C. M. Black: Eyes of an Owl
Chapter XXV: Seeking and speaking
The week following the meeting was tedious at worst and slow at best. Every day at breakfast the group would watch the owls fly in overhead with anticipation, only to be disappointed each time they failed to swoop and deliver the finalised version of the article. The only distraction from the growing impatience that was building was the knowledge that Malfoy was only a few days from breaking. He sneered at her openly when she was and was not looking, he would purposefully bump shoulders with her in the hall when there was clearly room to manoeuvre, and he had developed an array of new insults that had made Cassy clap in congratulations for his brain still functioned on some level then, even if his Transfiguration homework suggested otherwise.
He had turned scarlet at that and a fight had broken out, but otherwise Cassy was pleased with the progress. He would have to break soon and talk – or even shout – about his feelings whether he wanted to or not.
She had spotted Zabini around more than usual too, although she theorised it may have been to keep an eye on Malfoy for his own amusement more than anything else. Cassy had even had the delight of engaging in a particularly tense conversation with Daphne, who had taken to accompanying her friend often now, but Cassy knew that was for entirely different reasons. Daphne Greengrass loathed her friendship with her younger sister with a barely restrained passion. That had only made Astoria cling to Cassy, her arm around her neck in an unusual closeness, whenever her older sister was near and Cassy did not care enough to throw her off, even when her own housemates grumbled every time.
The nights were often occupied with creating new articles for Plum to hide around the school. Her effort had doubled since the responsibility of destroying the papers had fallen to the Heads of Houses. Professor Flitwick loudly spoke of his embarrassment of having found so many in the Ravenclaw common room, before he scattered them across the floor of the entrance hall with a loud, sarcastic shout of surprise. He declared it the fault of his untied shoelace, stooped to correct the already tightly knotted shoe, before feigning surprise that once again all the papers had been taken from the ground and hidden by passing students.
Even Professor McGonagall's spirits had lifted since Christmas. It seemed the lower Professor Umbridge's sunk, the more enjoyment Professor Umbridge took from her day. Professor Snape seemed not to recognise their existence at all unless Professor Umbridge had stopped his students specifically. Cassy had been stopped three times in two days and she mentally scoffed each time. She did not need to carry the articles around because she knew what they said off heart and it was only when she had slipped a copy from Neville's pocket into her own as he moved to be searched that she bothered to tell her friends she was responsible for them at all.
'Do not carry them on you,' she muttered on the way to class. 'It is not worth being caught with them.'
'I knew it was you,' said Hermione, satisfied.
'I had a theory,' agreed Harry.
'Me too,' said Neville brightly, 'but I thought you would have told us by now.'
Harry snorted at that and Cassy ignored him.
'How are you getting them all over the castle in a single night?' asked Hermione as she eyed her friend shrewdly.
Surprisingly, Hermione did not seem to mind that Plum was the one distributing the leaflets. There was a certain concern for her safety now that house-elves had been ordered to bin any copies they found during their nightly cleans, but Cassy had already pulled the tiny elf aside and forced her to promise that her safety came first before Cassy's orders. Plum had squirmed and cried; she threw herself onto the floor and sobbed for forty-minutes before she slunk away again back to her duties. She had been particularly careful with her placement from them on. House-elves rarely missed a spot in need of a clean, so it was the underside of tables, between books, and in the freshly laundered clothes delivered to the end of the beds in the early hours that began to accumulate papers.
Agitated by the lack of progress and the new articles published that morning, Professor Umbridge paced up and down her classroom. At the slightest sound her bulbous head whipped around she would fixed them with a nasty smile as she deducted points again and again.
When she slowly doubled around each of Cassy, Harry, Neville, and Hermione's desks, Cassy turned to Harry with a smirk. He smirked back. Their Professor was checking their handwriting for likeness. After the fourth time, she doubled back round to her desk, unable to blame them.
It was a hopeless endeavour, Cassy made sure of it, but another hopeless effort was the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She had only been interested in it because Harry played and she had wanted to cheer on one of her only two friends. Since then, it had just grown into a habit, however, Cassy was glad for her lack of interest in it with the abysmal state the team was in. They lost their match on Sunday, only by ten points, but that was only because Ginny had managed to catch the Snitch; they had been one-hundred and thirty points behind before that. All through the match Harry tried hard to smile. Several times they had seen Professor Umbridge turn to their stand with brass binoculars pressed against her beady eyes and so Harry tried to smile through the horror of the abysmal show just to rile her, but as soon as the whistle blew, his smile slipped.
Ginny shrugged off the defeat. She said she had known they were going to lose before she had set foot on the pitch. Ron, on the other hand, entered a depression so deep that nothing anyone said got through to him. In the darkest corner of the common room he sat by himself, his feet dragged on every occasion and he hardly ate. It was an unfathomable mood over a sport, but even Fred and George watched him mope with sympathy. After a while, Hermione perched on the edge of the table and muttered something to him. The two had become curiously close since becoming Prefects and Cassy keenly kept their interactions under observation.
When Hermione seemed to be getting nowhere with Ron, Cassy turned her attention to the other slouching Weasley. Ginny's long hair was ruffled and free from its ponytail, her goggles hung around her neck and she still donned her scarlet jersey. Leather gloves had been slapped down on the table in front and her fingernails dug deeply into their soft hide as the hem was rolled between her fingers.
'You are upset,' observed Cassy as she took the seat beside her.
Ginny huffed loudly.
Cassy eyed her friend up and down. 'And it is clearly not the match that has you upset. I know you knew you were going to lose before you stepped on the pitch. Did something happen between you and Michael Corner?'
Sighing again, Ginny glared half-heartedly. 'Sometimes I hate how much of a know-it-all you are.'
'You frown a lot after talking with him,' she admitted.
'Yeah, I suppose I do,' sighed Ginny. 'He said that because we lost Hufflepuff and in with a chance to win the cup. He seemed to think I should have won the match to make Ravenclaw's match next week easier by beating Hufflepuff today. He just went on and on about it. It's not like we didn't try.'
'That's very shallow of him then if that is what makes him cross. Your match had nothing to do with him. Besides, you should have been trying to win for your own team, not to satisfy him,' said Cassy.
'Tell me about it,' snorted Ginny, her chin on her hand. 'Anyway, how are you and Harry?'
Cassy took a second to carefully observe Ginny's stance. It was more difficult than normal because of her already downtrodden expression, but she could not help but feel there was a slight note of resentment in her tone.
'It's fine. Three weeks is not really long enough to gauge a relationship well,' she replied and Ginny hummed in response.
'I suppose not. If you two hadn't told us then I probably wouldn't have noticed anything had changed. Besides the occasional kiss, you don't act any different. I already knew the two of you were really close,' she said.
'Not much has changed. The difference is more just the title, I suppose,' acknowledged Cassy. She would not complain though, there had been nothing she wanted to change.
Ginny picked up her gloves and fiddled with them idly. Her eyes glazed and her shoulders slumped a fraction further. Then, without warning, her head levelled again and she smiled brightly.
'It must be great to date someone who has been your close friend for years. No surprises and whatever.'
Alarm bells tolled in Cassy's mind and she frowned lightly. The smile was pinched in the corners, her eyes untouched. A faint shade of red spilt onto her cheeks beneath the dense layer of freckles and Cassy was once again reminded that Ginny was not an utterly unflappable creature. She knew she would care. She knew it and it was what had made her so reluctant to approach Harry to begin with. She feared his rejection, of course, but the knowledge of actively perusing her friend's long-standing crush had seemed cruel and unfair. Perhaps it was selfish of her to peruse him and accept his confession, her mind supplied, but now she had him she was very much unwilling to let him go again.
'Ginny,' she said gently.
'No, no,' cut in Ginny quickly, smiling again. 'I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it. I'm not bitter or upset, not really. I'm glad, actually. I would rather it be you than someone like Cho. I guess I always kind of knew it would be you, because when you got together I wasn't surprised, not at all, even though I didn't really ever think you thought of him like that. I suppose I must have on some level though.'
She shook her head as if clearing her thoughts. Her smile was still pinched at the edges, though her eyes held less pain and more of a simple sorrow than before. At no point did it cross Cassy's mind to apologise for allowing Harry to cultivate feelings for her. Ginny would not want it and Cassy would not mean it. Instead, she gently pried the gloves from her friend's hands and placed them back between them, forcing Ginny to still with nothing left to avoid her gaze with.
'You will find someone better than Michael Corner. Someone who is humorous and selfless and will make you smile instead of frown. You deserve better than what he is willing to give you,' she said.
This time, Ginny's face melted into a softer smile, her shoulders lax and her eyes bright. She then grinned and said, 'Yeah, I know. I was thinking that I might be done with him anyway. All he does is complain about Quidditch.'
Cassy smiled approvingly. She knew Harry and Ginny would have been good together if given the chance, she had acknowledged it for a while. A surge of pride hit her when she looked at Ginny's jovial face. It had been painful at night when images of Harry and Ginny together would creep unto Cassy's mind. She could have screamed and cursed her, it would be nothing unexpected, and instead Ginny nodded her head and had congratulated them. It meant a lot to know she accepted and supported it, whatever it might be or if it would lead anywhere at all.
A letter from Tonks invited Cassy back to hers for Easter. She said that if she wanted to return then her parents would like to see her again. Cassy scoffed. There was very little chance Andromeda wished to see her. After quickly reading Tonks' instruction not to panic about her exams, Cassy set the letter down and turned to her arguably more interesting piece of post: The Quibbler. Although Cassy would normally disregard anything the paper said to be fact, she eyed the front page with genuine interest. Harry's story was accompanied by a photograph of him Luna had taken outside the Three Broomsticks. The headline swirled: 'He Speaks at Last: Harry Potter's Account of You-Know-Who's Return'.
Luna had slapped a copy down on the table before post arrived and Harry had spent much of the meal meticulously mulling over the article. The Quibbler was not a popular paper by any means, but once word spread, they were confident the whole castle would have read it by the end of the week. By the time the owls carrying the newspapers had made it up to the castle, the rest of Britain had already received their papers and had written in a dozen letters to Harry. Cassy glanced through them for him. Many were positive, although some were adamant he was an attention-seeking liar.
'She's done a fair job,' commented Ginny, surprised.
'She actually wrote what I said,' agreed Harry, finally putting the article down.
Fred and George had shuffled up the table and were reading Cassy's copy with raised eyebrows.
'Harry,' said George slowly, 'this is…'
'Yeah,' said Harry.
'No wonder you didn't tell us,' muttered Fred.
'Do not get too comfortable, we are on Pink Alert now,' drawled Cassy.
Fred shoved the newspaper under the table, just before a great shadow was cast over them. Glaring, Harry looked up at her, his paper gripped tightly in his fists. Her wide mouth was pressed into a thin line and her fat hands were linked in front of her seemingly pleasantly.
'What's that?' she asked, sweetly.
'I finally told the truth,' said Harry coolly. 'I did what you said and I didn't tell lies.'
'Mr Potter, you are now banned from Hogsmeade visits. You clearly cannot be trusted to act in a mature manner. Fifty points from Gryffindor and a week of detentions, I think – for lying to the nation,' she commanded icily.
No one said anything as she snatched the newspaper from his hands and strode off with it as quickly as her short legs could carry her.
As soon as Professor Umbridge was gone from the room, a large stack of papers were pulled from beneath the table and distributed to the fifth-year Gryffindors and Fred and George. Harry did not seem to care that he had been banned from Hogsmeade, it was not as though they could not easily sneak him from the castle anyway. Dean and Seamus read the paper with Ron's ongoing narration, while Ginny relocated to her friends in her year to share the news with them. Pavarti ran to her sister, Padma, at the Ravenclaw table and Cassy dropped a copy in front of Stephen as she and her friends left for Herbology.
A great boisterous laugh echoed through the hall. Cassy, Harry, Neville, and Hermione turned to see Ginny beaming beside the notice board. She pointed to a large, yellow sign.
'She's banned it! Isn't that awesome?' she said.
'How is that a good thing?' asked Harry, unsurprised but irritated.
'If people are not allowed to read it, it means they'll be even more interested!' cheered Hermione.
Word had spread by lunch. The questions that Cassy had carefully laid for the last few months burst into new life. Luna and Dean had both lost their copies as passing students stole them from their bags and Harry's official story caused such disruption that the teachers were finding it difficult to teach around the barrage of demanding enquiries shot at Cassy, Neville, and Hermione; no one seemed brave enough to ask Harry directly. Professor Sprout sat back and allowed it, occasionally giving a weak order to resume work between flicking through a magazine. Luna had received dozens of orders for the paper by dinner.
'I should have done this ages ago,' marvelled Harry. The stares had increased, but people did not sneer so often anymore, even the Professors gave him extra points for ridiculous achievements and Professor McGonagall even smiled at him when he had blasted a toad clear off the desk.
'Can you get more copies in the common rooms by tomorrow?' whispered Hermione to Cassy.
Cassy nodded. 'Of course, but I will only do a few. If we have too many it might look like we are pushing the idea on them and it might draw some resistance. Besides, Luna had eighty-three requests for copies earlier. I think people will manage.'
People did manage to find their own copies too. By lunch the next day, Professor Umbridge was routinely searching bags, the threat of expulsion lingered over the heads of everyone with a copy, but it just meant that the students charmed them to look like spare parchment, or transfigured them into other objects entirely. Everyone was talking about it behind cupped hands, feverish glances at Harry at every turn and for once he did not care. His spirit brightened immensely at the new found support he seemed to be gathering.
Uproar sounded from Dumbledore's Army when Harry cancelled their meeting that night because of his detention. His story only provoked the urge for action and Cassy kissed him good luck, certain that all of Professor Umbridge's rage would be centred on Harry that night.
Cassy spent the evening in the library with Stephen and Astoria, hiding from the bustle of the group's new found popularity. The questions had been novel at first, satisfying to finally see people's opinions vocally changing, but they had become tiresome and repetitive quickly. Professor Umbridge was one step away from giving them all detentions, even when they fell quiet in her presence and pointedly ignored the hurried questions. Besides, there was not much Cassy could say beyond what Harry had admitted in the paper. Stephen and Astoria did not approach the topic of the newspaper, instead they teased her for fifteen-minutes mercilessly about her new relationship. She had not got around to telling them, uncaring if they knew or not. She ignored them, before turning to Stephen with half-lidded eyes.
'Asked Faulks out yet?'
Stephen shrugged. 'I haven't liked her for a while. I thought I did, but then I began speaking to this girl in my year, a Hufflepuff called Nadira around Christmas. You never asked, so I never said.'
'You never asked about Harry and me,' Cassy protested, but Stephen grinned.
'Yeah, but you having a boyfriend is funny,' he said.
Cassy frowned and Astoria giggled.
'On to more important news, Shandy has dropped off the face of the Earth.' Stephen leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. He met Cassy's eye with a slight frown. 'He speaks to me in class, but only occasionally. He's much more civil, though still conceited and somewhat of a jerk. He never asks after you anymore either. What happened?'
Cassy was silent.
'He's been the talk of the House too,' added Astoria when it became apparent Cassy would not reply. 'They think he might be a bit depressed because of his family at Christmas. It's no secret it is always tense.'
'It began before that,' said Stephen, shaking his head. 'He even broke up with his girlfriend before the holidays. He's been slipping into the background a bit this term.'
While Stephen was visibly disconcerted by the event, Cassy was unconcerned. Thoughts spun gently in her head, asking if it was perhaps possible that Shandy had learnt that hateful words could have disastrous repercussions. It pleased her in a way she would not admit to. Another thought sounded that perhaps she was giving herself too much credit and that there was a family issue behind his changes, but she doubted it, although that might have been simply hope. It might make it easier to converse with him as planned.
Then again, she pondered, if he is no longer asking after me then perhaps he would not be so keen to chat. Then again, he was hardly the first Slytherin to avoid it.
'Astoria, how is my darling cousin fairing?' she asked suddenly.
Astoria hummed. 'A little more cheerful lately, to tell you the truth. He rather likes Umbridge, he goes on about how great her detention policies are.' She had her cheek propping her head up in her hand, the other hand doodling idly.
Cassy cursed inwardly. It meant she would have to try harder to lure him into a conversation if he was content.
'He was annoyed though, about the article, I mean. Everyone in Slytherin has read it and naming and shaming the suspected Death Eater's like Potter did cause huge issues this morning. Some people wanted to disagree, Malfoy included, but saying something is to admit they read the article and it's against Professor Umbridge's rules. He is quite furious about that.'
For the first time in her life, Cassy did not feel the slightest twinge of sympathy that her cousin's family was being criticised.
'My sister has not said anything to me about it,' continued Astoria, frowning. 'She will not speak about the Death Eaters at all to me and instead tells me not to worry. She told me not to talk to you anymore, actually, again. She seems to think it will get me into trouble, but I don't really see the fuss about Muggleborns and neither does she, so I do not really understand her problem.'
Cassy understood it all too well and from the look on his face, Stephen did too. It was not a matter of blood purity, but about safety. Guilty by association was how Voldemort had famously worked.
Astoria continued to doodle. 'Her friend Blaise just read it quietly and told Pansy Parkinson to be quiet when she started screeching about it. Most people are holding their opinions quiet secret though.'
Cassy hummed thoughtfully at the news, her mind already thinking of new ways to invoke a long overdue conversation with her dear cousin.
Bridging chapter. Not a lot happens in this, I suppose, so it's not the best. Sorry about that. I will not be able to update in the next two weeks because I have a lot going on, so you can have two short chapters today instead. The other will be up later when I've read through it.
I went to Harry Potter World in London on Thursday, that was pretty cool. I brought Luna's wand and the tour guide at the start was terribly boring because there is nothing she could tell me that I did not already know. Otherwise it was really good. I really wanted one of the Weasley twins' wands, but you could only buy them as a pair for £70… I recommend going though as they have a lot of the authentic props and things there where you won't get in ones abroad.
Anyway, thank-you for all the lovely reviews from the last chapter. They cheered me up a lot.
Thanks!