This is a HIGHLY alternate universe, a spin-off of my monster story Redemption Song which I will, in all likelihood, not finish. That being said, Cass has been floating around in my head for three years now, ever since I started brainstorming for RS. If you don't want to go back and read the main fic, I think I've made this pretty accessible. It is an exploration of the world as it might have been had Dumbledore and Grindelwald not gone their separate ways (fear not! all is not as it seems).
WARNING: This fic addresses several highly sensitive subjects, such as torture, slavery, and underage rape.
The bustle of the large kitchen was hardly disrupted by the crack of Apparition, nor by the sudden appearance of a young woman who had most certainly not been there the moment before. Cass' eyes swept across the room, taking control of her bearings. It was the height of the morning, and therefore certainly unsurprising that no one had stopped to greet her. The Blacks took their breakfast at 9:15 precisely, after all.
Taking care not to cross anyone's path as they hustled to and fro, she quickly cut across the large stone room to where a girl with a shock of red hair stood at a counter, setting out a row of silverware with quick efficiency. So absorbed was she in her task that she only noticed the older woman's approach once she stood directly next to her.
"Hello you," the girl said happily, giving her a quick peck on the cheek before returning her hands to the task at hand, if not her attentions. "It's been far too long."
Cass smiled warmly. "Good year at school?"
"Excellent," Lily replied. "Though we'd hoped to see you sooner. Henry's a bit occupied at the moment, hold on…" She flagged down a small boy who had been passing by with a large bucket of suds. "Where's your mum, kid?"
He shrugged.
"Helpful," said Cass.
Lily sighed. "Well, go find her. And give her these, they're important." She looked then to Cass, who reached into her pocket and handed the blue box over to the little boy. He grabbed it from her, dropped the suds, and scampered out of the kitchen as though he could not be gone fast enough. Cass chuckled, but there was no humor to it…
Mrs. Wilkes was being far too kind. With a streak as bad as Cass' had been the past six years, it was impossible to believe that she'd stumbled across such luck. She found it difficult to comprehend that such a woman would go out of her way to help a slave. After all, she was rich, powerful, maddeningly beautiful – everything Cass, the plain seventeen year-old mother of a young werewolf, was not.
Werewolf. There it was, the thing she had been struggling for weeks not to think about. Hadn't it broken her heart to give up her little boy to that… that man without Greyback making it so much worse? It was a miracle they hadn't killed him. But what sort of life would he know? There were enough hardships in a life of slavery without such a terrible affliction. And if he were ever sold…
No. That would never happen. Lord Black would not keep him out of any sense of responsibility. He would keep him simply because he could not get rid of him. No one would want him.
There was a strange comfort in that.
Cass took the small box that contained the remedies brewed by Dr. Wilkes. It was heavier than expected, and Cass had to wonder just how many afflictions Lady Black suffered from… or claimed to, she thought wryly. For the short time she had known Mrs. Greyback, before her disappearance one moonlit night, the angry, unkempt woman had consistently complained of migraines and fainting spells. Those had been the only times, as far as Cass had observed, that her husband had paid the least bit of attention to her, just long enough to send for a physician.
Floo powder was not her favorite mode of transportation, but she would not learn to Apparate unless Dr. Wilkes deemed it appropriate, and so it was best she become accustomed to it. Cass coughed on the hefty amount of ash that had accompanied her out of the fireplace, then straightened up and looked about. It was midmorning, the blessed time between cleaning up after breakfast and preparing for lunch, the time that any kitchen staff, no matter the household, looked forward to most of all. Indeed, there were very few people in the cavernous kitchen at all, save for two girls scrubbing several pans in the corner (Probably for skiving off that morning, thought Cass) and an impossibly large man loading fire into the woodstove.
Despite the lowliness of the task, there was some air about him that Cass could immediately place. Authority.
"You'll want to find Henry, that's the cook," Hannah's voice floated into her mind, the girl whose task this had been before. "He's in charge of the rest, mostly. Don't mind him much, he's a big old softy, really."
Big had certainly been right.
Gathering her courage, she walked across the room with as much purpose as she could muster. He turned around before Cass approached him, however, and fixed her with the sort of look of appraisal she'd known so often but hated nonetheless.
She cleared her throat to say something, but he beat her to it.
"Wilkes?"
It wasn't a question. There was a hardness in his voice that unsettled her for a moment, but she decided that it must have developed from the necessity to command an army of kitchen helpers, if the size of the room was anything to judge by.
Cass nodded, and handed him the box. "For Lady Black."
He took it from her, and opened it to inspect the contents. They must have been deemed acceptable, as he looked to the corner of the kitchen and barked, "Ellen. Take this to your mistress." One of the girls who had been scrubbing the pans came to take the box, and practically flew out of the kitchen. Her companion sulkily watched her go. Henry turned back to the stove, apparently having decided that the business was finished.
It most certainly was not.
"You're Henry, right?" asked Cass.
He turned around once more, slowly raising a brow. It was clear that this was the sort of man that spoke to you first, and if not, then you'd better be prepared to explain yourself.
"And you're new."
"Er, yes," she said.
"Well, is there anything else I can help you with?" he asked, in a tone that most certainly didn't pass for obliging. Cass never got the chance to respond, because it was only a moment later that two hyperactive whirls of energy came charging into the room.
The first one barreled straight into the wooden chopping table that made the centerpiece of the kitchen, the second one stopping short only inches behind.
"Not fair, you tripped me!" he cried. Darker hair than the first little boy, neater-trimmed. Infinitely better dressed. But the same eyes.
"Did not!" protested the other.
"Did too!"
"I was more fast and I won, so there."
"Let's do it again. Only let's go bother Bella."
"Okay. On your marks, gets sets – wait! We were gonna get chocolate, remember?"
"I forgot! Henry, we want – "
"Sirius Black, it's ten in the morning. If you – " Cass heard the words die in the huge cook's mouth, and knew that he must have seen her, but she didn't care. She was holding her baby (not so much of a baby anymore) to her fiercely, and for the moment there was nothing that could be done, nothing that could be said to make her stop. He was pressing himself against her, she knew, craving the familiar envelopment of her arms, and who was she to deny him? Cass smelt his hair, the familiarity of it bringing back the love and comfort she had gone so long without. Two weeks. It had felt like a lifetime.
"I love you, Mummy."
She hadn't cried. What she felt in that moment was too far beyond that.
"I love you more, Remus."
Cass watched Ellen's young son scamper out of sight, then turned back to Lily. She had placed the last of the silverware on the tray and was regarding it thoughtfully, as though certain she had missed something. For the moment, she was far too absorbed to remember the real reason Cass was there.
"Someone seems to be missing," she commented lightly.
Lily looked up. Her expression was difficult to read, a strange mixture of realization, nervousness, and – was that sadness? "Full moon was last night," she said gently.
Ah. That explained a great deal.
"Is he upstairs?"
Lily nodded. "But Cass… he's worse than usual. I don't really know… they won't let me see him. Ellen… and Henry. I was going to sneak up with some murtlap when I had a moment, but breakfast's soon." She pulled out a bottle from the pocket of her apron, then looked up at the older woman suddenly. "Maybe you could go?"
She needn't have asked twice. Cass was already halfway up the servant's stair.
When Remus had been a young boy, his transformations had coincided more often with Cass' deliveries. She didn't like to dwell on the fact that it could have occurred more often, had she the mind to ask Mrs. Wilkes, who had become something of a confidante. The truth was, selfish though she knew it to be, Cass did not want to see her little boy in such a terrible state. Cut up and bruised, he barely stayed awake longer than ten minutes on these visits, though she wanted to believe her mere presence might have been some help.
For the past four years, he had spent nine months at a time far away from her. This was something, Cass knew, that she shared in common with countless other parents, but the heartbreaking difference was the three straight months those parents spent with their children to compensate for it. Three days, that was all she had. Three hours, really. Four if she was lucky and came during the winter holidays. With such a small opening, Remus had been happy and mostly healthy the last few times she had seen him. As Cass approached the attic room her son shared with several other boys, she prepared herself.
She had to be the strong one.
She opened the door and gasped.
Lying naked on a bed in the corner of the room, both sweating profusely from the sweltering June heat and shivering for other obvious reasons, was her fifteen year-old son. He was sleeping fitfully on his stomach, his bare back exposed but for several bandage compresses which were newly-stained bright red.
Cass rushed across the attic room and sunk down onto a stool at his bedside. There were several gashes along his arm and cuts on his face. There was a scar across his left eye that certainly hadn't been there the summer before, but didn't look terribly new. With every moon, her son changed. It was only in small ways, insignificant physical details that shouldn't really matter. But they did to Cass. Because she wasn't there to stop it, and couldn't stop it even if she was there.
She put a gentle hand on his hip, hoping to soothe him in some way. Unconsciously, he first recoiled from the abrupt cold of her touch, then relaxed into it, as though his subconscious remembered who it was. Slowly, Cass brought her hand down his leg, tracing each scar she came across that didn't look fresh and angry. She stopped mid-thigh at the largest, the darkest, the one she knew Remus had carried with him since the beginning of this nightmare…
"Where are you taking him?"
He ignored her. Cass stayed in stride with him as they pressed on down the stone hallway, not letting her sleeping son out of her sight for a moment. Loki Greyback didn't scare her for a minute. Not anymore. He would never touch her now, the small boy in his arms was enough to ensure that.
"Please sir, tell me what's going on."
There was barely a week left before Remus would be taken to his new life at the Black's manor. Cass had wanted to spend every moment she could with him, and there was something terribly wrong about this whole situation. Where could her master's son possibly be taking him in the middle of the night? They weren't going to… surely not. Greyback had been furious about her pregnancy, taken it as a personal offense, but surely he wouldn't have her son killed. He couldn't. Remus didn't belong to him, and he wouldn't dare anger Lord Black so. All the same, Cass couldn't stifle the feeling of dread that had crept into her mind.
She rushed forward, barring Loki's path.
"Please," she pleaded. "What's happening?"
He looked down at Remus, sleeping peacefully in his arms, then back up at Cass, smiling. Oh, she did not like that at all. She could almost see the vestiges of the wolf in his feral grin, passed down from his father. Nonetheless, she stood her ground, waiting.
"Get out of my way, girl," he snarled. "My father will have his revenge, and you'll have your precious boy back in the morning, never you fret."
Revenge? What on earth…? The situation was making less and less sense by the moment. What sort of revenge could Greyback possibly take out on a little boy who had spent his short life cowering in fear from him? Come to think of it, tonight was the night of the full moon. How could Greyback do anything, locked away in his wolf form? Unless…
Oh.
Oh no.
He couldn't. Not to Remus.
Realization dawned on Cass, and all too clearly. Greyback would never forgive Lord Black for his – what had he called it? – thievery. She had been intended for Loki once he came of age, and if anything like Remus had happened in that situation, he would have belonged to Greyback. Lord Black had stolen not one, but two slaves from him, because Loki would never touch her now. He wanted a girl who was his from the start. Cass was of no use to him anymore. That was why she was to be sold to the Wilkes' in two weeks time.
But Greyback could never take his revenge directly on a nobleman of Grindelwald's most esteemed circle. Nor could he directly kill Remus and deny a rightful owner his slave without condemning himself. The most he could do was be subtle in his revenge; he could only hope to make life the tiniest bit more difficult for Lord Black. But at what cost to an innocent child?
Remus was to be collected the next week. This was Greyback's last chance.
Until that moment, she had ignored the snarls and howls coming from the iron door at the end of the basement hallway, simply because she had grown so used to them. But now, as Loki reached for his keys, they seemed to be all that existed in the world.
It was Cass' turn to snarl.
"No!"
She ran forward and tried to grab her son out of his arms. For the moment, she forgot that she was a slave, forgot that she was barely five feet tall, that she was facing a feral wizard, that he held a wand and she did not. All that mattered was that Remus was in terrible danger, and maternal instinct outweighed all reason.
Unfortunately they did not outweigh reality. With impossible force, Loki struck her across the head and she fell to the floor. There was only darkness.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the pain that was, for her, forever intertwined with that scar. It would never fully heal. Forcing herself to turn away from it, she pulled out the bottle of essence of murtlap. Where on earth Lily had gotten it, Cass neither knew nor wanted to know. Over the years, she had come to learn that Lily's sources were best left unquestioned. Cass set it on the table next to Remus' bed, next to a pile of bandages and a bowl of water she imagined had been warm around an hour ago, before whoever had been tending to him had been called away to prepare breakfast.
Cass grit her teeth, but twenty-seven years of experience swayed her anger. If whoever it had been had neglected their tasks and in any way displeased the Blacks, Remus would pay for it, too. That was the way of things.
Gently, her hands floated up to where the stained compress covered his back. Lily had said he was worse than usual today. The wolf was relentless, she knew, and took out its energies on itself. Scratches and the odd bite were always something to be dealt with the morning after, but Cass could not understand sort of wound he might have inflicted upon himself that would cause such an injury.
With no small amount of trepidation, Cass peeled away the first strip and placed it in the bin. Remus hissed in his sleep. Carefully, she peeled away the second, then the third. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest, but she did not allow herself to gasp until she could view the damage in its entirety.
Angry strips of bright red zigzagged across his back, the skin mangled where it had broken and then reopened. His muscles seized under the devastation that had been inflicted upon him, and still a slow trail of blood continued to ooze. Cass put her head in her hands. How long had he been like this? Since before or after his transformation? And what on earth could he have done to receive such treatment this time of the month?
Remus had always been exceptionally well behaved, mercifully not prone to the foolish acts of rebellion that seemed to present themselves as good ideas to other boys his age. That wasn't to say he was submissive, goodness no. Cass could see in his eyes (his stormy grey eyes so unlike her own) the consistent humiliation he suffered. To submit oneself and call another man 'Master' would be nearly impossible to bear for any young man (because that's what he was now, really – the circumstances of his life had forced him to grow up much faster than Cass would have liked), but for Remus, so full of pride, it was beyond suffering. Beyond any physical torture Lord Black could inflict upon him.
The bottle uncorked, Cass dampened a rag with the murtlap essence and carefully began to daub at his ruined backside. She fought to gain control of her shaking hands. Two emotions raged war against one another, utter love and devotion battling against rage. They were third class, Cass knew that all too well. She had accepted that long ago. Third class, but still human. Still capable of love, fear… still capable of pain, physical and otherwise.
Black was a monster. There was nothing else for it. The man used and abused on a whim. The proof of that lay in front of her, torn up, naked, alone. This wizard, this nobleman – how ironic a title – had been the cause of all the pain she had suffered for the majority of her life.
A young girl, barely twelve years old, had entered the sleeping chambers of her master's guest one early morning to tend the fire. Cass could hardly remember that girl. By the time she had exited an hour later, she had ceased to exist. Only months afterward she began to feel queasy. A sort of sickness that went away by lunchtime. But then she started to notice a stretch in her stomach. Cook sat her down and the story came out. Her master had been furious when he was told. The baby was born in early March. The father – the important pureblood wizard who held all legal rights to him – was expecting a legitimate heir to be born in several months. He told her master to keep the child until he could behave properly. The girl was seventeen when the wizard decided he wanted her son. The boy was five and he was to be a playmate (and later a slave) for his half-brother. Her master turned him into a monster, and he was ripped from her arms a week later. Not once in the boy's life had his master acknowledged him as his own, though his mistress, a jealous woman, had not made his life easy. But his mother had thought that with the strength of his friends and his half-brother, he might just make it.
But now, it seemed, nearly sixteen years after the death of an innocent girl, her murderer was not finished. Cass fastened the last of the fresh bandages, trying not to place too much pressure on the wounds they covered. The rest of his injuries – the ones inflicted by the wolf – had been tended to as much as they could. She moved her stool down a bit and pushed Remus' sweaty hair out of his eyes. Quite suddenly, they cracked open.
"Mum," he said quietly, a sad smile creeping onto his tired face. "You came."
Cass had not been aware the she was crying until a drop fell directly through a hole in her jeans. She wiped the tears away and fiercely took hold of Remus' hand.
And for now, that would have to be enough.