Blood drips onto the floor. Her hand is numb, but it won't be for very much longer – it already itches, a sign that the charm is fading. Soon, it'd be an all-out horror show. Cass ignores it though, mind set as she walks away from the Great Hall, red droplets being joined by others as all her fellow Ravenclaw's walk behind her. Younger years had older years to help them with their numbing charms, so they didn't feel any pain, but Cass could see it in her minds eyes – dozens of crying first years, some screaming, some yelling in angry upset. The older years might be more calm.
Cass wouldn't be calm.
Cass would trash her dorm – she'd grab at hangings and pull them off their rails, overturns mattresses and throw all of the Umbitch's stupid textbooks out the window to the courtyard below, if she didn't set them on fire first.
She glances left, to where Mandy's already crying, not from pain but from fear of pain yet to come. Rebellion – it didn't suit her, it would break her if she wasn't careful, and Mandy was terribly clumsy. She can't fight anymore. Cass knows this deep in her chest, where it aches harder than her birth parents deaths, and what the Dursley's forced on her those five years she'd been with them before her father rescued her. This will be her legacy within Hogwarts, a generation of children fighting against a selfish, supremist bitch. These people around her, they might never speak a word of what they did, or maybe they will – maybe they'll shout it loud, for their world's ignorant to hear and understand
But Cass has seen the words the twins writ in stone, high in the most lonely and unvisited of classrooms and corridors; she's seen the ghosts whispering, whispering about children fighting a war and having never seen something like this before; she's seen house-elves creep up to sleeping students, who's bandages have fallen off after they tiredly wrapped them, after sinking them in essence of murtlap, and seen them rewrap them with caring, tearful eyes. They're creating a history, but that history hasn't an ending yet.
She can't fight anymore.
We can't win if everyone's spirits break.
"Everyone," she stops them at a three-way intersection, where the Gryffindor's spilling through their ranks would split off to Gryffindor Tower, turning to face them, looking at Mandy as she speaks, "I know that not everyone here is as brave as they would like to be. I know that what we just went through tonight was torture – and don't call it anything else, because it's torture – and that not everyone here is old enough, seen enough in life to make this through to the bitter end." She pauses, eyes flickering to others, away from Mandy, not settling on anyone for too long.
"You don't have to fight. You can support us, but you don't have to actively take part in demonstrations like this. If you do, that's your choice, and I'll invite you to stay on after our next lesson to talk some more." Cass doesn't say 'group' or 'session' or 'meeting', or anything that can be taken as independent – Umbridge's Decrees are taking Hogwarts over, paper by paper. The portraits listen in, and have no choice but to report everything suspicious that they see.
The word 'rebellion' is never said aloud, not even in the Room of Requirement.
"We're with you," someone painfully young calls out in the silence, and Cass briefly shuts her eyes, before shaking her head, then nodding, turning and walking to Ravenclaw Tower.
Children shouldn't be fighting in wars.
I definitely need a drink tonight.
"You look tense," an observant voice notes as Cass throws back a particularly acidic shot.
"No kidding," she wipes her mouth, turning, only to be surprised by the fact that the speaker was Natasha, "Hey."
She smiles slightly, only vaguely suggestive, "Hey." Natasha sips her drink, and Cass wonders if she's really a cosmo kind of girl, rather than a bourbon one – she'd had bourbon last time they met, and she had a cosmo now. Cass was always confused by the ones that didn't have a standard drink. "What can you tell me about your new doorman?"
Cass raises an eyebrow.
"I didn't take you for someone who liked the buff ones," Cass' eyes trail off her to the newest of their bunch. He's a big, buff, scruffy white man with a nasty silver scar down his neck. Cass knows he's a werewolf from the bitemark that peeks out of his shirt – she'd already cleared him the week before though, and paid him heavily every time he took time off for the full moon.
The witch looks back at Natasha, and wonders, briefly, in what context the red-head is asking for information, and decides she doesn't care and goes for the normal kind of gossip.
"Jake's a new citizen to the United Kingdoms," Cass begins, motioning to him with her glass, suavely leaning sideways on the bar, eyeing him up. He notices, and quirks an eyebrow. They both know he's gay, but it'd be hella amusing to see Natasha try to chat him up. "Former resident of the land down under. Very nice accent, but misses the sun. Likes the lack of flooding, though."
"Australian?" Natasha glances over, raising an eyebrow, "Never would have guessed. Know anything about that scar on his face?"
"You like scars, babe?" Cass questions. Natasha shrugs, looking back at her, eyes on her wrapped wrist – the blood was seeping through, quite heavily. "Want to know a secret?"
Natasha looks up at her through her lashes, and Cass only lets a sliver of a grin through, because this second meeting, this second perspective, is giving her an entirely new opinion of Natasha's character.
She's an actress, alright, and manipulative – just like me, Cass thinks, before leaning forwards into Natasha's personal space, faces barely an inch apart. She notices things. And she's scoping out Jake.
Like hell was a complete stranger getting the drop on one of hers.
"I'm the head of a rebellion against a government, that thinks it is okay to torture little boys and girls, and my Jake's trying to stay under that government's radar." Natasha's eyes sharpen as Cass glares, leaning back in her bar-seat, sipping the flute Sean hands her. "If you touch Jake, or do anything to reveal him to the world, I'll have your head, Natasha. I've done a lot worse in the past."
"I underestimated you," Natasha admits quietly, looking her up and down. Cass holds up her hand, index finger extended, pointed at her. Jake, and three others come up around them, circling dancers and other such patrons to reach them. "You know he's a murderer? He ripped people apart with his bare hands."
"They were bounty hunters looking for a finders-fee" Cass replies, smiling, leaning forwards again to whisper in her ear. "It was the night before full moon. They should have known better than to try kidnap him. But I doubt you or yours believe in werewolves."
It was then that Vick came up to them, "Darling Cassandra, do we have a problem?"
Cass looked over at him, giving a small pout, "Oh, Vick, I was just getting to the climax of my monologue." Vick chuckles.
"You are no villain, my lady, and heroes do not have monologues."
"If I'm not a villain, then I'm an anti-hero – I do all this fucking self-sacrificing shit for the greater good of no-one but myself." Cass glares at him, or rather, glares in general, but in his direction. Vick frowns lightly, before his gaze travels to her hand, a growl escaping him.
"What in the depths of the Underworld?" His arm jerks forwards, fingers gripping her wrist as his other hand comes up to gently remove the bandages, frown immediately becoming a confused scowl. "Or rather, how? How and who, Cassandra?"
"That government you're fighting?" Natasha asks, causing Cass to clench her free hand around her glass as I must not tell lies twinges beneath the abominable, lightning-like flashes of pain from I must not revolt against Ministry officials, I must not call my professors offensive words and I must not incite rebellion among my fellow classmates, all squeezed onto the back of her hand. "Looks more like a government interfering with a school."
"It is none of anyone's business here, and I would advise you to let go of me, Victor," Cass warns, voice low and dangerous, before she feels nausea rising as it always did now. She shuts her eyes, wincing. "Actually, you really should let go. I'm about to hurl, Vick." Victor, the germophobe that he was, let go immediately, giving her the chance to get off her seat and speed-walk towards the back room's bathroom, pushing her champagne into a random patron as she did so. She barely made it, and when she was done ejecting the contents of her stomach, Cass just felt tired.
"I can't do this tonight," and to her horror, her eyes began to tear up. Squeezing them shut, Cass focused very clearly on where she wanted to be, twisting on her heel and disapparating from the building, apparating into her bedroom in Grimmauld Place. Dropping into her bed, Cass buried her head in her pillow.
This has gone on long enough, I'm visiting Madam Pomfrey in the morning. She didn't care if the matron saw her hand – Pomfrey knew well enough not to report this, despite her lack of patients regarding the matter. Creevey from Gryffindor was helping her gather a photographic portfolio to bring straight to the Wizengamot, Cass knew, and hopefully that would be enough, even if she had no legitimate sponsor.
But being sick every day for no reason was a little more urgent than an upcoming lawsuit, to be quite frank. I could be dying, Cass thought morbidly, before slipping into sleep.
She didn't know how wrong she was.