CURSES AND CANDIES - REMUS LUPIN

𝑓𝑖𝑓𝑡𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒.

In Rosier Manor, there was a large amount of stress between Vindia and Mulstone about the location of their daughter. Not because they cared about her safety, obviously, but for two other reasons only focused on their own selfish needs.

First, they had no desire to go to Azkaban for torturing their daughter. Although it was highly doubtful that the Ministry would actually make a case against them with only the word of a seventeen year old girl as their evidence, the Rosier reputation was still on the line as being refined and prestigious.

The second was that they now had no more children to carry on their bloodline. They had always known that it would just be a matter of time until Hollis ran away for good, even though they had tried to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening. With one son dead and daughter ran away, the Rosiers were hopeless.

"What are we going to do?" Vindia asked, running a hand along her eyes. "Where could she have gone?"

You see, the Rosier parents knew that the three Gryffindors had seen Hollis, but not where they had come from. For all they were aware of, she could have run away to one of their homes across the country instead of mere miles away.

"I don't know either," Mulstone said with a deep frown. "And we have no way of locating that stupid girl. There's no damage done to any of the gates, how did she even get away?"

They had always known that Hollis was clever, but this was far beyond even their comprehension. For her to have disappeared so suddenly seemed nearly impossible, even using any magical method she was capable of they could think of.

"I don't know," Vindia replied honestly, starting to get a headache from how intense this was all becoming. "There's only one place we know she's going to be."

Mulstone came to the conclusion at the same time as his wife.

"The station," he nodded, teeth gritting. "But that's rather public, isn't it? We don't want to damage our reputation any further."

Vindia sighed yet again as she sat down in the black leather chair that still had traces of Hollis's blood on it.

"Our reputation, sure," she said uncharacteristically. "But what about our lives? If the Dark Lord discovers that Hollis-"

Those Gryffindors were still worming their way into her mind.

"That Appoline had betrayed his cause, our daughter-"

"I have no daughter."

Vindia blinked a few times at her husband before nodding along.

"We will not have a disgrace like that in our family," she added on. "Now she's just an enemy."

It was a decision they had already made long ago.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡　　　ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+

The atmosphere in the living room of Lupin Cottage had never been so tense.

Even though Euphemia had only been working for a few minutes, Remus was already getting anxious that she wouldn't be able to do much to help her. Hollis's injuries that they could see were terrible, but they had no idea what damage her parents had done to the inside of her body.

From the blood trails coming from her lips, it couldn't be anything good.

Every time that one of the three boys looked at the Dark Mark, they mentally flinched or physically winced away from the tattoo. The silence left quite a bit of room for overthinking things, and they were doing everything they could to keep themselves from doubting Hollis.