One
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream
- Once upon a dream, Lana Del Rey
"Run," Edmund coughs, breathing the word the word in between desperate gasps of air, his eyes filled with panic as he stumbles to a halt at her side. She is snarling, face twisted in a rictus of fury and hate as she glares at the army, the army they were sent to defeat, the army they are losing to. She and her brother are the last people on the battlefield; seeing her people fleeing into the mountains, she shakes her head, drawing her dagger.
"I will buy you time," she murmurs, and there are tears dripping down her cheeks, or is it blood? She cannot tell the difference anymore; blood coats her hands, tears wet her face, the feelings so similar she cannot tell them apart. "Make sure they get to safety."
She turns, dagger in one hand, her sword lost somewhere on the battlefield. She has not taken two steps before a hand closes around her wrist, slowing her in her steps. Her brother is smiling when she looks back at him, a sad smile accompanied by bitter eyes, the twist of his mouth revealing grief he cannot reveal.
"I will stand with you," he echoes the words he has said so many times before, his fingers tangling with her own as he steps forward, taking his rightful place at her side. (He swore to never leave her, once. He will not break that promise. His sister has always deserved better than to be alone and forgotten.)
The two siblings face the oncoming army. They stand hand in hand, with the setting sun casting shadows over their faces as they stand alone, sacrificing themselves in order to ensure that their people will be able to escape.
The elder brother holds a sword in one hand, and grips his sister's palm with his other. His armour is grime-covered, and blood has dried in rusted patches on the once-gleaming metal. He has lost his shield. He has lost his army. But he has his sister, and he will not abandon her, not even if it means that he will die alongside her. There is a reason their other siblings call him 'The Loyal' rather than 'The Just'.
The younger sister wears no armour, other than a simple chainmail vest and dragon scale pauldrons. She has lost whatever other armour she once possessed. She has lost her sword, too, has been left with just a small dagger to fight with. Blood drips from her fingertips, creates gruesome art on the canvas of her skin. She does not fear her own death, but she mourns that her brother will perish alongside her. (One of them should have been able to survive, and she wishes that he was selfish enough to leave her and save himself.)
Together, the siblings face the army. They glance at each other one more time, a feral smile on her face hiding the tears in her eyes, a grim look on his face revealing the grief he feels. The army charges at them, weapons raised, eager to kill the two people standing between the fleeing and the attackers.
Three screams ring out across the battlefield.
Cass jerks awake with a gasp, the screams still ringing in her ears as she lifts her head off the table she doesn't remember falling asleep on. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she examines her surroundings, for a moment forgetting where she is. Is this her palace in Narnia? Is that the sound of her siblings' laughter that echoes around her, filling the hall with a sense of joy she only ever feels when she is with her brothers and sisters?
No. No, it is not. She is in Hogwarts, Cass reminds herself, as her vision clears and her surroundings come into focus. She is in Hogwarts, surrounded by children who have never seen war, never looked into the eyes of the dying and wandered fields drenched in blood. She is surrounded by children who are innocent in all the ways she is not.
She is at Hogwarts, and already the familiar grief is settling into her bones, her heart aching and tender behind its cage of bone.
"Cass," someone says, and she tilts her head slightly, glancing at the auburn-haired girl next to her, who is watching her in concern. They are all watching her in concern, she thinks, seeing the careful looks her friends are giving her, seeing how they act as if she will break at the slightest touch. She resists the urge to laugh - they do not know that she has been through so much worse than anything she has ever gone through at Hogwarts. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She smiles, a motion she remembers seeing whenever she looked in a mirror, her sisters at her sides, the three of them smiling all to easily as they traded jokes and laughter and memories. (She hasn't truly smiled since she lost them.) "I just had a strange dream," Cass murmurs, and her smile softens slightly as she remembers her siblings, and the times that they fought back to back, the times that they refused to leave each other.
Her friends are not convinced by her words, exchanging wary looks over her head as she yawns, one hand covering her mouth politely. (She still remembers the manners her sister insisted she learn.) Thankfully, they do not press the matter. Cass is glad; she isn't sure what else she could tell them that would convince them she is not teetering on the edge of some mental breakdown.
(She is, she is tumbling into a well of anger and sadness and pain, but she will never show them that because she cannot, because they won't understand.)
Her friends continue with the conversation they had been having before Cass woke up. She does not join them. Idly, she begins to braid a strand of hair hanging in front of her eyes, watching her fingers twist elegantly through the fine strands of hair as the braid begins to form. Despite the graceful motions of her fingers, the braid is messy, lopsided, and she lets it unravel with a huff. She has only ever been able to braid her siblings' hair - she cannot tame her own curls into submission.
(Her brother is the only one who has that talent.)
"Luce," a voice drifts through the air, then, the unfamiliarity of it cutting through the murmuring of the Great Hall, silence slowly settling over the students as the unknown person continues to speak. People turn to each other, prefects scanning the entirety of their house tables to see if there is anyone missing, but it is one of those rare days when the entirety of Hogwarts is gathered in the Great Hall. No one is missing, and that makes the unknown voice suspicious. "Are you sure we're going in the right direction? I know the Professor's manor is like a maze, but we did have a tour yesterday, and I'm sure I don't recognize this corridor."
Whispers spread through the hall, students leaning towards each other and trading confused whispers, everyone seeking answers that no one has. At the head table, the professors glance at each other. Some of them rest their hands on their wands, on edge and wary of strangers. Others simply frown, attempting to remember if they have ever heard this voice before. (They haven't. The voice is too kingly to be a student, too mischievous to be a professor.)
By the Gryffindor table, Cass lifts her head and stares at the door to the Great Hall, eyes shining with a nearly painful hope.
"You were the one who said you knew where we're going!" Another voice rings through the air, laughing and joyous, with an unexplained Presence demanding attention from everyone in the Great Hall. This time, it is not just an unfamiliar voice that cut through the early morning clamor of the Great Hall - slowly, as everyone watched in breath-holding suspense, two figures stepped through the doors, coming to a stop as they see the students and professors staring back at them. "Oh," the girl says, unusually composed in the face of all the stares, just a faint red tint to her cheeks revealing any surprise she may have felt about the situation. "I suppose we did take a wrong turn after all."
No one sees Cass move, but one moment she is sitting at Gryffindor table (despite not belonging there, not anymore) and the next she is in front of the two strangers. (It is almost as if she apparated, the students and staff think, but that is impossible. She has not yet turned sixteen - she has not yet learned apparition. She cannot apparate. Right?) "Ed-Edmund?" Cass' voice breaks, tears trailing down her cheeks as she stares at the two strangers, a haunted expression drifting over her face. "Lucy?"
"Cassie," the boy (Edmund, Cass called him. How does she know that? How does she know them? How do they know her?) murmurs her name, the quiet word echoing in the silence of the hall as he gazes at her for an eternal moment before leaping forwards, throwing his arms around the sixteen-year-old. The other stranger (Lucy) follows his actions just seconds after, a grin so big it looks painful spreading over her face as she clings to Cass.
And Cass, the girl who rarely accepts any form of affection, the girl who has not allowed herself to be vulnerable in front of others since she was twelve years old ... Cass does not hesitate to embrace the two strangers back, her body shuddering as she sobs into the boy's shoulder.
No one dares to so much as breathe, in case they should interrupt this moment, this moment that feels both beautiful and bittersweet, this moment in which the whole world stops for the three people clinging to each other desperately, as though terrified they will be torn apart. No one breathes, no one speaks, no one stirs.
Everything is silent. Everyone is watching.
And then, between one blink and the next, there are more strangers in the hall, appearing out of nowhere, as if they have always been there but no one was able to see them. Some of these people are familiar - the raggedly dressed form of Remus Lupin stumbles as he appears at the Gryffindor table, holding onto the fur of a large black dog to steady himself, the snobbish face of Lucius Malfoy appearing next to his poised wife prompts the Slytherin table to stiffen, a vulture-topped hat indicates the arrival of Augusta Longbottom, Amelia Bones stumbles from where she has appeared next to her niece - and that familiarity makes the two new unknown members stand out even more. A young boy with hair the colour of the sun stands arm-in-arm with a dark-haired young woman whose grace and poise puts Narcissa Malfoy to shame, both of them dressed in muggle clothes but exuding an air of power that declares they are not people to be messed with.
And just like that, with the appearance of these new people within the hall - both strangers and familiar - the silence breaks, and the shouting begins. Shouts of confusion and terror fill the air, Professors fleeing from the High Table to attempt to calm the students down, the new-arrivals attempting to figure out what brought them there, how they arrived, why they were in Hogwarts.
And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, Cass pulls the golden-haired boy and graceful girl into a group hug, although not once moving more than a few steps away from the first two strangers to have arrived.
(She will not be torn from them again.)
"SILENCE!" Dumbledore yells, a wave of magic washing over everyone in the room, leaving them all gasping for air in the wake of such powerful magic. No one is unaffected by the man's magic, although some of them do their best to seem unperturbed by such a show of power. (From where they stand in the entrance to the Great Hall, no one notices a huddled group that remains unaffected by the magic, five lips curling with derision at such a blatant abuse of authority. They would never use their power to command attention. They have never needed to abuse their power such.)
"What is the meaning of this?" Lucius Malfoy drawls as he walks towards the head table with his wife at his side, the sound of his cane tapping against the stone floors echoing through the hall. His son flinches as the man passes him - Lucius Malfoy does not seem to notice, but Narcissa Malfoy does, a comforting hand gently resting on her son's shoulder as she walks past, flashing her son a soft smile. "Why have you summoned all of us here, Dumbledore?"
The dark-haired girl at Cass' side stifles a laugh, amused smiles flitting across the faces of the five young people at the words of Lucius Malfoy. At the sound of the soft laughter, heads turn to the group, expressions of confusion once more crossing the students' faces as they see how Cass stands in the middle of the group, gripping onto the hand of the dark-haired boy she had called Edmund, the other girl named Lucy pressing into Cass' side as though attempting to become her shadow.
"It is rather bold of them to assume that they were summoned by Dumbledore, isn't it, Peter?" The graceful woman says, addressing the golden-haired young man at her side as he takes her arm.
"Agreed, Susan," the man replies with a small smile, he and the woman advancing gracefully towards the front of the hall, Cass following them without hesitation, Edmund and Lucy staying close to her sides. It is a strange sight to the Hogwarts students, who have only ever seen Cass as an independent being - they are not used to seeing her so easily accepting of other's presence within her life. "One must doubt the capabilities of the wixen if they are not able to sense Olde Magick when they feel it."
Once more, the hall bursts into murmurs, shocked students eyeing the newcomers warily as they repeat the term the golden-haired man had used. "Olde Magick," friends whisper to each other, voices filled with a mixture of awe and shock. Such things have not been spoken of in decades - Olde Magick is believed to be dead, and there are no more practitioners of the ancient craft left.
(They do not know it, but that is a lie.)
"Do not speak of the Olde Magick." Dumbledore gets to his feet, power surging from him as he glares at the newcomers. He will not tolerate this - the Olde Magick is dead, and he will not let it be revived. "Introduce yourselves, or begone from these halls."
The girl called Lucy smiles, and it is a beautific thing to behold. "You first," she says, and although her tone is sweet, her eyes are sharp and her hand is curled around the handle of a knife no one has noticed.
For reasons they cannot name, no one argues with the petite maiden.
"Lucius Malfoy," Draco's father casts the strangers a condescending glance, the sneer on his face indicating exactly what he thinks of these muggles (for they are certainly muggles, they cannot be anything else) (but then how do they know of the Olde Magick?). "And my wife, Narcissa."
The shabbily-dressed man introduces himself as Remus Lupin, whilst naming the large, soot-coloured dog Paddy. Amelia Bones tells them her name in a stern voice, additionally mentioning that she is the Head of Law Enforcement at the Ministry, eyes fixed on Lucius Malfoy as she says this. Augusta Longbottom nods formally at the strangers when she introduces herself, wary eyes resting on the slightly smirking form of Cassiopeia, who flutters her fingers in a mockery of a wave. The Professors all murmur their names, the introductions ending with Dumbledore. There are too many students, so they will not introduce themselves. Not unless asked.
Then, it is the strangers' turns to introduce themselves.
The golden-haired boy goes first. His name is Peter, and he is the eldest Pevensie sibling. He has heard much about Hogwarts, he tells those listening, but does not say who he has learned it from. (Eyes drift to Cass in suspicion.) The dark-haired girl at his side reveals herself to be Susan, his sister, and the boy who has not yet let go of Cass introduces himself as their brother Edmund. Then as the youngest Pevensie, Lucy ends the introductions, beaming at the hall, although those who look past the bright smile can see a layer of cunning hidden behind innocent eyes and rosy cheeks.
"Now," Dumbledore speaks again, once the introductions are finished and everyone knows what the strangers are called. "What are you doing here? And what would Miss Black know about your appearance, given she did not seem surprised by your sudden arrival within my school?"
"Your student knew nothing about their arrival, although that did not stop her from celebrating the appearance of her siblings." Another voice booms, and everyone spins around, mouths falling open when they see the golden lion standing proudly at the entrance of the Great Hall. In the face of the incredulous stares and shocked muttering, the lion does not falter, but strides towards the five siblings with all the majesty of a king. At his appearance, Lucy's smile becomes as bright as the sun, whilst Edmund laughs softly, shaking his head in disbelief. Susan and Peter do not react, other than the small smiles which flit across their faces at the lion's arrival. Unlike the others, Cass does not smile, or laugh; when the lion catches her eye, she simply bows her head slightly, a show of reverence that goes unnoticed by most of the hall. "I have seen my daughter's fate, and I have determined it unsatisfactory," the lion continues, turning ageless eyes upon Dumbledore. "You have not shown my daughter the respect she deserves, and as such, I have deemed it necessary to gather all of you together. You will be shown all that my daughter has gone through, and all that she has yet to go through, and thus you will be forced to face the mistakes you have made and atone for your wrongdoings; this, the fates have decreed."
The lion places a paw on the stone floor of the Great Hall, and a golden light blinds all those inside the hall. When they open their eyes, blinking away the spots that cloud their vision, they are no longer in Hogwarts. Or rather, they are still in Hogwarts, but the Great Hall is no longer. Where four tables once lined the hall, beanbags and couches and cushions decorate the room, blankets of all different textures and colours strewn across the furniture. There is no longer a teacher's table - where the teacher's table once was, there is now just several small doorways, presumably leading to Bathrooms or dormitories.
Alarmingly, there seems to be no way to leave.
The lion does not say anything more. With a flick of his tail, he pads forwards, leaving behind shocked students and gaping adults and smiling Pevensies. He disappears into the wall, the stone melting away before him as though it never existed, before reforming once he has vanished from view.
As he disappears, a large image forms on the wall he has just walked through, a single name scrawled across the stones in swirling calligraphy: Cassiopeia Adhara
All eyes turn to Cass, still huddled amidst the four strangers.
In the end, it is someone from the Gryffindor table who breaks the silence.
"Cass?" The green-eyed boy known as Harry Potter questions tentatively, the single word echoing loudly in the silence. Absently, he thinks that he can't remember Hogwarts ever being this quiet. Then he shakes his head and focuses on his once-friend, who is watching him with ancient silver eyes, not a hint of emotion on her face. It is unsettling; she has never been one to hide her emotions like that. (Yes she has, he just didn't notice it, didn't notice how she smiled even when she shouldn't and how her tears never fell from her eyes.) "But ... you're not its ... his (?) daughter? Your parents-"
"I am his daughter in every way that matters." Cass turns away from her once-friend, placing an arm around Lucy as she strides towards a particularly large beanbag, the rest of the strangers trailing after her and every eye in Hogwarts studying her every move. "I am the daughter of his soul," Cass continues, although she is no longer looking at Harry. "He is more my father than anyone else. And please, refrain from asking questions. I would rather get this finished as soon as possible."
Cass settles down on the beanbag, and Edmund slumps down at her side, twining his fingers with hers. Lucy sits on her other side, curling into Cass' embrace when the older girl puts an arm around her shoulders, and Susan and Peter smile at the sight, the two of them sharing a small love seat. Slowly, the rest of the hall begins to follow their example, students settling atop the furniture that has appeared, friends huddling together and glancing at the strangers with wary eyes. The Professors follow suit, claiming couches and armchairs, and the other adults sit close to their families: Lucius and Narcissa claim separate seats a few steps away from where their son is lounging, Remus and his dog settle next to Harry, Amelia puts an arm around her niece as they sit on a couch.
As soon as everyone is sitting, the words on the wall fade away.
It has begun.