C. M. Black: Skin of a Dragon
Chapter XXV: Goodnight, the Brightest Star
The skies were cloudless as June drew to an end. Light shone brightly through the windows of the classrooms, casting long shadows across the stone floor and always illuminating the parchment to an uncomfortably bright white. Exams passed with little record. The stress and panic were still present, as it would always be, but most of the attention was focused on the upcoming final task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Charms was as simple as usual, summoning and banishing items, charming the teapot to talk back to you with whatever persona Professor Flitwick desired at the time. Neville had been assigned grumpy, although his teapot was a little more foal-mouthed than expected, Professor Flitwick was cheerfully impressed, even when the teapot threatened to spit on him for his insufferable noise. The entire class waiting outside had heard it and Neville had emerged red-faced, but well praised.
Transfiguration was interesting with a complex change of colour and appearance, texture and pattern required from a pig into a pair of curtains. Cassy fashioned them on a pair she had at home and Professor McGonagall stopped her after the lesson to enquire where she had thought them up from. Cassy had the feeling her Professor rather wanted a pair.
All the exams were set to finish before the final task. Only History of Magic was left to the morning of the day. Harry mumbled that he would rather be in the exam than in the common room by himself with the other year students. A particularly unsavoury article had emerged in the paper that morning about him being deranged, unhinged even, he was attention-seeking and playing to the very reputation Skeeter had cultivated for him. It seemed that while a complaint had kept Cassy and Neville from any further attention, the Daily Prophet was incapable of turning down a story about Harry Potter; particularly one that involved him in a negative light, plastered across the front page.
They had muttered to one another the moment the paper had dropped into their laps. The question they all wanted to know was how Skeeter could possible have heard. Yet the class had consisted of only Gryffindors. Her account was surprisingly accurate of the details of the event, Neville had quickly said, so for once it would appear that she did not get her information from a student. However, Harry's vision had occurred forty-feet upwards in the top room of a tower. There was no circumstance that she could have heard him from the grounds. Cassy looked to Hermione, waiting for her brain to kick into motion and reveal her latest idea. She had, after all, been putting a lot of time and effort into thinking of magical methods of eavesdropping, while Cassy had been focusing her research on helpful techniques for Harry's upcoming challenge. Hermione's face had brightened, her eyes wide and shining suddenly, before she dashed from the table. The newspaper vanished with her.
Cassy rose to complete her final exam with all curiosity she had pushed to the back of her mind. The exam was boring and tedious in length, yet no more challenging than that of her first year one had been. She peered around. Her quill tapped on her cheek as she delayed reading her paper back with ten minutes to spare. To her left, Ron was scribbling his words down joyfully. Cassy had a strange suspicion than he was making his answers up, although she was sure that Professor Binns would not notice at all of half the goblins had new names. Hermione was still writing furiously and Neville was slouched and slow, yet still not quite given up.
When the final bell rand and the dulcet tone of Professor Binns called out for them to all drop their quills and push back their seats, Cassy could not help but let a grin tug at her lips. Despite the worry that had yet to fade from the past week for Harry, Cassy felt more positive than she had in a long time. Her exams were over. Harry's task would be over tonight and the worry of the task would finally be over at best, and while at worst unfavourable events would unfold, at least the tensions that she had shouldered all year would finally break. Even more excitingly, although she would never admit it, in just over a week she would be home again. There had been no more letters regarding Alphard's condition. There had been no word of decline and although no proof of improvement had been sent, Cassy considered it much more likely Tonks' would let her know if something terrible had occurred. Cassy could care for him over the summer. She could find something for him to do to occupy his time now and she all ready had a few ideas on the matter she was eager to propose.
'How did that go then?' asked Hermione eagerly. 'I think I got all the names right, but I wasn't sure how to spell them all - '
'We had to be able to spell them?' repeated Neville, dully.
'We had to remember their names?' came Ron's faint echo from further back.
Cassy and Neville let out a short burst of giggles, while Hermione rolled her eyes.
'How did you two do anyway? What grade do you think you'll get?' continued Hermione.
'I think all of time merged together to make my essay,' admitted Neville, his lips pressed into a thin line.
'I'm sure it's not that bad,' comforted Hermione.
'That bad,' echoed Cassy lowly with a snort.
'Oh, you know what I meant,' said Hermione. She quickly waved Cassy away and turned to pat Neville on the back.
Suddenly, everyone stopped and the conversations grew louder in protest.. Narrowly missing bumping into Hannah Abbot, Cassy paused and stained her neck to see what had caused to suddenly delay. People slipped through the doorway one at a time.
'What do you see?' she asked Neville.
Standing on the tips of his toes, Neville bobbed amongst the small sea of curious heads. 'Someone is waiting by the door. I want to say a Professor, but they don't seem to be stopping anyone.'
As fast as the crowd would allow, Cassy, Neville, and Hermione made their way to the exit. Sure enough, there was a figure waiting in the crook of the doorway.
'Miss Black,' said Professor McGonagall, peering over the rims of her spectacles at her. Her lips were pinned into a thin line.
'Professor,' greeted Cassy back, restraining a frown.
'Please follow me,' she said.
Cassy's eyes tensed a fraction. There was something solid and stern in her Head of House's expression that left no room for compromise or refusal. She did not even turn and assume Cassy was following as she usually would have done, but instead waited for a sign of conformation that she would certainly follow her orders.
Cassy looked back to Neville and Hermione, this time unable to stop her eyebrows lowering. 'I will meet you both later.'
Hermione shifted her bag, looking mildly agitated. She had caught Cassy's eye before the exam had begun with her eyebrows raised and eyes wide. Jiggling her bag pointedly, Hermione had sat in front of her. Whatever it was that she had wanted to tell her – and Cassy had a fairly certain idea what it was relating to – would have to wait until the final task.
Cassy followed Professor McGonagall silently. They strode down the empty corridors at an unnatural pace and never once did Professor McGonagall look back at her. She pushed open the door to her office, her hands quickly folded in front of her and she remained by the door. Her head was turned to something inside.
Intrigued, Cassy peered around the frame. The room was brightly illuminated from the vast, arched windows and the bright summer light. A slight chill met her skin. The room was too large and the ceiling was too high to retain much of the early warmth.
A woman stood beside the desk at the far end. Her hair was chin length and mousey brown, her skin pale and her eyes a dark, dull brown. Her heart-shaped face was crumpled slightly, taking away from the beauty of it, if just slightly.
'Tonks?' said Cassy in surprise.
Tonks' expression crumbled further.
Cassy became rigid where she stood.
'Cassy,' Tonks said gently. 'Cassy... Alphard is not well and he wants to see you. I know it is inconvenient, but he would really like you there.'
'Of course,' said Cassy immediately. 'He... he had never asked me to visit since Christmas.'
She had wanted to see him. She always asked, but he always refused to house her.
Tonks cast her a crooked smile that was worse than any malicious scowl that could have been shot at her then. As she took a step towards Cassy, Tonks did not meet Professor McGonagall's eye. She only thanked her quietly while she placed a hand on Cassy's shoulder, urging her back out of the room and towards the stairs.
Despite the dozens of questions Cassy wished to ask, one being why Tonks had changed her hair to such an unremarkable colour amongst the handful concerning Alphard, she said nothing. There seemed to be no right words to begin and frankly Cassy was not sure she wanted to hear the response. Instead, she let Tonks manoeuvre her as she saw fit through the empty halls. Cassy almost pulled out of her grip at the roar of noise that echoed through the Entrance Hall as they descended the stairs, unwilling to be seen pulled and pushed by the lunching students. The grip only tightened. Tonks guided her into the Floo network and back out again. A flash of green light was all Cassy had time to register. There was barely time to realise they were back in the hospital before she was pulled down a narrow corridor. The walls were white and bright from the light through the large windows. The blue floor was oddly clean, as if untrodden, or freshly mopped, and there were no seats that lined the walls. All the doors were closed and not a single one had a window in it.
'Tonks, where are we going? You never told me Alphard was back in hospital again,' demanded Cassy as her stomach became more and more unsettled. She had never seen this part of the hospital before. It was the farthest right wing on the ground floor, cordoned off by permanently closed double doors. There were no voices, no signs of concerned spouses and stubborn patients. No children's laughs sounded. Not a single nurse peeped out of a room.
Cassy was a second from digging her heels into the ground and to refuse to take another step until everything was explained when Tonks stopped beside a pale blue door; it was identical to every other door
Her fingers lingered on the handle until she looked back around at Cassy.
'Wait here a moment,' she said gently, before poking her head inside. A second later, all of her disappeared and Cassy was left to stare up and down the bland hall. The windows overlooked a small courtyard. A small water fountain bubbled, silver and bronze glistened beneath the rippling surface, representing each thought and prayer of a loved one who had come through the hospital's doors. On one of the benches, beneath a small blossoming tree, sat an elderly couple. The woman wore a pale gown, the old man beside her held her arm. They were not talking, but watching the water ripple, sat as close together as they could with their hands intertwined on the edges of both their knees.
'Cassy,' came a voice from behind her.
Cassy almost jumped.
Tonks' face was blank. She nodded her head to the room behind her and had it propped open so slightly that Cassy could not even tell the colour of the walls. Slowly, yet so quickly in her mind, Cassy took a step towards it. Silently, she looked at Tonks, but the other shook her head and nudge Cassy a step further into the room. The door was shut behind.
Perplexed, Cassy turned to the bed in front of her. Several cords were tethered to the needles that pierced the pale skin; small, flickering numbers shifted around on the circler dish that was fixed to the closest wall. There was a single window, but the sun could not pierce it. The only light was from the many unsteady flames of the gas lamps that lined the little room, regardless of how much the sun shone through the rustling leaves outside. It was not real, realised Cassy instantly; it was charmed to always be cheerful and beautiful, quite unlike the view from any other hospital window that overlooked London.
Ashen, more than pale, is the first word that came to Cassy's mind. Alphard's face was an ashen white, not dissimilar to his white hair and it made his black eyebrows all the more pronounced. His grey eyes were watery and they were staring straight back at her. His chest rattled with each breath.
'You made it,' he said.
'Of Course.' Cassy bent stiffly into the wooden seat that was all ready set beside his bed.
'I am glad.'
Cassy smiled gently at him. It was an automatic response.
Alphard turned towards the window.
'They asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted the park that I used to be able to see from my bedroom in my first home. I never did show you where I lived before you came into my care. It was small, but it was beautiful. I always imagined moving back into the area one day,' he said distantly. There was a sweet and gentle smile on his face, the kind only a select few ever had the pleasure of seeing. 'It was just right for an eighteen-year-old starting out as an apprentice. I worked for a man named Lamark. You would have loved him, hated him personally, but he was brilliant. He used to run the company I do – I did – before it went down the drain at the hands of his nephew for a few years before he took it back and assigned it over to me at his death.'
Sweat glistened at the brim of his hairline. His lips were barely more coloured than his face and his hands even less so. They shook as they plucked and pulled at the thin sheets that covered his body.
'I know the next task will begin soon, but I am glad you chose to see me, Cassy.'
'I would always come, Alphard,' answered Cassy firmly.
'I know and I am sorry for being so selfish,' he said; his eyes crumpled slightly and his brows lowered just a fraction. 'I just wanted to explain some things to you before I cannot.'
Cassy tilted her head slightly and frowned back at him. She was unable to stop the most ludicrous question falling from her lips. 'Are you all right?' Cassy almost scoffed at herself. 'Tonks did not tell me why you were here, or that you were even here at all - '
'I asked her not to. I needed... time. I needed time to get some affairs in order and to think of what I am about to say. For this, Cassy, I need you to listen very carefully.' He held out his hand and Cassy grasped it tightly. His grip was nothing more than a flutter against her fingers.
He began to speak slowly, precisely. 'When I first took you in, I did not know what to expect. You were the child of my favourite nephew, the one I had placed all my hopes and expectations on, the one I thought, wrongfully, that he would really make something of himself. Your father was always joking, sniggering behind his hand one second and wearing a perfectly respectable dour expression the next. I would always invite him around during the holidays, just to keep his company. He was smart, but weaker than I had thought... he succumbed to the Dark Arts like his brother, like his mother, and I had never seen it coming. I was devastated, utterly heart-broken, so when a man knocked on my door early one morning, asking if I would have you, I was sceptical, but I could not turn you out. I had never considered having children myself, families were often messy affairs, but there has not been a single day since the first time I held you in my arms that I regretted saying yes that bleak November morning.
'I can only look back in sadness at the prospect that I could have missed it all. Never had a thought crossed my mind before that day that I might have been missing something so grand, but I had been. It was never the same once you had gone to Hogwarts. The house was too big and too quiet. I could eat my breakfast in peace. It always went cold by the time I remembered it was there with no nosey child to remind me there was a world beyond the morning paper.
'I am proud of who you are, Cassy. Of the strength you possess and the mind that you always seek to develop. I could not be more proud of who you are and who I know you will become. This time, I am sure I have placed my efforts into something positive.'
Cassy wore an odd expression, caught somewhere between a shy smile and doleful stare. Tentatively, she said, 'Uncle, I do not see - ' She stopped suddenly, feeling a weight on the top of her head. Alphard's hand ruffled the top of her hair, upsetting the carefully secured style and tugging it from her neat bun. She ducked her head out of his reach with a slight whine. It had been years since he had done that. Not since she had reached his elbow had he ruffled her hair. He laughed.
'You have changed in recent years. You were always clever and caring, but you have finally begun to show it to the world as you have always done to me. I have yet to meet a fifteen-year-old with as much intelligence and integrity, and heart, as you have. Nor will I ever. You must remember that.' His thumb brushes along the back of her hand.
Cassy almost wretched her hand away.
'Why are you saying these things? You don't – it's not - ' burst Cassy. Her mouth opened and closed, the barest of noised emitted as she struggled to find her feelings.
To say such words were not proper was not quite right. It was simply not done, to praise someone so highly, to say such awkward words to calmly and so warmly was simply not done. So why was Alphard doing it now?
Her face was pained. Alphard's was sombre.
'I called you here because I need you to understand that times are changing,' he explained, the smile dead and gone from his face. 'As you know and have brought up relentlessly, Narcissa and I have fought this year and it is because of the oncoming change.'
Cassy lifted her head to listen with her full attention, despite her crumpled brow.
'I knew – I knew as soon as I arrived at the Quidditch World Cup, that things could not remain the same. It was just not until afterwards that I realised how much they would change. Things cannot remain the same. The Malfoy's have a side... and that side is not a place for you, nor for me. There is no room for people like us in their new world.'
'What are you talking about?' asked Cassy, although she knew she should not interrupt. Her voice seemed to startle Alphard. He looked at her in surprise, as though in those few short seconds he had forgotten she was there. He licked his lips and took a breath to compose himself again.
'When you first visited me at the hospital, Narcissa wanted to take you in, rather than allow you to go to the Weasleys'. I could not allow you to be subjected to their influence,' he said firmly, despite his weak tones.
Cassy laughed incredulously. 'It was for a week! And what influence? I have always known the Malfoys, they are family.'
Alphard looked her dead in the eye for the first time since they had joined hands. His expression was humourless.
'It would be for the next two years,' he said shortly.
'I... I do not understand,' stuttered Cassy, her disbelieving smile slipped slightly, but remained etched, despite her darkened eyes.
Alphard did not say anything in return. His eyes closed and he turned his head towards the ceiling.
'Alphard!' snapped Cassy.
'I always knew from the moment I took you in, that I would miss a majority of your life, but I never thought it would be quite so much.' His eyes remained closed.
Cassy gripped his hand tighter. Suddenly, he lurched forward, coughing and spluttering into the crook of his free arm. Half the wires dragged across the bed with it. He breathed in sharply.
Cassy recoiled and stood. Her face was thunderous, shadowed by her own lipped brow and curled lips.
'I am not having this conversation. We do not need to have this conversation. I will got and get you some water - ' she rambled.
Perhaps, she thought, she would try and drown him in that water too, for being so utterly stupid.
Alphard creakily muttered beneath her words. His hand was still in hers, holding on tightly despite the way it shook, despite the cold that gripped every finger. She did not have the heart to wretch it from him, although she easily could have. It was as though it had bound her to the ground, no more than two feet from the bed – the longest their limbs could extend with Alphard's limb still so tightly wrapped in cords.
'Cassiopeia!' His voice was not strong, but it was loud and sharp.
Cassy paused her mental seething and whipped her head around in surprise.
'I have been unwell for a long time. Do not tell me that it has not once crossed your mind that this was an unusual injury.' His voiced dropped again. 'There is no way you did not, you are such a clever girl. There is no way that it never occurred to you that it was not something much more sinister.'
Cassy's eyes darted around the room. She looked for anything else to focus on. Anything at all to look at, to drown at the weird, horrible, terrible, unfairly emotional tone in his voice. He was never so soft. He spoke his reassurances in a single sentence, then it was pushed aside and forgotten. It was horribly wrong to listen to him now. It was wrong.
'Cassy.'
'Please, do not... just... stop. Just stop,' she pleaded, shaking her head.
Alphard squeezed her hand once more. 'You have long since chosen a side and I cannot imagine you leaving it.'
Cassy bites her lip and squeezed his hand in return. She did not face him, still standing. Slowly and hesitantly, she asked, 'What side are you speaking of? You said 'us', as if you were on my side.'
She knew. Of course she all ready knew, but she needed to hear it. She needed some sort of conformation.
'I will always be on your side,' was all he said.
There was a pause, before Cassy said tiredly, 'Do you know that they have certainly chosen that side?'
'Lucius and Narcissa have never let go of his teachings. I cannot imagine it otherwise, but I cannot be certain. Yet, I would feel like a very poor guardian if I allowed you to be pressured and swayed in your views when I am gone.'
'Stop speaking like that,' sneered Cassy.
Silence fell. There was no noise from the lamps, or from the monitoring spells across the room. There was no rustling to add life to the trees outside and no song to accompany the bird perched on the imagined windowsill.
'Perhaps if I had offered to take in Sirius when I first noticed the problems between him and his family, things may have been different and he would not have gone the way he did. Perhaps he would have had the opportunity to be a father,' he said and Cassy turned to him at the change of topic. Heavily, she dropped herself back into the chair, but she refused to look at him. Stinging surged in her eyes. 'I thought that perhaps if I did well by his child, I could repair my memory of him, repair the regret in my heart for not having done more.'
Tears built. Her fingers wrapped around his securely. They had begun shaking, not his, but hers. She had begun shaking.
'Oh, Alphard,' she said, her voice quivering. 'Oh, Alphard, he is innocent! He never killed the Muggles. He never betrayed James and Lily. I swear it. I swear he is still the same boy you once knew and loved. I swear it!'
'How I wish I had heard those words these past thirteen years, but Cassy, not amount of wishful thinking will change what has happened. No matter how much we wish it...' he whispered back. His hand rose to the top of her head again as she bowed her forehead to the edge of his bed. She shook and he shook too, a soft, mournful smile on his face.
'I mean it. I swear I am telling you the truth. He broke into Hogwarts last year, you know he did and I found him on the grounds with Harry and Professor Lupin. I spoke to him. He never killed them. Pettigrew did! He cut off his finger and transformed into a rat. They were illegal animaguses. Lupin is a werewolf and – and Alphard I promise you he is not guilty!' Her head flew up and she stared at him dead in the eye, tears threatening to stream down her cheeks. 'I have been speaking to him all year through letters. They sentenced an innocent man to Azkaban without a trail.'
It felt good to finally tell him. She may not have imagined it happening anything like it had, but she was grateful she had said it. Tears spilt down her face, dripping onto her school skirt one at a time against her best efforts to stop the flow. She heaved a breath and continued to stare at Alphard imploringly. She was willing him to believe her. She needed him to believe her absurd story.
He just stared back with glassy eyes.
'Okay,' he finally said.
She did not know if that meant he believed her, or if he was just appeasing her, but she could not stop herself sagging in relief.
'It has been many years since I have seen you cry,' he mumbled.
'Why do you think that might be!' she snapped. 'You fool. You stupid old man.'
Alphard did not reprimand her as he should have done. Breathing shakily, he just watched her.
'Say something,' she demanded hoarsely. 'Dumbledore can prove it to you. He can bring him here.'
'It's okay, Cassy. I believe you,' he said softly.
In that moment, Cassy realised she could probably have told him anything about her father and he would have agreed with her. His face was attentive, listening to her garbled words with patience and understanding. He was not fighting her on something that he should have adamantly been against. He was willing to believe, at least for a few minutes, that his nephew had not turned against everything he had stood for. Sickness spurted from her stomach to her throat.
She pulled his hand up, gripping it with her other hand as well as her elbows rested on the thin mattress. Gently, she leant her forehead over the three extremities. For a time, they sat in silence. The monitor beeped quietly behind her thoughts. Cassy could not tell how long she had been there. She was not willing to hazard a guess. All she knew was that she was not leaving any time soon. Alphard had called her there to tell her he was terminally ill. When it would strike, she did not know, nor was she willing to ask. If she knew, she would never be able to leave his side. She would sit in the hospital from dawn until dusk, for as long as visiting hours would allow and them some if she could. She would spend her summer by his side. She would drag Draco and Narcissa in to reconcile with him, kicking and screaming if need be. Each day she would bring him food. She knew how much he hated hospital food. Perhaps she would bring him a radio in. The room was too quiet. She would need to make sure he still got his paper every morning and if he could not hold it himself, then she would read it to him every time.
Cassy watched the tiny, glowing numbers on the mounted plate grow a fraction higher.
'I want you to live with Tonks,' he said.
Cassy turned to him and blinked, wondering if she had missed part of the conversation.
'I want you to live with her and I have made all the arrangements. I was unsure of it at first. She is only twenty-two, just out of being a child, but she agreed and I cannot think of a better place for you. She is still family and it will only be for the holidays. She likes you very much.'
'I – no such arrangement needs be made right now, Alphard,' said Cassy quickly. 'We have been speaking a lot. I will go and fetch you some water.' She stood and tried to tug her hand from his, but he refused to let go.
'Please sit,' he said.
Cassy turned to him quickly, snarling. 'Merlin, Alphard! What do you expect me to do? I cannot – I can't... you can't...' She could not do it. She could not accept it, not like this, not so suddenly. She wanted to scream at him, tell him she still needed him and he could not do this, but she settled on asking, 'Why did you not tell me this earlier?' Her hands were finally free. Tears once again streaming down her cheeks as she quickly paced up and down the floor of the tiny hospital room.
Alphard coughed. 'I know how fond you are of your cousins and Draco is just a boy... I could not pin a thought like that to you before I absolutely had to. My family was pulled apart during the first war for conflicting thought and I could not stand the thought of - ' he coughed again into the crook of his arm, ' - of being the one to instigate that divide. Yet, I cannot allow you to to go to a household that might force change on you like that, not at a time like this. It may undo everything you have strove to become.'
'I would never - ' began Cassy fiercely.
'No one usually assumes it is the path they will take, but sometimes they do, and it would break my heart to think that you could,' he said. 'Thirteen years I would have spent trying to teach you tolerance and sympathy – the lessons my parents failed to teach me and it would be squashed out of you in an environment that would force you to act in ways you cannot imagine.'
'You cannot know that,' said Cassy lowly and stubbornly. When Alphard did not reply, Cassy returned to the chair and gripped Alphard's hand tightly once more. The numbers on the monitor had risen again and Cassy pursed her lips. Alphard was not talking in terms of months, but instead days. He had finalised everything all ready and invited her in to see him, as if it was all ready in motion. She was unable to stop a sob bubbling from her lips.
'This is my fault,' she breathed. 'You should never have come to get me. I should have proved to you that I was strong enough to manage on my own. Then you would never have been hurt.'
'That's the funny thing about love. No matter how old your child becomes, or how strong and skilled, no one ever really stops worrying for them, or wanting the best for them,' he said softly. 'If anything had happened to you, I would not have been able to forgive myself and I want you to know that. I do not regret it and you should not blame yourself. Never.'
Then I can never forgive myself for allowing something to happen to you, she thought darkly, he sacrificed so much in his life for me and this is what he winds up with.
The beeping in the background continued. Steadily, the noises were growing closer and closer. Something inside Cassy sank. There had been no noise earlier. They had sat in silence and there had been no beeps to match the climbing numers.
Suddenly, she realised that Alphard was squeezing her hand tightly. He frowned tensely.
'You w-will be okay, Cassy. I know you will. Per-perhaps not now, but someday... you will be okay. Th - the only time I want t-to see you again is when you are old and grey... and smiling,' he mumbled. His hand tightened again. 'Next time will be happy. No regrets.'
'Alphard!' cried Cassy. Ice climbed from her fingers to her toes. She squeezed his hand back just as forcefully. She chocked out his name again as he jerked. 'You can't do this. You haven't met my father, you haven't seen him, you have to meet him, let him explain.'
The numbers were climbing higher and Alphard chocked on his breath. His muscles tightened and relaxed sporadically. His free hand pulled and twisted at the bed sheet. Then, the numbers began to fall. The light on the machine started to glow brightly.
'Alphard! Alphard!' she screamed.
His eyes slipped closed. The hand she had been holding so tightly for so long, the hand she had reached for since she was a child, as far back as she could remember, loosened in her grip. His fingers became slack and the numbers stopped falling. They could sink no lower.
She screamed out again. She reached over, grabbing his opposite arm and shook him With each shake, his head lolled side to side. His right arm was unnaturally warm. The sleeve was quickly prised up to his elbow. Black rings punctuated his pale skin from his wrist to his shoulder, his veins bulging and black, connecting the rings in a horrid snake-like patterns.
Without realising it, Cassy collapsed back into the chair; her legs unable to hold her any longer. Her hand still held his burning skin, the other was tight around his icy fingers. Her head lay buried in the sheets; it barely muffled her anguish.
There was something that pulled on her shoulders. Cassy pulled back, but the pressure moved to her hands, prying them away and forcing her away – away from Alphard. She was heaved from her chair. Her hands reached out towards the bed. Her eyes were too blurry to see who it was that had disturbed her, but several voices rang in her ears, their mangled forms moving passed her as she was pulled farther into the light, farther from him. The next thing Cassy felt was warmth. Something, whoever had grabbed her, had pulled her close. Her head dug into the person's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Her nails dug into the shirt on their back, but they did not seem to notice, because they were holding her just as tightly. She could hear a shuddering breath in her ear beneath her own. With a start, she realised it must be Tonks. Tonks had dragged her from the room, the room she had taken her to knowing Alphard was dying.
'You!' she screeched, pulling away from her viciously. 'You knew this was going to happen! You brought me here to watch him die!'
Tonks did not let go of her. She pulled her back into her, holding fast as Cassy struggled furiously, cursing her name and everyone who passed by. The healers that rushed by to attend to him simply smiled at her mournfully.
Cassy stopped struggling. She did not move an inch. Her blinded eyes watching the healers detaching the monitor from Alphard. She watched the way they muttered to one another, touching and waving their wands over his still body. She could not hear them, but she could hear Tonks murmuring in her ear through her own tears.
'I'm sorry. I am so sorry.'
6000 words of death. I was every so pleased when people told me they liked Alphard and felt quite bad at the same time because this was one of the earliest scenes I had envisioned when I began to form the idea of a series. I am happy to finally publish it.
Also, congrats to the reviewer who told me long ago that they thought this might happen. We think along similar lines. :)
From the death I have experienced, and that is thankfully minimal, in Britain they call the closest family member when they can if they think someone will pass soon. Obviously, they have no way of knowing when and how soon immediately, but I used that theory here. I wouldn't have said Tonks intended Cassy to see Alphard die, but rather say goodbye and unfortunately happened to be there when he did. They did talk for a long time.
This was actually quite a fun chapter to write because Cassy's emotions were all over the place and seeing as she is usually so collected it was nice to right her unstable and passionate for a change. She might not always show it, but Cassy if fiercely loving when someone can worm their way into her life and I hope it wasn't too overbearing here.
Anyway, I hope you like it. It sets up nicely for next year and all the problems Cassy will have to face now along with the rest of the yearly issues.
Thanks!