C. M. Black: Eyes of an Owl

Chapter XVII: Expulsions and explanations

There was nothing Cassy could think to say to defend herself. Her breath was still short. Shandy had barely controlled his own, yet he was doing a far better job of schooling his features than Cassy was. She flexed her hands, shaking away the trembling. The magnitude of what almost happened was still settling within her blurred mind, but she pushed it away to the depths where she could deal with it later. She steeled herself as the dark stare of Professor Snape passed over her.

He stood in front of his desk, having marched the pair of them straight to the Dungeons. Only the barest look to the cracked mirror and punctured floor was needed for him to make up his mind. His hands were folded in front of him tightly.

'I don't know what you two thought you were doing, but I have no doubt that at least a dozen school rules and maybe some laws were broken minutes ago,' he drawled, his voice firm. He looked between them both equally. 'What happened?'

Neither spoke. Despite Cassy steadying herself for Shandy to reveal everything, he did not.

'What happened?' asked Professor Snape again.

Once more, neither of them spoke.

'Fine. It is not necessary.' Professor Snape stood and walked to the other side of his desk. He pulled out a book, tattered and beaten, as if well used and not well cared for. It was slapped on the table before Cassy had a chance to read the cover. She could not dare to glance down at it either, for Professor Snape leant over the table, his hand slammed down on either side.

For a moment, only the faint crackling of the log fire echoed to the high stone ceiling. No footsteps sounded outside of the office, most people still attending the luscious Halloween Feast. There was no chatter or laughter to detract from the tenseness between the three occupants, or a distraction from the heaviness of their Potion Master's narrowed gaze.

Cassy swayed. The weakness in her limbs increasing tenfold each moment she was forced to stand.

His eyes met hers suddenly.

Shut down, she thought quickly, do not let him in.

As if her magic responded to her internal plea, there was a definite shift in her mind. For a second, she feared it was Professor Snape rummaging in her thoughts, but he looked away too quickly and the feeling remained. She was not certain if her weak defences had done much good, or if he had even been trying to read her mind at all.

'Dark magic poisons the mind,' he said lowly. 'It is a spiral in which witches and wizards a hundred times more skilled and more powerful than either of you have fallen into its grasp unable to stand again. Whoever cast it need be careful, that he or she is not reading books they should not be. Not all books are friendly or benign. Some have… motives.'

Regardless of his neutral blame, Professor Snape had stared at Cassy through the entire explanation.

'You will both serve detentions with me for the next fortnight. Now, be gone,' he concluded swiftly.

Cassy did not move. She called, 'Professor.'

'It is non-negotiable, Black,' he snapped.

'I have detention with Professor Umbridge every evening for the next week,' she continued.

Professor Snape turned to her with a single raised eyebrow. 'Well then, I suppose you will have to give up your lunch hour.' He swept back around and began to sift through papers on the cabinet behind his desk.

Shandy had already slipped from the room and Cassy silently did the same, feeling remarkably lucky for such a light punishment. She had expected to be expelled, dragged to the Headmaster's office and made a show of at least, but Professor Snape had been oddly understanding, if he could ever be so. The shock had worn away somewhere along the walk and the ache in her skull lessened. Her hands still felt weak and the longer she walked the more she felt as though she would stumble and fall as it became more difficult to coordinate her limbs. The weight in her stomach told her Neville had been right, she should not dabble in the pages of books found in a house out to kill her. She had not considered the books were poisoned and part of her still did not think it so; it was probable, as much as she loathed to admit it, that she had just been weak. A moment of weakness she could not allow again.

She stumbled into one of the upper-level lavatories. Her pale hands gripped the edge of the sink, her knuckles white. Shaking, her arms struggled to support her weight, but they did so anyway because the only alternative was that she dropped to the floor. A great clatter would sound, bringing feeling back into her distant limbs as her knees would burn with pain, but she was stronger than that and remained determined to stand.

The tap was twisted on with a great struggle. Cool water rushed from it, splattering up the side of the porcelain basin. The low rumbling settled her nerves, finally calming her thoughts as she paused to just listen. Gingerly, her forehead pressed against the biting chill of the mirror in front. Blue-eyes closed.

For a moment, Cassy remained there. It was not until her legs began to feel as though they might hold their own weight again that she pushed away. From a stark white to a blotchy red, her hands were rinsed under the water. Colour returned as she slowly twisted her hands around and round; it was as if the water could wash away what her hands had caused, as though they could erase the evidence that for a moment, she very much lived up to the Black name. Water spilt over her cupped hands. It pooled and dripped over her angled face, speckling her shirt and returning to the wet sink in small droplets. For a moment, her hands lingered on her cheeks, before she pushed them up and into her hair, flattening the flyaway strands that had come loose from her bun during the day.

She breathed in deeply, then out slowly. As the horror faded, she knew that it was not such a catastrophe. Disaster had been averted and she had learnt her lesson. No one had been injured and she was not expelled, so there was no point further dwelling on the matter.

A small watch on a long chain emerged from beneath her collar. With a huff, Cassy began to make her way to her detention with Professor Umbridge. Noisy laughter and screeches of scares and spooks continued to echo up from the Great Hall as the feast continued late into the early evening. The sleeves of her robe and her skirt were smoothed quickly, before with a face of contempt Cassy knocked loudly three times of the office door.

'Come in,' called a cheerful voice from within.

Smoothly, Cassy pushed the door open.

'Miss Black,' greeted Professor Umbridge. 'You arrive with not a second to spare.'

Cassy said nothing and instead eyed the small writing desk set in the middle of the room. A piece of parchment was already laid out and a black quill was beside it.

'Do take a seat. Now, you do know why you are here, yes?' said Professor Umbridge.

'Yes, Professor,' answered Cassy calmly.

'And why is that?'

'I disrespected you,' said Cassy.

'And what else?'

Cassy was quiet for a moment, before she replied, 'I disrespected my heritage.'

Her voice was controlled and not nearly as sarcastic as she would have wanted it to be if she had been speaking to anyone else. As it was, Professor Umbridge beamed and smiled. She nodded down at the desk. Cassy picked up the black quill.

'I want you to write lines for me, dear,' she said. 'This way, you will never have a lapse of judgement quite like it again. It must be difficult to hear so many conflicting opinions at such a young age, especially with a background like your own. I worked with Druella Black for a time when I was young, charming woman.'

Cassy internally rolled her eyes. Druella Black was Narcissa's mother and had made it clear on more than one occasion that Cassy was mere filth in her life. Charming was the last word to come to mind when thinking of her.

'What I want you to write is: "I will respect my heritage". One hundred times to begin with and we will see from there,' smiled Professor Umbridge.

Critically, Cassy looked down at the paper. In her best handwriting – determined that if she were to be scarred for life she would rather it at least be presentable – she wrote out the line again and again. It stung and burnt as the curling letters etched their way through her skin and into her flesh. One-hundred times was not enough. Another two-hundred was demanded, the sting made it difficult to keep up the speed she had begun with and it was not until three hours after she had arrived that she was allowed to leave again.

Cassy wandered slowly through the halls. She was in no rush to return to the common room, or explained what had happened before, although she knew she should. When she turned the next corner, she halted. In front of her, dressed in the full red and gold of the Gryffindor Quidditch kit, stood Harry. His broom was not with him, but his goggles hung around his neck and his gloves were held in one hand.

'Hey,' he greeted.

'What are you doing here?' she asked curiously.

'I want to talk,' he nodded his head in another direction and Cassy followed with interest. Out from his pocket, he pulled the Marauder's Map and replaced the space with his gloves. After rummaging through the folds of parchment for a moment, Harry grabbed her wrist and pulled her down one of the next halls. Her heart beat madly.

She almost went to tell him she could walk by herself, but thought better of it. She would be lying to say she minded.

Eventually after trekking down several silent halls, they halted. Harry slumped down against the wall and pulled Cassy with him. The map was laid flat on the floor in front of him. He released her hand, only to grab it again with his one that read 'I must not tell lies' scarred across the back. Critically, he inspected her hand, gingerly touching the raised, pink skin and fine lines of 'I will respect my heritage'.

'How many more detentions do you have?' he asked.

'Six,' she replied. 'Plus two weeks from Professor Snape.'

She waved her free hand when his eyebrows rose.

'You were being strange earlier. Why was that?' he questioned casually.

Cassy inwardly cringed. 'I'm sorry.'

'There's no need to apologise for it,' chuckled Harry in surprise, but Cassy shook her head.

'Not just for that, but for everything. You apologised to me for what you said, yet I never did the same to you. I do owe you an apology. I have not been a very good friend this term,' she argued. She leant her head back against the wall and inclined it to Harry just enough to keep eye contact.

Harry frowned. 'That's not true.'

'It is. I am not trying to make excuses for myself, but I have found it… extraordinarily difficult this year so far to deal with everything. I fear it has made me neglect what is important. I know that I get angry and I say what I don't mean, I wear my heart protected and do not always tell you what I think, but never think for a moment that I do not support you,' she continued, imploringly.

She scowled when Harry rolled his eyes.

'Stop talking like you're in court. You don't need to be so serious about it,' he snorted. 'I don't want to hear your apologies. I'm here because we never get to talk and I feel like we're going in two different directions most of the time. You're the best friend I have – don't tell the others that though. We never just… talk anymore.'

Cassy was quiet for a long time, before she smiled.

'You are popular once again, it is hard to find the space,' she drawled.

He rolled his eyes again. 'I'm infamous, there's a difference.'

Cassy turned her head to stare at the wall opposite with a half-smile on her face. 'I need to get out of my own head for a bit anyway.'

'What's wrong? Besides the obvious,' asked Harry.

Cassy's expression flattened and she sighed lowly.

'All right, well start with the obvious then,' he said.

Cassy picked at her tights idly. In the corner of her eyes, Cassy was aware that Harry was watching her for some sort of a response. It had seemed like a great idea to begin talking, but when it came to doing so, Cassy was unsure she wanted to, or even knew where to begin if she was to start at all.

'Okay, I'll start,' said Harry. There was a slight pause, before he said, 'I don't think you've dealt with what happened at the end of last year.'

Blunt, thought Cassy. She flinched as he said it, but nodded none the less.

'I think you have had too much going on this summer that you haven't had time to sort anything through with yourself. I don't think you've allowed yourself to grieve. You've been so wrapped up in moving homes and the Order… me, then school work, Umbridge and the DA, that I don't think you have allowed yourself time to just be,' he continued thoughtfully, his tone somewhat reluctant.

A heavy silence rang between them for what was in reality just a few seconds, but to Harry it felt like a lifetime. Cassy was not looking at him, her eyes still fixed blankly on the wall in front and she allowed no sign to show that she had heard him, let alone agreed with what he had said. There came a point that a small voice in the back of his mind advocated strongly, that he did not care if she was angry with him for his words. It was better she be angry and to realise she needed something more, than to see the joy fade from her face whenever she thought no one was looking, or hear the darkened tones in her voice when confronted with family and propriety. Harry wanted her to wear the kind of grin she did when she was up to something, when she revealed all of her straight, white teeth and her eyes narrowed dangerously with a fierce glint in them that made everyone else instantly wary and made him laugh loudly in anticipation. He wanted her to be up all night to talk about nonsense, this, that, and everything else because she wanted to, not because she could no longer sleep. He wanted to see her laugh; he wanted to see her happy. So tackling the issue bluntly was all he could think to do, for he had never considered himself gifted with words as she was.

'You never talk of Alphard,' he added softly.

Cassy sighed, her lips pursed. She did not want to talk about that at all. There was a very good reason she did not speak of him and it was because each time she thought of him it had ached. Less and less each day, but it had been so long since she had laughed about something he said or recalled what he had done that she had become silent out of habit.

'My patronas memory is of him. It was when I was six or seven, I cannot remember exactly, but some children had been bullying me because I did not have parents, that they did not want me and that's why they were gone. Alphard sat me down after he saw me trying my best not to cry after the boys were long gone. He said that he had never been ashamed of me and that despite not being my father, he loved me all the same… it sounds pathetic, but it meant a lot, especially given the trouble I had last year with the Prophet,' confided Cassy quietly. Thumping increased in her chest. Her cheeks flushed and she could not look at him at all in embarrassment. 'I want to talk about him and sometimes it is on the tip of my tongue, but it leaves a sour taste. I cannot stand the pity people look at me with when something goes wrong lately. I appreciate their concern, really, I do, however I do not want them looking at me as though I am about to break. I know I have not been the best, but I am not so fragile that I need a watchful eye. If anything, it makes me feel worse.'

Her mouth had gone dry. Despite her steady words, her tone was meek. More than her honesty, she loathed how she could not admit her feelings confidently. It was what it was and Harry was the last person she felt she should have an issue being completely truthful with, but the memory of his dismissal earlier when she had tried to confess rose in the back of her mind, sending more fluttering fingertips across her stomach and up to grip her heart.

Harry's left hand moved from his side to her shoulder and he pulled her in for a sideways hug.

'He would want you to be happy, you know. He loved you and you should be able to remember him happily,' he said.

'I do,' said Cassy. Her head turned towards him again and she moved away from his side. 'For a time I could not even think of him, certainly during summer, but I know he is gone. He was not perfect, too lax to install proper discipline and yet keen to raise me as a proper Black, not always the one I wanted to be… of course, he supported me regardless and loved that I was in Gryffindor, but my clothes, my behaviour, my language, and my skills were all Black family expectations, even when I hated them. Alphard never socialised for pleasure, so neither did I. I think that is part of the problem I have, really.' It felt strange of criticise Alphard, horrid, even, to talk ill of him in any way, even so minor, but it was something she had long since noted. 'I was thinking, actually, that I might speak to my father at Christmas, ask him about Alphard and my mother.'

Since the rumour had first began about her mother's death, Cassy had realised the thirst inside her to know more about her. Alphard had known barely anything, or at least told her so. The only one able to shed any light on it was Sirius, but Cassy was not sure how to approach it, or if he would even want to share with her.

'That's a good idea, but if it is not that that is bothering you, what is?' he asked carefully.

Cassy pursed her lips, disapproving of how easily Harry seemed to be able to read her mood.

'Draco,' she eventually sighed. 'I do not know what to do with him. It is hard not to consider him family when we spent the last fourteen years together, but what he has done is difficult to ignore. All I hear is what he says, the laughs at the newest lie and the smugness on the Slytherins' faces as they think they have me pinned. I hate him sometimes, truly. I cannot stand to hear them speak of my mother as if they knew her. They speak as if she deserved what happened to her, as if it is all black and white. Draco's given them that power to hold it above me, yet I cannot… I don't want him to become a Death Eater, Harry, not my cousin.'

'I think you give him too much credit. He's not a good person, Cassy, there is nothing you can do to change that,' he said.

However, that was precisely the dilemma Cassy faced in her mind every time she set eyes on him. If he was not yet a Death Eater, she still had means to ensure he did not become one. Yet, faced with their current relationship and the fact the two could not even talk to one another were most likely major flaws in her ideals. Once a Death Eater always a Death Eater; there was no returning to normal, or backing away once one had been marked. Somehow, that still did not sit right with her.

'Perhaps you are right,' she muttered.

'Malfoy can shove off, anyway. I can't believe anyone still listens to him,' mumbled Harry.

Cassy huffed a laugh.

The map was still blank besides two sets of footprints in the corridor they occupied. No other tiny nametags were even on the same floor as them, although Filch was three above, most likely midway through his nightly rounds. Curfew had begun an hour ago for most years. A soft snore sounded from down the hall as one of the portraits drifted to sleep and the lamps that lined the high walls were slowly dimming to a faint orange as the castle readied itself for the night. Cassy rummaged in her bag for her wand and lit the end with her left hand. The white light startled the portrait closest and sent the animals tumbling out of their frame and into their neighbours. A chain of screeches and cries followed as the shock of rampaging cattle went from frame to frame.

Cassy and Harry laughed loudly. The portraits cursed and muttered to themselves.

'Why do you have detention with Snape?' asked Harry suddenly.

Cassy cringed and Harry lifted an eyebrow.

'Well, I was talking to Shandy and I was already on edge from having two lesson inspections with that hag already - ' Harry chortled, 'and he mentioned Malfoy one too many times and I lost my temper. I insulted his mother and he tried to hex me, I retaliated and he told me that I had got Alphard killed. He said it was my fault.'

Harry hissed. 'What a bas-'

'It does not matter what he said really, because I tried to curse him. I mean, really curse him,' interjected Cassy.

'But he tried to curse you first,' defended Harry hotly.

'He tried to hex me, I think anyway, it did not have an incantation. I would have killed him though, if it had hit him. Not immediately, but it would have killed him none the less.'

She stared, her face severe. His green-eyes had widened in shock, unblinking as he waited for something else, something more, perhaps a denial or a reasoning for it, but nothing more came. Cassy looked down at her lap.

'Well, he's not dead, is he?' asked Harry. 'It's fine. It was a mistake.'

'Harry,' began Cassy. He was always offering her comfort against her will, particularly when she did not deserve it, she knew.

'No, he's fine and you know not to use whatever it was you did again. You're a good person, I'm not worried you're suddenly going to join Voldemort and try and kill me over one spell. Although, I am surprised you're not expelled if Snape caught you,' he admitted.

Cassy scoffed. 'You and me both.' She closed her eyes and turned her head to the ceiling. Slowly opening them again, she let a soft sigh escape from her parted lips. 'I have become soft.'

'You're still one of the toughest people I know,' said Harry, pushing her shoulder slightly in the same way she always did to him; a light-hearted push to let her know he thought she was being ridiculous. 'You put up with a lot.'

She would always bend before she broke, but Cassy had always hoped she could deal with more pressure than what had happened. Loss of her father figure, the background fear for her real father locked away in a makeshift prison, the loss of her small childhood family through her cousins, the lies and tales spread through the school, the constant questions and remarks, Professor Umbridge's insufferable presence and her enraging treatment of Harry, the added school work of her OWL exams, helping to run an underground organisation whose only goal was to keep them alive; when Cassy thought of it all, she wondered if she had not done so badly after all, to only lose her temper once truly.

There was a slight pause, then Harry asked, 'Are you going to stop reading those books now then?'

'For now. I think there are better ways to learn. I thought about asking Moody at Christmas if he can recommend me anything. He knows a lot, so he has to know a book or two that will not send me mad. I need to learn to not get so angry, to be quite honest. It would not have been a problem then.'

Despite what Professor Snape had suggested, Cassy knew it had less to do with the dark influence of the book and more to do with her own temper. Somewhere from the depths of her mind she had pulled out a spell that would make Shandy hurt without thinking anything more of it. It was vile and she certainly did not deserve Harry's calm understanding, but he continued to look at her as he always did without any sort of fear or disgust.

'How are you, anyway?' she asked.

'Fine,' he shrugged. 'I'll be better when this Quidditch match is done. Angelina might go a bit easier on our training. We were there for four hours and she wanted us there longer, but Katie walked off the pitch when it got to ten o'clock. I'm still amazed Umbridge let us regroup.'

'I hate her,' muttered Cassy.

'I hate her more,' said Harry.

'Arguable,' she retaliated.

'No,' Harry laughed, 'I know I do. Of everybody I have ever met, I hate her most… I hate this year.'

Cassy patted his knee.

'Of all the years we have had, this is shaping up to be the worst,' she agreed.

Harry was silent for a moment. 'We should just leave. Pack our bags and go.'

'Where would we go exactly?' asked Cassy playfully.

'Anywhere. It doesn't matter. We can figure it out and keep each other safe so no one can follow us. No one will know where we've gone,' he said with a wistful smile.

'I'm not sure I can survive without magic for another year,' laughed Cassy.

Harry waved his hand flippantly. 'We'll fake some documents before we leave. We'll get some Muggle qualifications and pretend to have some skills. I doubt it will take you long to catch up to A-Level standards, knowing you. You can become a lecturer at a good university and I'll be something boring, probably. I'll work in a shop or something.'

'A policeman,' offered Cassy. 'You need a bit of excitement in your life, look at the past five years. If you cannot be an Auror, then you will have to be a policeman.'

Harry grinned.

'We would need different names,' she said thoughtfully.

The image of their quaint Muggle life began to take shape easily as they continued to talk. Vaults would be emptied and bags packed for the trek down to England from the Scottish mountains. They would live in a little, inconspicuous terrace house for a few years with pretend parents they could muster from acquired products before their departure; they agreed their mutual black-hair was enough to pass as a arguable similarity to be siblings. They would have a dog that Cassy was adamant Harry could not name, and they would study and have jobs until Cassy came of age to speed the process up. Laughter echoed noisily down the halls. Several hisses of unhappy portraits followed them back, yet neither cared. The story became more elaborate as they tried to think of a way they would break the news to Sirius several years later and it never ended in anything other than a severe hexing and lots of swearing on his part. He would never forgive them.

'He'd kill us,' concluded Harry grimly as Cassy laughed.

'We might have to take him with us,' she said and Harry beamed.

'It would get him out of the house and get us some magic for a year,' he agreed eagerly.

'I still want a dog though. My father does not count.'

Harry snorted.

'What's all that noise? Oy! What's that light?'

Cassy and Harry both froze. They had been so enthralled by their conversation, neither of them had bothered to check the map. Filch's gruff voice bellowed down the hall to them. A faint orange light of his lantern flickered and there was a distinct uneven thumping of feet that could only mean Filch was running towards them.

Harry swore under his breath and grabbed the map roughly. Cassy hauled herself to her feet, extinguished her wand as she giggled and the two broke out into a manic run back to the common room. As they chortled down the long, dark corridor, Cassy could not help but think that perhaps this was enough – to be his best-friend and to be satisfied with that. Harry being happy made her happy, so despite her own feelings, she knew it was time to stop pining and let what will be, be, even if that happened not to involve her.

Everyone is on the same page now and Cassy will start to cheer up a little bit. This is actually one of the first scenes I had planned for the story before I even began to write the first year. It was second to only Alphard's death. It's not as dramatic as it was originally, but that's because as the characters developed, I felt it did not need to be. The two just had a normal conversation about it, a little bit of sadness and then they moved on with a better understanding.

I personally take the opinion that if you really care for someone, you want them to be happy no matter what, even if that means not with you. I'm not saying that Cassy is giving up on Harry, but we will see a shift in attitude as she decides not to focus too much on what she wants and rather what she has, as to match the change in attitude (or renewal of a past attitude) which the event has caused. She is not one for romance on the surface, perhaps not even that deep down, but somehow she gathered feelings for the messy-haired fool and as much as she might want to pursue it, she cares too much to push and make him unhappy.

It is quite hard, I find, to write complex emotions. Cassy has so many things leading to the way she feels that I hope I made them clear. The plot finally shifts forwards. Seventeen chapters and it is only now October 31st. Perhaps it is time to pick up the pace!

Anyway, I got this out sooner than expected because my work actually seems to be on schedule (I'm a little bit behind, but small victories).

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!