Chapter 23 Halloween Terrors

I was walking with Hermione to the library just before dinner when we passed a window and I happened to look out and something caught my eye just within the forest. But it was gone when I did my doubletake.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, I thought I saw something out of the ordinary in the forest." I answered truthfully.

"Like what?" Hermione stepped up the window and we looked outside.

I didn't know what I saw honestly.

"I'm not sure." I shrugged and continued walking.

"Are you usually 'seeing' things?" Hermione whispered.

"Not like that, I just know things. Like I know that Trelawney is a loon and isn't really a Seer herself." I answered, casually.

Trelawney wouldn't have been able to see what I saw from my memory block if she wasn't some form of Seer.

I also hadn't had one of my feelings in a while and I hadn't had a prediction in just as long.

"Oh, do you think you can get to that point?" Hermione asked when we entered the library.

"I'm not sure. What research I can get on my family is just telling me that some members just happen to be able to do more with their ability than others. And I can't seem to find out what happened to the Zwarts. Their timeline has disappeared around twenty or thirty years ago." I sighed when we got to our usual table.

"That's strange." Hermione frowned.

"I know." I nodded.

We got down to doing homework, but she was taking up so much space with all of her homework and books we had to move back up to the common room. After Madam Pince finally told us other students needed the tables.

As Hermione and I went back to the common room, I made sure to look out the windows and look for that strange thing I saw.

"Are you looking for it?" Hermione asked after the fifth window.

"I am." I nodded.

"How can you know you're looking for something, but not know what it is?" Hermione asked.

I looked at her and she started to blush.

"Same way we do our homework. We know we're looking for answers, and we know where the answers are, we just gotta figure out what they are." I answered in a deadpan voice.

"Sorry." She said sheepishly.

"It's okay, you're just getting stressed from all this school work you signed up for." I smiled at her.

She nodded and when we walked to the next window, I squinted my eyes and focused on the edge of the forest again. Hermione looked out and she tried to help me look, but she didn't know what to look for exactly.

I looked away and in my peripheral vision, I saw something move. I focused my eyes on the wall and looked through my peripheral to see a familiar silhouette trotting through the trees.

"I know what is." I grinned to Hermione.

"What is it?" Hermione asked as we walked back to the common room.

"It's Snuffles." My grin was huge.

"Snuffles?" Hermione looked confused.

"My stray dog." I answered, cutting through some secret passages and leading Hermione right to the Fat Lady Portrait.

"When did you get a stray dog?" Hermione asked when I gave the password and got into the common room.

"Over the summer, when I moved to the Leaky Cauldron for the summer." I explained as Hermione started to set up all of her books.

She paused and gave me a look.

"Did I not tell you?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Something happened to some muggle boys and Charlotte needed the room for them. Because I'm gone for the year anyways. So I moved into the Leaky Cauldron for the summer." I explained as I put my school stuff down.

"What are you going to do next year?" Hermione frowned as we started back out of the common room and to the Great Hall for dinner.

"I don't know. All I know is that I won't be going back to that orphanage." I answered, linking my arm through Hermione's.

"Oh." Hermione said, frowning slightly.

"It's okay, it's part of the adventure of life." I gently shook her arm.

Hermione's frown didn't leave her face, even when we sat down and were joined by Fred and George.

"Hello honey!" I grinned at George.

"Hello." He gave me a small smile and seemed reluctant to sit next to me.

Fred didn't give him an option though.

"Why are you avoiding me?" I asked.

George started to sputter and Hermione made an effort to not pay attention to our conversation.

"I - I'm not -" George started.

"Please." I held up my hand to stop him. "I do not deserve to be lied too."

He opened and closed his mouth for a minute.

"Clearly, you're not ready to talk about it. And I can't believe you're not willing to talk to me about it." I started to pile food on my plate.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked.

"I'm going to go find Snuffles. When George is ready to talk, he'll talk to me." I answered.

I stood up and carried my plate of food out of the Great Hall.

No one stopped me and I was disappointed that George didn't follow me. I made it through the courtyard and was passing Hagrid's hut when I finally stopped walking.

I wasn't sure which direction I was supposed to go. I didn't want to head straight into the Forest because I might get lost and have no way out. I was standing there, looking both right and left when there was something brushing against my legs.

Looking down, I saw Ariel rubbing against me, Crookshanks was flicking his tail.

"Well, hello!" I said to the cats.

Crookshanks meowed up at me and started walking towards the left. I watched him walk away and when he turned around and meowed at me, so I started to follow him.

"Do you know where Snuffles is?" I asked as he lead the way.

He didn't respond, but lead me towards the Whomping Willow. I was relieved when he turned right to go farther into the forest rather than right to the Whomping Willow. We walked for a bit longer when Crookshanks jumped up on a wooden log and let out a yowl.

"Woah woah woah!" I shook my head at him. "You don't need to call the whole forest to us!"

Crookshanks flicked his tail and I swear he gave me an eye roll before letting out another yowl. Ariel got up on the log but started to groom herself rather than join the call of the wild.

"If I die because of you, I'm killing you." I said in all seriousness to the orange cat.

He flicked his tail again and started to clean his face.

"I can't kill an adorable animal." I sighed.

I sat on the log with him and started to eat some of the food I had put on it. We didn't wait to long before a black dog came trotting out of the shadows.

"Snuffles!" I called happily.

Snuffles looked at me and his tail started to wag and he jumped up into my lap and started to lick my face.

"Hello boy!" I said, scratching his ears.

He gruffed at me and then saw the plate of food.

"Yes, it's for you." I got down from the log and put the plate of food down for him.

His tail wagged the whole time and Crookshanks even got down and rub against Snuffles' legs. Ariel patiently waited next to me, rubbing her head against my arm.

"How did you get here anyways? And how did you manage to make it from the Leaky Cauldron to Harry's uncle's house?" I asked.

Snuffles twitched his ears, but he didn't give me any answers.

"You're a strange dog." I said.

For the next week, I would take Snuffles food from the Great Hall. And George wouldn't follow me. Fred had started to make more of an effort in hanging out with me and would try to get me to sit with them, but if it wasn't George, I walked away. Hermione told me I was being stupid about it, but I didn't know how else to handle the situation.

I sat up on Halloween morning. Scaring Hermione when she went to put on her cardigan.

"Something bad is going to happen today." I said.

"What?" Hermione asked, not moving.

"What?" I blinked at her.

"You just said - nevermind." She shook her head.

"No, 'Mione, what did I say?" I pulled out my journal from my bag.

Ever since I got my memory back, my powers had been dormant.

"You said, 'something bad is going to happen today.' " Hermione pulled on her cardigan.

"Thank you." I wrote down the date, what I said, and left a blank space next to it.

"What do you think -?"

"No." I snapped my book shut.

"No?" Hermione asked.

"I don't want to know."

"How can you not want to know?" She asked incredulously.

"Then I'm going to want to stop it. 'Mione, just because I can get these feelings about the future, doesn't mean it's a good thing. I don't want to keep my abilities up because then I'll be so focused on the bad things, I won't be able to enjoy the good. And besides, I really don't want to know ahead of time a good thing, so I'm not going to try to keep up my Divination ability." I explained as I got dressed.

"I never thought about that." Hermione said slowly.

"That's okay, it's not something you had to think about. Oh, don't focus on what I said." I said as I went down the stairs.

"How am I supposed to not focus on that?!" She asked, chasing me down the stairs.

"Simple. Have fun while you're in Hogsmeade with Ron." I said Ron's name in a singsong tone.

Hermione rolled her eyes when we joined Harry and Ron down in the common room. I linked arms with Harry. He gave me a grimace and held my arm tighter. I gave his elbow a squeeze as we joined the rest of the school for breakfast.

"We'll bring you lots of sweets back from Honeydukes," Hermione said when Harry and I didn't say much though the morning.

"Yeah, loads." Ron nodded.

I appreciated them taking the moment to put aside their squabble about Crookshanks.

"Don't worry about us," Harry tried to sound like he didn't care.

"We'll see you at the feast. Have a good time." I finished for him.

We waved them off as Filch checked off their names on a long scrolled up list. I giggled a little.

"What's so funny?" Harry asked.

"Just imagining Filch as Santa Claus, checking his list twice." I chuckled.

Harry let out a snort at that.

"Staying here, Potter?" Malfoy's voice rang out.

Harry ignored his comment about the dementors and together we set off back to the dormitory.

We had to leave the common room due to Colin Creevey. I wouldn't say it was his fault, we just didn't want to sit with his friends who were just going to stare and ask questions about our scars.

"Want to go see Hedwig and Barnabas?" I asked as we wandered half-heartedly to the library.

"Yeah, actually." Harry nodded.

We turned around and came face to face with Filch.

"What are you doing?" Filch snarled.

"Nothing." Harry and I both answered.

"Nothing!" Filch spat. "A likely story! Sneaking around on your own - why aren't you in Hogsmeade buying Stink Pellets and Belch Powder and Whizzing Worms like the rest of your friends?"

Harry shrugged and I opened my mouth to answer but I didn't get a chance to.

"Well, get back to your common room where you belong!" Filch snapped at us.

He glared at our backs until we turned the back.

I put my hand in the crook of Harry's elbow and just as we started to walk down another corridor,

"Harry? Cassie?"

We turned around and didn't see anyone. Harry was the one to double back and lead me to Professor Lupin.

"What are you doing?" Lupin asked, his voice much kinder than Filch's.

I had a flash of faint, white light cross my sight. But I managed to blink it away.

'Weird.'

"Where are Ron and Hermione?" Lupin asked.

"Hogsmeade." Harry answered.

"Ah, Cassie, why aren't you there?" He asked.

"I haven't gotten around to sending Charlotte my permission slip." I answered.

"Ah," Lupin considered us for a moment. "Why don't you come in? I've just taken out a delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson."

"A what?" Harry asked.

We followed Lupin into his office. I hadn't been in this office before so I took a moment to look around. In the corner was a tank with what must be the grindylow. His office was bland looking. He had a bookcase covered with books, but other than that his was barren.

"Water demon," Lupin gestured to the strange creature.

The grindylow was a sickly green color, but that could also just be the color of the tank. He had sharp little horns that look scaly, but didn't look like they could do much harm.

"We shouldn't have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle."

The creature bared its teeth, they were also green.

"Cup of tea? I was just thinking of making one." Lupin offered.

"All right," Harry said awkwardly.

"Yes please." I nodded.

Lupin tapped the kettle and steam blasted from its spout.

"Sit down," Lupin gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. "I've only got tea bags, I'm afraid - but I daresay you've had enough of tea leaves?"

Harry looked at Lupin, but Lupin's eyes were twinkling.

"How did you know about that?" I asked.

"Professor McGonagall told me," Lupin answered, passing us chipped mugs. "You're not worried, are you?"

"No." Harry shook his head.

I sipped on my tea as we sat in a moment of silence. I wasn't sure what to say.

"Anything worrying you, Harry?" Lupin asked.

I looked at Harry and whatever he was thinking, it was really bothering him.

"No." Harry answered.

He took a sip of his tea. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes," he sighed. "You know that day we fought the boggart?"

"Yes?" Lupin answered slowly.

"Why didn't you let me fight it?" Harry asked.

I looked at Lupin because I was curious to know too.

"I would have thought that was obvious, Harry." Lupin answered, sounding surprised.

"Why?" Harry asked, taken aback by Lupin's answer.

"Well," Lupin frowned slightly, "I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort."

I grinned at the use of Voldemort's name. Harry stared at Lupin for a minute.

"Clearly, I was wrong." Lupin said, still frowning. "But I didn't think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined people would panic."

"I would have." I nodded.

Lupin and Harry both looked at me in shock. They must have forgotten I was here.

"I do have to ask, Cassie." Lupin turned to me.

"My person?" I sighed.

"Yeah. Who was she and why did she have a knife?" Lupin asked.

So I told him all about my birthday again, and this time I added when I had found out what actually happened. His eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open. Harry was calmly sipping his tea.

"I had no idea that happened to you." Lupin said quietly.

"I don't want a whole lot of people knowing. Only my close circle of friends know." I admitted.

Lupin nodded.

I turned back to Harry, "what did you think of when you wanted to face the boggart?"

"I didn't think of Voldemort," Harry said honestly. "I - I remembered those dementors."

"I see," Lupin said thoughtfully. "Well, well… I'm surprised. That suggests that what you fear most of all is - fear. Very wise, Harry."

Harry took a sip of his tea.

"So, you've been thinking I didn't believe you capable of fight the boggart?" Lupin asked suddenly.

"Well … yeah." Harry answered.

His voice sounded better than it did this morning.

"Professor Lupin, you know the dementors -"

There was a knock on his door, interrupting Harry's sentence.

"Come in." Lupin called.

Snape came in carrying a goblet that was smoking. His eyes narrowed when he saw Harry and I.

"Ah, Severus," Lupin greeted him with a smile. "Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?"

Snape put it down and I peered into its contents. It was a royal purple color, and it didn't have much of an odor.

"I was just showing Harry and Cassie the grindylow." Lupin was pleasant.

"Fascinating," Snape answered dryly. "You should drink that directly, Lupin."

"Yes, yes, I will." Lupin nodded.

"I made an entire cauldronful, if you need more." Snape continued.

"I should probably take some more again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus." Lupin nodded again.

"Not at all," Snape didn't seem to blink an eye as he left.

I looked again at the potion before Lupin took a sip.

"Are you interested in potion making, Cassie?" Lupin asked, slowly taking the goblet and sipping from it.

"I am. Sir, are you ill?" I asked, tilting my head.

"I am. I haven't been much of a potion brewer myself, and this one is particularly complex." He explained, he took a sniff of his goblet and made a face. "Pity sugar makes it useless."

"Why -?" Harry didn't know how to finish his question.

"I've been feeling a bit off-color. This potion is the only thing that helps. I am very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape, there aren't many wizards who are up to making it." Lupin explained.

"Professor Snape's very interested in the Dark Arts." Harry blurted out.

"Really?" Lupin asked, looking mildly interested .

"Some people reckon -" Harry hesitated then plunged on, "some people reckon he'd do anything to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. Lupin finished his goblet and made another face.

"Disgusting. Well Harry, Cassie, I'd better get back to work. I'll see you at the feast later."

"Right." Harry put down his now empty cup and stood up.

"Thank you, Professor." I said, standing up as well.

Harry and I both left his office.

"There you go!" Ron's voice was suddenly in my ears.

Harry and I had made it back to the common room and I was taking a nap with Ariel on my chest on the couch when suddenly something was dumped on my lap.

"We got as much as we could carry."

I sat up, letting Ariel jump off of me. Hermione and Ron both look like they had the time of their lives.

"Thanks." Harry picked up a bag of candy.

"What was it like?" I yawned.

They told us about everywhere they went. Dervish and Banges was the wizarding equipment shop. The Three Broomsticks sold piping hot butterbeer, Zonko's Joke Shop was everything they hoped it would be.

"The post office, Harry! About two hundred owls, all sitting on shelves, color coded depending on how fast you wanted your letter to get there!" Ron said.

"Honeydukes has a new kind of fudge; they were giving out free samples, there's a bit, look -"

Hermione pulled out two pieces of fudge from our pile of sweets. When I tried it, it tasted like chocolate chip cookies and milk. I savored the taste.

"We think we saw an ogre, honestly, they get all sorts at the Three Broomsticks -"

"Wish we could have brought you some butterbeer, really warms you up -"

"What did you do?" Hermione asked, suddenly anxious. "Did you get any work done?"

"No." Harry and I shook our heads.

"Lupin made us some tea in his office. And then Snape came in …"

I let Harry take the lead as I dug through the pile of sweets to find candy I liked.

"Lupin drank it?" Ron gasped. "Is he mad?"

Hermione checked her watch.

"We'd better go down, you know, the feast'll be starting in five minutes…" Hermione ushered us through the portrait hole.

"I don't think he's mad. He told us he was feeling ill and Snape is a Potion's Master. So it makes sense that he would make a potion to help him feel better." I said quietly.

"But what if he's poisoning Lupin?" Ron hissed back.

"But if he - you know - if he was trying to - to poison Lupin - he wouldn't have it in front of Harry or Cassie." Hermione said in a low face.

"Yeah, maybe," Harry shrugged.

We entered the Great Hall. It had been decorated with floating pumpkins holding the candles, a cloud of live bats flew around the hall, and orange streamers swam around the ceiling, reminding me of watersnakes.

I had decided not to go out to see Snuffles tonight. It was Halloween, and a part of me did hope George would finally talk to me about what was bothering him. But as we ate, it became clear to me that he didn't want to sit next to me. Fred was even muttering to him angrily and gesturing to me.

I decided to ignore him and just enjoy being with my friends. Harry's mood had gotten lighter, and he was smiling more now that Hermione and Ron had stopped squabbling.

"Hello Zwart!" An unfamiliar voice said in my ear.

I turned to see Christensen was standing next to me.

"Hello Christensen." I said politely.

"I came to offer you a Halloween toast!" She held out a goblet to me.

"Oh, why thank you." I said, taking the goblet cautiously.

"To the day of spooky things and undead lives." She tapped her goblet against mine and drank up.

"Yeah." I said.

I looked at the goblet and nothing about it seemed suspicious to me, so I took a sip.

I felt that electricity from the 'Metamorphas Magigas' potion and I let out an involuntary shiver. I glared at the Slytherin girl whose smile turned wicked.

"And to the blood of killers!" She cackled as she walked back to her table.

I watched her earn high fives and pats on the back for what she had just done. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my friends.

"Do not." I said to Harry.

He was just about to stand up and march over.

"But -"

"It was bound to happen. I'm not surprised. I'm just going to take it and ignore it. They'll have their fun." I said, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing him back down.

"It's so weird looking at you, and seeing what you look like." Ron said, not shy about his staring.

"I agree." I nodded to him.

The rest of the night past a lot smoother. I had a few more guests come and greet me, but I know they were making a show of not caring that I looked like Black and were trying to prove a point to the Slytherins.

My mood, and my friends, lightened up when the ghost's put on a show for us. Sir Nick even reenacted his own botched beheading. At the end of the evening, as we were leaving, even Malfoy shouting, "The dementors send their love, Potter!" didn't bring down our good mood.

I had linked arms with Hermione and were talking about the different books Dervish and Banges had and what she hoped to read next.

I didn't realize we were just standing around until Ron asked, "why isn't anyone going in?"

"Let me through, please." Percy pushed through the crowd.

He made sure to avoid me and sniffed at Ron.

"What's the holdup here? You can't all have forgotten the password - excuse me, I'm Head Boy -"

"No one cares." I said under my breath.

Luckily I did. Silence suddenly filled the air.

"Somebody get Professor Dumbledore. Quick." Percy called out.

I moved to try to follow Percy's order. If he couldn't get into the room, then surely it was a matter for Dumbledore.

"What's going on?" Ginny asked, just arriving.

"We need -" I didn't get to finish my sentence.

Dumbledore swept up the stairs and towards the portrait; all the Gryffindors squeezed against the banisters as best as we could. Hermione pulled me closer and we followed Dumbledore up.

"Oh my -" Hermione squeezed my arm.

The Fat Lady had disappeared. Her portrait was torn so viciously, I wondered for a second if it could be restored.

"We need to find her." Dumbledore had turned around to talk to McGonagall, Lupin, and Snape.

I didn't even realize they had come up.

"Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr. Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."

"You'll be lucky!" Peeves' voice cackled above us.

"What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore asked.

Peeves grin faded and he adopted a tone that didn't sound any better than his usual cackle.

"Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen. She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful," he sounded quite happy being in the chaos. "Poor thing," he seemed to add as an afterthought.

"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asked.

"Oh yes, Professorhead." Peeves nodded, tossing a bombshell from hand to hand. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see." Peeves floated above me and pulled my hair.

It was the first time I had seen him physically touch a student and I was disgusted and astonished.

"Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Shout out to Pamela Hutchins and katie owl for leaving a review!

Pamela Hutchins: Right?!

katie owl: I'm trying to be slow about it because I'm still researching what I can from different sources about Sirius to try to keep it as cannon as possible while adding my own twist to it.

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