Mia screamed. It was an ear-deafening, gut-wrenching and heart-stopping sound that ripped from her throat as she saw Charlus fall to the ground, his unconscious body smashing against the cobblestones of the alleyway as Heather and Walburga high fived each other, looking satisfied.

Charlus wasn't moving. Euphemia dropped to her knees, shaking her boyfriend's shoulder furiously to try and wake him up, tears welling up in her eyes as she did so. "Wake up, wake up," she whispered, neglecting her wand in her moment of panic.

"For Merlin's sake, girl, he's only stunned. Calm down," Walburga rolled her eyes and it seemed like Euphemia had completely forgotten that Walburga and Heather were stood there until one of them spoke because she turned to face them, startled.

"It's not the point," Mia growled and she pulled out her wand and pointed it at Heather and Walburga, taking the former by surprise because she had been hanging back, slightly hidden by her best friend who had been the one who had stunned Charlus.

"Why are you here?" Euphemia asked, stepping forward with a steely glint in her eye that Walburga had never seen before - usually Mia was scared and vulnerable in these situations but she didn't seem too bothered that her secret relationship with Charlus was now at risk of being revealed.

"I'm checking up on you, cuz," Walburga said in a sickly sweet voice, tilting her dark head to one side as she fixed an innocent smile on her face, widening her eyes, "I just wanted to check that this blood traitor..." she kicked Charlus, "....hadn't cursed you or hurt you in any way, shape or form. I was concerned about you," she said with a pout.

Mia scoffed harshly - she didn't believe Walburga's innocent act for a second, "Charlus would never curse me because he's a good person unlike you," she spat at her cousin who flinched before stepping forward again so that Walburga and Euphemia were practically nose to nose, Heather forgotten in the background as she stood behind Walburga.

"I knew it," Walburga gasped mockingly, pretending to look sad as she patted Mia's cheek, only to be batted away by the girl in disgust, "He's manipulated you. He's turned you into a blood traitor. But he's only tricking you, you know. Or don't you remember the playboy reputation that Charlus Potter had before he started dating you?" she hissed.

Euphemia gulped because that was one of her irrational fears - that Charlus would get bored with her and that she would've risked everything to be with him only for him to dump her aside like a piece of rubbish, like he had done with many of his girlfriends in the past.

She had always been anxious about his playboy reputation when they were first starting to like each other, when he had started to show signs that he wanted to date her but Mia thought that those paranoid voices in her head had stopped hissing their nasty words into her ear...evidently not.

The thing was, Euphemia hadn't actually had any fears about hers and Charlus' relationship ever since the week before, when they had kissed for the first time, but now that Walburga had started putting those thoughts into her head, Mia found herself doubting whether Charlus was genuine in his affection for her.

"Shut up," Euphemia retorted, shaking her head to rid the horrible thoughts from her mind, "You don't know anything about me and Charlus. You shouldn't know anything about us. How did you even find out? This alleyway isn't exactly the focal point for Hogsmeade visitors so, unless you were planning on doing something naughty with Heather, there's no reason for you to be here."

Walburga scowled at what Mia said, not appreciating the snide remark at the end of her cousin's response and she struggled to think of a reply that wouldn't sound pathetic in comparison to Euphemia's sass. However, Heather came to her rescue and the blonde stepped forward, startling both of the Blacks as they had forgotten that she was there.

"I was doing a little bit of photography....and you'll never guess what I found out, Euphemia," Heather walked up to Mia slowly, her footsteps thumping onto the cobblestones in a threatening manner as she pulled the slightly torn photograph from her robes, dangling it before Euphemia's very eyes, watching as the girl paled.

A bolt of panic shot through Mia faster than a golden snitch whizzing around a Quidditch pitch and she felt rather weak at the knees (and not in a good way like when it happened with Charlus). She felt all of the colour leave her face and fear crept into her veins, surging through her bloodstream and causing her heart to thump faster and faster.

Her blue-grey eyes swept over the photograph that Heather was holding in her palm, smirking triumphantly as she did so. Euphemia could see that the photograph was slightly torn and it wasn't the best quality, as if it had gotten damp or something, but it was clear what was happening in the photograph.

It was strange how something as magical as Charlus kissing her could turn Mia's blood to ice but she felt absolutely chilled to the bone because she knew that that kiss would not stay secret for very long - it was in the hands of her arch-nemesis and her devilish cousin, after all.

No longer feeling so brave and bold, Euphemia gulped and faced Walburga and Heather, trying to ignore the fact that her palms were now clammy and that she was trembling from head to toe, her hand shaking as she held her wand in place, faltering slightly.

"Isn't Heather just great at photography?" Walburga exclaimed in a falsely cheerful tone, clapping her hands together and beaming which was certainly a look that didn't suit her whatsoever with her grey eyes, that were sparkling with malice, being the only thing deterring from her fake happy mood.

"Or perhaps she's just great at poking her nose into other people's business," Mia hissed back, feeling her heart thump against her rib cage as the tears dried against her cheeks, that were reddening slightly in her rage at the two girls.

"Has it ever occurred to you that it's maybe for your own good? Maybe this is the wake up call that you need, Euphemia," Heather told her with a tight smile, her fist clenched around her own wand that was pointed at Mia, in case she decided to attack.

Wake up call. A thought switched on in Euphemia's brain, like a lightbulb brightening in her mind and she felt like kicking herself for not thinking of the idea sooner. Really, she should've immediately done it but her emotions had gotten in the way of her practicality.

All she had to do was distract them enough so that their wands would drop. "Maybe so," Mia replied, putting on a fake sad expression, lowering her eyes to the ground as she scuffed her feet, secretly looking to see how far away Charlus was (she had moved away from him when she had been arguing with Walburga and Heather).

"Are you regretting your actions?" Walburga asked, sounding genuinely surprised and Euphemia chanced a look up to see that her cousin and Heather were exchanging confused looks, lowering their wands a little.

Mia shrugged, "I mean, I am engaged after all. To Orion. I know that I'm never going to have a proper relationship with Potter. I was simply spying for my fiancée, as I have been doing for the past four years. Or were you two not aware of my allegiance?" she lied, praying that they would believe her.

Heather's eyebrows rose in disbelief but Walburga relented, her wand dropping and Euphemia smirked to herself, having known that mentioning Orion would weaken her cousin's emotions and that she would most likely drop her defence. Which she did.

My, my, the Black family are such predictable creatures Mia thought to herself, fighting the temptation to laugh as she glanced up again, locking eyes with Heather, who obviously hadn't fallen for Euphemia's lies and was still pointing her wand in Mia's face, her eyes narrowed.

"I'm assuming that you're not important enough to know the secrets of the operations that members of the Knights of Walpurgis carry out, are you?" she asked Heather, knowing that making the girl feel inferior would cause Heather to lose her inner stability.

"How dare you," Heather hissed, stepping forward with her wand nearly jabbing Euphemia in her eye but the girl narrowly missed it as she made sure to keep eye contact with the blonde.

"How dare you. You do realise that you're interfering with a Walpurgis mission right now, don't you? Do you really want to feel the wrath of those in charge?" Mia challenged Heather and Walburga.

Of course, she didn't actually know who was in charge of the Knights of Walpurgis - that information had never been trusted to her - but she had to hope that the girls would fall for it so that she could revive Charlus successfully, which she couldn't do with their wands pointing in her face.

Heather faltered, her grip on her wand slipping a little as she exchanged an unsure glance with Walburga, who had already dropped her wand to her side, though there was suspicion written all over her face. That was all Euphemia needed.

"Expelliarmus!" she cried, disarming Heather and dashing backwards with two wands pointing at both Walburga and Heather, the latter practically boiling over in her fury, hissing at Walburga, "I knew we couldn't trust her!"

Whilst they argued underneath their breaths, Mia backed away and crouched down beside Charlus, whispering, "Ennervate!" and watching as his hazel eyes fluttered open and he looked around dazedly, trying to lift his head.

"Flea, listen to me," she whispered urgently, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the still arguing and oblivious Heather and Walburga, "You need to run and get out of here - get some help and leave me here. I'll deal with them," she told him.

Charlus still had no idea what was happening - the last thing that he remembered happening was seeing Heather and Walburga at the end of the alleyway after he had agreed to allowing his girlfriend to call him 'Flea' as an affectionate nickname.

"Don't be so ridiculous. I'm not leaving you here, love," he whispered back in protest, thinking of the amount of times that Euphemia had been ganged upon by Walburga and Heather and been attacked....there was no way that he was going to allow that to happen.

"I have a better idea. Go in my pocket - there's a silky material, fetch it, please," Charlus requested in a low murmur and Mia did just that, pulling out a shrunken cloak that was quite transparent and slippery in her fingers.

"That's tiny. What is it?" she asked curiously, running her fingers over the material. Charlus didn't answer her, taking the tiny cloak from her and muttering, "Engorgio," which caused the cloak to grow in size, so that it was the size and length of a normal cloak.

"Invisibility cloak. Questions later, love," Charlus mumbled, placing the cloak over his head and Euphemia clapped her hands to her mouth to prevent her shocked squeal from escaping as her eyes grew as wide as Galleons, her eyebrows raising so high that they disappeared into her hairline.

Charlus' head had completely disappeared, leaving a headless body who's hands gripped onto Mia's shoulders to help himself up before he disappeared completely, the cloak covering his entire body as he stood.

"I'm right here," he whispered in her ear, meaning to be reassuring but Euphemia jumped so violently that she nearly trod on his toe, her heart hammering against her ribs. Since when did invisibility cloaks exist? Weren't they incredibly rare?

Mia stood up, trying to ignore the fact that her invisible boyfriend was hovering behind her as she slowly raised her wand and pointed it back at Walburga and Heather, who were still arguing about why they had trusted her.

Euphemia smirked - that had been exactly what she had been aiming for because chaos and confusion always caused people's defences to fall drastically.

She cleared her throat, finally gaining their attention and Walburga instantly whipped her wand back up as Heather glared at her own wand, in Mia's clenched fist at her side.

"So, what do you want? Why have you interrupted my date?" Euphemia asked. Walburga rolled her eyes, about to answer but Heather cut her off, narrowing her eyes, "Speaking of your date, where is he?" she questioned.

A look of surprise flashed over Walburga's face before it was replaced by a look of annoyance, "For Merlin's sake, Heather, are you incapable of seeing? Why didn't you see him leave?" she snapped at her friend, who immediately took offence at Walburga's words.

"Evidently you are incapable as well because you also didn't see that the blood traitor was gone," Heather hissed back and it seemed like they were going to launch into another argument when Mia sighed and cleared her throat again.

"Ladies, can you stop behaving like an old married couple for one minute? Let's discuss the problem - why is your life is so exceedingly boring that you have to spy on others and interfere in order to make your day interesting?" Euphemia asked, hearing the invisible Charlus conceal a snigger behind her.

Walburga scowled but she turned to face Mia, "Because you're going about your life wrong, Euphemia," she told her cousin. "You're a Black. You have a reputation to uphold, tradition to follow. You're engaged to another man. How do you think Orion would feel if he knew you were kissing Charlus Potter behind his back?"

A chill ran through Mia at the mere mention of Orion's name and memories from the week before, when he had attacked her, swam before her eyes which she struggled to rid from her mind, blinking furiously.

She tried a different tactic. "I'm sick of being a Black. I'm sick and tired of being told what to do, how to behave, who I'm going to marry. Aren't you, Wally? You once told me that you hated being dressed up and that you wanted to be free. What changed?" Euphemia questioned her cousin.

"You changed," Walburga practically whispered and Heather glanced awkwardly at the floor, knowing what her friend was going to say and feeling like she wasn't supposed to be there and so she scurried away, muttering to Walburga that she 'had places to be.'

"What do you mean? I haven't changed one bit," Mia furrowed her eyebrows at Walburga in confusion, hearing Charlus breathing behind her as he stayed concealed underneath the cloak, watching and waiting for the right moment to fetch the incriminating photograph off the floor whilst Euphemia distracted her cousin.

"You believed in the same ideals as me, more or less. But then you made friends with those dratted Muggles and I didn't matter anymore! You left me and you got the freedom in choosing your own friends, you got it all!" Walburga cried at Mia and the latter suddenly understood.

It was true - even though Walburga had expressed to Euphemia that she wanted to free when both the girls were nine years old - Mia hadn't thought about her cousin when she was seeing what muggles were truly like, when she was trying to work out whether her family's prejudices were all wrong.

"I didn't mean to. But, just because I ignored you, it didn't mean you had to be cruel towards me. All you had to do was talk to me, Wally," Euphemia said softly but her gentle words hardly affected her cousin, who still had a stony expression fixed on her face.

"Don't call me Wally. I've changed now, I believe in everything that my mother has ever told me. I was a fool for thinking otherwise...if I follow in the ways of the Knights of Walpurgis, then I will have a purpose! A greater purpose than being someone's wife and mother!" Walburga insisted, a manic gleam in her grey eyes.

"Why would you want to become a Knight? The Knights of Walpurgis believe in pureblood supremacy...like Grindelwald," Mia reminded Walburga, hearing Charlus' quiet footsteps still at the mention of Grindelwald - for he had been edging forwards to try and retrieve the photograph off the floor, that Walburga had forgotten about.

"Grindelwald had it right. He was a great man," Walburga said, almost robotically as if the words had been imbedded into her brain.

"Grindelwald was a cruel creature! He killed people for his beliefs, Walburga! Why can't you see that 'the greater good' only inflicts pain and violence on innocent people?" Mia exclaimed, seeing a disembodied hand reach for the photograph, looking strange by itself as it crept along the floor.

"Innocent people? Muggles aren't innocent. They burnt us at the stake!" Walburga scoffed, her jaw set in frustration as she failed to notice that Charlus had now grabbed the photograph successfully and was crouching invisibly behind her, ready to attack if need be.

"That was centuries ago! Get over it!" Euphemia yelled, getting invested in the argument now. At first, it had been a tactic in order to distract her cousin but now, what Walburga was saying was really infuriating Mia.

"Shut up!" Walburga screamed, pointing her wand in Euphemia's face, "If you don't shut up right now, I'm going to reveal that photograph to the entire school and then everyone will know about you and filthy Potter. Orion will know. Druella will know. And I'll take the honour of informing your parents. Won't they all be happy? I'm certain that you'll suffer."

Mia felt a chill run through her at the image of Arcturus beating her up; Cassiopeia torturing her ruthlessly; Druella concocting her little schemes to make Euphemia's life a misery and Orion....Orion slobbering all over her and touching her in places that she didn't want him to. It was the definition of hell.

However, she did have one advantage - a way that would ensure that her relationship with Charlus wasn't revealed to people that Mia didn't want to know as of that moment.

Charlus had the photograph, the very photograph that Walburga was threatening her with, unaware that Euphemia's invisible boyfriend had stolen it and was now standing behind Walburga, waiting for Mia's nod that would launch their plan into action.

"I mean, that could happen, Wally," Euphemia dragged the words out slowly, "But it's kind of impossible without the photograph, isn't it?" she smirked at her cousin before nodding in the general direction where she knew Charlus was.

"What do you mean-" Walburga was cut off by her own gasp that elicited from her mouth upon seeing that Mia was running away from her, sprinting down the alleyway and she tried to move forward, only to be tripped up by an invisible rope (courtesy of Charlus - he was quite skilled at charms) and she fell flat on her face.

"NO! COME BACK! I WASN'T FINISHED WITH YOU!" Walburga bellowed after her cousin, reaching out towards Euphemia's retreating back as she struggled to her feet, Charlus watching in amusement behind her.

Just for his own entertainment, Charlus waited until Walburga had managed to stand on her two feet and started to run after his girlfriend before he cast the tripping spell again, causing the girl to sprawl on the floor again as Charlus took off running, the photograph safely in his grasp.

Meanwhile, Mia was still running, though she had reached the end of the alleyway now and was tearing around the corner, nearly skidding and leaning against the nearby wall, which happened to actually be the very wall that Charlus had pushed her up against earlier, the event that had caused all the chaos of that day. It seemed so long ago now...

Her lungs were burning and she was panting heavily, her legs aching from the running but she couldn't help but look around anxiously, wondering whether Charlus had managed to pull off the plan.

Once Charlus had revealed his invisibility cloak to her, the same plan (or similar, at least) had sprung in both of their minds and they had communicated with their eyes silently before agreeing to a simple plan that would make sure that the photograph was removed from Walburga's possession, with Euphemia providing the distraction through words.

After about two minutes of Mia pacing back and forth, fretting, Charlus appeared around the corner, whipping off his invisibility cloak and shrinking it again so that it was a small enough size to fit in his pocket.

Euphemia looked at him for a silent moment - Charlus was also breathing heavily from running but he was holding the photograph in his hand, much to her relief and she embraced him quickly, feeling his erratic heartbeat through his shirt.

"You alright?" Charlus whispered, smoothing down her hair and she nodded, feeling at ease as Mia buried her face in his chest, inhaling his scent and sighing in complete and utter relief.

"That was incredibly stressful," Euphemia muttered, her voice muffled by his shirt and he chuckled, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, "I found it rather fun actually. Especially the part where old Wally fell on her face twice. That was entertaining."

Mia giggled before pulling out of his embrace and standing on her tip-toes, kissing him softly which he responded to enthusiastically, sliding his hands down so that they rested on her waist as they kissed. Until a loud gasp rang out....for someone had spotted them. Again.

This really isn't a great kissing spot Charlus thought to himself as an expression of dread crept over Euphemia's face along with a rather resigned look in her grey-blue eyes before they both turned around to face whoever had gasped upon seeing them.

"I KNEW IT! YOU SNEAKY BUGGERS!" the dramatic exclamation could only belong to one person and Mia immediately relaxed, seeing the outraged expression of Florean Fortescue as he stared at them in shock, a gleeful grin spreading across his face as David Anderson stood beside him, their hands intertwined.

"HOW DARE YOU NOT TELL ME!" Florean yelled playfully, though his eyes were sparkling with happiness for his two best friends. He rushed over, dragging David by the hand and he pulled Euphemia to one side, though Charlus protested jokingly, "Oi, hands off my girl."

Florean ignored him, "I want details. Now," he told Mia, his face playfully serious as David chuckled fondly at his boyfriend whilst Euphemia and Charlus exchanged smirks.

"See, sometimes it is good when people discover you when you're snogging," Charlus muttered in Mia's ear and she had to agree completely.

Holaaaa! I'm currently in Spain 🇪🇸 so updates may be not as frequent but I also genuinely have nothing better to do than lie around on a sun-bed and write about my favourite ever couple so...who knows.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!