Chapter 8

Cassie Asks Questions



Cassie handed Harry a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it, trying without success to wipe the silly smile off his face. The writing was not Cassie's; he was fairly sure that he would recognize her writing now. He had been staring at the note she had written him for five days.

"My mum's instructions for your roast beef," she said.

"Thanks. Tell her I really appreciate her thoughtfulness." Harry really did think that her mum was very nice to go to all that effort for him.

Cassie smiled. "Okay." Harry was not sure what to say next. He wanted to spend time with her, but felt like he could not really ask after declining her dinner invitation. She glanced over at his cart, but didn't say anything.

Harry took a deep breath and said, "I could probably use some help with the shopping again if you have a little bit of time. I can't remember exactly what I bought before and everything turned out pretty well, so I thought maybe I could just do the same thing again."

"So you managed to cook everything all right?" She asked, stepping closer to him trying to get out of the way as two boys of about nine years old started racing up and down the aisle.

"Yes," Harry said, grabbing her as the boys came back on their next lap and seemed to be heading right for her. She stumbled momentarily, falling against him for just a second before righting herself. Harry had two quick thoughts as she stood away from him again. The first was that she smelled really good and the second was that she had undoubtedly felt his wand, which, for lack of a better place, was still shoved into the waistband of his jeans. He grabbed her hand and pulled her and pushed his cart out of the canned fruit aisle which seemed to have turned into a major highway for all the annoying people in the store. He looked at her for a minute as they stood there, and then dropped her hand, embarrassed that he had held it for so long.

She looked up into his eyes, her expression sort of solemn and he was unsure whether she was angry with him or disappointed he had let her hand go. "Sorry about that, Harry. I guess I wasn't quick enough to avoid the little drag racers."

"Oh, that's all right, Cassie. That aisle seems to be filled with runaway kids." He watched her eyes carefully, watching to see if she had noticed anything strange as she had been pushed up against him for that brief moment.

Her expression shifted and she smiled again, her clear blue eyes crinkling at the corners like she was about to laugh. "I used to do that when I was that age, too. I guess kids don't think about getting in the way of other shoppers." Harry nodded and relaxed a little. She apparently had either not noticed the wand or was too polite to ask why he was carrying a big stick around with him. He hoped the former. He did not want her to think he was strange.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess not. I'm not really familiar with kids at all, though. Are you?"

"Well, I used to be one." Cassie said as she automatically fell in beside Harry, who was starting to push his cart down the next aisle. She grabbed a few things and threw them into his cart as they passed the stewed tomatoes and Harry took that as a good sign that she was going to spend at least some time with him in the store. "But, I also have two younger brothers. One is 11 and one is 7. They can be annoying. I mean, I can see them running up and down store aisles if our mom's back was turned for a minute. I love them, of course, although sometimes that's more of an abstract concept if you know what I mean." She grabbed a can of something off the shelf, studying it before turning and tossing it into Harry's cart along with a bag of something that Harry thought looked rather disgusting. "Do you have any brothers and sisters?"

"No." Harry said. "It's just me."

"Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How come you're living by yourself? Where are your mom or dad?" Cassie was facing him fully now, the shopping forgotten.

"They're dead." At the look of mingled horror and embarrassment that crossed Cassie's face, Harry said, "They died when I was very small. I don't really remember them at all so don't feel bad about asking." She was going to ask another question, he could tell, but before she actually got any words out, Harry continued, "I went to live with an aunt . . . but she hated me, and as soon as she could do it, she chucked me out. That's why I'm suddenly out on my own like this." Harry was purposefully vague and left Uncle Vernon and Dudley completely out of the story. If Cassie were to repeat these details to a friend he did not want someone who had heard his story to be able to put details together and start to get suspicious.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry. It doesn't sound like a very happy life."

"Well, honestly it wasn't. But I went away to school when I was 11 and I've been very happy there. It was only summers that were really miserable after that."

"So you went to a boarding school, then?"

"Yeah. Actually, still go. I've got one more year there. What about you?" They had started up the aisle again and Harry desperately wanted to change the topic of conversation from himself to her.

"I've got two more years of school. I just turned 16. I go to school here in town, though. I don't think I'd like to be away from my family all year long." Harry nodded. He thought of school as an escape from his horrible family and was always glad when September 1st came around again and he could get back on the Hogwarts Express. He had a sudden pain where his heart was. He missed it so much . . . . If Dumbledore's plan did not work out, Harry might never go back to Hogwarts. In fact, he might be dead, this time for real and not pretend. But, he shoved that thought viciously down in his mind again and tried to concentrate on what Cassie was saying.

" . . . geometry. Of course, I did like my literature class last year and will probably take literature again in the fall, but I also have to take French, which I don't care for at all. What is your favorite subject, Harry, at your school?"

Harry had a momentary mind block. His favorite subject. It was probably Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he couldn't come out and say that, now could he? "Um, well. . ." He tried desperately to think of a subject he would take at a normal Muggle school, any subject, even if he hated it . . . Nothing was coming to mind. "I hate history. I think it's really boring." There, he hoped that would hold her off for a minute. And that was the absolute truth, although he supposed that this was mainly due to the absolutely mind-numbing delivery by Professor Binns, his only ghost teacher, rather than the subject itself.

"Oh, really," Cassie said, pausing yet again and looking greatly displeased as Harry threw a second package of biscuits into his cart but Harry stood his ground. If she wanted to eat weird veggie things, fine but he liked sweets and was used to having them in fairly large quantities at school. He would not let her disapproval change his mind. "I have always liked history, British more than world, although my teacher left a great deal to be desired last year." She seemed to not be focusing too much on his bad eating habits, preferring to discuss school, a subject he would have loved to discuss with her except that he could not really tell her anything about his school at all which made having a two-way conversation rather difficult.



Through careful avoidance of answering her questions too directly, Harry managed to get through the next 30 minutes of conversation without letting out any information that had to do with Hogwarts, Quidditch, classes, career aspirations, etc. They were standing in the check out lane waiting for the person in front of them to finish paying when Cassie looked at him with a sudden horrified expression. "Oh, Harry, are you going to be able to pay for all this? We got a lot more than last time. And how are you going to get it all home?"

"I can afford the groceries but getting it home might be a little tricky," Harry admitted. He had been so enjoying the shopping and the easy friendly chat that they had been having that he had not thought about trying to transport all the stuff home with him.

"Maybe I could call my mum and she could drive you?" Cassie offered. Harry stiffened. That would not do at all, not at all.

"Oh, no. I'm sure . . ."

The clerk, a friendly looking woman smiled at the two of them. "If you need some way to get all this home, we sell carts at the front of the store for transporting bags."

Harry glanced at the display she had indicated. Yes, that was just what he needed, a little cart that allowed someone to strap some bags to it and roll it home. "I'll take one of those, then." He smiled back at the clerk and paid for the groceries. He was used to paying with galleons and sickles when he bought things, but had used enough Muggle money over the years that he didn't look like a complete fool as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and counted out the money.

It took the two of them working together about 10 minutes to load all the groceries onto the new cart and then they wheeled it out onto the street. Harry looked at Cassie and realized suddenly that he was not ready to say good-bye to her. "I'll walk you home, Cassie. It's getting late and I don't think you should be out alone."

"It's not dark," she protested, but Harry could tell that she really didn't mind the idea of his walking with her for a little longer. "I don't live very far from here."

"I want to walk you home. I don't want anything to happen to you." Harry smiled at her. "Don't argue. My mind is made up and I should tell you that I am very stubborn."

She turned the opposite direction than he would turn to go home and smiled back over her shoulder in that endearing way she had. "Well, come on then, slowpoke." And laughing, he followed her down the street, grabbing her arm after a minute to pull her back so she was walking next to him, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to let his hand slide down to hers. He linked his fingers in with hers and tightened his grasp a little. She squeezed his hand, too, and he realized instinctively that this was her way of giving her seal of approval to this new intimacy. Certainly, he thought, all is right with the world today.