[Disclaimer: Y'all know the drill by now]
Okay, this story is going in a completely different direction to what I had originally intended. But, sigh, that's just how it is. If I had a muse, I could berate it, but unfortunately, I have only myself to blame...
Past History
Chapter Two
In which our heroine discovers the fact that Hogwarts really, really, really does suck.
Well, to her, anyway. Schoolwork is not dear Cassandra's favorite thing in the world, and you the readers discover that Time-Turners go both ways...
Cassie sat waiting for her three best friends, and the gossip that they would inevitably bring.
She was not disappointed.
"Virtue Blake is a bitch." Lana announced, sliding into the seat next to Cassie. "Not only do I stop and help her gather her books up when she's spilled them all over the ground and nobody else has bothered to stop, I compliment her choice of reading material and, noting she's got some of my favorites, offer the use of my personal library. Y'know, extending the hand of peace and all that, since once we're out of Hogwarts, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor'll be just childish." Lana gestured expansively. "Anyhoo, I do all this, and she stands up, glares haughtily down her nose at me, and says, 'How typically Gryffindor of you. Charitability. Well, rest assured, Ms Rourke, I do not require your charity, and would much rather it if you would keep your distance.'" The outraged sixth year attempted Virtue's cold tones.
Odessa and Jami gave the appropriate responses in the appropriate places, but Cassie seemed distracted.
"Cass? Hello, best friend been wronged by evil Slytherin demon, why aren't you leaping to my defense?" Lana waved a hand in front of her petite friend's eyes.
"What?" Jerked out of her reverie, Cassie stared blankly for a moment. "Oh, right. Yeah. Evil."
"And don't you sound soooo convincing. But anyway, I guess you just need to rest up or something. All that champagne the other night can't have done you so much good. First class's Transfiguration, with Prof. Dumbledore. You're a whiz at Transfiguration, you'll be fine, away with the faeries or no." Odessa rolled her eyes. "You could pass Transfiguration drunk."
Cassie sat in the library, trying to study for the Potions test, when something golden behind a shelf caught her eye.
It was a pretty little time-turner, but of course, Cassie, having never seen one, did not recognize it. Picking it up, so she held it by the chain, she examined it carefully.
And then dropped it, accidently.
As it spun, she reached to catch it, and as she did...everything swirled into each other until she couldn't tell the library for the books or the shelves for the library...
Darkness...
"I think she's coming around, Headmaster." Madam Pomfrey reported. A strange, but oddly familiar, 16-year-old girl had been found, passed out with a time-turner in her hands, in the back of the library.
Dumbledore nodded, concealing his impatience. Either she was from the past or the future, he wouldn't know which until he saw her -- and Poppy Pomfrey had been determined to keep everyone away until her young charge had recovered enough.
"Then I can go in, Poppy?"
"Of course you may, Headmaster."
Albus Dumbledore stopped in his tracks when he saw who was sitting up in the bed, confused.
His star pupil from Transfiguration, Cassandra Winterburn.
From, what, fifty years ago?
Merlin's arse!
"Professor Dumbledore? I'm so glad to see you, I was so worried. I don't recognize anyone and I should and aren't I going to be late for my next class?" It all came out in a rush, but the dark-haired young witch stopped when she saw his expression. "Professor?"
"My dear Ms Winterburn, it appears you have inadvertantly sent yourself fifty years or so into the future. I am Headmaster Dumbledore, now."
Cassie frowned. "But I couldn't have..."
"What you must have used is a Time-Turner, though I am sure accidentally, due to your confusion. You have heard of them, Ms Winterburn, because you questioned me on them once when I mentioned it in passing. A few days ago to you, several decades ago to me."
"Yes, yes, but--"
"I never told you what they looked like."
Silence descended as the enormity of what had happened crashed in on the young woman.
"Do you have the Time-Turner?" he prompted.
"No, it dropped out of my hands when I passed out..." she told him distractedly.
Dumbledore's heart sank. Slowly, he said, "Then...the Time-Turner that brought you here is still in your time..."
"I'm trapped? But that's awful! And what if I run into myself? Won't that cause one of those awful paradox-y things? I'm sure I've heard about 'Thou mustn't time-travel for fear of fucking up the future' -- begging your pardon for my language, of course."
"There is no danger of you running into yourself, Ms Winterburn."
"What? But--" she broke off as realisation dawned. "I'm dead. That's it, isn't it? I'm not in the future. No offense, Pro--Headmaster, but the future bites."
"I don't know what we'll do with you, but for now, you will attend Hogwarts. I suspect you are curious as to whether or not you are a grandmother, that sort of thing?"
"Kinda, maybe." She admitted.
"And what happened to your friends?"
"Yeah, them too. More especially me, but them too."
"Your granddaughter's name is Morag Snape, and she is in her seventh year."
"So my granddaughter is older than me. If that's not paradoxal and all that crap, I don't know what is."
"Your daughter Morganna is my assistant here, at the moment. She needed something to fill in her time, and I needed a, well, Ms Snape calls it a 'glorified secretary', and I suppose she's right. Of course, Mrs Snape is a wealthy woman in any case. Come along, and we shall sort you out."
Cassandra Winterburn was, to put it mildly, stunned.
She also had a new name.
'James Grey'.
She had quite liked the idea of having a traditionally male name, and had, in her short time in the future, heard of a muggle celebrity (female) with the name 'James'. Besides, then people could call her Jami and she'd be like Jami Ricketts, one of her bestest ever friends.
"Ms Win--I'm sorry, Ms Grey, you may continue in Gryffindor, though I'd be lying if I told you your family are Gryffindors." Dumbledore was saying, with a faint smile.
"They're Hufflepuffs? Ravenclaws?" she guessed.
"Close."
"No way." 'James' shook her head. "My kids are Slytherins? Have I mentioned how much this year sucks?"
"Several times, Ms Grey."
"Let me reiterate -- the future sucks."
"Who's the new girl?" Morag Snape peered over at the oddly familiar new addition to Gryffindor. Was it just her, or did new additions turn up every single year?
"James Grey." Draco told her, not looking up. "She's the centre of attention over there, for some reason. Everyone keeps telling her how much she looks like your mother. I think she's been asked if she's a relation about a thousand times."
"How do you know?" Morag glanced at her boyfriend, rolling her eyes. "Let me guess -- the great Draco Malfoy is not above eavesdropping?"
"Eavesdropping? Hell, Mora, I asked her too!"
[A/N: Just to make things easier, Cass'll be known as James from now on. I don't know why, but naming Morag's grandmother James amused me.]
James Grey had been sat herself down next to Hermione Granger, and on her other side was Ron Weasley, who had been disgruntled by her choice of seat, because it meant he was stuck apart from his friends (Ginny was between Hermione and Harry, and on Harry's other side was Neville).
"You must be the new girl." Hermione smiled at her. "I'm Hermione Granger."
James went to say 'Cassandra Winterburn', but stopped herself just in time. "James Grey." She smiled back. "I was home-schooled until now, but my parents decided to send me here." She gave them the well-rehearsed cover-story.
"James? That's a strange name for a girl." Ginny put in.
"I know. Parents, huh?"
James was going through old photo-albums with her daughter (that took some getting used to), Morganna Snape. Morganna had been made aware of her mother's presence in this time almost immediately.
"You mean I actually married Montaque? Was I drunk at the time?" James asked her 'daughter' suspiciously. "He was a right prat. Couldn't stand him."
"You married him, had five children, too." Morganna nodded, yawning. James was nothing like the mother she remembered from her childhood. Mother had been...detatched. Distant. Cold. Aloof.
Nothing like this bubbly, vibrant young girl who radiated this aura of friendliness, eccentricity, strength, loyalty...brilliant character traits.
"Five?" James looked puzzled. "I've only heard about four."
"Gloria Anne died 33 years ago, when I was born."
"Oh." She thought this through. "How old was she?"
"Sixteen. Papa killed her."
"Sounds like something that prick would do, yes."
Morganna swallowed, hard. There had to be some mistake. Her mother...this wasn't her. "I guess."
James looked stricken. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry, I've offended you now, I didn't mean to...he's just...awful. In my time. Maybe time mellowed him a bit, and the killing...accidental? It's just that him and my father kept talking about how I would marry him and be the perfect wife and I don't want to, because he's a prick and marriage should be love and speaking of marriage..." The young, out-of-place-and-time, witch, sighed, trailing off. "If I've got my timelines right, you got married at 16. And had a baby soon after. Did I approve?"
"I believe you were already dead by then. If not then, soon after." Morganna murmured.
"I was dead? Who killed me?"
"Nobody, as far as I know. We always believed you just...stopped wanting to live. Papa received the Dementor's Kiss for his crimes, and you...stopped. It was like the official status of Papa's criminal history made it, more real. And you couldn't cope with that. You were always very withdrawn, and reserved. Distant. Cold and aloof, truth be told. When I was very young, you held me and played with me, and sometimes you called me Glori, but I didn't mind because I just wanted to be near you. Then...your visits to my nursery got fewer and far between, until you stopped coming altogether, and I barely saw you." Morganna broke off, staring at her hands.
"I'm sorry." James whispered, shocked. She had always wanted to have children. A big family, to love, and chase around the house, play with them, pick them up when they were hurt...Cassandra Winterburn had a lot of love to offer a family.
But now, James Grey wanted to know what turned Cassandra Winterburn into the ice-statue Morganna Snape described as her mother.
"You haven't done anything." Morganna smiled reassuringly at her. It was strange -- being the older, the wiser, the more mature, when this girl was her mother.
"Yet."
James Grey was far too observant by half. The unspoken word had hovered on her lips, and James had picked up on it.
Cassandra moved through the halls of the enormous house as if she were a ghost.
Beside her, a younger version of herself watched, by the name of James Grey.
James watched as her older self walked into the nursery, late at night, to stare at her youngest daughter.
"Morganna," James whispered to herself.
"Morganna." Cassandra whispered. "May you never make my mistakes."She brought the sleeping one-year-old into her arms, and cradled her there, careful not to wake her. "I love you, 'Ganna. Never believe otherwise. You know, when you are all grown up, I know you will make your mama so proud. You're my beautiful baby girl...just like my Glori."
James watched, feeling helpless to do anything but as the woman before her poured out her heart to a sleeping child.
"I will always believe in you, baby girl. Because I love you. I used to think I could love your father. I was wrong. He took away my Glori, but I'll be damned if he takes you away from me. You never let him hurt you, baby, you be strong, like your sister."
Then the scene changed. A four-year-old Morganna, her sisters and brother, and her parents, spending a day at a beach.
Morganna had built a sandcastle, and when Gerad knocked it down, she cried pitifully.
Neither parent paid her any heed, though there was a brief flash of...emotion, unreadable, in Cassandra's eyes.
Six-year-old Lucia's large, luminous blue eyes were hate-filled as she stared accusingly at her parents, putting her arms around her younger sister to comfort her. There they were, so close, yet so far, far away.
James stared, as the scene shifted once more.
An 11-year-old Morganna, receiving her acceptance letter to Beauxbatons.
Relief evident in her features -- now she wouldn't have to endure the cold silences or bitter rages of her mother -- whom she provoked, just to see her feel something, anything -- or the penetrating, intimidating gaze of her father, as he decided whether she was worthy or not.
Morganna did not show the letter first to her parents.
She ran to her butler, a Monsieur Rene LaJoie.
The pleasant-faced butler enfolded the little girl in a bear-hug, telling her quietly that he was proud of her. That she was his special princess and he would always love her, no matter what. That she was the most beautiful little girl he'd ever had the pleasure of knowing and that she would excel at Beauxbatons.
Telling her all the things she wanted so desperately to hear from her parents.
James was beginning to feel guilty. In whatever time, Cassandra was her, and she was causing her littlest one so much pain.
Then the scene shifted yet again, to another daughter -- Lucia.
Lucia, at age 14, hiding away in her rooms, sobbing brokenly over a picture. Her best friend had died the day before -- and she was left to herself, abandoned, to cope. Rene had tried to help, but he had always been Morganna's butler, and didn't know Lucia as well.
Fresh guilt struck James -- it wasn't just Morganna that felt the pain of abandonment at her parents hands.
Neglect. She neglected her children.
James Grey, Cassandra Winterburn, awoke.
Good god, what a dream...but not a dream.
You see, Cassandra Winterburn was a Seeress. Not like Trelawney, but one of the few true Seers. She had always hated the gift, as she could not control it at all, and Cassandra Winterburn always wanted to be in control.
It was a collection of memories. Not all of them hers.
The past, and the future.
She trailed into the bathroom, and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
For the millionth time, she thought grumpily, 'The future really, really sucks.'
She'd selected Divination as one of her subjects, but despaired of learning anything from that fraud, Trelawney.
Of course, she'd adapted well. Ginny Weasley befriended her quickly, and then set about introducing James to the rest of Gryffindor.
Ginny was nice, James decided, even if she seemed a little preoccupied about that Harry Potter chap. What was so fascinating about him, anyway?
"You mean you haven't heard of Harry Potter?" Hermione stared incredulously at James. It wasn't like it was a bad thing, just...weird.
"No." James replied politely. "Should I have?"
"He survived the Killing Curse and he's defeated Voldemort several times." Hermione told her.
"Not on his own." Ron put in. "We helped."
James's mind was working overtime. She remembered hearing a Slytherin that she'd been eavesdropping on talk about a 'Voldemort', and then saying about how he was really just some half-blood, Tom Riddle. No loyalty among Slytherins, she'd thought at the time. "This Voldemort fellow used the Killing Curse on him?"
"Have you been living under a rock or something?" Ginny and Hermione said in unison.
"Something like that."
"Harry's not the only one who's defeated or evaded Voldemort." Ginny reminded them. "Morag Snape's done it too."
Snape...Snape...I know that--oh. My. God.
That stupid Slytherin seventh year, Edward Snape. The one that went all growly at me for making a fuss in the library. It wasn't me making the fuss, anyway. It was Lotta. Just because I turned her stupid owl Ares hot pink...Eurgh. I can't believe my daughter married Snape's son!
"James? You seem a little distracted." Ginny looked at her friend with concern in her eyes.
"Sorry. Away with the faeries."
James decided, as she looked through the library, that she was going to upstage that stupid bat in the Divinations tower, give her the shock of her life if she could, even if it meant learning to control the 'gift' she'd always hated.
"James?" Ginny found her new best friend in the library, surrounded by aging Divinations texts.
"I've got it!" James crowed ecstatically, leaping out of her seat. "I can do it! Finally!"
"Do what?" Ginny stared, baffled.
"I'm a seeress." James told her, packing up the books. "Flashes of the future and of the past. But now I can induce one, and aim it. No more detail, sadly, but still."
Ginny realised then what James was planning. "Jami, that's cruel."
James tossed her silver-shot black hair. "If she's a decent seer, who's studied these, I won't upstage her because she'll know how to do it too."
Later that day, in Divinations
Ginny and James sat together in the back of the class, and Trelawney was about to begin the lesson when James said quietly (but loud enough to be clearly heard), "Careful Professor, you're going to lose your glasses."
Trelawney flicked her an irritated glance, but she went on, "And watch what you say to Professor Snape. He's not in the mood for idle chatter, since a relative of his wife's arrived recently. Besides which, you're about to--"
James smiled triumphantly at Trelawney's pained shriek, "--step on a piece of glass."
James's seat at the back did not allow her to see anything properly up the front, certainly not that tiny piece of glass.
"Kindly do not interrupt my class again, Ms Grey," Trelawney said coldly, "5 points from Gryffindor for your impudence." She remembered to sound dreamy just in time.
The class went on relatively uneventfully, until they had to help Trelawney find her glasses.
By dinner time, Parvati and Lavender had heard about James's 'gift of sight', and Trelawney was sulking.
"Can you tell my future, James?"
"Or mine?" They begged her eagerlu.
"Probably." James told them, carelessly. Harry, Hermione and Ron watched with amusement.
"No," Ginny was telling them earnestly, "Jami's for real. Normally she hates it, but she said Trelawney was a complete fraud, and that offended her. So she upstaged her in her own class. Said something about a relative of Mrs Snape's, too." Ginny frowned. "That part I didn't get."
"Dumbledore said something about a Cassandra Winterburn, but not to me." Harry ventured.
James's head shot up.
"She died about 17 years ago. Mrs Snape's mother. I read about her." Hermione told him.
"McGonagall said something about a Time-Turner to James earlier today." Ron put forward. "I overheard while I was waiting for my detention with her."
"Time-Turners don't just go backwards..." Hermione said slowly.
"You don't think..." Ginny trailed off.
They all looked at James, who, by this time, was looking everywhere but at them.
"She does look like Morag."
"Acts a bit the same. Like how Morag was last summer, but more..."
"One way to find out," Hermione muttered, before raising her voice, "Cassandra!"
James looked up, and straight at her, before trying to cover her mistake.
But the damage was done.
***
Okay, I think this is going a bit too fast, so I'll try and slow it down a bit next chapter.