Thank you all for you lovely reviews, really. I love that you all seem to be liking this story. Anyway…
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling.
Ding, Dong, The Dark Lord Is Dead.
"What are you going to do now?"
Regulus looked up from the newspaper and blinked at his little sister. They were in the living room of his house, Regulus in the armchair and Cassia sprawled on the sofa. The book she was reading rested against her stomach as she eyed him with curiosity.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"The Dark Lord is gone," said Cassia. "So we don't have to hide here anymore, do we?"
Regulus folded the newspaper and sat up straight in the armchair. "I guess? The Dark Lord might be gone but most of his followers are still around."
Since the death of their father Regulus had taken his sister into the protection of his house. He had offered the same deal to his mother, but she had refused to leave society. So they had cut themselves off from the world. Including their mother and Sirius, with whom Cassia had still been talking until then.
The two siblings had spent over two years in the house, almost never leaving. Regulus had taken up most of her education since they couldn't tell Miss Dahlia and Mrs. Pyrites their new location.
"What are you reading now?" he asked trying to divert the conversation.
Cassia was the one in charge of sneaking into the nearest town, a muggle one, and shop while Regulus had, at last, learnt how to cook. Most of Cassia's new books, in fact, came from one of the muggle bookshops. A fact that didn't make Regulus very happy.
Cassia looked down at her book. "The Hobbit," she said. "It's an adventure and fantasy book. There's dwarves and elves and a wizard," she smiled. "It's good."
Regulus pressed his lips together. "It's a muggle one, isn't it?"
Cassia nodded. "Sometimes muggles make the best stories," she said. "When are we going back home?" she added.
"You're not going to give this up, are you?" Regulus sighed.
"I just don't understand why we can't go back home," Cassia pouted. "I miss my bedroom. And Mother and Kreacher,"
Regulus couldn't explain his nine-year-old sister about how he was afraid of going back to that house. How he felt the guilt of their father's death would crush him if he even stepped a foot into the place. How he dreaded their mother's blaming stares and disappointed looks (it was ironic that Sirius had become the man their mother wanted while Regulus, who had been so close, now couldn't be further away).
"There's first a lot of things we have to do," he said. "A lot of people know that I'm a Death Eater and I have to clean my name. We have to add security to the house so nobody can get to us. I even have to get a job!"
Cassia huffed but kept her mouth shut. After a few moments of silence, when Regulus had already gone back to his newspaper, she spoke again.
"Can we get Miss Dahlia back?" she asked vulnerably. "I've missed her."
Regulus face dropped. "Of course we can!" he exclaimed softly. "I'm sure she has missed you too."
And Cassia's smile made going to that wretched place completely worth it.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Some days before her eleventh birthday a big owl landed in the middle of the kitchen table while she was having breakfast.
Mother was already out, doing who knows what at Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy's house. Regulus had only lasted a couple of days in the house before going back to the Reef. He was working as a journalist on the Daily Prophet (though he had plans of starting his own newspaper) and Cassia usually spent the weekends at his place.
Since she was alone she had decided to eat in the kitchen with Kreacher keeping her company. As she did each meal she was left alone.
"An owl!" exclaimed Cassia with excitement. "And here it says it for me!" She bit her lip and looked at the house elf with wide eyes. "Do you think it's my Hogwarts letter?"
Kreacher shrugged. "The Mistress will only know if she opens the letter."
Cassia tore the envelope and squealed when her eyes found the Hogwarts crest. "It is!" she beamed. "It is! It's my Hogwarts letter! I'm going to Hogwarts!" she danced around the room with the letter held up high.
"Congratulations, Little Mistress," the elf told her sounding a little bit sad.
Cassia knelt on the floor to hug him. "Oh, I will miss you, too, Kreek. I almost don't want to go, but Hogwarts…" her voice was yearning.
"What does the Mistress wants to do to celebrate this?"
Her eyes shone. "Can we go to the Alley?"
He hesitated. "The Mistress knows she can't go to the Alley alone."
"I won't be alone, I'll be with you."
He grabbed his ears. "Master Regulus will be so angry if he finds out. And the Mistress… No, Kreacher cannot do this."
"Come on, Kreek," she pouted. "No one else is here and I need to celebrate now. I have all this happiness inside I feel like I'm going to burst if I don't do something."
The elf sighed in the defeat.
.
.
On the two years since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's defeat, the Magical World seemed to have crawled out of the shadows. Diagon Alley was cheery, with people happily looking through the shops and a feeling of calmness in the air.
"FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY YOU COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"
Well, mostly.
Regulus didn't let Cassia go to Diagon Alley all that much. It was like he wanted to protect her from the stares and mutters of the people. As if she didn't already know.
Cassia knew her family has been on the losing side of the war. She knew they all thought muggles were inferiors and they, purebloods, superiors. She even knew that her brother Sirius, who had been on the other side at first, turned cloak in the end and now was in Azkaban with their cousin.
Regulus always told her he believed Sirius had only joined Voldemort to protect the Potters, or maybe to even spy for the Order, but it had backfired terribly.
"He never believed in the pureblood superiority," he had told her wrinkling his nose, as if believing him stupid for denying such an obvious thing. "And he loved James Potter like a, well, more than a brother. He would have never betrayed him."
He still faced some prejudice. A couple of months after the war ended he went willingly to the Ministry and demanded a trial. "I became a Death Eater but I quit. They killed my father for it. I never killed anyone but still…I'm here to face the consequences of my actions."
They sent him to Azkaban for two months (one for each year you've been on his service) and he came back pale, shaking, awfully thin and with emptiness on his eyes. It was only thanks to Cassia that he didn't spiral into madness.
Cassia looked like a Black. With wavy black hair, grey eyes, high cheekbones and aristocratic face, she fit the part. She knew when people saw her they only thought «Look! There goes the mass-murderer's sister», «Did you know her whole family has been in Azkaban?» or «Who knows what kind of Dark Magic they've taught her?». They didn't see a girl, they saw a Black.
So that was why she wanted to sneak in, without anyone looking at her like she had murdered their family.
She turned to her elf. "Kreacher," she said solemnly. "I order you to go back home and only come back when I call or if I'm in danger."
Like she'd expected he opened his mouth to argue. "But Mistress-"
"Kreacher, go!"
Even if he despised it, no house elf can disobey the orders of his master. And so he disappeared with a loud crack, leaving the girl alone in the cold alley.
Cassia knew her way around Diagon Alley, it was easy. And her first stop? Gringotts. The goblins eyed her with scepticism but when she handed them her key it vanished.
Ten minutes later she was outside with her hair tussled and a bag of money on her hands. It was her first time in the Alley alone and she was scared but excited at the same time.
The January wind was cold so she burrowed her nose on her scarf and tugged her hat over her ears. Both navy blue and white, a gift from Miss Dahlia.
"You're a Spurs fan now," she had told her.
Where to go? The few times that Cassia had been in Diagon Alley had always been with Regulus or her mother and they always had a plan, knew where to go and in the right order.
Well, now it was her turn to choose.
Since she had left mid-breakfast and was hungry again she decided to go to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. She wanted some ice cream. Even if it was late January and freezing cold.
The man smirked at her. "Not really the time for ice creams, is it?"
Cassia just smiled at him. "It won't make it any colder."
Mr. Fortescue laughed. "Oh, at that you're right. Should you be alone here?"
"My mother and my brother are working," she shrugged. "And I'm old enough to look after myself."
The ice cream vendor seemed to fight with himself for a moment. "Why don't you come inside?" he said. "You will freeze out there."
The inside of the shop was nice and comfortable. With pastel walls and pictures of landscapes, the soft smell of vanilla in the air. There was a red sofa and a coffee table. On the sofa a young girl was reading a heavy book.
"Hi, I'm Cassia."
The girl looked up from her book. "Giorgia."
"Your father let me in. Can I sit with you? What are you reading?"
Giorgia looked a bit taken aback by the other girl's friendliness. "Um… it's called The Red Boat."
Seeing that the girl was answering Cassia took is as an invitation and sat on the armrest, leaning towards the girl. "What is it about?"
"Well, it's about this group of kids who find an enchanted red boat and they start travelling around the world and having adventures and stuff. And there's this evil guy who wants the boat for himself and keeps trying to steal it and they have to stop him all the time."
She nodded with interest. "Whoa! It sounds pretty great. I'll have to read it."
"They have it on Flourish and Blotts so if you have money you can go," Giorgia suggested.
Cassia grinned. "Great!" she said with such enthusiasm that Giorgia couldn't help smiling back.
Mr. Fortescue appeared on the small hall with a hovering tray in front of him. The tray landed on the coffee table and Cassia saw that it carried two bowls of ice cream covered with chocolate.
"You look like a chocolate and strawberry kind of girl," he explained as he gestured towards the bowl with the pink ice cream.
Her eyes widened with amazement. "How did you know?"
He tapped his nose. "It's my job to know these things."
The chocolate covering was hot against the cold ice cream. Cassia beamed at the first taste.
"Why don't you join her on her shopping later, Gina?" asked Mr. Fortescue. "It would do you some good to get out the house."
"Oh, I don't know… I mean, she sure has already plans a-"
Cassia shook her head. "No, actually I don't. It's just… I got my Hogwarts letter this morning but there wasn't anyone to celebrate with me at home. So I decided to come here. Come on! We can go to Flourish and Blotts and you can tell me about your favourite books!"
Seeing herself outnumbered the girl relented. "You'll have to give me money, though," she told her father.
Gina Fortescue was a tall girl for her age. With olive skin that looked almost yellowish from the lack of sun, dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. She walked fast and almost seemed to be in a bad mood. Cassia, though, had quickly learnt how to make her talk.
The girls chattered about books and spent hours at Flourish and Blotts, although in the end Cassia only bought two books and Gina one. Then they went at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch and they strolled through the Alley and the connecting ones (except for Knocturn Alley). When it was getting late, Cassia dragged her new friend to the pet shop to buy a cat.
"Owls are more useful," Gina told her when she saw her making faces at the kittens.
"I want a pet, not a tool," Cassia scowled.
Her brother burst into the shop with a fierce scowl and Kreacher by his side. Neither of them looked happy.
"Hi, Reg!"
His scowl deepened. "Cassiopiea Lucretia Black, what the hell were you thinking?"
Gina snorted. "Lucretia?"
"I know, I know," she stuck out her tongue to her new friend. "Can you start the shouting once we get home?"
Regulus sighed but conceded eyeing Gina, the vendor and the people on the street. "Let's go then."
"Wait!" she turned back to Gina. "My birthday is this Saturday. I guess my mother will make me a party with family members and stuff but maybe later you can come?"
Gina smiled. "Yeah, sure. And you can come visit anytime."
"Brilliant."
Regulus tried not to look warmed by the scene. Cassia hadn't had a lot of chances to interact with other kids her age, so it was nice to see her making friends again.
Still… "Can we go now?"
"Just a moment," the girl rushed to the counter. "I want that one."
.
.
"Of course you had to get the one that was missing a leg."
Cassia hugged the cat close to her body. "Nobody was going to get him! And look at him! Look at this face!"
The cat was mostly grey and fluffy, the kind of cat you wanted to nuzzle all day long. His almond shaped eyes were a mix between yellow and green. His left hind leg was missing; he got ran by a car some months ago. It was young, not even two years old, and the lady of the shop had told her had made a nice recovery. She had even given her some advice to better take care of him.
"Mother won't be happy that you've bought a cat," said Regulus. And even less when she saw the cat hadn't even a drop of kneazle blood and, on top of everything, was broken.
Cassia scratched the cat behind its ears. "I will keep him away from her and she won't mind. Now I just have to think of a name. Umm…"
"You will clean the litter box on your own and without magic."
She ignored him. "The lady said he came from Greece, so how about a Greek name?"
"You're not going to call him Zeus."
She beamed. "Helios! It's the sun god."
Her brother just sighed.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O
The next few months things changed a bit around the house. Miss Dahlia and Ms. Pyrites only came in the mornings, leaving her afternoons off to goof around or go to Diagon Alley to hang out with Gina.
During her childhood Cassia had made some friends with the other pureblood children around her age that always ended up stuck with her on the parties and such. Then the war had worsened and the parties had stopped, and then Cassia had gone into hiding with Reg for two years. By the time she'd gone back into society it was like she didn't know those kids anymore and they all seemed so different from her… They didn't have anything in common.
Still, Cassia tried to be friendly and keep the peace on those dinners. She hated every second of it, but she bore it with a smile. Luckily those events weren't as common as they had been once upon a time.
Cassia read, played with Helios, wrote to Gina and obeyed her teachers. Miss Dahlia took her on excursions and she got to meet Tina Hopper, the girlfriend. They took her to a football match, Tottenham Hotspur versus Arsenal (5-0), to the movies, skating, bowling… Miss Dahlia bought her muggle records when she learnt that nobody used her father's old gramophone, and Tina took her to a U2 concert and promised many more afterwards.
Cassia liked Tina.
When summer came, Regulus took Cassia on a two week holiday to the south of France. She ended up sunburnt everywhere but had lots of fun. Regulus even made a lady friend on the trip and she got to tease him a lot afterwards.
During one of her numerous trips to Diagon Alley to see Gina she also bought some Potion's ingredients, her school robes and her wand.
Mr. Ollivander had needed almost a full hour to find her perfect wand and, once he did, he kept looking at her strangely. "Pear and unicorn hair," he muttered to himself. "I think this is the first time I've ever sold something like this to a Black," and he stared at her as if expecting her to jump and announce that, actually, she was adopted.
She and Regulus shared a look. "Alright…" he cleared his throat. "Seven galleons, is it?"
The wandmaker snapped out of his trance. "Right, seven galleons, yes. I believe you will end up surprising the whole world, young lady."
Cassia was very relieved to leave the shop. "Is he always like this?"
Her brother was frowning. "Yes, he's always been a little… intense."
And after that all there was left to do was wait. Wait until September 1st came around and she could finally go to Hogwarts. Reg couldn't stop teasing her, saying that maybe he'd changed his mind and didn't want to part with her so he'd ask Ms. Pyrites to keep coming.
He didn't see the flying pillow until it was too late.
Even her mother seemed to be sad about Cassia leaving her for most of the year, but Cassia couldn't be sure. She'd never been really close to her mother, always a Daddy's girl, and when she and Reg had gone into hiding for two years it was like coming home back to a stranger. Not that her mother spent much time home afterwards.
But now at Hogwarts things would change and she couldn't wait.
.
.
.
.
Yes, Sirius is in Azkaban and he will stay there, sorry. I hope Regulus' theory about Sirius makes sense.
So, Hogwarts next!
Review?
MW.