Disclaimer: Yeah, HP isn't mine. Unfortunately, it belongs to the world's richest victim (if you believe her).

Cassiopeia

By Kylia

Chapter 2

April 25th, 2003

Malfoy Manor

Ducking under a swing from her opponent, Cassiopeia thrust out her blade, connecting with their leg, the sword clanging against the armor, and the spells on the training room marked her a point as she rolled to the side and jumped up in time to avoid a slash right where she'd been before.

I need to make this thing better at fighting. Make it a real challenge.

Cassiopeia had always been planning to dig this suit of armor out of storage in one of the Manor's vaults when she came back to England, but it was proving to be quite disappointing, its swings predictable and it's footwork pathetic. Thrusting out, she hit its hand, spun and then it's wrist, a blow that could have slice right through the bone under other circumstances. The training room acknowledged that, and the suit of armor 'lost' it's hand, as the hand holding it's blade stopped working, leaving it defenseless save trying to dodge - but being as predictable as it was, it was a matter of shortwork for Cassiopeia to drive her sword, point first, against the armor's chest, 'stabbing' it, and the armor stopped moving entirely, defeated.

Cassiopeia pulled back, breathing heavily, looking down at her arms, the light sheen of sweat on them. Her whole body was heated too.

"Well, maybe it was a bit more effort to beat that than I thought," she murmured, walking to the wall and leaning the sword against it. This too, she'd had to take out of a vault, though not the same one as the suit of armor.

She grabbed the goblet of iced pumpkin juice on the small table by the door and took a small sip, letting the cool liquid wash over her tongue.

"Are you done with the brute violence then, Cassiopeia?" Her mother asked. Cassiopeia looked up at her mother, standing in the doorway, arms crossed in front of her. As she almost always did, her mother looked flawless - perfectly composed, no signs of the grieving and mourning, the tears. Her makeup and her iron control of her emotions - always the best of the family, even more so than Father's...

Well, Narcissa Malfoy was known as a Cold Beauty and an Ice Queen for a reason, even in Wizarding America.

"Not especially," Cassiopeia said, unable to remove the bite from her tone. "Not when it isn't working.: Her frustrations were not even remotely worked out or lessened. Perhaps, given the nature of them, it shouldn't be surprising, but still. She sipped at her juice again, looking at her mother. "Sorry," she murmured. "I'm just..."

She closed her eyes and inhaled. "I'm just still having trouble believing it." She looked down at the ground.

"And hitting a suit of armor is going to help?" Her mother asked, in a softer tone. "Is that what you've been doing in America?" She chuckled softly, approaching her daughter.

"Usually it works out whatever I'm frustrated about." Cassiopeia murmured. "At least a little. Or at least exhausts me, if I go at it long enough." She looked away, "but nothing changes that Father is dead." She had cried her tears for her father when she got the news. She might cry again, at the funeral, or at some remembrance of her father. She hoped not.

Cassiopeia knew many others thought of herself and her family as cold, emotionless... uncaring. But being reserved was in her nature, ultimately. Especially since the war. It was taught at a young age to all Malfoys, and her mother had the same habits.

Father wouldn't be angry at me for crying at his death, but he would prefer that I uphold being a proper Malfoy. And Cassiopeia would prefer it to. She'd prefer to remember her father that way, than with tears and open grief.

"No... nothing changes that," her mother murmured in turn. She wrapped her arms around Cassiopeia's shoulders, pulling her in for a momentary hug, pulling back and looking at her face for a long moment, pulling back. "I wish something did. But somehow..." she blinked a few times, eyes glistening a moment as she paused to take a breath. "We'll have to manage without him."

Cassiopeia nodded, stepping away, looking to the window. "I hated him so much, that first year. Or at least... I was so angry at him." She'd left England without even saying goodbye to her father, only speaking to him at a visit to Azkaban a year later at the urging of her mother, and beginning a genuine correspondence. But the visit she'd been planning for a few weeks from now would have been the first time she'd be actually seeing her father when he wasn't behind bars.

So much for that.

"I don't think it's really made it through my head. When I went down to the vaults ,I kept expecting to hear him behind me, asking what I was doing." She turned to face her mother. "Merlin, what am I saying you-"

"It's no easier for me,Cassiopeia... it won't be for some time, I've no doubt. I've walked by his study three times today, expecting to hear him there, working." She admitted, shoulders slumping a little.

"I'm sorry, mother." Cassiopeia walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, saying nothing more. She didn't need to say more, and her mother didn't need to hear more. After a few moments, Cassiopeia removed her hand and inhaled sharply. "How much longer until the Ministry allows us to announce his death?" She asked. "Or for that matter, until I can tell Blaise, Theo and Pansy about it?" Her three closest friends in Wizarding England - though in the case of Blaise, that perhaps said more about her limited social circle in this country, given the rivalrous nature of their relationship.

"Soon, hopefully. Your father may have left extensive instructions in his will regarding property, disbursements, legal matters, but... typical of him, he didn't leave any real instructions on his funeral." She shook her head.

"And I'm sure your will has your funeral planned to the smallest detail," Cassiopeia smiled slightly. Her mother's events and parties had once been the most sought after events in Wizarding England, and she'd always been a meticulous planner when it came to them. And while they were less popular in recent years, she'd still held as many, working to repair the family's tattered reputation, maintaining the social circles, expanding them where she could.

"Of course. I wouldn't think to let your father - or Merlin forbid, you - plan something that important," Narcissa allowed herself a soft laugh. There was no heat in her tone. "I shudder to think what will happen if your future wife is as disinterested in event planning and parties as you are. If you had your way, you'd never have attended a single Christmas Gala."

"Well, that's why they have event planners." Cassiopeia suggested, smiling even more at the aghast look on her mother's face - well, slightly widened eyes and the mild frown that she knew from experience was 'aghast' for Narcissa Malfoy.

"An event planner? For a Malfoy event? Even your father wouldn't be -" she started, then caught herself, blinking several times quickly as she went on, as if not missing a beat "wouldn't have been so gauche."

"Of course he wouldn't have," Cassiopeia agreed. "But he had you. And he was interested in playing the social and political games one plays at those sorts of things." Cassiopeia, on the other hand...

Well, it wasn't as if she didn't have ambitions to help continue her mother's efforts to continue to rehabilitate the family name and preserve and grow the family fortune with shrewd investments and the like, but politics held no attraction for her. It might not be the contact sport You Know Who had turned it into anymore, but the War had left Cassiopeia utterly disinterested in trying to change or direct Wizarding Society, in any direction. Wizarding England could survive without the Most Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy pulling strings and paying bribes behind the scenes for a generation or two.

Her mother looked at her, probably pondering to make the case that Cassiopeia shouldn't continue to be so resolved to abandon the game of influence and politics, but obviously, she decided against it.

Instead, she changed topic entirely, looking at the sword Cassiopeia had momentarily set aside, then blinked. "Is that the family crest on the base of the blade?"

"It is," Cassiopeia walked over to the blade and picked it up, flipping the blade with ease in her grip to hold it out, hilt first towards her mother so she could see the black and green crest, the stylized dragons on the side and the equally stylized M in the center. It even had the family motto - Sanctimonia Vincet Semper - engraved into the base in miniscule writing.

Not that 'Purity always conquers' was really a correct statement, or one she really wanted on the sword, family motto or not.

Cassiopeia was considering getting that part removed, though finding someone skilled enough that she them she trusted with the Malfoy Sword was going to more difficult, as swords had fallen out of favor in Wizarding England centuries ago.

"The Malfoy Sword, weilded by Armand Malfoy when he came over with William the Conqueror," Cassiopeia explained. "The last Malfoy to touch it or hold it before me was Julius, my great-grandfather." By that point, of course, Julius Malfoy was seen as a bit... eccentric for his fondness for swords. But no one actually said it to his face, of course.

"Lucius never mentioned it," her mother said, touching the blade for a moment. "Though I suppose I'm not surprised he didn't. Swords weren't exactly of interest to him."

"As you say, too much brute violence. Though I disagree. There is an elegance to the blade. Every respectable wizard and most witches used to be quite familiar with them, before the Statute of Secrecy."

"I see," Narcissa let Cassiopeia pull the sword back. "Do you have specific intentions with it?"

Run through whoever killed Father. Cassiopeia kept that thought to herself, though. As appealing as private justice for her father was on a very basic, visceral level, it was an impulse she had no desire to act on.

"Not particularly. I've considered attempting to sponsor swordplay as a competitive passtime, bring it back, as it is among many in America." Which was where she'd picked it up in the first place. Wizarding America had picked up swordplay again a few decades ago, and it had spread like wildfire among the elites and the common wizard and witch alike as a sport - competitions and contests of skill were quite common.

Before she could say anything else, there was a small popping sound as one of the manor's house elves - Nipsy - arrived into the room.

"Nipsy is begging pardon to be interrupting Mistress Narcissa and Misstress Cassiopeia, but there is a Witch from the Ministry at the gate, requesting entry."

The investigator, no doubt.

"She confirmed her credentials for you?" Nipsy nodded, "Well then, let her in. Send her to the drawing room, and tell her we will be there shortly," her mother instructed. "And bring tea for three."

"Of course," Nipsy bowed and disappeared again. Cassiopeia looked down at herself - she was wearing a thin shirt and pants, fine for training, but not exactly suited for speaking with visitors, even if they were just here to speak about her father's murder.

Appearances must be maintained.

"Odd. Investigator Macmillan was the one who first... informed me of Lucius's death and called me to the Ministry to... to identify him." The pause there was almost unnoticeable, and Cassiopeia only heard it because she knew her mother so well. "I suppose the case was handed over to someone else, or perhaps more than one person has been assigned to it." she mused, dismissing the questions inherent with a casual flick of her wrist.

"I'll meet you both in the drawing room then," Cassiopeia nodded, finishing her pumpkin juice and setting it on the table, leaving it for one of the house elves to fetch later. She departed, making her way for the East Wing and her chambers.

A few cleaning charms did away with the sweat from her sparring session with the armor, and after stripping off her clothing, she quickly settled on a dark green blouse, and a black skirt, as well as heeled shoes, though only a small one in this case.

Cassiopeia looked herself over in the mirror, smiling.

She'd never realized how truly uncomfortable she'd felt in the clothing she'd worn growing up until she finally had had something to contrast it to, when she'd begun to have an inkling that she might just be Cybelean.

If not for the War and everything that came with it, I might have realized much sooner. The return of You Know Who, the breakout from Azkaban and a whole host of Death Eaters moving into the manner had put quite the crimp on any opportunity for self-realizations like that.

Spending too much time imagining what the last three years of her schooling would have been like had there been no Second Wizarding War was a path Cassiopeia didn't like to spend too much time wandering down, so after deeming her change of clothing suitable, she made her way to the drawing room, arriving to her mother already there, and the witch from the Ministry... not.

"Where is she?" Cassiopeia looked around.

"Here," a very familiar voice - one she'd heard for the first time in years just hours ago - said from the doorway. Cassiopeia stiffened as she turned to look at Hermione Granger - the witch, wearing ministry robes, and with a portfolio of papers and documents tuckedunder one arm, looked much the same as she had at Hogwarts, albeit older. Her hair seemed just as difficult to tame as it always had. Though, now that she had a chance to look the other woman over in more detail, it seemed Granger had managed to grow into making it work for her in ways she hadn't before.

"Miss Granger," her mother said, "I didn't realize you had been assigned to my husband's case."

"I have been," Granger nodded.

"Perhaps we could move this to the lounge instead, Mother, Granger?" Cassiopeia quickly interjected. The Drawing Room may have looked nothing like it had five years ago, but it was still the room where Granger had been tortured by her Aunt.

Even as she thought of that moment, the memories of it, burned into her brain, flashed through the forefront of her mind, and it was only though long practice at controlling her expression she didn't react to them physically.

Granger, on the hand, was quite stiff, and looking a touch pale, her free hand balled into a tight fist that she seemed to force by will alone to open when she realized it was closed into a fist.

"A capital idea," her mother agreed quickly. Nipsy arrived, hovering a tea tray with cups, a pot and biscuits in front of her.

"Apologies, Nipsy," Cassiopeia said to the house elf, noticing Granger's expression of confusion and surprise as she apologized . "We've decided to move things to the lounge. If you could -"

"Of course Mistress Cassiopeia," Nipsy popped away with the tray, and Cassiopeia looked to Granger. "This way," she said walking towards the doorway Granger was standing in. Her former schoolmate stepped aside, and they went down the hall and into the lounge, quite a bit smaller than the drawing room, though still, like every room in the manor, spacious and well-appointed. Nipsy was there, landing the tray gently on the low, long table between the chairs.

"Thank you Nipsy," Cassiopeia nodded. "We'll call if we need anything." Nipsy bowed and vanished, and Cassiopeia took a seat in one of the chairs, gesturing for Granger to sit on the couch, as her mother arrived and sat in another of the chairs.

"My apologies for that, Miss Granger," her mother said softly. "As I said, I had no idea it would be you coming."

"That's quite alright, Mrs. Malfoy," Granger assured her. Unsurprisingly, the brunette had looked with some discomfort at Nipsy delivering the tea tray. I suppose she's still not over her 'House Elves are slaves' crusade. When she'd heard about 'S.P.E.W.' while at Hogwarts, Cassiopeia and her friends had had quite a laugh at the absurdity of it all.

"Let me first say that I am sorry for your loss," Granger told them both, sounding surprisingly sincere. "I can't promise you that I'll find Lucius Malfoy's killer, nor that I will find them quickly," she added. "I wish I could, but I try not to make promises that I might not be able to keep."

Her mother inhaled, then, with a wave of her wand, poured a cup of tea and floated cup and saucer overto herself, taking a careful sip of the tea.

"I appreciate your honesty," her mother said after a moment. "Perhaps, to start, you could tell me how my husband was killed. Investigator Macmillan was quite vague on the details of how exactly he.." she paused another moment, quite uncharacteristic, and then, "bleed so much. I saw no signs of any cutting spell I'm familiar with."

Cassiopeia watched Granger's expression, the other witch grimacing a moment, squirming a touch in her seat.

"I imagine Investigator Macmillan was vague for several reasons," Granger said, clearly choosing her words carefully. "He wasn't killed by any spell, nor by a means that many wizards or witches would be familiar with." She poured herself a cup of tea, though without using magic, and took a small sip, making a small noise of appreciation at the well-brew drink, before continuing.

"He was shot with a gun," Granger said after a moment.

Gun. Something about the word rattled around in Cassiopeia's mind, but she couldn't place it. It was familiar sounding, but...

"I'm afraid, Miss Granger, that that doesn't particularly enlighten me," her mother spoke first.

"I imagined that would be the case... Director Fleetwood has asked me to keep this close to the chest, but you two deserve to know the details." Granger said after a moment. "A gun is a muggle weapon."

A muggle weapon? A muggle killed - no, impossible, he died in Horizon Square. Cassiopeia's mind raced at the idea. Muggles couldn't enter Diagon Alley or anything connected to it outside of the company of a wizard or witch.

"How -how exactly - how would that be possible? Father had his wand, and he could have raised a shield charm against anything so mundane-" Cassiopiea said quickly, trying not to sneer at the idea of a muggle weapon hurting her father. It seemed so impossible.

"Well, it's very likely he had no idea what it was," Granger pointed out. She opened the portfolio and pulled out a photograph, handing it to Cassiopeia. It was of a muggle, standing in profile to the camera, raising up some sort of metal device, a rectangle with handles and bits coming out of it, and then doing something with it -

The image flashed as light and some sort of blurring motion and what looked almost like flames could be seen at one end of the device.

"A gun, put simply, is a weapon that propels a small piece of metal very, very quickly - sometimes over two thousand feet per second - and into a target. They can be... quite deadly, moving at such speeds." Granger explained.

Two thousand- Cassiopeia tried to think about that. She certainly understood that the faster something moved, the more force behind the impact - you couldn't play Quidditch and not understand that. She looked at the picture again, trying to understand how something so... odd looking could do that.

Her mother blinked, staring at Granger. "That simply cannot be, Miss Granger. No muggle would be capable of moving anything so quickly from something so small." Cassiopeia could hear the knee-jerk rejection of the idea inherent in her mothers voice, and it was mirroring the one she was feeling herself. But she hadn't vocalized it for the simple fact that she doubted Granger would have lied or been mistaken about how such a device worked.

Merlin, she could have seen these devices at work growing up in the muggle world.

"It's very possible, Mrs. Malfoy." Granger replied calmly. "Even when the Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1692, muggles had guns, though they were significantly more primitive." She took the photograph back and put it back in the portfolio. "Without spending too much time explaining the science behind it, guns use certain chemicals,which, when combined, explode with great force, propelling the bullet from the gun at high speeds. It is not magic, simply chemical reactions. Like a potion."

"The Ministry likes to keep the existence and deadliness of guns under wraps, even those who are aware of them, which many are not. I'm going to have to ask you keep the nature of Lucius Malfoy's death quiet, for the time being."

Cassiopeia didn't have to think long to understand the Ministry's logic. Even a poorly trained duelist could have taken on a dozen muggles without much risk when the Statue of Secrecy had been passed. But there were many more than a dozen muggles per witch or wizard. And that disparity had only grown, she knew that just by any pass through any part of a Muggle city for even the briefest of moments.

And centuries ago, it had been torches, pitchforks, swords, axes... and apparently these 'more primitive' guns Cassiopeia had never heard of.

Despite herself, Cassiopeia felt her chest tight, a sudden, instinctive fear gripping at her, as she realized what this meant, how outnumbered they were, against muggles with the weapons that worked as Granger said.

The Statute of Secrecy is needed even more now...

Never before in her life had Cassiopeia been so thankful for the Obliviators.

She could imagine the panic that might spread...

And how some people might start to wonder if You Know Who might have had the right idea.

"I won't tell anyone else," Cassiopeia confirmed after a moment to take a breath. "I have to ask... if my father was killed by a muggle weapon, does that mean you believe-"

"That a muggleborn killed him?" Hermione interrupted. "While I have no evidence to support that theory or any other, it seems the most likely answer, especially given..." Granger trailed off, obviously hesitating to say it.

"Especially given how many muggleborns have every reason to hate him and wish him dead," Cassiopeia finished. "You can say it, Granger. He was my father, but many hated him... and with reason." She hated to say that, but it was undeniably true.

Finally, her mother managed to find her voice again, and she spoke, "Given that, it seems to me that the faster you proceed, the faster you'll be able to narrow down the list of suspects," she said stiffly, formally. "Ask what questions you came to ask."

"Of course, Mrs. Malfoy. I suppose the first thing I'd like to ask is if you, your family, or your husband received any death threats recently?" Granger asked softly.