Three
When colors turn to shades of gray, with the weight of the world at the end of the day, what would I do without you? A decade goes by without a warning. There's still a kindness in your eyes
- What would I do without you?, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors
Cassiopeia Adhara Black is seven years and three months old, and although she has abandoned her family (the family that abandoned her first, the family that made her what she is) she refuses to abandon the stars that her family has always adored.
It is strange, is it not? That she could loathe her family so ardently, and yet love the stars her family worships wholeheartedly.
But she does hate her family.
And she does love the stars.
(How strange a child Cassiopeia Black is.)
"What is that constellation?" Her first and only friend points up at the darkened sky, finger tracing the pattern formed by the stars. Glancing over at him, Cassiopeia sees emerald eyes narrowing slightly as he attempts to decipher the image that is drawn up there, the image in the heavens yet untouched by human hands. (The heavens that will hopefully never be within the reach of humanity.) (Humanity would destroy the stars if they could, and Cassiopeia would rather die than see that happen.) "It look like a ... man? With a bow, I think?"
Remus Lupin smiles when he sees the scene, although it is a bittersweet smile tinged with regret. He would do anything to change the choices he had made in the past. But he is grateful that although he failed Cassiopeia and Harry both, they still managed to find each other. He is glad that they still managed to become friends, despite everything that had happened, despite being cruelly separated at such young ages.
(He cannot help but wonder what happened, to break that friendship.)
"Oh," Hermione whispers, leaning into Harry's side, a fond smile creeping onto her face, although her eyes remain sad. "That's lovely, Harry. That you did that together, I mean. It must have been lovely to stargaze."
(She wishes she had had a friend to do that with.)
(She wishes she had not been one of the reasons Cassiopeia and Harry's friendship was destroyed.)
"Yeah." There is no smile on Harry's face as he gazes at the two children lying on the grass. There is fondness in his heart, but it is matched by grief; sometimes he wonders what it would have been like if he had never listened to Ron and Hermione in his second year, if he hadn't let his own prejudice blind him. Would he and Cass still be stargazing in the summers? Would she still be telling him the stories behind all the constellations? "We used to stargaze nearly every week."
(And now they don't.)
(And now they might never stargaze together again.)
Cassiopeia smiles at Harry's guess. She is so happy she can share this with someone, with anyone. (With her friend.) (It would be better if she could share it with her family.) Harry enjoys the stories she tells about the stars, and he is more than happy to listen to her describe the legends and myths found in the stars, and truthfully that is all Cassiopeia could ever ask for.
"That's Orion, the hunter." Cassiopeia turns her gaze to the stars, eyes bright and happy in a way they have rarely been during the course of her short life. This time, it is Harry turn's to glance at his friend. His eyes, too, are filled with happiness. An unusual sight, for both of the children.
(How sad it is, when children are unused to feeling happy.)
The dog at Remus Lupin's side whimpers, ashamed eyes flicking down to the ground before glancing back up at the image playing out on the wall, ashamed in knowing that because of him neither of these children grew up in the happy homes they were meant to, but unable to look away from the image. Unable to look away, because that's Cass and Harry, and he failed them once and twice and too many times over, and he never got to see their childhood so he cannot bring himself to miss even a second of it now that he has the chance.
"Legend has it," Cassiopeia murmurs quietly, the words filled with the mystical sombreness that accompanies every legend ever told, "that once upon a time, Orion the Hunter fell in love with the Goddess of the Wild, Artemis."
Susan laughs into Cass' ear from where she sits next to the black-haired girl, a fond smile stealing its way across her face as she glances over at her younger sister. "I remember that story," Susan whispers, laughter leaving her voice light and breathless, joyful in a way Susan rarely is.
Cass laughs and reaches for Susan's hand, twining their fingers together as she smiles brightly at her siblings. (The students of Hogwarts stare. They have never seen her smile like that before; they have never seen her look so genuinely happy.) "It's a good story," Cass whispers, only loud enough for the other four Pevensies to hear, and they all agree with her, each one of them returning her bright smile. Some of their best memories are of stargazing in Narnia, with Cass enamoring them with tales of the constellations, tales that she had begged the centaurs and nymphs to teach her.
(Oh, how they love their sister.)
As the night darkens and the stars shine bright in the sky above them, the two children lie on a grassy hill. Cassiopeia weaves a story of love and obsession and tragedy, her voice lilting and unusually unguarded, and Harry does not even dream of interrupting, eyes fixed on his first and only friend as he listens to her tale.
That night, after the legend of a Hunter who could not accept a refusal and the Goddess who did not tolerate murder has been told, two friends fall asleep on a grassy hill. They are both thin, and malnourished, and neither of them is entirely sure what it feels like to love another person. But as they fall asleep, their hands are clasped and they curl into each other like two halves of a whole, and they think that perhaps this is love. Perhaps, love is just acceptance, and care, and protectiveness. Perhaps love is stargazing on clear nights and listening to stories about constellations.
(It is close enough to love, they think.)
(What a pity this love will not last.)
The scene fades, and Harry has to close his eyes for a moment to control the surge of grief that threatens to drown him. He wishes that those days had been able to continue forever; he wishes that he and Cass had never grown up. (Had never grown apart as they have.) He wishes that they could have stayed children, with no knowledge of the war or their families or elitism.
(He doesn't see Cass gazing wistfully at the scene when it fades. She loves her siblings, but sometimes she misses her childhood friend, the little boy who loved her through everything and who went out of his way to loan books from the library that she could read while he was sent to school.) (She misses him, but she also doesn't. She cannot be friends with someone who chose not to trust her, who chose to let others influence his views of her.)
"But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall - frozen to death on the last evening of the old year." Book propped open on his lap, seven-and-something year old Harry sits cross-legged on the grass, reading the story out loud to his friend, who is pushing herself backwards and forwards slowly on the swing a few metres away. "Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt."
Upon hearing the first sentence of the new scene, Hermione shudders, shaking her head slightly. She has always hated that story; it is so sad, and there is something about the little girl who had no one else in the world that has always brought her to tears. (Perhaps there is reason she became friends with Harry; perhaps it is because he reminds her of the Little Match Girl, and she is desperate to let him know that he has people who care about it.)
Draco Malfoy frowns when he hears the story, glancing at the girl who calls herself his cousin, his family. He knows some things about her childhood, some things that she let slip in the earliest hours of the day, when she couldn't sleep and he found her at the top of the Astronomy tower, stargazing. And as he listens to the younger version of Harry Potter read aloud the muggle fairy tale, Draco cannot help but think of Cass, who once told him that she feels like no one would even notice if she died.
(He would care, he had told her, but what he hadn't told her was that if she dies, he would tear the world apart to try and save the girl who looked at him and saw Draco, instead of his father.)
(He looks at her now, and sees how her siblings huddle closer, and smiles because he knows that she doesn't feel that alone anymore.)
Frowning, Cassiopeia Adhara listens to her friend finish the story. She listens to him read about the people who found the Poor Little Match Girl, and the pity they gave the girl whose death they had inadvertently caused. And then, when the story is over and Harry gently closes the book, Cassiopeia shudders and shakes her head, frown still pulling at her lips.
"I don't like that story," the young girl murmurs, and there is a strange expression of fear on her face, a fear she cannot quite hide despite her best attempts. (She has always been scared no one will care when she dies, just like no one cared about the Little Match Girl.) (Sometimes she wonders if anyone would even notice if she departed from the land of the living.) "It's so sad."
Harry shrugs, gently stroking the cover of the book, not meeting Cassiopeia's eyes as he thinks about the story they have just read. "I don't know," he says after a few moments have passed, shrugging once more when Cassiopeia glances at him, "at least she died peacefully. She wasn't in pain ... and she saw her grandmother again. That sounds nice."
Remus Lupin and Paddy both glance at the son of their best friend, and there is something akin to worry in both pairs of eyes. Hermione and Ron look at their friend too, as do many of the students from Hogwarts, all of them concerned at the blank expression on their saviour's face. (Does he still feel that way?) Other Hogwarts students take the moment to nod slightly, agreeing with the younger Harry's words, and the professors that see this exchange worried glances. (How many students feel this way?)
"Pup?" Remus says after a moment, shuffling closer to Harry and putting a careful hand on the younger boy's shoulder, knowing that Harry does not like to be touched when he cannot see the person moving. (Remus hates to think about what might have caused that aversion to unseen touch.) "D-do you still feel like that?"
Harry shrugs, and there is something stricken in Remus' expression, something hurt that mirrors the pained look in Paddy's eyes. Harry does not look at them, because he does not think he can bear to see the pain in their eyes, but glancing at Ron and Hermione are no better (they look hurt, they look haunted, they look terrified that they will one day lose him and he cannot reassure them that they won't, because he knows that they will) so Harry fixes his gaze upon the screen, refusing to look at any of them.
Cassiopeia does know how to respond to that, because unlike her friend, her loved ones will not be there to greet her should she die. (She has no loved ones, living or otherwise.) Her parents are still alive, as far as she knows, although she sometimes wishes they weren't. (It would be better if they had died, Cassiopeia often thinks to herself, because then she would not be living with the knowledge that they abandoned her.)
"I suppose so," Cassiopeia responds after a few minutes have passed. Harry hums in agreement and reopens the book, trying to find a happier story, one that speaks of better days and hope. (He finds one, but it feels fake, and they abandon the story half way through, unable to imagine a world where people actually get Happily Ever Afters.)
"Cass." Peter leans forwards, waiting for his second youngest sister to look at him. When she does, his eyes narrow, and she can see the ghost of the man he once became on his face as he stares at her, unflinchingly stern. "If you ever die and leave me alone with Edmund and Susan, I will bring you back and murder you myself."
Edmund and Susan let out identical indignant noises, whilst Cass stifles a laugh and Lucy grins. (Remus smiles, unknowing mirroring Draco's soft expression. It is good to hear Cass laugh again.) "What about Lucy?" Cass asks her brother innocently.
"Lucy is a perfect angel," Peter responds without a moment's hesitation, and there is a small pause before the five of them burst into laughter at the thought. Lucy is many things, but an angel she is not. (Cass still vividly remembers the prank wars back in Narnia.)
Cassiopeia "Cassie" Black is a few days shy of eight when she discovers the an as-of-yet unknown adoration for the wildness of nature, and consequently, the freedom found in the wildest parts of the world.
(The wildest parts of the world - that is, the places no one would dare tread, the places where magic thrives and Gaia reclaims the planet that has always been Hers.)
The Pevensies smiles adoringly at their sister, who flushes under the attention. They know very well how much Cass loves the wildness of nature; they have found her sleeping in trees and living amongst the nymphs far too often to believe that she does not adore forests and all the creatures that live within them.
Minerva McGonagall stifles a laugh, remembering the many times she has found Cass coming back from the Forbidden Forest, twigs in her hair and dirt smeared on her skin. She cannot help but glance at the young girl now, and for a moment, she sees a different boy, amber eyes glowing with happiness as he laughs with his friends on the banks of the Black Lake. (There is a reason Minerva adores Cass so.)
Cassiopeia is a few days shy of eight, and she has been living in the forest since she left the place where she had been raised for almost all her life; the place she escaped a little after she turned seven. (Not a home, never a home. Just a place. Just a memory. Just a bad dream.) Her hair is more tangled than it has ever been (she is considering just cutting it all off, but she loves it too much for that) and there are smudges of dirt on her skin that she once would have been scolded for, and her clothes are threadbare and overly large on her slight frame.
Paddy whimpers when he sees Cass as she was when she was eight. She should have grown up with the finest things money could buy, and two parents who adored her and an aunt and uncle whose child she was best friends with. She should never have been living in a forest. She should never have been placed with his mother, and consequently forced to run away from the only place she had ever known.
Much like Paddy, Draco is horrified at how his cousin had grown up. He knows some of it, of course, but he has never been able to truly imagine what it must have been like, to live alone and in a place no one would live by choice. But now, seeing the rags that his cousin once dressed in, seeing the place where she raised herself, Draco is horrified, and he is furious. Furious at Dumbledore for not taking her to a loving home, furious at her parents for abandoning her, furious at himself for not knowing she existed sooner. (Could he have done anything? He doesn't know. But he might have been able to help.)
(Narcissa Malfoy is furious, too. She is furious that she has never gotten the chance to know the girl who her son speaks so highly of. She is furious that she never got to raise Cass like her own daughter, as she would have if the girl had been placed with their family. She is furious that so many bad things can happen to such a young girl, and she vows to do whatever it takes to help Cass.)
She is not the distinguished doll her grandmother tried to make her, and she could not be happier.
Cassiopeia lives in the forest, and has been living in the forest for a little under a year, but it is not until she has been eight for less than a week that she truly falls in love with the wildness that has become her home.
It starts out on a blustery autumn day. The wind is whispering stories in unintelligible tongues as it travels through the country and the leaves that are slowly turning golden rustle in response to the wind's stories, murmuring tales of their own into the wind.
It is an autumn day, and Cassiopeia has gotten lost within the forest.
"That looks familiar," Lucy giggles into Cass' shoulder, remembering the many days she and her sister used to wander through the Narnian forests, getting hopelessly lost as they explored places no one knew existed. She remembers the smile quirking Edmund's lips when he was eventually sent to find them, and the laughter that escaped from Susan and Peter when Edmund chose to join them in their explorations rather than tell them to return to the castle.
She is not overly perturbed about this. She has gotten lost many times before, and she has always found her way back to the field she has claimed as her home. And even if she doesn't find her way back before dark, she has grown used to living in the woods. She can curl up beneath a tree and find her way back the next day.
(Sometimes, she can't believe she once lived in a too-big house, with a woman who screamed instead of spoke and an elf that cared for her but never helped her. She has grown used to living in the forest; the once-house seems like a dream, most days. A dream she wishes she could forget.)
Edmund presses a kiss to his sister's forehead, nostalgia surging through him as he remembers the days when he was still a child, and Narnia was still not-quite-home, and he and Cass would sneak out of the castle to visit the dryads, who always welcomed them with joy. He remembers being tied to a tree as the white witch made plans to kill his siblings hiding beneath the leafy boughs of trees with Cass, the two of them giggling into their hands and wondering how long they had before Susan came to find them, or Lucy inevitably ended up joining them.
As she wanders through the forest, Cassiopeia sings softly to herself. She wriggles through the undergrowth and scrambles over fallen logs, unknowing or uncaring of the thorny plants leaving bloodied scratches on her legs, the twigs that tangle in her hair and catch on her clothing, leaving rips in the cloth where there were none before. She laughs softly when rabbits and squirrels scamper across her path, and smiles at the flowers blooming amongst the tree roots. She catches a glimpse of a deer through the trees, bounding gracefully over every obstacle in its path, and it is beautiful.
She sees other things, too. She has never been one to willfully blind herself to the cruelty of the world in favour of admiring the beauty. She see's the fox feasting on the carcass of a badger, muzzle stained red and blood dripping from its fangs. She examines the mushrooms, beautiful in their toxicity. She hears a snarl, and scrambles up a tree, eyes wide as she watches the pack of wolves pass underneath her. One of them turns to look up at her, golden eyes meeting silver, but it does not attack her, simply turns and walks away unhurriedly. (Did her magic protect her? Were the wolves simply uninterested in the small, skinny girl who would barely count as a meal should the wolves kill her?)
"Was it your magick?" Lucy's eyes are bright as she glances at Cass, gleaming unnaturally in the lighting from the torches on the walls. Cass grins back, and there is something feral in her smile when she nods.
"Olde Magick takes care of its own," Susan whispers (a prayer, a fact) and the Pevensie siblings laugh quietly amongst themselves at the knowledge that even before they took care of Narnia, Narnia was taking care of them.
During her time lost in the woods, Cassiopeia sees the beauty in the forest, and she sees the danger. It is not the first time she has seen either, but it feels like it is. By the time she reaches the field she now calls home, Cassiopeia's world seems to have tilted on its axis, for she has fallen in love, fallen so deeply she fears she may never be able to return to whoever she was before this.
Cassiopeia has just turned eight, and she falls in love with the untameable wildness hidden where people rarely think to look.
(One day, she will be made queen of a country just as wild as these hidden corners of the world she has fallen so in love with.)
(One day.)
Cass smiles. She remembers when her love of forests began; she remembers the dizzying feeling of belonging that surged through her every time she wandered through the forest that she once called home. Once upon a time, it was her safe space, the only place she never had to fight to belong.
"You always belong with us," Edmund murmurs to his twin, knowing what she is thinking, knowing how long it took for her to feel like she truly belonged by their sides. "Always, no matter when, no matter where."
Cassiopeia Black has been nine for less than a month when the world (and Harry) learns of the wildness running wild within her veins. She never intended for it to happen (she never wanted to know if Harry would abandon her the moment he saw some of the insanity she'd inherited) but alas, keeping her wildness to herself was not meant to be.
It starts, as dangerous things often do, with blood.
Specifically, Harry's blood, dripping scarlet down his face as he stumbles into the field Cassiopeia calls home, the young boy gasping for air as he flees from the three older boys chasing him down. There are tears in Harry's eyes as he staggers through the field, panic clear to see on his face as he glances behind him and sees two of the three boys catching up, their fists pulled back as they get ready to hit him. A quiet sob escaping him, Harry does his best to pick up speed, but he is so tired that it is all he can do to just keep running.
Amelia Bones is silent as she gazes at the screen, but in her heart, a mother is raging. She remembers Susan telling her about Neville Longbottom, who has been bullied relentlessly ever since he walked into Hogwarts. She remembers when she was in school, the three boys who grew up to be heroes, but who started out as bullies. (It took them too long to change.) She remembers the day Susan came home with a black eye, and the subsequent howler Amelia sent to the mother of the boys who had dared lay a hand on her niece.
She remembers these moments, and the mother inside her rages.
(How had they let this happen? Why did no one think to check up on the world's saviour? Why did they leave him to grow up like this?)
"You are not going back there," Remus says to Harry, eyes glowing amber as he watches the scene playing out in front of them, his wolf snarling at him to protect his pup from all those who have done him harm. Harry looks at his uncle, and a tremulous smile flits across his face; he wants to believe that his uncle will get him out of that house, he is desperate to believe that someone might care about him enough to save him, but he has grown up amongst lies and hatred. It is hard for him to trust the words of adults. (So why does he trust Dumbledore so unconditionally?)
And then, suddenly, Cassiopeia is there, pushing Harry behind her and standing between him and the other boys. (Where did she come from? She wasn't there just a moment ago.) Harry does not see her eyes glowing silver in their fury, but he does see the way the other three boys stumble to a halt, faces pale as they stare at his best and only friend. He does see the sparks flying off her fingertips, and the thorns that begin to weave their way through her hair.
Lucius Malfoy is not the only person to glance at Cass calculatingly, but he is the one who does it the most obviously, and it does not go unnoticed. Peter bares his teeth at the blonde-haired man and shifts closer to his siblings, protective fury surging through the golden-haired boy-man. (The students of Hogwarts swear that they see flames flickering in Peter's eyes, but surely it is just a trick of the light.)
"W-what are you?" One of the boys stammers, and Harry is delighted to see that it is his cousin Dudley, backing away from Cassiopeia as she steps forwards, eyes glowing brighter and nails biting into her palm as her hands curl into fists. "You f-f-freak!"
Harry flinches at the word, a lifetime of pain and suffering clouding his memories. Next to him, Hermione lets out a soft, sad sound, and leans closer, pulling Harry into a half hug and rubbing soothing circles on his shoulders. He smiles at her, half-hearted and half-lost, his brain still living in the memories of his childhood. Glancing at Remus and Paddy, who watch this with grief-filled eyes, Hermione makes a decision: she will never, ever let Harry go back to that house. She will kidnap him if she must, she will leave the country and abandon Hogwarts, as long as she can keep her best friend safe.
Cassiopeia stills, and Harry holds his breath. He is used to being called a freak, but Cassiopeia isn't, and he finds himself equally curious and terrified to see how she is going to react. He doesn't have to wait long.
"Freak?" Cassiopeia's voice goes soft in a way Harry has never heard her speak before, soft in a way that makes him think of daggers tucked into the folds of dresses and sugar hiding the taste of poison. Instinctively, he scrambles back a few steps. (He is not scared of Cassiopeia, he knows she will never harm him, but he is wary. She is dangerous, his instincts tell him, and they have never been wrong before.) Cassiopeia laughs, and it is a sound that tells all who hear it that she is dancing on the edge of insanity. "Did you just call me a freak, Dudley Dursley?"
"So, he's dead," Lucy giggles into her hands, and the rest of the Pevensies laugh, amused faces taking in the shocked expressions of the Hogwarts students, the Hogwarts students that have never seen Cass as furious as she is in the scene. The Pevensies are the only ones who know what Cass looks like when she is angry, who know that the quieter she goes the more dangerous she is. (And she is already very dangerous before she goes quiet.) They have seen her in battle, and in meetings of war. And so, they laugh, because this is their sister and she is insane and cruel and terrifying. (So are they.) And it is about time Hogwarts realizes just what kind of monster has been walking the castle's halls.
"Look at our girl," Remus Lupin says quietly as he watches the Pevensies laugh, running a hand down Paddy's back as the dog whines quietly. (They both wish they could laugh like that with their daughter.) Unlike Dumbledore, whose eyes are filled with cold fury, or Lucius Malfoy, who is watching with fear as the younger Cassiopeia faces the bullies unflinchingly, Remus and Paddy cannot help but be filled with pride. (Their daughter has grown up to be so strong, despite them.) "Look at our daughter," Remus whispers, and a tear trails down his cheek.
Harry's cousin blanches, and the smell of urine fills the air. Cassiopeia gives the three boys a shark grin that is all teeth and no humor. "I would suggest you leave," she says. (Is it Harry's imagination or is frost forming on the grass around her?) "Or else I might just give you a taste of what a freak like me can do in a place where no one is close enough to hear you scream."
Dudley has never run faster.
"Are you okay?" Cassiopeia turns to face Harry the moment the other boys are gone, and although the thorns are still winding their way through her curls, her eyes are no longer glowing the eerie silver that had so terrified Dudley and his friends. (Harry wonders what they saw on her face that terrified them so much.) (He will learn, one day. He will see her eyes glow and he will understand the reaction of his cousin.) Kneeling in front of Harry (when did he fall to the ground?) Cassiopeia reaches out and wipes at the trickle of blood running down his face from the cut above his eyebrow. There is nothing inhuman about her now - she is worried, lips twisting down into a frown as she examines Harry, trying to see where he is injured.
Harry smiles at the scene, heart aching in his chest. Cass always did make sure he was okay; even when she was injured and scared, Harry was always her first priority, and she was always his. (He misses those days.) Sometimes, Harry can hardly believe that she is younger than him; it often feels like Cass is older than anyone else in their year.
"I'm fine." Harry sits up, blinking at her, staring at the thorns still snagged within her ebony curls. "You know I've had worse from V-Vernon. Cassie..." Harry can no longer contain himself. "What was that?"
Cassiopeia sighs and sits down on the grass. And that day, Cassiopeia tells her friend of the Wixen World. She tells him of Hogwarts, and of the Ministry, and of Diagon Alley. She cannot tell him anything specific, because her grandmother never let her out of the house, but what little she tells him has Harry entranced.
Lucius Malfoy is smiling when he opens his mouth, ready to point out that she has broken the Statute of Secrecy, and as such, should be arrested and placed in Azkaban. (He has always hated Cass for being Draco's friend; were she not, Lucius is sure that his son would not be so resistant to the idea of serving the Dark Lord.) But he does not get to say more than two words before a spell silences him. The hall turns to Narcissa Malfoy, who tucks her wand in her sleeve and smiles serenely at her son as he gapes at his mother.
"Cassiopeia is family," is all that Narcissa Malfoy says, and she smiles at Cass when the young girl turns to look at her. (It is thanks to Cass that Draco has turned into the fine man he is, Narcissa knows this. Accepting the girl as family is the least she can do for the girl who has done so much for her son.) Cass tries to pretend she is not teary-eyed at the casual declaration that she is family.
"Am I a wizard?" Harry asks Cassiopeia, when she finally runs out of things to tell him, and she shrugs, because although he is famous her grandmother never spoke of Harry Potter except to curse him, and even then Walburga Black never referred to him by name.
"Maybe," Cassiopeia says after a few moments. "If you get a letter when you're eleven, then yes. You and I might go to Hogwarts together then! We'll be best friends, and the greatest Wixen the world has ever seen!"
Harry laughs, slightly hysterically. They certainly did end up going to Hogwarts together, he thinks. He certainly did end up being a wizard. What a pity they won't end up leaving Hogwarts together. What a pity their friendship ended so abruptly in their second year. (His fault, all his fault. He should have trusted her as much as she trusted him, he should have thought more about what he was accusing her of, he should have listened to his heart rather than everyone around him.)
Harry beams, and Cassiopeia smiles back. (She cannot believe he isn't angry that she kept it a secret. She tries to believe it, because she doesn't want him angry at her.) The two children spend the rest of the day talking, Cassiopeia telling Harry everything she can remember about the Wixen World, and Harry expressing his wonder at it all. (Cassiopeia never mentions her family, and Harry never asks. It is not something she will ever be willing to discuss. Not even with Harry.)
That night, Vernon Dursley wakes up screaming. Thorns have found their way into his bed, sharp and tearing into his flesh when he rolls onto them in his sleep. He does not blame Harry, but instead curses out the rats that keep bringing junk into the house.
Locked in his cupboard, Harry grins and silently thanks Cassiopeia.
Edmund laughs when he sees the thorns in Vernon Dursley's bed, and Cass glances at her twin, needle-teeth bared in a feral smile. (She regrets nothing.) Draco glances at his cousin with respect, even as he cautiously ensures that there is nothing sharp around him. (He still remembers second year.)
"Miss Black, that was unacceptable!" Dumbledore rises to his feet, voice thundering throughout the hall as he yells at the girl who is now reclining on the beanbag she shares with two of her siblings, looking unbothered by the Headmaster's anger.
"First of all," it is Susan who speaks up in defense of her sister, Susan who stands up gracefully and steps in front of all of her siblings, protecting them from the man even though she knows that they don't need her protection. (They have all protected themselves from much worse.) "My sister's name is Cassiopeia Adhara, not Cassiopeia Black. We said nothing when you called her by that dead-name earlier, but we will not be silent a second time. If you truly cannot grasp that she is no longer known as a Black, you may call her Pevensie, as that is the name she shares with me and our siblings. And second," Susan's eyes grow cold, smile becoming so sharp Dumbledore can practically feel the blade pressed against his throat. "My sister has always done exactly what she needed to in order to survive, or in order to ensure others survive. You should be thanking her. If it was not for Cass, I truly doubt your precious saviour would be alive to come to Hogwarts."
Harry thinks about this for a moment, remembering the times Cass stood up for him, or healed him after Vernon got angry, or stole food from shops to give to Harry. And then, he makes a decision, and does something he has never dreamed about doing before.
"She's right." Harry opposes Dumbledore, speaking up in defense of his once-friend, and the entirety of Hogwarts lets out a breath of surprise. (He has never stood up to Dumbledore before.) "Cass is the only reason I survived the Dursleys. Don't tell her that what she did was unacceptable - neither of us would have had to live like that if you hadn't taken us to the people who you decided were our families."
Dumbledore says nothing in response to Harry's words, because there is nothing more he can say without losing face. Slowly, the headmaster sits down; following his example, Susan seats herself next to Peter once more, looking Harry over curiously as she tucks herself into her brother's side. Perhaps, Susan muses, the younger boy is not irredeemable. Perhaps he can still save himself from Dumbledore's clutches.
Cassiopeia has just turned ten when she buries her name beneath the largest oak tree in the forest.
It is something she read about, once, in a book she snuck off the shelves of the Black family library. (The family she belongs to, the family that abandoned her, the family she wants to abandon.) Burying one's name has a significance in the Wixen World; although it does not affect titles or Gringotts vaults, as those are passed through blood, it is a symbol of rejection. It is a symbol of abandoning one's family, and choosing to become someone new.
Paddy howls his grief as he sees what Cassiopeia is doing, what Cass has done. He remembers that ritual. He remembers wanting to do it, but choosing not to because he refused to separate himself entirely from his brother. Seeing his own daughter choosing to abandon her family breaks his heart even further than it was already broken. (How could they have done this to her?)
And that is precisely what Cassiopeia chooses to do, on a hot summer's day just a few days before her friend turns eleven. Kneeling in front of the largest oak tree in the forest, Cassiopeia pulls a torn piece of paper out of her pocket and scribbles down the last name her father gave her (the only thing he ever gave her), the last name she shares with the parents who left her and the grandmother who made her childhood hell.
Black
Cassiopeia scrapes a little hole out of the dirt at the base of the oak tree, being careful not to disturb the bugs scurrying about within the fallen leaves. She glances at the piece of paper in her hand, frown pulling at her lips, and then shakes her head and drops the paper unceremoniously in the newly-created hole.
Remus buries his face in Paddy's fur, shoulders shaking as he sobs silently, not wanting to watch as he loses his daughter yet again. He cannot stand to see what he has driven his daughter to do; he cannot bear to see her leave them behind. (As they once left her behind; willingly or not, abandonment is still abandonment.)
She doesn't care about them. They left her. They abandoned her. Why would she choose to keep something of her parents, when she could free herself of them instead? She can choose to be her own person, Cassiopeia decides, a person entirely separate from whoever her parents were.
(If she had known who Harry was back then, she would have offered the same to him. But she didn't, and by the time she did, it was too late. He would never be viewed as separate from his parents. He would always be living in his parents shadows.)
And so, Cassiopeia buries her name when she is ten years old. And after she has buried her name, she gets to her feet and she walks away. She does not look back; she does not go back to unbury the name she has just given up.
Cassiopeia Adhara Black becomes just Cassiopeia Adhara, and she is happy.
Lucy smiles at her sister from where she is burrowed into Cass' side, and Edmund wraps an arm around her shoulder in a comforting hug. Peter nods at Cass when she glances over at him, and Susan smiles warmly, reaching over to grab one of her sister's hands. They know what it meant to Cass; she has told them of the freedom she felt, when she left her family behind and chose to become someone else.
And as Hogwarts gasps at how easily she left her family, Cass squares her shoulders and bares her teeth at the world; her siblings have accepted what she did, and that is all she needs to defend her decision to anyone who dares question her.