Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

6. Visitors — II

Violet did its best to hide how scared it was, but it didn't know if it was doing a very good job.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (mostly Vernon) had told it about shrinks before. That if Harry didn't shape up and do what it was told, didn't get good enough at pretending to be normal that people didn't notice, they might have to give up and send it to an institution. It didn't really know what that was, but as far as it could tell, kind of like an orphanage but even worse? As sad and hard as orphanages sounded, they weren't gonna strap you onto the bed when you misbehaved, or pound picks into your skull to cut out bits of brain, or shock you with electricity, or just gave you pills that made you quiet and unbothersome. It was scary, one of the scarier things they brought up sometimes — and double scary because Violet probably couldn't stop changing by accident with all that, and then it'd be in extra trouble — it was worth it to try to behave just in case.

The just in case was because it wasn't...completely sure these places were real? It knew orphanages were — kids that didn't have any parents had to go somewhere — but this institution they talked about sounded like...too much. Like, normal people would have a problem with treating people like that, so it couldn't be real, and Petunia and Vernon were making it up to scare her. But then, Violet also knew that normal people didn't like freaks and mad people much, so maybe they were okay with it, as long as it wasn't done to normal people. Harry wasn't sure, so it tried to behave, just in case it was all real.

Cassie didn't talk about that kind of thing at all...but she was bringing Violet to see a shrink. Which, Violet thought that was the first step to being sent to one of these institution places. And it was scary.

Even if the place didn't look scary. It looked like a normal doctor's office place, like the ones Petunia brought Dudley to sometimes — Harry was often brought with, because it couldn't be left alone or it might do freakish things, but it never saw a doctor itself, except that one time to get shots so it was allowed to go to school, which wasn't fun — but it was more colourful than those, not so white and clean, with posters and drawings done by kids on the walls, and there was a bin with a bunch of Legos in it under that table there. There were a couple of kids playing with them, brought with one or another of the non-magic ladies in here (because this wasn't a magic place), Cassie said it could go join them if it wanted, but...

It just sat in its chair, waiting, trying not to look scared. It didn't think it was doing a very good job.

Violet didn't know how long they sat here, waiting. It was probably not very long, but it felt like forever, Violet trying to breathe and not freak out, wondering what it did wrong. It didn't even notice the shrink showing up until Cassie tapped its arm to get its attention — it twitched in surprise, but forced itself to relax. ("Quit that fidgeting and sit still, or—") The lady walking up to them didn't look like a shrink, or how Violet imagined one to be, an old balding man with labcoats and clipboards like on the tele, but younger with curly blonde hair (darker than Cassie's), dressed all warm and cosey, leggings under a knit skirt and a fuzzy jumper. And she was smiling all nice, not really wide and forced but calmer and warmer, looked like a nice lady, like the not-mean teachers at school or some of the mums or grandmums in Little Whinging that hadn't heard the stories about Harry.

The lady not really looking like what Violet expected was confusing, but didn't really stop it from being scared.

Cassie said hi to the lady quick, and then the lady said hi to Violet. Her name was Shannon Spencer, but it could call her Shannon. They were going to go back and talk in Shannon's office for a while, and Cassie was going to sit here and wait for them to come back. When Shannon started walking away, Violet glanced up at Cassie, hoping she would give some sign of what was going on, what they were here for (what Violet did wrong), but Cassie was already moving to sit down again, giving Violet a wary-looking smile and nod. So Violet turned to follow Shannon, sticking its hands in the pockets of its jumper so nobody could see its fingers shaking.

Shannon led the way out of the waiting room and down a hall, talking about something and pointing at the pictures on the wall, but Violet wasn't really listening. It was thinking about Cassie, and what it was doing here. Petunia and Vernon never brought it to a shrink, and they'd always thought Harry was a freak, but it thought Cassie didn't, and... It didn't think it'd done anything wrong? It couldn't think of anything, Cassie never even asked it to do much. Violet couldn't remember Cassie being angry with it or... A little impatient, sometimes, but even that she never said anything about, never yelled at Violet once, and...

Violet wished Cassie had told it what it'd done wrong, so then it could have fixed it, and then Violet wouldn't be here right now.

It was distracted from its scared thoughts when it got to Shannon's office. True, Violet didn't know much, hadn't really seen doctors before, but it didn't look anything like what Violet expected. Just...kind of a normal room, really. There was a desk over there, with a few chairs around it and a bunch of bookshelves, and over there some furniture, sofas and armchairs, with a table between them and more bookshelves... The curtains were drawn, but the lights were warm, and it was big enough inside it didn't feel cramped, and it was just kind of cosy-looking, really. Violet froze at the door for a few seconds, looking around, confused.

It was startled a little when Shannon spoke. "Go ahead and sit down wherever you like, Violet."

...Okay. Violet stepped into the room, cautiously, looking around. It didn't want to sit at the desk, with the chair for Shannon on the other side, that felt kind of...no. It slowly padded over to the other side of the room, looking around — it noticed there was another tub of Legos under this table, and there were things set out on top, a checkerboard, the pieces ready to begin a game, puzzle pieces scattered around one part, a box nearby showing it was a beach somewhere, palm trees hanging over waves spilling onto bright sand, over here a few sheets of paper and boxes of pastels and coloured pencils.

What were those sitting out for? That was just making it even more confused...

Violet didn't know what Shannon wanted from it, it didn't know if Shannon would try to sit right next to it, but it went to one of the armchairs just in case. It wasn't super high up, low enough Violet didn't have to climb up, but it was deep enough that to sit against the back right its knees didn't reach the edge, leaving its feet dangling kind of awkward. (Sometimes being a little kid was kind of annoying like that.) Shannon didn't say anything about it taking the chair, so maybe she wouldn't have tried to sit next to it, herself taking a spot on the sofa.

Shannon shifted in her seat for a second, settling her skirt — Violet noticed that she didn't have a clipboard before, when she met them out in the waiting room, but there was one now, set down on one of the cushions next to her. "All right, then. Did Cassie tell you why you're seeing me today?"

Violet opened its mouth to answer, but it could feel its voice wasn't going to work. That was something that happened sometimes, when it was nervous. Violet could push past it, if it really had to, if not talking would just get it in more trouble — it wasn't supposed to speak unless spoken to, but if it was asked a question god help it if it didn't answer — but it was hard, and sometimes it was easier to just not bother. Violet didn't think not answering out loud was going to get it in more trouble this time, so it didn't bother, just shook its head instead. Cassie had said something about getting help with something because mages were bad at things, it hadn't made a lot of sense.

Her smile turning a little crooked, Shannon said, "That was thoughtless of her, she really should have." And then Shannon explained a little bit, talking about cuts and plasters and scars, and going through bad things could give people brain hurts, which, talking through them with someone can help them work them out so they heal right, or at least make the scars less bad so they can work around them and be healthy, it was a whole thing people did, that lots of people needed this kind of help and there was nothing wrong with it, and helping people with that was Shannon's job and Violet was here so it could talk to her.

Was the basic idea, but Violet didn't really hear a lot of it. The words were going on, burbling around its ears, really only half of the meaning getting through. Violet was too busy feeling very relieved, enough it felt itself sink into the back of the chair, because it understood the important part: it wasn't in trouble, it wasn't being sent to an institution, Cassie had brought it here to help it...somehow. It didn't really get that part, how talking to Shannon was supposed to help it with...something, it didn't know. Maybe it had done something wrong, but whatever it was, it wasn't bad enough to punish Violet for it, just get a special brain doctor person to try to help it be better about whatever it was. So. Good, that was good.

It kind of felt guilty for thinking the worse of Cassie, when she was only trying to help, ungrateful, it tried not to think about that too much, because it was supposed to be listening to Shannon.

"But we're not going to worry about that too much just now," Shannon was saying. "You don't have to talk about anything you're not comfortable with. We're just going to get to know each other a little today. If there's something you want to talk about, I'll listen, but if not then that's okay too, and we'll just hang out today. Okay?"

"Okay." It was weird, wasn't sure what good just hanging out being awkward was supposed to do, but Violet wasn't the special brain doctor person. It hesitated for a second, but managed to ask, "So I'm not being sent away?" just to be sure.

"Oh no, Violet, no. Once we're done here, at the end of the hour, I'll take you back to the waiting room, and you'll go home with Cassie. Did you think you were being taken away somewhere?"

Guilt squirming in its stomach, Violet shrugged. "I was told about shrinks, and institutions."

"Well, then it sounds like whoever told you about these things has very funny ideas about what we do. Sometimes people do need to be institutionalised, yes, but it's very rare, only done when we're worried the person might not be safe on their own, and even then only until they're safe again. You're not being sent anywhere, I promise. Okay?"

"...Oh. Okay." Violet didn't know how to feel about that. Other than that it sounded like Vernon might be wrong about what institutions were for — he said the point was to get madmen and freaks away from good ordinary people, where they wouldn't bother anyone, but Shannon talked about them like the point was to help the people there get better. Or maybe Shannon was lying...

"Okay. Did you have any other questions for me?"

Violet shook its head. None that it could figure out how to ask, anyway.

"Good. If you think of any, please go ahead and ask." Violet wasn't looking straight at her, but at the edges of its sight it could see Shannon look away, down toward the table. Her hand stretched out, picked up one of the puzzle pieces, and stuck it to another one. Okay... "Cassie told me you moved house recently."

...That was one to say it, Violet guessed. Its throat still felt tight, so it just nodded instead of forcing itself to talk.

"Why don't you tell me about the new place." It was worded like a question, but it wasn't really.

"What about it?"

"Oh, I don't know." Shannon reached out again, connected another couple puzzle pieces. "What it looks like, what all you have there, what the neighbourhood is like, your room. Whatever comes to mind. I can talk about my home first, if you like."

"...Okay." At least that would make it clearer what she wanted Violet to say. "Can I... The table is down there, and if I wanna— Is it okay if I take my shoes off?"

"Of course, Violet, do whatever makes you comfortable."

Violet kneeled on the floor, sitting back on its heels (which was why it needed to take its shoes off first), and started to draw with the coloured pencils. Mostly just to have something to do with its hands. Shannon talked about the little rowhouse where she lived with her son — she had a kid but not a husband, which Violet knew Petunia would call her bad names for (though it didn't know why, just one of those things) — and kept gently nudging Violet to talk about home, which, that was fine, it wasn't like it was going to get in trouble talking about that. Violet got a little tingle of nervousness, talking to a stranger about things at home (it wasn't supposed to tell people about things at home), but that was the Dursleys, things were different with Aunt Cassie.

Besides, Violet might just be a little kid, but it wasn't stupid — when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia told it not to tell people about what happened at home, it knew they only meant certain things. Those things didn't happen with Cassie, so it was fine.

The house was still kinda weird sometimes, like with the magic cabinets and the inside being turned around and the bathroom, but it was also really neat, and it had its own room, with a window! It liked having a window. It felt less closed in, and when it woke up at night sometimes the stars were pretty. If the clouds weren't in the way, that is...

Shannon asked about the bathroom even after Violet moved on, if it was okay with that. And, yeah, it was different, even if the room was really pretty, having baths with Cassie was just very awkward...the first time, anyway, it didn't really bother Violet anymore. Well, at first, the taking its clothes off part still made it nervous, but then when nothing happened it was fine. Shannon just hummed and nodded, connecting another couple puzzle pieces, and changed the subject.

And, that was it, they just talked the whole time, mostly about the house and the neighbours and whatever, nothing really important. Violet stopped being nervous (at least mostly) before too long, but it still didn't know why it was here. So, confused, but it wasn't like this was hard, so fine. It just kept drawing flowers and stuff, answering Shannon's questions as they came up, and tried not to think too hard about what the point of coming here was, and if it was doing it right.

Glancing up at Shannon as she talked every once in a while, Violet noticed those two pieces were supposed to go together, reached over and connected them, click. Violet smiled — it did like it when things came together right.

Sketching in the lines for a low brick wall behind the plants, like the one around the garden back home, Violet wondered if Cassie would let it do stuff with their garden when spring came around. There was stuff there now, but it was just bushes and grass and a couple trees at the corners and stuff, and none of them flowered at all — at least, it thought the bushes didn't grow flowers, just normal boring shrubs. They should put more interesting stuff in there, at least.

Shannon asked if it liked gardening, which...kind of? It'd done that back with the Dursleys, and, there were good things and bad things. It didn't like weeding, and not just because it was hard, it also thought Petunia just wanted too much of it? Like, she would have her pretty plants, in neat little rows, but then the dirt would be showing between and under them, and just plain dirt was boring. Violet thought it should have more colour than that — and also, go out into the woods and you'll see things grow in layers, like a pudding, so it also just looked kind of fake. (Like everything about Petunia, Violet thought sometimes.) You did have to do some weeding, to make sure they didn't grow faster than the plants you wanted, and then get above and stop others from growing up into the right layer like? And also some plants would grow too big and get in the way. But there should be some stuff, was the point, to keep it interesting.

"Why do you think Cassie won't let you garden, if you want to?"

Violet frowned — it didn't know why it thought that, it just did. "It's Cassie's house." Petunia had made it do the work, but it didn't get to choose what had gone into things either.

"It's your house too. You live there just as much as Cassie does."

...Well, true. "I dunno. She didn't want me to help with anything at first, I thought it's like that. Though she does a little now, I guess..."

"Mm. I think Cassie just doesn't want to ask too much of you. With all the chores you used to have before, she wants you to have time to do what you want, to play with the neighbours or draw or whatever. And she's maybe being a little too careful about it, wanting to make you feel welcome and comfortable there."

That...kind of made sense, Violet guessed.

"If she says no, I can ask her to set aside a patch of the garden for you, if you like."

Violet twitched, blinking up at Shannon. "You can do that?"

"Sure," she said, smiling back at it. "I can't promise she'll always do what I ask, but I can tell her things for you, if you don't know how to say them or are too nervous to. But let's make a trade. I'll help convince Cassie, but you have to promise not to try to do the whole garden — I haven't seen it, but it does sound like you two have quite a lot of space to work with. How about you pick a patch, hmm, no bigger than the size of this table. Probably a little smaller would be better, but that'll do. You don't want to give yourself so much work to do you don't have time to do anything else, you see. It's just supposed to be for fun, you don't want to wear yourself out. If you decide you want to put a tree somewhere, or something else like that that Cassie can help you with, that's fine, but the bit you're doing yourself should stay small."

"...Okay." Violet knew from weeding Petunia's flower beds that a patch of ground the size of this table... Well, it didn't look very big, but you could actually put a lot of things in there, and it could take a lot of time to get everything done proper. It would only be a part of the garden, and it might like kinda lopsided, but that was fine, it guessed. "I can do that." Like some people came in and redid Number Eight's shrubs, maybe there was a magic kind of that, so Violet wouldn't need to do that part, Cassie would take care of that (which was good because Violet didn't know how to take care of bushes anyway), and that would make a difference. And then there was Violet's patch to work with, it should think about what it wanted to put there...

Violet didn't know how long they were talking, but eventually Shannon asked if there was anything it wanted to talk about, or if it had questions. Which, no, not really...other than what the point of doing this was, but that would probably be rude to ask. Violet slipped its shoes back on, pulled its jumper back over its head (it got kinda warm in here after a while), picked up its drawing (only mostly finished, it'd sketched out all the lines, but the colours on all the bricks and leaves weren't done yet), and followed Shannon out of the office.

When they got back to the waiting room, and Cassie was still there — reading one of the magazines in here, giving it a kind of funny look — Violet felt a little relieved. It might be silly, but it'd been worried that Cassie would be gone, and Violet would be brought...it didn't know where, really. And then it felt guilty, because of course Cassie wasn't going to leave it here, it didn't know why it thought that...

Cassie and Shannon talked for a little bit, now and then making a comment or question to Violet, and then Shannon said to...come back next week. They were doing this every week? Um, okay then, seemed kind of pointless — Violet wasn't going to complain, it wasn't like it hurt or anything, just a little silly. And then they were leaving, Cassie leading Violet back up to the roof, the same way they'd come on. Cassie locked the rooftop door behind them, checked to make sure nobody was looking, and held out a hand; Violet took a quick breath in and out before taking it.

A blink of squeezing blackness, and they were back home, standing in the entryway. Violet felt itself relax a little, partially because the apparation was over and partially because it was home — it even smelled familiar, faintly woody and green, tea and oranges from the kitchen, just a little bit of vanilla from the scent Violet liked to use in the bath, it was nice.

Cassie started walking off right away, babbling about what they wanted to do this afternoon, but Violet stayed put. Still holding on to Cassie's hand, she stopped right away when she noticed Violet wasn't moving, turning to look down at her, confused. "Darling? Is something wrong?"

Violet's eyes tipped down to the floor, couldn't keep looking at Cassie. "I'm sorry."

"...What for?"

"I didn't know what was..." It swallowed, working out the knot in its throat, forced itself to keep talking. Maybe kinda pointless, because it wasn't like Cassie noticed it did something wrong anyway, but Violet felt guilty, so. "Uncle Vernon talked about shrinks, and I thought that– that I did something wrong and you were sending me away somewhere, I didn't mean to and I'm sorry."

"Oh, darling, that isn't—" Cassie cut off, a short sigh hissing out of her nose. After a second of staring at the wall — Violet thought, it wasn't looking — Cassie got down to her knees in front of Violet. Holding both of its hands now, head leaning a bit to find Violet's face, enough the ends of Cassie's hair touched the floor. "You have nothing to apologise for, Violet love, that's my fault. I should have explained better where we're going. We don't really have that sort of healer on the magical side, and I don't know what's involved, and I was kind of nervous myself and— Well, those are just excuses, aren't they? You did nothing wrong, but I did. I'm sorry, Violet."

"...Oh." It still wasn't used to grown-ups apologising to it — this wasn't the first time Cassie did it, usually little things, but it was kind of uncomfortable. "It's okay."

Violet waited for Cassie to let go of its hands, but she didn't, still kneeling there and staring up at her. After a couple seconds, she said, "I never would. Send you away. No matter what happens, you could never do something so bad to make me want to be rid of you. The day might come when we have disagreements, and even fight sometimes, but I'll never send you away, not ever. I said I was going to take care of you, and I meant it. Okay?"

Cassie asked a question, and Violet was always supposed to answer when it was asked a question, but it didn't know if it could right now. It didn't know what it was feeling, but there was something, Violet's face warm and something hot and tight crawling up its chest, and... As hard and thick as its throat was right now, its voice probably wouldn't work, so it just nodded.

The hug came slowly enough that Violet wasn't startled this time. It still wasn't...entirely expected — Violet didn't know if anyone had ever hugged it before Cassie — and it didn't know why, really, but it saw it coming, at least. This was still a little awkward, Violet wasn't sure what it was supposed to do, but it wasn't bad (kind of warm and soft and nice, really), so it just went along with it.

Cassie wanted it here. She wanted Violet around, at this house with her.

That's what she meant, right? That there wasn't anything that Violet could do that would... That was the point of saying that. And, Violet had kind of known that already — after all, if Cassie didn't want Violet around she could have just not taken it away from the Dursleys, so. But Violet hadn't thought about that since, not really until it'd been sitting in the waiting room wondering what it did wrong, and...

Violet didn't know how it felt about that. It was feeling something, but it didn't know what to call it. So it would, just, not think about that too hard. Seemed the thing to do. Turning its face into Cassie's shoulder, fingers clinging onto her jumper, Violet bit her lip, trying to keep down the hot tight whatever that was crawling up its throat.

(Uncle Vernon hated it when it cried.)

፠

Violet didn't know when it woke up — it didn't have a clock in its room, but that was okay, 'cause it didn't really need one. And even if it did, it was dark when it woke up, so it might not have been able to read it anyway. It must have woke up before the sun rose, but it was getting brighter out. It was a cloudy day again, so it couldn't see the sunrise or anything, but the clouds were a much lighter grey than they were before, making a big even glow that didn't seem to be coming from any one direction in particular. It was raining, because it was almost always raining these days, but only barely, it couldn't even see the drops at all, the wind occasionally bringing one splatting against the glass, the leafless branches of the trees in the square wiggling.

It was maybe time to get up. Or, no, it was earlier than when Violet usually got up still, but maybe it could get up. When it woke up it was too early, Cassie would still be in bed and it didn't really have anything to do and what was the point, but it couldn't go back to sleep. It tried, at first. It woke up from a nightmare, and it didn't really remember it, but getting back to sleep, just, wasn't working, so it stared up at the sky out the window instead, thinking.

Thinking about what, it didn't even know really, just...like background noise, people talking around it but it wasn't paying attention, buzzing away back there. But it heard noise past the door, Cassie moving downstairs, so it could get up now.

Getting dressed took a lot longer now than it used to, it thought for one reason: it had a lot more clothes now. When it was Harry, it didn't really have to think about it, because it didn't have very many different things, and it didn't matter what went with what anyway, but it was harder now. Its clothes had a lot more colours than before, and there were different kinds of things, and some things were only supposed to go with other kinds of things, so it needed to keep that straight. And there were just...more things, to choose between.

Sometimes, on the slower days, it would stare at its clothes and kind of freeze up and just...not know what to do. It snapped out of it before too long every time, but it was kind of a lot, was all.

Not that it didn't like its new clothes, it did, though it felt kind of funny about it sometimes. A lot of times. (But it was okay if it wore girl clothes, Violet was supposed to be a girl.) It poked around a bit, going through things, after waffling took down a dress, mostly white with a design along the bottom of the skirt, coming up higher on one side than the other, almost coming all the way up to the waist on the left but not even to the knee on the right, green vines with red flowers on them here and there — the white was too light if it was gonna go outside, but it looked like it was gonna be another cold and rainy day, so. It also grabbed a button-down jumper thing, in red, and then socks — some of the longer ones, would reach its knees — and a change of underpants and there, good.

Violet pushed the door open a crack, glanced down the hall, but it didn't see Cassie. There was light coming from the stairs, she must be down there somewhere. It didn't really matter if it was seen — its sleep shirt was long enough to cover its underpants, and Cassie saw it completely naked in the bath anyway (and also Violet was supposed to be a girl) — but it still felt awkward about it. It quickly went down the hall, its heart in its throat, its bare feet padding lightly on the floor, relaxing again when it closed the bathroom door behind it.

Violet blinked — there was a cloak hanging on a hook on the back of the door, it wasn't familiar. Brown and red, the cloth heavy and thick, looked really nice and warm. It was a little rough to the touch, but that didn't matter, since you would be wearing other clothes under it anyway, and there was kind of a funny smell to it, tangy like sour fruit... No, that wasn't it, really, but kind of like that, it didn't know what. There was also a sharp hint of smoke, like Cassie had worn it near a wood fire a bit ago. Did Cassie go somewhere while Violet was sleeping? That was fine, it knew Cassie was a grown-up and maybe wanted to do grown-up things without having to look after Violet all the time, it just didn't notice if she did. Violet shrugged it off, and went back to its own business.

Its sleepshirt and underpants went straight into a laundry bin in here — one of the rules of the house was that it was supposed to wash its bed clothes every day. Well, Violet didn't wash them, it assumed Nola did that? or maybe one of the other Black elves? It didn't know, it didn't ask. And also, it wasn't really a rule, but Cassie thought it was gross to sleep in the same nightclothes for more than a night or two in a row, and since it only took a couple fingersnaps for elves to do laundry, there was no reason they couldn't just have clean ones every day. It didn't bother Violet the way it did Cassie, but it also didn't care, so it just went along with the way Cassie did things. Brushing its teeth, but not its hair, because that didn't make any difference, it...

Violet could maybe just change its hair. The way it was, it was always going everywhere, and brushing it never did anything to make it behave, but it could just make its hair be different. That thought made it feel weirdly nervous, though, so it didn't.

This dress was pretty, it thought, looking at itself in the mirror...which made it feel uncomfortable, though it couldn't put its finger on why. Oh well. Spinning on its toes, its socks sliding on the tile, fast enough the hem of the skirt fluttered out a little (weeee), Violet left the bathroom.

It was at the top of the stairs when it heard voices from down there. They were muttering, too quiet for Violet to pick out the words — Cassie wouldn't just talk to herself, there must be someone else in there. Maybe Nola? No, elf voices were really high, that didn't sound right. Maybe one of the neighbours or something.

A couple steps later, it heard an odd, kind of smacking slurping noise, a little like biting into a really juicy fruit but not quite, and then a little gasp, more muttering. What was that...?

When Violet got low enough, it tipped its head down a bit, peeking into the kitchen, and then stopped on the next step, uncertain — there was someone in the kitchen, but Violet didn't know who it was. He was tall and strong, muscles bulging in his arms — not super big, but Violet could tell they were there — he was mostly facing away from Violet, so it couldn't see his face, but his hair was really neat. It was long, like most magical men had, let fall curling down his back, but kind of like Susan's was like the kind of blonde that had lighter and darker bits in it but was red instead, this man's was the same thing with a brighter orangish colour, in the darker spots brown with just a bit of tint to it and in the lighter parts really intense, a good proper orange colour, kind of like the fruit, or the sunset.

The orange was pretty close to the colour normal people who were said to have red hair really had — not like Susan, whose hair was red red — but the different shades all mixed up were neat, magic people's hair was so cool sometimes. Violet asked Cassie, about Susan, if she had some kind of magic to change her hair, but nope, some magic people were born with neat hair, just one of those things.

Also, as weird as the hair (but not so cool), the man was naked. Or not completely naked, but really close to it. He didn't have a shirt at all, where his hair wasn't hiding it showing his whole back to Violet — it noticed there were marks here and there, some bigger and some littler, scars? — and his trousers were undone, dropping down to his knees, showing his bum. Okay...

And Cassie wasn't dressed proper, either — which wasn't new, Cassie often dressed weird, but this was different. She was in a black housecoat, the kind that was tied closed with a belt at the front, but it wasn't at the moment. The housecoat was hanging open, the cloth pushed back, the sleeves drooping off her shoulder toward her elbow and her leg uncovered all the way up (on the side Violet could see, at least). It was hard to tell from here for sure, the man in the way, but Violet didn't think she was wearing anything under it at all.

Cassie's feet were off the floor, sitting on the edge of the counter. Her right foot was hooked down by the man's knee, catching on his trousers, the other at his hip, her heel pressing in at him, Violet could see how his skin dipped in a little around it. Her right hand was on the other side, holding enough to make the same dips near the top of his bum. The other hand was grabbing at his back, fingers curled enough her nails must be getting him a little.

They weren't holding still, the man's bum slowly moving back and forth, the muscles in his legs shifting, and Cassie's legs or left hand would slip around a little (though her right stayed where it was). Their breath came out in thick sighs, now and then whispering to each other — Violet was close enough to tell they were talking in Irish, but not enough to try to figure out what they were saying. There were a couple more of those smacking noises as Violet watched, but it couldn't see what was making that.

What were they doing?

One of them let out a strange high...quiet groan, whine thing? (Cassie, it thought) her head flopped to the side and the man's head went a little the other way (turning his face in at her neck?), enough that Violet could see her face now. Her eyes were closed, her mouth hanging open just a little, her face was kinda pink, like she'd been running around a bit. The man's bum moved toward her again, and she let out another funny noise, her eyes blinking a few times quick—

"Violet!" It froze at the shout of its new name, fear tingling down its arms (people shouting its name was never a good thing). Cassie's hands jumped away from the man, suddenly like he was burning hot, she tried to lean a bit away from him...which she couldn't really, she was kinda pinned on the counter.

But Violet didn't have time to think about that, or worry if it was in trouble, because as soon as Cassie's right hand left the man's hip something really weird happened. Lines shot through his skin, thickening, soon turning into deep, knotted, ugly scars, a bunch of jagged angles like a snowflake, or like he'd been hit by lightning or something. And not just that, it kind of looked like that hip changed shape, just a little, the muscles and bones underneath moving around. That didn't look good, and obviously it didn't feel good either, the man letting out a loud groan of pain.

And he fell, his bad leg suddenly folding under him. He hit the tile hard, Violet thought it heard a thunk when his head landed. He hissed through his teeth — Irish again, it thought, but it didn't catch it — one hand jumping up to his head and the other hugged close to his chest. Must have hurt himself, by the look and sound of it pretty badly.

"Fuck!" Violet twitched at the shouted swear word (which was also never a good thing), but Cassie wasn't even looking at it. She hopped off the counter, pulling her housecoat back up over her shoulders, but didn't tie it closed right away, dropping to her knees next to the man. By then he was curled up on his side, still hissing in pain. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking. Did you break anything?"

"I don't think so, just bruised half to hell," he grumbled, his voice low and thick, with a northern-sounding accent. "What did you drop me for, I thought you said you could hold it."

"Violet's on the stairs, I spotted her and panicked. I'm sorry, here..." Her wand appeared in her hand, and she started casting spells — they didn't do anything Violet could see, but they didn't always.

Relaxing a little, the man turned onto his back — his penis had gone all big and stiff, for some reason, moving made it flop around — his face was scrunched up in pain, but it didn't take him long to find her. "Oh. Well, damn. Good morning, innit?"

Violet just stared back at him. Was it supposed to say it back? It didn't know if its voice would even work right now...which, not doing what it was maybe supposed to was just making it more nervous, which meant its voice was even less likely to work, which made it more nervous, and...

But the man didn't seem to be waiting for it to answer, so never mind. Cassie was fiddling with his trousers, yanked them up, was trying to close them again — which didn't look very easy, his penis being weirdly big and stiff getting in the way. She managed to get his trousers closed, but the man winced as she did. "Shite, woman, haven't you hurt me enough this morning?"

"Keep up your whining, and we'll find out." Violet thought she was joking. Cassie sat back on her heels, finally tying her housecoat closed. "Let's get you into one of the stools. Do you need a hand up?"

"You didn't hurt me that badly." The man pushed himself up to sitting, but it looked like it was hard, his arm shaking a little, he let out a little sigh when he was up. "Where the hell did my cane end up?"

"You dropped it over by— Hang on." Cassie made a beckoning flick of her fingers, a wooden stick whipped up into the air to fly across the kitchen, clacking against the island in the middle before making it to Cassie. "Here," she said, handing it to him. "I can get potions if you need them."

"Don't bother, I'll be fine." The man started standing up, but it wasn't easy for him. He wasn't using one leg at all, his foot held off the floor, one hand pushing against the cane and the other pulling on the island counter, Violet could see his right hand and the cane shaking from here, but he made it up. Cassie didn't actually help, but she did stay close to him the whole time, ready to jump in if he needed it. He leaned against the counter for a second, let out a heavy breath, his face pinked a bit. "Go on, then, see to the girl. And if you really do regret dropping me, tea is a better apology than your hovering."

The man turned to limp toward the stools, Cassie giving his back an unhappy look, but she didn't say anything. Giving Violet an uncomfortable-looking smile, she said, "Come on, darling, come say hi to Rufus and we'll get breakfast started."

...If Cassie was telling it to come down now it couldn't just leave — running away when it was in trouble just made it worse. Its steps were a little shaky, but it made it down without slipping. Cassie was washing her hands in the sink, so Violet went toward her. The man was lifting himself into one of the stools at the counter as it passed, groaning a little, pain or effort or maybe both. As Violet got to her, Cassie turned off the water, drying her hands with magic and a flick of her wrists instead of using the towel. She turned to Violet, and then—

Violet's heart jumped into its throat as Cassie moved quick toward it, it forced itself to stay still (trying to run away only made it worse), almost holding its breath...but Cassie just crouched down, leaning in really close, and that was it. Her voice in a whisper, so quiet Violet almost couldn't hear her, she asked, "Are you wearing your necklace?"

It took a second for the words to sink in. Violet tried to answer, but its voice wasn't working, so it moved its collar enough to show the chain instead. The pendant was hanging under its dress — metal, a circle with complicated symbols around the edge, a bird with wings spread in the middle — there was a spell on it to hide the scar on its forehead. Violet was supposed to wear it whenever other people were around, but it was worried it would forget, so it just wore it all the time.

"Good. Rufus thinks you're only Violet Black, and we're going to keep it that way. Okay?"

Violet should ask what the big deal was about its real name, but this wasn't the time, so it nodded. It took a breath, with a little pushing got its voice to work. "Am I in trouble?"

"What for?" she muttered, frowning. Even with just that, Violet felt itself relax a little — if Cassie was angry, she wouldn't be confused about that question. "Oh, you mean for walking in on us? No no, you're not in trouble, darling, of course not." One of her hands came up, Violet tried not to flinch, but she just brushed a little bit of Violet's hair out of her face, fiddling a little with her jumper, that was fine. "I thought you'd be in bed a bit longer, but if we really didn't want to be interrupted, we shouldn't have been doing that out here. That's our fault, not yours. Okay?"

...It still felt kind of strange sometimes when Cassie blamed herself for things, Violet wasn't used to that. "Okay."

"Okay. Come on, let's go so hi to Rufus." Cassie stood up, started walking around the island back toward the man. A little nervous — not because it thought it was in trouble, just a lot so early in the morning (also, he was a big bloke...but it could probably outrun him, so) — Violet took a breath before following her. He was still breathing a little hard when they got to him, his face still a little pinched, hurting from the fall.

The man's name was Rufus Scrimgeour, and he and Cassie had been Aurors together. Violet knew now that Aurors were a special kind of magic police who dealt with the really dangerous people using bad magic that normal magic police couldn't handle — Cassie was one for like fifty years before she retired fourteen years ago. Rufus joined back in the 60s, Cassie helped train him and they became friends, and now Rufus was actually the Chief Auror, which meant he was in charge of them (and Amelia was in charge of him).

Maybe he wasn't a very good Auror, the scars and stuff, but they had made him the leader...and also Cassie maybe just magicked hers away...

"Pleasure to meet you, Violet," he said when Cassie was done saying all the things, forcing a smile. "I don't suppose you can do me the favour of forgetting this ever happened, and pretend we had a far more dignified introduction."

"Don't you dare," Cassie said. "This way when he's trying to be the big, important, serious Auror, you can remember him flopping around the floor with his pants around his knees to take the edge off."

Violet bit its lip — it didn't like when people laughed at it for something embarrassing.

Rufus sighed, trying to look annoyed. Fake, it thought, he was too relaxed (and it was really easy to tell, since he still didn't have a shirt on). "Of course not, you do so enjoy my suffering. Speaking of suffering, did you say something about breakfast?"

"Hey now, my cooking's much better than it used to be — I haven't accidentally poisoned you in two decades." ...Was Cassie joking, like it tasted so bad it must be poison, or did she really poison him? "But sure, we can do that before you have to go. Let's get the tea on first, here..."

The first couple weeks Violet lived with Cassie, it didn't help with the cooking or cleaning or anything. It asked, kind of assuming it was supposed to, but Cassie always told it it didn't have to and sent it away, so... But for some reason, recently, Cassie changed her mind, and let Violet help now — she was very clear that Violet didn't have to if it didn't want to, but it thought it did? It meant, nobody ever asked it if it wanted to help with these things before, but it kind of felt bad if Cassie was doing everything and Violet never helped at all. Also, it did like when things clicked together right. They didn't have a routine here, things going the same way every day, so there were less things to click together, but when things came out the way they were supposed to Violet still got that satisfying click feeling, so, it was just fun.

And it wasn't like there was a lot of work to do anyway — the batter was already mixed and everything. The scones Cassie made were different than Petunia's scones, kind of more like crumpets? but also not exactly those either, Violet didn't know. But, what they did was they mixed up a whole bunch of it a couple days ago, and then Cassie put spells on the bowl so it'll last longer, and put the bowl in one of the shelves on the cold cabinet. This way, they could scoop some into the griddle whenever they wanted one (though Violet wasn't supposed to use the hob by itself, either with Cassie or call Nola if she wasn't here). And since Violet couldn't do the bacon, at least not to start, that was its job.

Violet went to get its step-stool, over by the back door, put it down in front of the hob, a bit to the side so it went over the nearby counter too. The bowl of batter was on one of the lower shelves, so Violet could reach, but it was pretty big and heavy, it had to use both hands, and it couldn't reach to get it up on the counter. But that was why its stool was here, it carefully went up the steps, looking down past the side of the bowl to make sure its feet were in the right place, up, up, and then it could set down the bowl. Cassie didn't put the kettle on the hob, heating up the water with magic, instead she brought down two big iron pans, one on each side — those were kind of too heavy for Violet to move around easy.

Once it had a plate and scoopy-cup and a flippy-thing, Violet climbed back up on its stool. There was a dish of butter over here that was just for frying stuff, it stuck the flipper in there to scrape off some into the pan. (There were a couple little bits of stuff they fried in the butter by now, which kind of looked funny, but Cassie said it was fine...but now that Violet knew she'd maybe poisoned people...) Actually cooking the scones wasn't hard — drop a scoop of batter onto the pan, wait until the bubbles looked right, flip, wait a bit, then set them on the plate, and move on to the next. There was a trick to dropping the batter so it looked all nice and round, and to flipping it so it didn't smear across the pan. Violet found the second kind of hard, using both hands to make sure it had a solid hold on the flipper, but it was getting better at it, they looked much less crooked this time around.

Its third scone was perfectly smooth and round and a nice golden brown on both sides — click. Violet smiled, resisted the silly urge to bounce on its toes, and reached for the scoop again.

While Violet was doing that, Cassie did the bacon and the mushrooms. Apparently, magic people didn't sell meat the same way: they didn't have a nice package with even-sliced bacon, instead just like...a chunk of stuff Cassie had to cut slices off of. Cassie could keep that job, thanks, the meat chunk was slimy and gross, Violet didn't want to touch it. Though, Cassie didn't need to touch it, she sliced off bits and floated them straight into the pan with her wand, which was cheating. Violet was a little slow with the scones, only doing one at a time to make sure it didn't ruin any, so Cassie was finished with the bacon before it was done, but then she just went into doing the mushrooms, grabbing a bunch and slicing them up a little (again with her wand) and then throwing them in the grease from the bacon. Which would get turned into gravy, with some spices and a bit of water, after it boiled down a bit some cream and flour. The pepper made Violet sneeze, but it didn't feel like it changed, and someone would probably say something.

They talked while they cooked, sipping at tea — Violet's cup hugged in both hands, carefully watching the scones cook between sips. Well, Cassie and Rufus did most of the talking. Violet couldn't follow a lot of it, mostly work stuff it thought, gossip about people they both knew, adult stuff. Pretty early on, Cassie made a shirt with magic and threw it at Rufus, said he was distracting her, which Rufus seemed to think was funny for some reason. They did try to include it a little bit, talking about the house and the neighbours and how it liked it here in town (indirectly asking how it liked living with Cassie, maybe), what their plans were for today, which, Violet got he was just trying to be nice, but it kind of wished he just wouldn't bother.

At one point, when Cassie came by with Violet's tea, setting it down by the batter bowl, she was standing close enough Violet could feel her behind it, said the scones were turning out good this time (click), gave its hair a little ruffle before stepping back again. (Which would only make its hair messier, but Cassie didn't care about that.) A few seconds later, Rufus said, "You know, it's kind of strange seeing you with a kid — you never were the mothering sort. I don't mean anything by it, of course, I'm only saying."

Violet felt its shoulders hitch up, forced itself to relax. It felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, but it didn't know what that was about.

"Everybody changes, Rufus. Some people change more than others." Violet thought that was maybe a metamorph joke. "Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age, who can say." That was definitely a joke, it could tell by the bounce on Cassie's voice, though Violet didn't really get it.

They were done before long, Violet and Cassie even finishing close to the same time — the gravy had to simmer a little bit longer, but, Violet was running around getting plates and stuff too. After refilling its tea — using its step-stool to reach again, carefully lifting the big heavy thing with both hands — it climbed up onto one of the stools at the counter, just as it was settling in Cassie came swooping over, pouring the mushrooms and gravy over the scones Violet had set out on plates.

Click — Violet grinned, kicking its feet in the air a little.

Cassie and Rufus kept talking, but Violet didn't really. It was all grown-up stuff, and it didn't have much to say. It kind of wished it had a book, but it was better it didn't, because it didn't want to get gravy on one of its new books. (Violet had new books.) It would just deal with being a little bored — it had way worse than that at breakfast before. At least it actually got proper breakfast, and even with bacon too!

(Living with Cassie hadn't stopped being kind of strange and confusing sometimes, but Violet was really happy it wasn't still with the Dursleys, so much that if it thought about it too much it kind of hurt. Which, Violet was pretty sure being happy wasn't supposed to hurt, not sure what that was about...)

Anyway, pretty much right after Rufus was done eating he had to go — he had to be at work soon, and he still had to go back home and change into his work clothes first. Cassie walked him out, going upstairs first to get the rest of his things and then out the door. They didn't say goodbye at the door, Violet could see it was hanging open from here and they weren't there. Must be going to the end of the garden, Cassie had said it was very rude to pop in and out of people's homes. And also maybe impossible, because wards and stuff.

Cassie came back into the kitchen while Violet was finishing off its tea...still wearing her housecoat. Had she gone out into the garden in that? Huh. The bacon pan was left soaking by the sink, and Cassie went to finish washing that out — not by hand, she used magic for that too. "I'm sorry, darling, I expected Rufus would be gone before you were out of bed. I shouldn't have invited him over without telling you first."

"It's okay, I was just surprised." And confused, and kind of scared, but mostly surprised. Okay, mostly confused, it thought, but.

"Still, I feel badly about it. I don't want to..." Magicking the washed and dried pan back into its spot, Cassie sighed. "I'll introduce you to any friends I have over, before they spend the night. Okay?"

"Okay." Violet didn't really get why Cassie seemed to feel like she should, what was going on there, but if it would stop something as uncomfortable as what happened this morning from happening again, that was good. "What happened to his leg? I was wondering, but I thought it was rude to ask."

"He wouldn't have been offended if you did, but that is nice of you to consider it. Rufus took a bad curse in the war. The healers kept him alive, but he's going to have difficulty for the rest of his life, unfortunately."

"No, I meant..." Violet didn't know if it should ask. The way Cassie and Rufus reacted was like it was really embarrassing, and yes, people walking in on you naked was embarrassing, but it kind of seemed like something else, and it didn't really know what. "Before, it wasn't there before, and then it came back, and..."

Cassie blinked a few times quick. "Oh. Ah, I was transfiguring it away. People resist spells being cast on them, and in this case Rufus's body and the curse were both resisting it — I'm very good at transfiguration, but it isn't easy even for me to do that. And, for everything in the world except metamorphs, transfiguration is temporary, so I had to constantly hold the spell there. When I let go of the spell, it broke right away, and his injury came back."

Right. That made sense, it guessed.

"Do you...have any other questions? about this morning, or Rufus?"

...Well, yes. It didn't know if it should ask, and Cassie did sound a little uncomfortable, but she did ask, and Violet was always to answer questions it was asked (it guessed even if the answer was a question). "Um. Yeah. What were you doing, when I came down?"

Cassie grimaced, just a little, slightly...guilty? "We were having sex. I am sorry about that, we shouldn't have been doing that down here, but I really didn't think you'd be out of bed so early."

...Violet didn't know what that meant. "It's okay, I was just confused." Still was, really.

For a couple seconds, Cassie stared at it, frowning just a little. Violet tried not to fidget. "Violet, darling, do you know what sex is?"

"Um, I've heard the word before, but no, I'm sorry."

"Never apologise for not knowing something, it's not your fault if no one ever told you." Not from what Violet could tell, but it already knew Cassie and the Dursleys were very different. Cassie let out a little sigh, flicking her wand at the kettle. "Right, I'm going to get more tea going, and we're going to have a talk about that. Give me a minute..."

It ended up being a really weird talk. Violet realised this was grown-up stuff, but this sex thing sounded just...kind of embarrassing, and gross? Cassie said it'd get it when it was older, it wasn't something kids were supposed to do at all — in fact, Cassie was very firm about telling her if anyone tried to do a sex thing with it — and it was just kind of taking her word on that, because it sounded really gross and stupid to Violet.

Rufus wasn't her boyfriend, neither of them were ever interested in getting married or anything, and they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, this was just a thing they did sometimes. Cassie had other friends she did sex things with too, and some were boys but some were also girls, which Violet thought meant she was a queer? Violet wasn't completely sure what Uncle Vernon meant when he used some words for people he didn't like, but it thought so. Of course, Cassie was pretty freakish in other ways anyway, so it wasn't like it made any difference.

So, that was all weird and confusing, but at least Violet knew where babies came from now — it had kind of wondered...

---

December 1987

---

It was the third time Violet was seeing Shannon, and by this point it kind of knew how this went. It still didn't get why they were doing this, what good it was supposed to be doing, but it didn't have to understand to figure out the pattern.

This time was more like the first time than the second time. There was a little interruption in that one, Cassie going off to talk with Shannon for a couple minutes before Shannon took Violet back to her office. After settling in, explaining the thing with the bracelets, a little bit about what happened the last week, Shannon said Cassie just told her about Rufus, and if Violet wanted to talk about that they could. Which, not really? It meant, nothing really bad happened. It was a little startling, to come downstairs in the morning and find a stranger in the kitchen, but Rufus seemed nice enough. Violet didn't really get the sex thing, but grown-ups are weird sometimes, not really worth worrying about that much.

It didn't think Rufus had come over since then, but it did meet another of Cassie's "friends", an old lady named Julie — not really old old, like, old enough to be a mum but not a grandmum yet, Violet didn't think. Which meant she was was probably a lot younger than Cassie... Though, magic people lived longer than normal people, they looked younger than they were? Violet thought Julie and Cassie might be pretty close in age, maybe, it didn't know for sure. But anyway, she came over in time for dinner, and left around lunch the next day, and Violet was pretty sure she and Cassie did sex with each other at some point. It didn't see or hear them, but it thought so. Julie was nice enough too, it guessed, it wasn't really a big deal.

But anyway, it didn't get why Shannon seemed to be talking like Violet would be...upset about it? Really, nothing bad happened — other than Violet startling Cassie so she dropped Rufus and hurt him a little — and the sex stuff was confusing and kind of gross, but what about that was supposed to be upsetting?

...Maybe grown-ups thinking kids should be upset by grown-up things was also a grown-up thing. Violet wasn't sure if that made sense to anyone besides itself.

But anyway, there was no interruption this time, Shannon saying hi to the both of them out in the waiting room before taking Violet right back to her office. They made for the table, Violet toeing off its shoes as soon as it had the arm of the chair to lean in so it didn't fall over. Just like the last two times, there was a checkerboard, some drawing stuff, and a puzzle on the table, but now there were six bracelets with glass beads on them, two pink, two blue, and two clear glass that kind of glittered a little...though the other two did too, it guessed, it was just more obvious when there wasn't any colour to it. Shannon plucked up one of the pink ones and stretched it over her wrist before sitting down on the couch.

Violet kneeled down in front of the puzzle — it never did puzzles before, but it liked it when things came together right, it was actually kind of fun — and reached over to pick up one of the clear bracelets, rolling it over its fingers to click against the bracelets it was already wearing. (Cassie had bought it a whole bunch back in Dublin, and they were all colourful and pretty, Violet just had to remember to put Shannon's back before it left.) This was a thing Shannon started on Violet's second time here. It was supposed put on one of the bracelets for what it was feeling like today, blue for a boy, pink for a girl, and clear for not really either.

Honestly, Violet didn't get it? It wasn't sure what feeling like a girl or boy was supposed to mean. It asked, but all it really got was that Shannon didn't mean a body thing (which was at least easy enough to figure out), but more a brain, feelings thing? And, Violet didn't know how that worked. It still didn't really know what the difference was supposed to be (except the body stuff, it meant). Violet wasn't sure if wearing the clear one was what it was really supposed to do, maybe it wasn't quite understanding proper, but it thought not knowing what being a girl or boy was supposed to feel like meant that it didn't? so it seemed like the thing to do.

(Cassie explaining a little bit about this stuff way back in that teashop on the day they met didn't make it stop being confusing, Violet just didn't think about it most of the time.)

Shannon asked what was new this week so, sure, Violet talked about that while looking over the puzzle pieces. Not that they really did much. Susan came over one day, through the fireplace (which looked kind of scary to Violet), they played with the neighbour kids (mostly Lasairín and Damhnait) for a couple hours, and then went to the cinema in one normal person city or another (Violet didn't know which), Susan going back through the fireplace after dinner when her aunt was back home. It was a little awkward, because Susan was nearly as shy with other kids as Violet, though not quite as bad, and also they were pretending Susan Bones was really Susan Fawley, but not like that mattered so much, a different last name wasn't a big change (and they were already pretending Harry Potter was Violet Black anyway), but Susan was nice enough, so it was fine. And there was Julie's visit, that too, but nothing really big. Not much happened at home, Violet wasn't going to school and Cassie didn't work, they just kind of did whatever every day, so...

The whole time they talked Violet was looking through the puzzle pieces, click, click, click, the nice little tingle with every click of rightness keeping it from being too put off by how confusing and awkward this was. It never played with puzzles before, it didn't know before how neat they were. Though, leaving it behind only partly-completed when their talk was over was annoying, but Violet couldn't do anything about that...except try to put it together faster...

Except, Violet did actually have something it wanted to talk about today. It thought about it the last week, remembering Shannon saying she could talk to Cassie for it, and... Well, maybe Shannon wouldn't need to, and Violet could just talk to Cassie about it on its own, but it didn't really know how to ask? It was a...whole weird thing, and it didn't know what was going on, or even what kind of questions it should be asking to get the answers it wanted, and maybe Cassie already told Shannon before, so maybe it wouldn't have to ask Cassie at all, and... Well, it seemed like asking Shannon would be less uncomfortable. Especially since Violet didn't know if maybe Cassie already told Violet too, and it just forgot — Cassie did talk like she thought Violet already knew — and it didn't want Cassie to think it wasn't listening...

(Aunt Petunia always got angry when she had to repeat herself. Aunt Cassie was a very different kind of aunt, but still, Violet didn't want to be a bother if it could help it.)

When they were done talking about the week, and questions Shannon had about stuff, Violet decided to stick in before Shannon could ask it about something else. "I was wondering about...something. If that's okay."

"Of course." Shannon picked up a piece, moving it toward another one, but long before it got there Violet could tell they didn't go together. They were both mostly black — this puzzle was the sky at night, but it had colourful swirls across it besides the stars (which were also brighter and clearer than normal), Violet didn't know what that was but it was super pretty — but the notches and curves on the sides didn't align at all. Could Shannon not tell? It was obvious to Violet... "We are here for you, if there's ever anything you want to talk about just say so and we'll make time."

"Right. Um. Well, it's kind of... I don't know."

"Is it about Cassie and Julie?"

"No, not that." That was what they were talking about just before, but Violet didn't really care about that. "It's... I don't know. Some weird things Cassie talks about sometimes? And, she says them like I should know what she's talking about, but I don't, and I don't know if I should ask."

"Oh? What are these weird things?"

"Sometimes she says there was a war? Like, not really talking about it, just in passing like, a thing everyone knows about, and... I dunno, sometimes it seems like... And, she says 'Harry Potter' like it's...not like it's a name, or it is a name, but not like she's talking to me, she never calls me Harry, but more like she's talking about a...like someone who isn't in the room, but someone everyone talks about, like a famous person? Like everyone knows who I am, they even know the scar. Oh, you can't see that," Violet said, tugging the necklace from its collar a little, "there's a scar on my forehead, but this has magic on it so you can't see it, and, Cassie says I have to wear it whenever I go out, because if I don't people will know I'm Harry Potter? and that's a bad thing, for some reason? I mean, not for supposed to be a boy reasons, for other reasons, and I don't know what they are, and... Well. All that. It's confusing, and I don't know how to ask about all of it."

While Violet babbled on — not really making much sense, it thought, this was all too confusing — Shannon's fingers stopped moving, staring at Violet. And then she kept staring for a couple seconds, Violet tried not to be nervous about that, focused harder on finding matching pieces. Ooh, there was one — click — and another — click— "Did Cassie not tell you about the Dark Lord, and about how the war ended?" Shannon seemed really surprised by that, like she thought it was definitely something Cassie should have told it...and maybe it was, 'cause Shannon wasn't even a magic person, and she knew.

"...Um. No? What's a Dark Lord?" Sounded fake, like something that should be in a kids' book.

Shannon sighed, rolling her eyes — very obviously, so Violet could see. "Oh, Cassie. She really should have told you before, but I guess there was a lot else going on. I'm not surprised she forgot, Cassie can be quite the clot sometimes."

Violet shifted in place, frowning down at the puzzle. Part of it wanted to defend Cassie, but Shannon was just teasing, it wasn't a big— Ooh, there was one, click...

"Cassie did tell me a little bit, but I don't know very much, I'm afraid. I can tell you what she told me, but I think it would be better for me to go get Cassie and bring her back here, so she can tell both of us. If you want to do that."

"Oh. Okay." At least if Shannon was here, Violet wouldn't have to come up with how to turn its weird feeling into a proper question...

"We don't have to, if you want to talk about something else, or we can save it for later if you like..."

"No, now is fine." It's not like Violet had anything else to talk about anyway.

"All right." Setting her clipboard aside, Shannon stood up, took a second to smooth her skirt. "I'll go get Cassie and be right back, okay?" Shannon waited for a nod and then turned and went, the door quietly closing behind her.

...Click.

...Click. Click.

...Click.

...Click, and then this whole group connected with this row of edge pieces right here, click. Violet smiled, humming to itself, let's see...

After a couple more clicks of pieces coming together, the door opened again, Shannon stepping inside, she held the door open for Cassie to walk through and then closed it behind her. Cassie glanced around for a second, one eyebrow ticking up a little when she saw the puzzle. For a second, Violet thought she was gonna come sit on the floor with it, but instead she moved toward the armchair, swishing down to sit, her skirt flicking. "All right. Shannon said you had a question for me, darling?" It wasn't sure, but Violet thought Cassie sounded a little nervous.

Violet frowned, turning back down to the puzzle. It was all weird and confusing, it didn't know how to ask about it all, if it did it would have done it itself already. Shannon was sitting on the sofa again, Violet's eyes flicked up her to for a second. "Can you say it?"

"If you want." Violet wasn't looking, but she was sure Shannon was looking over the table toward Cassie. "First, remember what I told you about the bracelets?"

"Oh, right, of course." The remaining pink and clear bracelet zipped away out of Violet's sight over to Cassie. "Okay, what's this about?"

...She was wearing a pink and a clear one? (Click.) What was that supposed to mean?

"You never told Violet about the war, the Dark Lord, or her fame."

"I didn't... Did I not explain any of that? I thought..."

"Violet believes you didn't."

"...Huh. I guess I might... It's, well, it's common knowledge in our world, it must have slipped my mind. I'm sorry, Violet, I should have told you."

Violet shrugged. "It's okay." Click. "Just confusing sometimes, I guess."

"I feel badly about it anyway. I suppose I should start with... Hang on, these clothes are transfigurable, I'll change quick."

"Pants," Violet reminded her. Most of Cassie's newer clothes weren't magic — or were from cheaper places, the special magic bits simpler so she could change them — but her fancy knickers couldn't be changed. She forgot that all the time, including the first time they met, her pants falling down when she got too small for them.

"Nah, I'm not wearing pants today anyway."

Oh, well. Were you allowed to do that? She was wearing a dress...

A minute later and Cassie was a little kid again, her dress shrunk to still fit. She walked around the table, squeezing past Shannon — Shannon leaned back so she could get by, giving her back a funny look — until she was across from Violet, sank down to her knees on the other side of the puzzle. "This is neat, I've never seen the like before," Cassie said, picking up one of the pieces and turning it around in her fingers. "Some kind of tiling puzzle, clearly."

"Magic people don't have jigsaw puzzles?" Ooh, there was one, click...

"Mm, I've seen tiling puzzles before, but ours have flat edges, they don't have these little notches." Wow, that sounded hard... How would they stick together? If you bumped it the whole thing would— Oh, magic, never mind. "And I don't think anyone makes them to sell, they're mostly made by one family or another for educational purposes, maps and things." Holding her piece between a thumb and her pointer finger, she turned one of the pieces on the table with her pinky and ring finger, then stuck them together, slid the two connected pieces over to latch onto the growing picture. "So, the war.

"I told you about muggleborns before, right? That most mages have at least one magic parent, but sometimes a muggle will have a magical child."

"Yeah." Click. "My mum was one."

"Yes, Lily was muggleborn — she had magic, but your grandparents were muggles. Now, sometimes it..." Cassie let out a sigh, thinking about how she wanted to explain. Violet glanced up, taking a peek at her face — frowning, her lips quirked to the side, what she had to say probably wasn't a good thing — and it noticed Shannon was watching them, eyes flicking from one to the other, an odd half-frown on her face. Didn't know what that was about. "There are a lot of old superstitions about magic. On top of being a mage, there are number of other special abilities that can be passed parent to child. Metamorphy is one of the rarer ones — the Blacks have had a lot of metamorphs in our history, you most likely got it through Dorea—" That was her grandmother, Cassie's baby sister. "—but there are a whole bunch of other ones too. Magesight, omniglottalism, gifts for elemental magics, psychometry, parseltongue, mind magic, the Sight, all kinds of things.

"Because of these, people figured out that magic was passed down a very long time ago. Over time, people came up with beliefs about it, almost religious. It comes in different forms, but usually something about our souls being shaped by our ancestors somehow — whether they're consciously passing on gifts from the afterlife, that sort of thing varies across different belief systems, but there's always something about our selves in the present reflecting something from the past. That those of us with magic are...favoured somehow, by those who came before, and not only them but whatever higher power someone might believe in. Gods, fairies, spirits, or simply capital-M Magic, it varies between times and places, but the basic idea is always pretty similar. A lot of mages think we're better than muggles, and they come up with all kinds of reasons why, but this is really what's behind it — even for mages who don't hold these beliefs anymore, like how some muggle families who aren't Christian anymore still celebrate Christmas, just what their parents taught them growing up, and their parents and theirs going on back forever.

"Following me so far?"

"I think so, kinda." It was a really big, complicated thing, but Violet thought it maybe made sense. "Um. Are those real? I mean, gods and fairies and stuff."

"Fairies, yes. They live in another world, and you can only get between here and there through very certain places. They used to be far more common, but they mostly left for their world a long time ago now — they're sensitive to certain metals, including the pellets in the early firearms muggles were starting to make at the time, and air and water pollution from industry can make them terribly ill. The Gates are closed, for the most part. A visitor will come through every once in a while, but they never stay long. And gods, well, that one's a matter of debate. It's not debatable that the magic of the universe is conscious to some degree — if you put enough magic together in one place, it will start to think and feel on its own, and that's kind of what's happening with everything, if you pull out far enough. What that consciousness looks like, well, that people don't agree on. Exactly how awake Magic is, whether it even knows we're here, or if it's split up into many gods that can interact with us, or if everything that exists is like the brain of one big god, nobody knows. There is something there, we know that for sure, we just don't know what."

...Wow, that was...big. Violet kind of never knew what to think about church stuff, but if there was something up there that was kind of...well, big, it already said that, not really sure how to feel about that. It noticed Shannon was struck by it too, kind of gaping at Cassie a little.

"Now, about muggleborns. If you do believe this stuff, about mages being special, there are two ways you can think about it. No, three, I guess. The first is that muggleborns get their magic the same way that everyone else does. If you believe gods or fairies or the like choose who gets magic, you might say, well, clearly the people who decide these things want this person to have magic — maybe they're meant to do something important, or its a reward for their parents, it could be for all kinds of reasons. Or perhaps they have magical ancestors, if you go back far enough, and they decided this person would be a mage, that works too. This thinking is really common in one of the big religions in Britain, anyone connected to any of the old Mistwalker cults, even if it was generations ago, will probably believe something like this. Another is that muggleborns stole their magic somehow. Now, this was never very common, because anyone who actually knows anything about these magics will know it isn't possible, but since muggles can perform witchcraft, some came up with the idea that the parents of muggleborns might have captured a mage and done some kind of ritual to—"

"Hold up a second," Shannon said, cutting Cassie off in the middle of her explanation — which Violet was a little grateful for, honestly, because it sounded really creepy. "You can do magic if you're not a mage?"

"Oh sure, why not." Cassie lifted one of her little kid shoulders in a shrug, apparently not getting why Shannon (and Violet) were so surprised by this. "You need your own magic to do wizardry, but witchcraft is all about harnessing magic already in the environment and exploiting it to your ends. Potions are hit and miss, since some do require magic from the user, but muggles can do ritual magic, and enchanting, divination, all kinds of things. The potions and rituals used by old muggle folk healers often actually worked, if they knew what they were doing, because they were doing real magic — in fact, the majority of people killed in so-called 'witch hunts' were muggle hedge-witches, since they had a much harder time using magic to escape. Muggle governments did their best to wipe these practices out, and continue to keep an eye out for witchcraft cropping up again through to today, the larger part of their side of keeping up Secrecy."

Shannon's eyes were wide, staring at Cassie and gaping a little — but Violet noticed her mouth was curling a little bit at the edges, smiling. It had the feeling Shannon was probably going to ask Cassie to teach her magic one day.

"Anyway, stealing magic. This idea was never common, because it's just not possible, but it went away almost entirely a generation after we went into hiding — muggles don't know about proper witchcraft anymore, so it's doubly impossible. The third, well, I suppose this idea's similar to the first. Perhaps a fairy or a god or someone's ancestor or whatever decided this person would be a mage, but it gave them magic so they can infiltrate our world. The how it happened is the same as the first idea, but these people think the reason muggleborns were given magic is probably bad for us, that they're a threat. This is also common in certain more religious mages — it's not as popular as the nicer way of thinking about it, but it was almost universal in the Dark Lord's people. Among those who're religious at all, which isn't all of them, but even so."

...Oh, well, Violet could kind of see where this was going, then. These muggleborn people were here to do something bad, so they had to get rid of them all before they could do whatever the bad thing was. It was scary, but it made a kind of sense, if you thought that third thing was true.

"This is all nonsense, of course," Cassie said, a little sharply, making Violet twitch and look up at her. She was giving Violet a smile, crooked — not really a happy smile, almost pained. "I can't really blame people centuries ago, but we do know how muggleborns end up with magic now. Well, more or less. The potential for magic is heritable — nobody has found the gene yet, but there must be one — but it also takes magic around the mother while she's pregnant for it to switch on. Muggleborns are less common than they used to be, since Secrecy means there's less magic being done out in the muggle world, but the earth itself is magical, we can't get rid of it all. Your mother was the younger child, and I bet your grandparents moved after Lily's sister was born but before they had her — and that their old house was in a magical cold spot but their new one was in a hot spot, near a leyline or wards. Muggleborns develop magic by chance, there's nothing mystical about it. It just is."

"Then why are you explaining it? Not that it's not interesting, I mean..." As neat as a lot of that stuff was, it didn't seem to have anything to do with what Violet wanted to know. Well, she did mention this Dark Lord person once...and kind of hinted at what it was about, really...

"It's important to understand this stuff to get it. People feel very strongly about this stuff — it's all wrapped up in their religious beliefs, and their beliefs about themselves, and their families, where they came from and where they're going. It's at the heart of everything, their whole lives, everything they care about is connected to it somehow. So when a powerful mage showed up — very powerful, with special gifts rarely seen, which to some religious people says he must have been chosen for something important — and said he was going to do something about it, people listened.

"It wasn't all about muggleborns, not at first." Cassie turned back to the puzzle, reaching to grab at a couple pieces. "There are lots of old magics that have gone out of use, or were made against the law at some point, and he said that this was wrong, that we should embrace all of magic, none of it should be denied to those of us with the gift. I agree with this part, if I'm being honest. It'd be like making knives illegal just because some people hurt other people with them — they can be dangerous, yes, but they have important, safe uses too, and not letting anyone have them because a couple of pricks did something stupid isn't fair to everyone else.

"But, where he lost me, they said these magics are ours, passed to us by our ancestors back centuries and centuries — they're for us, and they aren't for muggleborns. They're new here, their ancestors didn't build our world. Every inch of space taken up in our world by muggleborns, every second teaching them magic that is not their heritage by right, is wasted, should have gone to someone who belongs here, one of us. But muggleborns have magic, so they are us — and as terribly inbred as especially the nobility can be, bringing in a little new blood isn't hurting anyone.

"At first they only talked, and that wasn't so bad — people have been saying things like this forever, it was nothing new. But then they were doing worse than talking. They started with graffiti, vandalism. Setting buildings on fire, businesses owned by muggleborns or families they'd married into. People started just...disappearing. And then the raids started. They would appear somewhere, break in, kill everyone inside, and leave the place burning behind them, their symbol floating overhead." Cassie turned a hand palm-up, cast a spell, a glowing greenish picture appeared floating over her hand.

It was a skull, with a snake coming out of its mouth. Violet thought "Creepy..." was kind of an understatement.

"It's not a bad symbol, actually. It's modified from this..." The symbol changed, but not actually very much: the eye-holes in the skull went more round, making it look less like it was glaring at Violet, the snake curling in a zigzag, things growing up out of its back...oh, plants! Those were supposed to be plants growing out of it, okay. "It's meant to symbolise creation out of destruction, life out of death. Animals living off the death of plants, and animals living off of their deaths. An old forest might burn, only for new growth to come in its place. And the Dark Lord's people did mean it in the same way — they were saying, by getting rid of these bad people, good people would be able to rise in their place, that we'd be better off for it.

"They're wrong, of course," Cassie said, the glowing picture winking out as she dropped her hand. "Sometimes for something bad to change people have to be hurt, that is true, but killing random muggleborns who did nothing to nobody isn't fixing anything. And people didn't just sit down and take it. People started to fight back, banding together to protect themselves and try to stop the Death Eaters — oh, that's what the Dark Lord's people were called, Death Eaters." That was a funny name, but okay. "And not just muggleborns, but all kinds of people. There were several different groups out there. One was called the Order of the Phoenix, started by Albus and some of his old friends. I joined as soon as he told me about it, soon after I quit the Aurors in Seventy-Three."

This all sounded very scary, Violet took a second to remind itself this was years ago, poking through the puzzle pieces. "That's your friend Albus, the same one who put me with the Dursleys?"

Cassie grimaced at the reminder, glaring down at the table. "Yeah, same bloke. In the early years, the Order mostly tried to protect muggleborns — putting them in safehouses, getting them out of the country if we could. But as the years went on, things got worse and worse. The Dark Lord was very powerful — terrifyingly powerful, most mages didn't stand a chance against him — and more and more people were joining him. Before long, the Death Eaters outnumbered the Hit Wizards and the Aurors put together, and the Ministry didn't really have the numbers to stop their raids anymore. The Death Eaters got bolder, until they attacked a magical enclave at Avebury in Seventy-Seven — not just a single house, but the whole village. That was the first thing that could be called a proper battle, and it wasn't the last. And it got worse and worse, by the month.

"You have to understand, Violet, by the time the turn of the decade came around, people were terrified. Nobody could stand against the Dark Lord, and the attacks just got worse and worse, the Ministry hardly even seemed able to slow them down. People died, hundreds and thousands, whole families were wiped out, names that had endured for centuries upon centuries winking out in a single generation. In time, it seemed inevitable that they would win, that nobody would be able to stop the Dark Lord from taking over the country. Many who could flee did, crossing the border into France or Holland in droves. Those who could fight did, and many died, far too many. And those who could do neither hunkered down, trying to not draw attention to themselves, went into hiding or avoided contact with muggleborns or 'blood traitors' if they could, just in case.

"And then, on the First of November in Eighty-One, seemingly overnight, it was over."

Violet wasn't looking at the puzzle anymore, watching Cassie talk instead. It didn't really know anything about war — except The War, it guessed, with the Nazis and the Blitz and everything, it'd heard a bit about that — and Violet would have guessed it was bad, but... That sounded, just, really scary, no wonder people were running away. "Um. What happened?"

Smirking a little, Cassie said, "Your mother. Lily Evans happened."

...Um.

Cassie giggled a little, maybe at the look on Violet's face. "I'm teasing, but I'm also serious, your mother won the war almost single-handed. Both of your parents joined the Order almost right after graduating from Hogwarts. They'd both been at the top of their class at school, and quickly started doing a lot of good. Neither were so powerful — mages grow more powerful as we age, and they were still so young — but what they were was clever, using spells to their best effect to get an edge on whoever they were fighting. They both even managed to fight the Dark Lord and survive, which wasn't something very many people could say, and nobody so young. Well, Sirius and the Longbottoms were their age, I suppose... Anyway, they did so well, annoyed the Dark Lord so badly, that we heard the Dark Lord had ordered his people to try to find and kill them specifically, something he only did with the most effective of the good guys. I was one too, the Dark Lord actually showed up at my flat and tried to kill me himself, vicious bastard...

"Anyway. This had been going on for a while, your parents doing so much good that they were starting to get famous, turning up in the newspapers all the time. And then, late in Seventy-Nine, we learned there was a prophecy."

Violet frowned. "What's a prophecy?" The word was familiar, but Violet didn't know what from.

"Ah... Well, that's a complicated subject, actually. Long story short, it's a prediction of the future — there's more to it than that, but it's not important just now. No really, Shannon," Cassie said, turning to glance at her over her shoulder. Now that Cassie had drawn Violet's attention to it, Shannon did look like she was about to say something. "Prophecies are an extremely complicated topic, and if I try to explain we'll be here forever. The gist of it is, there was a prophecy, that the person with the power to defeat the Dark Lord would be born in summer, to people who had defied him three times. Albus and the Dark Lord both knew about the prophecy, and both intended to act as though it were true. Whether prophecies or real or not isn't actually important — Albus and the Dark Lord both believed it would come true, or that it could be made to come true or else prevented, and that's what matters.

"Anyway," Cassie sighed, turning back to Violet, "it took some time, Albus, Alastor, Dedalus, and myself picking over the wording and trying to find people it could be about. Eventually, we narrowed it down to Frank and Alice Longbottom...and James and Lily Potter — all four had been thorns in the Dark Lord's side for years, and Lily and Alice were both pregnant, due in summer."

In a whisper, "My birthday's Thirty-First July."

Cassie nodded. "And Neville Longbottom was born just before you, on the Thirtieth. We thought it could be either one of you, so both couples were pulled off the battlefield and put into hiding. By the end of the year, we heard that the Dark Lord was targeting the Potters, convinced that their child was his prophesied enemy, so the protections on the Longbottoms were loosened a bit. And while the Potters waited, cooped up in their home, the rest of us kept fighting a slowly losing war, the Ministry on the edge of collapse."

"He came for me," Violet muttered, even as the thought came to it. "They were killed 'cause of me."

"No, darling, no! It's not your— Here, look at me." A little reluctant, not sure what it'd find, Violet did. Cassie leaned over the table, reaching for Violet's hands, took both of them in hers, her thumbs gently rubbing over its knuckles. Her brownish-green eyes bright, sharp, Cassie said, "It was not your fault. You can't do anything about what other people do. The only thing you control is what you do. And you were only an infant at the time, the prophecy was made before you were even born. You had no control over it at all. What the Dark Lord did is on him, not you...and what your parents did, that is on them."

Bobbing her hands in the air a little with each nonsense word (Latin?), Cassie hissed, "Dō...ut...dēs. The basic idea of how all sacrifice works — I give, that you give; you give something up, so Magic will give you something else. And if you want something big, you have to give Magic something really valuable to get it. And there is nothing more valuable...than a life.

"When the Dark Lord came to your family's home, your father chose to fight him — nobody made him do it, it's not your fault, he chose to. He chose to fight the Dark Lord alone, a fight he knew he couldn't win. Your father was a talented young man, yes, but against the Dark Lord, no, he wasn't coming out of that alive. He knew that, and he chose to do it anyway...to buy your mother time.

"And your mother? Dō ut dēs," she said again, bobbing their hands with the words before going back to rubbing, her thumbs making slow circles on the backs of Violet's hands. "In what little time she had, time your father paid for with his life, she did a ritual, a powerful ritual. A ritual that was completed when the Dark Lord killed her...and then turned his wand on you. And when he tried to kill you, he was killed instead — your mother made a trap for him, and she beat him, with the willing sacrifice of her own life. Nobody made her do it, and it's not your fault. She chose to.

"You are not responsible for your parents' deaths, Violet love. The Dark Lord killed them. And when the Dark Lord came, they could have run away, or at least tried to. They chose, to give up their lives to defeat him. They chose to die, to protect you. And that's not your fault, Violet, it's not."

Violet wasn't looking in Cassie's eyes anymore, it couldn't, they were too... It didn't know, heavy. Violet's throat had gone hot and tight, it was having trouble breathing, the prickling in its eyes making it a little bit nervous. (Uncle Vernon didn't like it when it cried.) It didn't know what to think about all that — Violet didn't even understand a lot of it, it was big complicated stuff — and it didn't know what it was feeling either, what the thing clawing at its throat was. Whatever it was, it was a lot, Violet knew that much. It was hard for Violet to find its voice, fighting against whatever this all was. "Why... Why did they do that?"

Cassie's hands squeezed tighter on Violet's, just for a second. "Because they loved you, of course."

There was nothing to say to that. What felt like a long time, some minutes at least, Violet squeezed its eyes shut, and just focused on breathing.

(Uncle Vernon hated it when it cried.)

(Violet's parents weren't worthless layabout drunks. They were heroes. They saved the day, beat the bad guy, and they saved Violet, they were brave and good, Cassie wouldn't lie about that, Violet knew it...)

(Because they loved you, of course. Of course, like it was no big thing.)

Cassie was quiet a long time, still rubbing soft circles with her thumbs, waiting for Violet to say or do something...or maybe just giving them a moment. After Violet didn't know how long, Cassie finally spoke, her voice low and quiet. "With the Dark Lord gone, the war was more or less over. There were still some of his followers who tried to fight, but it fell apart very quickly. The Ministry was chaos, with all the things that were happening, curses on people lifting as soon as the Dark Lord vanished, and... Well, it was a mess.

"And the story of what happened that night in your family's home got out...though, people got it a little wrong." There was a bit of a bite in Cassie's voice, annoyed. "I don't know how this happened, how they got it wrong, but I suppose it doesn't matter so much anymore. It is what it is. The story people tell is that, when the Dark Lord tried to curse you, it backfired on himself — not because of a ritual your mother did, but just...you. That there's something special about you that made it happen, just by yourself.

"Now, this isn't true, it was your mother who did it, but it's the story everyone knows. And so you're famous. Things were so bad then, and all the credit for ending it, for things getting better again, was given to you. Everyone knows your birth name, everyone knows about your scar — the spot the curse that should have killed you hit, but was stopped from working by your mother's sacrifice."

Violet twitched, one hand almost going up to touch the scar, but Cassie was still holding them at the moment. "That's what that is? I thought... Um, they told me I got it in a smash-up. The same one that killed my parents, and I guess that didn't happen..."

Cassie let out a little scoff. "I doubt Jamie had ever been inside a muggle automobile even once in his life. No, that's not a normal scar, there's magic lingering in it from that night — whether it's leftover from your mother's ritual or a tiny bit of the Dark Lord's curse that got stuck there, I don't know, could be either or a mix of both. As long as the magic is still in there, it will never heal, and I can't get rid of it with a scar-dissolving potion."

"...Can you get the magic out?" Violet always thought its scar was kind of neat, if a little freaky, but if it was from a curse from the evil Dark Lord who killed their parents, they kind of didn't want to keep it. Also, people would know they were Harry Potter, so, that too.

"Ah...maybe. It's been in there for six years, so it's pretty deeply tied into your body and soul by now — like how a tree might grow around a post in its way, you know. I know a few decent cursebreakers, whether I would trust them to... I can't promise anything, but I'll look into it."

"Okay. Thank you, Aunt Cassie." Not just for that, but...kind of a lot of things. Violet didn't know if it ever thanked Cassie for getting it out of there, and for giving it a room with big windows, and magic pizza, and little cakes, and just...being nice, nobody was ever nice to it before...

"Of course, darling."

(Of course, like it was no big thing.)

After a few more seconds, Violet wormed their hands out of Cassie's, and went back to the puzzle. They'd put together a whole bunch in their head while not looking at Cassie, click, click, click, click, click, click...

"Right, where was I... No, that was mostly it, I think. That's what the war was about, and the Dark Lord, and why we're covering your scar and not telling people your birth name. Things are just easier if people don't know who you are — I don't know if you're ready for that kind of attention from everyone just yet."

Unpleasant cold tingling trickling down its back, Violet shivered — yeah no, that sounded bad, let's not. It liked people thinking it was just Violet Black (whoever that was) just fine.

"And there are safety reasons to consider too, I guess. A fair number of Death Eaters managed to slither their way out of any real punishment in those first few messy years, and I'm sure there are plenty we never knew about — it's not impossible one of them might try to hurt you. Now, I don't want you to worry about that. They don't know who you are, so they have no idea where to look. And besides, they might be dangerous, but I'm even more so — they won't get their hands on you, not while I'm around."

...Okay. Violet was almost scared for a second there, but it did get the feeling before that Cassie could be really scary when she wanted to be. It remembered Aunt Petunia screaming, Cassie so angry she turned the air around her all cold and sharp and just...scary. Yeah, so, probably fine.

"There's some other things that happened back then you should know about eventually, but it's not important just now, we can talk about it later. So, I can't really think of anything else. Unless you still had questions."

"No." Well, some, but there were lots of things they still didn't know about magic people, and they didn't even really know how to ask about things they...didn't know about in the first place, if that made sense, so. The gaps would be filled in as they spent more time around magic people, it was pretty sure. "Thank you."

Together with talking about Susan and Julie earlier, Cassie explaining the war and everything meant the time Violet was supposed to be talking with Shannon was almost over now anyway. They did talk a little bit more, Violet and Cassie sticking together more and more of the puzzle — Cassie said she could leave if Violet wanted, but it didn't really make a difference (and she was a lot quicker helping with the puzzle than Shannon too) — but not much before Shannon said it was time to go.

Nooo, the puzzle was almost done! They couldn't stop now! Kind of to Violet's surprise — they still weren't used to people doing things Violet wanted just because — Shannon said they could finish it, if they went really fast. She had a meeting with another kid in fifteen minutes, they had ten before Shannon needed them to go. Biting their lip, their neck and arms tingling, Violet looked over the pieces as quickly as they could — this one went here, and that there, and that one, and that one...

Violet was a little distracted when they noticed how quick Cassie was going. Eyes narrowed a little concentration, click click click click click click, tried to pick up a clump she put together but the pieces didn't stick that well, instead magicking them up with a tap of her finger, slipping it in place, a whole blank spot filled in just like that. Violet pushed themself faster trying to keep up, bobbing up and down in place a little as the shapes of the notches in the pieces drew themselves behind their eyes, click, click, click, click, click...

They had to be almost out of time, but then Violet slid the final piece into place. Sweeping their hands over the completed puzzle, the picture of the night sky streaked with pretty bright colours, the seams between the pieces bumping against their skin, Violet felt a grin pulling at their face — they loved it when things came together. "Ha! We did it!"

"That's right, we'repuzzle masters over here." Grinning back at them, Cassie held up a hand, palm-up, seemed to be waiting for something.

"Oh! Um." A little cautiously, Violet leaned forward to give her a high five — they hadn't ever done one before.

After a quick smack, Violet's palm tingling a little, Cassie said, "Heck yeah!"

"Heck yeah!" They bit their lip, trying not to laugh. It was kind of fun, Violet bouncing in place with it a little (for some reason?), but Cassie was being so silly!

"Was that right? I've never done that before, just seen it in American films."

Violet giggled — they had no idea...

They waited for Cassie to turn back into a grown-up before leaving, Shannon smiling at them. It was making Violet feel a little uncomfortable, didn't know what that was about, but it didn't think Shannon was making fun of them or something, so. On the way out, Shannon snagged Cassie for a moment, they whispered to each other, Violet was too far away to hear. And then Cassie led them upstairs to the roof, popping away to get magic ice cream from the place in London — Foris, Fortseh...um, For-something, Violet kept forgetting. Because it turned out ice cream was great, and their cold cabinets at home didn't deal with it very well, for some reason...

A couple days later, Cassie came home one afternoon with a few plastic full of cardboard boxes — jigsaw puzzles, Violet saw when she started pulling them out, a whole bunch of them. They were for Violet, apparently, since it was rainy and cold so they couldn't go out much. Cassie even got some...resin stuff that she could use to glue them together and stick them to the walls in their room or around the house, since the place could still do with some prettying up. Violet brought them all up to the bedroom it wasn't using — it took more than one trip, there were so many! — and got started on one of them right away, a picture from up in the mountains somewhere, maybe the Alps?

Lying on the floor on their stomach as they sorted the pieces, stockinged feet kicking in the air, Violet grinned — they liked it when things came together right.

---

D'aawww, cute chapter. At least I think so, anyway.

And yes, in case you're wondering, Rufus is going to be mortified all over again when he learns who Violet is.

For those of you who aren't reading The Long Way Around, I got that fic stuck in my brain, and wrote a few chapters for it to get it out. Since I wrote a bunch for that, I'm gonna do an extra chapter for this one before going back to alternating — which will bring us through Christmas, and just before what you might call the second inciting incident. I am still writing the next chapter for the "main" fic I'm on, but in The Good War I happen to be on a long, complicated chapter at the moment. It's the duelling club tournament, and writing action scenes is hard, and there's also little character moments scattered throughout, so yeah, it'll be stupid long and it'll take a while for me to finish it. Also, sleep troubles aren't making that any easier either. It'll be done when it's done, and then I'll continue alternating that with By Gods Forsaken — shit, feels like forever since I wrote Dragon Age stuff, this is what happens when I get obsessive about a fic at the expense of everything else...

(Apparently these episodes I get sometimes are an autism thing, hyperfixation and all that. Who knew?)

Anyway! Violet is cute! And Cassie! And Violet and Cassie! Rufus will never live that moment down! Moving on! Wee!