Chapter Seven
"So, here we are," Cassie said, opening the door to her four-bedroomed suburban home and letting Peter in.
Peter gawked at the sheer size of her house. "This is where you live?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah," replied Cassie. "Just me and my mum."
Peter was quiet for a moment, simply staring around the hallway. He finally asked, "What happened to your father? Is he away at war too?"
Cassie shrugged. "No idea," she said. "But I think it makes me sound more tragic that way."
"Oh," whispered Peter.
"Well," said Cassie, "this is the hallway, to your left is the dining room, behind that is the kitchen, and to your right is the living room. Upstairs we have my room, my en-suite, Mom's room, her en-suite, and then there's the spare bedroom and the spare bathroom, which you three will be using."
Peter frowned. "You have three bathrooms?"
"Yep."
"Each with its own bath?"
"Yes. And a shower."
"And a shower?"
"And a sink... and a toilet."
Peter gasped. "You mean to say that you three inside toilets, three sinks, three baths and three showers?"
Cassie nodded slowly. "Yes, Peter," she said. "Is there a problem with that?"
Peter shook his head. "It's just weird, that's all."
Cassie narrowed her eyes slightly. She knew that three bathrooms was a lot, but she had never seen such a shocked reaction. Where exactly had the Pevensies said they were from?
She took Peter upstairs and gave him a tour of the bedrooms, stopping when they reached the spare one.
"This is where you'll be staying," she explained, pointing to the bunk-beds in the middle of the room. "I guess one of you'll have to use a sleeping bag..."
But Peter was not listening. Peter was closely examining a peculiar-looking device situated upon a small cabinet. It was rectangular in shape, with a pink outer-rim and a black rectangle for the centre.
"What are these things," asked Peter. He remembered seeing them in every bedroom he had been in.
"They're TVs," said Cassie, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Peter's eyes widened. "Televisions," he said slowly. "Good lord! You have one in every room! How is that possible?"
"Most people have TVs in their bedrooms," said Cassie. "I like to watch Law & Order before I go to bed."
"I say, old bean!" exclaimed Peter. "Isn't that marvellous!"
Cassie laughed and led back on the bed. "I'm hungry," she said softly. "You wanna order take-out?"
"Take-out?"
"Yeah," she murmured. "Like, where you buy food and then someone delivers it."
"Cooked food?" Peter asked. "People cook food for you and then bring it to your house?"
Cassie yawned. "Yup," she said. "So, what do you want? Pizza, Chinese, Thai, Indian..."
"Isn't your mother coming home to cook?"
"Nah. She's away on a business trip. Isn't it convenient?"
"Business trip," he repeated. "Has she gone with your father?"
"No," said Cassie. "I told you, I don't know where my dad's gone."
"But... If she hasn't gone with your father, why has she gone?"
"She went with work."
"Work?" Peter said, a horrified tone to his voice. "What do you mean she's gone to work? She's a woman!"
Cassie stood up off the bed and moved in front of Peter. "Excuse me?" she snapped.
"Did I say 'woman'?" Peter said quickly. "I meant... um... something else."
Cassie narrowed her eyes at Peter, resisting the urge to whop him upside his head. "Dinner's at seven," she said angrily before stomping out of the room.
x
The next day, Peter, Susan, Lucy and Cassie left the house for school, intent on finding the Hogwarts clan. They did not, however, expect to see Bella Cullen, sat on her undeserved throne like the disgraceful, yet utterly perfect, queen that she was. Then they remembered that Bella didn't know that the Pevensies knew that she had kidnapped Edmund.
Lucy scowled at Bella. "What a Denebian Slime Devil," she hissed. Cassie rolled her eyes.
Bella spotted Cassie and the Pevensies as soon as they entered the cafeteria. They would have been in a more interesting place, but the author couldn't be bothered making them walk all the way to the gym.
"Cassie!" Bella called sweetly, as if Cassie and she were the best of friends, when in actual fact they had never before uttered a word to each other.
"Oh dear God," Cassie muttered under her breath. She turned to the Pevensie children. "Just act normal."
"Oh my gosh, Cas," Bella gushed. "It's been, like, forever since we last talked!"
Cassie gave a sarcastic smile. "Literally."
"So... Who are these delightful people?"
"Exchange students," Cassie said quickly.
"Exchange students?" Bella repeated, a dark smile on her face. "Really? And where are they from?"
Cassie opened her mouth to speak, but Lucy cut her off. "Thailand!" she chirped.
Bella threw back her head and laughed. Susan elbowed Lucy.
"Thailand?" Bella cried.
Susan leaned forward. "You're not allowed to ask us why we're white," she whispered.
Bella opened her mouth to say something but then shut it. A sudden realisation spread across her face, but it disappeared almost immediately and she grew calm again.
"Wow, that's wonderful," she said. "Well, I best be going. Au revoir!"
Cassie turned around and raised an eyebrow at Lucy. "Thailand? Seriously? Now she knows who you are!"
Lucy shrugged. "It's better than Qo'noS!" she cried.
Cassie left eye twitched. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" she said, thoroughly irritated.
Lucy sighed and left the group to find her new friend, Pat. Susan took this as an opportunity to find her plastic friends, so Cassie was left alone with Peter, which was rather improper, but we can't all be moral crusaders, can we?
"Okay," said Cassie, heaving a huge sigh. "Now maybe we'll get something a bit more productive done."
"We're looking for the Hogwarts people?" asked Peter.
"Yes," replied Cassie. "One in particular."
"Who?"
"Hermione Granger," explained Cassie, as they began their walk towards the exit at the other side of the cafeteria. "She knows everything about everybody. That's why her hair's so big – it's full of secrets."
"Where do we find her?"
"The library."
Hermione Granger was of course in the library. She was flicking through a volume of encyclopedias, currently on the letter N. Cassie and Peter walked up to her and gave her a bright smile.
"Hi," said Cassie.
"Hi," said Hermione.
Then followed a rather awkward silence in which neither party were quite sure of what to say.
"So..." Cassie said finally. "My name is Cassie and this is Peter."
Peter gave a low bow. "Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Granger."
Hermione smiled slightly. "You already know who I am?"
"Yeah, you're, like, totally famous!" gushed Cassie. "Where's Harry and Ron?"
Hermione sighed. "Why does everyone ask about Harry and Ron? I don't do everything with them, you know! Just last week, Harry went to the dentist and we sat outside! We didn't even go in! And two weeks ago-"
"Okay, I get it!" snapped Cassie. "I don't need examples, Jeez! We just want to talk to you about Lord Voldemort."
Hermione's lip quivered. "Oh, everyone wants to talk about Lord Voldemort, don't they? Nobody ever asks about Hermione! Nobody ever asks how Hermione's feeling!"
Peter and Cassie exchanged looks.
"I don't think you're feeling so good," whispered Peter.
"We need your help to resurrect Voldemort in order to destroy the evil Bella Cullen," explained Cassie.
"Say no more," said Hermione. "In my experience, people named Bella are not very nice at all."
"Great. So, how do we do it?" asked Cassie.
"If you want to resurrect Voldemort," Hermione began, "you have to travel to the Isle De Foetor, collect the water of the Bardus Lake, and then mix it with blood of a Chimera with a dash of Manticore tears. Then you have to make a blood sacrifice and read out the incantation. That, my friend, should probably do it."
Cassie sat down and put her head in her hands. "Isn't there an easier way?" she whined.
Hermione looked confused. "Well, yeah," she said simply, "but I just gave you an entire chapter's worth of content."
Cassie closed her eyes, visions of violence swimming across her mind. "Just tell me the other way," she said through gritted teeth.
"There's a book," said Hermione. "You just have to read out an incantation."
"That's it?"
Hermione nodded and got up from her light reading. "I'm just going to find Harry and Ron and then I'll help you find it. Ron's having a spaghetti eating contest with Jacob Black and Harry's gone to watch."
"Is it imperative that you find them?" asked Peter.
"Well..." Hermione paused. "We do everything together," she said. "It would be weird without them."
"But we're presently running out of time," said Peter. "We'd be ever so grateful if you could just find it for us now."
"Oh," said Hermione. "Right. I can do that. Of course I can. Right. No, that's... That's absolutely fine, isn't it?"
For lowi and Elizabeth Zara.
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