May 1989

Having not attended Caoimhe's Academy herself, there were some things about how the programme worked there that Cassie was less than entirely familiar with. She'd made a point of looking over all the literature made available to the parents of students and asked her friends who had gone — Síomha was the most useful, her time in the children's craft school having been the most recent. Of course, those conversations tended to make her uncomfortably aware of how young Síomha was — arguably too young, Cassie would never have slept with her the night they'd met if she'd known her age — but a little discomfort on her part was worth knowing what the fuck was going on up on the Hill.

The entire purpose of craft school, from its conception to execution, was to attract and prepare prospective recruits for the various craft guilds in the country. Now, Cassie honestly had very little to do with the craft guilds, her personal experience with tradesmen predominantly those in more academic professions — she'd contracted craftsmen for one project or another in the past, of course, but that was solely a business arrangement. Daughters of the House of Black and the membership of craft guilds didn't tend to be found in the same social circles, to put it mildly.

The only time she was likely to socially interact with a craftsman was when she was debasing herself with the debauchery that passed for entertainment among the lower sorts, as her Uncle Sirius used to put it (bastard). And she never went by her real name in those situations, and they were hardly likely to talk about work in any case.

The craft school programme was essentially split into two segments. The first was the pre-academy programme, which was expected to take place over three years. While not all of the students would ultimately attend academy, some continuing on into the second segment of craft school, this course was designed at least in part as preparation for academy regardless. The quite culturally diverse students would be caught up with the instructional language of the academy of their choice — Gaelic for Caoimhe's, Cambrian (or English) for Frideswith's, and English for Hogwarts — attain the necessary competence with reading and writing and basic mathematics and the background in the country's general culture and history incoming academy students were normally expected to know. (Which put the muggleborns at Hogwarts at something of a disadvantage, but one could hardly expect anything else.) Given the instruction in the various fields offered in the programme, incoming students who'd attended a craft school tended to be ahead in Potions, Herbology, and Runes, and possibly History and Astronomy as well, but this was by design: being a little bit ahead in some areas allowed these students to put more effort into their wand-magic courses, and perhaps continue to practise a craft that might have caught their eye in their own time. Former craft school students tended to disproportionately participate in extracurricular activities, simply because they had more free time to do so.

Also, Cassie suspected young Severus would appreciate that the craft school students were less inclined to catastrophically fuck something up in their first few seasons in his classroom, but that was just a nice side-benefit.

Craft school had been adjusted to accommodate preparing students for academy, but that hadn't been its original purpose — as suggested by the fact that the programme continued well past the age of eleven. The second segment of the programme continued much the same as the first, though with much less priority put on the classroom subjects. There were some, according to Síomha — she hadn't attended craft school past the age of eleven, but she had relatives who had — particularly language classes, and some important information about how the legal system worked (and how to best avoid getting on the wrong side of it). There were also optional surveys of foreign and non-human cultures and histories, literature, even religious classes, though more in the sense of the academic study of the subject. (If a student felt a calling in that direction, they'd simply approach a suitable priesthood instead.) Most of the students' time, however, was spent in the craft labs, refining their skills and trying to attract apprenticeship offers.

There were always representatives from various guilds on hand, mostly older members who were well-established and comfortable enough that they didn't need to spend so much of their time working to support themselves anymore — but who might be willing to put in the effort to teach. (Or, sometimes, well-connected individuals who were simply in a position to make introductions.) The goal of craft school was to develop one's skills in the basics, yes, but to ultimately secure an apprenticeship. The degree of focus on that end goal was far more intense in the second segment, since many of the younger children intended to move on into academy instead, but even in the first segment there were still people from craft guilds around, helping to instruct the children and keeping an eye out for special talent.

The craft school didn't assign grades, as such — the teachers did keep track of their students' progress in different areas, but there were no scores, and there were no exams. Instead, Síomha told Cassie it was typical for the teachers to meet with the parents to give an overview of how each student was progressing, with recommendations of what to work on over the summer break and in the following year. If one guild or another had their eye on a student, but weren't prepared at the moment to begin the dance leading up to the offer of an apprenticeship, this was when the parent would be told about that too (quietly, to save face in the event it didn't work out). These meetings were normally done twice a year, around the end of January and the end of May — splitting the school year in half, the line drawn at the old Celtic new year — though Síomha said they almost always skipped the first winter meeting, and often the second and third as well. Whether they would bother depended on the teacher's preferences, and whether there was anything newsworthy to share.

Violet's teacher had skipped the winter meeting this time. Cassie had been called into the school once, back in November — parents being formally asked to come in to have a meeting about a student was rare, mostly only done in cases of serious misbehaviour or suspected health issues. (Violet's had been the latter, that's when the autism conversation started.) Halfway through May, Violet brought home a letter for Cassie from her teacher, asking her to come down to the school one afternoon toward the end of the month, after class was let out. Violet had seemed slightly nervous — concerned Cassie would assume she was in trouble? — started (haltingly) explaining that this was a normal thing they all did, Cassie reassured the silly girl that she was aware, Síomha had already explained all about it.

When she arrived at the school, it was a reasonably pleasant day, perhaps seventeen degrees and sunny. Or as sunny as one could expect in Ireland, at any rate — there were big swaths of open blue dominating the sky, but a patch of clouds would occasionally still pass across the sun, dropping the town into shade for minutes at a time. The path from the gates was thick with a steady stream of traffic going in the opposite direction, primary and craft school students on their way home. By the time she reached the courtyard there were a fair number of children still there, lingering chatting or kicking around a football or bapping a sliotar back and forth. Cassie turned straight for the building she knew hosted the younger students of the craft school, remembered from the single other time she'd been inside.

Cassie ducked as a passing sliotar winged by within a foot of her head — someone must have missed a pass. A couple children came came running her way, shouting out apologies for nearly hitting her, she just waved them off, summoned the ball from wherever it'd landed and sending it sailing back their way, continued on.

She had known people before who would take that kind of near-miss personally, but she honestly couldn't imagine it herself. Honestly, they were only children.

When she spotted Violet and Éimhear waiting in the entryway, Cassie smiled to herself. Violet was always an adorable little thing, of course — and she still hadn't quite learned how to coordinate colours, today wearing a fuzzy pink cotton skirt, a burnt orange sleeveless button-up blouse, and socks with a black and red chequered pattern. (The pink and the orange clashed horribly.) Despite learning since that the rest of the country didn't have a very high opinion of Starlight — Violet had been quite distressed when her school friends had reacted badly to a mention of her vampire and wilderfolk friends — she'd continued wearing the Mistwalker-style bracelets and the like she'd gradually accumulated over her visits, colourful beads gathered around her wrists. She'd also developed a habit of adding little flecks of colour to the blonde of her hair, matching whatever beads she happened to be wearing today, vivid little chinks of rainbow colour varying day to day. Cassie wasn't even certain if that was a conscious affectation, or if it were something she did completely by accident just because she liked her jewellery and projected the colours out into her hair without meaning to, but Cassie found it hopelessly charming regardless.

(Of course, that Violet seemed comfortable appearing so obviously unnatural was undoubtedly a good sign. But mostly she just thought it was adorable.)

"Ah, there you are, Cassie," Éimhear said as she approached. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, Éimhear. Hello, darling," reaching out to finger one of the flecks of colour in Violet's hair, smiling. "Have a good day?"

"Mhmm! I was j-j-just telling Éimhear about our t-trip this summer!"

Cassie couldn't help smiling at the giddy excitement on Violet's voice — she'd thought Cassie was joking when she floated the idea of spending most of her summer holiday overseas. They would have to dip back to Britain occasionally, for Violet's lessons with Arcturus if for no other reason, but Cassie didn't see why they couldn't spend most of it visiting one place or another. Their preliminary itinerary involved catching two or maybe three duelling events — they needed Síomha along to keep Violet company, and she had her own responsibilities, so which events she could participate in depended on Síomha's schedule — among stays in seven to nine countries across three different continents. Violet was adorably enthusiastic about it, she'd been looking over maps and photojournals and chatting away on something she'd read about the clothing or the language or the art or the food at one of their intended stops ever since Cassie had started making plans. Smirking, Cassie drawled, "Couldn't help bragging about it a little, could you?"

"Noooo, I wasn't." The childish pouting wasn't any less adorable than the childish enthusiasm.

"Relax, darling, only teasing. So, where are we off to?"

Grinning at the two of them, an edge of suppressed laughter on her voice, Éimhear said, "We'll be starting in the classroom — come on in, it's this way..."

Cassie hadn't actually seen the classroom before, but it was more or less what she'd expected — she already knew from Violet that they spent most of their lessons sitting around the big table, the desks stacked in the back only brought out for certain written assignments or the rare quiz. It was certainly more pleasant and colourful and comfortable than where Cassie had had her lessons when she was Violet's age, but she'd had a very different childhood. Éimhear already had a trio of chairs and a little table set up for them on the open floor space, which she assumed weren't ordinarily there.

Violet skipped off toward the chairs first, Éimhear detouring to the bookshelves. Picking up some papers, looked like. Whatever she was getting, it didn't delay her very long, Cassie had barely sat down before Éimhear was catching up. "All right," Éimhear said as she sat across from Cassie and Violet, looking up with a warm smile. She'd picked up a thin book on the way — practically a pamphlet, really, maybe a dozen pages bound together at most. "Do you have any questions for me before we get started?"

"No, go ahead."

"Good..." Éimhear flipped open the book, traced down a page with a finger for a moment before looking up again. "As far as classroom subjects go, there is nothing to worry about — you've got a very bright girl here, I'm sure you already know that. Violet finished our maths workbook... Was it in March?" she asked Violet, while flipping through the pages of her book.

Violet shook her head. "J-J-January. I was at home, and it was c-cold and rainy, and I was bored."

"January, yes, I see it here now. My, that's even earlier than I thought. When we do have little maths quizzes, Violet almost always finishes first — there have been many days when she's finished the work early, and I have to find something else for her to do while everyone else catches up. And it's not only in maths, but in other subjects as well. Geography is the big one — I've had to give her her own project to work on, as the map she drew from memory back in February already had all the detail her classmates were expected to recognise by the end of the year, so."

"From memory? She drew an accurate map of Britain from memory?" Somehow Cassie hadn't heard about that. Violet did talk about things that went on at school, but she seemed to have an odd sense of what was worth telling Cassie about — she'd heard from Lasairín that Violet was easily the best maths student in their class, and from Susan that a boy was being a little shite about her stammer. She knew Violet was working on various art projects and the like, but most of them didn't come home with her, left at the school for safekeeping until they could be bundled together and sent home all at once...

"It's not precisely perfect, but it's very good, yes — we'll be looking at that later. So in those lessons, she has nothing to do, and is very quick with maths, and a couple other areas here and there. And if Violet isn't occupied with something, she'll distract the other children, so I've had to come up with all manner of other projects for her to work on. I've found some basic language exercises in Cambrian and French, a few different puzzles, I even had her do a maths quiz entirely in Egyptian hieroglyphs just last week. Whatever will help stop her from being bored."

As Éimher spoke, Violet had slowly slumped lower in her seat, her head dropping. Cassie felt a faint hot prickle of light magic on the air, so she might even be making herself physically smaller as well — probably unconscious, Cassie would guess. Barely above a whisper, she mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"That's nothing to apologise for, Violet. I'm your teacher — if you're not learning something, than I haven't done my job for the day, have I? I think it's kind of fun sometimes, honestly. Finding out how to keep my kids happy and learning is kind of like one of your puzzles, taking all the pieces I have and putting them together in a way that works. I've had fun this year, haven't you?"

"Well, yeah..."

"There you go, then. Anyway, there are the few subjects where Violet is far ahead, and she's keeping up just fine in all the rest. History and politics can be a bit iffy at times, but I understand our world is new to you — you're keeping up fine, just aren't ahead the way you are in a lot of other areas. And her Gaelic was a little rough at the beginning," Éimhear admitted, speaking to Cassie again (she was switching between addressing Violet and Cassie seemingly at random), "but she's made remarkable progress over so short a time. Honestly, if I didn't know how Violet felt about lying, I would never believe she hasn't even been speaking the language for two years yet."

Cassie ticked up an eyebrow. "How she feels about lying?" Violet hadn't told her teacher about the fairy soul magic, had she?

Thankfully, it didn't seem she had — Éimhear just seemed faintly uncertain about the question. "Yes? Did you not know? She says lying makes her uncomfortable, and, having watched her with the other children I believe it. And I'm told that's not uncommon with autism."

Oh, so she was blaming the quirk on autism, then. All right, that worked. "Right, yes. I'm not really surprised, children pick up languages quickly."

"I suppose that's true enough. It still seems remarkable to me. Her spelling isn't perfect, but no worse than the average child her age, and..." Éimhear hesitated for a second. "She has some difficulty with rhyming and metre, I've noticed."

Violet scowled. "Metre is stupid. I c-c-can't hear it at all."

"What about it?" Cassied asked. "You always put the accent on the right syllable when speaking." Unless her stammer was acting up in an odd spot, anyway.

"Yeah, but, but, but, those are j-just words though! It's... It's different, I 'unno..."

Éimhear just kept smiling, lifted a shoulder in a little shrug. "Poetry isn't for everyone. It takes a certain sense of the feeling of language, which isn't something everyone has. It's even harder when you're not doing it in your native language. I have the feeling that's going to be the problem area going forward, when it comes to book work — poetry, and politics. Which, all things considered, is quite good. Nobody can be good at everything, Violet dear."

"I know that..." Violet muttered, pouting again (adorably).

Grinning, clearly as amused with Violet as Cassie was, Éimhear just moved on. The introduction over with, she spoke about some of the academic stuff in a bit more detail, but there really wasn't that much to say. Aside from a couple things she had trouble with — poetry, which was understandable given this was her second language, and history and politics, which was understandable given she was still relatively new here, so didn't have the absolute basics most children raised by mages would have — she was either ahead of her peers, or comfortably keeping pace with them. Violet was still getting lessons from Archie, which would increasingly move into politics as they went on, so at least that area would be covered fine regardless, Cassie wasn't concerned.

A couple months was a long time to go without touching a skill at all, especially for a child, so Éimhear recommended having her do some basic maths work every once in a while — or start on more advanced stuff on their own time if they wanted, Violet was good at it. Except, when Éimhear mentioned that, Violet pouted, slumping a little into her chair again, didn't seem to like that idea. Violet admitted, when asked, that she didn't really like maths — it was fine, she guessed, and it was kind of nice to be good at something, but she just didn't really find it interesting. (Which was fair enough, Cassie understood what it felt like to be good at something she didn't necessarily like.) Éimhear suggested they take some reading material with them while they travelled, and keep using Gaelic between themselves, so she didn't lapse any there — that shouldn't be a problem, Síomha still greatly preferred Gaelic above English — just try not to fall behind in maths. Cassie coming up with a few basic geometry problems for her once a week would probably be enough to stop the knowledge from fading too much, they could do that. Oh, Violet could write letters to her friends while they were overseas, that was good practice, and wouldn't even feel like homework...

Violet didn't actually know how to address a letter in Gaelic — that was generally covered in basic writing lessons at primary school — but that was fine, Cassie could teach her that. Or, Síomha was probably a better idea, honestly, she didn't write a lot of letters in Gaelic...and also her etiquette might be out of date...

Cassie was taken aback by Éimhear's use of do chéile to refer to Síomha. Céile was presumably related to cilydd in Cambrian, meaning a companion or a partner, in both languages used in compounds with meanings like together or each other or one after the other. And in Gaelic, unlike in Cambrian, it was also used as a general term for spouse. Cassie knew the term wasn't restricted to that sense — and the proper, formal, legal terms were mostly borrowed from Latin — but it had an implication of a rather more...serious relationship than, say, leannán, which could be used for any sexual or romantic partner, or even a formal suitor — Síomha tended to call her leannán far more often than simply using her name, meant as an endearment. The casual use of céile for Síomha from Éimhear kind of blindsided her, she couldn't even say why, just...

By the time she'd gathered her wits, it was already too late to correct Éimhear without making it awkward, so she just dropped it.

Once Éimhear had finished up with her recommendations on how to prevent Violet from possibly backsliding over the summer, they moved on to how Violet was doing in class — as in, how she was handling it, and how she was managing socially. This subject was rather less broadly positive than the previous. Éimhear started off light, talking about how Violet was one of the sweetest, most kind-hearted children she'd ever had the pleasure of teaching — yes, Cassie had noticed, given what her early childhood had been like that was a fucking miracle — and was always trying to help out when it seemed like anyone could use it. Of course, only when she actually noticed — Violet could be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. She was very sensitive to Susan's mood in particular, but it could take her a moment to realise if someone else was struggling, or if they were in a bad mood for whatever reason. Or if they were annoyed with her for trying to help when it wasn't wanted, or any number of other things, really. There'd been a few minor spats with classmates over the course of the year, mostly over minor communication issues — sometimes due to Violet's stammering, but often due to her simply failing to read other people's mood or intent.

Which was perfectly normally for autistic people, apparently. Cassie didn't need Éimhear to remind her of that, Shannon had explained the idea well enough — though, Éimhear's reassurances there might have been for Violet's benefit. It mostly wasn't a problem, Violet was a sweetheart and most of her classmates realised she could be a bit peculiar and made allowances for it...but some of them didn't, which could lead to a bit of social friction in the classroom. Éimhear did her best to manage it, but children could be stubborn, so it wasn't always possible to do that.

Cassie had expected something like that must be behind Violet sometimes coming home in a dour mood. Violet didn't volunteer anything about it, just silently went up to her room to read or poke at one of her puzzles, and Cassie tried to avoid pressuring Violet into talking about things when she didn't want to. (In one of their autism conversations, Shannon had also recommended letting Violet have some space when it felt like she needed it, so.) There'd been days before she'd started school that Violet had been more withdrawn, so, it hadn't really seemed like a change of behaviour, Cassie hadn't been concerned. But, it would make sense if those quiet moods might have been caused by a more stressful day at school...and also why Violet didn't feel like talking about it — if Cassie had just been in an argument with someone, she sometimes didn't feel like talking to anyone else either.

Violet wasn't the one making trouble herself, at least not intentionally — but then it wouldn't be, would it? Colourful bloody ray of sunshine, this girl. So, that wasn't a concern when it came to her behaviour, so to speak, but it was worth keeping in mind that Violet was likely to continue to have...difficulties, in this area. After all, autism didn't exactly go away. She was cleary putting in the good-faith effort to make friends, which was really all they could ask at this point, but they had to be realistic when it came to their expectations for her relationships with her peers.

Éimhear was trying to be delicate, but Cassie could tell by the way Violet had shrunk down into her seat, her face very red (even seeping a little into the roots of her hair), that the comments were still making her uncomfortable. Cassie had shuffled her chair closer, her arm wrapped around her shoulders — just because. The occasional minor unconscious shifts kept releasing bursts of light magic, Violet uncomfortably hot to sit so close to, but it wasn't so bad Cassie couldn't ignore it. Seemingly reflexive, Violet's fingers kept toying with the fabric of Cassie's skirt, she wondered if Violet was even aware she was doing that.

"And there was a thought I had, but I'm not sure if..." Éimhear trailed off, frowning to herself. "It's not my choice one way or the other, I have no say in it. And I know how important the experience can be for people of your class—" That presumably meant the nobility. "—and it's not truly my business, but I can't help but feel..."

"Just spit it out, girl."

Éimhear gave her a rueful sort of smile. "Very well. I don't think you should send Violet to Hogwarts. I don't think she'll do well there."

Feeling Violet tense under her arm, Cassie ticked up an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"I can't imagine how she'll have any problem with the material, no, she'll be more than prepared when it comes time to move on to academy. It's more a problem of... Well, I'd recommend against sending her to any of the international schools either — sending her away. I don't think she'll do well at a boarding school. All the stress of dealing with her peers, but without her home to go back to, her own space, you, and what support you give her at home. I don't... I'm concerned how that will go."

...

Well, that was a legitimate question, when she put it like that.

"I w-w-w-w– I wah, I—" Violet groaned, almost vibrating with frustration against Cassie's side.

"You want to go," Cassie guessed. She had talked up Hogwarts, a bit, about her time there, and they'd visited Albus there a few times, and Dora had stories, and her parents had gone there...

Violet apparently didn't trust her voice to work properly at the moment, just let out a hum — though she did relax a little, satisfied Cassie had gotten the message.

She sighed, tipping her head back against the top of her chair. She had gotten the message, yes, but she couldn't help the feeling that Éimhear...might have a point. It did nobody any good to send Violet away to Hogwarts if it was just going to make her miserable. Given all the effort that had gone into helping her recover from the horrid treatment she'd been subjected to by her relatives, blowing it all up just to send her to a specific school absolutely wasn't worth it — as well-regarded as a Hogwarts education was, as much as people would expect Harry Potter to attend, Violet's happiness was more important. There was no reason she couldn't simply go to academy here.

And if she was being brutally honest with herself, it probably wasn't a great idea for Cassie's mental health either. She might be in a much better place than she'd been a couple years ago, but she didn't trust herself to not do something stupid if she was left at loose ends — like, say, start drinking again. She was well aware of how volatile she could be, now that she was responsible for someone else it was important to keep herself together. Síomha would probably stop her from going completely off the ledge, but...

...When she thought about it, there was a reason Violet couldn't simply go to academy here: Albus would expect her to go to Hogwarts. And dealing with him could potentially become a serious problem.

"How about this?" Cassie started, her head tipping forward again. "We wait a couple years before making a decision. If it does seem like Violet's going to need a little extra support, then I can make visits — hell, if it comes down to it I can buy a house in Hogsmeade and she can come stay over the weekends or overnight if she needs to get away for a bit." She would just say Violet could floo home, but did she did not do well in the floo. "I'm old friends with Albus, I'm sure he'll be willing to cooperate if I insist it's necessary for Violet's health."

Éimhear froze, her eyes going wide at the revelation that one of her kids' mother was "old friends" with the Albus Dumbledore — some of the noble families sent their kids to craft school here, but it wasn't every day that the average commoner met someone who could claim to be personal friends with the Chief Warlock. To her credit, she recovered quickly, thoughtfully tilting her head. "That may help. Yes, that's a good idea. Though you needn't buy another house, she can simply go home when she needs to."

"I figured it was better for her to be able to get home herself if it comes to it. I can't always be there to apparate her out, and she can't use the floo."

Frowning, Éimhear opened her mouth, but then froze, closed it again. Cassie would guess she'd been about to ask about Violet and the floo before deciding it wasn't her business. "I see. Yes, having somewhere to go is...better. You would need to check in frequently, to make sure she is doing all right."

"I plan to do that anyway," Cassie said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. Honestly, depending on how that first year apart went, Cassie strongly suspected she might end up trying to find a way to insert herself at the school (out of concern for herself as much as Violet). Dumbledore was always looking for a new Defence instructor, she could sit in that position for a year while they figured something out...

(Cassie suspected the curse on the position was just superstition anyway. But even if it wasn't, she was pretty sure she'd be fine — she was rather more difficult to kill or chase out with some scandal than Albus's usual hires.)

She could tell Éimhear still wasn't comfortable with the thought of Violet going to Hogwarts at all, but Cassie's intent to take precautions was at least enough to get her to drop the subject. Then they went on to talking about craft stuff. That the students all contributed to making their own lunch was one of the things Cassie found very peculiar about the programme here, but she guessed it made sense — most people didn't have elves at home, and some of their parents might be too busy with work to teach them to take care of themselves properly. Violet was one of the more enthusiastic in their class about helping with the food, ended up helping other kids with their tasks just because she knew what she was doing and enjoyed it. A meal coming together right was one of those things that gave her that click feeling she liked so much, apparently.

Besides cooking, the crafts could be kind of mixed. The basic potions and enchanting lessons had mostly gone well (besides the early issue with the smell in the potions lab). In music, they'd only learned how to read and done some basic playing around with vocals — Violet had picked up the basics of music theory very quickly, but she was rather self-conscious about her voice. She didn't like woodworking, and there'd been a serious incident their first day in ceramics, where Violet had reacted very badly to getting clay all over her hands, and had spent a half an hour in the bathroom scrubbing her hands off, and then just sitting on the floor hyperventilating until she pulled herself together enough to return to class. (Cassie did know about that, Lasairín had asked later that evening if Violet was okay.) Though, their days in the ceramics lab had actually turned out pretty well, since she'd developed a system with Susan: Susan shaped the clay, and then Violet handled the glaze and the paint. The clay didn't set off Susan's Sight, and Violet enjoyed the painting, so it seemed a fair trade — the adults had decided it was an acceptable compromise, they'd been allowed to work on everything as a team since.

Violet was rather enthusiastic in their textile workshop, which Cassie was well aware of. She'd blown through the lessons on basic sewing — primarily geared to the steps necessary to perform simple patch work, but leading into the fundamentals of tailoring down the line — much more quickly than expected, had been moved into embroidery ahead of schedule. Instead of skipping to the topics of later years, the teachers there had been giving her more thorough embroidery projects to occupy her time — those would be the same ones Cassie sometimes found her poking away at at home.

Éimhear showed her a page in her booklet, rows and columns labelled with different kinds of stitches and patterns and shite — which was complete nonsense to Cassie, she didn't know the first thing about how the craft actually worked — the different boxes marked off or with a comment written in them. This part of the grid was normally what was expected for kids to learn by the end of their first year here. Some picked up more or less, of course, but this part was what they aimed for. So, all of the stuff Violet had picked up over here and down here, this was all extra, stuff she'd done ahead of time — some of these skills weren't actually things they were expected to learn until their second or even third year...and sometimes not at all, if the student hadn't a particular interest in textiles. It wasn't the area Violet had shown the greatest talent in, but it definitely stood out, worth encouraging going forward.

When Éimhear brought up the idea of letting Violet play around with, say, towels or curtains around the house, or even altering her own clothing, Violet perked up a little. Cassie noticed, and after a bit of prodding Violet admitted that she had thought it would be neat to add at least a bit of edging to some of her clothes, but she wasn't sure that was okay — she hadn't wanted Cassie to think they weren't good enough, that she was ungrateful or whatever for all the stuff Cassie did for her. It took serious effort to hold down her rage at those fucking bastards — sometimes, she really did regret not skinning that woman alive when she'd had the chance — once she was sure she could make her voice come out properly warm and soft she insisted there was really no reason to worry about that. They were Violet's clothes, Cassie had gotten them for her, they were hers to do with as she wanted. And yes, if Violet wanted to play around with them, just ask and they could go out and get the necessary supplies. Though, anything with enchantments could easily be ruined that way, so, they could just go out to a muggle clothing store and pick up a bunch of stuff she could play with — any time Violet wanted to do that, that was fine.

Violet seemed very pleased with that idea, her feet kicking in the air and humming under her breath a little. Good, then? Seemed like very boring and tedious work to Cassie, but if that's what Violet wanted to do with her time...

(She was going to stitch colourful glass beads into literally everything she wore, wasn't she?)

And last was the art workshop — but they weren't going to talk about that here, Éimhear wanted to show them something. She handed Cassie the booklet — her report on Violet's progress for the year, this was Cassie's to keep — and stood up, told them to take all their things and follow her. Oddly, Violet seemed not to have expected this any more than Cassie had, blinking wide-eyed and silent up at her teacher. Whatever this was about, Éimhear must not have informed Violet ahead of time.

The workshops at the back were mostly quiet though, somewhat to Cassie's surprise, not entirely empty. Of course, some of the other teachers were having year-end meetings with parents, and apparently a couple of them were also being shown something back here. There were staff around too, presumably squaring things away after the end of classes. She assumed there must be some preparation for the summer as well — the craft school didn't actually close down over the summer while classes were out, but there were fewer people around. If nothing else, they must at least cut down on the materials that were available, so nothing went bad. Though, how many things did go bad, really? There were potions ingredients, and she guessed paints could dry out...

The art workshop was one of the ones with external windows — some crafts (potions in particular) were more sensitive to sunlight, but Cassie guessed they probably actually wanted natural sunlight in here. That would explain the enchantment on the windows intensifying the light coming in so it could be spread through the whole space without fading to nothing. (Which was clever enchanting work, even if the prickle of light magic was making Cassie faintly uncomfortable.) Most of the floor was filled with tables ringed with chairs — low, comfortable for children — cabinets all along the walls, the open or glass fronts showing stacks of paper or rolls of canvas or bottles and palettes of paints or whatever (Cassie wasn't an expert), narrow boxes she assumed held pencils and the like, in one spot wooden racks she knew must be chevalets — she couldn't remember the term in English off-hand — in various shapes and sizes, folded up in a corner. There was a smell to the room, paper and ink and wood and chalk, surprisingly intense.

They weren't alone in the room, a man waiting for them at the highest table, more appropriate for adults. Middle-aged, perhaps in his eighties or nineties, he was tall and lanky, face sketched with subtle wrinkles and his long hair, brown just beginning to frost through with grey, tied back with a bright blue and yellow ribbon, beaded tassels at the end brushing his shoulder when he moved. He stood as they came in, moving to introduce himself, with the proper bow of a commoner to a noblewoman — which was completely fucking unnecessary, but. Emlyn Gloywlaw...

That name was familiar. Gloywlaw, she meant, she must have heard it before. Apparently he had relatives scattered through several different craft guilds, but she didn't tend to meet a lot of people who worked with textiles or glass or construction for a living. Ah, he had a nephew who was in Public Works, worked with their wardcrafters during the war, that must be where she'd heard it before — Cledwyn, that was it, and how was Cleda these days? Good, good...

After a moment of smalltalk they sat at the table, Violet and Cassie across from Éimhear and Emlyn. Emlyn had a large file sitting in front of him, made out of sturdy parchment — an oversized square, about the length of Cassie's forearm to each side, she'd seen similar files used to transport ward scripts or architectural sketches. In a low smooth voice, his Gaelic with a subtle Cambrian accent, Emlyn said, "As long as you were here meeting with Éimhear, I wanted to use the opportunity to talk to you about Willow's work here this year."

Cassie noticed Emlyn called Violet by the name she used in Gaelic, while Éimhear had been using her English name the whole time, didn't know whether that meant anything. "Go ahead, then. I assume she's been doing well — girl likes to draw, she's gone through a few sets of coloured pencils the last couple years." Some of the ones Violet wasn't too self-conscious about to put somewhere anyone could see were pinned up on the walls at home now, for some colour, switched in new ones every once in a while.

"Oh yes, very good. That's why I wanted to speak with you."

"Before you get started," Éimhear interrupted, "could you show her the map? I mentioned it earlier."

"Of course, let me see..." Emlyn flipped through the file, tilted at an angle that Cassie couldn't see the contents at all — not trying to hide it, she didn't think, just the most comfortable way to handle it. "This was on one of their free days. I understand Willow was unfamiliar with our country to start with, it was something of a test for herself, to draw it from memory. Here we are," he said, laying a large sheet of paper (specially treated white) on the table between them, turned so the map was the right way around to Cassie.

...It was a map of the country. That didn't even take guesswork, that was, just, what it was. It showed Great Britain, Ireland, Brittany, even the Orkneys and Shetland. The coastlines, including the north of France and Holland where they were in frame, the border with France and even the one between France and Holland, all of them were drawn in solid black ink. The detail was incredible, following the smooth curls and jagged edges of the actual coast...thought it wasn't quite perfect, Cassie could tell. The finer details in the west coast of Ireland, the southern coast of Brittany, the islands of the Rhine–Scheldt delta, and the Hebrides were missing or inaccurate — it looked like the Isles of Skye and Mull were attached to the mainland — and the Orkneys and Shetland had been significantly simplified. The proportions and the general shape of everything was more or less correct, though, the contours of the coast detailed enough for features to be identifiable. Cassie recognised it when she saw it, but she definitely couldn't have reproduced something this close from memory — honestly, it was hard to say what the details she knew were wrong were supposed to look like instead, she just knew they weren't quite right.

The map included more features than just coastlines and borders, Violet had drawn in hills and mountains too, little inverted Us or Vs packed together, inked in thinner, softer lines than the coasts, corresponding more or less precisely to where Cassie knew highlands truly were. In other areas were forests or marshland, softly textured with curls she suspected were meant to represent the crowns of trees or jagged bunches of grass. The different regions of the country were lightly shaded in soft pastel colours, more or less corresponding to the actual territories of Munster or Strathclyde or Anglia or whatever else — these were noticeably wrong in places, but these were largely cultural and not made official for any administrative purpose, it was possible Violet had never even seen an accurate map before. There were thin dotted lines marking the muggle national borders as well, though Belgium didn't look quite right to her...and the UK–Irish border was wrong — it looked like she'd given County Fermanagh to the Republic, which was an understandable mistake. Major settlements were marked, both muggle and magical, in more or less the correct places, names delicately labelled in English and Gaelic. All the extra details were missing on the mainland (other than in Brittany), making it obvious what the focus of the drawing was, it was all...

It was very good. And it looked nice too, the lines sharply inked and colours subtly shaded with some other substance — it definitely wasn't ink, but Cassie was not an expert. She'd added a border around the edge, between thick solid black lines a repeating geometric pattern, segments done in vivid colour separated with thin black, like... It strongly reminded Cassie of some of the stained-glass windows they had around in Egypt (a Muslim style), but the curling spiral pattern, reversing to curve back the opposite direction with every iteration, felt much more Celtic. Violet must have planned out the border beforehand, the segments that made up the spiral pattern fitting together too perfectly, the way the colours she'd used cycled, the design sized such for however many repetitions to fit precisely in the available space...

"You did this from memory?" That was...honestly hard to believe.

Violet nodded. "Yep." Said easily and casually, her feet idly kicking in the air, seemingly with no appreciation for how seriously bloody impressive this was. And, as hard as it was to believe, she must have done it from memory, Violet literally couldn't lie...

For whatever reason, Emlyn seemed very amused, smirking across the table at Cassie. "Willow does have a good eye, for proportion and shape. Though, her sense of perspective isn't quite perfect. If you see here..." Emlyn flipped through the file, set down another page atop the map. "On a clear day we went out to the gardens back that way, the children were told to sketch what they see and colour it later — and this is excellent work, but as you can see it doesn't look quite right."

It looked like they'd been in a small courtyard, trees all around, a few planters and trellises home to various plants, the geometric panels of a greenhouse peeking through a line of trees, the brick face of a building visible in the background... Cassie wasn't sure where this was, precisely, but she thought that was the upper-level craft school building, meaning they must have been behind it somewhere over that way. Violet had fit in a lot of detail, the edges of the bricks in the courtyard and the building, branches and leaves and the latticework of the trellises, but the colours were washed out, flat without the variation you'd expect in any real-life image. It looked like Violet had tried to simulate it, by filling the shapes with whatever that material was — some kind of powdered dye, maybe — and then smearing it somehow, which, it didn't look bad, it just wasn't at all natural. Also, the expected shadows were either completely missing or wrong, at inappropriate angles or too dark and harsh. The smearing of the colours with the fine edges of the pencilled lines and the oddness of the shadows made the overall effect almost dreamlike, honestly — it wasn't at all a faithful reproduction, but it definitely wasn't ugly.

And Cassie could see what she assumed Emlyn meant by the 'perspective' being off. (She was completely ignorant about what that meant in the art world, she assumed it was probably the same use as in the description of illusion magic.) The gardens seemed oddly flat, some of the angles not quite right, it looked like one end of the greenhouse was bigger than the other. Which just made it look more dreamlike, really, it wasn't really a bad thing, just obviously not 'correct'.

"Now, even while this is not perfect, it is still exceptional for a child her age. If I were to mix her work in with any of the other children in her year, you would be able to pick it out, it is quite remarkable. My personal favourite of hers, the children were asked to draw a portrait of a partner, and Willow..." Another second flipping through the file, Emlyn pulled out another sheet of paper.

That was Susan, immediately recognisable. The reproduction wasn't realistic, necessarily, but it was still identifiable as her. Head and shoulders, partially shaded with a black hood — mostly solid black with a few lighter areas smeared in, but Violet had drawn in the embroidery around the border, silver thread curling in spiral patterns. She thought Violet had done the same thing she had on the drawing of the courtyard before, where she'd smeared the colours together somehow to give an impression of texture and shade, but that this drawing was newer, after she'd gotten more practice. The pale vaguely peachy tone of Susan's skin was more pinkish at the cheeks, subtle dark circles around her eyes, Violet had even drawn in a few faint blue lines of veins, the lips tilted in a faint smirk even had subtle notches in them hinting at the natural folds, the blue of her eyes maybe somewhat more vivid than it should be — actually, Cassie suspected Violet had inked them in over whatever this other colouring stuff was — but the effect was very striking. The hair didn't look realistic, of course, like a photograph, but it still looked interesting regardless — an asymmetrical smear of reddish-brown and red-orange and pink, one colour or the other showing through more here or there, tinted darker further under the hood or on the left side of her face, suggesting shadows. (Much more subtle and natural-looking than the previous picture, must have gotten practice.) The background had been faintly coloured in vague blue-grey blotches, like Susan were standing in front of a cloud, or a fogbank set aglow by the sun.

And it was identifiable as Susan. The image felt somewhat flattened, reminding Cassie of mediaeval art, the way the colours were smeared to simulate natural variation making it seem oddly murky and dreamy. But it was still immediately identifiable as Susan. Cassie didn't think she'd gotten the features of Susan's face quite exactly right, but it was more than close enough to tell who this was supposed to be — like how the shoreline on the map hadn't been perfectly precise, but still identifiable.

And she could see why Emlyn liked this one. Cassie wasn't an art expert, but, not only was it well-done, but it felt...warm, somehow. It was nice.

"You made this?" she asked, glancing at Violet. Not that she thought Emlyn was just messing with her, but...

Gently swaying in place as she kicked her feet, Violet chirped, "Yep. It took mmmore than one try, for the c-colours, I made c-ceh-c-copies, of the sketch. Bleh. I did it...three times?"

"Four times," Emlyn corrected. "You're not counting the simpler one you did in coloured pencil."

"Oh. Okay, four, then."

...Cassie couldn't imagine anyone would have been able to get her to even sit still for that long at that age. She'd never had patience for things like this, too tedious.

"You may also know, Willow developed an interest in calligraphy. As you'll see here..." Emlyn took out a few sheets of (false) parchment, spread them out on the table between them. "I understand the text are poems they read in class, but you see she how she's decorated them."

Ah, yeah, Cassie did see that. The text itself was in old manuscript lettering — Gaelic script specifically, which was still used in Gaelic-speaking parts of the country in handwriting and some formal epigraphs, but in print had been replaced by plain Roman type at roughly the same time the Ministry stopped using blackletter. It was definitely written with a quill, the way the lines thickened and narrowed gave it away, the letters smooth and graceful and elaborate, the capital letters ornamented with extra curls and bits of added colour. Two of them were from childrens' stories involving a fox and a crow messing with each other that were only passingly familiar to her — she'd been raised with Cambrian stories — the other an excerpt from the legend of Clíodhna Ní Bhláithín. (A semi-legendary metamorph, ancestor of the Ailbhes and famous in her own right, but somewhat overshadowed by the story of Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín, her younger sister.) The former two were decorated with plants and animals in vividly-colourful ink, little snippets of the scene illustrated in the margins, the empty space filled in with knotwork — though broken up into segments, the brilliant colours and the geometric patterns making it look like an odd combination of knotwork and mosaic. The latter had a drawing to one side of a black-haired woman being held at sword-point by an orange-haired man, a jagged warm aura of magic surrounding the woman — Clíodhna's first encounter with Ruadhán, she'd guess, the instant before she tired of playing along and disarmed and bound him — to the other side a crow flying with wings spread, feathers tipped in deep red, contained by the leaves of a triple-spiral around it a tree, a fox curled up asleep, and a flame — representing the Morrigan and her three famous daughters with Cormac Sleáimhin — the empty space filled in with fire fading into vines fading back into fire again, curling and twisting as it went...

It was very detailed, some of the linework tiny and all smooth and delicate, and very colourful, taken in all at once almost dazzling. Cassie just sat speechlessly staring, just...

It was incredible work — "incredible" meant literally, that it was difficult for Cassie to believe Violet had really made these. They looked a lot like proper illuminated manuscripts, if rather more sharp and vividly colourful than Cassie had seen before — she assumed that was simply because the ones she'd seen before were old, faded with age and made before modern materials had been available to begin with — she couldn't even begin to guess how many hours of work these must have taken, and... They were just very good, that was all.

Having seen what Emlyn wanted to show her, Cassie could guess what this conversation was about now. Finally, she managed to tear her eyes away from the illustrated poems, turning to look down at Violet next to her. "Darling, do you... How would you feel about getting a tutor?"

Violet blinked up at Cassie, blank-faced. "What?"

"Yeah, it..." Glancing back at the drawings, Cassie idly followed a line in the border around one of the poems with a finger, curling through one spiral after another. "Do you like art?"

"Sure? It's fun m-m-mmaking pretty things."

Honestly, Cassie did like "pretty things", but that wasn't a feeling she'd personally experienced. She could rationalise what it must be like pretty easily, with a bit of thought — she assumed it must be similar to how she felt about successfully pulling off a new cooking or baking project. "I know you're getting some lessons here, but... Well, you're learning other things here too, and there are all the other students, it's not... We can get you private lessons with a painter or something, and you can learn to do this stuff properly. If you want."

When Cassie didn't get a response immediately, she turned back to Violet — she'd gone still, her feet not kicking anymore, staring up at her with her eyes wide. "W-w-w– Um. We can do that?"

"Yes. That's the whole point of craft school, you know, to see if you have a talent for something. Plenty of painters and the like teach on the side. I can ask around, if that sounds like something you'd be interested in."

"...Would I stay in school?"

"Yes, darling, you'd go to school like normal — but you'd also have lessons with your tutor a couple times a week. This is an also, not an instead of. And if it goes well, and you like it, it might go on for years, continuing after you start at Hogwarts. When you're old enough, the same person can teach you how to make drawings that can move, and how to capture impressions of magic and people in paint, like the portraits at Ancient House." Or, were those impressions stored in the paint? She'd only ever seen it done with paintings, but she didn't actually know how it worked — trade secret, Violet would probably have to take an oath not to share it with anyone if she got that far. "So, do you want to try? You can quit at any time if you don't—"

"Yes!" Violet blurted out — abruptly grinning, bouncing in her seat with sudden, uncontainable energy. "Yes yes yes! That sounds g-g-g-g-geh— I w-w-w— Ah-ah—" The poor girl gave up, leaned sideways in her chair to clamp herself against Cassie's side. Her hands clenching in Cassie's dress, she could feel the silly girl practically vibrating with excitement, far more enthusiastic with the idea than Cassie had expected.

But despite being a bit taken aback, she still felt herself smiling, silly girl. Cassie pulled Violet's chair closer with a wandless flick of her fingers, so she didn't have to lean at such an awkward angle, wrapped her arm around her, squeezing her a little against her side. "Okay, darling, we'll do that. I'll ask around, see if anyone knows someone who will work." It wasn't as though Cassie herself walked in those circles, but she knew people who knew people, it shouldn't be hard to track down a suitable teacher. Cissa probably knew someone, or at least knew someone who would...

(Across the table, Éimhear was grinning, happy that Violet was happy, but Emlyn looked almost smug — Cassie pretended not to notice.)

[Uncle Sirius] — Not the Sirius we know, obviously. Cassie is referring to Phineas Nigellus's first child — her father's eldest brother, our Sirius's great-grandfather.

Holy shit, me writing a Child Who Lived who actually gets to explore the artistic side I always have in their background, who would have thought that would ever happen.

Sixteen more scenes before the Hogwarts arc starts.