Amazing Grace (we once were blind)
Disclaimer: I do not make any profit from this, and am merely playing with the magnificent creation of J. K. Rowling.
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She is thirteen when Dumbledore dies –and that makes her a Fourth Year when the Carrows take over the school. Her parents named her Cassandra, what a legacy, because her father was Iovus and her mom Leda. They thought it funny. She didn't. (At least she isn't Helen, beautiful but dangerous – a woman who wrought war with indecision. At least she isn't her. No. Instead she is the forgotten one; the one no one listens to because she is cursed.) She goes by Cass', and when people assume it's the short for Cassie she doesn't stop them. Better Cassie than Cassandra.
Cassandra Porter isn't a seer, but she's a Ravenclaw and she understands alright that her name is a bad omen in a world of magic. (Things happen when you wish them strongly enough here, and things like words and names have power. She may be named Cassandra but it doesn't mean she's free of her legacy.) She warns people (Ravenclaw, she understands the consequences of actions) but no one ever listens and she is named Cassandra. No one will ever listen. (It's her fate.)
Cass' is fourteen when the Carrows take over school. What once was a mellow place becomes a nightmare. She takes extra potions in order to have access to the labs at any hour of the day and she spends her nights in there, brewing Pain Potions and Dreamless Sleep and Draught of Peace. She tries her hand at Felix Felicis, gets it right (because she's a Ravenclaw, for fuck's sake) and hands it over to the House Prefect. Felicia puts it on a shelf next to the door, with a little note beside it. "Take a drop before going to detention with the Carrows." It doesn't always work, but ravens watch out for their own. At least there are potions to patch them up together afterwards. (She's fourteen when she warns Felicia they'll get caught. The Prefect smiles tightly. 'No one would be foolish enough to make a mistake.' She doesn't know whether or not Felicia believes her own words. Cassandra surely doesn't.)
Felicia asks Cass' if she needs help brewing and assigns two other Ravens to pick up extra Potions. Three more are sent to the Hospital Wings with newfound aspirations to the Healer Path, or that's what they tell Mrs Pomfrey about their sudden eagerness to learn healing spells. Five go to Ancient Rune in order to better ward their Common Room, two to Charms and soon the Ravenclaws are an independent section of the school. They can protect themselves and they watch out for their own and they try to survive together. ('They'll find us weak if we try to stand alone. We cannot hold back the Death Eaters by ourselves. Not with the allegiances some of our families have.' Henry disagrees and tells her they can. They are Ravenclaw. If anyone can, it is them –the careful and the intelligent, the creative and the prudent.)
Cass' is fourteen when she is asked to cast the Cruciatus on a Firstie. She's never done it before but doesn't tell the Carrows. The kid in front of her is one of her own – he's a blue and bronze and Cass will not harm him. Red light leaves her wand and she speaks the words, but she's a Ravenclaw. There's a moment of silence and then the kid screams like mad and afterwards, in the common room, he snuggles up to her and thanks her. (Cass' knows spells to make light shoot out of her wand. All Ravens do. Originally, they were meant to imitate fireworks.) She tells them they'll get caught using these spells, that the Carrows won't be fooled for long. She is told to shut up.
Cass is fourteen when a Seventh Year Slytherin is told to Cruciatus her. His name's Nott, Theodore Nott – she knows because Felicia and Henry, their House Prefects, have made little flashcards on all the people in school. They are available in the Ravenclaw common room for perusal, hidden under a disillusionment charm. Theodore's one says his spells don't hurt as much as, say – Crabbe or Goyle or Bennett. She's glad. (Cass' notes he's go beautiful blue eyes, and it's a stupid thing to note about someone who's about to torture her; but he does. He has beautiful blue eyes and high cheekbones and shaggy black hair.) Theodore Nott readies his wand, looks at her with those blue, blue eyes that seem to beg for her forgiveness and shouts.
"_crucio!"
Gosh it hurts. Theodore doesn't know all the spells about the red light and the fireworks, and gosh his crucio hurts. It's not like Crabbe's or Goyle's crucios, but it's one regardless and Cass' feels like her entrails are about to burst on fire. She can understand why someone people go mad under it.
She's left haggard and panting on the floor of the Muggle Studies classroom and Cass' curses herself for not having found the time to brew Felix lately. She's the only one out of the four Potioneers who can do it. (It's an honour, but it's also dangerous because if word gets out she's going to be ripped apart by Death Eaters.) Alecto Carrow leaves with a satisfied smile on her face, but Theodore helps her up and supports her as she limps back to her common room. ('Lux Sanguina' she whispers in his ear before answering the Eagle's Riddle. Theodore is startled, then sudden realisation dawns and he nods sharply. He spends the following day in the library.) She knows it'll only lead to being discovered quicker, but Cassandra shares with Theodore that spell. Even she cannot listen to her own advice.
The Fourth Year locks herself up in a laboratory for the week end, high on Pain Potions and Pepper Up and, after three batches of failed luck, she eventually manages a cauldron of Felix. It disappears to the Common Room that night, before Slughorn can even think of seeing what the studious Ravenclaws are up to, and Cass' uses this opportunity to suggest helping the other Houses. There's silence, and then shouts. No, they say. It's too dangerous. We'll get caught and then it'll be over for everyone. She doesn't argue, because Cass' agrees, but deep inside she wishes it didn't have to be like that. (First years are first years regardless of House affiliations, she thinks. Cass doesn't say it. Everyone already thinks it, after all.)
It's December and someone slips. (Of course. It doesn't matter who. Someone does, and that's it.) Ravenclaw common room is sieged by the Carrows, who can't get by the Eagle, and Flitwick buys them the precious time they need to destroy most of the evidence. The flashcards are found, as well as remains of healing spells and salves – but Felix is long gone and Cass' is safe. For the moment. (She doesn't say 'I told you so', but she thinks it, thinks it loudly and with despair. Of course she told them so.)
Somehow, she doesn't know when or why or even how, the Carrows get her name. Cassandra Porter. She has Felix this time, her and the three others who are about to get it, but it is not Nott who is asked to show the school what happens when you try to defy the system. They assemble the students and it's Alecto and Amycus who make a point of showing the students why exactly you shouldn't disobey them. Felicia, Henry, Matt and herself. Their Prefects, the head of the Infirmary Movement and her; Potion girl. An hour has never seemed so long and they have trouble breathing for days afterwards. She thinks she has gone mad. (Cassandra wails and wails, because Felix did this, Felix saved them and she wonders if there would be punishment for the use of the Avada on children.)
The others aren't allowed to help as they lay on the cold stone floor of the Great Hall. They pick themselves up before dinner and stumble back to their Common room. The Eagle asks them a stupid question neither can answer and they sink against each other, tired and exhausted and –
"_the moon." It's Theodore who has walked up behind them, answering the riddle and allowing the four battered students entry. Cassandra is the last to go in, and she turns towards the Seventh Year. She wants to ask him if he remembers her, if he studied that spell and say thank you all at the same time. Her heart is hammering in her chest, faster than the shaking of her limbs, but she ignores it all. It's the adrenalin. Theodore says nothing as she turns towards him and studies his face for a long time. The eagle slides close behind them.
"_we'll have to go back to crucio." She's the first to speak. He doesn't reply. Cassandra feels the weight of madness of her brain, her brain once so brilliant and fresh and just broken now. Broken and shattered, like the walls of Hogwarts. Eventually; "do you still have enough potions?"
Theodore barks a half laugh, something shattered which exhausts Cassandra even more. They are running to their deaths.
"_they've taken it all away, but what could you do about it anyway?"
She doesn't reply. (The cabinet inside the Slytherin common room magically refills that night.)
Cassandra is fourteen when the madness cracks through her mind. The Carrows have kept an eye on all four Ravenclaws and she's being punished almost every week now. Sometimes she's lucky and she gets someone like Malfoy, Zabini or even Greengrass. They don't hurt, though their crucio is worse than Theo's. It says something that she's come to think of it as 'not hurting', but that's because today Cassandra isn't lucky and it's Crabbe taking care of her 'cheek' as Alecto put it. She can't remember what she did.
She isn't healed from the school-wide punishment when Vincent raises his wand and levels her with an unrepentant stare. Cassandra starts to scream almost immediately, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes as she writhes in the floor. Please, she screams. Please stop, stop, stop. She doesn't say 'kill me', because they would and she can't, not yet, but it hurts so much, like her bones are melting and her flesh is on fire and she is being flayed alive. The pain is ripping and burning and something tears inside her mind. Cassandra chokes on air and stops breathing for a second, retreats in the corners of her consciousness as she feels the pain take over her and soon enough; it's just her and the quiet garden she's always imagined as her mind.
She's aware of screams, somewhere in the back of her mind, her screams perhaps, and then the absence of screams because there's no pain anymore, but Cassandra doesn't feel the need to move from the nice little garden with the book stacked high between bushes of irises and hyacinths. She sits down with the strange monochromatic reflection that lives there, enjoys a cup of tea as she watches the thoughts flitter by, plumes of colour rising from fragrant petals – a hummingbird, a lazy butterfly.
Cassandra doesn't really ever emerge from her mind. She's still stuck somewhere in between, halfway in the white fog and halfway in the present by the time dinner goes by. Someone gets her, someone in bronze and blue (that's all she sees now. Bronze and blue) and they drag her to her Head of House. Flitwick takes a look at the bright girl staring at empty space and weeps.
(Look. She tells him. Hogwart's falling and marble's red. It hasn't happened yet, of course, but no one listens to her when she says it and Cassandra wonders who her Apollo is.)
Look. There's a half deaf man missing his shadow. She laughs at that, because Cassandra is unhinged now and she can't even look at people anymore without wanting to run away. She sees into the future, endures the breach in magic pain has caused and waits for time to pick the pieces up. She waits for the tear in the fabric to mend and in the meantime, if Cassandra can't tell the difference between what has happened and what will, then she keeps quiet and only tells those she thinks she can trust. (Flitwick, Felicia and Matt. And Theodore Nott.)
Look. Someone watched the train roll them by. She spends time in the library, hides between two stacks of books and skips classes. Cassandra doesn't err much in the castle, spends more and more time amongst books and suddenly, one day, she realises that she's locked herself up. No one listens to the half-crazy Ravenclaw and she's replaced the missing Luna.
Look. The moon makes friend with dragons. In the year to come, people will be startled by how much truth she held in her voice. Hogwarts did crumble to the ground and there was blood splattered on the stones. Fred did die and George lose his ear. Harry did refuse to step on the train and be carried away from the living. Luna did strike an odd friendship with Draco Malfoy when she was a prisoner at his house. Cassandra Porter is only as mad as the people who don't believe her despite her name. (Because Hector's sister never made a false prediction and Apollo cursed her never to be believed regardless.)
Look. We are dead.
Theodore has learnt to ignore the crazy Fourth Year who sometimes grabs his hand and tells him things. She laughs a little manically and grips him so hard his blood doesn't flow, but the Carrows are quick in batting her away and giving her detention. Theodore isn't sure she hears them because of how unfocused her eyes are. Pansy shivers. (As fucking mad as a hatter, she mutters. He doesn't know if she speaks of Cassandra or the Carrows.)
Look. Athena leads learning. (Theodore scoffs at that one, because he's gotten pretty good at deciphering her little madness and there's no way Minerva MacGonagall will one day be headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – not as long as Voldemort is in power and there is no way the Dark Lord will lose now. He is basically Minister of Magic.) He doesn't believe a word that comes out of her mouth. (And yet, when he's alone and can't sleep, he wonders if it's part of the curse. She's named Cassandra and he would love to be the one to help her. Help someone, for a change. Make something right.)
Look. Amber doesn't taste as nice as it looks. That one freezes his blood, because how does she know about his little drinking problem and why the hell is she looking at him now, at him rather than through him when the minute before she couldn't even walk on her own? (And she's back to pointing at things that don't exist and trying to catch butterflies with her mouth. There are no butterflies in Scotland.)
Look. Night is radiant. He doesn't believe her, no he doesn't, he can't, so Theodore stops helping the Fourth Year Ravenclaw off the floor, stops supporting her back to her Tower, stops trying to sort her out. He leaves her to her house mates, leaves her to their pitying stares and scared eyes because she used to be so smart and look at her now. She's batty and crazy and gone. She's a waste.
Theodore commits her name to memory. (Cassandra Porter. Daughter of Iovus Porter and Leda Black.)
Look. The day is night and light is green.
She isn't a waste. It's the thirtieth of December and she's sitting in a garden, outside of Hogwarts. Theodore doesn't know what pushes him to sit beside her, other than she is alone and the Carrows are gone for the holidays and there's no one around. He doesn't regret it.
"_hello." Her voice is calm and her eyes are focused. He wonders if she is healing.
"_hello." There's silence after that. Cassandra has charmed the courtyard to remain warm, a sort of large scale Warming Charm which does impress him. It's a tricky piece of magic. (She's a Ravenclaw, after all.) She lifts her wand to the sky (it's a very light coloured wand. Almost as white as bone) and suddenly there are blue flames dancing across the night. They arch over the courtyard, create loops of fire which illuminate the frozen ground. Warmth flutters against his skin, his eyes close and there is still the dancing of the flames behind his eyelids. The light fades, but the warmth remains. Theodore opens his eyes.
"_I can't quite do it in one go." She murmurs abashedly. He's amazed she can do it at all.
There are black flames jumping across the sky, emitting heat but no light and he can still see the stars. Cassandra cranes her neck backwards and waves at a glowing point, barely visible. He doesn't recognise it.
"_that's Jupiter. One of its moons is Leda." She tells him quietly. "They say she was raped by Jupiter and gave birth to two eggs. When they hatched, twins emerged from each. Castor and Pollux, and then Helena and Clytemnestra." She conjures a telescope, one of the recent ones, with the double focus and large mirrors. Theodore scoots closer. Cassandra leans in, adjusts the dials and steps away. It's done too quickly for her to have found anything, he thinks, but he still takes her place and looks. Jupiter greets him, and then the tiny little moons all around it. "You see the thirteenth orbit? The fifth moon from the right." Yes, he does. "That's her."
There's something in her voice. Theodore looks away from the telescope.
"_both her daughters did dreadful things, and both her sons were heroes. Clytemnestra's husband, Agamemnon, went to war with Troy. At the end of the siege, he took home Cassandra as a concubine. Clytemnestra killed them both, according to muggle mythology."
Theodore remembers that myth.
"_didn't Cassandra's spirit inhabit Clytemnestra when she was murdered? It drove the other woman mad, didn't it?"
Cassandra smiles a little.
"_yeah. Cursed souls don't cross the Styx."
(There was something ominous in her way of speaking. Like the girl sitting next to him understood that, in this world where things happened if you wished them badly enough, things like words and names have power.)
Look. The gargoyles are moving. Theodore grips her hand very tightly.
Cassandra jerks away strongly enough to unsettle the telescope and it vanishes as it hits the January snow. It's the tenth, and school will resume soon. Cassandra isn't mad. They are moving and there's a troll and things are falling apart. There are northern lights in the sky but it's too low and the darkness shifts. Things are moving and it's not a full moon but the night isn't dark –it's light, light; has become the day. She's panting and her eyes are unfocused and her whole body's shaking. Theodore grips her hand very tightly.
"_Cassandra?" she rests her forehead against his shoulder and breathes.
"_I'm fine. It's just the tear in the time mending itself."
Theodore says nothing, but he doesn't believe her. (She knows that. It doesn't hurt any less.) However, Theodore Nott does not let her go a second time. (And that makes all the difference.)
Look. Callous turn to dust but callow go on. The Carrows come back to school and Cassandra stops getting better. Her eyes lose focus more often and she stumbles when she walks, doesn't take certain corridors because they are shattered even though they aren't yet and often refuses to go up the stairs into the upper parts of the castle. "It's crumbling" she says once when another blue and bronze tries to coax her up. "It's crumbling and there's nothing to be done about it. Even magic can't fix death."
Look. She whispers to him. He sees nothing. There's a boat to the other side. She walks in the corridors at night, looking for lights that seem to hover in the hallways and forgets to eat her meals. Cassandra gets thinner and thinner, until she looks like a breeze could whisper her away and Flitwick is forced to do something about it. (She used to be so brilliant, he says once in the staffroom. She used to be so brilliant, so good at potions and magic – she even brewed Felix Felicis, and we all know how tricky that is; but now's she's just gone. It's a waste.) Cassandra is excused from lessons but not sent home, because at home she could get better and she was dangerous when she was better. At home she's out of their grasp and that's just not good enough. (Home? She asks when Flitwick asks her if she wants to go back. Where's that? Dad is dead.) He isn't, not until the following morning. The Charms Professor locks her up in the Ravenclaw tower. (He doesn't believe her but he believes in her legacy and Filius is scared.)
Look. The Seasons are all wrong. March and the beginning of spring don't do anything for her. Cassandra flits in the hallways and skips through the gardens, mad and crazy, her mind surrounded by haze. She lays in the grass and giggles at the clouds because she can see a future, one where kids are running and laughing across the grounds and the cruciatus burning her bones doesn't exist. She doesn't scream because their reality isn't hers anymore. That pain isn't real anymore. (Cassandra lives in a world no other can see, half way into the future and a little into the past. There's no place for the present where she lives, so Cass discards it. The present doesn't matter when the future is written already.)
Theodore ducks his head and pretends it's not Cassandra he's ordered to crucio. She smiles into empty air and those big wide black eyes of hers are unfocused, he knows she doesn't see him and he tries to do the same. Crucio, he says. Cass' doesn't scream but the Carrows laugh regardless because she's fallen to the floor and all her limbs are seizing up. He hates this. He does. (He won't do anything though, because Theodore is too scared. He's not like Cassandra. He cannot escape.)
Cassandra pretends she cannot see what's happening. It's maddeningly easy to live in a world where things are all right, like they almost are after the War, but it doesn't mean she can escape the world she is in at the moment. The fabric of time is repairing itself from the tear the Carrows made and Cassandra catches fewer and fewer snippets of the future. It's almost like she's being trapped in the present again, so she does her best to avoid it and clings onto the white visions of happiness. The pain echoes more strongly in her bones, her throat itches with screams she wants to hurl but Cassandra clings onto the little garden full of irises and hyacinths and pretends she's still mad. The Carrows are less harsh on mad people. It's less fun when they don't scream.
Cassandra pretends she cannot see what's happening, so she brews Sleep Potions in the privacy of her padded room and Confusion Concoctions and tries, tries, tries so hard to remain in that half state of not being. It doesn't work, and reality becomes more and more pressing with each day. Cassandra weeps.
Look. It might be breaking apart at the seams but the future holds. The tear in the fabric of time never closes fully. Like an infected wound, it still bleeds and oozes pus from time to time, pervades her reality and supplants visions of a whiter, more perfect world to her own. It bleeds into her life less often, but still does, and Cassandra clings onto these visions. She is smart enough to realise they might save her, because no one will ever believe what she says but she knows it's the truth. Cass' Porter is an orphan, but Cassandra has got millennia of curses and visions behind her. Clytemnestra was only the first host. (She hopes to be the last.)
The tear in the fabric of time never closes fully. Like an infected wound, it still sneaks, perverse, through her reality and thrums through her veins. Cassandra is inhabited by her namesake and Apollo haunts her steps.
She's almost healed by May. It's a sad thing, really, because Cassandra was much safer when she was mad, but she can't escape the miasma clinging to her skin and it's dragging her back into the present. She goes to classes, shines in Potions (Felix Felicis, Slughorn tells her one day. Felix Felicis. You'll go far. Remember me) and tries not the shiver when the Carrows walk by. They hardly remember her, of course – she's just another student, but she remembers them alright. She has Seen the Battle and Cassandra knows where she'll be. She'll be reducing these two assholes to dust. It's a promise.
Cassandra shivers in pleasure under her skin, the avenger woman murmuring words of ecstasy into her ear. It'll be sweet to kill those who tried to kill her. It'll be wonderful. It'll be magical.
Cassandra is fourteen when she's ordered to crucio is a First Year. He comes from Slytherin but the kid has no hope of escaping now. He looks beaten down, already broken, because people think all Slytherins are evil and in league with the Dark Lord. Cassandra steadies her wand, her eyes slightly unfocused as she orders. "Crucio" The blood red light leaves her, the boy is silent for a second before he screams, screams like the heavens have come down onto him and there's all the madness that inhabited her in those child-voiced screams. Cassandra's eyes lose focus and a white light blinds her. (Look. There's a child running, with dark hair and sapphire eyes. He stumbles and falls, scrapes his knee and runs towards –is that her? Is Cassandra a mother?)
A small hand on her arm. Cassandra is startled back into reality, eyes sharpening onto the little boy who has moved away from her stream of light and now has his hand on her wand arm. The red lightning still strikes the stone.
"_it's okay." He says shyly. "They are gone. You can stop." Cassandra looks at him, unseeing and blind, before she quietly draws him into her arms. He's shaking as well. He's terrified and it's his First Year at Hogwarts and he must have been so scared.
"_I'm sorry." She says, quietly, into his blonde hair. She holds him tighter as he starts to cry. "What's your name?"
"_Helenus." The ghost under her skin shivers, wraps around her twin brother and instils the fervent desire to protect into her host. For once, both women agree.
"_I'll protect you. I swear I'll protect you. You'll survive, go far, far away in search of a new land and life will smile to you. I promise." Helenus is the sole of Cassandra's brothers to outlive the Troyan War. He's the sole to die of old age, and Cassandra has got hope for this little scrap of a boy. There's truth in her voice, a truth he must hear because Helenus looks at her and nods. She holds him tighter. "I'll make it okay for you."
Daphne Greengrass is the one to bridge the gap and talk to her, a few days after she's sworn to protect Helenus. She's beautiful in a way that's dangerous, because the girl will be a prized puppet and many men will want her – not all of them kind. She lives in constant fear of those who have powers, because being beautiful is dangerous in times of war. Cassandra thinks she can come to like this Daphne, turned into laurel because she also refused herself to Apollo.
"_eagles nest too high for many predators. Kindness is not one of their attributes."
There are no hellos and no how-are-yous, because there is no time for them. Daphne breaches the topic swiftly and goes straight to the crux of it.
"_do not judge a book by its cover. Blood runs deeper than skin." It startles the girl for a second, because that's not something she expected, before she rights herself and carries on.
"_he's not one of yours."
"_children belong to society. They are its future and must be preserved." And that's the crux of the problem. Children are precious and she's the only one to see that. It hurts. "Why stop at the colour of their tie when the one of their blood is the same? I am you and you are me. Dust, all of us, unless we can turn our future to gold. They are our future. They are our gold."
Daphne stays seated beside her in the library for a little longer, flicking idly the pages of a book as Cassandra carries on with her transfiguration essay. When she rises, Cassandra pretends not to see.
"_sanguis puris." She murmurs as the she pushes her chair in. "that this week's password."
Cassandra holds it close to her heart.
Their common room is quite large, with priceless-looking leather couches and posh pristine white marble columns. There's a wide window giving onto the depth of the Black Lake, with small silver flashes of fish darting past. It's a beautiful room, cold and unfeeling like Slytherins try to appear. Cassandra wonders what she's doing there. (She knows, but it doesn't stop her from doubting. What can a Fourth Year do against the Carrows?)
She lifts the disillusionment charm onto the necklace she wears, thinks about the notice-me-not – leaves it on – sets the necklace on the floor and applies an engorgio. The potion cabinet appears silently into the open space, its glass doors shining in the soft green light of the common room.
"_what do you need?" she asks quietly to Daphne. The blonde's looking at her, assessing the slip of a Fourth Year and taking it in. (Ravenclaw. She thinks. Ravenclaw.)
"_anything. Our cache is almost empty." Cassandra nods and motions for them to help themselves.
"_take more than you need." The Slytherins don't ask twice.
He approaches her when she starts to get skittish. None of the Ravenclaws know where she is, and Cassandra is getting the increasingly bad feeling that she is about to be outed in a brutal and painful way. Her heartbeat is increasing because she's a Ravenclaw, not a Gryffindor and bravery is not her thing. Theodore puts his hand on her shoulder and she eases. She knows his smell, as weird as it might sound. It's imprinted in her brain. Cassandra shivers under her skin.
"_thanks." He murmurs by her ear. No one is looking at them, too busy trying to make the best of the providential help, but Cassandra is weary regardless and doesn't turn towards him.
"_it's nothing." She murmurs, knowing that no, it isn't nothing. She's doing a lot, placing her life on the line because Slytherin isn't worse than Ravenclaw and she doesn't think it fair they should pay for wearing green. She quite likes green as well. Helenus' face lights up when he spots Cassandra. She gives Theodore's hand a squeeze. "I have my reasons." She doesn't say he's one of them, and he doesn't point out she's stupid for liking snakes. Cassandra engulfs her twin into a hug. (He's not hers by blood, but that doesn't mean anything. He's hers, hers through the ages and hers through history. He's hers.)
Cassandra clings to the vision of a little boy with shaggy black hair and sapphire eyes. She doesn't speak of it, in the hope no one will scorn and destroy it, but it burns in her heart with the brightness of hope. (Perhaps it's because she held it close to her heart, refused to speak of it, refused to prophesize it; perhaps that why the curse does not take effect.)
The following week, it's Zabini who finds her inside the library. He doesn't even pretend to sit next to her, only slips a little piece of parchment inside her bag as he swaggers by. Superbia. Cassandra says nothing.
She asks Matt to show her all the healing spells he learnt, because she won't risk him by dragging the boy along, and Cassandra tries to master as many as she can before she goes to the Slytherin dungeons to stock them up on potions. She thinks most of her Housemates pretend not to see what she's doing, and the feeling is only reinforced when people start lying for her.
"_Cassandra?" she hears Felicia say to Professor Flitwick. "She's out with Matt. Why? Can I help you sir?" There's a knowing glint in his eyes but he pretends to believe the girl, and if he looks a little too intently at where she stands, disillusioned, Cassandra prefers not to think about it. (When she comes back from her weekly round into Slytherin common room, there's a time turner on her desk, with an admonition in her teacher's hand writing. No more than a flick.) Cassandra feels her heart soar with hope.
Slughorn casually mentions he's never in his labs at the weekend, his eyes crossing hers as he says it to the class, though really he ought to because it's better for the cauldrons if they are used daily. That's as much as a benediction as she's going to get, so Cassandra starts brewing again. It's just her, this time, because the more people she lets in the more she risks being discovered again, but he keeps her stocked up on the ingredients needed to make Felix and she makes sure to brew an extra something for him to share with the Professors. She wonders if it'll make a difference, she wonders if it'll be worth it in the end, but Cassandra has got people depending on her, so she carries on. No more than a flick, Flitwick had said, but Cassandra has got too much to do and not enough time. A flick become two and two three and soon enough she's living the day over again, trying to avoid being seen by her double or anyone else and doing everything she has to do. She thinks of Helenus, of Theodore and of Matt, Felicia, Henry and the Eagle who doesn't ask her questions before letting her walk into the Tower. She thinks of Slughorn and Flitwick and the Resistance, the students she refuses to join because she's making a point.
"_why do you help them?" It's a Gryffindor fifth year sat next to her, someone who's there to invite her to their little group.
"_who? The other kids that get tortured?"
"_the snakes." He bites it out, full of venom and anger, but Cassandra barely reacts.
"_they say my dad raped my mom, and that she married him because otherwise she would have been scorned by society. As a pureblood, she had lost all status once tainted by him."
He's quiet for a second, startled.
"_I'm sorry. That sounds shit. But – why are you telling me this?"
"_you don't blame me?" she asks, seemingly surprised.
"_no, of course not. Why should I? It's not your fault."
"_well. You seemed pretty happy to put the fault of their fathers onto the Slytherins' shoulders."
The Gryffindor storms away in anger. Pince looks at her from over the rim of her glasses, assessing the little Ravenclaw working quietly on her essay before she decides she can overlook that incident for now.
They are all in need of help, of a fucking miracle, and she refuses to turn her back on the Slytherins because their parents made mistakes.
"_you shouldn't have done that." Theodore's sat next to her on a bench in the little garden, and Cassandra could almost believe it Christmas again. There's no snow, but the summer hasn't managed to chase away the darkness. It's late May. There's a storm brewing.
"_you shouldn't either." He doesn't know what she's talking about, because it hasn't happened yet, but Cassandra tries regardless. "You shouldn't run into a battle you won't come out of."
Theodore looks back out of the courtyard and says nothing. Cassandra's hand is cold in his.
"_I think I might love you." she says quietly to the rose bushes. Theodore smiles wryly.
"_I think you might be the only one."
She laughs, dry and broken, before resting her head against his shoulder and pretending, for a second.
"_I think you should look for me once the battle is over and more people love you. To make sure."
He doesn't understand what she's saying. It's okay.
Cassandra holds onto the vision of a little boy with shaggy black hair and sapphire eyes. She hopes, hopes desperately that it will come true because all her predictions have before, all the bad ones –and this one is just so beautiful. She really does hope.
"_Ravenclaw will be neutral in this conflict." The words are bland, announced by Felicia after a day of debate, and the Ravenclaw common room is silent. Henry smiles awkwardly, pins up the results of the ballot and Cassandra can feel her heart plummet. No. No. She promised Helenus and Theodore. She promised.
The common room is empty when she approaches Felicia and Henry. He is the first to speak.
"_I'm sorry but the decision was democratic and we cannot –" she halts him there, handing over a thick roll of parchment.
"_there's a case of precedence, in the 1580's when the witch trial hysteria reached its peak in Europe. A Gryffindor wanted to make a statement and officially repudiated his house, at that time against the seclusion of the wizarding world, to join Slytherin – advocating for."
The parchment feels heavy in Felicia's hand. Cassandra's shakes.
"_I accept." She says softly, brown eyes searching the Fourth Year's face. "It's very brave of you." she murmurs. Cassandra snorts.
"_it's desperate."
Flitwick doesn't ask her to explain her choices. He nods when he passes her by in the corridor, charms her tie to green and silver and Cassandra feels her breath leave her lungs. She's done it. She's picked a side. The small man pats her hand and thanks her quietly before leaving. He doesn't look back.
"_how stupid could you be?" Theodore's not happy with her choice. (Not at all.) He has a hand on each of her shoulders and is shaking Cassandra like a prune tree. She lets him. "That's the most idiotic thing you could do, wearing green like that in the hallways. What took over you?"
"_I repudiated Ravenclaw."
He doesn't hear her correctly. He can't have heard her correctly, because – what? Why would she and can you even repudiate your house and what the fuck?
"_explain."
She does. He's not happy, but at least he's calm enough to let her into the Slytherin common room and explain to her where things are. He hands her off to Daphne, who tells her there are no beds in the girl side left and – did you really? Cassandra nods but doesn't add anything. She's handed off to Zabini who shows her the sofa in the common room and says they can rise privacy wards. She tells him she'll fix that herself tonight, no need to disturb the others now. No one points out the elephant in the room.
It's the second week of June.
Neville Longbottom catches her on the twenty third. He pulls her aside and tells her that Potter is here, in the castle, and either she gets her ass back to Ravenclaw and saves her skin right now or she fights – and if she fights on the wrong side, he'll kill her. She shrugs him off and tells the Slytherin prefects to get the First Years out of the castle straight after they are let go of by Headmaster Snape. Zabini looks uneasy and Greengrass stares into her eyes.
"_you know something." She doesn't ask why, tells the First, Second, Third and anyone else who wants safety to pack their bags. They get shrunk and put inside pockets, everyone marches off to answer the Headmaster's summon but as soon as the first spell shoots off, Daphne and Tracy grab the kids and push them towards Hogsmade. Cassandra spreads the word to the Ravens, who pass it along to Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. The youngest all disappear from the castle within the hour. ("The children belong to society. They are our future and without them we will die." Her words are loud in her ears. She prays for Helenus' safety.)
"_take the Slytherins to the dungeons."
Cassandra cannot believe what she hears. Her world shakes as the woman under her skin roars, anger and betrayal all soaking her skin until she refuses to turn around and run. She's lost everyone but the people around her, and she'll fight to make sure Helenus and Theodore are safe. She'll fight and she'll fight and she'll die if she has to. Cassandra is a Ravenclaw for all she's been wearing green the past two weeks. She understands that her life is worth nothing in the light of Theo's and Helenus'.
She won't be taken to the dungeons.
Cassandra will find Alecto Carrow and she will get her revenge.
"_I'm not staying here." she says to Theodore as they get herded like sheep down to the dungeons. Cassandra cannot blame Pansy Parkinson for her words. (How easy is it to cave under fear? She broke her mind – a few words are hardly anything next to that. Cassandra would be a hypocrite to judge.)
"_the only way out is to answer the Dark Lord." He says that with a hand over the disfiguration on his arm. There's a scowl on his face, and already some of the students are withering on the floor. Someone gives into the pain, turns into dark smoke and then it's a hecatomb. The common room drowns in ashes, plumes of ink against the air. Theo remains beside her.
"_go." She urges him. Cassandra has a smile on her face, one that doesn't reach her eyes but tells him she desperately want to kiss him. "Go. Get out of here, answer his summon but don't forget about me, or Helenus, or the firsties you've had to torture because of Him. Go, but don't forget. I trust you."
She says the last words into the empty air, but she knows he has heard them. She knows he's laughing at them, because Cassandra shouldn't trust him. She'd be a fool to. (But she does. Oh how she does.)
No one can really tell her what happens as she rushes out of the common room and forces her way back to the surface with the remainder of Slytherin. They don't all want to fight, but no one wants to remain inside their common room. They aren't ravens but the threat of the Black Lake over their heads is clear enough; a single stray spell could shake the foundations of Hogwarts and send the magic crashing. And then what would become of the Slytherins in their underwater room? (They would rather die fighting than drowning.)
No one can really tell her what happens as she rushes out of the common room and forces her way back to the surface. There are no witnesses to the death of Theodore Nott, no one which might stand and tell the unmoving Ravenclaw what happened to the little boy with shaggy black hair and sapphire eyes. Even the ghost under her skin keeps quiet as the fight stills around her. He's dead.
Cassandra kneels beside him. She doesn't understand what she's doing, because there are still enemies to fight, but only the sight of the pale boy registers. Theo's dead. Theo's dead. It grips at her throat and stops her from breathing, makes her feel like she's hacking up death as she grips his head in her hands and screams. It's not possible. It cannot be. There was a future. She had Seen it. He cannot die. He cannot. Theodore made her right again and he healed her and he was a light in the darkness and he made her little garden in her mind pale in comparison to reality. He cannot be dead.
The ghost under her skin whispers in her ear, something about promises and threats and gifts, but Cassandra cannot hear. She doesn't believe it. She cannot believe it. Theodore's not dead.
Apollo stands beside her, in love with the shade that inhabits her body and Cassandra turns to him. She understands now. She gets it. Radiant Night, Night turned Day and all the crap she spouted about Healing.
"_please."
The simple word gives Apollo enough magic to slip inside Theodore's body, the way her name had given Cassandra credence, and she's startled to see his chest rise and fall again. He splutters, coughs harshly and strains against her hands. (Cassandra needs to keep her promises, be they thousands of years or merely days old.)
"_I love you." she says. "Theodore."
"_don't say things you don't mean." It's breathless and scratchy, Theodore's coughing the words out as he inhales life again. I love you. She thinks as she watches him try to breathe. He's pale and haggard, his skin stretches painfully across cheekbones too high to be real but she loves him regardless. He's a fucking asshole and she loves him. That's why she presses her lips against him, hands splayed firmly on either side of his face and she kisses him as if the sun would never rise. (It will never rise.) Theodore freezes, answers – but then there's the searing pain of a Burgeoning Hex, a ripping in her shoulder and Cassandra is back in movement. The kiss goes unfinished.
She finds the Carrows. Oh she finds them alright and an endless rage takes over her because they are already dead and she wanted to kill them. She wanted to kill them and rip them apart and fucking make them scream like they made her scream. She wanted revenge and some fucking Gryffindor got to them before she could and Cassandra is angry. (She isn't the only one to have suffered at their hands, she isn't the only one to need revenge but she just – she just wanted payback for those months stuck inside her brain. She just wanted payback for those months stuck shaking.)
It's okay. She takes that anger out on other people, people she doesn't know but who deserve it anyway because they are wearing silver masks. They put the Carrows in place and she hates them because they allowed this to happen. They allowed madness and pain and terror. She hates them. Cassandra is consumed by rage. It's a very Gryffindor feeling, the one of adrenalin rushing through her veins and tearing her apart, but she channels it like the Slytherin she has been for the past few weeks and Cassandra rips apart. Theodore has her back. (Apollo loves Cassandra, in a way that scorn couldn't erase.)
He has her back even when Cassandra staggers and trips. He has her back when she sends an avada towards a robed man who could be his father, for all Death Eaters look like one another, and has her back when he remembers the man who pinned his ugly toddler drawings to the wall and applauded his first attempts at reading. Theodore has her back even as he sees his father's body amongst the casualties of the war. (He remembers the father, but it is the misguided man who died tonight. Theodore Nott Snr had changed.) He has her back even when she runs off and he cannot follow her. Cassandra is seeing something, something dreadful in a way that freezes her blood and halts her, something he cannot see and something he cannot protect her from. He wants to rip the world apart to keep her safe.
He cannot quite tell how much of that is him and how much is Apollo.
It haunts him, somewhat. How much of what he feels is what was? When he thinks of Cassandra, sometimes he doesn't see the curly haired witch. Sometimes he sees a woman with olive skin and long limbs. Sometimes he sees lithe legs and wide green eyes that sparkle in the sun. Sometimes he sees someone he's never met. Theodore wonders what the feeling in his chest is.
It doesn't matter anymore.
Theodore is twenty two and he is married to Daphne Greengrass. They have a son, called Theodore. He's Teddy though. Teddy has curly black hair and sparkling blue eyes. Sometimes he sees Cassandra in the little boy, because Theodore thinks that if she had survived the Battle of Hogwarts, if they had worked beyond the shades that inhibit them, then Teddy would have been her son. He has her curls. (But Cassandra died from an Avada Kedavra in the back. Teddy is not her son.)
Apollo is quiet in his mind. He is gone, departed to return to wherever dreams go to die. He's gone to be with his very own Cassandra, and Theodore tries not to think about it too much. He remembers her well.
He remembers her too well.
Theodore looks down at his sleeping child. Teddy will be in Ravenclaw – he just knows it. Barely five, and yet already going everywhere with a book. He's a budding potioneer, that one. He's already been asking Theodore to teach him a few things about cauldrons. Even if Theodore doesn't really love his wife, he adores his son.
Somehow, it makes everything hurt less.