In celebration of it being my birthday and the new episode dropping, so enjoy this new chapter. Also, I wouldn't mind some reviews for birthday presents :)

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Moxxie paced the length of their living room, emitting soft, wounded, dog-like noises and pulling at his head and horns as he whimpered. Millie, meanwhile, sat at the couch, chewing on the skin around her nails and looking worriedly at Moxxie. "Moxxie, sugar, come settle down, or you'll have a panic attack," she told him kindly, motioning to stand up so she could draw him beside her. He hadn't even been this nervous before the test, and the letter that sat menacingly at Millie's side really did make him want to throw up all the contents of his stomach. Millie stood and held him to her, clutching him tight and stroking his head like a hurt puppy. "It's alright, Moxx-Moxx," she said, trying to get him to sit down, but he seemed repelled by the mere presence of the letter, and when she tried to get him on the couch, he thrust their bodies to the other end of it, as if the Royal Seal could actually start bearing its teeth and bite them. But honestly?

This was Hell, and something of the sort wasn't too out of the question. When Millie felt that Moxxie had wound down and that the trembles going up and down his very nervous system had calmed, she took his face and held it close to her own. "We gotta open it, Moxx," she told him gravely. Moxxie sighed, taking her hand and looking at the resting letter on the couch. "I know. Let's just get it over with," he finally huffed. Millie, all too eager to see the contents of the letter, opened it very carefully, almost gasping when she tore the scarlet wax seal as if it that would be considered blasphemy against the royal family.

Both she and Moxxie held their breaths as she pried the envelope open and removed the silky, cream-colored letter inside. Moxxie shut his eyes as Millie's eager ones pored over the letter, reading it over anxiously one time and then reading it with more attention a second time. She let out a hard breath when she was done, and Moxxie could see that her chest deflated.

He took it as a good sign, but he still didn't want to hold it in his hands. "What is it? What did it say?" He asked her instead, expectantly. Millie met his eyes and offered a smile. "The seal mighta be royal, but the letter was from Stolas. He was just giving us the time and address of the dinner tonight. Said he was delighted to have us as guests, or something," she informed him. Moxxie frowned. "So, what does the royal seal mean?" He asked. Millie shook her head. "I got no clue, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say we aren't the only guests he'll be having over tonight." Moxxie swallowed nervously. Well, that was no good.

In fact, it revived all the nervousness that he had been feeling just a few seconds before. "Surely it won't be…." "How could it, Moxx?" Millie asked, but it sounded less like she didn't consider it a possibility and more like she was begging him to find a reason to believe it wouldn't be a member of the royal family. Moxxie was just as clueless as she was in this situation. Did the situation even merit a visit from a member of the royal family? Now it was Millie's turn to be nervous. She stood up abruptly. "I can't believe this is happening," she said, going back to chewing on her nails, her eyes darting everywhere in the apartment but failing to focus on any one spot for even a fraction of a moment. "I mean, us? Receiving a letter with a royal seal on it? I- I mean, I don't even know how to act like royalty. What if her royal bitchiness is there? You know, I hear she sometimes likes to bathe in Imp blood to keep her young - what if the king is there?" She squealed, and by the end of that sentence, all her breath had gone from how fast she was talking.

Moxxie now stood and put a hand on her shoulder tenderly. "I don't know, Mill, but I don't want to think that Stolas set a trap up for us," he said, but he wasn't too sure that that was out of the question. After all, what did they know about Stolas? Basically, nothing besides the fact that he was a power bottom. It seemed likely that he would sell them out for anything that would be convenient to him in the blink of an eye, so long as he had Blitzo's tight ass at the end of the day to run off to for comfort. "I don't know, Moxx, I don't know," Millie repeated, her enthusiasm for dangerous situations seeming to falter in this instance.

This she could understand the gravity of it and knew she couldn't fight her way out of. If they wanted, the mysterious guests at Stolas' dinner could crush them under their feet and erase any trace that they or their entire bloodlines had ever existed. Millie was right to be frightened and apprehensive, but it was painful for Moxxie to see her that way, and he soon donned his big boy trousers, straightened his posture, held Millie tighter, and had her look fixedly at him. "Whatever it is, I think Stolas is running a deeper game than we realize. At most, I think they might want to… use me. But I don't think they would hurt me," he said with a conviction that he wasn't sure he believed.

Before Millie could contradict him, he proceeded, "right now, we need to think practically. There's no way we're getting out of that dinner… what are you going to wear?" He asked in all seriousness. Millie looked at him gravely for just a moment, and then she burst out laughing. The tension seemed to have eased from her shoulders just a bit. "Leave it to my husband to be faced with the scariest people in Hell and wonder what we're wearing," she said through cackles, wiping tears of laughter and odd relief from her eyes. She hugged Moxxie tight and gave him a big kiss on his cheek. "You're right, Moxx, we gotta stay strong, stick it up to any and all fuckers!" "That's really not what I-" "C'mon, let's go fix up your suit."

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They both had a single set of extremely fancy outfits. A year ago, when they had been pretty well-off with the money and Moxxie's birthday was approaching, Millie had saved a lot of secret pennies and invested in a smart, clean black tux for Moxxie and bought herself her own, floor-length velvet gown for the real present: a night at one of Hell's fanciest operas. She had had to convince Moxxie not to cry that night, and throughout the whole thing, there were tears of joy and thankfulness in his eyes. And with his Loving Wife by his side during the show, Moxxie reached the peak of one of his greatest moments of happiness and satisfaction.

In any case, the outfits were far too precious to be used for any other event, and so they had sat, wilting away in their otherwise mundane closets. Every once in a while, Moxxie would unzip the bag that the tux was in, look at it longingly, sigh with content memories, make sure the moths weren't eating it too bad (the moths of Hell were relentless - it wasn't enough with mothballs or anything, you had actually to shoot them to get rid of them) and then tuck it back safely into a nook in his closet. On the other hand, Millie never looked at her dress, mainly because she was afraid that if she did, she would ruin it as if her hands were perpetually dirty. This, however, proved to be a problem because when she opened it, she found the dress had come undone at several of the hems.

Millie started raging immediately. "That fucking saleslady - I knew she was shady, I knew it! I'll tailor her ass like a fucking hat!" She screamed, going over the unstitched gown with her hands. The fact of the matter was that the saleslady probably had scammed her, but it was also hard to find any garment in Hell - especially a beautiful or elegant one - that would hold up for more than one wear. Moxxie had gotten lucky, and since he cared so much about fashion, he had mended the tux on more than one occasion before it'd gotten too bad. Millie didn't have that luck or that stroke of watching too much Project Runway. As Millie stormed around the house, Moxxie calmly went over to the bottom drawer of his night table and produced his sewing kit.

He took the dress from Millie as she cursed the saleslady from top to bottom with unspeakable words, and then he began to mend it. His mother - the Imp one, that was, of course - had always had Moxxie as his own favorite little boy after having so many devilish boys with little to no feminine side. And being from a lower class in the Wrath Ring, they were hardly able to afford the more expensive clothing that assured at least a couple of months of wear, so whatever they had, they either had to make from the raw materials that they could purchase, or had to restitch and almost completely transform from the cheap items they could buy. Moxxie would sit by his mother's side and watch her make of a literal piece of scrap, something wearable and even beautiful at times, and she would sit him on her lap and teach him her mystical ways.

That was one of the reasons why Moxxie had always seemed well-dressed throughout his life, even when money was tight. However, it gained him some nasty looks, looking so primp and posh among others whose economic situation was similar to his. Millie didn't even notice when he slipped the gown from her hands and began working at its many tears. She just kept kicking things and breaking fragile objects around the house until she wore herself out and then finally looked back to Moxxie, who sat at the couch, humming a show tune to himself as he fixed the dress.

He didn't deem it correct to intervene. He knew her well enough by now to know that when she was in one of these incomprehensible rages, she needed to vent and be angry because there was nothing rational to say that would soothe her. When Millie saw him there, she almost burst into tears at the scene in all his tranquillity and understanding. Needless to say, she was feeling very much at the edge of her emotions, and every little thing that upset her in the slightest during that time spun her into a flurry. Leaving the remaining pieces of what used to be a glass lying on the floor abandoned, she quietly went to sit down beside Moxxie and watch him work.

It was always a wonder to see his deft, delicate hands threading the needle up and down in ways that were mysterious to her - she was a farmer's daughter. She didn't have gentle hands, and what she was good at was being bold and brazen: she wasn't much for sitting down to do needlework, and this was why Moxxie was such a wonder to her. She remained looking at him dreamily as he patiently fixed the gown bit by bit. It was already sundown when Moxxie finished his work, and he looked up at Millie with a droopy, almost entranced smile and handed her the gown as if it had been nothing.

It looked as good as new. Millie let out a little squeal and threw her arms around him, disregarding the gown. She accidentally tore open another stitch. "Oops," she said with a toothy grin, and Moxxie just shook his head laughingly as he took the garment in his hands once again to fix the weak spot. It was good that they left over an hour before the Hell-maps told them to because the app was always fucking with you as if trying to make you late, and Stolas lived in an entirely different city, and the richest neighborhood of it, at that.

Needless to say, they had never been there and had a tough time finding the neighborhood. The taxi driver left them on the street that he was in the mood for, and they had to find their own way after that. After many trials and tribulations, at least they managed to arrive fifteen minutes in advance and hovered by the gates, thinking it would be rude to arrive too early.

Both Moxxie and Millie were on edge, feeling as though the whole night would just be them walking on eggshells around the mysterious guests at Stolas' dinner party, and they dreaded having a full night of being nervous and watching every little thing they said. They had agreed to disclose the full truth, however, no matter how uncomfortable, but always trying to make them understand that they had been pressured into revealing certain matters of Hell to the wizarding community. Still, the lords of Hell weren't exactly known for their clemency or patience, and they feared whatever judgment might come upon them during the dinner.

They felt like children being called to the principal's office. It didn't help that their surroundings were more than a little intimidating - it was a fairly small neighborhood, considering that the higher-ups of Hell weren't exactly plentiful, and even then they were distributed in different parts of Hell, but the few mansions that they did see were exuberant and lush, and they both had a feeling of disbelief when they saw such splendor smack in the middle of the slum that was Hell - aside from the constant, sickly color of the sky above and the fact that, even here, plants were difficult to grow, it almost seemed like the neighborhood didn't really belong to Hell.

It looked as if Stolas' mansion was one of the richer ones, which made it all the more difficult for them not to panic. When the clock showed it was one minute to eight, they walked up to the golden gates of the pathway to Stolas' mansion. They waited for a second, hesitating before the gates opened of their own accord.

They timidly walked inside. The gardens were beautiful, and yet it was plain to see that even though they were very well-kept, it was exceedingly difficult to keep the grass from growing yellow, the beautiful flowers from wilting the moment they bloomed. So most of it was just gravel with shining stones in it and the kind of dark-loving, carnivorous plants that only a place like Hell could grow.

The deadly and the mostly poisonous plants were kept primp and proper, whereas, in other places, they would've spread like little black plagues. Moxxie wondered with a gulp how many Demons and Imps ended up almost dead or at the hospital to upkeep that kind of greenery.

They walked up to the front door, looking around them in awe at the glossy marble statues depicting murders and severed heads, and hesitantly knocked on the intricately carved doorknob. Which they came to find was a ballsack. Classy. A butler with more beautiful clothes than theirs opened the door, looked them up and down before nodding and swinging it fully open so that they could pass. Moxxie hesitated, but Millie took him by the elbow and hauled him into the anteroom. Inside, it was even more lavish and fanciful, and they looked around in wonder as several servants removed their moth-eaten coats from them silently and then set them aside in some unseen room. Moxxie realized he had only seen this kind of exuberant polished quality in Hogwarts, but even Hogwarts paled compared to Stolas' home; he couldn't help but wonder what Lucifer's mansion would look like if this were Stolas'. The same reptile-looking Demon butler led them further into the mansion, where they found Stolas swinging his feet on a plush, violet lounging chair, what looked to be an eyeball martini resting in one feathered hand. "Ah, my guests of honor!" Stolas purred with certain delight. He stood from the couch and went up to them to kiss them on both cheeks.

They stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do. "How punctual," Stolas remarked, but it seemed like a comment that bit at them. Had they somehow gotten it wrong? Was it rude to come at the right time, or was it customary to come earlier or later? That was always the thing with rich people - everything you did seemed stupid and humble. "Our other guest has not yet arrived. Could I interest you in a drink?" He asked them, settling himself back on his chair and indicating that they, too, should sit on another, the larger couch that was beside his. Another guest, singular. That put some weight off their shoulders, albeit not much. "Yes, please," Millie acceded, and with a snap of his fingers, a servant was bringing Millie a martini. "And you, Moxxie?" Moxxie shook his head.

He definitely didn't want anything clouding his judgment during this time. Stolas shrugged as they sat down, and Millie accepted the martini with thanks to the butler, which seemed almost rude. "You said 'other guest'?" Moxxie asked timidly. "Oh, yes, I hope you don't mind," Stolas replied, though his tone didn't leave much room for other questions, and the couple just looked at each other fleetingly, the nervousness seeming to seep into their bones even deeper. Millie sipped at her martini. "You look a little tense," Stolas remarked, flicking an invisible mote of dust from his pampered shoulder, "would you like some marihuana? Maybe a little opium?" Moxxie cleared his throat, and Millie chewed on an eyeball. "No, thank you." "I hope you aren't tense for tonight - it's just a little dinner, munchkins." Moxxie didn't very much like being referred to as a munchkin, but he wasn't about to fight him on that.

He didn't have sex-toy privileges as Blitzo did. "You have nothing to worry about. All we want is your… cooperation," "Our cooperation with what?" Millie asked through slitted eyes. "Oh, you play a much larger role than you believe…." Stolas said softly, and he looked right at Moxxie as he said it. Moxxie swallowed hard, feeling as if the pressure of the world had suddenly dropped onto his relatively weak shoulders. Before he could say anything or even begin to think of something to say, they heard the muffled sound of knocking, and Stolas' butler immediately bowed and excused himself to the anteroom. "Ah, that must be our other guest," Stolas remarked, and they all sat in suspenseful silence as they heard the door opening to admit Stolas' mysterious guest.

Every footstep that this new character made seemed in accordance with Moxxie's own, heavily beating heart. How long could one person take to remove their coat and enter another room? It seemed like an eternity had passed before the doors to the lounge opened, and the Demon walked in. Moxxie had always thought that Stolas had a refined air to him, the kind that only upper-class Demons could have, but just in the five seconds that it took the man to enter the room and stand before them, Moxxie understood what it was to be truly refined. The man's Demon form resembled a fox, with light beige fur, trimmed and combed to perfection. If his pristine tuxedo and shining brown leather shoes hadn't given way to his position, then his very posture and manner of carrying himself would've spoken volumes.

A violet mortiferus flower of a deep violet color was in his coat pocket, and the inner part of his thin lips was stained with that same color. A mortiferus was a flower that only grew in Hell, known for its high toxicity rate and for being manufactured into a hell of a drug. Only the wealthiest of the wealthiest could get their hands on it, and this man displayed it like a flag. This Demon seemed like a creature or vice and extreme wealth, and he was not afraid to show it.

He gave them all a slit-like grin as he entered. "Stolas," he greeted, and his voice, though smooth and rich, was undoubtedly tainted by something deeply unsettling. He turned to look at Moxxie and Millie. "You must be Moxxie," he said, and the couple stood upon instinct as he moved to shake their hands. "Pleasure to meet you," Moxxie said, doing his best to keep his voice from quivering pathetically. He failed. "And this must be your wife, Millie," the other man said, turning to Millie and shaking her hand. They felt terribly small compared to him. "A pleasure," Millie said in a weak voice. Stolas stood from his chair. "This is Felicius, Head of Foreign Relations to his Royal Majesty," Stolas introduced. The man heard his title with a smug look on his face. "I didn't know we even had that," Millie let out. "Hmph," the man emitted, a look of superiority overriding his features. "Well, shall we step into the dining room?"

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Once Felicius had been given a vodka on the rocks, and they were all seated, waiting for the first dish, there settled over the attendees an awkward silence. It was broken by Felicius. "So, Moxxie, Millie, where are you from?" He asked though it was probably out of courtesy because they were very clearly Imps. When he had received his answer, however, Felicius insisted on Moxxie telling him where he was really from, and he had never felt more like an intruder, a lousy human in Hell than he did at that moment. The burnt asparagus with shredded truffle had only just arrived before Felicius began grilling Moxxie on his whole backstory.

He didn't seem very interested in how he had become an Imp or how he had lived in Hell as much as he was interested in his time in the human and wizarding worlds. Millie, but mostly Moxxie, were subjected to a heavy interrogation that seemed almost casual. It was hard to keep composure and not break under Felicius' intent stare and oddly specific questions.

By the second course, when they revealed how much they had told of Hell to the wizarding world, Felicius only nodded and cut up his almost-raw steak. "Are you not… mad at us for everything we told them?" Moxxie asked timidly, noting his indifference. The Demon scoffed. "It is not my place to be mad. We know that the wizarding world has known Hell for quite some time now. And there are no rules that state anything against revelation to the wizarding world, so nothing was broken… technically." That 'technically' raised every hair on Moxxie's body. "To be frank, Moxxie, we don't give a shit how they had to find out about us. We were just waiting for when it came out in the open," the man said casually as if the information were the most normal thing in the entire world. Moxxie sat at the edge of his seat. "It is certainly very convenient that their very own Harry Potter is actually one of our own," he concluded. One of our own, Moxxie thought with some contempt. Sure, he was an inhabitant of Hell, but unlike other places, generally speaking, Hell, didn't have a sense of unity, of pertinence. It was like a hole that millions of bloodthirsty monsters had fallen into, and they clawed at each other's eyes within it. What could be said about what they shared?

The only things they had in common were the hole, doom, and pain, and anger. Certainly, Moxxie felt he had next to nothing in common with the higher-ups of Hell, which is where Felicius had included him in that sentence. Moxxie swallowed hard at this statement. He had suspected it would come to this if they didn't hang him in fishhooks by his eye sockets - they were going to use him, but whether it was as a weapon, as a martyr, or something completely different, he didn't know. "And you are one of us, aren't you, Moxxie?" Felicius asked as if reading his thoughts, challenging him, testing to see how deep his ties ran with the wizards. The truth of it was that he wished he could say that his ties ran deeper than they did, but the wizards were all… off.

He was incompatible with the lot of them and, for the most part, felt uncomfortable in their presence in a way that didn't even happen to him around a character such as Felicius. He had decided against them the moment that he found out that Dumbledore had drugged his friends. Strange though, it might seem what with the obviously deceptive and self-interested nature of a man like Felicius, and most inhabitants of Hell, for that matter, he felt that both wizardkind and Hell wanted to stab him in the back. But only one of them would do so under the pretense of goodness. Besides, if he were to pick the winning side, it would be Hell. Hell would always win. "What do I need to do?" Moxxie sighed, looking at Felicius steadily in the eye for the first time throughout the whole meal. "Excellent!" The Demon barked, clapping his hands together as if any other response wouldn't have gotten Moxxie lynched. "Moxxie," Stolas began with caution. "I couldn't help but notice something… strange that happened during the first task," he said, his eyes twinkling. Moxxie felt the raw steak caught in his throat.

He reckoned it was futile to lie to them since Stolas had probably already somehow found out what had happened. Moxxie narrated the weird display of power that he had had, not without reluctance. Felicius sat back as he listened, pensive. When Moxxie concluded, insisting that he had no idea what had happened, Felicius spoke. "Well, that really is odd. We'll need to run some tests, see what that's all about," he said it almost casually, between bites, and Moxxie had to wonder how serious this whole ordeal was to the people that ran Hell. Maybe this was just another day for them. "What kind of tests?" Moxxie asked with a gulp. "Oh, the usual: searing nipple clamps, gagging, the like," Felicius said, picking out some dirt from under his sharp claws. "I- wha-" "I am joking, of course, we'll see what we can do." Stolas giggled at that. "Though would it really be something new?" Felicius asked, looking from him to Millie. Was it that evident? "She only peg-" Moxxie began in his dumb defense, but Millie kicked him under the table before he could finish the sentence. When no one spoke, Felicius began again. "In any case, we look forward to your full collaboration, Moxxie. To begin with, we want you to continue competing in this… tournament thing. No disqualifications. And the closer you can get to Dumbledore, the better." "Like… a double spy?" "Something like that. Just do what you've been doing this whole time. You'll report to me after every week, and Moxxie," he said, propping his elbow on the table and eyeing him as if his gaze could make him automatically combust. "Don't make it obvious."

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Dessert was promptly brought by Stolas' meany servants. The serious conversation halted altogether to give way to a particular banter between Stolas and Felicius that neither Moxxie nor Millie could fully keep up with. Stolas offered a cigar and port in the lounge, but Moxxie tried to politely refuse, telling him that he had work in the morning. Stolas blinked, looking like he had just watched a piece of particular bad acting in a reality TV show. "Work? Are you not Harry Potter, heir? Or are those pesky little wizards keeping all that money from you?" Moxxie sucked in a breath at that.

He hadn't wanted to dwell on that matter much, and every time he spotted the satchel full of shining coins that stood at the corner of their room with Millie, he felt an incredible sense of nervousness, like a kid playing Xbox that knows he should be studying. It was also strange to be invited into his home like this - did Moxxie's sudden wealth mean that he belonged to some upper class that he would've never had access to before?

It was an unnerving thought. Moxxie cleared his throat, unsure of what to reply - he felt humiliated by the situation, and the knowledge that Felicius was likely overhearing it as he lit his cigar made everything ten times worse. He wasn't made for this kind of thing, and he wished he was in their home, watching some musical now more than ever.

Thankfully, Millie stepped in for him. "Regardless," she said dismissively as if Stolas hadn't actually asked a pointed question, "we should be heading back, anyway." Moxxie knew her well enough to realize there was the slightest quiver to her voice as she addressed these men with such apparent confidence, but no one else could've noticed. "Of course," Stolas purred, unperturbed. "Kiligan will show you to the door," and that was the first and only time that the butler had been referred to by his name. As the butler stepped forward to show them (quite ridiculously) to the door through which they had entered, Felicius didn't move an inch, and he just nodded his head as they passed through and made their sweet escape.