Parallel

12. The Knights

They know.

They being the Death Eaters—Avery, Rosier, Mulciber, Nott, and Lestrange. Eve could tell, because they're all oddly silent at dinner, refusing to make eye contact with her and speaking in low undertones with Riddle. Even Avery was solemn and quiet, speaking to Eve once to only ask her to pass the mashed potatoes.

She herself had no idea how to act, choosing instead to push the peas on her plate around with her spoon and half-listen to Kate and Alphard's conversation about mixing firewhisky into butterbeer as she pointedly refused to even slightly look at Riddle.

She'd last spoken to him in the dungeons around three in the afternoon. The day had since passed in a blur of nerves and anticipation, with Eve experiencing a perpetual state of frazzledness that culminated in her accidentally dipping the feathered end of her quill in ink at the library, tripping over Sophie's feet twice in the hallway, and answering an Astronomy homework question so wrong while studying in the Common Room that even Kate had to mouth You serious? to her from across the table.

Not that she could help it! Eve wished a magical cloud would just float into the Great Hall and whisk her away to a peaceful meadow free of war, stress, and Tom Riddles.

What had she gotten herself into? She'd probably asked herself the same question three dozen times in the last two hours. Telling Riddle she was a Seer and striking up a deal with him to most likely attend one of his Death Eater gatherings tonight to infiltrate his inner circle and destroy his Horcruxes and destroy him and possibly save wizardkind?

An absurdity! Insanity!

Eve pushed one of the many existential crises that had been looming on the horizon of her mind since she'd landed in 1944 back into its recesses and sighed. She wasn't sure how much more stress and second-guessing of practically everything she could pile onto her poor heart before it inevitably stopped working. She wouldn't be surprised if, very soon, actual gray hairs would start to sprout from her head.

She snuck a quick glare at the culprit of everything from across the table.

Said culprit's dark eyes were already boring into her.

Eve snapped her head back quickly, coughing noisily and refusing to acknowledge the sudden sharp spike in panic that arose in her chest.

"Abraxas!" she said loudly, ignoring the nerves threatening to explode from within her nervous system as the blonde looked up from sipping a mug across the table. "How's training for Quidditch tryouts on Monday going?"

Next to Eve, Kate groaned as Abraxas puffed up his chest, a maniacal expression overtaking his face as he banged his fist on the table.

"TERRIFIC!" he barked, causing the entire half end of the Slytherin table to jump. "I DRAGGED URQUHART OUT OF HIS BED AT FOUR A.M. TODAY AND MADE HIM FLY LOOPS WITH ME FOR TWO HOURS."

As if to confirm the anecdote, the brown-haired Urquhart glared up from further down the table and yelled an obscenity at Abraxas, his eyes heavily rimmed with dark circles.

Eve blinked. "Uh—Abraxas, are you okay? Why are you yelling?"

One of his eyes twitched. "I AM FINE. JUST EXCITED."

Next to Abraxas, Alphard rolled his eyes, levying Eve with a meaningful look. "That's an understatement. He had five cups of coffee earlier because he said the caffeine makes him feel powerful on the field."

"IT WAS SIX."

"Six cups of coffee earlier because he said the caffeine makes him feel powerful on the field."