| HIDDEN IN SECRETS |

chapter sixty-nine

RUN

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The full moon was the brightest it had ever been before. The moon was out, which meant that Lupin was gone. The thing about their village was that there was a forest where he would reside when he was a werewolf. It had the perfect cover and no Muggle suspected anything, not even the large black dog that often trotted in.

Usually, Black would visit Lupin but this time, he focused on Verena. With Lupin — "the softie" — gone, Black was able to make his attempt at coercing Verena to do the Order a favour.

He would say to her, "If Harry dies, know that you're the only one who could have prevented it!"

Or, he would tell her, "Dahlia would be so disappointed. She would have done it for us."

Black was great at making people feel guilty, but Verena was a Salvador. As a Salvador, she learned to do what was best for her. She was warned to not be persuaded easily. So, Black's words did not make her feel guilty or pressured. It made her annoyed and frustrated.

"You and your family were always selfish," Black said to her during dinner. "Never think of others and only yourself."

"Remind you, I put Harry's life before mine!" Verena retorted. "I saved his life, more than twice!"

Black laughed. He praised his godson, so much that he could not believe someone else had to save him, besides his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. It wasn't unknown that he was biased.

Verena huffed, rolling her eyes. She believed Black compared her to the devil itself. Black would never understand and would always place the blame on her. She had Salvador and Duman blood. Just as he hated his blood, he hated hers.

What Verena could not understand was how he could not comprehend her feelings when they were the same as his. While she didn't completely hate her family, she no longer trusted them. She no longer praised them; she feared them. She ran, and so did Black.

"It's hard to believe that," Black said. "You have always bullied him and his friends. If anything, you put him in danger!"

"How do I put him in danger?" Verena questioned, crossing her arms.

"When something bad happens, you are always there," Black said. "And you have had visions of danger, yet you keep it to yourself. You want it to happen."

Verena slammed her fork into the wooden table with so much force that the fork stood upright. Black was not startled. He had been through this very act before. He knew he hit a nerve, and instead of cowering as he did when he was small, he looked at her amusedly.

"It wasn't my choice! At first, I didn't even know what I was seeing, and I didn't want people to think I was mad! Then Professor Dumbledore told me to keep quiet about it, and so did my parents. As you said, not all of my visions come true, but still, I did my best to stop bad things from happening!"

Black was bored. He yawned, which only angered Verena further.

"You think I wanted Cedric to die? He was my friend, and the moment I figured it out, I tried like hell to make him lose in the tournament, even if that meant severely injuring him. He was my friend, and if I could trade places with him, I would."

Black's demeanor changed. He was no longer amused and sitting on the high horse. He was feeling guilty. He forgot that she and the Hufflepuff were friends and that she had seen his death. Of course, she would try to stop it from happening. If it were anyone else but Verena, he would have apologized. But it was Verena, and he needed to keep his head high.