Speechless
They had loved each other from the time they had first met, Vega Black had once said jokingly to Lorelei Yaxley over a plate of crackers with white cheese and cloudberry jam, at the Malfoys' annual Christmas ball. The other, smiling indulgently over at the two children, had agreed at once. They were certainly cute together, though he was three and she was nearly four. As they got older, in fact, there began to be talks of a marriage contract to be drawn up between the two of them, and Calchias Filch, patriarch of the Filch clan, agreed- why shouldn't he, if his family was marrying up? Vega thought it was lovely, although her husband Rigel was not so amused.
And then the long-awaited July 24th arrived, in two households. The day that that their Hogwarts letters would arrive. And in one of them, Calchias Filch very calmly pulled out a whiskey decanter from the hidden compartment in his desk and drank himself into unconsciousness. His son, his precious little Guardian, was a squib. A squib! The first squib in the Filch family for over nine generations! He'd known long before then, really, when Argus never turned his hair green or summoned his bottle to him, like the other children, but he simply couldn't comprehend it.
Of course, Rigel Black could comprehend it just fine. "No daughter of mine is going to marry a squib, do you hear me? I don't care about the damn contract, she's not marrying him! Never thought it was a good idea in the first place, everyone knows Filches never amount to anything. Living proof! Living proof, I tell you! A squib!"
And so the contract was broken. That didn't mean they never saw each other, though, and that was what made it more painful still, because they could see each other- they could even talk to each other, when Rigel wasn't watching- but they would never have a future together.
When Cassiopeia Black was seventeen, just out of Hogwarts, her father began casting about for another husband. Someone rich, this time, someone able to bring more gold into the Black coffers- rapidly being emptied by contribution to the war effort- to buy a wife. Someone influential, to help their Lord to come to power. Someone who could give their child a powerful magical son. Someone who was not a miserable squib.
In fact, Argus was not even allowed near the Black manor that summer- why would he be? It was not as if he was a worthy suitor, or even a good political contact.
They still exchanged letters, though, using a code they'd made up years ago, and sent back and forth using her own personal owl.
Letters that grew rapidly more lax as month after month went by, with no rumblings of discovery. Letters that told in flowery terms of their immense love for one another, and quoted muggle novels that neither of them were technically allowed to read. Letters that, in the weeks after the announcement of Cassiopeia's engagement to Rodolphus Lestrange, grew more heated and more desperate.
There was the night that Argus slipped into the gardens of Black manor and stood under her window- the wards did not recognize squibs- and the night he spent with her secluded in the greenhouse, while her parents slept.
And there was the night her father called her into the parlour, and gave her the dead owl with the letter still tied on, told her that she was damaged goods, and that she had let down her House. Told her to lie down and accept her punishment. A daughter of the house Black did not lie with common filth.
The torturewas not the worst part of the punishment, not even the crucitus. It was what happened after.
A wizard's (or witch's) animagus form is supposed to be the reward of years of training, something to aspire to, a gift, really. It is not supposed to be contorted into a trap, a prison of silky fur, langorous muscles.
And yet that's what they did. They locked her in her form with potions and charms, so that she might be forever trapped. She was not useful anymore, after all.
And then they cast the Fidelius on the secret of her true nature, with a blindfolded and bound Argus as the Secret Keeper, knowing perfectly well that he did not have the magic to sustain the spell, to tell anyone with a magical signature. A perfect punishment, for both of them, and so creative, too! And though Vega wanted to reverse the transformation on her daughter, the spell made her forget of her existence in a moment, save for a faint, aching longing and a cold feeling whenever she looked at her husband, from then on.
And so it happened that they threw her out, with her former suitor. And he took her home, not wanting the woman he loved to starve or die in the streets. He could not call her Cassiopeia, though, the name was too painful, and Mrs. Filch would have attracted attention. So her called her Mrs. Norris, after the heroine in a romance novel they had once read together, in the Black family gardens on a summer afternoon.
He was no wizard, but he did read, when he was not shut up in his rooms, away from the increasing drunken and despairing Calchias Filch. He researched ways to get his magic back, ways to break the spell, hoping against hope that, like many old rituals, the counter would be something obscure, arbitrary, but easily obtainable, like a kiss (to break Somnus Aeternis) or the tongue of a toad which had only one eye.
But he was no Prince Charming, or even just a Prince, and while she was rich, she was far from a princess. Calchias died, and he, not knowing what else to do, took up the position offered to him as caretaker at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It hurt. It hurt seeing young witches and wizards running about carefree, not worrying about families or magic or even the coming war. It hurt hearing the remarks when they thought he wasn't listening, and the even more pointed ones when they knew he was, the disdain that he was without something they took for granted, the trip jinxes when his back was turned.
It hurt that all of them (well, except for the first years) could easily break the spell that his love was under, if only he could tell him.
He became more bitter with every year that passed. He took a vindictive pleasure in dragging lovebirds out of their cosy little broom closets and assigning them detention, as though they were impugning his happiness with every kiss and saccharine sweet word. And perhaps she felt the same, if her own vindictiveness conveyed anything.
Because he would never kiss her again, nor any other, and cats' mouths are not made for soft words and gentle exclamations, or for any words. The only time he found peace was the quiet evenings when they say together in his rooms, her in his lap, while he threaded his fingers through her silk-soft fur, and dreamed, able to imagine, for a moment, if he closed his eyes, that it was her blue-black tresses he was stroking, and that she was going to wake, any moment now, to kiss him good morning.
And she would purr, and lay her head on his lap, and kneed her paws into his stomach (claws retracted, of course) and he didn't need any words.