Chapter 21

Filch

Harry and Ginny moved quickly now, pushing Cassie back onto a mat by the door where all three of them joined her. "Wipe your feet, quickly!" Harry was busy casting various drying and cleaning spells on the floor where their wet robes and shoes had left muddy puddles. The other students were busy, too, trying to get the worst of the mess cleaned up. Cassie couldn't understand what was going on but she didn't ask as everyone seemed fairly close to panic. Suddenly she heard a hoarse voice echoing through the hall.

"Mrs. Norris, my sweet. You've caught some of the messy little brats!" A very unpleasant looking man had entered the hall and was moving toward them with a nasty smirk on his face. "How many times have I told you to wipe your feet when you come in from the grounds? Hundreds! But no, no! Doesn't bother you if you make a mess! Why should it? You're not the one who has to clean it up! But we'll see about that. I could really use some helpers tonight. I think some detentions are in order, here." By then, he had reached them and was scowling at everyone of them, trying to decide who had made the mess. The four of them were dripping but were standing on a mat. One other student had managed to get herself cleaned up enough that the man didn't pay attention to her. Two of the students though, had panicked, and had not gotten enough cleaned up. The man's black eyes honed in on their wet feet and the slowly spreading puddles of melted snow around them. "You two! My office! Now!"

"But, Mr. Filch, it's snowy outside and we . . ."

"I don't want to hear any excuses from you. I'll report you and your detentions will be doubled . . ." He stormed off and the students followed him, shoulders slumped.

"That was a close one," said Harry as they stepped off the mat. "Good work, Gin. If it had been me making the puddles, we all would have gotten it. He hates me."

"He has no love for Weasleys, either, Harry!" Ron laughed. "But that's okay, cause I hate him back. Still remember how terrible he was to me when I had to polish all the silver in the school's trophy room. And remember how he was with Umbridge? Yuck! Wish he had been the one to go out with the Centaurs. Then we wouldn't have to put up with him anymore."

"Who is he?" Cassie knew she hadn't ever seen him before.

"That's Filch. He's the nasty old squib caretaker and he hates us 'cause we can do magic and he can't."

"What's a squib?" She had heard the word before but couldn't figure out what it meant.

Harry explained quickly. "Someone born of two wizard parents who can't do magic. They're rare. He tried to take a Kwik-spell course once to learn how, but it must not have worked because he's never done any magic in his life."

Cassie didn't say anything as the laughing group crossed the hall. "Why do you hate him?"

"What?" Ron looked at her funny, like she was obviously off balance. "Isn't that obvious? He's a mean, obnoxious git who hates all the students and tries to make our lives miserable."

"But don't you think that he's just reacting to . . ."

"Oh, please, Pia. Don't start again. Not everyone is just misguided. You sound like Hermione."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Cassie didn't say anything else. For one thing, they had entered the Great Hall which was definitely not the place for a philosophical discussion. She was a little perturbed, though. The man was definitely unpleasant, but she wasn't sure that she blamed him for it. It would be terrible to work at a wizarding school and not be able to use magic at all. Especially if every student felt it was their personal responsibility to make your life miserable. And she had seen first hand what kind of messes the students left in classrooms and things. It would be a lot of work cleaning up after them, even if you did have house elves to help you with some of it.

She said the word under her breath a couple of times. "Squib. Squib." It even sounded unpleasant. So a squib was a person from a wizard family who couldn't do magic. Cassie thought that was very sad. She tried to imagine being the lone non-magic person in an otherwise magical family. Especially if everyone made fun of you your entire life for something you had no control over at all. She looked around at the smiling people in the hall, trying to shake off her bad mood. It shouldn't matter to her what that man Filch thought or felt. She was unlikely to ever see him again and it wasn't like she could change anything. Ron had said that she just didn't know how slimy the man actually was and that if she ever had to do detention with him and could see the pleasure he got from making the students' lives miserable, she wouldn't feel sorry for him - or his mangy cat. Cassie wasn't sure about that. After all, he was probably the person in the castle who was actually most like herself. She too was a non-magic person in a magical world. The only difference between them, really, was that everyone knew about him. No one knew about her. She imagined if people did, they would make fun of her, too.

It was true that a few people knew and didn't seem to mind very much, but she imagined they were the exceptions to a pretty strict rule. Muggles were not to be liked or trusted. No, actually that wasn't quite right. Non-magic people were not to be liked or trusted. And in fact, even if you could do magic you still couldn't be liked or trusted by most wizards if you happened to come from Muggles. Even Rhiannon felt the results of that distrust and she was a generation away from her mother's family of Muggles and her dad was pure-blood.

Cassie picked at her food, having very little appetite, as her mind seemed to go over and over again all the reasons wizards could legitimately hate you. They hated Remus. And he was a pure-blood, and magical. But he was a werewolf, of course. And Harry had said that people didn't trust Hagrid because he was part giant. And elves, of course, seemed to be fair game for abuse of all sorts.

"Is Pia all right?" Hermione asked as she slid into the seat next to Ron. "She looks a little upset."

"We had a run-in with Filch a few minutes ago." Harry glanced out into the hall, indicating where they had seen him.

"Oh, no! Did you get detention? What are we going to do?" Hermione sounded fairly panicked which made Cassie wonder again what exactly happened to you in detention. They certainly seemed worried about it.

"No, we managed to get cleaned up before he came down. He did get a couple of the . . ." Harry continued, gesturing with a forkful of mashed potatoes toward the Hufflepuff table where the two unlucky students who had gotten detention were sitting.

"Well, then what's she upset about?" Hermione inquired and Cassie felt a small whisper of irritation that even Hermione sometimes acted like she was too stupid to answer questions on her own and insisted on having others translate.

"I feel bad for him, okay? Is that so completely out of the realm of normal around here that no one can even understand it?" Cassie wished a second later that she could take it back. She felt not only her four friends' eyes on her but also some of the other Gryffindors' sitting nearby. "Sorry. I'm not hungry. I think I'll go upstairs and change my shoes." She stood up and started toward the wide doors but then felt a restraining hand on her arm. Ginny looked up at her.

"Sorry, Pia. I'll come with you, okay? We've got Defense in just a few minutes anyway. Besides, Malfoy just left a few minutes ago. He might be waiting for you. I don't want you to run into him alone." Cassie was tempted to pull her arm out of Ginny's light grasp and make a run for it. She hated feeling like she had to be babysat all the time and she really wanted to be alone for a few minutes. But the thought of Malfoy changed her mind. She really would not fancy running him into the hall if she was alone. She would be completely defenseless. She blew her breath out in an aggravated huff.

"All right. I'll wait for you." Ginny hurriedly ate the rest of her lunch while Cassie visited with Neville for a few minutes, still feeling like everyone in the entire Great Hall was staring at her and thinking to themselves that she was acting strange and very non-witch-like But she couldn't get that man's face out of her mind. So she didn't care what everyone else thought. He couldn't be as bad as they said.

"You know," Ginny said a few minutes later as they climbed the long staircases up to the common room, "Filch hated Fred and George." Cassie thought about that for a few minutes without saying anything. She could well imagine that they made his life basically a living nightmare. Even from the few times she had heard their names mentioned everyone agreed they had been hooligans. So, with their love of practical jokes, she could imagine that Filch would have had a rough time keeping up with them.

"That does make me feel a little less sympathetic toward him, but only a little, Ginny. They probably really deserved his hatred."

"I can't argue with that. They did work really hard to aggravate him." They climbed the rest of the stairs in silence, Cassie thinking over the last 30 minutes and wondering if she was over-reacting. Maybe he really was as bad as everyone thought. Maybe she was just having a bad day and assigning all her feelings of discontent to him. After all, he didn't have to work here, did he? But then, she hadn't really had a bad day. Charms had actually been fun and even though Hagrid's creature had been scary, the class itself had been almost enjoyable. So that couldn't be it. Well, she needed to concentrate on something besides the strange caretaker of Hogwarts castle. She was going to have quite a difficult afternoon and if she didn't pull herself together, she wouldn't manage it.

"Ginny . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so grouchy."

Ginny looked over at her and smiled. "Pia, don't worry about it. I figure with everything you're going through right now you're entitled to a grouchy day or two. I have them and so does Harry. In fact, if you'll just do me a favor and try really hard not to have your grouchy days on the same day he does, I would appreciate it. It's all I can do to survive his." They both laughed at that and the happy glow she felt lasted all the way to the door of the Defense classroom.

Cassie took a deep breath as they stopped outside Remus' room. She had her essay done and she knew he would treat her well, but she was still a little nervous. She hoped that he wasn't going to curse them all again. That had been a little strange. "Come on. It'll be fine." Ginny opened the door and ushered her into the classroom. They sat down in the same places they had last time they were here.

"How come we have Defense again so soon, Ginny?" It had only occurred to Cassie right this minute how often it was on her schedule. Ginny gave her a raised eyebrow in response.

"You're kidding, right? Why do you think?"

Cassie felt a slow flush creep up her cheeks. "Oh. That was kind of a stupid question, wasn't it?" They're at war, idiot, Cassie told herself. And you should be grateful that she has it so you can maybe pick up some pointers. It's not just them at war - you're involved, too. Not that you can learn any magic pointers, but defense is defense. It can't hurt. Ginny just smiled at her.

"This is nothing. Harry has it five days a week - private lessons with Remus on days when he doesn't have class -- and then Snape has him for an hour or two also every week to work on some more complicated stuff. That's always guaranteed to plaster a smile on his face, let me tell you."

"Really? What sort of things do they teach him? I thought he was pretty impressive already."

"He is. He knows a lot. But I think they just work on strengthening his curses and his protection spells. I don't really know. He doesn't talk about it much." Cassie nodded.

Remus walked into the classroom and the loud buzzing among the students slowly died down as conversations ceased and eyes turned toward the front. He smiled at the class and then commenced.

"Last time we discussed and practiced fighting off the Imperius Curse. I asked each of you to write an essay about your experience while you were under the control of it. Please hand your essays forward." There was a rustling and scuffling of parchment as they were handed forward and Remus walked along the front collecting the bundles at each row. "I'll have these graded for you by the next class. Did anyone have any comments or questions?" Cassie had a lot of questions, but she couldn't really ask them. No one else raised their hand, though, and Remus moved on to what was apparently the subject of today's lesson.

"Pain." That was all he said and everyone in the classroom stiffened. "The thought of pain can be terrifying in and of itself." He looked around the room, meeting some students' eyes. "The second unforgiveable curse we are going to learn about is the Cruciatus curse - it inflicts agonizing pain. Has anyone here ever been under the Cruciatus curse?" No one raised their hand. Cassie's stomach was clenching and unclenching in nervousness. This was terrible. Did they have to talk about this? She really hoped no one did raise their hand. She wasn't sure she would be able to ever look at them again, just knowing what sort of agony they would have gone through. She knew she hoped she never had to feel that herself. Remus spoke again. "Have you ever seen anyone under the curse?" This time, a few students raised their hands, including Ginny, and Cassie slowly put her hand up in the air. She just hoped Remus didn't ask when because she didn't want to mention about the battle in June.

"So, what were you thinking at the time and what have you thought about it since?" That was sort of a strange question, Cassie thought. What was she supposed to think? It was horrible - worse than anyone could possibly imagine if they'd never seen it themselves.

One of the students in the back of the class apparently was thinking along the same lines. "It's terrible. They just scream and scream and scream."

"That's right. It is terrible to see and terrible to hear. And terrible to feel. But, despite that . . . You can live through it. Cruciatus does not kill you. It can wear you out and . . ."

"It can make you wish you were dead." There was laughter all around, although it was kind of nervous laughter.

Remus smiled at the student who had said that. "Well, assuming that you really do want to live through it, that's what we are talking about today. Dealing with the pain. If you have some basic strategies, it can help . . ."

"What do you mean strategies? How can there be a strategy? You scream until they take the curse off and then you pray no one touches you for a while or you might start screaming again." It sounded like whoever said that had had some personal experience. Maybe they were just too embarrassed to admit it in front of the class.

"You can have strategies. You really can. Has anyone ever heard of something called Lamaze? It's a strategy Muggle women use to get through the pain of childbirth." Cassie was about to raise her hand because her friend's mother had used it for her last baby and had talked about it all the time. Cassie personally thought she liked the idea of drugs, lots and lots of drugs, but she had listened politely. Before she could actually stick her hand in the air, though, Ginny bumped her and shook her head almost imperceptibly. Cassie left her hand on the table and just wondered if anyone else had ever heard of it. No one had, apparently. Or at least no one admitted it. "Okay. Well, it's a method of accepting the pain and breathing through it, picturing yourself somewhere else."

The next half hour or so was spent with each student trying to practice breathing techniques and finding a place where they could go in their head to retreat from the pain. Cassie was smiling inside although she worked hard at keeping her face passive because this sounded so much like that friend's mother that if she closed her eyes she could imagine she was back in their living room, listening to her tell them about her latest birthing class. Remus was encouraging and supportive. A few of the students started crying as they thought about people they knew who had once had the curse on them and he was willing to sit with them until they felt a little better.

Finally, everybody had a chance to demonstrate their own breathing style and talk about where they would go in their mind if they had to focus on surviving through the Cruciatus Curse. When it was her turn, she was extremely nervous. She didn't want to blow her cover by saying something totally out of the norm. But at the same time, she wanted to be honest. For Remus. "I would go home. I'm safe there. My mum. She would take care of me." Remus smiled kindly at her as she went back to her desk. Ginny was looking pretty shaky by now and it was her turn.

"I would go home, too. To the Burrow. All my brothers would be there. They would help me to live through it. And Harry would be there, too." When all the students, in various degrees of upset, were all sitting back at their desks, Remus asked for volunteers.

"I can't . . . I wouldn't want to actually cast Cruciatus on any of you. But if you would be willing, I could cast a minor pain spell on you and you can practice what we learned today. Is anyone willing to try it?" Everyone sat perfectly still for a long moment. Cassie looked around and noticed that everyone was fidgeting in their seats. She felt bad for Remus, although he looked extremely unperturbed. "No one is willing? Well, that's . . ."

"I'll let you cast it on me." A Ravenclaw girl from the other side of the room raised her arm. Everyone in the class looked at her.

"Okay. Brave girl, Eloise. Now if you need to scream, you can but it shouldn't be that bad. Just focus on accepting the pain and letting it flow through you. Breathe like we practiced. Think about your safe place. Are you ready?" There was a tense nod and Remus lowered his wand onto her but he immediately picked it up again. "All right. Eloise. How are you feeling right now?"

"Did you do it?"

"No. Tell me how you are feeling?"

"I'm scared. I'm wondering if I'm insane for volunteering for this. I want you to get it over with."

He smiled. "You're all tense. You're not going to accept the pain - you're fighting it. If I were to just touch you, with my hand, you'd probably scream. You're expecting it to hurt and you're preparing yourself to hurt. You want to try to float with the pain, just let it flow around you." The girl looked disbelieving.

"I don't understand this at all." Remus patiently explained again about how expecting the pain and anticipating it can make it worse. He talked about a physical response that happens when you know something is going to hurt. The girl nodded again. "Okay. I think I understand that."

"Are you still willing?" She nodded.

"Yes. I'm trying to relax now, not anticipate it, just accept it."

"Good. Here goes." He said the spell and the girl tensed, sucking in her breath. She didn't scream, for which Cassie was extremely grateful. She thought everyone in the class might just shatter if the girl screamed. After a moment that seemed like an hour, Remus raised his wand. "Well?"

"It hurt. A lot. But I tried really hard to leave the room and go to my grandma's house." Remus nodded as she continued. "I tried to breathe through it and it really did help. I tried to relax my muscles instead of tightening them up."

"You did very well. I'm very proud of you, Eloise. I've got a pain reliever potion if you think you need it." He indicated a bright blue vial that was in the front of the room.

"No, I'm all right, I think."

He smiled gently. "If you change your mind, just let me know. You were a wonderful test subject. Is anyone else willing to try?" There were a few hands that went up this time and the rest of the class period was spent with Remus working with a few students as he put some sort of pain spell on them and worked them through their terror and pain. At the end of the class, despite their initial resistance to the idea, the students were saying that they really had learned a lot and felt that if someone were to cast Cruciatus on them, they could handle it. Remus assigned them another essay about the breathing techniques they had learned and each one of them was to firm up their plan for dealing with pain when they encountered it. Cassie and Ginny didn't say anything as they exited the classroom.

Finally, Ginny said something. "That was an incredible class. I thought about volunteering, but I couldn't. I guess I was too frightened." They walked in silence for a few more minutes. "Harry's had Cruciatus on him. Lots of times. I asked him once . . . how it was."

Cassie wasn't sure what to say to that. "Oh. That was brave of you." Ginny gave a shaky laugh.

"Yeah. He . . . never really said specifically. He just said it hurt a lot."

"Do you think Remus is teaching him these same things?"

"I'd bet on it. I remember once he even said that if he ever had to have a baby, he'd be ready. I didn't really know what he was talking about because magical people use several different spells at childbirth so that very few witches actually feel much pain, but I do now." They both smiled but there was no humor behind it because they were both thinking about Harry and how he had suffered at the hands of Voldemort and various Death Eaters. It didn't seem fair at all that one person should have to endure so much.

Cassie glanced at her watch and realized that if they didn't hurry, they'd be late for their next class. "We better hurry, Ginny. I think we have to go to Transitions now, or something."

"Transfiguration. Yeah, we better hurry. We don't want to give McGonagall another reason to give you detention. We're already really going to be pushing our luck as it is." They hurried along faster through the halls.

"Do you think this'll work?" Cassie was extremely nervous about this class. It was one of Hermione's red ones and she knew that it would take a lot of work to pull this off.

"I think so. Look, Pia, I should probably warn you about this class . . ."

"I know she's a bit of a hard nose. But Harry told me she's really pretty nice. I'll be okay. Don't worry."

"No, it's not about McGonagall . . . Oh, we're here. Well, we better get inside."

They stepped into the classroom and Cassie couldn't help but smile. Ron, Harry, and Hermione were all sitting at one of the back tables. Ginny and Cassie joined them quickly, sliding into their seats just as the clock in the room chimed 3:00. That must be what Ginny wanted to tell her. The 7th years had class with them. This was going to be fun.

Professor McGonagall was sitting at her desk in the front and looked around the classroom as she stood and walked in front of the desk. "I'd like to formally introduce our new student. Miss Spencer, please." Cassie stood up, looking around shyly. It looked like students from all four of the houses were in here. She had seen several of the students in the classroom before but there were several of the older students in other houses that she didn't think she had met before. As she moved to sit down, though, her eyes opened wide and she stared at the opposite corner of the room. Niles Caden was sitting there, which would have been all right, but he was sitting right by Draco Malfoy, who was leering unpleasantly at her.

"Draco Malfoy is in this class?" She whispered frantically to Ginny as Professor McGonagall started the lecture.

"Yeah. And he always sits in the front. You've got to be careful." The professor's eyes slid over to their table and Ginny didn't say anything more. Apparently today they were talking about inter-species transfiguration and she was lecturing in great detail about how to do what to Cassie sounded absolutely beyond impossible. Cassie was nervous but tried to listen as she explained the words needed and how to wave the wand. Not that it would help, but she could at least make it look good. She hoped this worked. If not, they could all be in serious trouble. The lecture seemed to go on for quite a while and Cassie gave up trying to figure out what Professor McGonagall was saying. She was trying to look like she was taking notes, moving her quill over a piece of parchment, trying to at least copy the diagrams and formulas Ginny was carefully writing next to her. Hermione was working on her second roll of parchment, Ron had a few half-hearted scribbles on his parchment. He was more involved in staring at Hermione than paying attention to Professor McGonagall and Cassie wondered if he was always this distracted when they had class together. Harry was writing carefully but his arm and Ginny's were touching and occasionally one of them would push on the other and they would smile at each other or laugh at some private joke. Cassie blew out a rather frustrated breath. This was boring so far. But, at least she wasn't having to attempt to do magic in front of everyone. It could be worse.

It got worse a few minutes later. The professor moved a cloth, revealing a cage full of some wriggling moving creatures. "Rats," The professor said, and everyone in the room groaned. "You are going to be transfiguring them to rabbits today. Individually, up here where I can see you. And Miss Spencer, I'm going to be paying special attention to your technique when it gets to your turn."