Hey guys, I'm so sorry for the delay. This chapter was just NOT cooperating with me, so if it isn't all that great, I apologize. But it's coming along, I promise, I really want to pull through on this story because I love the Alicia-Cassius dynamic.
Anyway, much thanks to supergirl818, Etoile Black, Stromsten, Guest and Sibel88.
Guest: I didn't really write much about the presentation, but you're right, the topic will come up eventually but I'm not quite sure yet how, I just know that it will :) As for the Yule thing, it's the Flints who are hosting the Debutante Ball (I'm sorry if I wasn't so clear on that), though there will of course be other families hosting more private balls which will be much more selective, especially in terms of blood. So Cassius knows that Alicia will be at the Flints to come out, though they may have a few more run-ins as the private balls as well, given who her grandparents are.
So enjoy this next chapter, don't hate me too much for being late, and as always, leave a review! Does it suck? Does it rock? Is something unclear? You guys keep me going, I always look forward to hearing your input because it's your story too!
She wasn't there.
He'd waited for an hour, and she hadn't shown up, and he'd never felt quite so angry in his entire life.
Stood up. He'd been stood up by Alicia Spinnet, and here he was now, stewing in his anger as he fought to control his temper. Seven o'clock had come and past, and at first, he'd figured she was simply running late. Girls did that, got caught up with gossip, their hair, a frayed hem - something stupid, anything. But seven-fifteen had become seven-thirty, and seven-thirty had become a quarter-to-eight, and eventually he'd come to the conclusion that yes, he had indeed been stood up by Alicia bloody Spinnet.
He tried to reason with himself that he hadn't been stood up, not really - it wasn't as though they'd made plans, like they were supposed to be on some sort of date. In fact, they hadn't really talked much after last night's shag - too much had already been said and done, too many things that couldn't be taken back, not without a good obliviate.
Was that why she wasn't there?
But he'd seen her at breakfast... and at lunch... and at dinner. She hadn't looked at him, but she hadn't avoided him either... they'd ran into each other in the corridor, and she'd given him a curt nod before hurrying on her way.
Dismissed. Maybe that had been her way of dismissing him. Like he didn't matter to her anymore.
He was thinking like a pansy, like some soft broken-hearted imbecile.
Well he wasn't broken-hearted, dammit, he wasn't anything at all.
Angry, maybe. That was all. Of course he was angry - anybody would be angry in his place... they had a project to present tomorrow morning, for fuck's sake! Alright, maybe they didn't make plans to meet, but they met every goddamn Sunday like clockwork. She was supposed to be here, and if she wasn't going to show up, then she should have at least sent him a fucking courtesy owl.
He slammed his hands down over the piano, and rejoiced in the disharmonious sound like a petulant toddler.
Bitch.
She was a bitch, that was all. Couldn't handle rejection. I don't love you either my arse. Lying bitch.
Cassius swore and stood onto his feet. For a second, he was tempted to kick the piano bench over, but he decided he'd already displayed enough emotional instability for the day. He was better than this. Alicia Spinnet could go fuck herself.
He kicked over the piano bench anyway as he left the room.
The last two weeks of school withered away like a dying ember, sadly uneventful and monotonous until the last day before the holidays.
Carson had not recovered in time for Hogsmeade, and so Alicia had spent the day with Katie and Angelina doing their Christmas shopping and, on a last minute whim, getting waxed (Yule Wax Special - Guaranteed to last until the New Year or your money back!). After dinner, when she got back to Gryffindor Tower, she nearly passed out in shock when she found Carson sitting on one of the Gryffindor armchairs by the fire, chatting with Lee Jordan and the twins about the finer merits of cannabis as an anti-nausea ingredient in potions without a hint of irony on his part. She'd been forced to play the role of Girlfriend after this, and had found herself somehow coaxed into joining him in the Astronomy Tower to look at stars, whilst simultaneously trying to keep his wandering hands at bay.
Cassius had avoided her like the plague since. The following day when she'd joined him at the front of the class to give their presentation in Ancient Runes, he'd given her a cold once-over before turning to face the class. Their presentations had gone by smoothly, just as they'd practiced over the previous week, but the professors had definitely noticed their lack of intercommunication, and they'd been penalized for it.
Indeed, it was as though they'd erased each other from existence. Cassius no longer looked at her - he looked through her - and she wanted to throttle him for it, the bloody bastard, ever the hypocrite. He didn't even want to hear an explanation from her, not that she owed him one. But still... she'd tried to approach him once after the presentations after running into him in a secluded corridor, and he'd walked right past her, the great git. For somebody who didn't give a shit about her interactions with her own boyfriend, he certainly reacted like a child who didn't have his way.
And so Alicia tried her damned hardest to pretend that they had indeed erased each other from existence. She threw herself into her remaining school work with a vigour that had her friends shocked and sniggering. She read books, and wrote essays, and practiced her newly learned D.A skills until her body wanted to cave in on itself. She worked herself until she was numb. And yet every night before she crawled into bed, as she quickly undressed and passed by the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the bathroom, she was forced to confront herself before she could soak in the comfort of a scalding shower. Scattered over her otherwise perfect skin were his marks from that Saturday after the Quidditch match... Marks of possession, marks of love, marks of hatred - whatever they were, they were his, and only time would make them disappear. And two weeks later when the bruises on her thigh and on her wrists had faded into her skin, she continued to bear the burden of his presence in the back of her mind and deep inside her heart.
But now, as Alicia snuck out of the Room of Requirements with Angelina and Katie by her side after the last D.A. meeting of the year, she suddenly recalled that first day she and Cassius had met up to work the on the assignment, in the empty classroom down the hall. She remembered the panic of potentially getting caught, the relief of escaping Filch and Snape, and then the confusion of being trapped in some seemingly never-ending tunnel that had appeared out of nowhere. And then he'd invited her to his dorm to crash, and then they'd gotten that close to shagging right there in a room full of sleeping snakes (which was probably, in retrospect, what he had been hoping for at the time), if she hadn't regained her senses in time.
God, she'd been so attracted to him from the start. How had she gone so long denying it? Why had he kept persisting?
She wondered if he was shagging anybody else. She'd never bothered to ask, though she imagined he hadn't been celibate during those three months they hadn't taken it any further than a snog. But what about now?
She thought about Carson, and his tentative gropes under her shirt, and then she thought about Cassius. A little seed of jealousy bloomed in her chest when she pictured him with another girl the way he was with her. She frowned. Was that how he felt all the time, then, seeing her with Carson in the corridors or in class? She tried to recollect the number of times she'd seen him with girls, but had trouble coming up with a solid figure. She vaguely remembered passing him in the corridors those first few months entwined with a girl in some alcove, but nothing recent.
What the hell did that mean?
She crawled into bed with a troubled conscience, while Angelina mumbled tiredly about having to prep the newly reformed team (Ginny was decided as Harry's replacement in a sad tryout on Tuesday evening, along with two new beaters).
What the hell did that mean?
It meant that she was a bad, bad person.
Alicia Spinnet was a liar.
Alicia Spinnet was a cheat.
Worst of all, Alicia Spinnet was in love.
When Cassius awoke on Friday morning, it was to Montague violently shaking his shoulder.
"Get up!"
"What?" Cassius grunted groggily.
Montague shook him again.
"Get up! There's been an attack."
Cassius bolted up. There's been an attack... he hadn't heard those words in Hogwarts since his fourth year, when the Chamber of Secrets business had caused so much chaos.
"It's Weasley."
Cassius looked at him, unimpressed.
"Which one?"
"Their father. At the Ministry. Just got word of it through Malfoy. Thought you might want to know."
Cassius stiffened. So. Things were heating up. A Ministry breach was serious, and the Weasley's were close to Potter, probably the closest thing he had to family. The Dark Lord was back. A meeting with his father was definitely in his near future. As in, probably by dinnertime today.
"Is he alive?"
"Dunno," Montague replied. "The idiot was talking about it at breakfast. Well, I mean, it was sort of obvious besides that... all the bloody Weasleys and Potter were missing, and Dumbledore wasn't there for his usual little speech, so everybody's figured something's off."
"Shit, I missed breakfast? Well why didn't you bloody wake me?"
"Because you're a fucking prat in the mornings," Montague replied hotly. "You should be thanking me for even waking your arse right now. Carriages are leaving in an hour."
Cassius swore, and scrambled out of bed.
"How's Adrian handling it?" he asked as he threw on his robes.
"How do you think? I'd pay him out of it if I could, but then he'd just look bloody weak... do more harm than good, know what I mean?"
"You get any mail?"
Montague shook his head.
"No," he said darkly. "None of us did. Nothing in the papers either."
Silence on the front. That was a bad sign. Things were serious if their parents were waiting for them to get home to talk. It was worse if the Ministry was hushing this up. Something on this scale would have normally merited a series of frantic letters, and a headliner on the Daily Prophet.
Cassius' thoughts inevitably trailed to Alicia, as they always did whenever such issues came up. Her half-blood status suddenly loomed large in his mind as he and Montague rushed down to the Great Hall with their luggage. His mind tried to desperately reason that half-blood wasn't that bad, but he knew he was just playing himself for a fool. If things escalated to the old war's standards, her half-blood status was Bad.
He hadn't been pleased with the turns his mind had taken recently to excuse her blood status. He'd always been a firm believer in separate but co-existing worlds when it came to the muggle world and the magical world. The existence of muggle-borns was a threat to wizarding society, because it meant exposure. One could never know if some muggle-born's family was going to go berserk and let the rabbit out of the hat. If muggleborns were to be let into wizarding society, it ought to be under the condition that they were brought in as infants and raised by proper witches and wizards, or something along those lines. He knew they couldn't been eliminated, try as the Dark Lord might, because they would simply continue to be born (not that he dared ever point this out to anybody). He also knew that it would be stupid to eliminate them. There was a reason why so many true pureblood families had died out over the years. The assignment he'd worked on with Alicia had been testament to that... fresh blood was imperative to survival. Inbreeding was simply not possible on a long term scale. It wasn't for shits and giggles that an entire ward of St. Mungo's was dedicated to paediatric illnesses, many of them genetic... and Cassius knew all about that. The smell of slow death still haunted his dreams sometimes.
His own parents, while they were supporters of pureblood superiority, and they would never allow him to marry a witch of non pureblood descent, they had never actively participated in the bloodshed of the last war... His mother had been young, married straight out of Hogwarts and pregnant with him almost immediately, and his father had chosen to participate through hefty financial contributions rather than by an active, physical presence. His uncles, on the other hand, had all died, every last one of them by the time Saint Potter had offed the Dark Lord the first time around, half of them before Cassius had seen the light of day. Not one of them had hit the ripe old age of thirty. His youngest uncle, Evan, had been barely twenty-one at his death on New Year's Day, nineteen seventy-nine, the last of his uncles to fall. Mad-Eye Moody, or rather Barty Crouch Jr. posing as Mad-Eye, had reminded them all of what had happened to the last Rosier, tapping the missing chunk of his nose ominously on their first day of Defence Against the Dark Arts last year. Cassius had been a year old that day the last carrier of his maternal line was wiped out. His mother, nineteen at the time, was the last of the Rosiers, but she was a Warrington by then. Rosiers, the fallen angels, or so the old myths went. Another pureblood family, come and gone... Time and loss had made them bitter, his mother especially.
Once all the carriages were loaded with luggage and students and began to roll along, Cassius watched Hogwarts disappear into the distance, in all of its winter glory for one last time. He would never see the castle like this again. The end of ninety-five was drawing closer with each passing day, and who knew what the new year would bring? He had the distinct impression that he was watching his childhood fade away as the falling snow soon obstructed his view. How was it that first year seemed like yesterday, when here he was now, rolling away from Hogwarts for his last christmas holiday. By this time next year, he would be a proper adult. He realized with a shock that he'd already come of age... his seventeenth birthday had already passed more than a year ago... and when he graduated, part of the Rosier estate would transfer to him as the next eligible heir after his mother, who'd inherited it all after her parents had passed on, for there had been no more sons to inherit. And when his parents passed away, Cassius would inherit both the Warrington and Rosier estates in full.
What in merlin's name did one do with so much wealth?
He could buy Pucey's freedom. Then he wouldn't have to marry one of the Flint sisters, or be pressured into taking the Mark. But realistically, he knew his friend could never take a buy-out. He'd be shunned, humiliated. A buy-out from family members was acceptable to some degree. A buy-out from a friend was just charity, and a sign of weakness, as Montague had earlier pointed out.
He could provide for Alicia. He could hide her away somewhere safe, somewhere far from England, somewhere sunny and warm and safe where -
Where what? Where she would wait for him to visit her once every blue moon for a quick shag, before he'd have to come back? The war could last a decade like the last one. He'd have to get married, his wife would have to pop out a few kids...
Wife. The word made him shudder. It dawned on him that Yule was literally a week and a half away. What was the girl's name he would be taking... a Spanish girl... Garcia? Garnere? Guerrera? Guerrera. He couldn't remember her first name. He'd chosen her after glancing through the photographs his mother had sent him of acceptable candidates. A small girl, from what he remembered, with sun-kissed skin and long dark hair -
Merlin's fucking balls.
She looked like Alicia.
He'd chosen a bird who looked like Alicia.
They hadn't even been shagging at the time.
Alicia.
Alicia.
Alicia.
It always came back to Alicia.
"Fuck!"
The ride home was sombre. With only Katie, Angelina and Lee for company, the twins' presence was sorely missed. Rumours had bounced around from person to person when Dumbledore hadn't been at breakfast that morning, and the obvious absence of a clan of redheads and a certain boy-who-lived made itself known... but Umbridge had insisted that everything was perfectly fine, the fat fucking cow, and she had more or less threatened eternal detention on anybody who dared question her authority on Ministry knowledge ("and if the Ministry reports have not indicated anything amiss, then you all ought to be satisfied that the world is in perfect order").
Lee, who'd been half asleep when Professor McGonagall had fetched Fred and George from their dorm, had only overheard snippets of whatever had happened. Something about Mr. Weasley, and St. Mungos. Why Harry had been involved was anybody's guess, though the most obvious one pointed to some sort of dark scenario involving you-know-who. It hadn't been lost on anybody that the Slytherin table had been strangely lacking in owls that morning, whereas everybody else had received the usual flurry of last-minute travel advice from home.
They played another sad round of exploding snap, before Alicia couldn't take it anymore. The silence was deafening.
"I'm going to stretch my legs for a bit," she muttered, excusing herself from the game. Her three friends shrugged, each looking gloomier than the next. She stumbled out of the compartment, head empty of thoughts, and sauntered down the narrow corridors.
"Hey Alicia!"
She turned around, and smiled wearily.
"Hey Carson."
"I was just coming to see you. The boys are getting a bit annoying... Peter thought it'd be a great idea to unleash all of his chocolate frogs in our compartment."
Alicia snorted.
"Of course he did. And how did he get sorted into Ravenclaw again?"
Carson laughed as he slid his arms around her waist. He leaned back against the windows and pulled her up against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and watched the countryside fly by. They stood together in a strangely comfortable silence, and for a strange moment, she relished the warmth of his arms and the comforting way he rubbed her arms with those slow strokes of his callused hands. Any of the usual guilt and awkwardness Alicia reserved had been pushed to the back of her mind by her need for some sort of comfort.
She breathed in deeply, turning around to bury her face into is chest, and he held her closer still, one of his hands gently stroking her hair. His sweater smelled freshly laundered, and she could smell the spiciness of his aftershave when he bent down to kiss the crook of her neck. It occurred to her then that maybe she'd been missing out, that maybe she'd been blind to the prize all this time, that she'd been torturing herself for no reason when she had the loveliest man in the world, right in the palm of her hand.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, suddenly breaking the moment of silence.
"Nothing," she replied truthfully, face still buried into his soft jumper. "I'm tired of thinking. What are you thinking about?"
"You. I like how you smell... and you're so soft... I just want to tickle you -
"Carson!" she shrieked as his fingers suddenly prodded her sides, gently tormenting her as she squealed in his arms. One of his arms pinned her to him while he tickled her with his free hand, his fingers sliding dangerously higher under her shirt. She laughed and felt lighthearted in a way that had become unfamiliar over the past few months, and suddenly she wondered why she'd been so reluctant to get close to Carson. He was a great guy. The best guy. Every girl's dream.
But the dream shattered, when she heard the compartment door next to them slam open, and the smooth, angry voice of the devil pierced her ears.
"Oi, some of us are trying to bloody read -
Carson's hands fell away from her sides, and Alicia felt the blood drain from her face as Cassius' eyes slid over them, cold and devoid of expression as he took in who had disrupted his reading.
"You can read, can you, Warrington?" Carson shot out.
"What did you say to me, you filthy blood-traitor shit?" Cassius hissed.
And before Alicia knew what was happening, before she could even register the offending words, blood traitor shit, she found herself pushed back as the two boys jostled each other against the walls. Compartment doors slammed open as students peered out to eagerly take in the commotion.
Pucey and Montague had popped out almost as soon as the incident had started, and they stood, propped up against the door of their compartment, arms crossed as they watched in amusement while the two boys fought, but menacing nonetheless in case anything should go awry. It wasn't every day that Hogwarts students were treated to actual fights, for duelling was the most common means of sorting out a problem, and so nobody made a move to stop the fight. If anything, the crowd got bigger, and the noise swelled as the tight corridor became jam-packed with students leaving their compartments to get a better look at two of Hogwarts' fittest boys took to pummelling each other.
Alicia just wanted to melt into the crowd, and to pretend that she didn't exist, but her eyes were riveted as the two boys swung punches at each other. Cassius was taller than Carson, but Carson was thicker, with the upper body of a beater. She was relieved of having the decide who she wanted to support, despite Cassius' cruel words, by Professor Flitwick, who had discreetly made his way to the front of the crowd because of his small stature. The tiny wizard immediately cast full body binds on the two boys, so that they lay flat on their backs, limbs glued to their sides, while blood tricked out from both their noses. Alicia could see the cold fury in Cassius' eyes. She looked away, angry and hurt. Blood traitor shit. You fucking hypocrite.
"What is the meaning of this?" the usually kindly professor demanded. The crowd looked to Alicia, who unhappily gazed down at her favourite professor.
"Miss Spinnet? Does this somehow involve you?" he asked in surprise, noticing that everybody was now looking at her. "All of you, back to your compartments, this isn't a show. Go on now."
"No!" Alicia exclaimed. "I mean, yes. But no, not really. Carson and I - we were just, er..." Her face flushed in embarrassment. "He was ticking me, and I'm rather ticklish and well, I suppose I sort of made quite a bit of noise, and C - Warrington poked his head out and told us to be quiet because he was trying to read and -
"And Bishop very rudely insulted Cassius' intelligence by insinuating that he couldn't read," said Montague, cutting her off. Flitwick turned to look at him. "I saw the whole thing. Adrian too. And they were being loud... rather inappropriate for seventh years, might I add. You can even ask Spinnet, sir, she was there."
Alicia shot daggers at Montague, who smirked in her direction.
"Is this true, Miss Spinnet?"
Alicia hung her head.
"Yes, sir," she mumbled. "But don't blame Carson, it was my fault, really, I shouldn't have been shrieking -
" - and how was it that they got into this altercation?"
She bit her lip in humiliation.
"He -
She paused and glanced back down at Cassius' immobile form. His eyes were hard and emotionless, and Alicia had never seem them quite so... dead. It was worse than the anger she'd glimpsed in them a moment before. It was as though he was looking right through her.
"He called Carson a - a filthy blood traitor shit."
Professor Flitwick looked at her, dismayed, and the crowd (which had obviously not dispersed) let out a collective gasp. Alicia looked away. Flitwick cast quick healing charms on both boys, though blood still marred their faces, then unfroze them after lecturing them about noise, fighting and racism before docking fifty points from both Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Alicia, Montague and Pucey watched silently as the two boys crawled onto their feet, glaring stonily at each other while Flitwick continued to berate them. When Flitwick dismissed her, she walked silently back to her compartment, ignoring the uncomfortable burn of two pairs of eyes following her retreating form.
"Well played, mate," Montague commented loftily when Pucey had disappeared to use the loo. "I noticed the excellent spell work there, the mark of a great wizard. Really. "
"Fuck off," Cassius snarled.
"You didn't listen to a word I said," his friend replied. "What did I tell you, mate? Merlin's balls, Cash, if that wasn't the most pathetic thing I've ever seen, I don't know what is... fighting like a stupid muggle - you still fucking love her, don't you? For god's sake. You're fucked, mate, you're absolutely fucked. I sodding well told you, didn't I, that this could only end badly - "
Cassius slammed his book shut, and scowled at Montague.
"You think I don't know that?" he hissed. "You think I actually want this to be happening to me?"
Montague scoffed.
"Yeah, actually. I think you do. I think you like being all fucked up. Why else would you keep going back to her? And don't tell me you haven't, I'm not blind. Every Sunday like clockwork, mate. So fucking predictable. Except last week... and you've been a sodding git ever since. Did she dump your arse for Bishop?"
"Fuck. Off."
"You're losing it, mate, she's playing you. You think she loves you back? You lot discuss how you're going to play house, and have two-point-three children and a dog -
Cassius clenched his fists, and willed himself not to snap. He was doing it on purpose. Fucking Montague and his fucking games. How many times had he repeated those words over the years? They'd never rang so true as they did now. The worst part was, he knew his friend was doing it for his own benefit. Of course he was fucked. He wasn't stupid. But no amount of antagonizing him was going to get him to snap out of it. He knew that now. She'd been so fucking happy with Bishop, until she'd seen his face. The twat had his hands all over her, tickling her of all things, touching her - he could have sworn the bastard had been all over her breasts, or was about to - and Cassius had watched her smile disappear as their eyes had met when he'd stuck his head out of the compartment to tell whoever was in the corridor to shut the fuck up. He hadn't been expecting Them. And when he'd realized who it was, he'd felt that horrifyingly familiar, unexplainable, undesirable swell of jealousy that always drowned out his reason whenever he caught sight of Bishop touching her. Or anybody else for that matter. And then the shithead had to go and push him over the edge by being a smartarse, ever the goddamn mouthy Ravenclaw.
Fucking twat.
Mother fucking twat, who the hell does he think he is, the filthy blood traitor piece of shit.
And Cassius knew then that the little voice in his head was no longer referring Carson sodding Bishop. He'd lost his head, and now he was paying for it.
When the train pulled into Platform nine and three-quarters, Alicia said goodbye to her friends and searched for her mum amongst the crowd. She would spend the next week in London at home, and then it would be off to the DeWitt villa to prep for Yule. The debutante ball was on the twenty-fourth, next Sunday, and she felt sick to the stomach just thinking about it. She could only count her blessings that she hadn't come out yet, otherwise she would have been subject to an entire extra week of balls and dinner parties. She wanted to puke.
Her mother greeted her with a brittle smile, and Alicia quickly pecked her on both cheeks.
"What's wrong, mum? Aren't you happy to see your only daughter?" she asked teasingly, though anxiety gnawed at her insides as she caught sight of her mother's drawn face. The weakly reassuring smile was the furthest thing from soothing Alicia had ever seen. Where was her mum's usual cheery, careless grin? Aurora's usual life-of-the-party aura had disappeared, replaced by something... sinister.
Aurora sighed unhappily.
"Oh, Alicia... I only wish you'd have said no, is all. Your grandparents aren't the rulers of the world, as much as they'd like to think otherwise, and what with all these... disappearances, I really don't think now's the best time for you to be... announcing your presence, shall we say."
Alicia scowled.
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly say yes either."
"Then just say no! It isn't too late to back out - I only want what's best for you, you know that... and they say there's going to be another war soon, and the people your grandparents associate with... and those people absolutely do not have your best interests in mind. I didn't leave all of that to see my only daughter forced into some sham marriage, or worse, and the things people are saying..."
"Mum! It's not like I'm going to get bloody engaged or anything!"
Aurora shook her head.
"This is what I mean, darling. You haven't any idea what you're in for. Of course that's what these things are all about. Nobody spends a fortune on prancing their daughters about in front of wealthy men for no reason. And I imagine -
"Because they failed with you, they're going to try it with me," Alicia spat as they stepped outside into the streets.
Aurora fumbled around in her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one before responding.
"Look, Alicia, I know they're your grandparents, but they're my parents. I mean, you've said so yourself - you hate going there every summer! Well I've had to live with them. For seventeen years! You've only seen the tip of the iceberg."
Alicia rolled her eyes.
"I only said yes because I felt bad," she replied, scowling. "You know how She gets."
Aurora shook her head as she exhaled a cloud of smoke.
"Tip of the iceberg, sweetheart. Your grandmother played you like a fiddle."
"She was crying!"
"Of course she was. Oh, look, there's your father with the car -
"Dad's here? Who's watching the pub?"
Aurora suddenly grinned.
"Ah, that would be Florrie."
"Florrie's here? And Skylar?"
"For the week. They're going to back when you leave for the Villa."
Alicia jumped in excitement as her father hopped out of the car and greeted her with a bear hug.
"And how's my little girl doing? Here, let me grab that," he said, reaching for her suitcase. She laughed. Her father, who was a tall, tattooed and pierced barrel-chested man with thick dark hair and golden skin inherited from his South American mother, looked absolutely ridiculous with her small purple suitcase in his large hands.
"Florrie and Skylar are watching the pub?"
Her father snorted.
"Florrie's watching the pub. I imagine Skylar's off creating chaos somewhere in the neighbourhood."
Florence Kim was the closest thing to a female relative that Alicia had on her mother's side, besides her distantly affectionate grandmother. She and Aurora had both gone to Hogwarts together, but it wasn't at school that they'd become friends. Indeed, they'd been rather far off of each other's radars during their school days. But in a matter of sheer coincidence, they'd found themselves living in the same neighbourhood in muggle London, and as the only two witches in the vicinity, hiding from the ravages of a war that was tearing the wizarding world apart, they'd become close friends... Especially since Florrie had been pregnant and alone when she'd moved into the neighbourhood, and Alicia hadn't even reached her first birthday yet. The women, or rather, the girls, had bonded over their young motherhood, and Alicia and Skylar had grown up together, along with Alicia's cousins from her father's side, while Florrie studied to become a healer whilst helping around at the pub to make a little bit of extra money. Skylar had even gone to Hogwarts with Alicia, albeit she was two years behind her in school, being a September baby. But Florrie had been promoted and transferred to L'Hôpital Honoré de Montmorency last year, and Skylar had been dragged along with her to France, and sent off to Beauxbatons for her fourth year. They hadn't seen each other since.
"Where are they staying?" Alicia asked as she slid into the back seat of the car.
"Florrie was going to take a hotel, but I told her that was nonsense."
Alicia smirked.
"Ooh, a hotel... I guess she's doing well in France, then?"
Aurora rolled her eyes.
"Don't be crass, Alicia. And yes, she is doing well. They've decided to extend her contract, so Skylar will definitely be graduating from Beauxbatons."
"And she's right pleased about that, from what I hear," he father snorted.
"Alan! She's your god-daughter!"
"So? I'm not blind. That girl's had her eye on the boys since she hit puberty -
"Dad!" Alicia exclaimed, mortified.
Her father chortled.
"Don't get me wrong, I love the girl as my own, but sometimes I get the feeling that not having a father does strange things to kids who grow up like that with only their mums, and Florrie's a great lass, but discipline was never her forte and Skylar knows how to run a good game."
"Yes, well," said Aurora conspiratorially, "Florrie was never the angel in school either, despite being a Ravenclaw and all."
Alicia raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you two didn't know each other in school."
Aurora rolled her eyes.
"Well of course we knew each other - you're still in school, you know how it is. I mean, how well do you know any Ravenclaws?"
Alicia shrugged.
"So I knew who she was, we just didn't know each other," Aurora continued. "We had a few classes together, but that was about it. She was... well, you know, she hung out with a bad crowd."
Alicia laughed.
"A bad crowd? Really, mum? Who says that? And anyway, as if you're one to talk - you ran away from home!"
"Yes, but I was always actually rather good in school, you know, and my... my girl friends were rather straight, I suppose is the word..." Aurora's voice trailed off for a moment as her face took on a perturbed look. It wasn't often that she discussed her youth, and Alicia knew well enough why... Her mother had never let go of the guilt of abandoning her friends, the wizarding world, when times were dark. Aurora DeWitt had hightailed it out of the wizarding world without daring to glance over her shoulder the fateful day she'd ventured into muggle london, and had run into Alan Spinnett on her search for a lighter. The next morning when she'd awoken in his unfamiliar bedroom, nursing a terrible hangover, she knew something had changed. Love at first sight, lust at first sight - call it what you will. Something had changed, though, and she'd seized the opportunity to hide herself away from a war that had worn away at her soul, bit by bit.
Her friends and family had undoubtedly thought she was dead, like so many others they knew who were missing without a trace. It wasn't until four years later, on Halloween of nineteen eighty-one, clutching two year old Alicia in her arms, that she let herself cry as she peered down into the streets and saw the unbelievable... Witches and wizards, in muggle London... celebrating. Celebrating the death of the Dark Lord, celebrating the death of her friends. In the four years Aurora had been absent, her former best friend had wed the infamous James Potter and had given birth to the Boy Who Lived. In the span of one night, Alicia lost four friends forever... The Potters, dead. Sirius Black, in Azkaban, worse than dead. Peter Pettigrew, dead. And here she was, alive. Then later, through her parents, when they finally discovered her whereabouts, she found out even worse. They were all gone. Out of her original group of friends, she was the only one left. The Longbottoms were as good as dead, Bellatrix Black - or Lestrange, rather - had made sure of that. Frank had been a few years older, but Alice had been a good friend, a kind friend... and Dorcas Meadowes too was dead, killed personally by the Dark Lord in 'seventy-nine, only nineteen years old. They'd found her severed head gruesomely placed on top of a decapitated snake. Marlene McKinnon, also dead, found horrifically tortured along with the rest of her family, both nuclear and extended... somebody had wanted the McKinnon name wiped off the face of the earth and they'd succeeded. That had happened the week before the Potters. Rumours swirled later that it had been another one of Sirius Black's betrayals... he and Marlene had been close, it was said that she had left him upon discovering his dark side... And then there was Remus Lupin, he too, the last of his original group of friends, just like her. Aurora had been in shock when Alicia had written to her in her fifth year to tell her who her new DADA professor was. She'd thought he'd never step foot back into England after leaving for the continent, this god-awful country where they'd seen all their friend die...
Alicia exchanged anxious glances with her father through the rear-view mirror, and he gave her an uncharacteristically sad smile.
"Mum -
"It was only when I was at home," said Aurora suddenly, cutting her off with a falsely bright smile. "I was quite good otherwise. Not a prefect, mind you - that was always... Lily's sort of thing - but you know. I was quite good, except when I came home. You know how your grandparents are! Impossible, absolutely impossible to get along with. Now Florrie on the other hand... well, I dunno. She hasn't really told me much about her family, but I gather they weren't all that accepting of her... magical status. Anyway, so she hung out with the bad sort - you know, potheads -
Her father snorted.
"And look at you know," he said teasingly, relieved by the lighter topic. "In love with a pothead -
"Alan! And anyway, you know it's different for girls. Actually, Skylar's rather like Florrie in that respect... I don't think I really remember her having any girl friends back in school. She always seemed to gravitate with... well... yes. Boys."
"Pothead boys?" Alicia supplied cheekily. "And how was she a Ravenclaw again?"
Her mother looked at her seriously, glancing over her shoulder.
"You don't smoke pot, do you, darling?" she asked.
"Mum," Alicia deadpanned, "You smoke all the time."
"That's different," she replied offhandedly, "I'm a grown up now. I didn't touch drugs until I met your father -
"Drugs, mum? As in plural? As in different types of drugs?"
Aurora flushed, the same chest-to-ear blush that Alicia had unfortunately inherited. Her father laughed.
"Ah, she's got you there, babe. Smart one, our Alicia, isn't she?"
"Don't encourage her, Alan! And it's different for adults. We're all grown. Our brains are fully developed -
"Did Florrie tell you that?" Alan asked.
"You two, I'm trying to be serious here!"
Alicia and Alan laughed, while Aurora crossed rolled her eyes petulantly.
"Oh alright, I give up."
"So," said Alicia after a moment of silence, "What drugs have you done, mum?"
"Alicia!"
Cassius tapped his foot impatiently as he watched the crowd on the platform thin out. Somehow it didn't surprise him that he and his housemates seemed to make up the last of the students awaiting their various relatives or caregivers, or in some cases, house elves.
Cassius stood off to the side by himself, as Montague and Pucey had gone their separate ways almost as soon as they'd stepped off the train. He didn't want to bother socializing with any his younger housemates, or the small handful of students from other houses.
Normally his father sent one of his aides to pick him up, but perhaps the overwhelming presence of Slytherins on the platform was significative of something larger at hand. Or maybe he was simply reading too deeply into things. Somehow he doubted it, though. Not if Weasley Sr. had been attacked in the Ministry of all places.
Finally, Twittle, who worked mostly at the London townhouse made an appearance by his side, and Cassius looked down at the little house elf, startled.
"Master says young master is to come with Twittle to London house. Mistress is not yet back at Big House."
So. His mother was still abroad. Big surprise there... She liked to brood in the Rosier estates, visiting each property one by one, following the sun and wallowing in her memories of better times amongst the portraits of her long-dead brothers and cousins. But the London house? Cassius shivered inwardly. The London house was his father's domain, because it was close to the firm, and because his mother hated the city. Cassius usually stayed at the Manor. In fact, he couldn't remember one time he'd actually stayed at the London House as opposed to visiting it for a day. But he was to go there now? Without even dropping his things off at the Manor?
When Twittle latched herself onto Cassius' arm and apparated them to his father's study, he knew then what was coming, and he felt a sense of foreboding rush through his veins.
"Cassius," said his father coolly, giving him an appraising glance.
So soon. He hadn't been expecting it so soon. Barely an hour ago, he'd been sprawled out in the Hogwarts Express, watching the scenery fly by. A day ago, he'd been at Hogwarts, in the safety of his four-poster bed, before he'd ever heard of the attack on Weasley Sr. at the ministry. And here he was now. In the London house. In his father's study. With his father.
"Sit."
Cassius sat and watched as his father poured a couple of glasses of Ogden's Old. He accepted one gratefully.
"I imagine you are wondering why I've summoned you here," said his father loftily, observing him as though he were some sort of strange specimen.
"Yes sir," Cassius replied dully.
"You are seventeen now -
"Eighteen," Cassius interrupted, though he knew he shouldn't have. His father's eyes narrowed.
"Don't take that tone with me, boy. Seventeen or eighteen, I couldn't care less. The point is you are of age now, and as the sole inheritor the the Warrington name and estates, you are also expected to take an active interest in the firm. I am not even going to ask you if you've considered schools for next year, because I imagine you are sufficiently intelligent enough to have already done so. You will, of course, send me a list of acceptances and we will pick the appropriate one when the time comes."
Wanker.
Cassius cursed inwardly at his stupidity, as his father's eyes flashed dangerously, and he fought to keep his mind blank as he felt his father pick apart his mind. He chanted fuck like a prayer as he kept his mind focused on the empty glass before him.
"Your cheek, Cassius," his father hissed, "Is unbecoming. I don't need to remind you again that you are an adult now. One more display like that and you will regret it. You are much too old for me to take over my knee for a hiding, but I assure you, there are other ways."
"Yes father," said Cassius blankly.
"And if you think for one second that you'll pass the Occlumency portion of the Bar exam with that poor tactic of yours, you can think again."
"Yes father."
Wanker.
His father didn't say anything this time, and Cassius smiled inwardly to himself. Passed.
"Now then. Onto other matters. You will come to work with me every day, and I expect you to learn as much as you can in the next three weeks. Now, I'm not going to gloss this over for you. There are certain things happening right now, that I know you are not oblivious to. I imagine you have by now heard about the Ministry incident last night. This year's gatherings will not be like the others, and you need to be prepared for that, especially as you are now of age."
Cassius stiffened inwardly, and his father stared at him with a distant, probing gaze.
"I cannot tell you what events will transpire in the next year, or even in the next month, but this is not Hogwarts, this is not one of your Quidditch games. You need to be very aware of whom you interact with, and how you interact with them, especially at the Debutante ball. People will be watching, as it is the only ball where we will be mingling with... all sorts, and they will judge you - judge us. Your mother and I haven't any pressing need for you to get married at this point - indeed, it is rather preferable at the moment if you held off any such thing until I tell you the time is righ - but that also means if or when the time comes, you will be asked to take the Mark, especially considering who your uncles were. You will politely decline. You will offer your services in monetary contributions, and you will contribute in whatever indirect manner possible, but that is all."
"So He's back," Cassius murmured, and his father gave him a blank look.
"He was never gone," his father replied, and Casisus felt a shiver crawl down his spine. His father's gaze suddenly hardened. "I had the choice to take the Mark but I did not. I saw your mother's family decimated, for nothing. For mudbloods. For muggles... entire families wiped out in the course of a decade, for nothing. The important thing is not whether or not there are mudbloods populating wizarding society. The important thing is not whether or not they need to be exterminated. It cannot be done. The important thing is whether or not, at the end of the day, there is a Warrington sitting behind this desk. Dying for an ideology is not how one keeps one's name alive. There will always be purebloods, just as there will always be mudbloods. The important thing is that you remain alive and that the Warrington name is kept on, and kept pure... what good is dying for a cause, if it just ensures the extermination of a line? This family has seen too much death. Too many purebloods have died already for what surmounts to a hopeless cause, too many names gone for good. You will not be another. I will not see the Warrington line die with you."
Cassius held back his anger, and nodded stiffly. I will not see the Warrington line die with you. His father didn't give a shit whether or not he died. His father gave a shit whether or not the name died. Cassius was almost tempted to be stupid and churlish, tempted to announce that he would take the Mark and that he would die for it, just to spite his father, but he didn't dare. His father looked at him through narrowed eyes for a moment, as though he'd read his mind, but the older man poured himself another glass of whiskey and leaned back in his chair. Safe.
"Now. As for your living arrangements for the next few weeks -
Cassius looked up sharply, and his father raised his eyebrow a fraction of an inch as though to say, paying attention now are we?
"I won't be going to the Manor?"
"Too far. I want you at work with me every morning by six-thirty -
"Can't I floo? or apparate?"
His father glared at him.
"Do not interrupt me when I am speaking, you are hardly a child anymore. And don't be ridiculous. Apparition indeed... what do they teach you at that school these days? You'll have walked for a day before you reach any part of that property unguarded by anti-apparation wards. And as for the Floo... filthy mudblood invention. I hardly think it appropriate for you to come shooting out of a fireplace in the middle of a law firm, covered in soot. Do you?"
"No sir," Cassius muttered sullenly.
His father sneered at him.
"No, I didn't think so."
"... and where will I be staying then?"
His father took another sip of whiskey.
"The Berkley House."
...
It was the same as he remembered it, the same crooked Victorian that seemed perched on an impossible angle, and yet still somehow towering and overbearing. He followed his father up the stairs and to the front door, feeling terribly small, as small as the first - and last - time he'd been here. He froze as his gaze fell across the terribly sad, worn out looking statue of an angel that stood on guard before the door.
"Donne moi ta main!" (Give me your hand!)
Cassius tried to keep a brave face as he held out his hand to his mother, who'd pulled a small dagger out of her purse.
"Pas un bruit," (Not a sound) she hissed gravely, clenching his arm painfully tightly.
He held his breath as she took the dagger and drew it across his palm. He sucked in sharply as the pain hit, and whimpered when he felt the cool wind brush against his hand. Blood dripped from his hand, down his wrist and onto his shirtsleeve. The red on white was a startling contrast.
"Pas un bruit, j'ai dit. Viens ici." (Not a sound, I said. Come here). She dragged him by the bleeding hand to the statue of an angel that stood before the dark green door. He stared up at it, horrified by its blank expression and its starkness. It was taller than he was, and its dead eyes bore into his own like a haughty creature. "Attention à ma robe," (Be careful of my dress) his mother snapped, as she lifted him off the ground, holding him at a distance in front of her so that his blood would not stain her dress. His mother had told him several times what he would have to do, yet staring into the dead whites of the horrible marble angel's eyes, he couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding at the thought of touching it's frozen white hand, outstretched in a terrifyingly welcome gesture.
"Mais qu'est-ce qui te prend?" (What's wrong with you?) his mother exclaimed, gripping him tighter to urge him on.
Cassius took a deep shuddering breath and reached out to touch the angel's hand. He clasped his fingers between it's cool marble ones, just as his mother had instructed him. He nearly screamed when it grasped back, but he held his tongue when his mother's grip around his waist became nearly death-inducing, and he stared in fear as blood suddenly trickled out of the angel's marble eyes. He let out a gasp of relief when the marble hand released him, and his mother dropped him unceremoniously onto his feet. The angel suddenly launched up into the air, and perched itself at the top of the house, not unlike some awful gargoyle. Cassius could still see the red stains on its cheeks. Blood. His blood.
His mother blasted the door apart with the flick of her wand, and dragged him in.
Cassius stood and stared down at statue that had haunted his dreams as a child, and glanced at his father, half expecting him to draw out a dagger. But instead, he simply clasped the angel's hand, and the statue flew up and perched itself on top of the house, just as Cassius had remembered.
He stared blankly up at the statue.
"There's no blood."
His father glanced back at him, expression unreadable.
"Only needs to be done the first time. The house knows you now."
"Why couldn't -
"She isn't blood. The house doesn't recognize non-relatives or non-occupiers. They have to be invited in, or else get a Warrington to bypass the angel."
Cassius nodded. Of course... made sense. Couldn't have wives running about hunting down their husbands' mistresses, after all... Or ex-wives, in the case of the Notts...
His father stepped aside, and Cassius looked up at him. The older man gave him a barely perceptible nod.
"It's yours now."
I don't want it.
He pulled his wand out reluctantly.
"Alohomora."
The door swung open.
It was a richly decorated house, full of warm tapestries and rugs, and landscape portraits that lined the walls. The house smelled lovely, like tea and spiced cakes, and Cassius couldn't help but feel sorry as his blood dripped from his hand onto the obviously expensive rug beneath his feet. Had this been the Manor, his mother would have thrown a fit.
They passed portraits of beautiful women, each as varied as a pack of Bertie Botts', on their way up the steep set of stairs, and his mother spat in disgust as she dragged him past them, snarling insults at them until the air was filled with the voices of half a dozen irate, shrieking women. At the top of the stairs, Cassius' mother approached the last portrait, and held her still bloody dagger up to its occupant. The dark-skinned beauty stared at her in shock.
"Where are they, and don't you dare lie to me you filthy slut or I'll cut you out and burn your frame, do you understand?"
"Last room on the left!" the portrait squeaked.
Cassius tried not to cry out when his mother grabbed him by his injured hand and dragged him down the corridor, screaming bloody murder.
"Edmund, you sonofabitch!"
Cassius stared in shock at the sight of his father on all fours, dressed in nothing but his underpants, and scrambling to throw on the rest of his clothes. Behind him, half hidden under the luscious burgundy bed covers, a pretty woman with cascading auburn curls stared back at them in horror.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Céleste -
"Shut up, Edmund, just shut the fuck up. Sale espèce de con, comment oses-tu? Six heures, tu m'entends? Six putain d'heures, on te cherche, salaud, ca fait six putain d'heures que ta fille est morte dans un lit d'hôpital, sans son père parce qu'il était trop occupé avec sa pute! How could you, how fucking dare you - and with this, this fucking half-blood Hufflepuff cock-sucking, gold-digging bitch - I'll kill you Edmund, I'll fucking kill you and your whore -
(Filthy douchebag, how dare you? Six hours, do you hear me? Six fucking hours, we've been looking for you, you bastard, six hours your daughter's been dead in some hospital bed, without her father because he was too busy with his whore!)
It had been a richly decorated house, but was now full of moulding tapestries and moth-eaten rugs, and barely-visible landscape portraits that lined the walls underneath a thick layer of dust . Cassius looked back at the footprints he'd left in the dust. He stared at an odd dark-looking splotch on the rug, made visible by one of his father's wider footsteps, and he brought his hand to his face for a close inspection.
And there it was.
A thin scar looked back at him, barely visible, camouflaged amongst the lines on his palm so that it was hard to tell where any one stopped and another began... the same thin scar had puzzled Professor Trewlaney on the first and last day Cassius had taken Divination back in third year, before dropping it for Arithmancy. The crazy old bad had hemmed and hawed over it, before announcing that he was to be the slave of destiny, that he would have to surrender his own interests for the sake of others. He and his housemates had laughed, while the others in the class had scoffed. A self-sacrificing Slytherin indeed...
Verdict?
PS
Check out my other story, Fighter, if you guys want a bit of a spoiler... HINT: has to do with Florrie, Skylar and Cassius (to some extent).