Phew, long chapter this time. Okay, so I wanted to get this story rolling so we basically plow through about two weeks here (since this chapter starts on New Years and the last one ended on Christmas). Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. Lots of angsty goodness. Some of you will undoubtedly be enraged. I look forward to your comments and criticisms and suggestions as always :D I hate to be a review troll, but I'm actually getting obsessed with your opinions of my writing so PLEASE let me know how I'm doing!
-Coalhaus
PS
Thanks to those kind souls who took the time to send a little comment my way! I appreciate your suggestions and I'll definitely work on expanding on the blood magic thing. To be honest, I still don't really know much about it myself - all these ideas kind of just pop into my head as I write. If any of you have any ideas or suggestions about it, let me know.
S/O to Allergies (I'm terribly sorry I forgot to mention you in my last chapter, I hope you're not offended!), to J, to Liz, EtoileBlack, Supergirl818, Stromsten and NC. If there's anyone else I missed, I apologize and just let me know!
Delapsus resurgam.
"Well I suppose it's their family motto or something, isn't it," said Skylar absentmindedly as she flipped through Alicia's closet. "I mean, I'm no expert or anything on it - but yeah, I remember their coat of arms. Definitey. Silver roses. Isn't that hilarious? You'd think for a bunch of -
"Don't say it -
"- psychopath-murderer-rapist-death-eaters, they'd have something a little more... badass, no? Or maybe it's an irony thing... thorny roses or whatever. Good god, Alicia, what the hell is this, a mumu? I'm burning it, I'm not even going to ask why you have one of these. Wait, you haven't been knocked up, have you?"
Alicia snatched the dress back from her friend, who was brandishing it about as though it were infected with the plague.
"No, I'm not knocked up," she said irritably, holding the dress possessively. "It was a gift from my nan."
Skylar grimaced.
"Oh... sorry. It's... er, very chic." She turned back towards the closet and continued to flip through the rack. "So what's with all the interest in the Rosiers?"
"I was working a project for school, on blood magic and, er, the Rosiers came up. I'm just curious is all. And I remember you were saying something about studying famous families or whatever -
"Well I didn't - not on them, I mean. We were all assigned families to present on, but yeah, I do remember some stuff from the Rosier presentation. Hey, did you know this? The Rosiers are supposedly descended from an incubus."
"An incubus," Alicia echoed sarcastically. "You're joking."
"No, really - I'm dead serious. Look it up. Obviously it's all legends and rumours or whatever, and I mean, they're not the only ones who supposedly come from these crazy backgrounds, but I guess it isn't impossible. It's either that or they've got to have veela blood somewhere - you ever see portraits of these people? Seriously. Model material."
Cassius' face popped up into her mind, and Alicia pursed her lips. So, he was descended, quite possibly, from an incubus. Why did that not surprise her in the least?
"But... well, what's weird is that even the muggles know about them. Well, not the Rosiers per say, but The Rosier, the one who was supposedly an incubus. Apparently he's like the démon patron -er, patron demon - of tainted love and seduction. Oh, hey, this looks really cute." Skylar tossed her a bordeaux halter-dress that Alicia had worn for a friend's birthday the previous summer. "You have shoes to go with? Anyway, all this incubus stuff is probably bollocks. I mean, whoever heard of a monogamous incubus? From what I remember from Magical Creatures, they're like... man-whores. Major man-whores."
They are man-whores, Alicia thought acerbically as she thought about the portraits that lined the walls of Berkley House.
"If you ask me," Skylar continued as she shut the closet and sauntered over towards Alicia's vanity, "It was probably just some creep going around imperiusing sleeping muggles and shagging them. I mean, knowing what the descendants turned out to be?"
"Yeah," Alicia mumbled, feeling slightly ashamed. "And - er, what does delapsus resurgam mean again?"
"When I fall, I shall arise." Skylar smirked. "Maybe it has something to do with... you know, down there."
Alicia snorted. Trust Skylar to come up with such an analogy.
"No, really - what do you think?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Skylar, sounding exasperated. "You know these crazy purebloods... think they're gods, half of them. I think the guy in my class said it had something to do with keeping the family alive."
Alicia frowned.
"What, you mean like resurrection?"
Skylar rolled her eyes.
"This isn't Beedle the Bard come to life. More like... I dunno, making sure there's always an heir or something. You know, so the Rosier name sticks around or whatever. But I think it has something to do with the incubus legend, if it's true. You know how incubi can leave their bodies as long as they find another host... although to be honest, it would be rather pointless wouldn't it, if the whole point was to keep the same bloodline intact. And I'm not sure if half-incubi are even possible. Is... er, incubism even genetic? And can it be passed down through males and females or just males? I should probably look that up, actually... But I don't bloody know, circe! You're the one who's studied blood magic, and I dropped Magical Creatures this year... You probably know more about this stuff than I do. We really only focused on the famous people part of the families, so I don't really know much else beyond who slept with who and who beheaded whose head. And to be honest, I kind of stopped paying attention after I presented."
Alicia shrugged. She'd already learned more in five minutes than she'd managed to glean by subtly quizzing her mother every so often about the Rosiers. Delapsus Resurgam. It wasn't that bizarre for a family motto... after all, weren't purebloods in general obsessed about continuing their lines? The only thing that bothered her were all the blood magic books and old texts that Cassius had neatly piled on his desk. Why was he researching Rosier blood magic? Which was what he was obviously doing, considering the carefully drawn Rosier crest she'd found... Alicia shuddered as she remembered some of the more graphic images from some of the textbooks they'd used for their project research. The thought of being branded caused her stomach to heave unpleasantly.
"So," said Skylar brightly, "Too slutty or not slutty enough?"
Alicia laughed, and hurled a stuffed dog at Skylar's head.
"Definitely not slutty enough," she said sarcastically, eying the skin-tight indigo dress enviously. "You and Katie have got to have the longest legs I've ever seen. Not that Katie'd ever be caught dead wearing that."
"Bitch," Skylar retorted jokingly. "And anyway, you've got the wrong idea about Katie. Actually, so did I for that matter... Didn't I tell you? I saw her at Place Lapelar the other day. She was coming out of one those new sex shops that are opening up all over the place -
"What!" Alicia spluttered in shock.
"Oh yeah," said Skylar, nodding enthusiastically. "And with this older bloke too, mad fit - I know I've seen him somewhere before -
"Katie? As in my Katie? Katie Bell? With who? You're kidding - hang on. Are you sure it was her? She has an older sister, you know - graduated before our time. And she just got married to Geoffrey Keitch, who might I add, is only like one of the most famous chasers of all time, which is probably how you recognized the bloke."
"I never knew she had a sister," Skylar mused. "I suppose that would make more sense."
"Oh yeah, they look absolutely identical. She plays for the Harpies, go figure."
"Mm. True. By the way, so what's the deal? Are we meeting your girls there or are we meeting at a bar first?"
"Bar first - club drinks are always ridiculously pricier. And are you sure it's okay that Katie's coming?"
"I told Lucien we'd be five. He's bringing some of his friends too. By the way, he told me he knows you. Well, he knows of you."
"Oh god, please don't tell me he was at the Ball -
Skylar shrugged.
"Society's a small world, apparently. It's okay, he doesn't hold it against you. We all know Lestrange - she's a couple years above me, and trust me, everybody thinks she's a psycho bitch."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Alicia muttered.
"It'll be fine, just try not to run into her tonight."
Alicia froze.
"What the hell do you mean, tonight? How do you know that bitch is going to be there?"
Skylar tutted in disapproval.
"Don't you keep up with your own social news? Tsktsk. Even I know that the real party's tonight. That coming-out Yule thing is for all the stuffy old people. All the young people who were at the ball are going to be at 69 tonight, guaranteed. And obviously sad laymen such as myself. Speaking of which, are you shitting me? Is Angel actually going to be there tonight?"
Alicia rolled her eyes as she threw on her dress.
"Yeah, he's been going on about it all day - a couple of his buddies snagged some last-minute tickets so they're going to be there. Urgh, as long as we avoid the muggle side we'll be fine. The last thing I need to deal with is him getting all up in our faces about dancing with blokes. Needless to say, he has no idea that we're going to be there."
"Hear hear," Skylar replied. "So what about Bishop?"
"Back to Thailand," Alicia replied with a small frown. "His grandfather isn't doing so well apparently, so they only came down for Yule."
"Thailand, eh? You know what they say about white boys and those Asian birds," said Skylar with a nudge and a wink.
Alicia chucked her shoe at her.
"Oh shut up," she said. "As long as they aren't anything like you -
"Hey! I'm only half. And anyway, nobody's as cool as me -
"Modest much?"
Skylar stuck out her tongue and hurled the shoe back at Alicia.
"Get dressed, bitch, we're going to be late! And please put that mumu away before I get sick!"
"And where do you girls think you're going dressed like that?"
"Hi dad," Alicia groaned as she and Skylar stepped onto the second floor landing and into the path of her unimpressed, slightly tipsy father.
"Hi uncle," Skylar chimed.
"Leave them alone, Alan," Aurora called out from the kitchen. "Alicia deserves a proper night out after that disaster with mum and dad."
"Ha! Not dressed like that she doesn't!"
"Dad!"
Alan crossed his arms and glared at Alicia indignantly.
"You look like - like - Aurora! For chrissake, come here and deal with this. I need a pint."
Skylar giggled.
"I think he's already had a couple."
Alicia rolled her eyes. New Years. Her parents' favourite time of year besides St. Patrick's Day... they made money and they got to get drunk. She waited, hands on her hips, for her mother to stumble into the corridor with a glass of rosé in her hand.
"You look lovely," Aurora cooed, much to Alan's dismay. "Although... I don't think dresses were quite that short in my day -
"That's because they weren't," Alan barked. "And that was hardly ten years ago!"
"Mm, well - well, it will be dark after all..." said Aurora helplessly, before bursting into giggles. "Come on Alan, let the girls have their fun. We'll have our own while they're out. And anyway, Laurie told me that Angel's going as well -
"Angel's going? Fine. As long as he brings you girls there and back -
"But dad!" Alicia whined. "Angel's a - a twat! I mean, he isn't. But he is! I can't go to the club with my cousin! And anyway, we can't go through the muggle side, not with our wands."
"C'mon Alan," said Aurora with a twinkle in her eye. "Just let the girls go. It's New Years! And you really think Angel wants to babysit -
"I'm older than he is!"
"Pfft, by a month."
" - babysit his older cousin? Let's just go downstairs, I'm sure the boys already have their hands full with the pub, and we'll have a good time. The girls will be fine! 69 is probably the safest place in wizarding London after Gringotts, St. Mungo's and the Ministry."
"Jesus," Alicia muttered as she looked around Diagon Alley in awe. "I thought my dad would never let us go."
"Me too," Skylar admitted. "Good thing your mum's so cool. My mum practically threw a fit when I told her where we were going! I can't believe her. Who works on New Years?"
"Hm, well let's see.. healers and bar owners, so I guess that makes both our parents!"
"Pfft, at least your parents get to drink on the job."
The girls weaved in and out of the traffic. As the sun had set, the daytime crowd of families and merchants had disappeared, slowly replaced by drunken revellers ready to start the night with style. Alicia stared in amazement as she examined each new bar or restaurant that appeared, magically popping up and expanding in between the familiar storefronts she was used to seeing by day.
"Jesus," she exclaimed as a group of young American wizards crowded past them, hollering drunkenly, "I can see why mum never let me stay here past sunset! I never even knew this stuff existed!"
"I love magic," Skylar sighed happily as a little chip shop sprang up out of nowhere in between a daytime sweet shop and a clothing boutique.
They weaved in and out of the crowds until they found Cafe Dolce, which was where Alicia usually met the girls by day whenever they planned a trip to Diagon Alley. The usually calm and quiet cafe was now filled with young witches and wizards who looked to be from an assortment of international magical institutions, judging by some of their robes and sweaters. They were discussing animatedly - some of them quite heatedly - as they sipped on coffee and pints.
"I can't wait for uni," Skylar murmured appreciatively as they glanced around the crowd. "Brains and brawn - what's there not to love? I mean, look at that bloke - he could be on the cover of PlayWitch and he's talking about Walden's Theory of Parallel Planes!"
"You're so incredibly dorky and slaggish all at the same time, it's actually ridiculous," Alicia laughed as she eyed Skylar's adonis. "Oh look, I think that's your friend, isn't it? Whatshername, Jordan, yeah?"
They made their way over towards a window seat, where Skylar's old friend from Hogwarts, Jordan Blott, one of the heirs to the immense Flourish and Blotts fortune, was seated, waving at them. The tiny redhead, who was dressed in a short emerald sequin dress, jumped up and hugged Skylar, and Alicia giggled at the sight of them, because Skylar absolutely towered over the both of them with her heels on.
"Hi Jordan," said Alicia, briefly hugging the younger girl. "How have the hols been?"
"Alright," the girl replied excitedly. "Dad's got me working at the shop all day but it's been good, a lot of people are coming by and buying up all the Defence books they can get their hands on ever since... well, you know. The Tournament."
They jumped when a knocking sound interrupted their conversation. Alicia turned her head around and broke into a grin. Angelina and Katie waved at her from the other side of the window, both dressed to the nines - at least, as far as she could tell, since they were both wrapped up in beautiful winter cloaks.
"Chug your beer," Skylar ordered, standing up excitedly. "Lucien said he'll be waiting for us at the club so we'll need time to look for him."
Alicia stared, open-mouthed, as Jordan smirked and accepted the challenge, chugging back the pint of butterbeer as though she were a bottomless pit. A couple boys who were sitting across from them cheered, and the redhead flushed in embarrassment.
"You Ravenclaws surprise me every time," she said, following Skylar and Jordan out of the cafe.
After waiting in line, exposed to the cold and the wind for so long, stepping into the club for the first time was like stepping into hell. The throbbing bass made Alicia's heart tremble, and she felt a surge of excitement as a blast of heat and sound washed over her as the bouncers shut the doors behind them to the crowd outside.
Inside, it was dark and just as crowded. They were in some sort of narrow corridor, but up ahead were four glowing golden arches, each manned by burly looking men or skimpily dressed women, all in black.
"What are those?" Alicia asked, watching as witches and wizards stepped through the arches one by one.
"Probity probe and secrecy sensor all rolled into one," said Lucien, Skylar's friend who'd met them outside of the club along with three other mutual school friends of theirs from Beauxbatons. "They can detect anything, even drugs."
"Damn," said Jordan, "You mean like on that man there?"
The girls watched as a bouncer dragged off a sulky young man who'd crossed through the now flashing golden arch, and was proclaiming his innocence while his friends shook their heads in disgust. The bouncer pulled out a hand-held sensor and rolled his eyes as he fished out a packet of cigarettes from the man's inner coat pocket. He opened it up and with a bored expression on his face, dragged the man passed them and kicked him out of the club.
"Next!"
Once they got past the golden arches, the group found themselves in a second room. The sound of at least a dozen different languages, if not two, rang throughout the room. It was a large, circular room with multiple entrances also manned by large, brutish looking men. There was a large circular counter in the middle of the room, with what looked like a cross between some sort of futuristic glass elevator shaft in the centre. Over each of the entrances was written the name of the room beyond it: Floo - International; Floo - Domestic; Apparition - International; Apparition - Domestic; Portkey - International; Portkey - Domestic; Diagon Alley; Club Entrance; Emergency Exit; Staff Only. A sign floating above the circular counter read Wand and Coat Check.
The group joined one of the wand check queues and watched as the beautiful girls behind the circular counter weighed wand after wand on the brass wand weighers, just like the ones at the Ministry of Magic.
When Alicia finally stepped up to the counter, the girl at the counter snapped her gum and drawled, "Wand."
Alicia refrained from rolling her eyes and handed the girl her wand. The girl placed it on the scale and a slip of copy-parchment popped out of the machine.
"Anything else you'd like to check in?" the girl asked in a bored voice.
"Just my coat," Alicia replied.
"One galleon."
She handed the girl her coat and her money, and the girl wrote down coat - black on the copy-parchment.
The girl turned around and tapped her wand against the elevatorshaft thing behind her. A set of doors materialized and slid open, just like an elevator, and the counter girl lazily hung Alicia's coat on the empty rack. The doors slid shut and a small hole appeared. Alicia watched in apprehension as the girl slid her wand into the hole and both wand and hole disappeared. The counter-girl copied down some numbers and letters onto the copy-parchment, handed it to Alicia for her to sign, tore off the top parchment for herself and handed Alicia the bottom one.
"Don't lose it or you'll have to go through the Ministry to get your wand back," the girl sneered. "Next!"
"Finally," Angelina muttered impatiently once all the girls checked their things in. "No bloody wonder the line outside is so damn long! Even the Ministry's quicker at getting things processed!"
"This place is going to be a nightmare on the way out - imagine all the drunk people looking for their stupid slips of parchment. And can you believe it? An entire bloody galleon just for coat check! It's absolute robbery," Skylar exclaimed.
"Yeah, I didn't even tip," said Katie scornfully. "That girl was an absolute bitch."
"Urgh," Alicia grumbled. "Which one did you get, the brunette with the gum?"
"Yeah. Stupid cow."
Six drinks in, Alicia was leaning towards the drunker side of tipsy. She danced with Katie and Angelina, grinning foolishly as they grinded against each other to "Big Poppa", amazed that the wizarding side of the club would even play muggle music - American muggle music at that. They were laughing at the attention they were getting from the boys - or rather men - around them as they tossed back their drinks and writhed like the half-naked girls on the music videos, smiling teasingly but never letting anybody get too close.
Two drinks later, Alicia and Katie laughed as Angelina broke away from them to grab a drink with one of her friends from charm school they'd run into a little earlier.
Soon after that, Alicia found herself deserted as she winked at Katie who was in the midst of being whisked away by a broad-shouldered man in a black and white mask, who was whispering into her ear, causing her to blush furiously.
"You okay?" Alicia mouthed.
Katie gave her a slight nod over her shoulder, and Alicia smiled. She glanced around her, wondering where the rest of her friends had gone. Angelina and her friend had gone to the bar and had not returned. Skylar was long gone, no doubt dragged away to some booth for some mouth aerobics by Lucien, with whom she'd basically been surgically attached to since hitting the dance floor. Even Katie was gone, drawn away by the man who'd caused her to blush so profusely in the span of half a second.
Alicia looked up and admired the view of the second and third floors of the club as she danced automatically with whoever had just come up behind her. She could see couples dancing, and lights flashing and people looking down, waving and calling at friends. She caught a glimpse of one of Lucien's friends, recognizing the pattern of his mask, and waved at him. The grip around her waist suddenly tightened, reminding her that she'd been absentmindedly swaying her hips against some unknown man, and she turned around indignantly, stumbling drunkenly for a moment before regaining her grip by clutching the stranger's shirt.
Cassius.
It was Cassius, she could smell him. It had to be him. Nobody else made her head spin like he did, even with the stink of stale drink and smoke that permeated the air in the club because under that, it was purely him. His grip around her waist tightened again, and she saw his eyes flash behind his blue and bronze mask. The patterns on his mask swirled like the eye of a storm.
"Who the hell is that?" he all but growled into her ear, dragging her in closer, so close that she could feel his groin pressing against her.
"None of your business," she snapped throatily. "Let me go. How did you know it was me?"
He laughed coldly in her ear.
"I could spot you out of a crowd, deaf and blindfolded," he replied none too happily, because the fact was, he shouldn't have been able to. But he had. He'd spotted her at the bar from the second floor about fifteen minutes earlier, purely by chance because he'd been searching for Montague, Pucey, Flint and a couple others he'd come to the club with, but the second he saw her he'd known it was her. The flash of long blonde hair next to her and the amazon standing on her other side had only confirmed the fact that the Gryffindor Princesses were in the house. When he saw the glint of Marcus Flint's mask amongst the three of them a few minutes later, he made the foolish decision to hunt her down. She hadn't even turned to look at him, despite grinding her ass against him the moment his hands had slipped around her waist - she'd been too occupied making sure Baby Bell wasn't being mauled to death by Flint. Not that Alicia, or even Bell, seemed to have any idea who he was, since neither of them had run off screaming. Cassius smirked. He'd always suspected Flint of his less than... legal attraction towards Bell, which he imagined had all started after they'd nearly died plummeting to the ground in a Quidditch match some years earlier. They'd spent a week at the hospital wing together with only each other for company, and Flint had seemed a little off in the head when it came to Bell ever since. And now, here was his confirmation - and ammunition, should he ever need it.
But right now, he was in need of a different sort of ammunition. Something to disarm Alicia, because evidently she was still pissed off at him, which she had the right to be, much to his dismay.
He pulled her away from the centre of the dance floor and towards one of the many alcoves off to the side of the room where they wouldn't be recognized by either of their friends or acquaintances... there were a lot of people from Yule at the club tonight. She didn't even resist him as he dragged her away from the crowd, too unsteady on her heels to bother, and if he was to stroke his own ego for a bit, because he knew she was still attracted to him despite his behaviour the previous week; she hadn't taken more than half a second to breathe out his name when she'd turned around so tell him off for gripping her waist so tightly after she'd waved at the twat looking down at them from one of the floors above.
Speaking of which...
"You going to tell me who that was?" he demanded, cornering her into the alcove with his sheer size.
"None of your business," she retorted stubbornly. "Or are you just going to legillimens me to find out?"
He sucked in a breath and counted to three. Stupid masks, he thought irately. He wanted to rip hers off so that he could look at her and tell her that he was sorry. But what good would that do? What was done was done, and she'd obviously not forgotten so soon that he'd... violated her.
"Cassius, Cassius, Cassius, Cassius, you should know," she sang drunkenly.
He frowned at her.
"What should I know?"
"It's a song, stupid," she said, poking him in the chest. "You try too hard, is that the answer to the riddle? Instead of doin' so much, why don't you do just a little... Cassius, Cassius, Cassius, Cassius, you should know - badda baaaaaa, ba ba baba baba baaa -
He cut her off with a heated, drunken kiss, gripping her roughly in his hands as though she would turn into a pile of sand and blow away.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he said in a low voice, "But you can't sing worth your life. "
"I hate you," she said, leaning back against the wall for support, her eyes half shut. "And I can too sing. You're just tone deaf."
Cassius snorted and patted her head condescendingly.
"Okay there, sweetheart," he drawled sarcastically. "Whatever it takes. Do you forgive me now?"
"Only because I'm drunk," she said, swatting his hand away. "And don't pat my head - you'll mess up my hair."
"It's already messed," he said, sliding his hand into her hair so that he could tilt her head back and kiss her neck. She moaned appreciatively.
"Where's your boyfriend?" he grumbled scornfully, the word boyfriend leaving a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.
"Thailand," she whispered guiltily. "What if somebody recognizes us?"
"We're wearing masks, in the dark," he mumbled against her jawline.
"Ha, you call that a mask?" she replied, plucking at the magical fabric that covered only half her face.
He shrugged.
"I'm going to still be mad at you in the morning," she groaned as he slid his hands down to grasp her bum.
"That's okay," he said hoarsely as her thigh rubbed against him, "You love me anyway."
Shit, he thought hazily. He shouldn't have said that. He felt her stiffen under his grasp, and he held her closer still, breathing in the smell of her hair. He found himself apologizing for some stupid reason, drunkenly clutching her to his chest, whispering "it'll be okay, it'll be okay" while she shook her head wildly, mumbling, "I wish we'd never met."
"You and me both, babe," he murmured into her hair, "You and me both."
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the night, the moment you've all been waiting for! Say goodbye to 1995 and say hello to the new year!"
"Cassius, what are we going to do?" she said, looking up at him, her eyes glittering desperately behind her mask.
"Ten! Nine! Eight!"
"It'll be okay, it'll be okay." Say it enough and maybe it will be. For the last time, just fuck off!
"Five! Four! Three!"
"You don't know that! How can you know that?"
Dispair coloured her voice, and he could feel her panic as though it was his own.
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
He seized her by the waist and kissed her, and he could practically taste her fear and anxiety mingled with the tang of liquor and cigarettes. He imagined that he tasted very much the same. It'll be okay, it'll be okay. Everything would be okay. It had to be. And in that moment, standing there with her pressed against him as the crowd surged and screamed and danced around them, he really believed it.
Even half an hour later as he made love to her on the living room floor, pants barely to his knees, he believed it.
He stopped believing it an hour later as he watched her disappear through the fireplace, back to the club to find her friends, leaving him alone in the house with the portraits of all the women who'd once loved and been loved by men like him.
Fools.
They were all fools, every last one of them.
The first day back was always idyllic. Even the professors were lax in their lessons, still wistfully thinking about their own two weeks of holiday cheer.
Alicia should have known it wouldn't last.
The morning of the second day of classes was like any other. She rolled out of bed at half-past seven, washed up and got changed, grabbed her books for the day, and blearily made her way down the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast.
An hour later, the entire school was abuzz, rumours flying left, right and centre about the latest (and most horrible news to date) to reach their ears since the truth behind Cedric Diggory's death at the Triwizard Tournament. As Alicia stood and gathered her belongings, she suddenly realized with a certain degree of frightening apathy that she had crossed some sort of threshold in life. Things would never be the same again.
Azkaban Breakout.
The War had started.
The few students who still had subscriptions to the Daily Prophet were seen swamped in the corridors by the masses, desperate for news. When had it happened? Who had escaped? Whose families were affected most by this news?
Alicia and Katie spent the afternoon consoling Angelina, who was stiff with tension as she waited for news from her mother on her how her father was doing. An auror high up in the ranks with experience from the last war, he was no doubt now on the hunt, and would certainly be in the first line of danger should anything go wrong.
Meanwhile, other classmates were hounded with attention as people demanded with morbid fascination the details regarding deaths of family members at the hands of the escapees. Alicia shivered, remembering her run in with Rabastan Lestrange's deranged daughter.
The Slytherins stuck to themselves, and Alicia noticed as she quickly made her way down to the Great Hall for dinner that it looked like they were travelling in packs. They kept their voices low, and avoided talking with people of other houses, and she wondered how many of them were related to lunatics like Lestrange, lunatics who had destroyed so many lives for the sake of absolutely nothing. If they were usually regarded with apathy or dislike, today they were on the receiving end of many a fearful, hateful stare.
Rosier, Rosier, Rosier.
The name rang in the back of her head as she forced herself to swallow a spoonful of mashed potatoes, and she glanced over at the Slytheirn table and saw Cassius speaking in hushed tones with Montague. Neither of their faces conveyed any expression, but she could tell Cassius was tense from the stiff movements he made, if any.
"Bastards," Angelina snarled, following her gaze. "They're all bastards, every single one of them. I'll bet you any money half of them are up to their asses in this right now."
"They're still students," said Katie, before putting up her hands defensively under Angelina's wrathful glare. "I'm not saying I think you're completely wrong - I'm just saying, they can't help what their - their families have done."
"Ha!" Angelina spat. "Half of those psychopaths who escaped were Death Eaters before graduation, I'll have you know. Think about it... Crouch Jr. was like, nineteen when he was arrested. Just because we're young, doesn't mean we're not capable of doing crazy things. Look at Harry, he defeated you-know-who before he could even talk! Any of those pricks could be Death Eaters, young or not."
It was the truth that Alicia didn't want to acknowledge. But Cassius wasn't a pureblood fanatic... he held some ideas that were different from her own, perhaps, but he wasn't a fanatic. How could she judge him by what his uncles had done? She'd thought about him all week, had thought about the way he'd kissed her and stroked her hair and had whispered that everything would be okay. Then yesterday they'd seen each other for the first time at school again and it had been absolutely awful. Carson had kissed her and stroked her hair and had whispered how much he'd missed her when they saw each other in class, and she'd felt sick with grief and guilt. She'd felt the burn of Cassius' hateful stare on them all throughout the hour from his usual back-corner seat. When class was dismissed, he'd brushed past her without sparing her even a glance, and she'd felt her insides crumble when Carson took her hand, chatting absentmindedly about his stay in Thailand and his grandfather's worsening condition.
He was serious now, and Alicia was startled to see him with such a dark look on his face, a look that she generally associated to Cassius. Carson was usually all smiles and laughs, but as she watched him from the corner of her eye, she could see that he looked noticeably disturbed. But then again... so did the rest of the school. They were all in the dark, waiting for more news on the breakout, and all they had to fuel the fire for the moment were rumours.
The next morning after news of the breakout had hit the Hogwarts circuit, Alicia awoke to another educational decree posted on the house noticeboard, this one banning teachers from offering students information not related to their curriculum. It was sad. She hardly batted an eye.
Both Harry and Angelina announced their upcoming schedules in the common room before dinner to lighten the mood, which had gotten even more tense over the course of the day. Umbridge was now in psycho-bitch mode, patrolling the halls and classes and throwing detentions around left, right and centre for even the most minor of perceived infractions.
Harry murmured that D.A. practices would be held twice a week upon notice, with the first one beginning that night after dinner. Quidditch practices would start the next day in order to train their new members, Ginny, Sloper and Kirke, who were replacing the twins and Harry, with fitness training and broom drills every other day. They would have to miss Hogsmeade in February, unfortunately, due to the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match which always happened the day after. That particular bit of news did not lighten the mood.
Alicia left the Gryffindor table after greeting the twins and Lee Jordan to sit next to Carson, who'd waved her over with a small, tired smile.
"Hey you," she murmured, sliding into the seat next to him. She shut her eyes as he pressed a kiss onto her temple.
"Hey," he muttered, "Sorry I haven't stopped to see you, I was a little bit... well, yeah."
She'd heard the news in the common room just after lunch. Benjy Fenwick was his uncle, his mother's oldest brother. He'd been blasted to pieces by a Death Eater named Simon Travers, one of the Azkaban escapees. His had been one of the more gruesome deaths detailed by the Daily Prophet the day before. It was no wonder that Carson seemed to have stuck mainly to himself since yesterday morning. She cursed herself for being a shittier girlfriend than she already was - anybody else would have at least sought to him out to see how he was doing, if only to say hi. She'd merely counted her lucky stars that she could avoid him for an extra second, until she'd realized exactly why he was in a funk.
"How are you holding up?" she asked awkwardly as she twirled a strand of hair through her fingers, tugging anxiously on the ends as she tended to do when uncomfortable.
"I'm alright," he grunted. "Not like I can remember the bloke or anything, right?" he said with a small, heartless laugh.
Alicia squeezed his hand under the table, and he squeezed back with a small murmur of "don't worry 'bout me."
"It'll be okay," she whispered.
She wanted to throw up.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Her eyes flew up as she felt a familiar prickle on the back of her neck, and Cassius stared blankly back at her, though she could see the slightest bit of a frown. Every nerve in her body flared as her mind screamed at her that she was a Slytherin consort, a traitor to all that was good, a lying, cheating bitch who deserved every bit of torment she felt and more.
She dropped her gaze and stared at her plate.
"Hey."
She looked up, and Carson glanced sideways at her, a funny expression on his face.
"Yeah?"
"Wanna get away from here for a bit? I'm not really hungry."
Oh god. What the hell did that mean? Get away where? Where did he want to go? What did he want to do? A funny feeling in the back of her mind told her that she knew exactly what he wanted to do, and with whom he wanted to do it with. Panic surged and swelled deep inside her chest, and she found herself being led out of the Great Hall by Carson's firm grip around her hand, as Cassius burned holes into the back of her head. She looked back and saw that he'd half come to his feet, jealousy and rage flaring in his eyes. Montague, who across from him, turned over his shoulder to stare at her too, and with a small mocking shake of the head, he forced Cassius down to his seat. The doors shut behind her, creaking ominously as Carson turned around to see if she was coming.
"Sit down," said Montague casually, shoving Cassius down to his seat by pushing down on his shoulder, "I'll pass you the bloody salt."
Cassius sat, shaking with anger - and desperation - as Montague grounded him with a hard stare while he passed him the salt with a fake smile. Around them, the Slytherins continued to talk amongst themselves in hushed voices, and nobody had noticed that Cassius had practically bolted from his seat to stop Bishop from taking his girl away -
He clenched his fists under the table.
That's right. Bishop was taking his girl away. As in his girlfriend. Because Alicia was his girlfriend. And boyfriends and girlfriends were allowed to leave to go places privately together without anybody saying or doing jack bloody shit about it, because that's what boyfriends and girlfriends did. What boyfriends and girlfriends couldn't do was leave to go places privately together with the people they were having affairs with while the general populate looked on, because that's just the way that affairs worked.
He was going to kill somebody.
Bishop was unhinged. He'd seen it, he'd seen the way the prick had pushed his food around his plate for past twenty minutes, he'd seen the way he'd practically bared his teeth whenever some nosy little bitch came sniffing by to find out exactly how he was related to the tragic Fenwick murder, he'd watched the way Bishop had stared blankly around him except for when Alicia had come round to hold his stupid hand and to tell him that everything was going to be alright, which was certainly what she'd been telling him as he kissed her forehead and smelled her hair and touched her soft skin, when it ought to have been him she should have been comforting dammit, because she didn't love Carson bloody Bishop, she loved him, him - Cassius fucking Warrington - but now she was gone, gone, gone, and instead of sitting here next to him and stroking his hand and telling him he'd be okay, that they'd run away, far from the grasp of the Dark Lord and his ever-reaching tentacles, he sat here alone, stewing in rage as because he just knew what was going to happen because he'd seen it in Bishop's eyes, and she knew it too, he'd practically tasted her fear from across the hall, and for fuck's sake, he had to do something about it, he had to do something about it now before it was too late, and if Montague didn't bloody stop staring at him with that disgusting, knowing look on his face, he was going to snap -
"Cassius!"
- he had to go, he had to go and stop them -
"Warrington!" Montague barked, and this time half the table turned to look at them.
Cassius refrained from hexing every last one of them, nosy sonsofbitches, and turned to face his friend with a deceptively calm mask on his face.
"What?"
Montague gave him a hard, calculating stare.
"Just wanted to ask you some advice," he said lightly. "Adrian and I were just talking Quidditch -
Big surprise there.
" - and I just came up with an interesting question."
Here it comes.
"Beaters versus chasers, both have to use their arms a lot. Now who do you think could throw the hardest punch? I'd say chasers, obviously being one myself, but is it something I would bet my money on? I figure a second opinion can't hurt."
Those who had been eavesdropping on the conversation either rolled their eyes at the question and turned away, or piped up their own answers until a proper debate quickly erupted. Montague turned away in satisfaction, his point having been made.
Cassius walked away, each step heavier than the last, as he twirled his wand in his fingers, his mind frightfully blank.
Ravenclaw Tower was eerily like Gryffindor Tower in every way, shape and form (with the difference of colour of course), except the atmosphere was strangely cold, bordering on unwelcoming, like that of the Slytherin dungeons or Madame Pince's library.
Alicia and Carson had taken a long walk around the castle, and she'd tried to distract him by forcing him along a "scenic route" and played the good girlfriend by lending him an open ear and her thoughts as he vented about the Azkaban breakout, the unwelcome attention he'd received since people had figured out his connection to Travers, and his fears of what would happen in the wizarding world now that it was clear War was about to break loose.
"... and I mean, for all you know that bloke who died at St. Mungo's the other day could have been a bloody set up!"
"What bloke who died at St. Mungo's?"
"I dunno," Carson sighed. "I just skimmed it in the papers. Some freak accident, a ministry employee got a houseplant that turned out to be a devil's snare. I'm just... I'm just pissed off. It probably was just some freak accident, I mean, how many people really pay attention in Herbology?"
"You're a Ravenclaw!"
Carson rolled his eyes.
"If I could count the number of times I hear that in a day - oh, this is it. Er, mind you, the dorm's kind of messy -
"But you're Ravenclaw!" she exclaimed again, desperately clinging onto humour, trying to keep his thoughts grounded in platonic territory.
"Hardee-har-har," said Carson sarcastically as he opened the door, though he gave her a small smile, the first real one she'd seen on his exhausted face all day.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she stared into the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory, and they were not the good kind. The second Carson had asked her if she'd wanted to get away from dinner, she'd known this was coming. He'd been touchier with her in the last couple weeks of school, and she'd sensed his desire to sleep with her in the letters they'd written to each other over the holidays. And he'd been patient enough, she granted him that... but the thought did nothing to alleviate the churning apprehension in her stomach when she felt Carson's warm hand glide across her back and settle at her waist as he pulled her into the dorm, shutting the door heavily behind them.
He pulled her over to the second bed from the left, and silently dragged her onto his lap. His usual patient, chivalrous side seemed to have ebbed away, along with his smiles and good humour, and she forced herself to relax into his arms as he pushed her onto the bed and crawled over her, his knees planted on both sides of her hips.
She wanted to cry as he kissed her, and she wondered if he could feel her hesitation, if he could taste her guilt, or if he was blinded by his desire to lose himself for a moment, tired of waiting for a girlfriend who never wanted to give it up, sick of hearing stupid questions about how he felt about his murdered uncle, and she found herself slowly drifting away into a state of mental absence as her body reacted to his gentle strokes and bruising kisses.
"God Alicia," he murmured into her skin, "You've no idea how long I've wanted this -
She blocked out his voice, pretended she was somewhere else, someone else. She was used to this, used to shutting her eyes and floating away, this was how sex had always been for her until...
Cassius' face loomed in her mind, and she blocked that out too.
She was distantly aware of Carson's hands unbuttoning her blouse, and she crawled further into herself as he pressed heated kisses against her chest, dipping lower and lower until he dragged off her skirt and took her knickers with it.
She settled herself in some far away place of dreams, somewhere she remembered visiting in her sleep as a child, a place high above the clouds where only treetops were seen, where fairies and birds squabbled and where fizzing whizzbees flew about, just begging to be caught and eaten.
She was brutally torn back to earth as she felt Carson slide into her, his rhythm rough and frenzied as he sought to lose himself in instant gratification. Her name sounded all wrong coming out of his mouth, and it was like being in some sort of muggle carnival fun house where nothing made sense and time seemed to slow down, when what she really wanted was for it to go faster. It was a horrible twist of irony that Carson had good endurance, and so Alicia too learned to endure. She shut her eyes and lay silently below him as she drifted back to her dreamland. When he finally came, she let out a sigh of relief that she pretended was a sigh of pleasure, and let him benignly kiss her before she put on her clothes and told him she had to go and meet Angelina.
She ran into Peter Kapur and Roger Davies on her way out, and they both teased her about coming out of their dorm with sex hair, and she smiled and laughed and told them off like acting was her natural born talent.
Once she made it out of Ravenclaw tower, she ran and ran and ran until she found herself at the music room that she imagined still smelled like Cassius, and taking a deep shuddering breath, she sunk down onto the floor and wept. When she looked up to take a breath, she saw a half-empty pack of Chasers on the floor by the piano bench, and she knew then that he'd been there. As if on cue, just when she'd crawled over and gently cradled the pack in her hand, she felt the prickle of someone's gaze on the back of her neck, and she stood up and turned around. Through the little glass window, she saw Cassius' face for a split second before he was gone like an apparition.
She ran over and threw open the door, and before she knew what she was doing, she heard herself calling out his name, her voice choked with regret.
Slowly, he turned around, his face white, pinched and closed off.
"It's over, Spinnet," he said in a blank voice.
"Cassius," she whispered pleadingly.
His eyes bore into hers, his gaze expressionless and withdrawn.
"It's over," he repeated, backing away from her. "You're all his." He paused. "I'll take the cigarettes back though. Accio."
She felt the pack of Chasers fly out of her hands, torn out of her grasp by force of magic. He snatched them out of the air.
"Have a nice life, Spinnet."
"Cassius - please, just let me explain -
He twirled around, and this time she saw the whirl of emotions flash behind his eyes, all the anger and hurt and jealousy, before it was replaced once again by the cool unreadable mask of indifference.
"You don't have anything to explain. Any third year with a halfway functioning imagination could guess what you've been up to," he said cruelly, eying her hair and untucked blouse. "I'm leaving now. I just came back for my fags, not to hear a sob story. Have a nice life, Spinnet and let's just leave it at that."
"Cassius -
"Don't," he hissed, taking two long, furious steps towards her. "Don't call me that ever again. Don't call me anything ever again, do you understand? It's over. For good. And trust me, it couldn't have come at a better time." He took a deep breath and gave her a curt, dismissive nod. "You'll stay away from me, Alicia," he said in a low, scratchy voice. "You'll stay away if you know what's good for you. Don't ever talk to me again."
Ok, so who wants to kill me now!?