Chapter 54
The Entire Story

Cassie automatically stood up to help Molly get dinner on the table and smiled as both Ginny and Hermione joined her. The next half hour was an interesting one for her. Molly had prepared quite a bit of the food beforehand and heated it with magic, assisted by the young witches. Molly also hurriedly threw together a few more casseroles and when Cassie asked Ginny why she was making so much food, Ginny just rolled her eyes. "Partly because Ron and Harry always pack it away and partly because when she's nervous, she cooks. Obviously, she's slightly stressed at the moment." Ron and the twins made a rapid retreat when it looked like Molly was going to ask them to help but Harry bravely stayed behind and made a salad. Cassie set the table the old-fashioned Muggle way, but since all the cooking tonight was being done with magic so that it would be faster, there was not much else she could do. It was fun, though; everyone talked and laughed as they moved around the very crowded kitchen, doing what could have been an elaborately choreographed set of maneuvers to avoid being stabbed, cut, or burned as objects and spells hurtled through the air at lightning fast speed.

"Cassie, dear, could you take these, please. They're getting in the way and . . ."

Cassie spied the box Molly was holding out to her. "Sure. No problem." She took it, intending to give it back to Fred, maybe by dumping it over his head, but then an idea occurred to her. She started up the steps, mulling over the possibilities in her mind as she climbed. When she reached her landing, she looked at the one additional flight of steps she would need to ascend if she were to give it back to him and then looked at the door to Ginny's room. Why not? She scurried into the room and slipped the box into her trunk to be used at a later point, and then she went back downstairs, making sure to keep her face as passively innocent as possible.

The table was literally groaning as the group sat down a little later. Arthur had expanded it so there was room for the ten of them but it was still overly full. Cassie counted five different main dishes as well as the appropriate accompaniments for each of them, salad, rolls, three different types of potatoes, vegetables, etc. And she knew there were at least four desserts waiting for later. She tried a very little bit of everything. This reminded her a little bit of her time at Hogwarts but here she didn't have the necessity of climbing through the castle to burn off all the calories, so she would need to be careful what she ate, especially as Christmas was on the horizon and she realized that the food was only likely to get richer and more plentiful as the big day approached. Ginny was right, though. Not that Cassie was surprised because she had seen the boys eat before, but both Ron and Harry really outdid themselves in the eating department. However, there was still plenty left as they started winding down and Cassie thought that they probably had enough here for leftovers for a week, although if Molly was just as nervous tomorrow about the warrants out for everyone's arrest, she was likely to cook an entire new selection of dishes, just to keep her mind occupied.

Dinner was a fairly solemn affair, the hearty eating continuing even as Arthur explained what had been happening with the Auror's office and the theories that Remus and Dumbledore were working on to explain why all of this effort was being made to neutralize the Order. Ron had been extremely angry when he was told that the "Aurors" from earlier in the day were indeed Aurors, not Death Eaters as he had supposed. They were all equally upset when Cassie told them that she recognized Sootspinner from the meeting.

"But how could Nightscall be letting this happen?" Hermione had asked, abandoning all pretext of eating her broccoli. "For the Aurors to be fighting against the Order, when he has always been so supportive of it makes no sense."

"He obviously doesn't know Sootspinner is working against the Order, Hermione. If he did, he would have him chucked out. The problem is, we really can't tell him as he would then demand to know where we got our information and if we told him about Cassie . . . well, we still don't know if he's got spies working for him. It's just too risky to let him know we have her here." George finished speaking and smiled at Cassie, who looked down at her plate and flushed. She wished she could have sat next to him, but Ron had taken the spot she had planned on sitting.

"But what about Woodburn's assistant, that Kilbraithe guy or whatever his name is? Isn't he getting a little suspicious?"

"We really don't know what he's doing. He may not even be in the office right now. He's been trying to unite foreign ministries in the fight against You-Know-Who for a while and that means he's been traveling a lot. This arrest warrant business may be too much, but things move slowly in government. He would have to be more than just suspicious." Arthur looked down at his food, pushing his fork aimlessly through his potatoes. "I've got to talk to Kingsley but I can't exactly go to the office at the moment. He's going to have to find me, I suppose."

"Can't the Aurors come and arrest you here, Arthur? I've been kind of wondering that all day, actually." Arthur looked up at her in surprise.

"Well, no. The house is heavily warded, unplottable, etc. No one can come in unless we've made prior arrangements . . . that's why you're here, you know. And Harry."

"But everyone knows where you live!"

"Not really. Wizard houses can be well-hidden. No one can come here to arrest us. Don't worry about that."

"But they found Remus. Well, the headquarters. And that was hidden." Everyone looked rather sharply at Arthur. Cassie had brought up a good point. No one should have been able to find a Fidelius charmed house and yet here was Remus, proof that they had. How safe could The Burrow be, compared to that?

"Er . . . yes. Well, that is a little strange, isn't it? We think they knew pretty much exactly where to look. We just don't know how they knew."

"We've been betrayed, I believe." Remus said bluntly into the silence that followed Arthur's statement and as if one, everyone at the table took a deep breath of shock, not moving at all.

"You mean . . . one of the Order has . . . . No! I won't believe it. I can't believe it." Molly was shaking her head. "There has to be some other explanation. Someone was followed, someone was careless. Those are people we know, people we trust! People we have trusted with our lives!" Molly stood, agitated, and started cutting into the first pie, even though most people still had dinner on their plates.

"My dad trusted Peter with our lives." The silence that followed Harry's announcement was even more profound than that which had followed Arthur's.

"I think-" Remus never finished his sentence because at that moment, a witch Cassie had never seen before apparated into the kitchen, almost knocking Molly over as she stumbled backward and bashed her head against the refrigerator. Wands were raised as the witch stood again, shaking her head in shock and looked at them. "Wotcher, everyone! These shoes and I don't get along well. Bloody things." The face started shifting, like it was melting, the hair shortening and darkening, the features becoming more delicate, the skin smoothing like it was being ironed, until a witch Cassie did recognize was standing there, rubbing the back of her head where her skull had connected with the hard corner of the kitchen appliance.

"Hi, Tonks!" everyone said. Cassie studied her with interest. She had never seen her actually do the disguise thing before and it was interesting, almost like a computer controlled morph of one face into another, but Cassie knew that no computer had done that. Tonks looked around at the assembled group.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your supper. I wanted to come talk about the events of the day." She grinned at Harry. "I see you got away all right. Good!" Remus scooted over and conjured a chair for her. She sat down and Molly passed her a plate, which she happily started filling from the still-abundant quantities of food on the table.

Harry smiled back. "Yeah, thanks to you."

"Not me. Rebecca, Cassie's mum. She's the one you need to thank." She hit the end of one spoon with her plate, and peas flew up in the air and hit Ginny in the head. No one said anything although Cassie bit her lip while Ginny scowled.

Everyone looked at Cassie again and she looked at Tonks. "What did you say?"

"She's the one who notified Andrew, who told me. I told Arthur, and well, the rest you know." She tried to get some gravy, leaving a trail of the greasy stuff from the bowl to her plate.

"But how did Mrs. Robinson know about the Aurors trying to arrest us? That doesn't make any sense." Harry was looking askance at Tonks who had dropped a roll and was trying to retrieve it from the floor without dropping her plate.

"She doesn't know a thing about the Aurors. She saw it on the telly - the early news, I guess. I think they have news on several times a day, must get right boring with -"

"Tonks!" Harry scowled. "What are you talking about?"

"They have the news on several times a day. The Prime Minister has it on all day, cable news, he calls it. It's the same thing over and over again, all the time and it's all -" she took a bite and rolled her eyes in ecstasy at Molly's cooking.

"Tonks!" This time, Harry sounded extremely frustrated. "I think you're missing the point of my question."

"No, I'm not, Harry. You want to know how Rebecca knew about the arrest warrants. I've told you, she saw it on the news!" She was holding her fork as she turned to look at Harry and it flew out of her hand and landed on Remus' lap. He just picked it up and returned it to her, not mentioning the mess she had made on his robes.

"But -"

"Arthur told you that they've put it on the Muggle news, too, right? So none of you can go into hiding with them, either. Muggle police are looking everywhere for you. And I think there's a rather sizeable reward for any news that, uh . . . 'leads to your arrest and conviction.' Yeah, that's right." She reached for the salt and knocked over her water glass which Fred righted and refilled as she sprinkled her mashed potatoes.

"They've put us on the news! With our pictures!!"

"That's what Rebecca said. And since then I've seen it about 100 times in the PM's office. Well, and my picture is there, too, of course. Since the office thinks I've skedaddled, I'm also wanted for questioning. Right! Questioning my toe. No mention that I may not look anything like myself but I guess that might be hard to explain. It's probably just as well, though." She took another helping of chicken, this time without doing bodily harm to anyone at the table. Remus was looking at her with a sort of half-smile on his face that Cassie thought was amusement at her clumsiness. But when he quietly retrieved her napkin (which she had dropped) and buttered her roll for her, Cassie looked more carefully at the two of them.

Remus was fairly young, really, although his hair was shot through with gray, maybe 37 or 38. Not much older. Tonks was young, too. She remembered Ginny saying she had only been out of school for about 7 years, which would make her about 25. So the age difference was not extreme. And she was pretty. Her face was delicate and heart-shaped, the dark short hair framing it at the moment as it was not shockingly pink or violet and not standing straight up on her head. Remus was fairly handsome. And there was no question that he needed someone to love him. Cassie wasn't sure that this girl/woman, who seemed extremely flighty and barely sane, was the right someone, but sometimes one's heart didn't always listen to reason. She herself was a prime example of this. She couldn't tell if Tonks reciprocated the feeling or even if she was reading the look on Remus' face right, but she smiled into her napkin, crossed her fingers, and offered a silent prayer to whichever God watched over werewolves. "If this could work out, please let it. He deserves it, you know."

"They did that to Sirius." Harry said after a few moments and everyone nodded. "Said he was a murderer. They just conveniently didn't mention how he had murdered or whom he had been imprisoned for killing. So, what did they say about us exactly?"

"Um, what's the word they used? Terrorism. That's it. They're saying that you are all suspected terrorists with the IRA or something like that." Cassie nodded although no one else did. But it made perfect sense to her. Her dad had said that the Prime Minister was focusing strongly on terrorism at the moment and since it would be extremely unlikely that people would think Arthur, Molly, Harry, and the others were from the Middle East, the IRA would be the logical explanation. Say the words IRA Terrorists to people in Britain, and everyone would do just about anything to get them off the streets. They called it Terrorism for a reason, because that is what you lived in when you were a target. Terror.

When Tonks finished eating, Molly served dessert and everyone managed to eat at least some, even though they were all full to bursting by the time they stood up from the table. Clean up was fast with everyone helping magically except for Cassie, who washed down the table and cleared leftovers from the pans. It turned out that Molly used a sort of spell to keep the food fresh in the fridge rather than plastic wrap or foil, which explained why Cassie had never been able to find it that first morning. She thought it seemed a little strange, just putting an uncovered bowl into the refrigerator and trusting that the spell would keep it from picking up odors or getting other stuff in it, but no one else said anything, so she decided she would have to trust it. Not that she had a choice.

Molly, Remus, Arthur, Tonks, George, and Fred all went into the living room when clean-up was done for what Fred laughingly called "grown up business. All you little kids can go up and go to bed." Ron and Harry scowled but Cassie had the distinct impression they were actually relieved to be dismissed. She knew she was. It was depressing to sit in a meeting with others and hear things that were very unpleasant. She wasn't naive enough to think that just because she didn't hear them didn't mean they hadn't happened, but at least she could remain blissfully ignorant for a little longer. She had realized over the last couple of weeks that the old adage 'ignorance is bliss' could actually be true.

All five of them trudged up the steps and by unspoken agreement went into Ginny's room. The extra beds had been brought in, or more likely conjured, and Cassie hoped it hadn't been Ron who had done it. The room looked like it had always been just the perfect size to hold the three beds, trunks, etc., and all of the furniture looked normal. But it was strange because Cassie knew full well that only a few short hours before there had barely been enough room in here for the one. The window was bigger now, but the curtains hung in the exact same way and looked identical as they had earlier. It was very odd. Cassie felt like shaking her head and closing her eyes so that the sort of warped feeling would leave her brain, but she knew that when she opened them, everything would look the same, so there was no point. Ginny sat down on one bed and Hermione the other, their boyfriends joining them. Cassie was a bit unsure what to do, but then Ginny smiled and patted her pillow. "Come sit here, Cassie. We can talk that way. If you sit on your bed, you'll be too far away." So Cassie sat down at the head of Ginny's bed, leaning her back against the headboard and hugged Ginny's pillow close to her as the conversation started.

Cassie asked about how her friends at school were doing and what story Ginny had told about her leaving so abruptly. It might have been improbable that someone's parents would put them into school and then take them out barely a week later, but not impossible and no one asked too many questions. Ginny, of course, hadn't told anyone she would be seeing "Pia" over Christmas, so no one had sent notes or letters, although Ginny assured her that they did miss her. The conversation veered back to Malfoy at one point and everyone laughed as they once again recounted the story of the clothes-dissolving mail bomb. "And he's pale all over, sort of a like a bleached fish left in the sun too long if you ask me. All the color's gone out of him - probably weird inbreeding or something causes that."

Cassie and the others laughed at Ron's joke . She smiled happily. She loved being here with all of them, snug and secure in Ginny's room. They talked for a few more minutes and then there was a knock on the door. At Ginny's "yeah?" Fred's head peeked in.

"Hey! We thought we'd find you five in here. Whatja doin'?"

"Just talking. Come on in." Fred looked dubiously at the two beds, now currently occupied by the five sprawling bodies, and sat down next to Ron. George scowled at him because he had taken the last available space. He looked over at Cassie, who was tempted to scoot over and make room for him, but before she could move, he sat down on the floor, leaning back against the bed where she was. If she reached her hand out, she could thread her fingers through his hair. She was itching to do so, but instead just twisted her hands together over the pillow and stared down at them.

The conversation moved on as though it hadn't been interrupted and the laughing and teasing about people at Hogwarts continued for a long while. When there was a lull in the conversation, Cassie decided it was time for the chocolates. "My mum sent me some chocolates a few days ago, everyone. They're really good and we always get them at Christmastime. Is anyone in the mood for some?"

"Great! I'm starved!" Ron snapped to attention at her words. Everyone laughed and even Ron looked sheepish, realizing that just over an hour ago they had finished a huge meal. Cassie got off the bed, shivering slightly as George's hand curved around her ankle as she stood next to him for a second. She pulled the box of Rudolpho's out of her trunk, taking off the top so that the moving picture was not visible. Fred was the one who noticed first and his eyes widened slightly in surprise but he never made a sound. Cassie offered everyone a chocolate, even George and Fred, both of whom took one, looking resigned, even though they knew what was going to happen. Cassie even took one out of the box and bit into it. They were really good. She remembered how Neville always at Canary Cremes even though he knew what was going to happen. The candy was good enough to make the momentary discomfort of being an animal worth it.

Everyone put chocolates in their mouths at about the same moment, but Ron snarfed his down the fastest, and everyone laughed in surprise and amazement as the antlers grew from his head and his nose turned bright red.. Within the space of just a few seconds, all seven of them were pointing at each other and jumping up to examine themselves in Ginny's mirror. They all looked ridiculous but it was fun. There was one particularly funny moment when Harry went to kiss Ginny and their antlers got entangled. Everyone else was practically hysterical by the time they freed themselves although the looks on their faces was decidedly less amused. It took about 10 minutes for everyone's face to return to normal and for the antlers to dissolve back into normally shaped skulls. As had happened with Cassie, of course, everyone's nose stayed a bit red afterward.

"I see Fred and George have corrupted you," said Hermione as she picked up the box of chocolates and saw the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes logo on the bottom.

"Completely corrupted. But let's face it. You all are too smart to eat anything they give you anymore. So I decided I'd have to do it. After all, if I had to be a reindeer, you should, too." Cassie reached out and ruffled George's hair this time. "Besides some of you look really good with antlers."

Harry grinned. "It's a great treat, but I think you'd better put a warning on the package about being careful not to kiss someone else when you both have antlers. That really was not very fun."
"Yeah! I'm sure you really suffered for those few minutes of being stuck to Ginny!" Fred grinned at his sister and her boyfriend, who both threw their chocolate wrappers at the twin in retribution for being a smart mouth. After a few more minutes' conversation about the joke shop and business, Harry stood up.

"I'm beat and Ron and I haven't even started unpacking, not to mention enlarging the room and making me a bed, so I'm going to head upstairs. You coming, Ron?"

"I guess so." The two boys left a minute later and George immediately stood up from the floor and sat next to Cassie, forcing Ginny to scoot into the spot vacated by Harry. She moved, but grinned saucily at George.

"Don't let me get in your way."

"I won't." His arm slipped around Cassie's shoulders and he pulled her close and kissed her on the temple. "You were brilliant, love."

"Thanks." She smiled back at him, kissing him on the cheek. "I learned from the best." Ginny groaned and buried her face against the bed.

"Two of them are bad enough - now we have a third trickster around here."

Cassie laughed. "You flatter me. I am but a pale imitator of their skills."

"Oh, I don't know about that, Cassie," Hermione said. "I read that note you sent to Harry today. It was a completely twin-like thing to do."

"Not true. If they had sent it, it would have blown up after Harry read it." Everyone smiled although it was a bit less light-hearted than it would have been a few moments before. Hermione's mention of the note had reminded everyone of what was going on with the war. It was hard to be too jubilant when you thought about that.

"How is Harry doing? I mean, really doing?" asked Fred, looking earnestly between Hermione and Ginny.

Ginny sighed. "He's okay. He's under a lot of stress but he sort of accepts it now, doesn't fight it as much. It's like he knows what he has to do and is just trying to make sure he's around to do it."

Hermione nodded. "He seems to be over the whole angry thing. He realizes that there is no one to blame for this mess -- not his parents, not Dumbledore, not Sirius -- except for Lord Voldemort and he wants to make sure he pays for it."

They talked for quite a long while about Harry. Cassie occasionally thought about jumping in with some comment as she and Harry had talked in June about the prophesy and what it meant he had to do, but she never felt like the moment was right. After all, that had only been one night six months ago. Ginny and Hermione knew him a lot better and knew what he had been feeling recently, so she never did interrupt the flow of the conversation. She just let it wash over and around her, her fingers linked with George's in a silent gesture of comfort. And she wasn't sure whether she was the one being comforted.

"I guess we'd better go, let you girls get your beauty sleep," Fred joked when Cassie's watch said 11:15. Hermione hit him with a pillow in retaliation but they were all very tired.

George smiled and pulled Cassie close again, kissing her gently on the lips. "Not that you need it, of course." Ginny groaned again.

"You two are sort of sickening."

"Oh, yeah. And you and Harry never do anything mushy!" The look on Ginny's face was priceless -- like it had never dawned on her that before that second that she and Harry did the same sort of thing. She flushed slightly.

"Well . . . you're right." Hermione looked between the three of them, a small frown between her eyes. The boys got up and left the room after another minute of discussion about what they would be doing the next morning. Cassie stretched, then hopped off Ginny's bed and did what she recognized as a silly little dance across the room to her trunk. They all started changing into their pyjamas quietly, having pretty well talked themselves out for the evening already. Cassie pulled George's shirt over her head without thinking about it but when she moved over to her bed, Hermione looked at her with a strange expression. "That's George's shirt - the one he wore at Hogsmeade."

"Yeah. He gave it to me to wear at night while I'm here. It smells like him and helps me think of him all night long. Not like I need help, of course. And I have the most wonderful dreams with it on. Maybe he charmed it or something." She slipped under the warm blankets, kicking two of them off as she knew she'd be plenty warm without them. Hermione's expression formed more solidly into a frown. She looked over at Ginny, who was wearing that same green shirt of Harry's she had pilfered when she thought he was dead.

"I'll be right back." The door closed with a click behind her before either of the younger girls could even say a word.

"Where do you suppose she's going?" Cassie asked, hoping it wasn't to tell Molly about her wearing George's shirt. She didn't think Molly would like the idea much for some reason.

"To see Ron. She's probably going to demand that he give her one of his shirts. Why should we have all the fun?" Both girls laughed at the imagined scene, with Hermione chewing Ron out for not volunteering a shirt earlier and his looking flummoxed as any shirt of his would completely drown her, nightshirt or not. "I think I'm going to go take a bath. Do you mind?"

"Of course not. The bathtub is wonderful. By the way, I used some of your bubblebath. If you need me to buy some more for you, I will."

"Don't be silly. Mum keeps me supplied and I'm sure she wouldn't want you to worry about it. Feel free to use as much as you want."

"Thanks. But I have my own now."

"Okay." Ginny left and about a moment later stuck her head back into the room.

"Why?"

"Uh, George brought it home for me. He made it himself."

"Oh." She left again and then another moment passed before she stuck her head through the door again.

"Why?"

Cassie flushed a rather bright shade of red. "He . . . didn't, uh, the smell . . . it's your smell." Ginny looked at her strangely. Then comprehension dawned on her face like she had just cast a Lumos spell.

"I see. He didn't like snogging someone who reminded him of his sister, huh?"

"Something like that." Ginny winked at her.

"So, what does the bubblebath smell like?"

"My shampoo."

"Okay." Ginny left again and this time it was an entire minute before she stuck her head into the doorway once again. "Your shampoo?" Cassie just shrugged.

"It's what he wanted me to smell like, I guess." Ginny closed the door behind her one more time and although Cassie waited for a few minutes, she didn't come in again. Cassie decided to take advantage of these few quiet moments and write a letter home to her parents. When Tonks had mentioned them earlier that evening, she had felt guilt in her heart because she wasn't writing to them regularly. Yes, it was true that mail delivery was rather difficult, but still. They were her parents and her brothers and she was away from them and she should be homesick or something, not almost completely forgetting their existence during the day. And being busy was no excuse.

She wrote an in-depth letter this time, explaining about what she was doing at the Burrow and how she was helping Molly out. She could freely discuss the magic this time and about how interesting it was to see it being used for everyday household work like cooking and cleaning. "Molly has done the laundry once since I've been here, but I missed being able to watch her. I'm sure she'll be doing it again tomorrow as everyone has dirty clothes from school. I intend to beg, if necessary, and I'll tell you what I find out. She doesn't have a machine, she says." She had just finished that sentence when the doorknob turned and Cassie looked up, expecting it to be Hermione. Instead, Ginny came in, her hair wrapped in a towel.

"Hermione still isn't back?"

"No, but it's only been a few minutes." Ginny looked at her strangely.

"I've been in the tub at least a half hour and she was gone for a good 15 minutes before I got there." Cassie glanced at her watch and was amazed to see that she was right. It was after midnight.

"I must have lost track of time. Where she could be?"

"I don't know. I wonder if I should go check on her and Ron. I hate to interrupt them if they're kissing but . . . she may have fallen asleep or something."

"You could be right." Just then the door opened and Hermione came in, walked to her bed, and climbed in. She wasn't holding a shirt and she didn't look like she had just come from a 45-minute snogging session.

"Where's your shirt?" asked Ginny, apparently unembarrassed as she didn't even flush slightly.

"What?"

"Didn't you ask Ron for a shirt?"

"No. Any shirt of Ron's would be way too big for me . . . unless I shrunk it of course. But no, I was talking to George."

Cassie, who was still holding her quill above her letter home, dropped it and it made a big splotch across her signature. Ginny's mouth just dropped open. "George!" They both said at the same moment.

"Yeah. George. I wanted to find out what his intentions were with Cassie." Hermione laid down and closed her eyes.

"What are you talking about, Hermione?" Cassie didn't plan on letting that go by undiscussed. Hermione sat back up.

"Well, I knew you liked him and he liked you, but when I saw you tonight, I realized that it went much deeper than simple infatuation, so I went to warn him off." Cassie sat straight up in bed and stared at Hermione.

"Tell me you're kidding!" Ginny was looking equally murderous on Hermione's other side although Hermione just shrugged.

"No. He didn't listen, though. He said that you two had something special together and that he didn't intend to give you up without a fight. I told him he was a goofball and totally unable to handle the difficulties this so-called relationship was going to cause you. He admitted that he has been a goofball but insisted that he knew how to be serious when he needed to. Not that I believe him, of course." Hermione's lips pursed together in obvious distaste. "I warned him that you are still very young and in way over your head with the magic and everything and that it's not fair to you to expect you to just give up your whole life to be with him." She sighed. "He had to agree, but said that as long as you wanted to, it was your choice. I told him that you are too young to know what you want."

"Gee, thanks, Mum. I'm glad your years of experience can be useful to me now." Cassie was torn between walking over and strangling her with her bare hands or begging Ginny to do the Bat-Bogey hex on her. She felt angry enough right now to do the Cruciatus curse on Hermione and wondered vaguely if she picked up her wand and said the words if anything would happen.

"Hermione! You had no right to do anything like that, you aren't her mother!" Ginny was screeching from her bed.

"Well, no. But someone has to watch out for her best interests."

"George is not a goofball," Cassie said, very slowly, emphasizing each word. "He does have a good sense of humor, but he . . ."

"Look. I like Fred and George a lot. But that doesn't mean you two are right together. I mean, he likes to play his way through life, not deal with the hard issues that . . ." Cassie cut her off.

"I think it's up to George and me to decide whether we are right together, not you. And if it doesn't work out, well . . . I can handle it."

"And you're so good at just turning off your emotions!" Hermione threw back at her. Cassie's eyes locked onto hers.

"What do you mean?"

"Who was the one who held you when you cried over Harry last summer? Who saw how it broke your heart? That's right, me! You could fool him, but I heard you cry that night at Hogwarts over him again and I knew that it was killing you to leave him. I just don't want to see you get hurt again, okay?" Cassie stared at her for a long moment in utter shock and then turned her head to see Ginny, who was sitting white-faced on her own bed staring at Hermione. "Oh, Ginny!" It was like Hermione had just been slapped. "I'm sorry! I should have . . . not said that. I should have said it differently! I just . . . I didn't think about how that sounded!"

No one said anything for a long moment. Finally, Ginny took a deep breath and hitched up her chin. "I knew it wasn't quite as friendly as they made it sound. I mean, who could really give up on Harry that easily? It took me years. And when Harry told me that it was because of the magic, I knew that wasn't really true, either." She looked at Cassie and the emptiness in her eyes scared her. "Do you still love him? Because if you do, I could . . . "

"No! Oh, Ginny! I . . . Leaving him broke my heart, but I knew it was what had to be done and if things were to happen again the same way, knowing what I do now, I'd do the same thing again. Really. And what I feel about George is a lot deeper than what I felt for Harry because I've known the real him for the whole time. I only knew Harry was a wizard for two days before I went back home." Another long moment passed in complete silence. "Ginny. Do you believe me?"

"I think so. I . . . want to."

"You should, Ginny. Harry has never been happier in his whole life than he has been this last six months with you. You are . . . his whole world, now." Hermione was visibly trembling, her earlier complacency over what she had done completely forgotten. "I'm so sorry I brought that up. I shouldn't have. It's all in the past." Ginny lay down, staring up at the ceiling and Cassie did the same. Hermione did, too, after a moment; and then she extinguished the lamps with a quiet "Nox."

It was five minutes before Ginny spoke. "I've been meaning to ask you, Cassie. I didn't want to embarrass you in front of everyone else. But, why did you take down all my pictures of Harry?"