Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

4. Foundling — IV

There was a painful burst of light magic, a roar of flame, painting yellows and oranges through the kitchen. By the time Cassie whipped around the fire had already dispersed, leaving a small roll of parchment on the counter, tied closed with a red ribbon.

Cassie sighed. It was hardly the first time this had happened, though of course there was only one person in Britain mad enough to use a phoenix to deliver a letter — she didn't have to read the message to know Albus had called an emergency Order meeting. They hadn't met in years, not since...'82? She thought it was '82, they'd still been mopping up the last few Death Eaters who'd refused to surrender, there'd been an incident with— No, that didn't matter right now. Unless there'd been an Azkaban breakout or Voldemort had somehow managed to re-embody himself, neither of which seemed likely, there was only one thing this could be about.

Albus had finally realised Violet was missing. About fucking time — how long had it been, a whole week? Mother Mercy, if someone who'd actually wanted to hurt Violet had found where she was, would it have taken this long for Albus to respond? Violet could have been long dead by now...

Letting out another long sigh, Cassie called, "Nola?"

The elf instantly appeared at her hip with the familiar little pop. "Yes, Mistress Cassie?"

"Mind taking over for me here?" Cassie conjured a stool for him with a snap of her fingers, sidled a bit to the side, letting go of the whisk.

"Oh!" Nola hopped up onto the stool, snatched the bowl and the whisk, and slowly started whipping. Glancing around the mess laid out on the counter, he asked, "What were you making? Meringue?"

Cassie moved the tray of half-prepared cakes from by the stove over to the island where Nola could see them. Butter biscuits had been formed into little cups, orange-mirabelle marmalade filling the bottom. "The meringue is the top layer of these. I was going to wait for it to set and then brown it a little before sticking them in a cold cabinet — sort of like a cross between an orange meringue pie and dacquises, if you know what I mean. Violet loved les dacquises at the café, so." Leaning against the counter, Cassie plucked up the parchment — a tingle of magic against her fingers, this parchment was a conjuration, probably duplicated from an original — tore off the ribbon and unrolled it. Yep, that was Albus's handwriting...

"Did you make these biscuits?" There was a faint note of skepticism on Nola's voice — hardly noticeable, but quite a lot for an elf.

She snorted. "No, do you think I know how to make wafers like that? I crushed the almonds, mixed them in and shaped the biscuits with transfiguration." Which was actually insanely difficult, getting such a complex material as a wafer biscuit to keep the proper consistency when manipulated like that. Obviously, people couldn't conjure food, but even professional chefs or pâtissiers rarely used transfiguration, because vanishingly few mages had the skill to do it successfully. But Cassie was a metamorph, so she was a huge fucking cheater.

(Also, metamorphs actually could eat conjured food, because they were huge fucking cheaters — she usually didn't, since she had no way to know if she was getting the nutrients right, but still.)

Despite how insane transfiguring wafer biscuits was, Nola wasn't even surprised, just bobbed his head in a nod. "Is the letter being a problem?"

"It's from Dumbledore," Cassie said, waving the conjured letter at him. "He's demanded my presence at Hogwarts in...ten minutes? I'm not actually sure what time it is."

"Three after and twenty-two."

"Right, eight minutes, then." Honestly, giving people so little time to respond, no wonder so many people had missed meetings back in the day. "Keep an ear out for Violet while I'm gone. I'm going to go tell her where I'll be, but I don't know when I'll be back."

"Yes, Mistress Cassie."

"Thanks, Nola, where would I be without you."

While she made for the door out back, Nola muttered, "Dead from drink, twelve years ago."

Cassie scoffed at him — really now, that was an exaggeration (though maybe not that much of one, honestly) — but didn't bother with a response.

There were people out in the courtyard, as there were at pretty much any time of day, though rather on the low end. Most of the adults living here had work elsewhere, and they staggered their hours so there were always several people around. The children mostly attended one school or another, though, the educational system being a confusing patchwork, it was hardly consistent. A batch of the youngest, four to seven or so, went to the local primary school, moving on to craft school around eight. Only a few, the ones whose families could actually afford to buy them wands, went to a proper academy — not Hogwarts, but an Ollscoil Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín, which was within walking distance of here. (A relatively long walk, but still doable.) An Ollscoil was a day school, so the few who did go there weren't gone all the time, but they would be at the moment.

The only adults in the courtyard were a trio of young mothers gathered gossiping around a table across the way — one of them, Éimhear Dhuibeasa (Uí Mhaoilriain), was visibly pregnant, though barely so, Cassie wasn't certain whether other people could even tell — a young man Cassie was pretty sure was one of their husbands playing with a few children around Violet's age, seven or eight. (They only needed to attend primary until they'd picked up enough reading and maths, it wasn't unusual for the sharper kids to have an off year before moving on to an academy or craft school.) They'd gotten the football out again, kicking the thing around and chasing after each other, bright giggles filling the courtyard. They were being a little rough, actually, shoves here and there that Cassie thought were against the rules, but it wasn't like it mattered, they were just messing around.

Cassie picked out Violet immediately. Besides the infrequent accidental outburst, Violet never changed anything about her appearance — she looked practically no different than she had the day Cassie had found her. (Though dressed much better, of course.) Cassie was certain her previous guardians had punished her for the slightest sign of magicalness, so she was simply too scared to use her abilities — her reaction to doing so accidentally during their house-warming certainly suggested as much — which was probably something she should try to address...but she had absolutely no idea how. The girl didn't really talk much to begin with, forcing her into what would be a very delicate, sensitive conversation sounded like it would be a bad idea.

Of course, even if she didn't look the same Cassie would recognise her anyway — Violet was there playing with the other children, but...warily. She was following the group around, but she wasn't struggling to get at the ball like the rest of them, just there. When one of the boys kicked the thing over to her she looked half-terrified, tensing, eyes jumping around between the children — and especially the one adult — passing it on to someone else right away, looking almost relieved once her turn with it was over.

Violet was trying, that much was clear — by her own choice, Lasairín had asked her out to play and Cassie had insisted she didn't have to if she didn't want to — but she just as clearly had no idea what she was doing. But then, Cassie had already guessed she'd never really had any friends before, that she was so nervous was just expected. And she guessed the language barrier didn't help...

"Sailí!" Cassie called out. Violet didn't respond to the name she'd picked for her to use in Gaelic right away. After a couple seconds one of the boys tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, pointing at Cassie, Violet finally looking up. "Come here, quick." She beckoned Violet over with a hand — she'd spoken in Gaelic, so that was probably necessary.

Violet hesitated for a second, wavering back and forth like a blade of grass on the wind, before trotting over toward Cassie. She looked a little nervous, but that wasn't really a surprise — she would stop worrying she was about to be punished eventually, Cassie was certain, though she had absolutely no idea how long she should expect these things to take.

Cassie sank down into a crouch as she neared, putting herself nearer the girl's level, the sudden movement making Violet twitch, though she relaxed immediately. "I have to go out for a bit. I should be back for dinner, though I'm not certain how long I'll be gone." Cassie nearly reached over to straighten Violet's cardigan — it'd gotten a little crooked, running around the yard — but second-guessed herself, just gave Violet a smile instead. "Nola's in the kitchen finishing the cakes I was working on, and he'll be listening for you, if anything comes up just call him. Do you need anything before I go?"

"No. Um..." Her eyes falling away, Violet fidgeted, uncomfortable.

"What is it, darling?"

"Um, can we have magic pizza tonight? If you're going to be out, there might not be time to cook until late..."

...It occurred to Cassie this was the first time Violet had offered an opinion, unprompted, on...pretty much anything, really. True, she'd tried to play it down a little bit, with the bit about maybe not having the time to cook, but still. "Sure, we can do that." Given that particular context, she was hardly about to refuse. "Steak and mushrooms on yours again?"

Violet seemed a little surprised — that Cassie remembered what she'd gotten last time? "Yes, please."

"Alright. Go play, I'll find you when I'm back."

"Okay." Violet hesitated a moment, her lips quirking a little, as though about to say something. Whatever it was, she must have changed her mind, since she turned around and scampered off instead.

Cassie went back inside to swap her house-slippers for sandals, and froze, bent over with her fingers holding the straps. Cassiopeia Black had been a member of the Order, the invitation for her, but Cassie was...not exactly in character at the moment. She was wearing the body she'd sort of settled into over the last couple years — curvy, green-eyed, and blonde, how she assumed she'd want to look as...whoever she'd been becoming. She hadn't quite entirely let go of Cassiopeia Black yet, so she hadn't decided. So her figure was wrong, her colouring was wrong, all of it.

And she definitely wasn't dressed like Cassiopeia Black. These sandals themselves, no, these were wrong, and the dress was the sort of thing the old her wouldn't even imagine wearing in public. It was white, for one thing — had she ever worn white as Cassiopeia? — and also...somewhat scandalous, by the standards she'd been raised into. At home or in the courtyard, fine, but not in public. Sleeveless, the skirt too short to even cover her knees, and it wasn't even enclosed on the back, laced up instead, revealing skin in an array of triangles and trapezoids from halfway up her back to the base of her neck, pulling the cloth tight enough the shape of her breasts was clearly visible. Yeah, her mother would have a fit if Cassiopeia went out dressed like this. And she probably wouldn't have herself anyway, though not for the same reasons — it was too light and delicate and feminine...

She should probably change. They were expecting Cassiopeia Black, like this she seriously doubted anyone would recognise her. But Albus had set the meeting with so little notice, she didn't have the time...

...and she just didn't want to. She hadn't wanted to be the person she'd once been anymore for years, and she could hardly muster the energy to properly play the character anymore. She didn't want to look like her, to dress like her and walk like her and talk like her, at this point it just felt so affected, and strained, and...exhausting. She couldn't leave her birth identity behind entirely, as metamorphs often did, as she knew she'd been so close to doing — no, that wasn't an option anymore, she couldn't leave Violet behind. But playing the character again, putting on the image and affect that was the Cassiopeia Black everybody else knew, she simply didn't have it in her today. The very thought was repulsive.

So, she wouldn't.

Cassie apparated to the gates of Hogwarts, her blonde hair and white dress rippling in the breeze — looking nothing like Cassiopeia Black, but feeling much more like herself (whoever the hell that was).

She wasn't the only one stalking across the grounds — excluding the figures on brooms over the quidditch pitch, looked like the Hufflepuff team, bloody madmen — one man near the doors and a woman only a minute ahead of Cassie, pace rushed, shoulders hunched against the wind. Cassie didn't recognise the man, at least not at this distance, but the woman was an Auror, red cloak dramatically whipping behind her. Cassie couldn't see her face, but the only female Auror in the Order who'd survived to the end (besides Cassie herself) was Emma Vance.

Cassie crossed the grounds at just under a jog. It was rather chilly out, and this dress was not meant for the weather — she hadn't needed it to be, she hadn't had any plans to go out — but a couple charms took care of that, warming her and splitting the wind before it could reach her. The grounds and the castle itself were too damn big, there was no way she'd get there on time, but surely Dumbledore couldn't have expected everyone to get here so quickly. Besides, Emma wasn't that far ahead of her, and just as she stepped up through the doors, she glanced back and saw—

She froze. It was hard to tell from this distance, she cast a magnifying charm — one she'd learned ages ago to better spy on a suspect she was tailing — and that looked an awful lot like... No, it couldn't be...

There were students in the Entrance Hall, of course, mostly Slytherins and Hufflepuffs entering or leaving their dorms, too early for people to be going to dinner yet. Cassie was getting curious looks, but she ignored them, watched the very familiar woman stalking across the grounds, her head bowed against the wind, dark hair fluttering wildly, arms tightly wrapped around her middle. An odd sense of anxiety simmering away, her fingers twitching a little, Cassie waited at the doors, less than entirely certain how to feel about this. They hadn't seen each other in...well, a while.

What the fuck should she say...?

Her thoughts clumsily bumbling around in her head, Cassie hadn't figured it out before the woman stepped onto the stairs leading up to the huge double doors. So, winging it, she blurted out, "Andi Tonks! I didn't know you were back in the country!" Well, no, she had known that — Nymphadora was a metamorph, she'd heard they were at Hogwarts from...someone — but she'd had no idea little Andi would be at this meeting. She had been involved with the Order early, but she'd fled to the Continent with her family when the fighting had started getting really bad, Cassie hadn't heard...

Andi looked up at her, frowning. Fuck, she was a grown woman now — it was '87, so she had to be...thirty-three? Cassie thought it was thirty-three. Time was so bloody weird, it didn't feel like that long ago that her brother had been getting married — Cassie had been in the wedding party, it'd been a desperate struggle to not cry in public — and Andi was Pollus's granddaughter, shite...

Frowning, Andi said, "I'm sorry," a little breathless from her trek across the grounds, "but do I know you?"

Cassie smiled to cover a wince. "No, I imagine you probably don't." Andi swept through the doors, she turned to walk alongside. "It was a long time ago, and I looked rather different then."

"...I see." She obviously didn't see, shooting Cassie suspicious looks on their way up the stairs. "You were invited to the meeting, then?" The Order was supposed to be a secret, after all, she couldn't just go blurting it out on the stairs in the middle of Hogwarts — or, she could, Cassie doubted any of the kids around were listening, but old habits.

"Well, I am a little old to be a student," she drawled, amused. "Have you spoken to your grandfather lately? Last I checked he was doing well, but I've had trouble keeping up with people lately..."

The suspicion on Andi's face sharpened, shifting into a sideways glare. Her voice hard and cold, she snapped, "No. I haven't heard from either of my grandfathers since before I married a muggleborn wizard."

Did he really? Had Cassie forgotten about that, or just never noticed in the first place? She had been kind of wrapped up in her own things around then, but... She hadn't realised Pollus was like that. "Well, shite, Pol. I guess I have to go slap that man."

"...What?"

"Maybe this is just me, but I think a baby sister is entitled to correct her idiot brother now and again."

"What are you—" Andi cut herself off, hitching to a stop, turning to give Cassie a wide-eyed stare — Pol was obviously Pollus and, with Marius exiled (and most likely having died from old age by now) and Dorea murdered, he only had one living sibling. "Aunt Cassie?!"

She smiled. "Hey, kid. So shocked to see me?"

"You...look different." Blinking to herself, Andi cleared her throat, started climbing the stairs again. "And no, I didn't expect to see you — I thought you moved on, a couple years ago now."

"No, but I got pretty damn close to it — that's why I look so different, you see. But no, something came up, I don't think I'll be leaving any time soon."

"Oh." Andi left it at that, clearly uncomfortable, unsure what else to say. Which was fair enough, they hadn't seen each other on a regular basis since Andi had been... Well, she probably didn't remember it very well, she'd been quite young. They hadn't been close by any stretch for a long time. After Nymphadora had been born, Andi had written a letter asking her for advice raising a metamorph — a very tentative letter, she hadn't been certain whether Cassie would be willing to help the blood traitor — they'd had a very long meeting over tea discussing it. That was the last they'd spoken in person, Cassie was almost certain.

"Anyway, how have you been? Did you ever get around to finishing that Healing Mastery?"

Andi had, it turned out, finished that Healing Mastery — she was in emergency intake at Saint Mungo's now, specialising in spell damage from dark and unidentified magics. Which meant she must be a fairly decent cursebreaker on top of her healer training, since that particular speciality required both skill sets. (Though rather more limited in one, since cursebreaker-healers didn't need to know shite about ward-crafting or enchanting.) Cassie wasn't surprised, Andi always had been clever, but still, good on her.

She would say Pollus must be proud, if he weren't being a little shite, apparently.

Eventually they made it to the teacher's lounge up on the fifth floor, the same one they'd occasionally met in when the Order had been active. This wasn't the same room her grandfather had used for staff meetings back when he'd been Headmaster and she a student, that was down on the second floor, but when Professor Dippet had taken over — Arithmancy Professor and Head of Ravenclaw in her time — he'd moved it to be closer to the Headmaster's rooms. (He'd also put the moving spiral staircase in — Dippet had had lingering pain from an injury he'd gotten in one of the goblin rebellions, stairs hadn't agreed with him.) The rooms looked practically the same, though, with smooth tile covering the floor and wood panelling the walls, a wardrobe to stash cloaks near the door, the long table and chairs dating to the Eighteenth Century, intricately carved and lovingly polished.

There were people around the table, though depressingly few — over half of the Order had been killed during the war. Albus, of course, was sitting at the head of the table (his chair for staff meetings), Doge to his right, and then Alastor to his left — even more scarred than she remembered, somehow — leaning over the corner of the table to talk to him in intense-looking whispers. Dedalus, of course, couldn't miss him — his fashion sense remained as delightful as ever, an eccentric combination of muggle suits (in the style of the 1920s or 30s) in colours more appropriate for mages, this one a vibrant crimson. There were Minerva, Hagrid, and Severus, all Hogwarts staff. Andi had immediately darted off to sit next to Emma Vance (herself sitting next to Severus), Cassie let her go without comment. (She realised bumping into her had been awkward, if Andi needed a breather so be it.) Was that young man Arthur Weasley? She thought so — he and his wife had been informants, if not quite full members, but it hadn't been unusual for one or the other to sit in on a meeting now and then. There were a few other people she didn't recognise. A tall, finely-dressed black man with a cool, regal air about him; a rather older, scrawnier man with lank brown hair and old scars crossing his face (Cassie marked him as a werewolf instantly); and a very young woman, barely old enough to be out of school, the green trim on her Auror uniform marking her as an apprentice — she was too young to have fought the first time around, Cassie hadn't realised Dumbledore was still recruiting.

And that was it. Standing in the doorway, Cassie lingered a moment, the almost tangible presence of the dead bringing her up short.

Cassie took a seat between the unfamiliar black man and the unnamed werewolf, reached to pour a glass of wine from the food and drink in the middle of the table...and then checked herself, grabbed the mead instead. The wine wouldn't get her drunk (at least not very quickly), but she shouldn't take the risk. She had a kid at home now.

(She truly had picked the worst day to quit drinking. Thankfully metamorphs didn't get withdrawal — not if they knew what they were doing, at least.)

The unfamiliar man gave her a friendly nod, but turned back to his conversation with Minerva without saying anything to her. The werewolf seemed almost sheepish, and exhausted, probably shy and also just tired. (When was the full moon? She had no idea... What month was it? November?) An awkward silence developed between them — Cassie and the werewolf, she meant, the other man went on ignoring her — but that didn't actually bother Cassie that much. She was famously difficult to discomfit.

Side-effect of being a metamorph, she suspected — one could only experience so many wardrobe malfunctions in one's youth before losing all ability to feel shame.

Thankfully for the werewolf, he didn't have to marinate in his own awkwardness for too long. It had to be ten, fifteen minutes past the appointed time, but that wasn't actually unusual — Albus had a nasty habit of calling Order meetings with far too little warning, forcing them all to rush, and then waiting for the stragglers to show up anyway. If he always did that, she could account for it and make her way at her own pace, but he would sometimes start the meeting at the appointed time, or just when a quorum of attendees had arrived, meaning they had to treat each summons as though it were urgent, whether or not it truly was. Albus could be horribly inconsiderate sometimes, seemingly without even realising he was doing it.

(Though Cassie honestly doubted that — Albus was more calculating than most people thought. How badly so many people constantly underestimated him was one of the reasons he was so entertaining.)

He didn't do anything dramatic to call the meeting to order, simply leaned forward against the table a little, his hands folded in front of him. "Thank you for coming, everyone." The light, faintly nervous chatter abruptly ceased, Albus's quiet greeting as effective as a silencing charm. "I know it has been some time since we've come together — I appreciate that you've come promptly, despite being so out of practice."

Cassie snorted, but she was pretty much the only one. It was weird how few people seemed to get Albus's sense of humour, that was supposed to be a joke...

"Are you kidding, I about had a heart attack when Fawkes dropped that letter on my head," Emma said, too tense for her attempt at a sarcastic drawl to come off quite right. "Please let's not beat around the bush, Albus — is this about the Dark Lord? Have you heard something?"

The question had nervous whispers flickering across the room, people shifting in their chairs, Albus unfolded his hands to make a sort of tamping down gesture, just the slightest tremor in his left hand. (Shite, since when did Albus look so old, he was barely a hundred...) "No, no, this is a serious matter — I wouldn't call you on such short notice if it weren't! — but this isn't about Voldemort." There were a few winces and fearful squeaks, Cassie withheld the urge to roll her eyes. "I have—"

"Hold that thought, Albus." Alastor was glaring across the table at Cassie, his blue false eye seeming to quiver with the intensity of his gaze. She felt static building in the air, as though Alastor were preparing to throw a curse if she made a single wrong move — she felt her lips twitch with amusement, just, honestly... "I don't see any concealment magics, and I recognise everyone here. Except you, you I don't know."

Cassie pouted. "Aww, you've forgotten me, Lexie? I'm hurt."

Alastor's real eye twitched at being called Lexie. "Never mind. Black, why the hell are you blonde?"

"I've been feeling blonde lately," she said lightly, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "If I didn't already know you didn't go for women, that right there was a big fucking red flag, with bells and flashing lights on it — my tits have got to be three times the size, and you comment on my hair."

It looked like Alastor was trying to maintain a glare, but wasn't doing a very good job of it, his scarred and lopsided face twitching with a suppressed smirk. The wide-eyed glances and shocked titters from some of the other attendees just made it funnier.

"Um, Black?" That was Emma, giving Cassie a very unsubtle suspicious look. (Not meant for undercover work, this one.) "I'm sorry, just, the only Black I can think of in the Order was, well..." Sirius, she meant.

Cassie smiled at the (much) younger woman, the expression feeling brittle even to herself. "Cassiopeia — I'm a metamorph, I looked different back then. I suspect Lexie here forgot I didn't use my surname at meetings, for reasons I'm sure you can understand." Little Sirius had just told everyone who had a problem with Bellatrix's baby cousin being here to piss off, but Cassie hadn't wanted to deal with the constant skepticism. People could be skittish enough around metamorphs to begin with. "Albus also had me impersonate Fletcher at meetings now and again, for reasons that escape my understanding — I suspect it was for his own personal amusement."

The real reason was to keep an eye on Severus and try to ferret out their spy, of course, but she wasn't about to admit either of those just now.

There was a little more tittering after that — and a few suspicious looks over having a Black among them, especially after Sirius's 'betrayal' (and despite "that creepy shape-changer" having been one of their best fighters during the war) — but after a confident assertion from Albus that Cassie was with them, that he trusted her absolutely, they finally got back to business. And that would come back and bite Albus in the arse, given they were going to learn in a few minutes that Cassie had kidnapped Harry Potter. This was going to go swimmingly.

Again drawing himself into solemn, stern seriousness, so effective he might well have changed his face, Albus said, "Now that we have all been introduced—" They hadn't, in fact, Cassie still had no idea who the werewolf, the young Auror, or the handsome black man were. "—we must move along to the purpose of this meeting. I have terrible news for you today, and with it more questions than answers." He paused, just for a beat, the entire room seeming to hold their breath in anticipation. "Harry Potter is missing."

The outburst was immediate, and surprisingly loud. Several questions were asked all at once, overlapping enough none could be clearly picked out, shock and anger and fear clear on faces. What happened? Was it a Death Eater? There were plenty who'd managed to scheme their way out of any consequences — Cassie grit her teeth at that suggestion, struggling to swallow down stale fury. (The Wizengamot was full of traitors and cowards.) The noise was enough it would be impossible for Albus to answer any of the questions, assuming he even managed to pick one to start with.

After a short time of that nonsense, Minerva leapt up to her feet and slammed her teacup down on the table — the thing shattered with a noisy crash, hot droplets of tea flung into the air, jagged shards of porcelain sent skittering across the table. Her voice low and smouldering, with a stronger curl of Gaelic than usual on it, she snarled, "Quit ye that racket and control youselves! None of us will hear no answers if nobody hears theyself think!" Minerva glared around the (abruptly silent) table for a moment, then reached for her wand — a few people flinched, Cassie had to bite her lip to keep from smiling — and with a flick a bottle of whiskey was transported onto the table in front of her. A summoning, a repair charm, and a transfiguration later, and Minerva was pouring a measure into a heavy glass tumbler.

"Thank you, Minerva," Albus said, low and calm. When he just as calmly picked a small chip of porcelain out of his beard she'd missed, Cassie failed to hold in a snort of laughter — the werewolf gave her an odd look, but come on, that was funny. "Though perhaps that could have been managed less...exuberantly."

"Oh, shove off with that, Albus." Minerva, sitting again, threw back most of her whiskey, started refilling her transfigured tumbler. "I'm still debating whether I should throw this one in your face — I had my doubts Harry would be safe with those awful muggles, but you insisted he—"

"Muggles?" Eyes flicked to Severus, surprised — he didn't often speak at meetings, unless he had something to report (which obviously he wouldn't now). The announcement that "Harry" was missing had seen the poor boy go a few shades paler, but he'd suddenly gone rigid with tension, eyes on Albus sharp and cold. "Potter was put in a muggle home? Which?"

"Now, my boy, I understand you have history with—"

"Albus. Who...did you give him to?" he finished, his voice falling to a deadly whisper.

Albus let out a sigh, heavy and regretful, eyes drooping with exhaustion. "Petunia Dursley, his mother's sister. I thought it best—"

"Petunia." Severus's voice sounded low and smooth, unemotional, but by his almost painful-looking rigidness Cassie knew he was anything but. "You put him with Petunia."

"As I was saying, I thought it best he be put with family, and far away from any—"

Cutting over Albus, voice rising a little, he snarled, "What did I tell you that night, Albus? I didn't care what you did you with the boy, with one," his arm snapping up to raise a single finger, quick enough Emma startled a little, "one caveat: anybody. but. Petunia! Do you remember what you said to me, Albus?"

"Severus, I—"

"You gave me your word. Again. Give me that," Severus hissed, grabbed Minerva's bottle of whiskey, conjured his own glass. "That's the second promise to me you've broken, Albus." He didn't continue from there, focused on pouring his drink, but from his tone and his expression it was clear what went unsaid — don't expect me to stick around if you break a third.

Well, that was all rather more...intense than Cassie had expected, honestly. Minerva could be volatile sometimes, sure, but breaking teacups and downing whiskey — pouring her third glass now, back in the war the mad bitch once drank Alastor under the table — was a little much. It seemed too personal somehow — which was odd, Cassie couldn't think of any connection Minerva had to Violet.

Severus, he did make sense, she really should have anticipated that. The whole reason he'd defected in the first place was to protect Lily, turning spy for Albus in exchange for her safety. That would be the first promise to him Albus had broken: he'd promised he'd keep the Potters safe, and he'd failed. And now Violet too, shite, maybe she should have found some way to warn him ahead of time...

Most of the Order didn't seem to know what to say after those outbursts, fallen into a tense, awkward sort of silence, so Albus was able to move on without further interruption. He took a little bit to justify leaving "Harry" with his muggle relatives, something about lingering protection given by Lily's sacrifice — for fuck's sake, Albus, you're not a ritualist, that's not how that works! — swiftly coming to the matter at hand. Albus had eyes on the house, they reported they hadn't seen "Harry" lately, and that the Dursleys were behaving strangely. Once he had a free moment, Albus popped over to investigate.

The Dursleys had not been happy to see him, to put it mildly — curiously, it appeared they were preparing to move house, on remarkably short notice, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. They'd been uncooperative, terrified, Albus had been forced to use magic to get any answers from them...which was how he learned there were monitoring palings over the house, as the Ministry sometimes used on the homes of young muggleborns to make sure they caught accidental magic incidents (and also so muggles couldn't secretly practise magic over the summer, though the Ministry didn't admit to that part in public).

"Wait a second," Cassie said, interrupting Albus's retelling of his debacle with Ministry bureaucrats over violating the Statute. "Adjustment put monitoring spells over Harry Potter's house?" She had known that already, of course — she'd cast her own palings to create an undetectable space inside their palings before casting any formal spells — but there was a point she wanted to make.

Bushy white eyebrows twitched. "They did. I understand that's standard practice when dealing with muggleborn children who experience...particularly energetic bursts of accidental magic."

"Oh, it certainly is. I worked in the Ministry for decades, you know — I wasn't in Adjustment, but you pick up things. But if Adjustment put those palings up, that means they know where Harry lives. Which means the Ministry knows where Harry lives."

"I understand what you mean to imply, Madam Black..." That was the handsome black man, whose name Cassie still hadn't caught, his voice low and smooth and calm despite the circumstances. If he was at all worked up over this, Cassie couldn't tell. (Also, Madam Black, she looked like she could be in her twenties, honestly...) "...but that is not so great a danger as it may seem. The records of the Office of Adjustment are sealed — even Aurors cannot access them without approval from the Director, and Amelia is far too cautious to risk Harry Potter in such in a way."

...Amelia? "Are you an Auror?" His forehead wrinkling a little as he raised a single eyebrow, he nodded. "Ah, well, maybe this is news to you, kid, but it's not that simple. I was an Auror longer than you've been alive, and spend enough time in the Ministry and you'll learn there's always two ways to get information: the proper way, and the clever way. Ain't that right, Lexie?"

Alastor grimaced a little at the nickname, but he shrugged in agreement. "The Ministry is a damn sieve, everybody knows that. The security in the Office of Records is about as effective as a hungover, inexperienced Hit Wizard — you know, most of them." Of course he had to take the opportunity to piss on the Hit Wizards, he was an Auror. "It's only as good as the least trustworthy archivist. And if you're quick you can swap files when the archivists aren't watching, or hell, even just confund or compel them — I've told the Office to put suppressing wards over the archives a thousand times, but they never bloody listen.

"And what if there's a traitor in Adjustment itself? They're thoroughly screened for anti-Statutarian sentiment, but Adjustment strains themselves staying political neutral on practically everything else. There could be fully-dedicated Marked Death Eaters in Adjustment, and since Erin wasn't allowed to clean house there we'd never know — some nonsense about such a disruption threatening Secrecy, they're definitely hiding something, you ask me."

Emma scoffed. "Moody, you think the morning paper is hiding something."

"I've found alchemical contact poisons on my morning paper on three separate occasions — do you have any idea how many dangerous sons of bitches want me dead? Constant vigilance, Vance."

"Besides," Cassie drawled, "this is the Prophet we're talking about — the morning paper most definitely is hiding something."

Alastor barked out a surprised laugh before he could stop himself.

"Can we focus, please?" the werewolf asked, wincing, rubbing at his forehead as though fighting a headache. "In case any of you have forgotten, there's a missing child somewhere out there." Well, probably dozens in all of Britain, but pointing that out would be overly pedantic. "You were telling us what you found, sir?"

And so Albus continued, moving on to his interrogation of Petunia Dursley. Plied with a few calming charms and compulsions, she was perfectly cooperative...but not very helpful. She remembered a woman — tall and slim, pale-skinned, black-haired — showing up at the house out of nowhere, causing some minor property damage, doing something to Petunia that she remembered only as extremely painful, and then leaving with "Harry". While it had clearly been rather traumatic, Petunia remembered very little — just a few broad details of what the intruder looked like, but not specific enough to describe her, or recall anything she'd said.

Alastor grimaced, explained the magic most likely responsible for that to the amateurs. A dark memory charm, not intended to remove the memory entirely but instead disrupt its formation, obscuring any potentially incriminating details — the memory of the event was so thoroughly ruined it couldn't even be cleared up in a pensieve, which was a very neat bit of magic, Cassie had no idea how that worked. It was used frequently by certain sorts of criminals, especially those who wished their targets to remember that actions had consequences. (Petunia might not remember what Cassie looked like or what she'd said, but she definitely remembered the pain curse.) Presumably Alastor had dealt with witnesses who'd been made perfectly useless by this charm, just as Cassie had

It was how she'd learned of its existence in the first place.

Just in case, Albus had cast a bevy of analysis charms on the woman, checking whether there were any lingering magics on her — it was possible her memory was actually fine, and she'd instead been under the influence of some kind of mind-altering curse. While he hadn't found anything like that, he had found spell damage: Petunia had been held under the Cruciatus, for longer than a few seconds but likely shorter than half a minute, not long enough for there to be any long-term effects.

The reaction to that was a slew of curses through gritted teeth, a hissing of horrified whispers. Well over half of the people around this table had certainly seen the Cruciatus used at some point, though few as the target — which was a higher proportion than in the general population, but fighting in a war against shites like the Death Eaters could do that — so they would be less shocked by the thought of a person using that kind of magic at all. No, to most of this group, that particular curse was associated with a very particular group of people. And nobody wanted an unreformed Death Eater anywhere near Harry Potter.

It was possible Cassie had gotten carried away. Just a bit.

"Where are they?"

Albus blinked at Severus's blunt question, confusion breaking the rigid frown on his face. "Pardon?"

"The blood trackers, Albus — I might have spent half of November Eighty-One intoxicated, but I recall you asked me to double-check the scripts for you. Where are they?"

"They won't do us any good, I'm afraid," Albus said, his shoulders drooping in a sigh. A wand appearing in his hand, he cast a quick translocation spell. A device appeared on the table in front of him, a tiny little pyramid of polished blueish-gold metal — small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, most likely made of electrum debased with nickel and copper — a gemstone fitted into the top, probably alchemically-crafted diamond, turned an ashy greyish-black, as though filled with smoke. Albus cast a movement charm of some kind, floating the device over toward Severus.

Snatching it out of the air, Severus scowled — he didn't need to analyse it to know it was useless, that was what the black meant. He cast a couple of analysis charms anyway. "The focus was destroyed. An annihilation ritual, if I'm not mistaken."

"Well, the boy was taken alive, at least."

Minerva snapped around to fix Alastor with a sharp glare. "You know that for certain?"

He let out a grinding, unamused huff, clearly unimpressed with her glaring. "Think about it, girl — if our culprit were just going to kill Potter, why would he bother making sure they couldn't be tracked? No, whoever took him didn't do it to kill him straight off. Whether that's a good or a bad thing, well, that there's a matter of opinion."

"What the hell are you talking about, Moody?" That was the young Auror, whose name Cassie still hadn't caught. "Certainly it's a good thing that he's still alive."

"That he might still be alive," he said, a little sternly. "Our culprit didn't want to be tracked immediately, but there's no telling whether they've killed the boy since. Now, I don't know who took him or why, but we're talking about someone who gets a kick out of throwing pain curses at muggles." Hey... "Don't waste your pity on the dead, Hestia, their suffering is over. The living? Not so much."

Cassie smirked. "Cheerful as ever, Lexie."

"Kiss my arse, Cass."

From around there, the meeting progressed into passing theories back and forth, what might have happened to "Harry" and how they could possibly find "him". They had far more ideas on the former than the latter. It was quickly decided Alastor should drop by Azkaban to confirm the convicted Death Eaters, especially Bellatrix and Rookwood, were still there — he agreed with a reluctant grimace, nobody liked visiting Azkaban. (Alastor had been around so much death and misery by this point it was honestly impressive he could function near dementors at all.) Emma suggested Arianna Yaxley for a culprit, which would do them absolutely no good at all, since the DLE couldn't find her either. And besides, it was unlikely she'd had anything to do with it — Arianna Yaxley was a supplier for exotic components to be used in bioalchemy and illicit ritual magics (including suitable muggles or magical beings), she hadn't been a Death Eater and had little reason to target "Harry" in particular.

...Unless someone had hired her to do it — she did have Death Eater customers, and it wasn't out of the question she might branch out into kidnapping-for-hire, since it wasn't even that far out of her wheelhouse — but that wasn't a service she was known to provide as of yet.

The green Auror suggested Fenrir Greyback (the werewolf sitting next to Cassie flinched), but that was unlikely — current intelligence placed him and his people in Karelia or Lithuania. Similarly, it couldn't be Voldemort, since his spirit was currently being disembodied and useless somewhere in the Dinaric Alps. (Cassie was pretty sure the name of the Accursed Mountains wasn't meant to be literal.) The primary suspects were a variety of free Death Eaters, but narrowing it down was difficult, due to none anybody could think of having the right combination of ability, motive, and foolishness.

Lucius Malfoy could definitely get his hands on the information if he wanted to, and with Narcissa's help could certainly kill "Harry" and get away with it...but the chances of them doing it were pretty much nil. As difficult as this was for much of the Order to believe, Severus insisted the Malfoys had no motive to kill "Harry" — the Malfoys had actually done very well for themselves in the Dark Lord's absence, their wealth and political influence already recovered from the hit to their reputation they'd sustained in the wake of the war and only seeing a steady rise since. Narcissa herself hadn't ever been accused of anything, only tainted by association, so was seen as respectable in quarters Lucius still wasn't. (Some of the other factions in the Wizengamot would even work with her, if reluctantly, which wasn't something most Death Eaters could claim.) While they hadn't been traitors to the cause, doing anything to strike at their former enemies or resurrect the Dark Lord would needlessly risk their security and, particularly, that of their only son. No, Severus was certain the Malfoys hadn't had anything to do with it — he would keep an eye open the next time he was invited to their home, but he didn't expect to find anything.

Besides, Narcissa was religious, and happened to venerate Mother Mercy — she would never kill a child, or help her husband do so. Some around the table were skeptical of that — traditional religion was considered by some quarters to be Dark by default (which was stupid, it truly wasn't), but Mother Mercy was seen as one of the more benevolent deities — wondered how Cassie even knew that, which was a stupid fucking question. She'd been around when Narcissa was a child, and had spoken to her a handful of times as an adult, Cassie wasn't so much of an idiot to not pick up basic shite like that, come on...

Which had suspicion turning to other Death Eaters. The Notts, the Averys, the Yaxleys, MacNair, the Rowles, the Davises, the Rosiers, the Carrow twins...or less prominent cousins or children who hadn't truly been active fighters, supporters they didn't normally think about, or even people from client houses whose names they didn't even know...or some random commoner who'd made it through the war completely unidentified — it could truly be anyone. There were simply too many suspects to narrow it down.

When it came to finding "Harry", they had the opposite problem. It was pointed out early that they could (relatively) easily track "him" with witchcraft, if they could find so much as a single hair on his pillow — Albus grimaced, explained "Harry"'s bedroom had been cleansed with fire before he got there, there was nothing to find. That wasn't the reason Cassie had burned the inside of the cupboard, of course, but it was a convenient side-benefit. (Also, did that mean Albus had seen the cupboard? Was he just not going to mention that?) They could attempt to scry him, but none of them were particularly good with Divination, and they'd almost certainly never seen where he was being held before anyway (one needed to first see something with one's own eyes to scry it), so that wouldn't accomplish anything.

Beyond that, they...kind of had nothing. Severus and the Aurors confronting their contacts would accomplish nothing but burning those bridges forever — perhaps that would be worth it if they could identify likely suspects, but short of that? If they started raiding manors they might get lucky, but they didn't have the resources to do that in the first place...and would almost certainly get themselves killed. Not to mention, whoever had taken "him" probably wasn't stupid enough to keep the Boy Who Lived in his house.

The tone of their suggestions got more and more desperate as they went on, but before long they just...trailed off. Silence gradually fell over the room, thick and suffocating, the attendees glancing between each other or moodily glaring down at their drinks. Because nobody had any bloody clue what to do — short of the culprit publicly identifying themselves like a fucking moron, there was absolutely nothing they could do.

Cassie threw back the rest of her mead, gently pushed the empty glass to slide across the table a little further away from her, to reduce temptation. Looked like it was time to publicly identify herself. "Right, that's enough. I think I've made my point."

Gazes flicked toward her, confused — with the exception of Alastor and Severus, canny suspicion already beginning to glint in their eyes. This was the problem with not being the only Slytherin in the room, they could be far too quick on the uptake. But they didn't come to a conclusion right away, enough of a delay Albus had time to ask, "I'm sorry, which point do you mean?"

"I was wondering, Albus, there's one detail in your little story you oh-so-carefully left out. How long has 'Harry' been missing?"

And now Albus was already starting to suspect, eyes behind his tinted glasses (enchanted?) narrowing just a smidge. "If you know something, Cassie..."

"Indulge me. How long has 'Harry' been missing?"

There was a tense silence for a moment, the group either staring at Cassie or Albus — Alastor and Severus, she'd noticed, had both turned to Albus, clearly as interested in the answer to that question as she was. She could practically see the calculation going on in Albus's head. He must suspect she had some kind of information on when "Harry" had been abducted — perhaps she had "Harry" herself, or she'd simply heard something, or hell, it could have come to her in a dream, she wasn't a Seer but who knows — and it would not look good for him if there was too much of a delay before he'd been informed. At the same time, he wanted that information, and Cassie was unlikely to offer it if he didn't cooperate — Albus had realised very early, supervising her detentions, that Cassie could outlast him in a contest of sheer, bloody stubbornness.

She could remember one occasion, in third year, when Albus had told she and Richard Atwell that they could go to bed as soon as they apologised to each other, Atwell for insulting her — a sexually-charged, extremely demeaning insult, which had been too much for even Albus to side with the 'non-violent' party this time — and Cassie for sending him to the Hospital Wing over it. He'd held them in his office until two in the morning before giving up and sending them to bed. Albus had learned a long time ago that there was no point 'reasoning' with her.

Sure enough, he let out a soft sigh, and admitted, "I'm uncertain precisely when Harry was abducted — the particular memory charm used on Mrs. Dursley also tends to dissociate the event somewhat temporally. My suspicions were raised last night, and I confirmed them this morning."

Called it. "Today? You only found out a child supposedly in your care had gone missing today?"

"I'm more concerned that he heard something might be wrong and then waited to investigate until the next morning," Severus drawled, glaring across the table at Albus.

"Oh, Severus, you don't know the worst of it. See, 'Harry' left that horrid place early in the afternoon of the Thirtieth, the day before Samhain. And Albus is finally doing something about it now, a week later."

There was a mix of winces and dropped jaws, muttering and gasping, some wondering why the hell it'd taken Albus so long to do anything, others how the hell Cassie knew this in the first place. Alastor gave her an irritated grimace — he'd obviously put together that Cassie had taken her — but he just let out a huff, slumping back in his chair and throwing back a gulp of his drink. Annoyed with her, sure, but she would guess Alastor no longer had any doubts that "Harry" was perfectly fine — he did know her, after all.

Albus, on the other hand, was fixing her with an intense, furious glare, his wrinkly face harsh and rigid. Angry enough he'd lost control of his magic a little, delicate filaments of itchy light magic wafting out into the room — which was vaguely uncomfortable, but he was still mostly contained, it wasn't that bad. (Certainly no worse than just being in the same room as that damn phoenix.) "You are...suspiciously well-informed about Harry's disappearance, Cassiopeia."

Cassie gave him an unimpressed look back, one eyebrow ticking up — ooh, using her proper name, she was in so much trouble now. "Of course I am, I'm the one who took her. She's at my house right now."

The uproar was immediate, chaotic, and deafening. Cassie simply sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest, and let them all yell at her.

Fortunately for her patience, Albus didn't let it go on very long. She flinched at a wave of hot, searing light magic rippling across the room — a pacification spell, she threw off the compulsion picking at the edges of her mind before it could take effect. (Being around light magic was uncomfortable; having light magic cast on her was just unpleasant.) The room fell silent instantly, those affected forced to calm the fuck down, those who'd resisted it taking the spell as a signal to shut up. Albus had stood up, his wand held downward near his opposite hip, having just finished the movement. He stared at her for a long moment, his age-thinned shoulders slowly rising and falling with harsh, fiercely-controlled breaths.

Restraining the urge to toss a curse at her, she would guess. It didn't seem likely he'd slip that badly, but Cassie surreptitiously moved her fingers to the handle of her wand anyway. She had no idea which of them would win in a duel — he was more knowledgeable broadly, but his combat transfiguration would be useless against her, and she was far more willing to use Dark Arts in a fight — but she could at least defend herself from the first few curses, long enough for him to cool off.

Thankfully, the curses didn't come, the uncomfortable heat of light magic pressing in from all around gradually trickling away as he got himself back under control. His voice low, grumbling, he said, "I dearly hope you have some explanation for your actions, Cassiopeia."

"You want the story? I can tell you a story." Cassie leaned across the table to pluck up a teapot — it would have been continually warmed and refilled over the meeting, because elves were thoughtful like that — summoned the cream to herself, conjured a cup with a snap of her fingers. (There were a few twitches of surprise at that, which was understandable, the only people Cassie had ever seen conjure without a focus of any kind were metamorphs.) In the time it took for her to pour and stir her tea, Albus sank into his seat again. And nobody else interrupted either, the effects of the pacification spell lingering, those who'd resisted it watchfully waiting.

Cassie slid her chair back a couple inches, leaned back with her teacup cradled in her lap, folding her ankles up on the table. She had to turn a little at an angle to do that properly, which put her sandaled feet in front of the handsome black man (Kingsley, was it?) — the angle she was sitting at had her skirt slipping up her thighs a little bit, but not that far, and also she was crossing her legs and happened to be wearing knickers today, it was fine. The man shot her a bemused sort of look, she just smiled at him.

(No, bad Cassie, don't seduce this random handsome stranger, there's a kid in your house right now...)

"So, let's start from where I got wrapped up in this. A little after noon on the Thirtieth, a patronus came barrelling into my sitting room, carrying a message from Amelia Bones. I retired from the Aurors back in February of 'Seventy-Three, but little Amy is my godfather's granddaughter, she knew me when she was little, so when she needed the expertise of a metamorph I was the first person she thought of. It turns out Adjustment had just responded to an incident involving a muggle-raised metamorph, and they'd requested assistance.

"Now, I don't know how much any of you know about metamorphs," Cassie said, speaking over a few surprised mutters (probably guessing where this was going), "but I expect it's not very much — with the exception of my grand-niece over there, of course. While many inborn magical traits are dormant until being activated later in life — legilimency, for example, or magesight — metamorphy expresses from the moment of birth. Before birth, technically, though the expression of the trait changes as the person's mind develops. Generally, a child's self-concept is exceptionally fuzzy and ephemeral, and so a young metamorph's appearance will constantly change. There's a particularly common phenomenon called mirroring, the child unconsciously copying traits from whoever they happen to be looking at at the time, which is almost universal among very young metamorphs, but some weird, anatomically-improbable shite can happen too, just on accident.

"The point is, metamorphs aren't subtle. We can learn to keep a consistent, natural appearance with time, of course, but it does take time — myself, it wasn't truly safe to go out into the muggle world until I was fifteen or so, and even then only with precautions. So, any metamorph growing up among muggles is going to be identified as magical instantly. There is simply no way to avoid that.

"You can perhaps understand my intrigue at the thought of a muggle-raised metamorph — such a thing simply doesn't exist, especially not under Secrecy. And, perhaps you can imagine my surprise when the Adjustor at the scene informed me this muggle-raised metamorph was Harry Potter."

And there was some fascinated whispering, nobody had known the last Potter was a metamorph. Or, there was some, anyway, as the pacification spell gradually weakened she was picking up some more furious glares. In the brief pause, Cassie breaking to sip at her tea, Albus said, "Harry Potter is not a metamorph."

"I assure you, Albus, you are definitely, certainly wrong about that."

Albus's eyes narrowed a little. "And I assure you, Cassie, he is not. He was here at the castle for nearly a full day before he was left with his family, and no one saw the slightest sign of metamorphy. For a toddler his age, that is simply impossible."

She barely held in the urge to scoff at him calling the Dursleys Violet's family. "Mm, you would think so. Care to take this one, Andi, dear?"

Her estranged niece shot Cassie a skeptical look, but played along well enough. "There's a potion, Riemann's Draught of Reinforcement, which can be used to stabilise a person's fundamental identity. In metamorphs, it will raise the threshold necessary to induce a change — the metamorph can overpower the resistance with some effort, but it cuts down on accidental changes significantly. However, it can interfere with the development of a metamorph's awareness of their own form, so it isn't recommended for long term use, especially in young children."

"All of that was correct, save for the last part — I told her not to use it, for that reason, as would many specialists. Some specialists, however, prioritise the child conforming to expected patterns of development and, more to the point, not creeping the shite out of their parents, above their long-term well-being. If, instead of writing to me after the birth of her child, Andi had gone to a specialist in this country — assuming she could even find a healer who knew much about metamorphs at all, which isn't guaranteed, there are so few of us — they would almost certainly have told her to put poor Nymphadora on a steady regimen of Riemann's Draught immediately, only phasing it out around puberty. Which, in case you were wondering, drastically increases the chances of emotional difficulties later in life, as well as the metamorph shifting into an anatomically incompatible form and accidentally killing themselves."

Andi paled a little at that — yeah, you're welcome, kid.

"I think it's quite likely that Jamie, not knowing any better, would have given Violet Riemann's Draught. It's a relatively simple potion to brew, so they wouldn't have had to go out and buy it, and very useful against progressive transfigurative curses, so it's probable they had a healing text on hand with the formula. And Jamie, as I'm sure you all remember, was not entirely comfortable with...the more wild expressions of magic. That attitude is very common among the Light, unfortunately. They used to have all kinds of stories about metamorphs, you know, that we're changelings or diseased, or just somehow...wrong. That he might have been uncomfortable with his child doing something so unnatural, I think, isn't much of a surprise."

A few people looked a bit offended at her characterisation of their martyred comrade, but she caught uncomfortable grimaces from some of the people who'd known little Jamie best, Minerva, Arthur, Albus, Hagrid, and, surprisingly, the yet-unnamed werewolf. (They must have known each other well, but Cassie still didn't know who this bloke was.) Severus just scoffed a little, so, yeah, not alone in that judgement.

"Excuse me," said Doge, giving her a confused frown, "I was wondering... Well, I can't speak to the rest of your claims — I never knew James Potter well, and I know even less of metamorphs — but just now you referred to his child as Violet."

Cassie shrugged. "She's going by Violet at the moment. It's this thing we're trying."

Before anyone could ask what the hell she meant by that, Andi gasped. "Are you saying Jamie gave h-her a sex-change potion?!"

"That's the theory. I can't say for certain, as I wasn't there, but it's the only explanation that makes any damn sense. For those of you in the audience," Cassie drawled, smirking (because it was better than setting something on fire), "metamorphs have an instinctive ability to alter our fundamental identity to reflect whatever we're shaped like at the time — basically, transfigurations done on us are permanent. We can even learn how to imitate transfigurations done to us on our own if we pay attention, but that's another story. This also means any appearance-altering potion that works through transfiguration, which is essentially all of them, doesn't have the same time limit for us it does for normal people.

"Now, imagine you're a Light noble, the very last son of your House. You and your young wife have just had your first child, in a time of war — you have no idea whether you'll live long enough to father another. This first child of yours...is a daughter. And that's perfectly wonderful, of course, you'll love a daughter just as much as you would a son, but it does bring complications. See, the internal law of your family passes property down the male line. Since she is the only heir, that should be fine — arranging a matrilineal marriage might be a pain, most matriarchal families are Dark, but not prohibitively difficult — but you don't know if you'll live through this war. You have cousins who, without a Lord Potter on hand to represent his family's interests, might take advantage of a young, female heir. They might well try to claim the House for themselves, or talk your vulnerable daughter into a marriage contract that folds your family into her husband's within a generation. It seems all too possible that you truly will be the last of your line.

"If your daughter could become a son, though..." Cassie spread her hands, in a well, there you are sort of gesture, keeping her teacup carefully balanced.

There wasn't any response for a while, most of the group staring at her wide-eyed. Minerva's face had gone rather red, pouring herself another drink — she had favoured Jamie, Cassie remembered, probably wasn't pleased with the thought of Jamie doing something any reasonable person would consider flagrant child abuse. "Reasonable" here excluded a fair portion of the cultural Light, of course, and Minerva was Light herself, but she was also a Master of Transfiguration, and probably knew enough about metamorphs to realise how fucked up this was. Severus was slumped over in his chair, one hand covering his face, though whether that were over this little tidbit or trying to hide his relief that Violet was perfectly fine, really couldn't say for sure.

Albus had been very skeptical, at first, but dawning realisation was finally spreading on his face. It seemed slightly peculiar, actually, the feeling seemed rather more intense than it should, to the point it almost approached awe. "You... You are certain of this. Harry is a metamorph."

"My guesses about why Jamie did what he did are conjecture, but yes, I'm certain. Violet has the ability to assume either physical sex — which is something that can happen with metamorphs given transfiguring potions in infancy, it's complicated — and she's told me she's more comfortable female, which suggests, though does not prove, that she was born that way. And yes, she's definitely a metamorph — I've seen her have accidental shifts and everything."

...Nope, Cassie had no idea why Albus found this so fascinating. That...probably wasn't important, whatever it was.

"But, how did that happen?" asked the unnamed werewolf. "There hasn't been a Potter metamorph since...well, ever, I think."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Her grandmother is my baby sister — obviously she got it from the Blacks, we've had plenty." And their mother had been a Bulstrode, who'd had a few in the past as well (though they were more well-known for animagi). "Anyway, enough of that diversion, back to the story. Adjustment wanted me to do...something to make it so the poor kid could live inconspicuously in the muggle world. As I said, metamorphs have shite control of our forms at that age, there was nothing I could have done in a single afternoon that would have done any good. But she had managed to go this long without a major incident, which is bloody incredible, so I decided to have a chat.

"Explaining about the magical world, what metamorphs are, blah blah. My plans quickly changed when she said to me, so you're a freak too." There were winces here and there, even a few muttered oh poor dears and the like. "I think you can guess where I'm going with this. Violet might have gone so long without drawing attention outside, but that she might have managed that all the time, from the age of one and a half, is completely fucking impossible. The Dursleys must have known she wasn't an ordinary child. And they were making every effort to ensure Violet understood that her freakishness was not to be tolerated."

"Now, Cassie, I understand you have some sympathy for the boy, but—"

"Girl. Also, shut the fuck up, Albus." There was a bit of chatter from the peanut gallery over Cassie telling the great Albus Dumbledore to shut the fuck up, but she did not give a damn. Besides, when she'd met him it'd been September of 1916, and he'd been the quirky and eccentric (and also rather handsome) junior Transfiguration Professor — unlike everyone in the room besides Alastor and Doge, she'd known him before he'd become the great Albus Dumbledore, she wasn't so in awe of him she couldn't tell him to shut the fuck up when he was being an idiot. She cast a silencing charm with a snap of her fingers, which she couldn't do powerfully enough to get everyone, but good enough she could speak over the rest without too much trouble. "Don't try to brush over this with your dotty old uncle act, so help me. You said Violet's bedroom had been cleansed — you did see where that sorry human refuse were keeping the poor girl?"

A flicker of something crossed Dumbledore's face, though it passed too quickly for Cassie to identify it. "Yes."

"Would you like to share with the rest of the class, Mister Dumbledore?" she drawled, imitating the trace of a West Country accent he'd still had back when she'd been a student.

For a long, tense moment, Albus hesitated, unblinkingly staring right back at her. She almost thought he was going to make her say it. But finally, with a little sigh, he bit out, "A cupboard. It was a cupboard, under the stairs."

The outburst from that one was the most entertaining yet. Though it helped that it was directed at Albus, for fucking over her baby sister's grandchild — they could yell at him over it until they wore themselves out, Cassie would just sit here sipping her tea and watching the show.

After a lot of shouting and accusations passed back and forth, it gradually quieted enough that Cassie could answer a question. Or maybe they'd shut up to catch it, could go either way. "I don't know what all they've been doing to her. I'm certain they've been punishing her for any sign of magic — she kept trying to apologise for being a metamorph, for not being able to help it, once she near on had a panic attack when she had an accidental change in public." That got a lot of sad and horrified looks, and no surprise there: as Cassie had tried to explain to Violet, most mages revered metamorphs enough that the thought of punishing a child for being a metamorph was absolutely detestable. "I suspect they weren't feeding her very well. She hasn't said anything about it, but I think there was physical abuse too — sometimes she'll kind of cringe and shrink away, and she watches adults' body language very closely, as though expecting a blow. Sort of reminds me of Bella as a child, actually, which is not a good sign."

There were some more horrified reactions to that, rising over the muttering the green Auror asking, "Um, Bella, do you mean...?"

"Oh, yeah, Bellatrix Lestrange. This isn't common knowledge, but she was physically and later sexually abused by her father growing up. If the silly girl had just told me about it, I would have murdered the bastard myself, but abused children are often scared to. So, I think you can understand, Albus," turning a warning glare on him, "I am not returning Violet to you. I've already failed far too many of my grand-nieces and -nephews to just stand back and let you traumatise this one more than you already have."

And he did seem guilty about that — not that she hadn't expected him to, Albus did love children. He didn't seem to get children, most of the time, but to be fair most adults didn't. And this was a child under his care, his responsibility, whose well-being he should have guaranteed, and he'd failed. And he knew it, his face drooping long, exhausted and sad and pained, oh, he knew it. But still, he had to try to defend himself. "I understand it didn't...work out the way I'd hoped. But there are reasons I sent Harry to his relatives."

"Violet, Albus."

"Oh yes, I apologise, Violet. I'm afraid I'm just so accustomed to Harry..."

Yeah, Albus had been very bemused by her brief stint as Cassius — she hadn't expected the years to make him any quicker on the uptake. "If you wanted to send her to relatives, the Dursleys weren't the only options. I understand why you wouldn't have put her with me — I was not emotionally equipped to raise a child at the time." To be honest, she wasn't in that much better of a place now, but she was trying, dammit. "The Fawleys would have been a good choice, I think Violet's... Well, a few Fawleys have married into the Potters in the last several generations, anyway. The Atwells and the Carpenters also would have been good. The Longbottoms would have been, but I guess you might not have wanted to burden Augusta with another infant, given the circumstances, but the Prewetts would have been an excellent choice. There, four perfectly-decent Light families you could have entrusted Violet to, and all relatives of the Potters."

Albus grimaced, a little, no idea what that was about. "It was relatives of Lily I was concerned with — the protection his—"

"You're not a ritualist, Albus — you don't know what the fuck you're talking about." There was a little outburst at that, again, though rather more muted this time (too many of their fellows preoccupied over the revelation that the Boy Who Lived had been abused by her relatives). Cassie just ignored them, and Albus did too, giving her a sort of narrow-eyed, thoughtful look. As much as he might not like being spoken to like that either, Albus was aware the Dark Arts weren't his area of expertise — he did know more than some, but Cassie knew far more than him. "That wasn't a ritual of protection young Lily used. Ritual protection can be thought of as a form of concealment — it prevents certain classes of creatures or people from making the decision to harm the target in the first place. It doesn't entirely remove the target from their perception, but they simply can't act to harm them.

"Now, that was never going to work. By the time Lily might have thought to do such a thing, Voldemort had already decided he was going to kill the kid — the intent to harm her would have already existed, so performing such a ritual would accomplish nothing. What instead happened, as I understand it, was the curse Voldemort cast rebounded back upon him. That's not a ritual of protection; that's a ritual of vengeance. And vengeance rituals are one-offs, there shouldn't be any lingering effects after the trap was triggered. And even if there were, one of the major differences between these two kinds of ritual is that vengeance rituals are targeted — if the ritual is still in effect, it would only act against Voldemort, anybody else could hurt Violet just fine. And, in fact, did. Since Voldemort is a wraith right now, even the simplest boundary wards are plenty to keep him away. Sustaining the effects of a vengeance ritual would be overkill, and certainly not worth leaving Violet with those worthless sacks of shite."

And, of course, there's the detail that to even have a hope of the ritual being extended, Albus would have needed to perform a ritual of his own to bind Violet to a substitute for Lily. There were ways that could work, it was something that'd been done regularly back when ritual magic had been much more common, it simply required a blood relative of Lily's...to extend a sacrifice of blood. From what Cassie understood, Lily had sacrificed her own life to fuel it — a sacrifice of soul. To extend a soul-magic ritual, Albus would have needed to find someone in spiritual resonance with Lily. A mother, possibly a maternal grandmother (though unlikely), a child, or maybe an exceptionally close lover, those were the only candidates — and since Violet couldn't be bound to herself, there hadn't been any of those left.

Thankfully, Cassie didn't need to get into that fault in Albus's plan. She realised she could be a bit incautious at times, but even she knew better than to casually talk about soul magic rituals in front of witnesses.

Also thankfully, the meeting wrapped up pretty quickly after that. After all, the only reason they'd gathered at all was because "Harry Potter" was missing, and most of them really had better things to do than sit in on a custody dispute. Cassie was still getting a fair number of irritated and suspicious looks, but Violet being abused by her relatives had softened most of the anger over Cassie stealing her away — obviously, she was a Black, what else would they expect her to do? And she was family, so.

...Was she Violet's closest living (paternal) relative? She probably was. Well, her brother was the same, obviously, and Jamie's disowned half-sister was technically more closely related to Violet, but that was it. Huh.

Anyway, before the meeting quite broke up, someone remembered, hey, wait, didn't you say someone used the Cruciatus on Lily's sister? which delayed the end for a little bit. It probably didn't help that her reaction was a careless shrug, and so I got a little carried away — unsurprisingly, the rest of the Order hadn't liked that much. Sure, using that curse on a muggle was technically Unforgivable, but she seriously doubted the Wizengamot would convict her for it, considering the muggle in question had been abusing Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived. They could go ahead and report her, if they liked, she wasn't concerned.

When everyone finally began to leave, Cassie and Albus lingered behind for a few minutes, drawing up the appropriate paperwork. Albus signed it with very little hesitation, acting as Violet's (well, "Harry Potter"'s) guarantor to legitimate Cassie as her guardian — with rather less hesitation than she'd expected, honestly. He admitted, now that they were in private, that he'd wanted "Harry" to grow up away from... Well, the whole thing with the end of the war, she was famous now, the way people spoke of her almost...disturbingly messsianic at times. Albus had thought it would be best if "Harry" were to grow up away from all that — which would have necessarily required growing up away from magic, but he was certain "Harry" would catch up well enough, the muggleborns always do.

Cassie could almost see his point — except for the part where "Harry" would have been completely fucked when it came time to reclaim "his" seat on the Wizengamot, far too ignorant of the culture of the nobility to acquit "himself" well, but whatever. Now that Albus knew Violet was a metamorph, that simply wasn't an option anymore. Metamorphs were a threat to the Statute of Secrecy by their very nature, and they needed to know about magic (and have trained mages on hand), out of concern for their health if for no other reason. Despite how inclined he'd seemed to be to argue about it earlier, he did realise that, signed Violet over to Cassie with little fuss.

Though, they wouldn't actually be filing this at the Ministry. Under the circumstances, anonymity was Violet's best defence — none of their neighbours knew Violet Black had been Harry Potter, and there was no reason they couldn't keep that deception going up until the moment she started at Hogwarts. That part Albus was a little reluctant about. Cassie promised she would tell Amelia about it, so at least someone they trusted at the DLE (besides Alastor, Kingsley, and the green Auror) would know what was going on — she would ask Amelia to keep it to herself, if someone catches wind Violet isn't with the Dursleys anymore just tell them Albus relocated her somewhere secret, don't worry about it — at the very least so the Ministry didn't end up freaking out over "Harry" being missing. Albus still wasn't happy about it, probably concerned that cutting corners with Violet's custody would come back to bite them in the arse, but he agreed in the end.

He extracted a promise from her to keep him updated on how Violet was doing, perhaps a letter every other week was fine, and maybe he could meet Violet over lunch on breaks now and again — he was slightly irritated when she insistent on the condition that she be present as well, but he'd agreed. It wasn't that she didn't trust him with Violet — though she didn't, honestly — but she suspected Violet would be extremely uncomfortable taking lunch with a strange old man on her own, especially if Albus found the time to meet with her as early as this winter. As new as Cassie herself was in Violet's life, she still thought it was a good idea for her to be there too. And that was it, they were done.

This whole thing could have gone a lot worse, she guessed. She'd almost certainly knocked Albus down several pegs in the eyes of the Order members, but that wasn't a bad thing, she didn't think. If Voldemort ever did manage to re-embody himself, it would do Albus good for his followers to question his decisions now and again. No man was infallible, even the greatest of them — it was important to keep that in mind, especially so when lives were on the line.

Alastor threw a curse at her back on her way down the hall — a blood-shredding curse, which could be devastating for metamorphs caught unawares — either for jerking them around over Violet, or maybe just for his own amusement, who the fuck could tell with him. She deflected it without too much trouble, instinctively retaliated with her own, the dark searing curse half-melting the suit of armour Alastor had been skulking behind like a bloody weirdo. Alastor just cackled — "Wish you hadn't retired, Cass, the new kids are too damn sloppy..." — then repaired the armour before stomping off, chuckling to himself.

That man, honestly...

Cassie had made it to the first floor before abruptly realising she had no fucking clue where Severus's office was. There'd been three Professors of Potions in her time — the student population had been larger then — but all three were long gone by now, and Severus could be in any of their offices...or none of them, could have put himself up elsewhere. There were tracking charms that wouldn't be blocked by the castle's wards, but there would be more sensitive privacy wards over Severus's office, and he was enough of a paranoid bastard he might well be wearing an amulet to isolate himself from such magics.

So, the obvious solution was to ask. She took a detour to the library, quickly spotted a boy in robes with Slytherin trim (fourteen or fifteen, maybe), and asked him where she could find Severus at this time of day. The boy tried to trick her, claiming his office was down on the third dungeon level, take a left, then go past the entrance to the dorms and take a— "Nice try, kid — the dorms are on the first dungeon level. I was in Slytherin myself, you know." A little sheepishly, he told her how to actually get to Snape's office, down the hall from the potions labs on the second dungeon level. He might not be there, but it was where he graded potions and marked essays, so at this time of day it was likely. Fewer labs were in use now than in her time, she had to ask to make sure she had the right spot, before thanking the boy and starting off again.

Cassie didn't bother knocking on the door, just walked straight in without announcing herself. The office was, for the most part, extremely bland, utilitarian, clearly a place intended for work and nothing else. The walls and floors were the plain dark grey stone of the dungeons, without any ornamentation of any kind — the tapestries and such so common elsewhere were absent in the Potions Department, out of concern a spill would ruin them and perhaps even cause a deadly chain reaction. There were plenty of cabinets along the walls, shelving ringing around the room just under the ceiling, littered with jars in various sizes. The jars weren't empty, some filled with gently-flickering orange-gold flames, the only lighting in the room — produced through alchemy, Cassie was certain, though she wasn't knowledgeable enough in the subject to identify what they were — and others with rare and valuable potions ingredients, and others with...

Well, creepy shite, looked like. Some of them were rare animals used as potion components, small things, mostly amphibians and rodents and (defeathered) birds — though that looked like a live ashwinder, which disintegrated when they 'died', so it must be kept in stasis somehow, nifty — floating in what was presumably some alchemical product meant to preserve them. But that right there was a fetus (pig?) which had developed wrong, two faces creating an odd sort of mirrored skull. And there were a few other mutated, vaguely unsettling things up there...disproportionately, she noticed, set close to the jars of flame, the light playing off of them, misshapen shadows dancing back and forth.

...Cassie suspected Severus had set his office up on purpose to creep out children, in an effort to make the environment subtly inhospitable so they would waste less of his time. That was simultaneously pathetic and kind of hilarious.

As the Slytherin boy had suggested, Severus was indeed grading potions — he was sitting at his desk, the surface completely bare of any personal touches, bearing only a single text, a few (curiously muggle-style) files, a single roll of parchment, and a rack of phials. (And also the glass of whiskey he'd left the meeting with, of course.) He was holding up one of the phials as she walked in, turning it in the light. "I wonder, does that infernal family of yours teach all its children to eschew such lowly matters as respect for the privacy of others, or is this behaviour particular only to those Blacks I've been unfortunate enough to be personally acquainted with?"

"I'm sorry, how many nobles have you known? None of us were raised with any privacy to speak of ourselves, and of course we're all entitled little shites." The former was more dominant in the Dark, but the latter definitely applied to all of them — Cassie hadn't noticed until she'd started spending more time around commoners how terribly spoilt most of the people she'd known growing up had been.

Severus scoffed, reluctantly amused but trying to play it off as irritation. "Perhaps I should have been more direct: I'm busy, Black, piss off."

"Now see," Cassie said, pulling out one of the chairs opposite him, "I could respect your wishes, but I want to talk to you, and I'm an entitled little shite, so." She plopped down, leaning back to cross her ankles on the corner of his desk. "Seriously though, it's important."

He shot a dark glare at her for a second, before turning back to his work, swapping out one of the little phials for another. "Given my experience with your relatives, I'm skeptical of your ability to evaluate the importance of any matter on your own."

"I suppose I should be offended, but you're not wrong. It's about Violet."

Severus bit out a hard sigh. The phial clinking back down into the rack — with a little more force than necessary, but there were probably enchantments in the rack to prevent anything from breaking — he leaned back in his chair, plucking up the glass of whiskey. "You know, I should be furious with you for that debacle upstairs."

"I am sorry about that," she admitted, wincing a little. "I know you were close to Lily — it didn't occur to me that I might have warned you ahead of time until it was too late."

For some reason, Cassie granting that she should have taken the emotional well-being of Severus in particular into account seemed to make him weirdly uncomfortable. He attempted to cover his moment of unease with a sip of his drink (and failed miserably). "Regardless. I'm uncertain what assistance you could possibly want from me. I'm certainly no better with children than you are—" Oh, far worse, obviously, Severus should not be teaching children. "—and while I am a fair healer, my experience with metamorphs is extremely limited. And Miss Tonks causes enough of a headache for me already."

"Ah, turning out a troublemaker, is she?"

Severus grimaced. "I wouldn't say that, precisely. The child can be a terrible nuisance at times — she's personally shattered a greater volume of glassware than I've lost in entire terms put together — but she's a Hufflepuff. She's far more often the target of 'trouble-making' than the perpetrator. As I'm sure you're aware, children can be vicious little monsters to each other at times, intolerant of even the pettiest of differences — add in baggage lingering from the war, and, well.

"But Miss Tonks isn't the niece you sought me out to discuss."

Cassie wanted to ask after Nymphadora's difficulties — even the most harmless of prank jinxes could be dangerous to metamorphs, a side-effect of their instinctive reification of any transfiguration performed on them — but she'd never even met the child, Severus probably shouldn't have mentioned it at all. She made a mental note to write Andi later. At the very least, she could maybe give Nymphadora some dueling tips to better protect herself, maybe practise resisting hostile transfigurations... "Right. Well, as I said upstairs, Violet is...not entirely well. I'm not an expert in such things, of course, but I'm well aware the kind of treatment she's been subjected to can have lasting consequences."

"To put it mildly," Severus grumbled, frowning a little. "Though I'm uncertain what you expect me to do about it — I attempt to help the Slytherins from...unpleasant home environments to the best of my ability, but I'm hardly a professional."

"No, but you do know professionals."

"Do not send Violet to a mind healer. They can be quite effective in speeding the recovery from mind-altering curses or single traumatic events, but in almost every other subject matter their approach is mediocre at best. At worst, they may only create new neurosis Violet will need to struggle for years to work herself out of."

"Do give me some credit, Severus, I do know that — it's not a secret mages are terribly behind the curve when it comes to the treatment of people with mental health issues." Not a secret, maybe, but she hadn't realised that until she'd actually talked to a couple of younger muggleborns about this sort of thing. Honestly, the superiority of talk therapy to work shite out and pharmaceuticals to subtly tweak brain chemistry — in place of the rather more heavy-handed use of compulsions and the like that was common in the magical world — was blindingly obvious once it'd been pointed out to her, but that there might be a better solution than just forcibly compelling people into stability hadn't occurred to her until she'd been slapped in the face with it. "That would be why I came to you: I was hoping you'd be able to find a muggle specialist I could go to."

Severus blinked at her, taken aback for a second. "I see. You are aware my professional connections hardly extend to that side of the divide."

"And you're aware I've had precious little to do with muggles over the years. Younger metamorphs don't tend to get out much, as a rule — the Statute of Secrecy isn't really compatible with, well, our existence. I would have no idea how to even start."

"And so you came to me." He said it with a shade of disbelief but, honestly, who else would she go to? The people she knew who had medical expertise, familiarity with the muggle world, and could be trusted with Violet's identity were...well, Severus. He stared across the table at her for a moment, one finger slowly tapping at his glass. "You understand, the proportion of muggles who are aware of the existence of the magical world is very small. It is extremely improbable that I'll be able to find a suitable specialist who knows of magic."

Cassie shrugged. "That's all right, I'll talk to them."

The corner of his lips curling, Severus drawled, "Breaking the Statute, Black?"

"For this? Sure. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be caught — if they react badly, I'll just obliviate them and try someone else."

Severus let out a sigh, his eyes tipping up to the ceiling for a second. The gesture was supposed to come off exasperated and reluctant, all the things I put up with, but Cassie wasn't buying it — he wasn't quite managing to hide a smirk. "Very well. I'll look into it and get back to you. I am very busy, though, so it might be a couple weeks before I'll be able to scrounge up the information you need. I don't suppose you have papers the N.H.S. will accept as proof of residency."

"What's the N.H.S.?"

"Of course," he muttered, not quite openly rolling his eyes. "No matter, I'll take care of it. Along with a list of suitable specialists, I'll include documents you should keep on hand. The United Kingdom covers all healthcare expenses for citizens and residents, and often even visitors, but for long-term care such as this they prefer to have their documentation in order — acquiring Violet's might add a couple days, but I'll figure it out."

"Do they? That's fascinating, I had no idea." Suffice to say, the same was not the case on their side — a fair portion of the populace were priced out of formal care, like at Saint Mungo's. There were healers who would go around helping people for free, or often just a place to stay and food to eat as long as they lingered in that community, but there weren't enough of those to cover everyone. "Thank you, Severus, I'd have no idea how to sort all that out."

"Don't mention it. Seriously," he snapped, glaring a little, one finger lifting from his whiskey to point firmly at her, "don't mention it."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I won't tell Violet — you have a terrible relationship to uphold and all. I still think you'd be happier if you'd loosen up a bit."

Severus let out a little scoff, but without any true feeling. They'd been having that argument since '81. Straightening in his chair a little, he set his whiskey aside, started to reach for the rack of phials again. "Unless you had anything more to add to it, Black, I do have work to do."

"No, that's all from me. Though I've still got..." She checked the time quick. "...a little less than an hour before I'll be terribly late for dinner. If you wanted to...loosen up a bit."

"Ah, I wondered when you'd return to that tired joke, now that I must suffer your presence again." He picked up a phial, started to blithely examine it, as though Cassie hadn't said anything at all unexpected or untoward.

"It was a joke during the war—" She smiled, a little crookedly, slipping a light lilt into her voice. "—you were too young for me then."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Get out of my office, Black."

"Fine, fine." Cassie's sandals clapped down against the stone floor, she popped up to her feet. "A couple weeks?"

"Yes. I'll inform you should there be any unexpected delays."

"Thank you, Severus." He didn't bother saying goodbye or anything, but she hadn't really expected him to, she simply walked out and closed the door behind her. That had gone even better than the meeting with Albus and the rest. Severus could be a prickly fellow, but that had been practically hospitable by his standards — at least once he'd realised she needed his help with Violet, and wasn't just annoying him for kicks. She probably didn't have to worry about that too much, Severus was competent and thorough, he'd get it all straightened out. Violet's treatment itself, well, they'd deal with that part when they got that far, but so far so good.

Speaking of Violet, she had pizza to acquire. She started on the long walk toward the wardline, humming to herself under her breath.

Hmm, maybe she should pick up some ice cream while she was out, they didn't have any in the house...

---

I realise I just posted this yesterday, which isn't doing me any favours where the front page is concerned, but a chapter's done when it's done.

Right, there are things I could say about this chapter, but I'm just gonna go with Cassie is such a little shite, moving on...