Chapter 14
"Cassie?" Lisa, still standing at the picket fence, hesitant to walk towards the shack, called out for her friend. Yet, like many times before, no reply came.
Frustrated she finally decided to walk over there when she heard Isaac's voice. "Lisa?"
"Isaac!" She quickly backed away from the fence, like a child caught doing something naughty.
"Have you seen Regulus, or Cassandra perhaps? I've been searching for the three of you for the past hour and a half…"
"Hour and a half… wait, is it past one o'clock now?" Lisa asked as a sudden idea popped in her mind. When Isaac nodded, she sighed a breath of relief. "I think the two of them are on a date then…"
Isaac's surprised face made her chuckle and they hurried away from the shack, as Lisa pondered when and how did Cassandra manage to slip by her. "If she wanted to see him that much, she could have just told me." The girl whispered to herself. As they disappeared from the vicinity of the Shrieking shack so did the dread, which had settled down in her stomach previously, disappear.
As the night fell, Lisa still could not find Cassandra anywhere, and when she confronted Regulus about it the feeling of dread returned, ten times stronger than when they were at the shack.
"She never showed up at the Three Broomsticks Lisa…" Regulus' sad voice echoed through her mind. Her friend was missing and she didn't know what to do about it.
They broke the rules by going off track, and Cassandra broke even more rules by staying out past the curfew. If she told someone now and Cassie showed up, they would all face consequences, but if she stayed quiet for now and waited it out, she risked Cassandra's life if something happened to her.
"Regulus!" Lisa yelled from one side of the common room. The boy looked at her with confusion, slowly getting up from his seat and moving to her.
"Yes?" He asked confused.
"Your brother knows a prefect, right?" Lisa asked not waiting for a reply. "We need him to look for Cassie, discreetly…"
Regulus furrowed his brows, confusion written all over his face.
"Cassie's been missing, since today afternoon… I thought she slipped away to meet with you but, you told me she never showed up… if she's fine, then I risk getting her into more trouble, and if she's not then waiting might be worse… just, can you get me to your brother, or his prefect?" Lisa begged him as Regulus's sad and confused face contorted in fear.
He simply nodded taking out a necklace from underneath his garbs. "Slytherin common room, urgent." He whispered to the pendant and then waited for a couple of seconds.
Lisa watched in awe as letters appeared on the back of the silver pendant. "Five minutes."
Regulus nodded. "Let's go."
For the second time in this week, Lisa slipped out of their common room, after curfew, and followed Regulus to a secluded part of the hallway. A couple of minutes later Sirius Black appeared, seemingly in a rush, and stared at the two of them.
"You said it's urgent Regulus?" He quickly whispered looking back and forth between him and Lisa.
"We need Remus' help…" Regulus started but quieted down as soon as Sirius started shaking his head.
"Remus can't…" The other Black brother tried to speak but this time Lisa interrupted.
"Cassie's missing! She never returned from Hogsmeade! Please, if she's in trouble we need to find her." The girl said urgently.
Sirius looked at her, the same fear now plastered all over his and his brother's face. "She's missing? How? When did you last see her?"
"Around 12 o'clock, she went towards the Shrieking shack, I couldn't follow her, but since she was supposed to meet Regulus at one o'clock, I thought she slipped away from me… it never occurred to me that something might have happened to her!" Lisa almost cried. Regulus observed his brother's face as all the colour drained from it.
"Shrieking… shack…" Sirius whispered in horror.
"Sirius…?" Regulus tried to get to his brother but Sirius just shoved him away.
"Get back to your dormitory, I'll discuss this with Remus, we… we will find her." Sirius rushed his brother.
"But I want to help!" Regulus and Lisa spoke in unison.
"No!" If she's where you're saying she is then only a prefect can help her, and I assume that your prefects have better business than to deal with this… we'll take care of it. Now go back!"
And as quickly as he said that, he disappeared down the hallway, leaving the two of them standing there, still confused and worried even more.
Monsters and beasts, struggling and fighting inside the room, scratching and ripping apart the furniture. Their gnarling teeth and hissing sounds were avidly vivid in Cassandra's flashes which pierced her mind, each image more graphic than the other. Finally, they stopped and nothing but the deafening, velvety black curtain, which enveloped her mind, remained. It seemed like minutes had passed since the images had flashed in her mind.
As she gradually regained consciousness, her aching body reminded her of where she was, lying on the dusty floor of the abandoned house. Her left arm felt numb, and with great pain she moved it, yelping as blood started to rush back to it.
She finally opened her eyes and noticed it was pitch dark, only source of light would be the full moon, shining through the bedroom window. The left side of her head felt sticky, and as she touched it she realized she had cut her head open on one of the splintered pieces of wood, lying scattered around the floor.
With a groan, and a lot of effort, Cassandra propped herself up, her left arm still numb and her wand, nowhere to be found.
Taking deep breaths, she waited for her pain to stop, even though it showed no sign of stopping. Her head still throbbing from the images and the cut, and other parts of her body aching from the painful position in which she had passed out. Finally, when her arm started to get some feeling back in it, she started looking for her wand.
Just then, the quiet night was disrupted by the sounds of something moving downstairs… and then a bone chilling howl erupted from downstairs. Scratching and tumbling as a fight ensued, making the girl hurry with her search.
Eventually, she found her wand, which had rolled under the wardrobe. She ducked down to quickly recover it as the sounds of animals, or beasts, in any case, something dangerous, grew nearer every second.
Just as she grabbed her wand a deer barged through the door, slowly backing away. When it noticed her it almost looked as surprised as herself.
She might have even sighed a breath of relief had it not been followed by a monster she had already seen in her dreams, or nightmares, whatever those flashing images might have represented. The monster was occupied by the deer until it entered the room and then started to loudly sniff around, its gaze, slowly lowering down onto Cassandra. The hungry gaze of a werewolf wassomething Cassandra never thought she would come face to face with. She recognized it immediately, the pictures she had once seen in a book truly did it justice.
The deer quickly placed itself between them, almost like it was protecting her and the two started to tumble again, as the deer tried it's earnest to hold out against the force of the werewolf, with its antlers.
But the deer could only hold out so long before the beast attacked and shoved it away. Now nothing stood between it and Cassandra. Utterly terrified the girl could barely move, let alone think of a spell which might help her.
It tried to attack her but she just barely yelled Protego making it bounce back. As the deer recollected itself, she moved further away, slowly creeping towards the window, thinking about jumping through it, but the height made her question whether or not that would be wise.
As the deer moved itself in front of her again, and the beast recollected, Cassandra saw another beast behind it, this time a giant black dog, softly growling behind it.
Before the werewolf could strike the deer again, the dog, which she had also seen in her flashes, jumped up and dragged the beast outside with the help of the deer. They continued to tumble outside the room, as Cassandra thought about how she could escape through the window.
"Maybe if I could get the mattress out there somehow…" She whispered, trying to calm herself down. Grabbing the sides of the mattress however soon proved futile. For some reason, it was extremely heavy, and as the tumbling outside of the room continued, she barely managed to move it a couple of centimeters. Not only that, but the window was too narrow which would require her to muster up all the strength to bend the mattress and push it through.
"Ah, crap…" Cassandra cried out after realizing it would take her too long to continue with that plan.
The door, through which the beasts and monsters barged in, was only slightly ajar, but as she climbed up the window they opened again and she almost jumped out, barely catching herself when she saw Sirius emerging from the shadows.
"Sirius!" She yelled out of relief and ran towards him, grabbing him around his waist and hugging him tightly. His left collarbone was bleeding and he had a wound just above his eyebrows as well. "I'm so glad to see you but we need to get out of here, there are monsters everywhere!"
"Shh, I know, Prongs… I mean the deer is handling it at the moment, we need to escape, and since downstairs is busy… I suggest the window…" He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back to the window. "I'll need you to trust me with this, alright? If you're scared just close your eyes."
Cassandra nodded, clutching to his ripped shirt and suddenly she felt him jump with her through the window. "Arresto Momentum!" She heard him mumble and they slowly tumbled down, getting a few scrapes here and there.
Cassandra opened her eyes as they landed and saw that the deer was back in the room.
Before she could speak however, Sirius grabbed her arm and pulled her up. "We need to run now Cassie! Can you do that?"
Again, she only nodded and they were off, sprinting away from the Shrieking shack, all the way back to Hogsmeade. They ran to the quiet village until they stood in front of the Honeydukes.
"Alohomora!" Sirius whispered and the doors opened in front of them. The bells above the door rang alerting the owners of possible intruders.
"Silencio!" He whispered at the bells trying to minimize their chances of getting caught.
"Quickly!" She followed him inside, not caring much about them breaking in and he closed the door, locking them behind them again.
Taking her hand, he led her behind the counter, and as they opened the door they heard the owners shuffling downstairs.
They ducked behind the door and waited until they heard the owners confused voices as they went back upstairs.
Finally, they could breathe normally and the adrenaline rush seemed to wear off of both of them.
"We're not done yet sweetheart, we still need to get back to Hogwarts…" Sirius whispered, taking her hand gently again and leading her further down to the basement and then behind a secret passage.
"I didn't know this existed…" Cassandra whispered a couple of minutes later.
"Not many do…" Sirius said with a smile.
"Sirius how did you…"
"Not now love, we need to get you somewhere safe first, and we need to talk, I'll bring you to the Gryffindor common room, you'll stay there until I get back to you okay? I'll explain everything later…" He quickly cut her off and Cassandra, not wanting to stress him or herself even more simply accepted those terms.
After a couple of more minutes just hastily walking down the dark corridor, they finally emerged from it. Cassandra quickly noted that they were on the third floor, and that the secret passage was behind the portrait of the One-eyed witch.
Sirius then took out a piece of parchment and whispered "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." while pointing his wand at it.
The parchment suddenly started to reveal its secrets, and Cassandra barely managed to read the words 'Marauder's map' off of it, before Sirius opened it and started navigating them through the hallways. He would suddenly make a sharp turn here and there, and Cassandra realized he was avoiding teachers by using the map.
Finally, they found themselves in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. He coughed loudly, waking her up from her slumber.
"Oh dear!" The Fat Lady looked at them up and down, noting her Slytherin attire and giving Sirius a sly smirk. "Password?"
"Wiggentree." Sirius said without a moment of hesitation and quickly pulled Cassandra inside. With a sigh of relief he mumbled "Mischief managed" to the map and all the writing disappeared from it.
With Sirius leading the way, they entered a cozy, round common room, with a neat little fire burning in the fireplace. Long red curtains adorned the windows, a noticeboard was hung up near the entrance and comfortable and squishy armchairs decorated the room and gave it warmth, that the Slytherin common room lacked.
"Oh… it's so… different." Cassandra said, sharply inhaling as the adrenaline slowly washed away finally.
Sirius ever so absently nodded, not letting her stay there for too long, for fear of getting caught by others. He pulled her towards the dormitories, entering the fourth door on the left.
"You can rest here… I'll come back a while later… the first bed is mine, uh the rest are sleeping, so don't need to worry about them." Avoiding her gaze he pulled all the curtains on the beds, all the time whispering to her.
"Here's some fresh clothes…" He handed her some shorts and a t-shirt. "…they might be too big but at least they're clean…"
"Sirius, why couldn't I have just gone to my dorm then?" Cassandra asked. Finally, the exhaustion seeped back into her and she wanted more than anything in the world to be lying in her bed right now… not his.
Sirius paused for a second, as if that thought hadn't occurred to him before. "Before you go back, I need to speak with you privately… right now, I'm short with time… I need to go, somewhere… listen, I'll explain everything when I get back, just try and get some rest while I'm out, alright love?"
"Stop calling me…" Cassandra almost raised her voice.
"It's a catchphrase…" He interrupted her, placing a finger on her mouth. "Besides, you don't want to wake up the others right?"
Her fiery eyes pierced through him but he only smirked. "Get some sleep." And without further delay he left the room.
Cassandra was fuming but she was basically stranded in the dorm. If she tried to leave and get back she would most likely get caught by the teachers… Sirius took the map with him as well, not to mention if she was caught in the Gryffindor common room she would be punished even harder.
Sighing, she pulled the curtains around her bed, changed her clothes and nestled into the bed.
The sheets smelled of him, a fresh, comforting smell that made her feel safe, quickly lulled her to sleep, where she dreamed of Sirius and a giant black dog slowly approaching her and merging into one…