black coffee | remus lupin [2]

67. aftermath

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CLAUDIA REFUSED TO LOOK AT HER. But she knew that she was staring. In fact, she knew that everyone was.

All of the members of the Order, as well as most of the Death Eaters, had apparated away. But a few of the Dark Lord's followers stayed behind, watching the dramatics unfold. It all happened so fast, and honestly Claudia was still so confused to what it was that had happened in the first place. And that actually made sense, because it had only been a few minutes since she had fallen to the ground.

It wasn't until blood from a wound on her forehead seeped onto her eyelid and almost into her eye that she finally said something.

"Nicolas..." she whispered breathlessly, because she was almost certain that the boy holding onto the lifeless body in front of her was in fact her stepbrother. "Nicolas..."

"Regulus," Nicolas said, speaking as if he was gasping after air. "Go check on Regulus."

"What?" Claudia questioned in her dizzy state of shock, receiving no answer from her stepbrother, who was holding onto the remaining parts of his best friend.

Claudia then looked around, met the scary eyes of Mollie once more, and quickly shook herself back to reality.

"Regulus," she said to herself as she began to crawl towards what she was sure was his body. She crawled because her leg hurt like hell for some reason, removing the mask in the process with the hopes of there not being anyone from the Order around that would identify her.

There wasn't, thankfully, and honestly if there would have been, their memories wouldn't have stayed long if Bellatrix, who was casually strolling around the first floor, got to take any part in the matter.

A part of Claudia, deep inside, was panicking, because Regulus wasn't moving and he hadn't moved when she spotted him like that before either. But she tried to push that part of her away, because all that mattered now was to make sure that he was fine, not to focus on the fact that he maybe wasn't.

"Regulus," she repeated, speaking both to herself and to the boy who she had finally gotten to.

He was still there on the ground, his eyes shut and his arm bleeding. Claudia's mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that Regulus was dead, or at least on the cusp of dying, so soon she was shaking his body as if that was the only thing that could bring him back.

"Come on, you idiot," she whispered. "Regulus!"

Then, when he still didn't wake up or move or anything at all, Claudia felt that panic grow more and more by the second.

"Regulus!" She yelled. "Come on!"

He gave her no response yet again, and as she looked closely at his chest, she could also see that it wasn't heaving up and down.