BETTY AND INEZ had been acting weird ever since they had returned from the Easter holidays. It had been a few days, but Claudia had barely seen them at all.

They would eat breakfast, and one of them would be gone. After that, they would go to class and neither would say much. Then they would eat lunch with an unfamiliar silence, and as soon as classes were finished they both would disappear. Behind they left a confused and bored Claudia to herself, since Pandora had some project she was attending to about some weird creatures.

Exactly that happened on this specific Friday night. Claudia was bored out of her mind, flipping through the pages of her current book "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

She couldn't read. Couldn't do homework. Couldn't listen to music. She was too busy wondering what the hell was going on with her friends.

So, she decided to go to the library.

Maybe she should have taken the Marauder's map and looked for her friends. Maybe she should have gone and bothered the boys instead. But, she didn't. Instead she left to one of her favourite places in the whole castle.

As she entered the library, she was immediately met by the sight of Regulus, who was sitting by a table reading a book.

She didn't know why she decided to approach him, but she did. Regulus was confusing, but he was nice. Claudia had learned that.

"Hey," she said, causing the boy to look up at her with a confused look on his face. "Mind if I sit?"

"No," the boy replied with a small smile twitching on his lips.

Claudia brought out her books, and the two sat there in silence for a long time. The girl found that to be rather unbearable.

"You're not very talkative, are you?" She asked bluntly, immediately regretting it. "Sorry, that was rude."

"It's fine," Regulus said with a small chuckle, immediately growing quiet again after.

"So..." Claudia said awkwardly. "You know what? I forgot to thank you for, uhm, earlier."

"For...?"

"For shutting your friends up. It was nice of you. So was all the other things, you seem to have a streak of helping me out."

"Yeah, it seems that I do," he said with a small smile. "No worries though, I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything."

Regulus didn't respond to that, instead he shared an almost unreadable look with Claudia. But the girl understood it, he still felt that he owed her for the incident from their childhood.

"You're in this," Regulus pointed out after a few silent minutes, holding up a copy of Witch Weekly, a magazine for witches (and wizards) filled with gossip, quizzes and advice.

"You read that?" Claudia asked in a surprised tone.

"What do you mean?"

"Just...didn't catch you as the type," she grinned.

"Oh, shut up," the boy mumbled, clearly embarrassed. "I'm pretty sure Snape left it behind."

"Snape?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah right, Snape definitely loves to sit down with a cup of tea and some biscuits so he can catch up with his favourite singers," she said sarcastically.

"He does, I saw him!" Regulus exclaimed, causing Claudia to snort.

"What does it say?" She asked in an intrigued tone.

"Here," Regulus urged as he handed her the magazine.

"Awe, I've even got a small photo on the front page with daddy," Claudia said sarcastically as she opened the magazine. "What the-"

HAS MAPLE MISTAKE GOT A BOYFRIEND?

"Uh, not that I know of," the girl stated, causing Regulus to chuckle.

Has "Maple Mistake", also known as Claudia Maple, the accidental daughter of Charles Maple got a boyfriend?

"Way to make me feel loved."

The young witch, at the mere age of 16, is rumoured to be dating or, more preferably, rumoured to be courted by none other than Evan Rosier, the son of Nathaniel Rosier.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

We managed to get ahold of the girl's father in order to question him about the rumours, and his response was simply to just give no comment. He did, however, mention that young Rosier is "a very nice young boy".

"He always speaks the truth, that man."

Margaret Maple, the girl's grandmother, recognised as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, left no response except "leave my granddaughter alone and get a life."

"Huh."

Now, where did these rumours come from in the first place? It was actually the boy himself that hinted towards a romance with the Maple girl, informing us that he has most certainly got her wrapped around his finger.

"I hate that stupid pig, arse, dickhead-"

So that pretty much confirms it for us, doesn't it? A modern day love story, between a Maple and a Rosier! Oh, how lovely! We must say that we are very excited to see what is in store for the two lovebirds!

Tina Skeeter for Witch Weekly, April 29th 1976

"I am going to kill Rosier," Claudia said through gritted teeth.

"Well, then you're lucky that he's right there," Regulus said awkwardly.

Claudia practically got a whiplas as she turned around, only to be met by a grinning Evan.

"Hey, babe," he said, causing Claudia to over-dramatically groan.

"Oh, you've discovered a new nickname," Claudia sighed.

"You like it?"

"Nope, and I also don't like you," she shrugged.

"Harsh-"

"-But true," she interrupted, noticing how Regulus was trying to hold in his laughter.

"But I thought you liked Slytherins? You're clearly enjoying your company with Black," Evan retorted.

"I do like Slytherins, except for insufferable pricks like yourself. Oh, and whilst we're at it, why on earth did you decide to tell all of England that you've got me wrapped around your finger when you haven't even got me voluntarily talking to you?"

"Your dad told me to," he shrugged. "Or told my father to tell me to tell people that."

"And why the hell did he do that?"

"So everyone knows you're desirable," Evan grinned. "Seems you haven't got as many suitors as your father wants you to."

"Oh, Merlin," Claudia sighed as she sunk down in her seat.

"Don't worry, I'm still your number one suitor of course," the boy smiled sweetly as he picked up a cigarette.

"Madam Pince will kill you," Claudia muttered.

"I don't care."

Claudia sat down thinking for a few second before she stood up and grabbed Evan by the arm, still holding furiously onto the copy of Witch Weekly.

"Well then, if you don't care, come with me."

Regulus frowned at that, and surprisingly enough Evan did to, only for the frown to grow into a grin. And, Regulus' face also went from frowning to questioning as Claudia turned around and gave him a sly wink.

"Oh, she wants to do risky business in the library," Evan said as he wiggled his eyebrows. "It's my lucky day."

"Yes, I really do want to do risky business," she said as she reached the muggle-shelves, only to find Remus standing there with the rest of the Marauders, all of them looking incredibly confused due to the sight of the pair, and also due to what Claudia said.

"Uh..." Peter said, earning himself a small kick from Sirius.

"Lupin," Evan nodded with a tone of disgust.

"Rosier," Remus replied with an even more disgusted tone, towering over the boy.

"Potter."

"Rosier."

"Black."

"Rosier," Sirius mocked in a high-pitched tone, causing Claudia to snort, and soon enough rapidly cough due to the look that Evan gave her.

"Pettigrew," Evan continued, causing Claudia to roll her eyes.

"Rosier."

"Boys," Claudia sighed out of disbelief as she shook her head. "You don't need to be so damn formal all the time, can we do what we came here for now, Rosier?"

"Of course babe," Evan grinned, causing Remus to internally vomit due to the choice of nickname.

"Don't call me that," Claudia said sternly as her eyes skimmed the shelves.

Evan ignored the comment as he impatiently stared at the four boys. "Well? Are you leaving, or...?"

"Why would we leave?" James asked, puffing out his chest.

"Because."

"Because?" Sirius asked, puffing out his chest just like James did.

"Because," Evan said impatiently, trying to get Claudia to help him out. "We've got stuff to do."

"What kind of stuff?" Remus asked, doing exactly the same as his two friends.

And Merlin did he look good when he puffed out his chest with his messy hair, loose tie and white shirt.

Claudia found herself staring at him for a little too long as she slowly took the book out of the high shelf. And, turns out Remus noticed it since he gave her a quick wink when Evan started quibbling with James and Sirius.

"Please stop bothering them," Claudia eventually said to Evan after she had broken out of the trance caused by Remus. "Go borrow this instead."

"Why?" Evan asked, referring to the book Claudia had given him.

A long time ago Claudia had noticed how a young student was able to return a book to Madam Pince, despite it being both annotated by Claudia and also cleared of Pince's protective spells.

This had caused the girl to wonder if she would be able to borrow and return books despite her breaking the rules and messing with them. So, she had decided to make Evan test out her theory of her being able to stop stealing books and instead just borrow them.

"Because I said so," she told the confused boy. "Go on."

"What do I get?"

"Nothing."

"Please," he pouted. "A kiss?"

"No!" She exclaimed.

"Please."

"No."

"Oh, come on."

"No."

"Please."

"Oh, for Rowena's sake! Go borrow the sodding book and I'll give you a kiss on the cheek!" The girl sighed, causing Evan to grin as he walked towards the loan-list and the librarian.

"Are you really going to do that?" Remus suddenly asked with a small frown on his face, that went unnoticed by Claudia.

"No," she chuckled. "I was actually waiting for you four to prank him instead."

"Oh! That we can do," James said with a mischievous smile, immediately brain-storming ideas with his friends, Remus doing the actual thinking like always.

Claudia was both pleased and disappointed to find Evan returning with the book without a single thing being revealed to Madam Pince. But, as he did so, he suddenly started to dance.

No, not dance, jump.

"Seems like he has ants in his pants," Claudia snorted as Evan jumped around like an idiot, shaking his legs and screaming, causing the librarian to also scream.

"That's because he does," James grinned. "I thought we couldn't go too crazy considering this is the library after all-"

"Don't you mean I thought that?" Remus interrupted. "Merlin, look at him."

"What an idiot," Peter laughed.

"Serves him right," said Sirius.

"I love seeing him embarrassing himself," Claudia pointed out as Evan ran out the library at the same time as he tried to take his pants off, much to everyone's dismay. "Especially after what he did."

"What did he do?" Remus asked.

"This," she said with a sigh as she handed him the magazine that was still in her hand. "See you boys later."

Claudia walked back to Regulus with an amused smile on her face, recalling the pirouette-like movements Evan had done around the screaming librarian.

"Did you see that?" She asked Regulus as she sat down.

"Yeah," the boy said with the loudest laughter she had ever heard coming from him. "What an idiot!"

"Right?!" Claudia grinned. "So, Reg-"

Claudia didn't get the chance to finish her sentence as she heard the loud laughters from the four boys a distance away.

They were laughing loudly over the article, as if it was the funniest thing they had ever read.

At first, Claudia was a bit annoyed, considering her sufferings, but the second she heard Remus' laughter boom through the room, she couldn't help but to also chuckle.

But, nonetheless, she wanted nothing more than to burn that article and the four boys for laughing at it.

"If you'll excuse me I have some murders to commit," Claudia said through gritted teeth, not for one second questioning wether it was a good idea to indicate that she knew the boys. Regulus probably didn't know that the laughter belonged to them.

But, Regulus did know that. He could recognise Sirius' laughter from miles away.

And oh how it both pained and joyed him to hear it.

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