Chapter 5 – Niece, Marseille and Toulouse.

[22nd November - Niece, France. Villa Della Sun]

The Girl-Who-Disappeared
By Rita Skeeter

Reading the article made her lose herself in laughter, how could they believe in rubbish like this – just because she did not meet up to the weighting of wands. The whole article about it made her glad that she had gotten away from the school the day she did because now they just had to find her.

There were just about two days until they would have the first task, and she was lucky that she was long gone by now and on another continent.

Sometimes there was a wonder in her that asked if they wanted to kill people with that tournament because something told her that the first task would be mothering dragons, they were especially vicious and dangerous to the ones threatening them and their eggs.

Cassie could not care less that they were dragging her reputation through the mud and how this would look because those who believed in her didn't put much stock into the Prophet as a paper.

Now after a hectic couple of days in Paris, it was kind of relaxing to finally be in her own place – Villa Della Dun, her own place in the sunniest part of Niece. It was becoming her own brand of paradise, and she was loving it, the wards of this place she could feel were stronger than anything she had ever felt before and that was reassuring.

It was nice two-story villa, that even had a small cosy pool and of course, it was decorated and had an architecture that was decidedly French. All around there was light and airy, with a lot of windows even if it was quite big of a place but then again there was nothing around the villa for miles – meaning it had a perfect location not to be seen in.

Sinking down in the pool after a long day of walking and talking to different people was the most relaxing thing she had ever done in her life; nothing could be compared to this – and she could foresee a lot of future days spent out here just thinking after a long day of exploring.

That is what she was doing now, the warming though cooling water was the perfect way to complement her thoughts of Niece and the article she had read, it was also a way for her to contemplate what she needed to study in the coming days. Even if the article was irritating, it had also surprised her! In it, there was written if you were her a subtle support column where Severus, Draco and even Lucius in their own way supported her and her way of disappearing.

Weirdly enough it was comforting that at least someone supported her in her endeavour, it made her hopeful that if she should come back that she would have some friends in the country that wouldn't be after her money.

"This is life…" sighed Cassiopeia, as she submerged herself in the pool after working on her tan – something just had to be said was that she finally got to get some colour on her skin after being in the cooler part of Scotland for years upon years. If they could have seen her now, they would have gotten a heart attack with how little clothing she had on, for god sake they were still in the middle ages with how they dressed so she had always wondered what kind of swimwear they would be using with how they do their clothes.

At the end of the day, she was beginning to have a golden hue to her skin tone, and she would say that she would never go back to how she had been before – she looked healthy.

What more could she have hoped for!

Until the goblin could arrange for her tests, she had a lot of learning and sightseeing to do, even learning other things needed to have priority over anything else – the goal was to at least get EE or O's in all of her courses something that needed to be addressed. A career she had been interested in becoming was a healer, as it had fascinated her in the last couple of days, even her search for spells tented to gravitate towards healing spells.

Thinking like this made her see things in a lot of ways and that variated in ways you would not have believed her capable of doing.

Another thing that sounded quite a lot, but fun was to get a degree in History since she had set out to explore every country in the world. There was even archaeology, ancient runes or even languages! After all, having learned Latin, French and Spanish made things interesting in that regard as in the mundane world Latin was a dying language.

As the pool was relaxing her she was reading an interesting book about ancient cities and curses, it was interesting to see how many spells could be useful when exploring them because at the end of the day she knew that she would always go into her training room and practice them all until perfection.

[23rd November]

Like always the day started with the usual breakfast and a talk with both her elves about what her plans was for the next couple of days she would be here in Niece. Other than looking out for things that would be a learning experience for them, like learning to make food she had liked in the places she went to or other things that they would find fun to learn – she would not stop them from having fun like she was having.

This day she would be exploring every avenue of Parc du Mont Boron, Mont Alban and Fort du mon Alban – everything she was seeing was interesting and it was sweet and a cosy park wherever she was going. From castle ruins, forts and other strongholds for the past – from a different time.

The wholeness of it, then reading a little about its meaning and what other things could be learned from it made the place unique.

Alongside learning there was a lot more she would do, she would write it down in her notebook and even take pictures of the things that she was seeing, because every day was another post in her blog about travel and other recommendations of where to eat or where to go for the like-minded people.

Another piece of history she walked towards where the Chapelle de Saint-Pierre des Pecheurs, a small church at the coast, there was something majestic about it the way it was built and formed, it was wonderful to see something like this even if she had never been a fan of religion.

Cassiopeia had always felt quiet respect for those that believed that there was a higher power in this world, outside of explanation – everyone should be treated with respect regardless of which religion you belonged to!

The next place on her agenda this day was The Volti Museum, an interesting and local place and at the end of midday she found a quiet French Restaurant – Mayssa Beach. The food was excellent, and something that she wanted her elves to learn to make, that good was it. After a quiet lunch, she walked into a small alleyway and swiftly apperiating back to her Villa.

With her day away, she began to catalogue her pictures thereafter just setting together her next post and she could say it was done quickly and swiftly because she was used to writing things like this down now, she wouldn't need to take her time writing them because now she always felt like she had a plan of where this was going.

Learning spells also took their place in her daily life, and theory is also something she couldn't come without because no one could take out the fun of her learning experience, something that Hogwarts did all the time. The school had sucked out all the fun in learning the things she needed to learn for survival in the real world.

Later on, in the day, she found herself walking out of her villa and back out into the welcoming city of Niece to see more of it, it was right about five pm and a while until she would make her way to a restaurant and have dinner. First and foremost, she made her way to Castle Hill – thereafter into a small thrift store that was still open buying quite a few trinkets.

The fact was she wanted to buy something so those back home that seemed to support her, that she maybe could give as a present, though, Malfoy seemed to be a man that people gave a fine Whiskey or Wine too, but then there was just her inner voice that told her this.

Seeming to understand her, she was given a handful of maps of the city that if she wanted to go places for a more interesting experience of the city of another taste than the usual touristy variety, she was handed those maps in confidential that she would be careful. Nothing would happen to her, she knew that because her elves and herself was good to read a situation that could become dangerous, she was also promising herself to be careful more so when everything was considered.

After her talk to one of the patrons that told her of the other side of life every city seemed to have regardless of how safe they appeared, she walked to a cosy restaurant, where she ate supper before going back to her place to sleep and think over everything she had been told.

Something that made her day more incredible as she was tired, tired of walking around as she would and should know would happen in the next couple of days too!

What could be said about the next few days in the city of Niece – it could be said that she had a blast. There was a whole lot of things to do, but there had also been relaxation with it nonetheless, she could not remember having been this happy before going on this journey of discovery.

Quickly as the days went by, she made her visit to Chimiez Monastery, Matisse Museum, Valrose Castle, Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Greek Villa Kerylos and Paloma Beach where she spent quite a lot of time slicking sun and even reading a book or two.

With everything going on in her life she had forgotten to call Mari and did so one time at the end of her day – even ending up talking to her for a couple of hours. Finally, there was someone she could talk to – someone that actually seemed stable enough to take everything she could throw at her of angst and dark humour.

That was something she had quickly found out after going out into the world, her humour could be morbid or dark as many calls it, but she could also have humour that seemed perverse to some people. Moreover, the fact was that she would never have been able to discover this if she had stayed she would have lost so many house points in a year if her teachers could have heard her talking in the last couple of conversations she'd had with her friend.

Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that she couldn't be polite or didn't have manners because she had to have considered her coming status in the British snobbish world she would sooner or later be trusted into again and again.

With things going so well she had all but forgotten the tournament, so, when the paper came she could not help but see that she was right, there were dragons. Mother dragons, and now she was damn glad that nothing could be done to get her there. It was refreshing to see them running around like headless chickens.

Seeing the prophet, it hit her quite quickly that she had completely forgotten something, the letters her parents had left her, she should read them now because of tomorrows travel to Marseille. It made her worry that she had forgotten the letter, but everything has been quite hectic, and she had learned a lot by not focusing on her past even the focus on her parents would have slowed her down back then, so, maybe it was a good thing that she hadn't read it back in England.

Dear Daughter.

The first thing we have to say is – we are proud of you and we will always love you even if you run away and never step foot inside of the border of Britain again.

We are writing this now as we are watching over you sleeping softly in your crib and have no idea what could happen in the coming months with our hidden house – there is a lot that we want to teach and tell you in the shortest amount of time.

Most of all, we want to tell you repeatedly that we love you! In the end, nothing can be done if you are reading this, but we are hopeful that you will use your life to make yourself happy and do things that will make you become the person you want to be!

Sincerely,

Mom and Dad.
Lily and James Potter.

Reading the letter made her confused, though, it made her happy to hear that they had loved her and would even love her and support her if she even said screw them and get away from the people in Britain…

Nevertheless, it made her confused over having parents like this that somehow knew that they were being followed by the darkest wizard of all times and did nothing to prevent or even write a real letter to their daughter. If it had been her, she would have made herself get out of the country or even done more to leave something concrete to her child that would reassure her that everything would be alright in the future.

After reading this one lousy letter, she checked her post box for this day like she have done every day since the time she had gotten it because she could have gotten a letter from somebody as those that know could find out this, but nothing had happened this day.

[29th November – Marseille]

Days came and went with a bang, and now she was reading in a quiet compartment on a train on her way to Marseille because she knew that as soon as she would get there that she had to find her hotel and see the place out before everything else would happen in the next few days.

Cassie was also interested in finding a textile boutique to see if she could find some fabrics for dresses and other clothes, because she had heard that Winkey wanted to have something to do and she had talked to her finding out quickly that she had wonderful skills with a needle something that seemed like she would love other than making food and being bored all the time.

Thereafter, it would be interesting to find old bookstores with both new and ancient books in English and French.

The last thing on her agenda was to see Rotonde Garden.

Her thinking of it, and her doing it as soon as she had gotten there made her day quite more enjoyable. Yep, she enjoyed everything that she could and had done in Marseille until now, as she paced her suite in Masilla Hotel.

Nevertheless, she soon found something to do and reading was always something great to do, everything was wonderful because it made her understand everything that she needed to do for her tests, nothing more and nothing less.

This day was there another paper slandering her name and even threatening her with expulsion from Hogwarts, if she didn't get back to Britain – as this would threaten her! Ha! Not even Voldemort could even scare her like what they wanted her to be, but also, she knew that she would take the exam soon and would not need to care what they thought of her back home.

The next letter she got was from the goblins that told her that she needed to get to Spain before the fourteenth of December, because of a ball and that she needed to get there to stay there a while before things got serious because the test was at the beginning of January. The same could also be said for her mundane studies for that part of her education for that matter.

Meaning that they had to be prepared, meet her and set time to do it as quickly as possible before other things needed to be taken care of.

With the letters done, her new day could begin to look lighter. Palais Longchamp was her first stop for the day, and seeing the landscape made her realise that we live in a wonderful world of chaos. It was her own way of not caring about what was happening back home because they could not tell her what to do or what not to do – especially when Voldemort was dead.

Why should it interest her?

There was a lot to do, museums and another part of history that she had to see, but there were also buildings that needed to be explored through the lens of a camera, though the alleyways and small café's made it interesting for the people that had begun to read her blog.

In the next couple of days was beginning to tear her down and finding other things to do was hard she booked out of her hotel and booked a ticket to Toulouse, where she had to find her little flat – in the capital of the French Department of Haute-Garonne in the region of Occitanie. Not that it sounded like an interesting place or even was the most touristy of all the places in the French world.

So, this time she wanted to try out a few cooking courses or find some other course that she could take other than just wandering around town without a clear destination – also the fact was she wanted to get going with her driving lessons, knowing that it would be quick to learn and do because of magic.

Half of the journey was how she decided to travel, even that made her coming journey great as she didn't just want to apparate to the location – she wanted to travel for the most part like a mundane. How else would she get to know people, people that could be her friends or everyone has an enemy or two, after all!

It did not take long for her to get to Toulouse by train, and finding her flat was easy in comparison to everything else she could have done, though, she hoped that when she came to Spain that she would manage it better.

Everywhere else she had been having had some colour splashed into the furniture, but this flat right here had a natural colour scheme something that was different but good, after all, Toulouse was known for its technology of space and air travel.

Cassie would use her time here to read books and relatively learn the things needed to be sufficient in all genera of manners and skill. Moreover, she wanted to learn more about space and air travel while she was in the town when she could, so, after settling into the flat and had eaten something filling, she walked into the library to begin her studies.

[2nd December – Toulouse]

In the time she had been in France, she had always been out there doing things and exploring but now for the most part she had been inside doing nothing but studying. However, she also soon got her drivers licence, and now she would soon have the certificate in her hand so she could buy a secure car.

After this she would drive through Andorra, then Spain, thereafter, goes through Portugal, before making her way through Africa at a sedated pace, where she could explore another culture with a seal that no one could take away from her.

Every day started with a lovely breakfast prepared by her elves – then it was saving pictures, posting something on her blog. Then it was to read a couple of books and try out all kinds of spells that there has been in the books, and some days it was to make a potion. Potions had been something, in the beginning, she had been excited about, and now it was showing through that she finally could study it without any trouble from anyone.

Then there were days she just had to explore, exploring quiet places where there was food and drinks – alcoholic drinks she had been quietly getting used to since she had begun to travel around France. In the end, she liked those fruity drinks, red wine though she had gotten a taste of rum and whiskey – this could be because she needed to have a pallet, and this was her way of exploring herself more than anything else in the world.

Also, she had bought tickets to theatre plays – it sounded interesting to see some of the usual shows around town, and there was also the notion that it would be boring.

Le château d'eau, pôle photographique de Toulouse – a place pertaining to photography that had been established in 1974 in an old water tower from the nineteenth century, and it was interesting to see its perspective and to learn more about the art, and even how it could be if you are good at it.

There were also the usual museums that she had explored with quiet excitement, though, she did not spend a whole lot of time in them because it was beginning to be to generic, so, later on she needed to find places that were unusual to the country. Nevertheless, every place had its own charm, but things could and should be somewhat different, and they were but… nothing.

With things like that out of the way, she found a quiet few days of shows, and a space museums slash attractions, park and in the end got her license.

Getting her own car was wonderful and having its brand new was something great because now she could drive everywhere without any problem, and even having the goblins help in enchanting it to be invisible and a notice-me, not charm, this was better than nothing. So, the next day she was driving down to Andorra and to the hotel she had finally found she would sleep in for the next two days before going down to Spain.

AU: Re-written – 2021

DO, do you guys have any suggestions where Cassiopeia can travel to, places that she can explore or just general things she could do on her travel?

I welcome everything, and then I will see if some of them have a place in my plans to take her around the world!