the night was only beginning.

Regulus was a tad bit worried that the "certain group of young wizards and witches" would include members of the Order. Well, it was honestly quite certain that it would, hence why he was immediately trying to come up with a way of making sure that he could go home and bring Claudia with him instead of joining in on the soon-to-be battle.

If they would be forced to join, Regulus knew that someone would find out about the truth of his and Claudia's situations, and most of all titles as Death Eaters, and that simply couldn't happen. Even if they were to wear those atrocious and ridiculous masks that Voldemort often made them were, Regulus knew that Claudia fighting against her friends was only a disaster in the making.

"Claudia..." the Dark Lord said in what was almost a chilly whisper as he stopped by her and Regulus. "You'll join us, I suppose?"

All heads turned to the girl, whose eyes were still resting peacefully on her lap. Somehow she took notice of how not just Mollie, but everyone was staring at her, which caused her to instantly look up and nod, unaware to what she was agreeing to.

"Good," Voldemort said with the hint of a proud smile. "You can take the lead."

She nodded again, but this time around confusion and, well, fear was very much written all over her face as she looked to Regulus, who was clearly trying to hold in his panic.

Despite the hearts that were beating fast and the palms that were sweating more and more by the second, Claudia and Regulus listened intently to Voldemort's following instructions, that included where his group of chosen Death Eaters were to go, and what they were supposed to do with the people who they'd meet.