Saturday rolled around. Cassi woke up feeling only slightly less tired than when she had fallen asleep a few short hours ago. Her neck was stiff, but fortunately after a few minutes it loosened up. Cassi stumbled into the bathroom and was happy to see that at least her hair wasn't going wild, even after her rough night's sleep. No Medusa head today, she thought to herself. Even so, it took a good ten minutes just to brush through her thick hair. Hermione was awake and ready by then, and she sat on her bed watching Cassi get ready. "Your hair is so pretty," she sighed jealously. Cassi looked over in surprise. "But so is yours, Hermione."
Hermione laughed. "This rat's nest? Hardly! My hair never combs out as smoothly as yours. And I certainly don't get talked about because of my hair...at least not positively." Her voice died away for a moment, then she added hesitantly, "You know that every boy in the school wants you to go to the Yule Ball with him." Now it was Cassi's turn to laugh. "You made that up, I know you did. There's no way you asked every boy in the school if they wanted to ask me to the dance." Hermione smiled a little. "No, I didn't, but I didn't have to. I can tell by the way everyone looks up when you walk into a room. And how all the boys go out of their way to help you. They all like you." Hermione stood up and came to the doorframe. Their third roommate wasn't around, but her voice still dropped to a confidential whisper. "I wouldn't be surprised if even some of the teachers will ask you to dance. They can't take you as a date obviously but...I wonder if some of them wish they could."
Cassi dropped her hairbrush in disbelief. "A professor?" she asked incredulously. "You think a professor wants to take me to the Ball?" Hermione glanced around nervously. The room was still empty, but she moved closer anyway. "If this turns out to be wrong, you didn't hear it from me, right?" Cassi was still in suspense. "Ok, ok, but who?" Hermione looked right into Cassi's eyes as she stated quietly, "I think Professor Snape likes you."
Hermione watched as Cassi's jaw dropped and her eyes widened. She looked amazed, but not appalled as Hermione had feared. "Why do you think so?" Cassi asked. "Well," started Hermione, "because he doesn't treat you the same way he treats the other students. Or at least the other Gryffindors. He always wants to talk to you, asking you to stay after class or meet him on the weekends. And when he looks at you, his eyes aren't all hard and distant like usual. He looks...thoughtful, I suppose, when he looks at you. Like he's trying to decide what you're feeling. And sometimes," she said slowly, "I've seen him watching you during meals. He'll forget what he's doing and just watch you with that thoughtful expression. Of course I can't be sure it's you he's looking at, but too many other things add up."
Cassi hadn't had enough sleep to be able to emotionally cope with what she was hearing, so she did the next best thing. She laughed it off. "Well, professors can't bring dates to the Ball, so I guess he's out of luck." Hermione smiled, but her eyes looked worried. "I suppose so," she agreed. The room was silent for a moment, then Cassi said abruptly, "Let's go get breakfast. I'm hungry." The girls met the three Weasleys and Harry in the common room and they went to the Great Hall together.
That evening, Cassi was sitting in the common room by herself, reading by the fire. She had only been there ten minutes before she couldn't concentrate on the words anymore. Her head ached and she was tired. She closed her eyes. Everyone else was in Hogsmeade today. She hadn't even approached Waters about the form; he probably would have torn it up and thrown the pieces in her face. The only other students still in the school were the younger kids, Neville Longbottom, and Draco Malfoy. Neville had stayed to do some more studying for Herbology, and Draco didn't expound on why he had chosen to stay. Cassi didn't really care. She just wanted to go to bed.
All too soon, it was time to meet Professor Snape in the Potions classroom. Hermione's words from earlier still bouncing around in the back of her head, she walked through half the castle to get to the dungeons. Finally she reached the classroom, rapped four times, then went in. Snape was reading something at his desk. Her chair was sitting in its normal spot in front of the desk, and she walked over and sat in it without waiting for an invitation. Snape looked up at this unusual sign of impatience, but didn't comment. Soon he said, "If you are ready to begin, Miss Renner, I think you are ready to learn to cast that more difficult form of Patronus which I've mentioned several times."
For half an hour Cassi stood in the center of the office and did everything she could to try and get her silver panther to talk, but as she got more and more frustrated, her Patronus got weaker and weaker. Finally, her happy memory failed her altogether and her panther wouldn't show so much as a whisker. This, on top of her entire day, pushed her over her emotional limit. She dropped her wand, fell to her knees and covered her face in her hands.
"I...can't...do it!" she cried between sobs as the tears she had been holding back would not be repressed anymore. She hadn't let herself cry in a very long time - not a real, full-blown breakdown, anyway. She was mad at herself for not being able to cast her Patronus. She was mad at Waters for not signing her Hogsmeade permission form. She was mad at Hermione for suggesting things about Professor Snape that Cassi had been thinking about all day. She was mad at Snape for feeling whatever he was feeling, and for making her try to cast this Patronus on such a hard day. Couldn't he tell he was asking too much?
If he couldn't tell before, he definitely could now. He knelt down on the floor in front of her, much the way Lily's spirit had knelt in front of him when she visited him all those years ago. He was reminded of how similar those two girls were - Cassandra and Lily. He remembered his promise to not make the same mistakes again. Without thinking he reached for her.
"Cassandra. Don't cry. It's alright. You don't have to do this now. It's ok. Cassandra, it's alright." The stream of comforting words tasting strange in his mouth, but Cassi was sobbing against his chest with his arms around her shoulders. He pushed her back suddenly to look at her face. "Cassandra, what's wrong?" he demanded.
She took a moment to at least stop sobbing, and her tears abated a bit more while she stammered, "It's just...I couldn't sleep last night...and I'm so tired, and my head hurts...and I wanted to be able to go to Hogsmeade with everyone else...and Hermione told me-" She bit her lip. Now she'd done it. Snape wasn't to know about what Hermione had told her - that was completely out of the question. How could she cover for herself now?
"What did Miss Granger tell you?" Snape asked in a tone more gentle than she'd ever heard from him before. She took a shaky deep breath. "She - she told me that someone likes me, and I never thought he did before." That was the truth, wasn't it? She hadn't thought Snape had liked her before. She still wasn't sure, though. "She said that probably a lot of people will ask me to the Ball, but I'm not even sure I want to go. I don't want to be the center of attention; I just want to enjoy the time with my friends."
She looked down at her tear-stained robes, fighting the urge to cry again. Snape was quiet, then offered, "If past experience is anything to go by, I would recommend your attendance at the Ball. Many students in the past have seemed to truly enjoy the evening, and the rarity of the event does encourage attendance as well." She had no comment. At the moment, any event requiring her to do something besides sleeping held no appeal for her. Snape didn't say anything for a while. Eventually he stood up and helped her to her feet. He brushed away the traces of tears on her cheeks, then said quietly, "No more today, Miss Renner. Go get some sleep." Huskily, she said, "Yes, sir," and left the classroom.
On the way back to her dorm room, she realized how odd it was that Snape had called her Cassandra. Why? Maybe he was just tired too, and didn't remember to call me Miss Renner in time. She mused on this a while more, but then something happened that drove Snape from her mind.
Not paying attention to anything outside her mind, Cassi rounded a corner and ran into someone who innocently stepped around the corner at the exact time she did. Jerked out of her musings, she looked up to find herself in the arms of a tall, blond, pale boy whom she distinctly remembered from her first year.
"Draco?" she said, making sure she remembered his name. She hadn't spoken to him since that night in the boats. "Well hello, love," he grinned. "Fancy meeting you here." His smile faltered a little as he noticed something that wasn't in his script. He held her out at arms length. "Have you been crying?" he asked curiously.
Cassi swiped at her eyes, which she knew were red, with the sleeve of her robes. She shook her head vigorously. Draco grabbed her arm, trying to keep her from further irritating her inflamed eyes, and said, "Yes you have. What's wrong?" Cassi just shook her head again, not really wanting to start crying again. Draco looked as though he were fighting internally with himself, then his features softened into a sly smile. He said in a low voice, "Well, I stayed from Hogsmeade today because I was hoping to see you." Cassi looked up at him, not registering what he was saying. He tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, then continued, "I just wanted to ask...will you go to the Yule Ball with me?"
Cassi stared at him. "That's still a long way off," she pointed out. "I know," he drawled, "but I wanted to get the best girl before she was gone." Cassi smiled wryly and said, "Not early enough, then?" Draco looked at her strangely, then stepped close and whispered, "What do you mean? I've got the best girl right here." He winked, causing her gape to turn into a blush and a soft laugh.
Cassi couldn't think very clearly. Her brain was still fuzzy from crying and from being in physical contact with two different people who appeared to like her in such a short time. Snape had hugged her (it wasn't exactly a hug, but close enough), and right now Draco was standing about three inches from her. She was having trouble deciding what to say. For some reason, she had a feeling that her friends wouldn't like it if she went to the Ball with Draco. But at the same time, what if she said no and then no one else asked her? Hermione could say all she wanted about her popularity, but Cassi knew it couldn't be true.
So, since her brain had turned traitor, she let her instincts decide. "Draco...I'd love to go to the Ball with you," she said with a soft smile. He returned it with a smirk. "Good," he breathed, then he bent down to cover the last few inches between them. He brushed a kiss against her cheek, then was gone before Cassi had recovered enough to see him go.