Chapter 29
An Incident in the Library

The rest of the Care of Magical Creatures lesson just went downhill from the beginning. Hagrid finally did manage to catch Shimmy and Cassie was interested to watch how he handled the ungainly looking creature. The tail, which Cassie suspected was at least part dragon, was whipping around and smacked Hagrid in the face at least once. However, it didn't seem to bother him and he just laughed and petted the thing. It had exposed its menacing-looking claws and tried to take a piece out of the big man currently trying to show his ears to a bunch of semi-terrified kids. He just patted the heavy paws telling it in a sing-song voice to put away his pretty claws as he was scaring everyone by trying to look scary.

Cassie was very aware of the Hufflepuff student throughout the rest of the class, hoping that Harry wouldn't take it into his mind to hex him again. She didn't want Harry to get expelled and she suspected that being the famous Harry Potter wouldn't do much to save him if he cursed a fellow student with an unforgiveable. But the two boys glared at each other throughout the entire class and Cassie was tempted to volunteer both of them when Hagrid asked one more time for two students to come in and play with the baby chimera.

After class, the four trudged with the rest of the students through the snow back up to the castle where everyone made an extra effort to wipe mud and snow off of the shoes before walking across the entry hall. Cassie overheard the Hufflepuff students complaining about how Filch had made them polish silver and scrub floors for their detention without using any magic. They were still upset about their detention although Cassie thought they should be grateful Harry hadn't cursed them into oblivion. Ginny had noticed Harry was rather tense and grumpy throughout the class and had asked what was wrong. Harry hadn't told her because that would mean he would have to say what Dagger had said and Cassie knew that he didn't want to hurt Ginny's feelings. But, Ginny seemed unwilling to drop the subject and the tension just built and built between them, which put Cassie's teeth on edge.

Upon entering the Great Hall for lunch, Cassie and the others found Hermione absent-mindedly picking at a bowl of stew in front of her as she read a large, thick book. She barely looked up as Ron sat down beside her. He leaned over and kissed her on her cheek and she gave him a smile and then went back to reading. Ginny, Harry, and Cassie all sat down next to each other across from the two of them. Cassie was starved by now as she had not eaten very much breakfast. She served herself a big bowl of stew and listened as Ginny and Harry argued. Finally, she grabbed Ginny and said "Look, Ginny, Harry doesn't want to tell you what's wrong because it'll hurt your feelings. The Dagger kid insulted you and Harry felt like he had to defend you."

"What did he say?" Harry scowled at Cassie but didn't try to stop her answering the question.

"He said Harry is always hanging around with undesirables, like Hagrid, and then he said you were evidence that he told the truth." Ginny laughed and both Harry and Cassie blinked in surprise.

"Look, Harry, I appreciate your trying to defend my honor and everything but I know he doesn't like me. He hasn't since last year."

"Why not?" That earned Cassie another glare from Harry but she just glared back at him.

"He asked me out. I told him no. Ever since then, he has insulted me whenever he has a chance. Most of the time he just ignores me but once in a while he manages to get an insult in."

"What an idiot. So, Harry, maybe you should apologize for being grouchy to Ginny."

Harry scowled one more time but then his expression cleared. "I should have just let you hex him, I suppose, rather than keeping it from you."

Ginny smiled broadly. "Well, I appreciate your looking out for me, Harry. Even if I don't need it." Cassie looked away as the two of them kissed briefly. She had just taken her first bite of stew when Elspeth sat down next to her.

"Hi. How are you doing?" The girl still looked pale and Colin wasn't with her, which worried Cassie.

"I'm okay, I guess. Is Colin here?"

"I haven't seen him but let's save him a spot."

"Maybe he won't want to sit by me, though." Elspeth looked down at the table. "We had a bit of a fight."

"There must be something in the water today." Ron and Hermione were now arguing over something although Cassie had no idea what it was. "What did you fight about?"

"Do you need to ask? My parents' letter, of course."

"Oh. I guess he was pretty insulted, huh?"

"No."

"No? Well, he certainly didn't agree with them, did he?"

"Well, yes and no. He told me he really likes me and wants to be with me and get to know me better. But, then he said he didn't want me to be sad and have my parents angry with me. So, he suggested maybe we better not go out with each other anymore. I yelled at him and told him he was being as stupid as my parents and that I should be able to date whom I wanted." Elspeth hesitated for a moment. "He just glared at me and told me he'd be late for his next class, turned and walked away. Now I really don't know what to do."

Cassie put her arm around Elspeth's shoulder and patted her. Ginny, who had turned and been listening to Elspeth's story, said "You definitely need to talk to him. It sounds like he's trying to do what is right for you rather than being selfish, so that's good."

Elspeth gave a rather inelegant snort, and all three of them laughed. Then she sobered and said, "That's what I thought at first but all through class I just kept going over and over what he said. Maybe he's just using this as an excuse to get away from me." Both Ginny and Cassie just stared at her.

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know, maybe I'm just being paranoid."

"Here's your chance to find out. He's coming over here now." Colin came up behind Elspeth, smiling at both Ginny and Cassie, and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Hi, Pia and Ginny. Elspeth, can I sit down?" The girl didn't say anything, just nodded and scooted closer to Cassie. Colin sat down next to her.

"I want to talk to you, okay? Right after lunch?" She nodded again but Cassie thought she looked a lot happier, even if she hadn't said anything. Both Colin and Elspeth ate quickly and Cassie wasn't surprised when a few minutes later they both got up.

"I guess I'll see you two later," Elspeth said, blushing slightly as Colin took her hand.

"Have a good time." Cassie wanted to say something about not letting stupid social prejudices keep the two of them apart, but bit her tongue. They would work it out. And if they couldn't, well, her opinion didn't really matter anyway.

Harry and Ron were talking about an essay they both had due this afternoon. "I've still got to look up one more thing, Harry. Come with me to the library."

"Well, okay. Ginny, is that all right?"

"Of course. Have a good time, you two. Don't get into trouble." Ginny and Hermione both laughed at the looks on their boyfriends' faces.

Hermione couldn't resist getting in the last word, though. "You really should be better organized, Ron. Then you wouldn't be trying to do these things at the last minute." Ron just rolled his eyes. Harry and Ron gave their respective girlfriends a quick goodby kiss and hurried out of the Great Hall. "Ginny, I wanted to show you something in this book. There's a spell in here that I think would make our next Transfiguration class much easier." Ginny pushed her remaining stew across the table and then got up and went around the end of the table to sit next to Hermione. The two girls consulted, their heads close together over the book.

A few minutes later, Cassie was finishing her pumpkin juice and Hermione her treacle pudding when she noticed Draco Malfoy making his way over to the three of them. She groaned and whispered his name to the other two girls whose backs were to him. Ginny scowled in displeasure.

"Hey, Spencer, it's a short school day today for you, isn't it?" He didn't wait for an answer but continued. "I have a great idea for this afternoon. Why don't I take you on a personal tour of the Astronomy Tower?"

Cassie felt her cheeks turn pink and she stared at Draco while the other two girls rolled their eyes. "And tell me how you expect to see stars in the middle of the afternoon?"

"Well," Draco drawled as he eyed her over appreciatively, "I guess it all depends on how long we're up there. It gets dark pretty early in the day right now. If we stay up there long enough, we may see stars, sun bursts and all kinds of celestial wonders."

Cassie felt her face go from pink to crimson as Ginny's eyes grew wide with shock. Hermione's eyebrows arched and she turned and looked at Malfoy in a very calm and head-girl like manner. "I hope you weren't really suggesting what I think you were, Malfoy. As you well know, there are rules against that kind of behavior. I'll write you up if necessary."

He glared at Hermione. "Oh don't get your knickers in a wad, Granger. I wasn't suggesting anything indecent. You're just jealous that the twit you call your boyfriend only likes to snog with you privately in empty classrooms or dark broom closets." Hermione flushed. Cassie wished she could disappear as everyone still left at the Gryffindor table was staring at the little tableau with undisguised interest. This was getting intolerable. "Anyway, I was just hypothesizing as to whether or not it was possible to see stars in the middle of the day. Naturally, much experimentation must be conducted before we know the answer. What about it, Spencer? Care to help me with this delicate but most assuredly enjoyable test?"

Cassie, who had been staring at him in disbelief and embarrassment , finally found her voice. "You lay one finger on me Malfoy, and the only stars you'll be seeing are the ones dancing around your closed eyelids when I punch you in the nose." Several of the onlookers laughed, which made it worse, in Cassie's opinion.

Malfoy glanced around at the audience. "Ooh, you're feisty, Pia. I like feisty women - they're so much more fun."

Ginny finally turned and pulled out her wand. "Get lost, Malfoy, or I'll do the bat bogey curse on you . . . again. And you better be careful because I've taught Pia how to do that curse and she's just itching to try it out on someone." Cassie took her cue and pulled her own wand out of her sleeve.

Draco Malfoy just scowled again. "I think you two need to let Spencer decide on her own friends." He winked at Cassie but he stepped back. "If you decide you want to, uh, conduct this experiment, I'll be in the library this afternoon." He turned on his heel after one final smirk at the three of them. Cassie watched him as he headed out of the Great Hall, amazed that anyone could be as dense as he was being about things.

Cassie turned back to the table and looked at Hermione, who still had a disgusted look on her face, and Ginny, who was still glaring after him. "Who was his last girlfriend?"

Both girls gave Cassie startled looks, obviously not following her train of thought. "I think it was Chemenne Croxall, a fifth-year Slytherin girl. Why do you care?"

"Well, I was just wondering if she used to beat him up or something. I mean, I've tried to be as mean as possible and he's not only not discouraged, I think he enjoys it. So, I was just kind of curious."

A slight smile crossed Hermione's face and she blushed a little. "I don't even want to think about what they could have done together." The other two girls looked at her in surprise and then they all began to laugh and make gagging noises. The rest of the table lost interest quickly now that Draco had left much to Cassie's relief and she relaxed. She hoped that he wouldn't keep pursuing her. She had made it as clear as possible that she wasn't interested but he just ignored all her protests.

Ginny stood up a minute later. "Muggle Studies next, Pia. Are you ready?"

"Uh, I think so." They walked down the hall toward a part of the castle she had never been to before. "Why are you taking this class, Ginny?"

"My Dad really wanted one of us kids to take it. He thought it would be helpful to have a working knowledge of Muggles in the family. But one by one, all of the boys lost interest in it. It kind of broke his heart, so, I decided I would persevere. It's not a bad class, really. And Harry helps me with the homework. That helps."

"Ron had Hermione, though. Why did he lose interest?"

"Ron never had interest. He never took the class to begin with. He's not that great of a student and this doesn't help with his career choice, so it would just be extra work."

"Ah. I see."

"I thought after this class, we could work on some homework."

"You promised me a nap, but okay. If you insist." A few minutes later they stepped into the classroom, finding a spot toward the back. There were quite a few students already in the room, milling about and talking. Cassie stayed in her seat although Ginny got up to visit with some of the other students. The decorations were obviously meant to show Muggle life although they didn't do a very good job of it. The pictures were old-fashioned and very fake looking, capturing people in unnatural situations rather than everyday life.

Then, there were posters of household objects with their names written largely across the top. "Microwave oven," "Toaster" and "Telephone" were the ones closest to her. She could see that there were descriptions of what each of these things did written underneath. "Whole thing just to make hot water." "Makes toast but is notoriously unreliable." "Works like fire-talking, allowing conversation over long distances." This last one didn't make any sense to her, but she remembered vaguely that George had told her once that she could fire-talk to him if she wanted to. She wanted to find Ginny to ask about it but decided she better not make a scene. She could ask her later.

The professor came in and all the students hurried back to their seats. "Today we are going to talk about a very important part of Muggle life, class. That is popular entertainment. Muggle life is rather dull and boring so to distract themselves from this, they have many entertainment choices and Muggles make really good use of them, spending hours and hours each day participating in them. If you'll all open your books to page 142, you'll see a list of the most popular forms of entertainment and some of the more widely known examples of each. Who can read the first one?"

Cassie opened her book to the required page and glanced down, wondering what these could possibly be. The professor seemed to have a fairly strange opinion as to why people liked popular entertainment. Her questions were answered and she really wished they weren't.

"Television" a student read off. "The programs on television change frequently, but some of the more popular ones currently are . . ." Cassie looked up with wide eyes at the professor, who was nodding seriously as the student read the list. None of these programs were ever intended for anyone but children and they were all at least 10 years old as she remembered watching them as a young girl. Did they really think adults liked these types of programs? Apparently, they did.

"That's right. Very good. Yes, the Muggle government knows that their people need repeated instruction on some of the basic laws of civilized society, so they have come up with these programs to reinforce desirable societal norms. I have a few excerpts I would like to show you today." The lights went down and the moving images appeared on the wall. Cassie put her head in her hands and groaned. The small puppets were singing about being kind to others. It was a fun song, a catchy tune. She had sung it many times, especially to her younger brothers when they were picking on each other, but he was acting like all people sang this to remind them to be social to each other.

The class basically was like this for the entire two hours. They discussed movies and all the examples were either animated Disney features or extremely gory murder mysteries. They discussed music and it was all extremely basic folk songs like "Row, row, row your boat" and the like. They discussed video games, although the ones mentioned were extremely rudimentary like Pac-Man or Pong. Hardly the best of a now widely varied source of entertainment. They discussed the burgeoning world of the Internet, which Cassie thought would be impressive for students who still had to write each other using owls for heaven's sake, but as the professor discussed its use only as an advertising tool or a way to find pornography, not even mentioning e-mail or instant messaging, no one was exactly awed. Cassie had several times wanted to raise her hand and complain about the fact that the professor was acting like the mental age of all Muggles was about 7, but she never did. He seemed to like Muggles, in general, and actually reminded Cassie quite a bit of Arthur. She remembered Arthur's fascination with everything in her house and how he watched Muggles as they had traveled on the Underground.

As they stood up after the bell rang and headed out of the classroom, Cassie felt actually pretty depressed. Maybe she should have been amused, but she wasn't. It was apparent now what she had previously missed in her interactions. It wasn't just that Wizards realized Muggles did not have magical powers. No that wasn't it at all. They thought they were stupid, childish, and immature. They felt they were like children, following blindly wherever they were led, too stupid to see the magic all around them, and easily duped into believing whatever the more powerful wizards chose to tell them. No wonder the two worlds did not interact well. They did not view Muggles as equals. Instead they were just extremely annoying youngsters whom you tried to get rid of while you were doing something more important. Cassie now saw that she may have mistaken even Arthur's interest as a desire to learn about something different. That wasn't it, at all. Now she saw it for what it was, an attempt to find out how these pitiful creatures managed to function in the big, bad world. She wasn't sure whether to scream or cry. She personally thought it was amazing that Ron or Ginny didn't offer to tie her trainers for her. If she had been anything like the Muggles the professor portrayed, she wouldn't have been able to figure out how.

"Well . . . what did you think? You didn't seem too impressed by the class."

"Should I have been?"

"I thought it was interesting."

"That scares me, Ginny. It really scares me."

"What do you mean?"

"The fact you have to ask me that is not comforting. Did you say Hermione took this class?"

"Yeah, for one year." Ginny sounded a little defensive. Cassie wanted to explain but didn't even know where to start. "Was it that bad?"

Cassie opened her mouth to say that yes, it had been that bad, a pack of lies, and a slanted look at anything non-magical, but then she realized she wasn't being fair to Ginny. She wasn't going to be able to change all Wizard perceptions about Muggles in just one afternoon. She was just going to have to keep being a good example of something with slightly more intelligence than a sea slug. She shut her mouth again and took a deep breath in through her nose. "No. His information was just out of date. That's all."

"Oh." Ginny looked a lot happier. "That's true. Harry said some of this stuff was even before he was born." Cassie just nodded. They walked in silence back to their dorm, where they grabbed their other books and headed into the library to get some homework done. Cassie smiled and talked on cue and tried to relax. Nothing had changed between her and Ginny, she told herself. She shouldn't let what some professor had said ruin things. No one had ever treated her with anything but kindness and they had seemed to be impressed with her capabilities to at least do some things. She was determined to put this behind her. But she did want to talk to Hermione to find out how she dealt with things. That would have to wait until later, though, when they could have some privacy.

They worked for a while on homework together. "I've got to work on that essay for Potions, Ginny. I think I'll need a book on Pepper-up Potion. Any ideas where I can find one?" She shook her head in amazement when Ginny said that no, there was no catalog or index of the library's holdings, that things were just in basic categories and she would just have to look through the books on the shelves to find what she wanted. "And they think we're backward" she muttered to herself as she bent over to look at a lower shelf, hoping to find a book Ginny had recommended. When she stood up, she about had a heart attack. Draco Malfoy was standing no more than two feet from her with an extremely satisfied look on his face.

"I see you've taken my up on my offer, Spencer. And you managed to get rid of your shadow, too. Good." Cassie had an extremely bad word pop into her head. She had forgotten that Draco said to meet him in the library. If she had remembered, she and Ginny would have stayed in Gryffindor. Now she was all alone with Draco and she couldn't let her guard down for a minute. If he even suspected she was not a full-blooded witch, it could mean death for herself or her family. She swallowed hard.

"I didn't come here to meet you, Draco. I've got homework. That's the only reason Ginny and I came to the library."

"Oh, come on. I know you don't mean that. Look, I managed to get reservations and everything."

"Reservations?" Cassie was confused.

"Yeah. The astronomy tower is a popular place. Some idiot Ravenclaw keeps the books. It was a lot of work to track him down and get our names down."

"Our names down . . . in a book?" Cassie felt sick at the thought of her name being written down with his.

"Yes. And two fourth-year Hufflepuffs had already booked this afternoon, so I had to grease the git's palm to get us in." Cassie just stared at him stupidly. "It cost quite a bit, but I did it. You're worth it. Let's go on up before all our time is used up."

"I'm not going up into the astronomy tower with you, Draco. I don't care how much it cost you."

"You're being awfully stubborn. I won't attack you or anything. We can just talk. Then, if something changes and you're interested. . . well, we can do whatever you want."

"I don't understand this at all. Why are you so interested in me? I mean . . you hate my family! You hate everything about me! Just find someone else to snog with. Maybe if you hurry, you can still get up there before your time slot is gone."

"I don't want to find anyone else. I just want to go up there with you. And I don't hate all your family, obviously. I don't hate you." Somehow, the look he was giving her made her extremely nervous. She comforted herself by thinking that all she had to do was scream and the nosy librarian would be there in two seconds. So, if he got any more pushy, she would just scream. But she would definitely wait as she had a feeling that the librarian would not be too impressed. She also thought it wouldn't be much longer before Ginny came to check on her. She belatedly realized that maybe she should pull her wand out and threaten him with it. It had worked earlier when Ginny had done it. She pulled the narrow wand out of her sleeve and held it up. "Go away, Draco. I know how to do the bat-bogey hex and I'm pretty sure you don't want to have that happen." Draco stopped for a second, looking at her carefully. Then, he took one step closer and grabbed the wand out of her hand.

"You weren't really going to use that on me. I could tell." Cassie stared with horror at her wand which was now held firmly in his hand. He tucked her wand into his robe pocket and pulled his out. He stepped closer to her again, this time pushing against her so that she was firmly sandwiched between the hard cases behind her and him. He traced his wand carefully over her chin and she almost fainted before remembering to breathe. "Stop fighting this, Pia. You've made the requisite protests. You can give in now, and no one will think worse of you."

"I don't want to go up to the astronomy tower with you or anywhere else for that matter, Draco." Before she could really elaborate she heard a sharp intake of breath and Ginny's voice carried down the narrow aisle.

"Get away from her, Malfoy. She's told you she's not interested." She had her wand out and it was lowered menacingly at the blond boy who was smirking at her.

"Please, Weasley. Do you think she needs a keeper or something? If she wants me to leave, I'll leave."

"Leave, Draco, please. And don't bother me anymore."

"You heard what she said, Malfoy. Get away from her." Draco stepped away from her although he didn't go far.

"And give me back my wand." Draco smirked at her.

"Whatever you want, Pia. Always." And he handed her the wand, which she instantly put back into her sleeve. Ginny was staring at the Slytherin boy with malice and he seemed to realize his plans were once again thwarted. He reached out and tweaked a strand of her hair and then turned and walked away, disappearing further in the stacks.

"Oh, Merlin, Pia. He's starting to scare me."

Cassie took a deep breath. The entire exchange had frightened her a great deal but she didn't want to admit how much. "Me, too. I don't know what to do. I don't want to slink around the school terrified that I might run into him."

"Hmm. Maybe Harry or Hermione will have an idea. 'Cause you're right. We've got to do something to get rid of him on a more permanent basis. Maybe Dumbledore wouldn't blame us if Harry killed him. Or a good Cruciatus curse might do it." Cassie smiled at Ginny's obvious attempt at humor although her knees were shaking.

"Come on. Let's go back to the common room. I'll just ask Hermione for help with the essay. She won't complain, I bet." She felt extremely relieved when 15 minutes later she was safely behind the painting of the fat lady and there was no way Draco could find her. She stood by the fire for a few minutes and smiled much more calmly when Hermione approached her about 20 minutes after that.

"Harry told me what happened last night with Snape."

"Oh, yeah. I think maybe I was just confused." She really didn't want to talk about this now. She had just had an extremely unpleasant encounter and she knew she wasn't up to another one. Hermione was sure to yell at her for letting Snape into her brain in the first place, and tell her that she had taken foolish risks, endangered everyone, etc.

"I don't think you were confused. How would you have known what it was like to have Legilemency on you if he didn't do it?"

"He did do it. No question about that, Hermione. I was just obviously confused about what I did. Harry said that I couldn't have, um, you know, stopped those memories or . . . looked into his."

"Well, he was wrong. I looked some things up in the Library." Cassie smiled to herself though she kept her face calm. "It turns out that Muggles can stop Legilemency as easily as a witch or wizard can. Usually they have to be trained but it really is just a matter of mind control mixed with a bit of natural empathetic awareness, which you have in abundance. We've known that for a long time. And you said your mum said you have always been really good at telling what people were thinking."

"Yes. That's true."

"To me, then, it's obvious what happened. His mind was poking around in yours and you were able to take control of the situation because of your natural connection with what others are feeling."

"That makes sense I guess."

"And then once the connection between you was established, it was fairly easy for you to use that empathic connection to draw his memories out."

"So . . . you're telling me I didn't do magic."

"Oh, I didn't say that." Hermione laughed. "Anyone that can annoy Snape is doing magic in my book." Both girls laughed and Cassie felt the last of her bad mood slip away. It had been a difficult day, after all. The classes had been easy enough but there had been enough drama, pain, and angst anyway. She was just glad she had not had Potions or Transfiguration today. If she had, she may have had to do herself in. And Remus thought she could stay for another week and a half? She would be lucky if she made it through tomorrow. And she meant that literally.