There has been some question as to when the romance will start in this story and I thought that I'd address that now. There will continue to be a slow build, just hints, flirting and blushes and even the occasional bit of kissing but it's not really going to kick off until fourth year. Sorry for making you all wait so long but ... oh no wait, I'm not sorry. That was always the plan and you'll just have to like it. Nyaaaah.
I still don't own Harry Potter otherwise I'd be writing all day instead of working to pay the bills.
Dylan the Rabbit. xx
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The Silent World of Cassandra Evans.
13. Bark at the Moon
They all looked so sweet and innocent Snape thought. Sitting in a row, ankles crossed, hands neatly folded in uniformed laps with identical 'butter wouldn't melt' expressions on their lightly smiling faces. All three of the professors gathered in the potions lab knew exactly what devious depths these four witches were capable of descending to, however. Weasley, Lovegood, Bones and Evans, or as Snape liked to call her, the devil in an a cup. Quite how she had discovered that the Headmaster had been dosing the school's population with loyalty potions they didn't know (or particularly want to know, truth be told), but discover it she had and had brought her findings to their little group's attention. Now faced with this disturbing knowledge they were attempting to come up with a solution to nullify the effects of said manipulation by the old man as well as his propensity to obliviate those who didn't comply with his demands.
Minerva and Filius had been shocked and sickened by the revelation but Severus had simply appeared resigned that it was merely Dumbledore's usual behaviour when faced with a situation that wasn't going the way that he wanted it to. That man had some serious control issues.
"We won't just be able to slip a simple purging potion into the food at source. He has the elves completely in his pocket. We might be able to protect ourselves but the rest of the students, I'm afraid, will just have to cope with it on their own."
A violent gesture from Evans at his words was met with muffled laughter from the younger girls and a shocked, red faced response by the red head emphasised by her grabbing the angry, green eyed witch's still moving hands.
"Cassandra Marguerite Evans. You cannot use that kind of language in front of a teacher."
The said teachers looked a little bemused at the display before Susan gave an explanation.
"My deepest apologies professors she's still a bit angry about last year ... and the year before to be fair." She turned again to the other girl. "It's still not an excuse for using that word Cassandra."
Severus snorted and almost laughed himself as he watched Cassie tilt her head to one side and give Susan the big, tearful, apologetic puppy eyes resulting in her immediate capitulation to the infuriatingly cute girl. It amused him beyond measure how completely and utterly she had Miss Bones wrapped right around her little finger. That girl would literally do anything for Cassie. But then, he admitted to himself, everyone else in this room was probably starting to have the same problem. Their meeting broke up shortly after with all parties promising to look for a solution, other than starving themselves or living on take-outs from Hogsmeade, to the dosing issue.
Out in the dark night a shaggy black dog bolted from the cover of the bushes and skidded to a stop just inside the entrance of a well concealed cave entrance a mile outside of Hogsmeade village. Shivering with the cold, the on the run animagus curled up into a ball in the corner of his dank new home and dragged the beef joint he had stolen from The Hog's Head kitchen three days previously towards him. It was mostly bone now with only a few shreds of meat left on it and Sirius knew that he would have to risk capture again tommorrow in order to eat. Shifting form he sat up, pulled his tattered cloak tight around him and retrieved the much read newspaper from it's folds. He stared with hatred at the picture of the fat little rat being held by the stupid looking ginger boy with the mean smile and plotted his revenge.
The two second years were chatting and admiring their pretty new anti mind control necklaces that professor MacGonnagal had handed out to them this morning after class. It was a bit of a shame that they were all so similar looking but at least they seemed to be working. All of them had attended dinner at the Ravenclaw table with no ill effects whatsoever tonight and they knew that it was due their spangly, if a tad gaudy, new jewellry that they and their professors were sporting. But with Flitwick, MacGonnagal and Snape all collaborating on them this was not exactly a surprise to the girls. Having talented friends among the staff was certainly very convenient at the moment.
Sitting at a table in the Pshyco Freak tower and waiting for Cassie to return from one of her detentions had become a little ritual for the three girls that they looked forward to at least twice a week. Seriously that girl could get in trouble sitting locked in a room with no furniture on her own. Susan was deep into her potions homework and it the took the red head rather a long time to realise that Ginny and Luna were now staring expectantly at her. She had been waiting for the teasing and questioning to start all day and was only surprised that it had taken them this long. Sighing dramatically she put her knife and asphodel root aside, bowing to the inevitable.
"What?"
"Soooo. Hogsmeade huh."
"Hogsmeade?"
"Don't play coy with us Cuddles. You're going to Hogsmeade with Cassie."
"Yes. We are going to Hogsmeade together." Susan confirmed.
"Like a date?"
"There will be ... date like activities involved. Like walking, drinks, food and entertainment."
"And snogging?"
"I am so not discussing this with you two."
Cassie chose that particular moment to appear and thumped down sitting cross legged on the floor between them, showing rather more of her cute flowery underwear than was good for Susan's heart rate or complexion.
Discussing what with who two?
"Nothing." The girls sing songed angelically and in unison before giggling.
Yeah that's not even slightly suspicious.
Cassie regarded her friends with a raised eyebrow and considered their respective expressions. Luna was smiling in her usual spacey manner and seemed genuinely interested in the topic, Ginny was grinning with excitement and sporting an almost lecherous look and Susan was blushing with embarrassment and ... something else. Oh they must be discussing her and Susie's forthcoming date on Saturday. Well that was a bit too easy to figure out. She wondered if she would be able to make it even more uncomfortable for them. Un-noticed by the others she surrupticiously pulled down her jumper and undid a couple more buttons on her blouse.
Well I'm going to have a bath and get to bed. Are you coming now Susie, or do you want to come later?
Cassie stood and stretched, closer to Susan than was strictly necessary, and then bent over to retrieve her bag from the floor giving the other girl a spectacular view of her growing assets. She hid her smile at the red heads strangled squeak and skipped off up the stairs congratulating herself on a job well done. Perfect.
In the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom the next day Remus Lupin was blinking rapidly and considering pulling out what remained of his thinning hair at the the total chaos that was currently in progress. He stared hard at the smirking girl who, he was almost certain, had caused this situation as a pixie flew close past his face whacking him across the nose with her boot for good measure. James and Lily would have been so proud of their little spitfire. It would have been rather funny if it wasn't his lesson that was being interrupted in this manner. He frowned as he ruminated on the fact that she never caused this kind of trouble in Charms or Transfiguration. Even Potions with Snape was immune, or so he had heard. Those three and those three alone seemed to have gained her trust and respect. Filius and Minerva he could understand, but Snape? Bloody Snape of all people. Remus had questioned his behaviour towards the greasy git many times over the years and as much as he understood that he was masking his guilt for almost killing the man with his anger at him, he just couldn't seem to get past it. He, his friends and his inner wolf may be the guilty parties in all of this but it didn't make Snape any less of a git.
He signalled his thanks as Miss Granger helped him to recapture the errant pixies and bring a touch of sanity to proceedings and then chuckled under his breath when he caught Cassie and her friend Miss Bones pouting at the premature ending of their mayhem. Try as he might Remus just couldn't stay angry at her. The girl was an almost perfect blend of both of her parents. Fiery and temperemental to be sure, with a penchant for trouble making and chaos, but with a generosity of spirit that almost took his breath away. Just like Lily, she also appeared to be more than capable of dragging her friends along into her mad schemes. For the life of him he could not understand why Albus was so terrified of her going to the dark. To his mind she was an simply a lively, if slightly scary, intelligent young woman who loved life and took the utmost care of her friends. They should all be a little more like that, he thought.
Susan Bones was having a lovely day.
The date that wasn't a date was going even better than she had hoped and both her and Cassie had enjoyed themselves immensely. They had giggled with glee in Zonko's, sampled the goods in wonder in Honeyduke's, danced in delight in Dominic Maestro's and then they had hit Gladrags. Cassie had wanted to do 'a bit of clothes shopping' and Susan had been more than happy to accomodate the other girl in this endeavour. It wasn't until they were inside that she had realised her mistake. Her crush had headed directly to the underwear section and started pulling out some of the laciest, most beautiful and skimpiest under things that Susan had ever seen. This wasn't underwear. This was lingerie. The ever threatening blushes immediately burst out on her face. When Cassie had taken her by the hand, led her to the changing rooms and nonchalantly started to disrobe in front of her, they became positively dangerous with all the blood that was being diverted to her cheeks. Susan tried very hard to keep her eyes on one or other of Cassie's exquisite tattoos and off of areas that would cause her to pass out as she was called upon to pass judgement, one by one, on the green eyed goddess' chosen attire.
Thankfully the 'bit of clothes shopping' had ended, without Susan embarrassing herself further and the two girls had retired to The Three Broomsticks for some lunch and a butterbeer or two. As with everywhere else they had visited today, it was surprisingly quiet with only a few brave, stupid or inquisitive souls prepared to be in the same area as the freaks. Lunch was delivered to their table by a distinctly nervous Madame Rosmerta and passed in fun conversation and light flirting between them. They had paid the bill and exited only to be almost knocked flying by the skinny, black dog that they had been catching glimpses of all day, as it charged through the street with a rope of sausages hanging from either side of it's mouth. Cassie had stopped the pursuit of the scraggy beast by paying the butcher who had been chasing him for the stolen links before disappearing back into the pub.
It seemed that the troublesome dog was curious enough to overcome it's natural shyness and obvious caution and it rubbed it's head on the red headed girl's leg while giving her a thorough inspection. Susan sat on one of the outside tables and idly scratched the dog's ears while they waited together, both pairs of eyes glued to the pub door where the other girl had disappeared. He tolerated this attention with stoicism and only one or two huffs of exasperation or pleasure. Soon Cassie re-emerged into the Autumn afternoon clutching a large sack, which she promptly handed off to Susan. She gripped his head in her hands, gazed deeply into his eyes, nodded once, then tackled the surprised dog, cuffed him lightly on the side of the head and took off at a run.
Sirius sat stunned at his God-daughter's actions for a moment or two before his animal side took control. The nice, young, human female, who had helped him evade capture and a probable beating for his theft, wanted to play chase. This was not a hardship for him. He loved to play chase. With a big dopey grin on his chops the black haired dog exploded into a gallop after the black haired girl. The chase was on.
Forty fun filled minutes later two giggling girls and their exhausted canine companion were laying on the grass outside a half hidden cave and panting to recover their breath. Casie took the sack back from her friend and beckoned the dog over. She opened it carefully and looked inside. Then back at him. Then back into the bag. He was positively drooling at the wonderful aroma emanating from the now open sack. She glanced sideways at the dog and raised an eyebrow. The girl huffed, shook her head and made a series of weird signs with her hands. Unable to resist the temption any longer, he made a grab for the bag while she was seemingly distracted and received a bop on the nose from her wand. The business end of which was now pointed right between his eyes.
"She wants you transform so that we can have a talk Mister Black. Then you can have the food."
His jaw dropped like Wyle E Coyote watching the roadrunner escaping from one of his ridiculously over engineered traps again. He could have kicked himself for getting caught up in having fun and for being so stupid and so sloppy. The brilliant and badass Sirius Black had just been brought down by a pair of giggling, third year school girls. Idiot. The other inmates of Azkaban were going to have a field day with this one. He was brought back to the present as Cassie tapped him on the nose once more and nodded in stern encouragement. The girl was not going to take no for an answer it seemed.
Sirius Black, the dangerous, escaped prisoner of Azkaban, hung his head in shame and shifted to face his teenaged captors.
For the third time in two weeks the members of the Albus Dumbledore Retirement Committee met with their young charges in the sitting room of Psycho Freak Tower. Unknown to them there had been much discussion among the girls as to whether or not they should bring their teachers in on the 'prisoner' plan. In the end it had been a combination of their considerable expertise, shown by the quick and effective construction of the necklaces, and Snape's unwavering, if sneaky and underground, support of Cassie that had decided them. Still it had to handled carefully as the potions master's lingering dislike of the former Gryffindor Prince was bound to be a thorny issue.
"Let me get this straight. Peter Pettigrew is still alive and living as Miss Weasley's brother's pet rat and, furthermore, it was he that killed all of those muggles, not Sirius Black."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
Yes.
"I see." Minerva gave them a questioning look. "Can you prove it?"
"If we catch the rat then yes."
Severus Snape swallowed a bitter grimace at the thought of helping the man who had been such a large and unpleasant part of his own school days. Quite honestly he would much prefer to drag the hateful, bullying bastard back to Azkaban by the balls and see him suffer there for the rest of his miserable and hopefully, very short, life. Resentment and anger at Potter, Black and Lupin were not new emotions for him but they needed to be curtailed and smothered for now. This was for Cassie. The girl had been through enough crap in her short, unhappy life. He knew that he would never be allowed to take her in himself. It wouldn't be safe anyway. For either of them. But a newly freed and exonerated Lord Black could claim his God-daughter and give her at least some of the life that she deserved to have after all of the hardships that she had suffered. It might be hard for him to watch but it really would be the best thing for the girl. With a gut wrenching, vomit inducing nod of affirmation he waded in to the debate.
"Then we need a plan. Do either of you have any allies left in the lions den or have you both burned all of those bridges."
Ginny and Cassie looked at each other and smirked.
"We might have a couple."
"You don't mean." Minerva suddenly looked a bit sick herself. "You do don't you. Oh Merlin help us. Not the twins."
"They were so helpful though professor. I'm sure they wouldn't mind lending a hand again." Luna beamed at them and picked up Shortcake from Snape's lap where the python was attempting to find that fascinating, feathery lure that the man sometimes carried around.
Even Flitwick had his head in his hands at this point.
"I can't believe we're really going to rely on the Weasley twins to get this done. Subtle isn't exactly their thing."
"Well it's that or let Evans here storm the tower with that bloody great scythe of hers."
Oooh. Let's do that.
"No!"
Spoil sports.
It was very late by the time the strategy session was done and a workable plan was hammered out between them. Now all they had to do was set it into motion.
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Reviews are always appreciated but not necessary. I'm not going to hold you guys to ransom over them.
Good? Bad? Leave your thoughts although you can always PM me with ideas, suggestions, comments if you want. Dylan the Rabbit. xx