C. M. Black: Eyes of an Owl
Chapter I: The house where she grew up
Five days after the end of term, Alphard was cremated. His body was on show for what seemed like forever; his hands clasping one another across his chest, his eyes peacefully closed. July 3rd was a day that Cassy would forever mark on her calendar and one that would never need to be; she would always remember the date. In fifty-years, when her mind may have slowed and her wit was blunter, she would know the day each and every year following.
The only flower to be placed on the coffin was hers. No one else even attempted to invade the space. It was not white for Alphard had always found the colour bland, but instead a deep purple. It had been his favourite and the colour of his tie that she had chosen for him to remain in, his last outfit that she had spent time choosing, hours of her day staring and never touching. It seemed wrong to rummage through his belongings, because they were still his, but in the end, she folded up a grey suit with his purple tie and cuff links and handed them to the funeral director without another word.
The varnished wood of the casket vanished behind the curtain. The unwelcome reflection of the gleaming sun had disappeared and suddenly it was as if there was no light at all. The curtain was thick and solid, taking Alphard from them definitely, completely, unable to return at last. As the first sounds of the piano rang through the hall, any hopes of Alphard suddenly waking, no matter how small and ridiculous, vanished.
Cassy had sat at the front, as near to the coffin as anyone was willing to let her. Beside her was Tonks. Her hair had not changed in colour, frozen oddly at mousy brown for all the days that had passed. It was longer though, tied up in a neat knot that looked starkly contrasting to her usual spikes. Her dress was dark and long, much like Cassy's own. On her other side had stood her parents and Cassy had never quite fathomed that day why they had made an appearance. Edward, Tonks' father who was more affectionately referred to as Ted, had never met Alphard since his wedding to Andromeda. His brown eyes stared sadly at the coffin, contorting the wrinkles he had gained from many eager smiles that lined his eyes. His wife, looking every bit the woman Cassy had thought she would be with her dark hair and eyes, far taller than her daughter and a thin frame that all the Black women seemed to inherit. She had not seen Alphard for years either and Alphard had never expressed much fondness for her beyond the default kind, the type one would always have for family that was somewhat estranged.
Beside Cassy, his hand wrapped tightly around her own by his own accord, was Neville. He and his Grandmother had spent many hours arranging the funeral with Cassy and Tonks. It was she who spoke to the companies and arranged the service and it was Neville who had sat with Cassy for hours in utter silence, yet never leaving her side in case she should want for something. Mrs Longbottom was grieving silently throughout. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she did not whimper or shake. She was too well versed in it, having grieved for years over the loss of her son and his young wife without ever having physically lost them. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her where she stood beside her grandson.
Cassy wept. She had been silent, with tears that streaked down her pale cheeks and onto the dry grass below. She had been surprised she could even muster them any more for she had not cried at all since the night he had died. No tears would surface, even as her eyes had burnt dully every moment of every day since. Behind her, people were much less composed. The shire amount of people who had attended had been astounding. His old friends, his new friends, his work colleagues and their neighbours had all come out despite the lack of personal invitation. Cassy had been very selective who she actually asked to attend and beyond that a notice was placed in the Daily Prophet noting the time and place. It seemed it had not gone unnoticed.
Hands were shaken all day. Person after person approached Cassy to offer their own consoling words, words that simply repeated the last person, wishing her well and expressing how they had all lost a great man. Cassy had not even known who half of the people were. Amongst the well-wishers had been a select few who had given her cards with their names on, stating that if she ever needed anything when she grew to let them know. Stories of how they owed him a lot and how it was the least they could do for him; Cassy wanted to demand to know where they had been when he was alive and where they had been when he was dying. She held her tongue. The cards had been crumpled during the reception as she minced them between her fingers under the table in an overwhelming desire to escape. They had been stuffed in the compartment beneath her jewellery box that night though.
The cremation had been beautiful. Cassy had made a speech and she had hated every minute of it. She said things she had never even told Alphard himself and it seemed so wrong to be telling them to other people, people who meant nothing at all to her. She was the final one to speak. Alphard's oldest friend, his best, he might have said, who had been with him since he was eleven years old went first. His colleague who he had run the company closely with for many years had been next. Neither had produced quite as many tears as Cassy had. It seemed there was something about a child making a speech of a dead loved one that produced many ugly sobs around the room. She could not meet anyone's eye. She stared at the back of the hall the entire time.
There was one place in the room that she dreaded to see more than the eyes of anyone present, because looking at that spot meant acknowledging who was not. Three empty seats sat on the other side of the aisle to her chair. She and Alphard had always had a little family in the past few years. His cousins had passed quickly and suddenly and all at once, leaving only him and Ignatius alive. He sat beside the empty seats and said nothing of them. He too knew who should have been there. Even as the hall had filled to its maximum capacity, Cassy had refused to let anyone take them. It was only when the service started did she let the anxiety that had been boiling beneath the surface all week finally bubble into rage.
The Malfoy family had never shown.
Cassy refused to cry for them. In her mind, it was as though they did not even exist on that day. Her anger soon stopped her tears. Alphard had been family, close family to them, he had taken care of Draco as Narcissa had for her. Even if Narcissa and Alphard had had their differences in the past year, he would still have wanted her there and if not for him then Narcissa should have made an effort to appear for her, at least. They were supposed to be family. They were supposed to be the family that did not care for her blood or her House placement, the second unconditional love she had besides Alphard; they had not even sent her a letter.
It was indisputable in her mind from then on that the Malfoy family had chosen Voldemort. While stubbornness was in their blood, an undeniably strong trait of the family, Cassy refused to believe that Narcissa could be so stubborn that she would ignore such an event for a petty reason. Once since his death she had contacted Cassy. It was to ask her to live with them and while Cassy had reluctantly explained she could not, the choices had been made and the arrangements finalised, she never received a letter back. The time and energy she had poured into it was wasted. There was not a single sound back from them and so Cassy could not understand why she had dared to hope they might still show to the funeral. That was being hopeful beyond reason. She may as well have been waiting for a miracle and Cassy did not believe in those.
The anger she carried with her was constant and deep burning. It failed to leave her in the days that followed and served only as a reminder of what transpired. Relentlessly, it crept up on her through her days, churning her stomach and making the food turn uncomfortably, or to force her to grip what she was holding so tightly it was ruined, parchment crumpled needlessly, raw lines from the metal cutlery etched into her hands before she abandoned efforts to eat all together. It was on those days that Tonks would stay up late with her and microwave strange pots of food for the pair of them to eat. They had a distinct flavour that Tonks insisted was on all microwaved foods, although she could not tell her why.
It was a week later that Cassy began a mass clean up of her old home. It had been left to her in the will, everything had, bar a substantial sum of money for Tonks to care for Cassy's upkeep in the following years, which she had tried to give back, and some money and items for Alphard's close friends. The house, everything remaining in it, and the rest of his wealth was hers. It was odd, thought Cassy, because right then, as she sifted through stacks of paper, she would rather have been as poor as the Weasleys if it meant having him standing beside her, telling her to stop complaining.
Her eyes were dry. They had remained so and ached and throbbed each and every time she blinked, but she hardly noticed it any more. The new irritant that stung them she blamed on the dust. It had been many months since she had entered her bedroom. Her portraits and pictures were thick with dust. Plum and Kitsy had been no where to be seen for a long while, not until she finally dared calling them one night long after Tonks had gone to bed. She did not want them to touch anything. Cassy wanted to collect what she could, salvage and put into storage what remained, and throw out very little. She did not want anything of value, sentiment or otherwise, passing her by.
The photographs of her friends she had tacked on the wall over the years had all come down. They were slotted into a box along with her ornaments and a sample of her favourite books. The portraits of animals and scenery still hung. She had no need for them and no room. They covered nearly all the room of the wall her bed rested on. Then again, her new room at Tonks' flat was blank, but Cassy was not sure she wanted to remove too much from her childhood home. She could not bare the thought of it empty.
The plants that littered her desk and windowsill had wilted and yellowed from neglect, although Cassy had little desire to revive them. She had all ready collected a tiny purple plant from the living room that had sat in the window for as long as she could remember; it had always flowered through November. She was only to take was she needed. The rest would be cared for by her house-elves and while she knew that, it was difficult to leave anything behind. The more she sifted through the more she had packed, things she had not touched in many years had become genuinely difficult to discard. Cassy was not someone of great sentiment, tradition she would admit to, but sentiment was something she had never valued highly. Yet suddenly everything meant something to her.
Downstairs had been left to Tonks' discretion. With instructions to pack anything that was not food into boxes for relocation, Cassy had left it to her. Not long after they had began, the doorbell rang, startling Cassy and making Tonks jump if the broken plate was anything to go by. She had listened carefully to the voices that rang through the silent halls. Andromeda and Edward had arrived to lend a hand at Tonks' request. Cassy did not really want them touching her uncle's belongings, but she did not stop them. They were both perfectly pleasant people. Andromeda was warm to her family and Edward was always smiling. He was a lot like Tonks, cheerful although somewhat air-headed. Andromeda was smart and calculating, but distant to Cassy. Cassy could not muster the energy to care though. Andromeda made it inadvertently clear she was only there for Tonks and Cassy was fine with that. She could resent Cassy for invading her neat little family, or for burdening Tonks with the responsibility of care of another at such a young age; Cassy did not care what it was. Whatever made her incapable of saying more than a civil 'good morning' to her was her own business.
Scraping sounded from beneath her. The tables and chairs in the kitchen were being reshuffled once again and Cassy was quite desperate to see what it was they were doing. Instead, she picked up the second box of her belongings and moved them into the hall. Most of her clothes had been collected by Tonks when she moved in, if not all ready having been in her school trunk. She placed it beside the first and stared at the door opposite her own. Slowly, her hand rose to the handle. It clicked open softly. It did not creak, or wail as it was pushed open. It was well used and well cared for; the last thing Alphard had wanted when Cassy was a young child was alerting her to his late night work when she should have been sleeping. Cassy would have been up and out of her room before he had had a chance to sit at his desk, demanding to know what he was doing and if she could see and read over the papers she would only understand every other word of.
The study had not changed since then. The books were different, perhaps, and the shelves stocked with new potions and instruments, but the layout was the same, the furniture old and sturdy, and the photographs ever present.
Cassy looped back out of the room to collect an empty box from the pile. There were books she needed to put into storage to protect and ones she wanted to keep on hand herself. The shelves covered either side of the fireplace, punctuated by files and ornaments he had gathered from his tours around the world.
In her mind, she could hear Alphard scolding her for touching them. He would have complained he would have to spend hours reorganising them, when she knew in reality he knew their order off by heart. It would have taken him ten minutes to put everything back into place and perhaps that was why she never minded being scolded, because she knew Alphard well enough to know that when he reprimanded her it was because he felt like it was his duty to, not because he actually cared she had stepped out of line.
Another book was added to the shallow pile in the box before Cassy sunk down into his chair. Her fingers lingered on the edge of the desk, slowly slipping around the edge of an abandoned tea cup. She rubbed over the dark pattens on the pale porcelain and sighed deeply. Her attention then moved to the papers on the desk. All stacked neatly on top of one another, the papers had been set with the same care and attention they always had been. She scanned the titles of the first few pages, revealing out-dated orders for the company and letters of correspondents with colleagues. Above them sat a scroll of thick parchment. It was unsealed and next to a blank envelope. It read:
'The various practical applications of Conjuring spells since 1850 and their weaknesses with examples'
It was Alphard's seventh year Transfiguration homework he had never returned. He had written it for Professor Dumbledore at long last. Cassy gave a weak laugh and placed it back down in favour of the photo frame that was face down. It had always been, to her memory, flat against the desk. Beside it was a photograph of her and Alphard when she was no older than eight or nine-years-old. She was grinning up at him, sitting beside him on a wooden bench. He was smiling back down at her and the pair of them appeared to be discussing something Photograph-Cassy found most amusing. Her legs swung back and forth, no where near touching the pavement below and just barely skimming the wayward grass from the park surrounding them. A large tree stood behind them, offering scattered shade.
Cassy narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. She had never seen the photograph before and she struggled to recall a time where it might have been taken. She picked it up before righting the one beside it. Frowning, she brought it close to her face. The two people in it smiled, one grinning broadly and waving at her. A younger Alphard stared up at her a small smirk; his suit was cut and tailored to the best quality and so was the boy who stood beside him. He was about Cassy's age with hair to his mid-neck and bright, grey eyes. Her eyebrows dipped a tiny bit more as she placed it down on the desk. The small, metal clasps of the back were soon undone and the frame pulled away to reveal curling letters reading: 'Sirius and I – 1975'
Once pieced together again, Cassy plucked it up along with the other photograph and the essay and carefully squashed them amongst the books in her box. After all the time Alphard had been convinced Sirius had turned, he had still held on to one photograph of them together.
'You sentimental old man,' she mumbled fondly.
The wooden floor was hard beneath her, sending her legs numb long before she thought to stand again. She knelt in front of the lower cases of the cabinet. Alphard's previous colleagues had sent her a letter requesting she send the remaining unfinished work documents back to them. They had most all ready from Alphard's own effort, but she held a small list of missing items. Folder after folder, she peered inside and flicked through the endless sheets. Although it was not hard to understand his system, she hardly understood what the items were to contain to find them. They were projects and potions far beyond her level and if they had not asked for them then Cassy was certain she would have sifted through them all nosily before she finished Hogwarts.
At this rate I will not be able to answer Harry's call again, she thought with a sigh. She forced her hands to move even and pack. It was slow and arduous; she could no longer imagine why she had thought it would be a quick, if painful, affair.
It had become a habit to call one another in the evening. Harry would murmur to her about his relatives, complaining of another newly enforced diet and Dudley's renewed confidence with his boxing. The only night she had missed was that of Alphard's funeral. He had tried to talk several times, but the mirror was shoved under her bed and forgotten that night. The next day he had fussed.
While it was flattering that he worried, thought Cassy as she pulled at the loft hatch in the hall, it only made her feel worse and quickly he had stopped asking at the repeated pained flicker on her pale face.
Heaving a second box of books up the ladder with great effort, Cassy huffed as it slid noisily away from the hatch. Suddenly, her idea of hiding things there in case of burglary in her absence seemed like too much effort to sustain. She peered around in surprise. Alphard was not sentimental, but there were many boxes in his loft. Hoisting herself up, she perched precariously of the edge of the hatch. Half-heartedly, she pulled the closest box to her and wiped the thick dust from the top.
'Sirius,' she read quietly.
Her eyes darted around at the other boxes, wondering if that is why they were there. Alphard had been given her father's belongings when he was incarcerated and he had stored some of it, at least one box, when he could have quite justifiably thrown it all away.
The old tape was ripped from the seems and the flaps were thrown open. An old Beater's bat, signed by someone Cassy had never heard of, an old Gryffindor scarf, several muggle records, and a small stack of photographs. Instantly, she froze at the photograph on top. Two tiny children sat on a bright mat, paper plates in front of them filled with tiny sausages and bread sticks. The girl was easily recognisable to Cassy, having seen several of her own childhood photographs before. Her hair was only at her shoulders, not mid-back, and her eyes were still large and bright blue. She wore a red dress and the boy beside her, a tuft of black hair jutting out in all directions, wore a similar coloured shirt. His eyes were a beautiful green. Suddenly, he plucked the hovering Snitch from the air and held it out to the girl beside him and she took it, handing him a bread stick in return.
The next photograph was of James and Lily, both donned in colourful paper hats and pulling faces at one another in the Gryffindor common room.
Cassy did not look through the rest. She took the entire stack and hurried back down the ladder before she gave in to the urge to rummage through the rest of the boxes.
She wondered if Harry would understand today if she could not bring herself to have a conversation with him. He had become irritated by the lack of news and Cassy thought that it was that which fuelled his regular calls as much as a desire for company and concern for her. He had heard nothing about Voldemort all summer, but neither had Cassy. It was not as if Professor Dumbledore was personally keeping her updated, and Tonks was very reluctant to discuss what she heard at work, although she did give the odd impression she had got, nameless and vague. For the most part, Cassy could easily be under the impression that there had been no change whatsoever, but Tonks had been spending more and more time out of the house lately, coming in late and bringing back people she did not seem to know well for a cup of tea, or staying at her parents' for an unusually long time. Cassy was not willing to assume, but Tonks was an Auror and that meant something quite significant in a building war.
Besides, she thought in amusement, all the conspiracy talk with Harry certainly sought to brighten his day.
As far as Professor Dumbledore was aware, Cassy was not in any sort of correspondence with Harry. He had asked her in a letter one morning, not to contact him too often and he very careful what she writes. She had held the mirror up to Harry the same evening and he had been furious, ranting loudly in his bedroom so violently that his uncle had to venture in personally to get him to quieten down. It was a sign that Professor Dumbledore was taking his account seriously, she assured him, post could be tracked and if intercepted it could easily either lead to his whereabouts, or give away important information.
'Why couldn't he tell me my post had to be limited for safety?' Harry had snapped immediately. 'He could tell me things, rather than having to find out like this. Would I even know if we didn't have these mirrors? Dumbledore should be telling me these things and keeping me in the loop. I am more capable than any of you, I saw him come back and I haven't heard anything! You get to ask and probe even if you get nothing, while I am stuck here by myself without a wizard in sight!'
'Well, yes,' Cassy had growled, 'you are more capable than me and I am not asking too many questions right now because I have a funeral to plan! Sorry for the inconvenience.'
She had ended the call after that. Guilt hit almost instantly, but she refused to ring him back. His anger was utterly misdirected. She spent a lot of her time making sure he was up to date with everything she knew, he had no right to shout at her. She spoke to him even when she wanted to be alone, when she wanted to shut out the world and just sit mindlessly, just read, or force Crin into sitting with her, or simply just to sleep. She had given him enough of her effort not to be rewarded with that.
He had called her back two hours later to apologise. Since then their calls had been filled with restrained anger and bitterness, but Harry held it together well; Cassy knew it was only a matter of time before all of his rage exploded outwards though.
A sudden crash pulled Cassy from her thoughts. She had remained standing outside of Alphard's bedroom, the one place she was truly reluctant to enter. Turning on her heel, she headed downstairs towards the sound. Several muttering voices could be heard from the kitchen.
'It's fine, it's fine,' said Tonks quickly. 'I'll just repair it and it will be good as new.'
Cassy entered just in time to see the shattered pieces of an old family plate fly back together. Tonks looked up at her sheepishly.
'Sorry,' she said. 'I thought it was odd I was doing so well not to break anything. It just caught up with me eventually.'
Cassy took the plate from her hands and twisted it, inspecting for cracks. 'It is fine, Tonks. I appreciate the help, even if things do occasionally get broken. Although try not to let it be a collectable.' She placed the plate back down on the table and left without another word. It was not until she was climbing the stairs that she heard the second pair of footsteps behind her. She turned at the top and Tonks halted suddenly, looking somewhat abashed.
'I thought maybe you would want some help up here. You have been by yourself for three hours now and I wondered how you were getting on...' she said, ruffling her short hair.
Cassy stared at her, before pursing her lips.
'Okay,' she said eventually. 'I could do with some help cleaning his room.'
Tonks nodded slightly. 'Yeah, I imagined you might. Let's get this done so we don't have to build up to it again.'
Welcome to year five! There are going to be several things going on in this year that I am excited to explore at last. I hope you will enjoy it, but I must say that this is a difficult year for me to write simply because there is a lot going on through the books as it is, let alone with me adding another character in. Rest assured it will be completed though!
A little insight into the early weeks of Cassy's summer. As before, I have never written grief, but I have put a lot of thought into how I want it to effect Cassy and what it means to her. It will be a major theme. Personally, I find a weakness in books commonly to be that they do not explore grief very well a lot of the time. I don't want to be to heavy on it because I know it will put people off reading, but in the first few chapters, at least, it will be. After that, it will rear its head as Cassy tries to rebalance her life after all her foundations have fallen apart.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
Thanks!