A drop of tea spilled as the cup was placed down carelessly and too fast. The woman threw her right leg over her left, swinging her ankle up and down. "I wanted to go, too..."
Her companion sighed in annoyance. "Trust me - you don't. That girl may look like him, but she's... opposite!" he spat out the word. "Arrogant, stiff, pretentious - she's more like that darn Lucius with a stick up his ass! No, not a stick - the entire broom!"
"Funny," the witch frowned for a moment, "You seemed to be getting along well two hours ago, or was that not you?"
"Acting, Bella," he rolled his eyes. "Doesn't Theodore look a bit too Malfoy to you?"
She shrugged. "I would be concerned if he didn't, considering Eleanor was my sister-in-law."
Barty picked up his glass and spun the whiskey around. "You've always got an answer to everything. That's exactly why we make a terrible pair. Worst possible."
Wide-eyed, she leaned towards the corridor and showed Barty the finger in order to hush him.
"I think they're here!" She squealed. "I can't wait!"
"Bella!" Barty stood up, trying to keep her in the salon. "She is not Evan!"
As soon as they Apparated in front of the grand staircase, Anna came face to face with someone she had only known from front-page articles. Her mugshot had been posted all over the country in the past year.
"Hello, sweetheart! It is so good to finally meet you!" She wrapped her skinny arms around Anna before the girl could react. "Oh, you look so much like your father!"
Anna struggled to take a step back, stumbling closer to the witch instead. "Hello..."
Theodore joined Barty on the side, watching the awkward embrace unfold. "Are you going to tell her, or should I?" he asked.
"She is going to make a scene..." Barty flicked his tongue.
"Naturally," the boy agreed. He had become accustomed to the Death Eaters. "I just hope to be there when it happens. I heard she can be quite entertaining."
Mad was the word on both of their tongues. Barty exchanged a brief look with Theodore, understanding the meaning of the word 'entertaining' on an instinctive level.
Having heard the commotion caused mostly by the excitement of one person, Severus and Lucius interrupted their chess game to see what was going on. Lucius stood up fast and his knee bumped the corner of the table, causing the chess board to move. The queen and the knight rocked back and forth before the king fell. Following, Severus froze for half a second in his friend's shadow.
He would have never hoped to witness the scene in front of him. One of the most vicious Death Eaters, holding Annelyse against her chest... Her hands looked like the old, dry branches of oak in November. His mind slipped the memory of an image from his Defence Against the Dark Arts on top of his vision - page 182, the Hag. A faint but ever-growing buzzing filled his ears. He opened his mouth to call her name, only to change his mind at the last moment.
"Ah... Miss Rosier?" He shifted his glance to Osborn. So close to exposure, so close to-! No! Don't even think it.
The old man tilted his head. He wore a frown and wrinkled his nose. His thin, pale lips pressed together until they melted into his face. "I've just about had it with Siberius. Lucius, you were correct - that man is better off rotting in Azkaban. Of course, by the mercy of our Dark Lord, he has been freed, but I will not let him torment the fiancee of my son. Such a dull creature, so needlessly violent..."
Lucius quickly realized he should defuse the tension. Severus had entrusted him with one of his many secrets after years of silence. It was now his self-understood responsibility to help maintain it as such. Pretending that he knew what Osborn was talking about, Lucius gestured for them to walk back into the other salon. "I completely agree with you, Osborn. Would you mind giving me the details? Perhaps something can be arranged."
"Elf," Osborn called out as he approached Lucius, "bring us the cigar box in the top left drawer of my desk."
"Wouldn't it be easier to order one around if you gave them names?" Lucius asked as he opened the door.
The head of the manor waved his hand through the air. "They're all the same to me. I don't bother remembering the names of witches and wizards, why would I fill my precious memory with elf names?"
Bellatrix looked up at Severus. "Do you know her?" The three of them now uncomfortably close, Bella wanted to establish the level of familiarity and the hierarchy.
"...I happen to be a professor at her school, as well as her Head of House."
"What? You're head of Slytherin now?" the witch laughed, allowing her mind to be distracted. "Did Slughorn die? Is he sick?"
Annelyse, finally able to catch her breath, straightened her dress. "Retired."
Her dark eyes lit up instantly. "If we recruit him, with all of his contacts-"
Severus stepped closer to Bellatrix, forcing a bit of distance between her and Anna. "It's not in his character. He may value purity, but he has always preferred a more theoretical approach."
"Well, all he needs to do is hand over the addresses of those we select from the Club..." She pushed her lips into a pout.
Anna felt hazy still, like living a dream or a nightmare. "Pardon me, shouldn't the Ministry already have this information?" Her system was still not entirely free from the soft yet terribly strong grasp of the Sleeping Draught. Part of her wanted to shame her for mistaking the double-distilled one that was to be a remedy for the side-effects of Crucio for the usual sleep aid.
"Why, yes - the addresses they declare. Maybe they live elsewhere," Bella's expression twisted into a smirk. "No matter! We'll find them, one by one!" Side-stepping around Severus, she extended her arm around the girl's shoulders.
Hesitantly, Anna leaned back. "Can I help you...?"
"Oh, yes, yes, you can. Draco is so quiet and mysterious - he's got that from his dad, I bet! So, do you wanna tell me about you and Theodore?" Bella giggled like a little girl. It didn't bother her the slightest to admit that she had asked Draco for the gossip.
"There's... really not that much to say," Anna tried to back away in vain as Bella pulled her into a side embrace.
"Love the dress! Where'd you buy it?" her bony fingers slipped over the velvet from her shoulder down to her lace cuff. "Come, let's have some tea!"
Over her shoulder, Anna manager to get one side glimpse of Severus, no apparent expression on his face as Bellatrix took her hand and half-walked, half-skipped to where she had been previously talking with Barty. Theodore stood with a small grin on his face, not exactly interested, but still amused to some degree.
Every fiber of his body tensed as he watched the scene. His mouth was dry and his throat tight. There had to be no hint of anything in his body or in his mind. The slightest change could be noticed and reported, and from there-... No, he shouldn't think of that. For now, Bella was fascinated with her, she looked at her as the ghost of her best friend, her former partner. She was going to put on her best performance and try to be friendly - try being the defining word.
"What are you gawking at? D'you like school girls?" Barty's face twisted into a perverted grin. He elbowed the teenager next to him.
"Are you a fool? Or are you trying to offend me?" he snarled. "For your sake, I am going to assume you have lost your common sense in Azkaban."
"Mmhm, 'cause I went to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, while you? You were in your office, sitting in your chair, drinking tea, looking at school girls," Barty attacked him with a grin. Even so, he knew better than to step any closer. "Did you do other things, too? Y'know..."
"Nonsense. Do you need me to remind you what I've been doing all those years?"
"Why, yes, I think I do, 'cause I've revived a new body for Him, while a little birdie told me you were spending your evenings at Chat Gris." The man flicked his tongue more often, licking his lips after every phrase. His heart was picking up with adrenaline. If anyone heard - if Theodore put one and one together, what would happen? Oh, the drama! He missed it. There hasn't been a huge scandal since the Malfoys, Blacks, and LeStranges. Well, Sirius was disowned, but that was a single day's worth of attention.
"Really? You know about it?" Theodore broke the tension between the two men. "I thought Anna and I were the only ones going there."
"...What?" Barty choked on his words. He had gone there in disguise to keep an eye on Severus and his crush, but he never saw Theodore at the teahouse.
"Yeah. I figured, since I never saw Malfoy there, it was kind of like our own place. Guess not," the boy shrugged. He was certain to use this moment against his teacher later. "Never knew Professor Snape goes there. Merlin, it would've been awkward going there to skip."
"Except you don't skip," Severus decided to play along. Clearly, Barty knew something, but he hadn't had the chance to reveal it just yet. The fact that Theodore knew about the cafe was probably Anna's doing, except now part of his mind had the image of the two sitting together at the table in the back, the one by the window, the same one they shared. Their legs were probably touched by accident once or twice... He would have helped her with the chair, or given her his hand when they were about to leave, draped the coat over her shoulders. He abruptly stopped his train of thought and forced himself to remain present.
"Maybe I do," Theodore played into the role, "Once? Right?"
"You're telling me you skipped class? You?" Barty tried to laugh, but his tonus was gone. It was no more fun now. The little Malfoy-wannabe ruined it.
"I asked my dad to write me a slip for no reason."
"That's not skipping if your daddy knows," Barty rolled his eyes.
Sniffing the air in a rather obvious way, Grayback turned a corner. "Newcomers?"
"None of your business," Severus glared at him.
"My fiancee," Theodore chimed in with his chest puffed.
The word hurt. Thinking it referred to Anna, rolling off the tongue of that arrogant boy-!
"...Smells kinda like him," the werewolf pointed to Severus.
Theodore rolled his eyes. "The entire Hogwarts probably smells the same to you."
While the werewolf took a moment to contemplate whether that was true, Severus walked past him, obviously gesturing for him to move aside. It wasn't that he had anything with werewolves as a species, but rather the individual. He was so animalistic, so brutal, and bloodthirsty, turning innocent children for no reason other than his own amusement of seeing them in agony and stigmatized by society. He also rarely washed and had that stench surrounding him, something like sweat mixed in with mud and wet fur, occasionally blood, sewage, or Merlin knows what.
Barty and Theodore exchanged a series of looks. The blond clearly knew about those two. How? Barty couldn't think of a single reason why he'd keep the arrangements now.
"Did the rain stop?" Theodore asked Fenrir.
"...Yeah," he answered after a moment.
"Great! I'm going to my shop," the boy declared proudly.
"Your shop? Since when do you have a shop?" Barty tried to make fun of him. That boy was too young to have any kind of business, right?
"Dad wanted to give me Slug & Jiggers, can you imagine? An apothecary, my first business? I could never!" the boy began to brag. "I own Flourish and Blotts now. It was uncle Malfoy who suggested it, but my dad agreed and I signed the papers on Christmas, right on the 25th. Are you coming?"
Barty took a moment to think about it. This kind of felt like babysitting, but at the same time, he was curious about that talk from before. Clearly Nott Junior won't talk there, where his father could hear him, or Greyback, or anyone.
"Fine, just this once."
"I'm coming, too," Fenrir offered.
"You? With me?!" the blond wrinkled his nose. "You stink like a wet rag."
Gritting his teeth, Fenrir was left behind again, waiting for another mission. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, although for this comment alone, he would have loved to infect Theodore Nott... Had Crouch not been there...
Wondering aimlessly through the Manor and also trying to look like he had someplace to be in order to avoid suspicion, Severus eventually found himself in the library on the second floor. Anna seemed fine... Bellatrix was swooning over her at the time, so she was not in any danger, but the word... The word! "My fiancee," he said! She didn't even have a ring yet. Theodore didn't seem worried about her in the slightest.
Questions spun around his mind, but one echoed louder than the rest. What happened at the Rosier Manor? What was it that caused Osborn to take her away without any previous arrangements? Did Siberius hurt her? Did... did she have another attempt?
Author's note:
I know it's been longer than expected. I hope some of you are still there, waiting for an update. If so, please favorite, follow, and leave a review to let me know what you think.