maple syrup | remus lupin [1]

66. dinner with the snakes

HOURS BEFORE THE four Marauders and the two blonde girls had arrived at Maple manor, Claudia was getting ready for another one of the insufferable dinners she had been attending frequently the first few weeks of the summer in order to find the best suitor possible.

So far, the girl had been forced to go to four dinners; three with some random lads from Slytherin that she had never spoken to, and one with Mulciber and his parents.

She had hated every minute of each dinner - and the worst one hadn't even been yet.

Because the worst one was that very night, with Evan Rosier and his parents.

Well, she wasn't exactly certain that it was that type of dinner - since no one really mentioned why she was supposed to attend - but Evan did have intentions of getting her, and even if it was just a normal dinner, it would still end up with a conversation about it.

And, lucky for Claudia, it was also the anniversary of her mother's death.

Another thing that made that day the most dreadful one in what felt like forever - despite the fact that Claudia had spent pretty much every other day so far during summer getting struck by curses.

She was exhausted; but sleeping wouldn't help. It could not make her any less tired.

She was exhausted from waking up in pain - and barely sleeping because of it.

She was exhausted from attending dinners and acting as if her whole body wasn't screaming at her to lay down and sleep, or even go to St. Mungos.

She was exhausted from being hurt and bloody and dealing with her aching body all the damn time.

And she was exhausted from being all alone.

She hated Remus, she really did. He had invaded her privacy for god knows how long without telling her, and then he had made an assumption without even allowing her to explain herself.

But, despite all of that, she couldn't help but to want one thing and one thing only - and that was for him to come back and hold her again.

Claudia had been feeling blue for as long as she could remember - but nothing could truly beat that very day that came once a year.

The day that was the anniversary of her mum's death. The day were she had to live with knowing that at the same time as she was all alone in a dark house with the worst people she had ever met.

The day that would always cause her to want to give up.

And, this time around, she couldn't tell if it was worse than ever before or not.