Disclaimer: I do not own any of J.K. Rowling's creations and am shamelessly trying not to destroy her sandcastle too badly in the process of extracting Cassiopeia from my head.
Memories
.
"_I don't think I can do this anymore."
Cassiopeia walked silently into their room, movements deceptively calm as she opened the empty suitcase onto the bed. A flick of her wand began to lift clothes into the plastic frame.
Theodore said nothing, leaning against the door as he watched his wife of five years pack her bags. She couldn't stay anymore, she couldn't take it. (The drinking, the hate, the pain. It was too much for a man alone, but it wasn't her burden to bear and how could he ask her to do it for him?) He watched as the only good thing in his life packed away.
He meets her at Hogwarts. She's a Half Blood, that kind that had been cursed and tortured during that year with the Carrows, the kind that had nightmares at night and checked all the escape routes before entered in a room and never sat with her back to the door. She's a Half Blood, a Ravenclaw, and he's a Pureblooded Slytherin come back to do his Eight Year. He doesn't expect much from the sixteen years old, doesn't expect much from anyone at Hogwarts because he was on the losing side of a war and just as scared as anyone else; but of course that's too hard to understand for the winners. He doesn't expect much from Hogwarts. (He just wants quiet and to avoid the emptiness of Nott Manor.) He met her when she stood up for him –and what the fuck because he clearly remembered being told to cruciate her the year before and he did it.
He's sat at the Slytherin table, towards the end of it because no one really wants to sit with the Eight Years who had Voldemort in their living rooms. Hardly anyone's back –Pansy, running from her mother's arranged marriage, Malfoy trying to escape his mother's constant need to reassure herself her son is fine and him; Theodore Nott. (Drunk, cynical, broken Theodore Nott.) There are more Gyffindors back, sure –but it's Ravenclaw which stumps them all. Almost everyone has returned, even more than with the Badgers. It should surprise them, but it doesn't. Ravenclaw was neutral in the War and they hardly lost anyone.
He's sat at the Slytherin table, towards the end of it since no one wants to commit social suicide and sit with the pariahs, when slurs begin to rain on the Green and Silvers. (Losing side of the War and all that.) Granger tries to shush them, and Theodore sneers at her feeble attempts. What is it? Pity-the-Slytherin day? She's hardly doing anything by shushing people; he doesn't see Granger crossing the chasm between Slytherin and the rest of the school. (Golden Girl and War Heroes; but too scared, too proud, too good to extend her hand to them?)
No, he doesn't see her do it –but Ravenclaw has always been smarter than the rest of the Houses. Eighth and Seventh Years from the Blue and Bronze rise from their table as soon as the jests begin, spreading across the barely renovated Great Hall and sitting at all the other Houses' tables. There's a moment of unease, because sure it's a statement, a big statement, but the Elder Years didn't get the cruciatus from other students, they were too old and more likely the ones told to perform it, and the real question is; will the Sixth, Fifth and younger Years stand up and follow their elders? Will they makes the same sacrifice and agree to forgive (but not forget)? The Great Hall falls silent. (This will dictate the years to come, he thinks. This is the moment that will decide if they are going to live or survive.)
A girl inhales sharply, steels herself, before she brusquely stands up and strides too stiffly towards the Slytherin table for it to be fully confident. There's a free spot across Theodore, one she notices and he can see the remembrance in her eyes before she lifts her chin and sits there.
"_may I?" she asks once she's sat, very clearly telling him she won't be moving, and Theodore nods carefully. An Eighth Year by her side gives her hand a comforting squeeze, before she extends her right across the still barren wooden table and offers it to him.
"_Cassiopeia Black." An inhalation, then "I heard about your library. I'm sorry." he bites back a startled laugh, because of all things to apologise for he wouldn't have chosen his library, destroyed by Aurors as they searched the Manor for Dark Artefacts, but he takes what he can get and shakes her hand. (He didn't expect her to say sorry, she has nothing to be sorry for –but saying it means a lot more to him than she can imagine.)
"_Theodore Nott. I'm sorry about last year." Her grip is firm, holding him in place a second too long, enough for Theodore to look up to her face. Blue eyes clash, ice against ocean, until she replies.
"_me too."
She's honest. Theodore feels something shiver in his chest.
Cassiopeia doesn't say anything as she removes her things from the bathroom, methodical in erasing herself from his life. The manor is big, but she goes through each room carefully, blankly, and takes back everything she's given him. She falters as her hands remove her toothbrush, leaving his alone in the too big holder. (Memories.)
"_that is the most unhygienic thing I have ever done. Happy Birthday." She mutters as she lies back on the bed beside a fully sated Theodore. He holds back a laugh, pants around his ankle as she swirls her tongue around her mouth. "You taste disgusting." She finally adds. "Next time don't eat crisps. I read vegetables improved the taste to something almost enjoyable." His hand reaches for hers, because he's heard what she said. ('Next time' she said. 'Next time.' She wants there to be a next time.) They lay in silence for a little bit. "Where's the bathroom?" Cassiopeia eventually asks, the taste of Theodore's cum still on her tongue. He points to the black door at the back of the room, the master bedroom having an en-suite at Nott Manor. She whistles quietly, rolls off the fluffy bed and smugly walks to the marble countertops. There's his toothbrush in there, looking all lonely in the ceramic pot.
Cassiopeia decides his blue toothbrush looks a lot better with her green one next to it.
She avoids looking at the black satin sheets on the bed ('black sheets? That's like lace lingerie; you buy it to show it off.') Cassiopeia gets down onto her hands and knees, fishes out her shoes from under the dining table. She's gotten into the nasty habit of kicking her shoes off as she sits for dinner and abandoning them on the priceless rug. It drives Theodore insane, but the elves don't mind and the heels really hurt her feet. She didn't use to wear heels.
"_am I short?"
She asks him that as she stands in front of the mirror, her hands pressed flat against her stomach.
"_am I short or did I put on weight? I swear I didn't look this bulgy in this dress before." Cassiopeia is wearing that pretty bronze dress Theodore adores, getting ready to go to dinner with her fiancé. "I could have sworn this dress looks better on me." she mutters, turning around to look at her from behind. Her eyes widen, and she's hurriedly shimmering out of the soft fabric. "I'm not wearing that."
"_why not?" he asks, coming out of the bathroom with his shirt unbuttoned. "You look beautiful." He starts with the cufflinks. Cassiopeia shoots him a venomous look, stepping free of the fabric with a stomp. She's wearing black lace underneath, the kind that makes Theodore wonder if he really wants dinner at a restaurant tonight and if indulging in dessert up in his room isn't better. "You could go like that if you want." He murmurs as he nears her. Cassiopeia laughs, pushing him away. Her hands hit his chest, confident against his sternum, and she frowns.
"_have I always been this small?" she asks quietly. "I can barely look at you in the eye."
There's something bugging her. It nags at her thoughts, and Theodore grabs her arms softly.
"_what is it?"
Cassiopeia leans her forehead against his collarbone, hiding her lips against the bared skin of his neck. He hasn't put his tie on yet, his shirt half unbuttoned. The touch of her skin against his is comforting.
"_I read that –there have been studies about the… the Unforgivables. They say that, that people who have been subjected to the cruciatus multiple time have –well, they can have things like, erm, health issues." She rushes the words out, like she's afraid they will burn her, burn him and what they have. Like they bite her as they tumble from her lips, like they harm her when she utters them. She doesn't say things like 'we' or 'us'. They. She says 'they'. "They have stunted growth and reach maturity later and some can never have children and you know that… you know-"
He does know. (Cassiopeia's period are late again, irregular and feeble. She had amenorrhoea in the War.)
She's being stupid, assailed by all these silly little memories. Cassiopeia tries to remember all the good reasons for which she's running. (Death Eater's Slag, they say on the streets.) She tries to remember the anger at his alcoholism ("You told me you had stopped!") tries to remember the nightmares and the pain which haunts the house. She knows why she's leaving. Cassiopeia is tired, tired in the way old people are, tired from the moment she wakes up. She finds it harder to get up, still lives with the shadows of the war on her skin and she can't quite keep her head out of the water anymore. She's drowning, drowning and trying to reach land but Theodore's no help and she needs help. She needs him –not the wraith he has become. She needs the man she married, not the scarred and scared teen hiding behind alcohol to try and forget the feelings of not good enough. She needs Theodore, but Theodore's gone and she doesn't know what to do anymore. There's too much pain, there are too many nightmares and too many ghosts in this house. There's too much of a legacy, the weight of the world, of his world, is too much. She feels like she's drowning.
"_Theo? Do you have a book on cleaning charms?"
He looked up from the newspaper, assessing his wife as she stood there, dishevelled and wand in hand.
"_what's going on?" he eventually asked.
"_well, there's this stain in the table on the ground floor –you know the mahogany one? I've been trying to get it out, but all the spells so far haven't worked. I thought I'd try a stronger all-purpose charms. And I was wondering if you had anything… more potent?"
He had frozen during her explanation, eyes stony as he looked at her.
"_don't bother."
Cassiopeia frowned, her hand going to her hip as she assumed her 'no-nonsense' stance. Theodore cut her off.
"_I said; don't bother." It was an order, but she was smart enough to read the plea underneath. Cassiopeia left without looking back.
It's later, as Theodore slipped into bed beside her, when he threw an arm around her middle and pulled her towards him, that he told her what the stain was. ('Voldemort' he said 'had a pet. Nagini.' She remembered the horrible snake. Cassiopeia stayed very silent. 'She only ate live things you know? And sometimes, she bit into them. It bled everywhere, and we couldn't remove it. Winkie went mad trying to get rid of it, but Davis' blood had already been soaked up by the mahogany.')
She was just being an idiot. She'd gotten rid of that fucking stain, hadn't she? (Tracey Davis was a Slytherin Half Blood in Theo's year.) Cassiopeia obliterated the mark with a well-aimed "dûth!" that had cleaned the table so thoroughly it had left a fucking white bleach mark. (Ancient Black magic.)
It was gone, that stain, just like the love and the hope and the fucking future they had. If she tried enough, she could even believe more was gone. That the darkness was gone, but even then she wasn't stupid enough to think she was worth anything, she was smart enough to realise she had lost, lost her husband and her love and her future, and that what was left behind she couldn't fucking save. She'd done her best and she'd been trying, trying so damn hard and –fuck. She didn't have to justify herself. She didn't have to.
Cassiopeia breathed in, walked up the stairs to the bedroom she'd shared with her husband for the past five years and sat on the bed. The bed –that bed. (Black Satin.)
"_I love you."
Her breath caught in her throat. He was looking at her in the darkness, his arms securely tightened around her middle as he pretended he hadn't spoken. The words hung in the air, full of desperation and hunger. He loved her.
Cassiopeia ducked her head and gripped his hand, resting over the shirt of his she liked to sleep in. It was a normal night, those three little words shouldn't have the power to change that. They shouldn't. (He'd tortured her. For all she tried to forget, she couldn't. His wand had been pointed at her and he had said those words and she had trouble sleeping and –who was she kidding. She had forgiven him that long ago.)
"_I'm sorry."
Theodore hid his face in her neck, his back curving to kiss the curve of her body as he pressed himself flush against her –so close that where one began and the other ended wasn't clear. Gosh she loved him. If she could just… something wet hit the back of her neck. Cassiopeia tried to find the same courage which had spurned her to walk to the Slytherin table.
"_marry me." (It wasn't quiet she had wanted to say, but it was good enough.)
Theodore looked up, startled, his body stiffening sharply next to hers. She turned around, her flesh so close to his that their breaths mingled as she looked at him in the eye and said, again.
"_marry me." she couldn't quiet say it yet, couldn't bring herself to let go of the quiet pretence it was all a dream, but Cassiopeia could at least say that. She wanted to be come Mrs Nott. She wanted to.
"_are you…"
"_yes." he was so close she could see the faint scars on his cheekbones from when he had been an awkward teenager with acne. His eyes had flecks of brown in them, like the earth peeking out from the ocean. Her hand rested against his jaw, that angular and sharp jaw that looked so aristocratic and which she loved to kiss. His throat, the column of his neck, elegant and long; so long it went on for miles and she knew how sensitive he was there. She could just breathe there, let her breath fan across the expense of his beautiful, beautiful porcelain skin and she knew he would close his eyes and lose his breath. (Gosh she loved him.)
Her suitcase was closed, the magic being done packing seven years of her life away. The nifty extension charm had prevented her from running out of space and the featherlight stopped the weight of all their expectations from drowning her. A simple wingardium made the case hover behind her as she walked down the grand staircase. (She was done. She was giving up.)
He'd organised a small gathering at the end of the year. It wasn't meant to be something grand, just a few of his Slytherin friends and their other halves. She had turned seventeen and he was planning on announcing their engagement. She'd be his soon.
Cassiopeia had no father to accompany her down the grand staircase, no mother to chaperone her as she got ready inside the master bedroom. (It was as much his as hers by now.) Theodore could remember watching the staircase all evening, expecting her to appear at any second. She'd been worried she might not be able to make it, depending on how annoying Flitch was going to be about her leaving the grounds of Hogwarts during the week. Of course it was Friday, but if the Squib decided she shouldn't be allowed out, Cassiopeia would have hell of a time escaping the castle.
A tiny elf appeared by his side, Winry motioning for her Master to lean down and hear her words.
"_Mistress is getting ready. The nasty cat man held her up." He smiled, relieved, before thanking the tiny creature that had changed his nappies as a child. Theodore joined his guests again, catching the end of one of Pansy's stories about her mother-in-law, Molly Weasley. She had gotten married to Charles, the dragon tamer from Romania. ('He didn't mind' she told him, one night after too much firewhiskey and too little hope. "He didn't mind the 'give him Potter', didn't mind how scared I was and told me he didn't have Him at his dinner table. He told me he couldn't understand, but he could accept. He told me it was okay.")
Cassiopeia was halfway down the staircase by the time he realised she was there, his face lighting up so swiftly Blaise had to turn around to see what had caused such a change in his friend. (Theo was a downright bastard, cold and frigid and all aristocratic, so anything that made him look so fucking besotted was godsend.) Theodore admired her as she blushed, ducking her chin and tucking a strand of black hair beside her ear. She had one hand on the bannister, trying to keep steady as she glided down the grand stairs. He walked to the bottom of steps. (Anything that made him stay so fucking sober was godsend.)
The smile she gave him when he extended his arm to her was worth all the jibbing he would get from his friend for falling in love so completely with the Ravenclaw.
She needed to get away from the Manor, full with memories which overlapped one another and clouded her vision. Everywhere she looked were reminders of the horrors, of the past and the happiness they had found with each other.
"_you shouldn't drink so much."
"_shut up." Theodore replied, filling another tumbler. "It's none of your business." The amber liquid sloshed, threatened to spill over, and Cassiopeia wondered how many he had already had. She took the bottle from his hands.
"_it is, especially since you've spiked the punch and half of the people here haven't noticed. They'll be drunk and I'll get in trouble with MacGongall because I couldn't keep fifty people under control. So, please, stop drinking."
The Slytherin shot her a malicious look, both for her words and the theft of his lovely 1985 Dublin Pure Malt Firewhiskey. She was about to leave him be, assuming he had gotten the message, when Theodore raised his voice.
"_let's play a game."
Slurs of assent rose across the Ravenclaw Common room, Cassiopeia taking a step back as she waited for the other shoe to drop.
"_let's play a drinking game!" Theodore said again, louder this time. More cheers answered his call. His sapphire eyes caught hers. A whisper. (A choice.) "Scared?"
The bottle suddenly sounded like a very good idea. Cassiopeia took a swig and tried to ignore the burning of it down her throat. Theodore Nott was trouble, amber tainted trouble, but he was good trouble. The kind of trouble that made her insides go squeaky. She smirked and channelled the Gryffindork in her.
"_of course not."
His lips tasted like fire and salt and apples.
He was sitting on the visitor's sofa, watching his hands as she crossed the entrance hall and neared the door. Theodore looked tired, but otherwise entirely unaffected. (He looked blank and gone and absent, nothing like the man with fire in his eyes she had married five years ago in June.) Cassiopeia turned the ring three times on her finger, her suitcase floating beside her.
She was crying again. Nightmares, she told him. Theodore didn't believe her. They weren't nightmares; they were memories. Cassiopeia had closed the bathroom door behind herself, cast a silencing charm onto the room –but he knew better. He knew she was crying and she was tired and she really just wanted to sleep. (He knew she took too many Dreamless Sleep potions and it was borderline too much and if she took more he'd have to take her to St Mungo's. He knew sometimes she wasn't sleeping; she was in coma, but she didn't want to admit it was bad and he wouldn't force her to.) She was crying again.
He silently padded to the ray of light filtering under the door, quietly pushing it open as he passed the barrier of the silencing charm. There were great, wracking sobs coursing through her bodies, shaking her so much her entire frame shook. One of her hands was gripping the edge of the potion cabinet tightly as she knocked things over with her right, shakily trying to grab the Draught of the Living Death he kept out of reach, high on the top shelf. She was shaking so much she couldn't have been able to reach the Dreamless Sleeps, three shelves below.
Theodore walked across to her, pushing the cabinet door closed softly. She pretended she wasn't crying and turned her face away from him.
"_sorry I woke you up." She said, eventually, when she had her voice almost under control. He suspected a drying charm on her face and a calming spell to stop her voice from quivering. It didn't work very well. Theodore pretended not to notice.
"_I was awake anyway."
She was warm, her back hunched over the sink but so close to his chest. He could feel the feverish heat she gave off, the sweat that clung to her skin and clumped up her hair. Her skin shone under the artificial bathroom light.
"_I think I need a shower." She said quietly, more to get him to leave than anything else. He was warm behind her but if he didn't go soon, she'd start bawling again and that wouldn't do. He didn't need a girl who cried at the drop of a hat. He really didn't.
"_okay." He said quietly, unmoving. She waited for him to leave, to get out of the bathroom so she could crumble again, but Theodore didn't budge. He stayed there, a hand on the potion cabinet's door and his presence at her back.
"_aren't you going to move? Chivalry and all that –I need a shower Theo."
Ah, she was getting aggressive. Whenever Cassiopeia was upset, she'd abandon and cold and clinical shell and lash out, trying to push the people around her away so she could lick at her wounds in peace. He put a hand on her hip, holding her as he pulled his pyjamas trouser down with the other.
"_what are you doing?" she asked quietly, not turning around. Her cheeks were flaming red.
"_undressing." She huffed, trying to bite back a choked laughter and the tears, pulling herself away from the sink to turn towards him. Her cheeks were still a bit shiny, but had he not found her crying, he wouldn't have noticed. (She wasn't a Ravenclaw for nothing.)
"_yeah, but why?" she asked, emphasis on the last word.
"_well, I don't know about you, but I tend to take showers naked."
The sobs racked her through, but he didn't stop, undressing her and tugging the woman under the shower. (Girls didn't cry the way she did, with great big racking sobs that shook the entire room and told him all he wanted to know about cruciatus and fear and darkness.)
Theodore rose from the sofa, walking quietly across the hall to her. She didn't stop until she had reached the door, turning around to see if he had anything else to say. Any last words –any questions or something to say. Anything to say. Ask her to stay. Grab her hand and tug her back to bed.
They were sat around the breakfast table. It was ten on a Sunday –totally unacceptable and too early for any human being to be up at that time. Cassiopeia blinked away the harsh light of the sun streaming through the high windows of the breakfast room, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
"_do you want coffee with all that sugar?" Theodore asked her over the rim of the Daily Prophet. She looked down, noticing that, indeed, half asleep she had spooned six cubes of sugar into the tiny cup. She huffed and took a sip. Gosh it was disgusting. Cassiopeia forced herself to down it in one go. Theodore leant over to refill her cup with black coffee, something she thanked him for with a non-committal noise. She was washing her mouth with the precious unsweetened liquid when she took note of the man seated beside her.
He was reclining in his seat, the ankle of one leg crossed over the knee of the other. His shirt was opened and his black trousers were pressed, the sunlight illuminating him from behind. Her breath caught. He was looking at her with amusement, the Prophet folded over the arm of his chair as he leant his chin on his fist. She hadn't quite realised his icy blue eyes could light a fire inside her. Theo had bags under his eyes because she was crying last night again, and his right hand was holding a tumbler of whiskey rather than coffee –but he was beautiful.
Cassiopeia quickly looked away, her heart hammering and the image imprinted inside her head.
She could still see it when she closed her eyes. That man had nothing to do with the wraith currently standing a few metres away from her, blue eyes dead and unfeeling as he watched her walk out of his life without making a move to hold her back. Her heart pumped poison and Cassiopeia had to close her eyes under the pain.
"_you have never been inside Muggle London?" she asked, surprised.
"_it wasn't exactly the done thing" Theodore told her wryly, eyeing the witch wearily. She had a light in her eyes, the kind she got when she was about to say something ridiculous.
"_take your coat –I'm taking you shopping in Harrods and House of Frather. I can't believe you've never done Oxford Street."
There it was.
"_no." Theodore refused, stark and unbending. She smiled coyly.
"_they have fantastic libraries, with telescopes that can see Jupiter and they even have pictures of its moons."
She saw him hesitate. Cassiopeia leant in and murmured to his ear.
"_I'll show you what Muggles have made of lingerie."
Theodore remembered the green number she had worn, and suddenly the idea of Muggle London was a lot more agreeable.
The door closed behind her with a heavy thud. She took a second to inhale deeply, the frigid air burning her lungs as Cassiopeia tried to ground herself –her fingers not quite leaving the brass knob.
It was a frisk March morning, with frost coating the rose bushes on either side of the path. ('They were my mother's. We tried to care for them, but it was as if they knew she had died. They never bloomed again. Dad treasured them.') Her fingers shook over the shiny brass. The handle was smooth under her hand, heavy and round and –she couldn't do this. She couldn't do this.
(I love you. I swear I do, I just find it hard to breathe sometimes. It's like I'm stuck again, trapped inside the tower and I can see the Death Eaters blasting the door to our room open and we hexed them, god we did, but it was meant to be safe, you know? We were meant to be safe.)
Theodore was standing behind the door, looking so lost and uncomprehending when she pushed it open again and stepped inside briskly.
"_it'll be fine. We'll make this work. I love you and we'll make it work. I'm not leaving."
Silence. Cassiopeia allowed her suitcase to drop to the floor as she neared him. Theodore didn't move.
"_I'm not leaving you." (It's her promise to him.)
Ice thawed.
Theodore started to cry, his long fingers coming to cover his face when he realised his cheeks were getting wet. The tears shone in the soft light and she kissed his face, over and over again, because it was hard, it was complicated and days weren't easy –some were worse than others and none were good; but they were together. They'd make it work. They would.
They had to, because she wasn't fucking leaving.