𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 - regulus black

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕

Valentina felt a lot better after her chat with Daisy, it helped her quit thinking about that awful afternoon. As she expected it another similar mission was planned for next month. This would go on until she would have to attend a bigger event, to actually start the real mission. It had drained her so much, she went to sleep as soon as she came home.

The next day she had already forgotten about Regulus Black. But he surely hadn't as she received his reply in the middle of the day. It was funny to read. She wished she could be laughing with him.

A whole month passed by. At the beginning of May, as planned, Lily and James got married. It was a breath of fresh in this chaos. For a whole day they were in their own bubble, having fun all together, partying until dawn like they were still in Hogwarts. This lasted too short. As always, the good moments always lasted too short. And it was already time for another solo mission. Daisy would be there at first but would leave at some point. Dumbledore wanted Valentina to be as immersed as possible. She could be in a way relying on Daisy if anything wrong was to happen and that shouldn't be the case. Valentina had dinner with Daisy's parents. She had to share some futility with them. They had planned with Daisy what to answer, what subjects to talk about and what to avoid the most. The hardest part that night was probably to actually eat. She was so nervous again her stomach was in a knot. She forced herself to eat at least a little before pretending she wasn't hungry anymore. It wasn't like Daisy's parents really cared. She still couldn't get used to them but she tried to adapt to their way of life. It was purely acting after all. So far Daisy's parents were completely clueless to the fraud.

Valentina was getting busy with those missions every two or three weeks. She was now spending full days at Daisy's house. Being either busy with that or her own studies at St Mungos, she had no real time for the other missions of the Order so that she was quite surprised to learn that at the beginning of July, a very big mission had been planned. It was only recently that the Order received some information regarding Voldemort's next move. They were about to do a mass attack somewhere in London. In times like those, no one was safe. However as to prevent it, the Order would be ready to fight.

Like before every mission, Valentina felt stressed. The air was hot outside but it seemed like a storm was coming. It gave her a bad feeling. The silence was heavy at the headquarters as everyone mentally prepared up on their own. Valentina was sitting on a chair at the large table, observing Daisy and Gideon from afar. She hoped everything would go fine for him. She hoped everything would go fine for everyone and herself.

They left the place all together at 3:34pm precisely. A time not randomly chosen as they knew the city would be full to the brim. If their information was correct, one specific neighborhood had been targeted. They arrived in pairs, hid and waited. Valentina had been paired up with Dorcas Meadowes. They had shared classes together not long ago, knew each other very well and so she knew what a strong witch she was. They were walking together from alleyway to alleyway, their eyes and ears wide open to be sure they wouldn't miss anything. The sound of an explosion broke the silence. They looked at each other in shock before running in the direction of the noises. There were a lot of screams now and when they arrived some innocent Muggles had already been victims of those cruel Death Eaters. The fight had already started. Some members of the Order were protecting the Muggles running away while others were dueling. In spite of this panic, Valentina tried to keep her calm.

She stayed hidden while throwing jinxes and hexes here and there. She couldn't see everything, she could only focus on one enemy at once and it almost costed her life. As she was stupefying Death Eaters as best as she could, she didn't see the ray of green light coming from her right. When she did notice it, she thought it was too late. But before it was indeed too late, someone took a hold of her and brought her away from the mess. She had closed her eyes as a reflex as she thought she was about to die and when she opened them again, she saw a silhouette, faced a back, as a ray of green light flashed from his wand. Regulus looked back at her and remained silent for a moment. He was out of breath and sweating a little. This was intense for everyone.