If someone had told Cassius Warrington yesterday that he'd end up at the top of the astronomy tower with Marietta Edgecombe, he'd have said they were mad. But there they were, sitting with their backs to the wall, trying to ignore the sounds coming from inside the tower.
"Where. Are. They." By the way Marietta's teeth were clenched, Cassius guessed that she was also considerably annoyed at the absence of the Weasley twins.
"They're only five minutes late—"
"Yeah, five hellish minutes of hearing Fawcett and Stebbins eat each others' faces off!" Cassius decided to stop arguing with her. This had really not been the plan. It should've been simple—Cassius had been meeting the Weasley twins for a trip to the Three Broomsticks, and Marietta had decided to invite herself along, which was fine. Then, Lee Jordan had told them to go to the astronomy tower instead of the second floor corridor which had been the original plan, because Filch had switched his patrols. Then Stebbins and Fawcett had come up the stairs, and Warrington found himself hiding out on the balcony while they…well, he was trying not to think about what they were doing. And he was wondering how much he really needed the butterbeer. But then he imagined Fawley's complaints if he didn't get it—"Oh come Cassius, two bottles of butterbeer was all I asked. It's not Ogden's finest. Merlin's beard, it's not even fire whiskey, I got that. And don't even blame it on the Weasley twins—"
"There!" Cassius followed Marietta's hand to two figures flying toward them, watching as they took shape as the solid figures of the Weasley twins.
"You're late." The twins landed and dismounted, one walking over to the wall while the other shrugged apologetically.
"Filch. We couldn't do anything about—" He stopped, wrinkling his nose. What is that?"
"That is the past five minutes," Warrington put simply, and the twin nodded in sudden clarity.
"Got the door George?"
"One second…mm there it is." Where the wall had been, a door appeared, reminding Cassius of the archway to Diagon Alley.
"There's a passage from Hogsmeade to the astronomy tower?" Fred laughed at Marietta's confusion, and George shook his head.
"Of course not. There's a passage from the astronomy tower to a passage to Hogsmeade. It was all caved in when we found it—"
"But after some careful excavation, it's perfectly usable now. Though usually not very practical. Perfectly safe though." Cassius looked at Marietta, who shrugged, and they turned to the tunnel, following Fred while George closed the door. The passage must've been magical, because Cassius swore they were walking horizontally far past the end of the astronomy tower. After walking for a while, they reached a dead end, where a hole in the wall in front of them led to a vertical passage with no bottom in sight.
"This is the tricky part, but you ought to be fine. Just follow my lead—" With that, Fred braced himself on either side of the hole and swung his feet forward then dropped, not falling into the hole but landing on the wall in front of them like it was nothing out of the ordinary. Marietta's eyebrows rose, and Cassius felt similarly impressed.
"Gravity field? We've been walking down, haven't we?"
"And the passage is in front of us…How far down? And is this—"
"Not our work, though we've been working on figuring it out for some products. I don't know how far, but you'll want to cast a cushioning spell the first few times, until you learn how much momentum to use. Go on now, I'll come last." After a bit of uncertainty, they all made it through the hole in the wall and followed Fred as he led the way to the end of the passage, which led them to—
"Honeydukes? There's a passage to Honeydukes?"
"Warrington, there's a passage most anywhere you'd want to go, if you know where to look." A few months ago, Cassius realized, he would have taken Fred's tone as scornful, but now he recognized it as a simple statement of fact, and wondered how much of the divide between Gryffindors and Slytherins could be solved just by having them listen to each other. Maybe the looming war wouldn't even be a problem, maybe they'd all just be on the same side of things…his cheery mood dropped somewhat as he thought about it. Ever since the Hufflepuffs' party, his conversation with Adrian had been coming back to him at the most inconvenient times. He was aware of the one of the twins making some stupid joke or another, and of Marietta and the other twin laughing, but he suddenly felt checked out and exhausted, just wanting to get the butterbeer, give it to Fawley, and go to sleep.
"Helloo, Cassius Warrington. Are you there?" George was waving a hand in his face, and Marietta and Fred were looking at him, the former concerned and the latter questioning. "And he's back folks!" Cassius noted that they were standing at the entrance to the Three Broomsticks.
"Knut for your thoughts?" Fred posed the question conversationally, but there was an underlying question, almost like some kind of concern…with a jolt, Cassius realized that was exactly what it was. They all cared. Maybe it shouldn't have mattered, but it did, and all of a sudden he wanted to tell them everything that was wrong, but he couldn't. He could say something though.
"It's just…Have you ever wondered what the future holds for us? I mean, what if there's another war? What'll happen? Hogwarts is so divided already and that just creates room for so many worse things once we're all out in the world."
"We've just got to stand on the right side." George said it so matter-of-factly Warrington wanted to scream, but instead he just looked down for a second, clearing his head, then looked back up, into George's eyes.
"And what if the right side won't take me? Not you," he said, watching all three bite back the argument that had been coming. "I mean everyone else on the right side, everyone in charge. And even if they do, then what? What do I do about all of my friends and family who're still on the other side? The world isn't black and white or right and wrong, it's made up of millions of places where morality is grey and choices have loads of factors that don't appear on the surface, and I can't just ignore those things."
"So what do you want?" Marietta was looking at him evenly and unblinkingly. And Cassius was finally and totally torn from his thoughts and grounded back in the moment, remembering that he they were in the middle of Hogsmeade; and all the energy of his impassioned speech drained away, and he just felt tired again.
"I want something to change. I don't want to be forced into the grey areas; I want a choice. I want my friends to have a choice."
It felt too silent as he stopped talking. George had developed a fixation on his feet while Fred looked up. Marietta was still focused on him, and as their eyes met he felt like she understood; not completely, but enough. Looking away from her, he pulled the door open and walked inside the pub.
/
The party hadn't been a big affair; a small remnant of Slytherin students remained in the common room, but most had gone to bed, or at least back to their rooms. Cassius, Andrew, and Adrian had left some time before under disillusionments and had flown out to the hills near Hogsmeade, where Andrew had pulled out a bottle of Ogden's finest, and for a while, the three of them sat in relative silence, leaning against one of the boulders scattered among the hills. It was Andrew who finally broke the silence, pulling Warrington's attention to the very thing he'd been trying to avoid.
"So are you ready?"
"As ready as I'm going to get. I think I could put up a pretty good fight against anything they've got for us, and it helps that I'm going in first."
"First with bloody Potter," Fawley snorted. "I still don't believe they gave him so many points the second round. It's ridiculous."
"Well, it happened. Anyway, Potter's an idiot most of the time, but he's not so bad of a person, really." Cassius didn't turn to look, but he saw Adrian stiffen as Andrew's mouth fell open.
"Potter's not so bad? Salazar, Warrington, he's a Gryffindor! And if that's not enough he's arrogant and selfish and an absolute prick. He thinks he's better than us just because of our house—"
"And we don't do that? Merlin, Fawley, you said it yourself, the first thing you accused him of was being a Gryffindor, like he could help that—"
"Lord, Pucey, you too? Did you two eat something odd tonight or—" Andrew cut off as Cassius sighed deeply. "Look, just say whatever it is you have to say, alright?"
Cassius winced at the anger buried in his friend's tone, and thought carefully about his words. Why had this been so much easier to say earlier? Because you didn't care as much what they thought, his mind Because you felt supported and now you're trying to change the whole perspective of one of your best friends.
"It's just…" He closed his eyes and looked up at the stars. "I wish that there wasn't so much of a divide between us. That's how wars start, with people branding each other as the enemy and not looking for any way to understand each other, just mindlessly fighting for the side they've been assigned to by birth or whatever. Don't you ever wish we had a choice, Andrew? Even if you'd do the same as you'll do now, don't you wish it could be you deciding that and not your parents, or tradition, or some stupid divide?"
"So you want to get all snuggled up with the Gryffs?"
"That's not what he meant Fawley, and you know it."
"You too, Pucey?" Andrew seemed mad still, but Cassius didn't feel like the anger was directed at him, or even at Adrian. "Look, think what you want. I didn't become your friend because you agreed with me about everything, so I'm not going to turn my back on you because we disagree. But I'm not just going to get cozy with the Mudbloods—Muggleborns, whatever—just because you're upset about choices; and anyway, they wouldn't let me. Don't pretend that it's just my family that's stopping me from having a choice, it's them too."
Cassius was silent. He could see that Adrian wanted to argue, but they couldn't. It was true.
"Let's not talk about it any more, yeah? The final task is tomorrow, and I don't care what our sides are about this, I want both of you supporting me, because you're right. We're friends outside of these things." Andrew nodded, and a smile crossed his face, slightly hindered, but still there. Adrian followed suit, and the three of them sat and talked for a while longer before grabbing their brooms and flying back to the castle. It was the early hours of the twenty-fourth of June, and if not exactly at peace, all were well.
This is it! The last chapter before the final task... Also my first chapter in...a while. Sorry about that :/ Anyway, let me know if there's anything weird about this formatting because it copied weird. I hope you enjoyed!