Dying is easy. Coming back from death is harder to do – though, when you have unorthodox soul pieces at your disposal to take your place in the afterlife, it's a little easier. When Cass wakes up in the train station, she is quick to take her parents' advice and return, hands unable to be stopped as they reach to her stomach.

"How are you alive?" Bellatrix screams, "My lord, my lord! She lives, she lives-"

"Do shut up, Bella," Voldemort groans, getting to his feet, shaking visibly. Cass keeps a hand on her stomach as she sits up, Voldemort eyeing her carefully. He knows – of course he knows, even in her dreams, she's round-stomached. "You really won't die, will you? Your will to live is stronger than I ever thought."

Cass bares her teeth, bloody from her broken nose that's dripped, sliding down over her lips. She grips her wand with equally-as-shaky hands, the people around her whispering and the battle has stopped. She can see Fenrir Greyback standing beside Dennis Creevey – no! What is he doing here? – and Ivar Mikalsson breathing heavily as he physically leans on Theodore Nott Senior, keeping him down.

"No, you were just stupid as ever, slicing your soul smaller and smaller until it became so unstable that a backfired curse lopped off another half and put it inside me. That's what my scar is, you psycho – and you just killed it."

Voldemort stares at her for a long few seconds, before his expression finally twists into one of horrible, angry understanding. His arm raises once more, avada kedavra on his lips as his wand flicks, Cass already with an entrails-expelling curse halfway out of her mouth.

Priori incantatum, again happens but this time Cass has to think of her baby because not one, but two spells would hit her if she lost here – and she has no reason to inform the wizarding world she was pregnant during the majority of her campaign against Voldemort and Umbridge, through her expelled organs. Golden light swirls and Fawkes sings a song as Morag approaches Voldemort form behind and stabs him in the throat.

Voldemort's spell fails, the red-green globe of light spinning directly at his falling body – missing and hitting Morag instead. Cass hears a scream and realises it's her own as Morag falls to the floor, stomach already bursting open, innards flying. Her eyes are glassy as she hits the floor, Voldemort gurgling away beside her, his blood causing Cass to slip and slide as she comes to Morag's side, hands cradling her face.

"No, no, no, no…"

Morag's eyes are glassy and Cass sobs.

"No."


Morag McDougal had been a quiet but confident blonde eleven year old with a Norwegian accent in first year. Cass – or Andrea, as she had been known back then, for the Dursley's had an absolutely horrid dislike of her real name – had been just as small Girl-Saviour whose speciality was sassing her cousin so well he didn't know he was being sassed. They met on the train, and since first year, were all but inseparable. Over time, both girls had spiralled upwards, character flowing from their pores. Andrea had become Cass, with sharp eyes that saw through every wall – a silver-tongued snake with wings to help her fly and feathers to hide her true nature.

Morag had grown taller, louder. She braided her long blonde hair from the scalp, tying in bright strings of colour to the waving strands, pride shown to all; she twisted silver dinner-knives in her fingers as she leant forwards on her elbows, eyes glittering as Cass told her latest tale; she stood beside her sister in all but blood when her opponents faced her down, and rallied the masses to her defence when everyone seemed to decide to go against her.

If Cass had ever tolerated people calling her friends her 'inner circle', then she would have agreed with anyone who ever said that Morag was her partner in crime, her right hand, or even her soulmate. Because Morag was the light to her dark, the port to her drifting boat. She kept her grounded, and – other than her father, or Remus, or Tonks – was the only one able to calm her down when she grew angry.

So Cass wouldn't know what to do if Morag left.


The baby cries all the time. Cass doesn't quite know, usually, if she should feed her, change her, burp her or rock her to sleep. Most of the time, she goes through all those things in the wrong order, getting it right by doing everything wrong first. In their little apartment in their big building, Cass and baby Lily make a lot of noise and then too much noise. Another apartment, another building – then, a house.

"Pup, I know you want to do this alone, but seriously, if I get another bill for a deposit, I'm going to go insane – and I'm rich as fuck," Sirius says through the mirror. Cass pats Lily's back until she's sick, pacing as Sirius sighs.

The house is bright and airy. Sirius, Tonks and Remus visit, painting Lily's blue room so the ceiling is the night sky and the walls have clouds that move, tiny paintings of chasers, keepers, beaters and seekers zooming around, throwing, hitting and catching. Cass sort of likes it and wonders if her room was like this when she was a baby.

"Mummy misses her mummy," she mutters to Lily, who grips her blanket tighter than Cass thought babies could. "Mummy misses her daddy, too. I wonder if you miss your other mummy – it must be strange to only have one parent."

Cass wishes Morag was with her. She wishes that she had more time with her. She wishes there weren't statues of her, entwined with Cass' own golden counterpart, all over the Wizarding World – in Diagon Alley, in Hogwarts, in Hogsmeade, in the Ministry, even in Godrics Hollow. Cass hates Morag's statue – hates how it doesn't capture her smile, her bright eyes or even those gods-damned rainbow ribbons in her braids.

"Should I find your other mummy?" Cass asks Lily, reaching over the bars of her cot to stroke her hand. "Do you think she'd believe me? I've already sort of broken the Statue of Secrecy when it comes to her and- well, I've seen her on television. She's fought aliens and helped bring down Hydra-SHIELD. They call her the Black Widow. It's hard to believe what she does is real. I've not looked her up, despite how people are leaking things all over the internet. I got you a present you might like though for your birthday, tomorrow," Cass thinks of the plastic figurine of the infamous Black Widow with its tiny waist and flowing red locks. "I think it's strange that they think she'd wear her hair out on missions."

Twenty-one and a half years old, Cassandra Andromeda Black lives in Harlem, New York, in a street that's only just finished being renovated after the Hulk's temper tantrum in o' eight. From her attic window she can see Avengers Tower in the distance and that's only one of the reasons she allows the raccoon-eyed man to live in it – another, different reason being how he protects her baby little stargazer Lily with a vitriol that reminds Cass of herself.

"You should tell her," Jamie says from his place in the rocking chair, crocheting the last of Lily's birthday blanket. "Natalia doesn't take well to liars prying into her personal life."

"She pried first," Cass says, thinking back to when Natasha tried to investigate Jake. She probably thought he was a metahuman. Those seem to pop up a lot in the US.

"Doesn't matter."

"Fuck off," Cass glances over at the crochet blanket. "How's your little habit helping your violent tendencies?"

"I made you a onesie."

"No way did you make me a crochet onesie," Cass' eyes widen. "You didn't."

"I did. Happy Christmas," Jamie reaches into his sports bag of wool and knitting needles, pulling out a grocery-bag of knitwear. Cass reaches over, taking it quickly, pulling the multi-coloured onesie out and eyeing its magnificence.

"I don't celebrate Christmas, but thank-you, thank-you very much." Cass leans over, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. "You're a good man."

"You're welcome."

The next day, Jamie takes them out for ice-cream, Lily on his hip. Cass – wand in her holster, a pair of enchanted knives hidden in her thigh-high boots – toys with the idea of buying a set of sunglasses when she sees her, familiar auburn hair nearly fully hidden by her hood. Cass buys the sunglasses, putting them on and immediately punching a passerby in the arm as they slap her behind under her denim dress-skirt

"Don't touch me," she snarls, the man stopping to glare at her murderously, leaning over her in some intimidating way. Cass isn't afraid – how could I be afraid of anything, after the life I've lived? – and stands up straight, poking him with her index finger. "Would you treat your mother like that?"

The man looks over her shoulder to Jamie, "You let her treat me like this?"

"I'm glad she does, punk," Jamie says, voice low and guarded as he holds Lily's ice-cream for her, hair pulled up and back into a bun, sunglasses hiding his no-doubt freezing eyes. Cass wonders how the stranger would react if he could see Jamie's mechanical arm. "You treat a lady like that, you deserve everything you get."

"Enough here, move along," Natasha finally makes her way over, flipping off her hood. Cameras on phones immediately start to flash, the stranger flushing, sending one last glare at Cass before leaving, the small crowd that had formed shuffling along at Natasha's look. No-one talks until they've all finally moved on. "Long time, no see."

"Ditto, Nat," Cass comes close, pressing her lips to her cheek, hand coming up to gently wipe away the stain that it leaves behind. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"I didn't expect to see you in New York, or with James, here."

Cass glances at Jamie, who – thankfully – hasn't moved and is instead keeping all his attention focused on Lily, feeding her ice-cream. Cass briefly feels pity for him, not realising that Lily and Natasha looked so alike until now, their auburn hair identical shades and their noses and brows one and the same.

"He's a friend. I've been keeping an eye on him – he's under my protection."

"Just like how Jake was?"

"The same, except Jamie is a personal project," Cass says, "I won, but with terrible costs. We keep each other grounded."

"More than a child does?"

"Sometimes I can't function," which is why I had a house-elf before Jamie snapped his neck in fright. "Jamie helps out." Cass fiddles with her sunglasses before pushing them back up onto her head, keeping her dark hair out of the way as she tucks her thumbs behind the buckle of her belt, stepping out of Natasha's personal space finally. "How are you? I saw all the crazy shit on TV. It must be rough, being a super-spy whose face everyone knows."

Natasha nods sharply, glancing at Lily. "What's her name?"

"Lily, after my mother. You should come over some time to my place, on your own," Cass invites, glancing at Jamie again. "We've got some things to talk about, anyway."

"You and I? What about?" Natasha questions.

"Stuff you wouldn't believe. I know you've fought aliens and all that, but apparently you don't like liars prying into your personal business. I'd rather get explanations over with so you can decide if you want anything to do with us or not."

Natasha stares at her for a long moment, eyes flickering to Lily. She's not idiotic.

"Werewolves, do they really exist?"

"In the Wizarding World, they do," Jamie answers, before finishing off Lily's ice-cream and summarily handing the one-year old to her other mother. Frozen suddenly, Cass watches him disappear into the crowd, before sharply looking back to Natasha.

Lily, for her part, isn't screaming and crying at the handover to a stranger.

"Uh…sorry about him," Cass regains her voice, hands reaching for Lily. "I can take her back-"

"No, it's fine. I have godchildren, I know how to hold babies," Natasha puts Lily on her hip, gently bouncing her. Lily grins, sticky hands coming to grasp her face. A smile lights up her face and Cass stares at them both, before looking around, anywhere but them. Across the street, a man reading a newspaper looks strangely at them, lips moving and Cass narrows her eyes.

"Have you got friends around here?"

"We were following Barnes."

"How many friends?" Cass looks around, finding another man – white, blonde-haired – just down the road, leaning against a lamp-post. "I don't like this."

"The only reason they aren't following is because you're interesting. Did you get some kind of synth-skin for his arm?"

"Magic can hide anything and magical prosthetics don't usually tend to be on the inconspicuous side." Cass clenches her fists, wanting Lily back in her arms, where she was safe. "Why are you searching for him?"

"He's a danger to the public and he's Steve's friend – he's all alone in the twenty-first century with nothing but pictures and demented elderly persons tying him down."

"Jamie is unravelling," Cass mutters, coming close again, taking Lily from her finally, their arms brushing. "I don't want him to get hurt, milady."

"Mama," Lily squidges Cass' nose, causing her to smile a little. "Mama, mama, mama, mama."

"How old is she?"

"It's her first birthday," Natasha's frown doesn't leave her face as Cass slips into a shop, twisting through the aisles and disapparating on a corner.