Chapter 1 – Changes that must be made!
"Dobby, do you want to become one of my personal elves?" Cassiopeia whispered softly, so, that no one could hear her vulnerability or that she was on the brink of insanity.
A lot of many things has been changing for her since Voldemort's death at the end of her second year, and the only reason that Cassiopeia Potter knows this is because of one reason only – her scar had been quietly fading away. The scar wasn't hurting anymore and there haven't been any problems when it comes down to the things the dark lord was known for like the Death Eaters and their brand of craziness.
With her scar fading, she has felt like her magic was getting stronger as each year passes by, and the only bummer is that no one believes in his demise, not even Dumbledore who still believes that he is out there and bidding his time.
Knowing him he has an ulterior motive for why Voldemort has to be alive and kicking, though she wonders why he wants him to be alive at all with how he has ruined the wizarding world. The only thing she can think of is that he wants someone to kill her, so, that he can get his popularity back or it can just be that he is beginning to be senile in his old age.
Exhaustion was creeping in slowly into her bones, as she found herself dragging her trunk along the way and she knew for a certainty that she looked like a mess of tears and ripped clothes. Gryffindor Tower had become a death trap for her after her name had flown out of the goblet of fire, something that she hadn't believed at first thinking that they at least would have been somewhat supportive of her and known that it could not have been her that would have placed her name in the cup.
Also, having a bunch of adults saying that she had to compete or lose her magic was like saying that they want her to die – how could they believe that she a fourteen-year-old girl could compete against seventeen-year-old competitors?
Was every adult in this godforsaken school this oblivious to what the hell was happening in it? It shouldn't have been this hard for seasoned wizards and witches to see that something was wrong with the whole thing!
Is it so bad for her to wish for one normal teenage year of school? Where the only worries were passing classes and thinking about boys, even makeup?
This whole thing did not make sense at all because it could not have been one of Voldemort's followers, he was deader than a fish – however, it could be one of his fanatic followers that wanted her dead, but somehow deep within her did not believe it to be the case. Sometimes they did seem like rational people that should be smarter than people give them the credit for, after all, things seemed to be going their way in his death either way so it could not have been any of them.
After living in the wizarding world for most of the year she hadn't seen one Auror talking to students over what has happened inside the school, what about Amelia Bones – the aunt of Susan Bones? Shouldn't she have known about things that have happened inside of these four walls, where they are so lazy that no one knew about something petrifying people in her second year, what about the dementors last year. It was a fiasco and a death trap, also it was quite surprising that no one died because of them that year.
Her friends were of no use, they never believed her not then and not even now – so, why were they friends with her? It was like someone was manipulating things from the side-line trying to get her to break under the pressure of being alone. Like people did not know how she grew up, and she did grow up alone and unwanted, but she had become complacent and used to people around her that cared. Wanted to know her but didn't.
Seeing that the people in the wizarding world weren't that different to those in the muggle world should have been a warning to her, not to believe everything they were saying.
People have always been jealous of things they don't know; they flock to the strongest leader and they did not care how this could affect those close to them or others for that matter. They didn't even have their own opinions; they could not stand up for themselves and fight for the things they believed in – they were sheep.
Thinking about it did not make her realise more than she already had, she did not have any family to rely on – her godfather was a fugitive, Lupin was god knows where they were also people she knew she would never rely upon an upbringing like hers not before they had gotten their act together and got to know her for the person she was and had become.
That had been a hard fact to swallow, but she would never take the lesson life had given her for granted one more time, next time she knew to be cautious over who she placed her trust with. Now, right now she could all but sigh and look down on her used and worn-out trunk – was it even fair to think that she felt like she had been used and abused in the last couple of years by the people around her? Like this trunk by her side.
What could she say – she felt like she was a grown-up instead of a teenager, after all, she had missed much because of the lacklustre of adults in her life, that she had made growing up on her own?
"Dobby?" Cassie summoned, as she had a stroke of thought that the elf could help her in her endeavour to not be found until she wanted to be found.
"Cassiopeia Potter, is wanting Dobby?" Dobby popped out of the blue, and at once she could that something had changed about the elf, and the same could be said for him because he had felt the change in his secret mistress.
"Dobby, do want to become one of my personal elves?" Cassiopeia whispered softly, so, that no one could hear her vulnerability or that she was on the brink of insanity.
Dobby was fidgeting now because mistress was not knowing about what happened back then – "Do, you want to have lowly Dobby?" he asked nervously, pleading for the truth and also that he can do everything he had wanted to do to help her since changing ownership to the girl.
"Yeah, need someone to take care of me… is there anything I have to do?" Cassiopeia inquired into the working of the house-elf bonds, as he had always been curious about the difference.
After being thrown out of Gryffindor she had promised herself to do better in studying the wizarding world around her, she had never taken the time to because everyone around her thought that she knew everything there was about the world. It had opened her eyes to that no one would believe her that she hadn't known about the world she had been thrown into.
Instincts that had been forgotten as soon as she had walked into the great hall all those years ago was suddenly coming back, she didn't know why, but what the hell was she gonna do about it? What could be trusted?
"You already are my mistress," Dobby informed her with a worried look in his large eyes, seeing nothing but curiosity in his mistress's eyes. "How did that happen? Didn't I free you?" Cassiopeia questioned curiously wondering how the hell this could have happened without any notifications or something that would tell her that this had happened.
"Us house-elves can't actually be freed, and if we remain free for a period of time we fade away or die. I temporarily bound myself to you, are yous mad?" explained Dobby, to the woman he could see understanding his desperation.
This explained incredible much of why elves are vexingly opposed to being free and it also explained why Winkey have taken it so hard to be fired from her household. "What do I have to do to strengthen the bond? What about Winkey?" Cassie wondered, to the worried elf because there had to be something I needed to do.
"Winkey is drinking and isn't fading fast because of the embodying magic of the castle, if nothing is done, she will soon fade away."
"Do you think you can get Winkey here? I want to ask her the question if she wants to become one of my elves?" Cassie smiled now to the excitable elf, but her concern for Winkey never lessened and only deepened when Winkey suddenly was standing in front of her after his disappearance and reappearance.
"Here is Winkey, mistress!" Dobby told her obediently, though, he was holding up the exhausted drunk house elf by her shoulders.
"Winkey?" Cassie said and went down to her knees so that she could look her in the eye. "There is something I want to ask you?" "Do you want to come and work for the Potter family?" she had to ask this seriously, meaning that it made one hundred present correct things to say to her.
"I've been a bad elf. Don't deserve…" Winkey hiccupped trying badly not to hope that the young girl in front of her wanted her in the family.
"That wasn't your fault!" Cassie hissed kindly, "I would love to have you in my family, it will take some time, but I will have a family sooner or later, you will have a chance to prove yourself – in helping my family together with Dobby." She told her wanting to somehow appeal to her so that she wouldn't see her fade away because of some things that she couldn't change.
"You want me?" Winkey said sobering up quickly by hearing that, and maybe in the future, she would get a family to take care of.
"Of course," Cassie smiled to them both, "so, how does it take you into my family?" she asked them both because it mattered to them and it needed to happen.
"Yous will lay your hand on my head and say, "I, 'full name' take tee 'my name' unto the Potter household." Then we will be able to keep your secrets, see everything with your name on it, where things are and do things for you without anyone knowing." Dobby explained happily to her so that she could do it right.
That wasn't hard for her to understand, it seemed pretty straightforward and nothing else was underlined, but it would change things around here a lot more than she thought it would. After the whole thing was done and over with, it took only a second but the change it brought the elves was huge. Almost as soon as the bond took hold in them, they were a lot calmer, maybe they get invigorated by their Masters or Mistresses magic? It was something to look closer at. Their clothes were cleaner, with what seemed to be the crest of her family – it had to be!
Getting to know that her family had a house crest now of all things was yet again something to blame the so-called headmaster off.
"With this done, do you guys know of a place where no one can or will disturb me, where no one will be able to follow me? I want to learn everything that has been hidden from me." Cassie sought a place where no one would be able to find her, a place where she could just be herself without people finding her. At the same time, this would help her figure out how the hell she could get away from all of the scrutinies that were the British Wizarding World, and then do something none of them would have approved of.
"We know a room; it is called the Come and Go Room or as the castle calls it the Room of Requirement. It is on the seventh floor, in front of the picture of Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls the ballet." Dobby answered softly, "It can become whatever you wish it to be, and you have to wish it to become invisible."
"You should also know that the castle helps the ones it likes, and you are one of her favourites." Winkey giggled finally feeling like she belonged in a place, more so now than what she had done with her other master.
Sometimes this had worried her but thinking of how the castle has always somewhat known things that have gone on in the castle made things real and interesting, but somehow, she had ignored the way having a house-elf could have helped him in the last few years with hiding things better from her relatives. "Thank you, can you take me there?" Cassie inquired, and with that said her elves popped me in and out to where she landed outside of the one room that could maybe have a ginormous effect on her.
"You only have to go back and forth in front of this picture three times, thinking about what you want it to become, and you can be specific of what you want the room to do." Winkey piped up again, as they landed in front of a black wall.
"Thank you, Winkey and Dobby. You have made my life easier already!" she smiled at them and began to walk three times in front of the wall thinking – A place to feel safe in, that no one could find me, where I can read, train and be safe from everyone. This was done quickly and efficiently, and before she knew it a door appeared.
It was a plain door, though when she opened it and dragged her trunk inside it become something completely different than what she had been expecting of it. The walls had a soft calming colour of shades of blue, that blended well with the furniture and the bookcases – the room had taken the shape of a small flat.
In one of the corners of the room, there was a king-sized bed, and it looked soft like a river that she could not wait to just sink into. The colour was in grey and black shades, then on each side there was one simple bedside table. The bedroom section of the room was separated by the help of a bookcase – that had books in all genres of life. On the other side of the bookcase was a little nook with a couch that was draped of black leather, a long coffee table and a fireplace – over it hangs a picture of someone she didn't know, and she wondered if they could talk.
A bathroom was connected, to the room and it had a bathtub that she just had to slide into someday. There was also a connected room where she could cast spells and teach her the rightness of life in general.
There was also a lot of green colours going through the furniture, green and silver but not enough to make her complain after some days of being stuck inside a room like this.
"Wonderful" Cassiopeia said in awe, and she could not remember the last time she had felt such a relief going through her body before seeing what the castle could do for her, as she went over the couch and saw a pamphlet with the title of – The Triwizard Tournament Rule Book. Written on the front, with a picture of the goblet of fire plastered on the entire front side.
"Can I get some snacks; I didn't eat much earlier today?" Cassiopeia asked one of the elves that pattered around her.
"Of course," Winkey said first, and popped out together with Dobby leaving her to do whatever she wanted to do, it had been one day since her name had popped out. One gruelling day and she was only lucky because they had waited until the next day with throwing her out, so, her classes were finished for the day and it was only seven in the evening.
As she waited on her elves because she had more, she wanted to ask them to do, she looked curiously up at the painting that hang there wondering who it could be because they looked right back at her with curiosity too.
"Are you guys just gonna look at me?" Cassie smirked, though, not in vain.
"Morgana, look at her – she just looks so like us when we were younger." Whined the man with short black hair and green eyes, to a woman with luscious wavy black hair and kind brown eyes.
Cassiopeia wondered if she caught the name correctly because seeing them like this she wondered if history even was correct in it that they had been enemies once upon a time if this was at least the Morgana and Merlin, she knew of.
"I can see that Merlin." The one named Morgana said rolling her eyes in plain fondness, "What's your name little one?"
"My name is Cassiopeia Potter, that is what I've always been told," Cassie muttered to the people in the painting that looked at her now with a glint of comprehension, though, she didn't know why that emotion came up in their eye.
"What do you mean?" Morgana and Merlin exclaimed kindly from where they were perched on the wall.
"It is all I know of my family, because that is what I have been told by my relatives who have never been honest with me, and by the whole population of the British Wizarding World and they haven't been the most truthful to me lately," Cassie told them with a quiet voice since she could tell that this was upsetting them to a degree that she had always wanted someone to show her.
"Potter…" Hummed Merlin with a smile and looked down again with a simple eye roll. "That is one of the oldest lines there is, and you are the last one of them – what has happened in the last few decades that there is only you in your family line?"
"I don't know, but there has been a couple of wars raging." Cassie began to tell them, and with that, they wanted for her to explain everything to them, and so she did begin with the muggle-side of things and going from back-to-back telling them what she knew of events. Then afterwards she began to tell them of her life, and everything she had discovered about the life she had led until this moment in time.
"You are only fourteen and have gone through so much," Morgana noted sadly because the more she learned the more she could see how Cassie resembled her when she was at that age. "I can already see that you will have to go to the goblins for a complete inheritance check, as there should be some old laws that haven't been updated in centuries that would help you emancipate yourself." This was Merlin that told her with a nod of approval over what she had planned to do.
"You can't our picture with you, we are at least here for a couple more years yet – unless you are related to one of us," Morgana whispered seriously, knowing that if they were right, they would once more be able to travel the world with one of their ancestors. "Just remember, when your line dies again, we will once more reappear in this room waiting for another lost soul."
Hearing them talk about that she may have been related to them in the distant past made things interesting on a whole other level, and she had to ask as she nibbled on some sandwiches. "Can you tell me a bit about yourselves?"
"If you are related to us, and when you have our signature family emblems on you will get a boost of memories from them and learn everything that we had known – only then can we tell anyone of our history," Merlin answered her kindly, while Morgana nodded and with that last question the painting got quiet as softly disappeared into nothingness until the next time, she would see them – hopefully, it would be soon.
Seeing the picture disappear was something in itself, but it made her sigh in frustration because she needed to know more and there was just something compelling about knowing things that no one else knew.
Finishing her snack, she summoned her elves again and ordered them to organize her trunk to throw out the old stuff and buy the things she was missing, but also to see if something of hers was missing or lost because of her housemates. Then there was the fact of her lost fan-mails – yet another thing that needed to be addressed.
So, if they found the room – they should organize it, take care of harmful spells and give her the letters that craved immediately that she would respond. With that out of the way, she began to relax and find some kind of calm centre to read the one pamphlet she should have gotten at once her name slushed out of a tube.
With the fire blazing warmly in the fireplace, she tucked her legs up on the couch with a soft blanket around them, she began to read:
The Triwizard Tournament Rule Book:
For those hopeful winners, there are a few rules that could be taken advantage of if you just have the imagination to take it upon yourself to figure them out when it comes down to your own life.
Only of age wizards or witches can compete – if underaged you can see to become emancipated and become an adult. If everyone around you pressures you to compete, you are guaranteed to do whatever you want with it. You never really have to go along with them, it is only if you meet up on the first task, that you have to go through all trials.
You don't even need to go to classes – consider studying on your own to whatever craziness the government wants you to go through.
There are no limits in what you can study – consider everything that would help you survive.
If you didn't write your name, it will be applied to the one that placed your name in the goblet, you will never have to worry about your magic being taken away from you.
There were a lot more rules in the pamphlet, but these were the rules that was standing out to her and made her head explode with possibilities. No one could pressure her to do what they wanted her to do, so, she knew that she wouldn't show up to anything of the school-related things or even show her face to the school not until she was ready to face them all for the betrayals of those closest to her.
What she needed to do most was to find a way to get to Gringotts to see to her inheritance and to see if she had the money to go travelling around the world without anyone finding out where she was going.
In all purposes, she could now home-school herself, teach herself everything that she needed to know to survive in the world – maybe even do the O.W. L's and the N.E.W.T's in a reasonable year, maybe before everyone else in the school of her age group.
Things were finally going in her direction because now she would be free of everyone expected of her and do whatever and screw everyone that wanted to harm her.
What was fantastic was the fact that she could start up her muggle education again, as she had missed a lot of things that could have been helpful to learn if she wanted to make a career for herself in that part of the world – if she wanted to invest in that part of the world because it would make her richer after all.
After thinking a lot about the things, she needed to do, she took a book down from the bookcase called – Goblin's, talk and culture, and began to read it in front of the fireplace before she was tired enough to go to sleep.
Nevertheless, she fell asleep with a fresh understanding of what she needed to do when she met up with the goblin's tomorrow afternoon.
Re-written: 29. Dec 2020