Four
Two birds on a wire. One tries to fly away and the other watches him close from that wire. He says he wants to as well, but he is a liar.
- Two birds, Regina Spektor
The arrival of the 23rd morning of June, 1991, is heralded by a soft golden sunrise which disturbs the peaceful night, the sun clothed in shades of pink and amber as it peeks above the horizon, glancing out over Little Whinging. It is a beautiful start to the day; had anyone within the street Privet Drive been awake to see it, they would have been utterly convinced that the 23rd day of June would be a lovely day filled with peace and happiness. And perhaps for some of those living on Privet Drive, it did indeed turn out to be a joyful day.
Cass laughs when she realizes what day it is. She laughs, shoulders shaking and breath coming in gasps, and the students of Hogwarts trade wary looks amongst each other. (Anything that can make Cass laugh like that cannot be good.) (There is a monster roaming the halls of Hogwarts, and it's name is Cassiopeia.)
Harry shivers when he realizes what day it is. He shivers, shoulders curling slightly and head dipping as he fixes his gaze upon the stone floor at his feet. (He hides a smile. He is scared of Cass, of what she can do, of what she has done, but he is happy too.) (It is touching to know that once, she would have committed murder for him.)
Unfortunately, the 4th house on that street would have a very different experience on that day, an experience which would elicit no feelings of joy or serenity, despite what the sunrise may promise. Not that any of the four people staying in that house are aware of this, asleep and dreaming as they are.
No, the only person who knows that the 4th house on Privet Drive is going to have an unusual day, is someone who doesn't live on Privet Drive at all. Someone who has met only two of the people living in Number 4 Privet Drive, being the best friend of the youngest of the household and having terrified the only other child living at the fourth house.
Cassiopeia Black looks up at the sunrise on the 23rd morning of June, in the year 1991, and a smirk settles itself onto her lips. This, she decides, will not be a peaceful day for those in Number 4 Privet Drive. They deserve chaos, and she will ensure that they have it. (Chaos has been a part of her since she was born.)
Minerva McGonagall sighs when she sees the look on Cassiopeia's face, because she is old and she once taught the marauders, and she remembers that look on the face of a certain silver-eyed boy. (The boy that Cass reminds her of.) She remembers that hunger for chaos, that ache for destruction. "Are they still alive?" She questions Cass, who darts her a sly look, both Cass and Edmund smirking at the Professor.
"Of course they are!" Edmund answers for his sister, because he knows this story, he knows what he is about to watch. (And he cannot wait to see it.) (The darkness in Cass has never scared him.) (There is an answering darkness within him.) Minerva McGonagall's eyes narrow, and somewhere, Severus lets out a derisive scoff that can only be heard by himself, but neither of them say anything - they cannot call Edmund a liar to his face, after all, not with the way Cass is looking at them as though debating what flowers to leave at their graves.
The fact that the Dursleys are only alive because Cass refused to allow them the mercy of death goes unspoken.
But everyone knows it is true.
For three hours after the auspiciously beautiful sunrise, Cassiopeia waits, knowing that no one will be awake yet, knowing she cannot meet her friend just yet, knowing she cannot meet the family who will be cursed with her existence on this day. She contents herself with wandering the forest (as though she has not explored every inch, as though she does not know the forest better than she does herself), collecting mushrooms and flowers as she meanders through the trees, placing all her findings within a basket she'd woven months before. By the time her basket is full, she determines enough time has passed. Number 4 Privet Drive should be awake now.
Remus Lupin has a suspicion of what he will see happening. (He grew up in the country, he knows those mushrooms.) (His parents always told him to stay away from those fungi.) (He only listened sometimes.) He is unsure what to think of this; he is happy the Dursleys will be getting what they deserve (he thinks of the bruises he has seen on the child form of Harry, and growls) but he wishes his daughter had not had to do it herself. (Sometimes, he imagines a world where his daughter was not so wild, was not so feral. It is a kinder world.)
(It is a world in which he was not the reason she became feral.)
(If they are not awake, she will make sure that they soon will be.)
Grinning, Cassiopeia skips out of the forest, humming under her breath as she gleefully makes her way towards the house that she knows belongs to the Dursley family.
"Hello." The door is answered by a thin woman with a long neck, who peers down at Cassiopeia in confusion as the young girl plasters a bright grin onto her face, pretending she is innocent, pretending she is thrilled to be at that house when really she would love to rip that woman apart for daring to hurt her friend- "Who might you be?"
"Oh, good morning! My name is Cassandra, I'm a friend of your son's, has he never mentioned me?" Cassiopeia learned how to lie in a house where even the walls could be spies for the woman who called herself Cassiopeia's grandmother. Telling this lady what she wants to hear is child's play for the girl, as is giving herself another name. (Names have power, Cassiopeia knows this, and the last thing she wants is for someone to have that power over her.) "Anyway, Dudley mentioned that it was his birthday today, so I wanted to ask if I can come and celebrate with you!"
Draco Malfoy begins to laugh as he watches this. Proper laughter, genuine and loud, echoing through the hall and prompting every student (apart from Cass, who smirks) to look at him askance. Next to Draco, Narcissa is laughing too, although her laughter is quieter. (But no less genuine.)
"What is so funny?" Harry snarls at his long-time-rival, hackles raising at the thought that Draco could be laughing at Cass. Draco waves the green-eyed Gryffindor off, still laughing, and Harry fumes.
(Draco laughs at the mask Cass wears. He laughs at how easily she dons the mask, how easily she fools everyone.)
(How Slytherin she is.)
The woman softens at Cassiopeia's words, smiling as she introduces herself as Petunia Dursley and stepping aside to welcome Cassiopeia into the house. Cassiopeia smirks. (How easy it is to fool people.)
"Duddikins!" Petunia calls as she ushers Cassiopeia through the house. (Cassiopeia glimpses the pictures hung on the walls, and a dark look flits across her face at the distinct lack of black hair and emerald eyes in the framed photos. How dare they exclude her friend. How dare they.) (She will make them pay, one day.) "There's a friend of yours here to see you on your special day!"
Susan looks over at her sister, smiling, aching for the child her sister once was, the child her sister once was who adored her friend so wholeheartedly. (Her friend that abandoned her, her friend that betrayed her, her friend that grew to hate her.) Reaching out, Susan runs a comforting hand through Cass' hair; Cass leans into the touch, closing her eyes contentedly, a soft smile on her lips as she soaks in the attention from her sister. (The attention she was deprived of.)
Cassiopeia swans into the living room, a monster masquerading as a girl (although only two others in the house have glimpsed the monster hiding behind her smile) and Dudley Dursley has a look of terror in his eyes that tell the girl that he remembers what happened last time he encountered her.
"Hello, Dudley," Cassiopeia flashes the room a smile, seeing what appears to be a living beach ball sitting on one side of the table, assuming that is Dudley's father. (She can see the resemblance.) Cassiopeia winks at Dudley, allowing her eyes to glow just slightly, and the boy squeaks. "Happy birthday! I'm afraid I didn't bring any presents, but I have some mushrooms to add to your breakfast, if that is alright with you?"
Petunia immediately agrees, charmed by this young girl who seems to know her son, who has come to wish her son well on his birthday. The man opposite Dudley introduces himself as Vernon, and agrees immediately to the offer of mushrooms, mistakenly taking his son's terror for nervousness at having a girl over. (Oh, Vernon couldn't be more wrong.) Dudley does not dare protest, not when Cassiopeia's eyes are still glowing silver, cold and otherworldly.
Paddy flinches when he sees how Cass' eyes glow, remembering another young boy with dark hair and silver eyes, remembering how the younger boy's fury had washed over him, colder than ice, when he'd left the house that was never home. (When he'd left the boy that had once been his brother.)
Harry, Hermione and Ron grimace upon seeing the glow in Cass' eyes. They remember silver eyes glowing in heartbreak, in betrayal. They remember silver eyes glowing as they walked away from the girl they'd once called friend, and they mourn that they will only ever see silver eyes glow in anger, that they will never see silver eyes laughing or silver eyes beaming happily.
Smiling at the three Dursleys (a smile which makes Dudley shudder, a smile which leave Vernon and Petunia feeling strangely ill at ease) Cassiopeia ducks into the kitchen, dropping her basket of mushrooms and flowers on the counter. (The Dursleys do not think to question how she knows her way around their house.)
"What are you doing here?" Harry demands quietly the moment he sees Cassiopeia, eyes filled with shock and panic as he imagines what might happen to him, to his friend, if Vernon has a bad day. (He does not wonder what might happen to Vernon because although she has terrified Dudley and some of his friends, Cassiopeia would not dare try and do the same to an adult twice her size.) (Right? Right?)
(Wrong.)
"You are never going back there," Remus promises Harry. He has promised this before, but he promises it again now, because no child should be afraid of what will happen to them or their friend. No child should have to look over their shoulders constantly, always fearing punishment. He will get Harry out of that house. He will keep Harry out of that house, and he will make sure that Harry knows he has a home, he has a family.
Cassiopeia does not respond to Harry's question, simply drops her basket on the counter and pulls out a frying pan, adding a dash of oil and deftly cutting the mushrooms into pieces before throwing them into the pan. They sizzle when they hit the oil; for a moment, Harry swears the smoke rising from the mushrooms curls itself into jagged smiles, and there is a ghost of insane laughter that echoes through the kitchen as the mushrooms sizzle, sending shivers down his spine.
Cassiopeia does not seem affected. Indeed, were it not for the cruel gleam in her eyes, Harry would dare say she had not seen anything at all.
The Pevensie siblings all glance fondly at the middle sister. They are well acquainted with the darkness within Cass; they all have their own darkness within them, and like calls to like. (There is a reason they are siblings.) They know her aptitude for poisons and plants. They have seen her kiss a king with belladonna-coated lips and they have seen her sip wine from a goblet as the king died at her feet.
Why are the Hogwarts students so shocked?
Have they truly never know of the monster in their midst?
Poor, naive children.
Remus Lupin does not know what to think as he watches the girl who refuses to be called his daughter cook mushrooms in the kitchen of a household that abuses the son of his best friends. He wishes Cass was not so bloodthirsty, so cruel. Bloodthirsty like him. Cruel like his husband.
(Remus has torn deatheaters apart with his bare hands. He still remembers the feeling of blood coating every inch of his skin. He still remembers the giddiness that rushed through him when the rest of the deatheaters ran from him.)
"I'm sorry," Remus whispers. (I'm sorry that I didn't stay when you needed me.) (I'm sorry I passed my lust for blood down onto you.) (I'm sorry you choose not to hide your bloodlust like I have; I'm sorry for choosing to hide my bloodlust and making you believe you are the only one like this.)
But he does see the smirk on her face. (He does not flinch away from her, for he knows she would not hurt him, but he almost does.) (There is something unnatural about Cassiopeia, sometimes. Something nightmarish. And although he knows she will not harm him, he cannot help but step back and look away, when she smiles just a little too sharp, when her fangs look a little too much like fangs.)
(The darkness within Cassiopeia terrifies him, sometimes.)
"Don't eat the mushrooms," Cassiopeia murmurs a few minutes later, dishing the mushrooms onto a plate and throwing Harry a mischievous wink as she pads out of the kitchen, placing the plate down on the table with a smile and murmured words of apology for taking so long to cook them. Petunia has procured another chair, insisting that Cassiopeia join them for breakfast; Dudley flinches as she sits down opposite him, prompting Cassiopeia to flash him the hint of a too-sharp smile filled with too many teeth.
The morning drags on. Dudley throws a tantrum over not receiving as many gifts as he wanted, and Cassiopeia cannot help but scowl slightly, fingers itching with the urge to slap-scratch-claw the spoiled child. (The spoiled child, who receives all the love he can dream of from his parents, who receives all the parental adoration neither Harry nor Cassiopeia ever had the chance to enjoy. How unfair it is, that Dudley gets what neither of them had.) (She wants to see someone smile at her like that as well.)
The pureblood children in the hall shudder when Dudley throws a tantrum. (They would never dare do such a thing, not when their parents expect perfection, not when their parents have access to wands and spells.) Harry shudders with them, remembering tantrums he came out of with bruises, remembering days where he was blamed for Dudley's wrongdoings and was locked in the cupboard.
Hermione rests a hand on Harry's arm. Ron slings an arm around Harry's shoulders. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott lean into each other in a search for comfort, and Draco Malfoy takes care to avoid his father's eyes, in case he should anger the man.
Narcissa Malfoy and Amelia Bones watch this with heavy, aching hearts. (Children should not be afraid of their parent's. Children should not be afraid of their guardians. Children should not be afraid.)
Eventually, the Dursleys begin to get ready to head to the zoo, and Cassiopeia decides it is time for her to leave. Petunia and Vernon offer for her to join them - charmed by the girl and her quick smiles, mistakenly believing their son to have a crush on her, stupidly thinking she has a crush on their son - but Cassiopeia turns them down, although takes care to insinuate that she would have loved to join them, were she not too busy. Petunia shows her out the door with a small smile and an invitation for breakfast, should Cassiopeia ever wish to come and see Dudley. (Cassiopeia would rather die.)
Cassiopeia smiles at Petunia and shrugs, before darting down the street and towards the forest, laughing gleefully as she does so.
Those who have been on the receiving end of Cass' pranks shudder. Those who have not shudder as well. (There is just something chilling about the sound that sends shivers down the spines of all who hear it.)
(Dumbledore would never admit it, but he flinches, just a bit, upon hearing the laughter from the young girl.) (The Black Family Madness strikes again, he thinks, but Cass is sane, and that only makes her more terrifying.)
Later, Harry will tell Cassiopeia about Vernon and Petunia's decision to take him to the zoo with them. (Poor Mrs. Figg, how tragic it is that she tripped over one of her cats and broke her leg. How unfortunate that some catnip had found its way into the old lady's shoes, prompting every one of her cats to get in her way and cause an accident.) Harry will tell Cassiopeia of all that happened at the snake enclosure, and of how he accidentally freed the snake. Harry will tell Cassiopeia that he escaped punishment purely because it seemed that Vernon, Petunia and Dudley had ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms, and thus could not be sure Harry had done anything at all, and would be sleeping off the effects of the mushrooms for several days. By the time they were lucid and healthy, Harry told Cassiopeia with a grin, they will have forgotten that there was every the possibility they needed to punish him.
"How unfortunate," Cassiopeia drawls, and Harry does not comment on the smirk that curls at her lips. (He knows what she did, but truly, he is not overly fussed about it. Vernon and Petunia deserve it, Harry reminds himself bitterly every time he sees his cupboard, and so does Dudley.) (There is still a slight feeling of unease, somewhere deep inside him, at the thought that Cassiopeia knows what plants to use to poison someone.)
(He denies that a part of him croons in contentment at the viciousness shown by his friend on his behalf.)
"Genius," Edmund whispers in his sister ear, laughter bubbling beneath the words. Cass flashes him the hint of a grin, something dark lurking beneath both of their gazes whilst their siblings watch on in amusement. (They all know how vicious Cass can be.) (Truly, Mrs Figg is lucky she did not suffer worse than a broken leg.)
"The bloody hell did she ever do to you?" Ron gasps from where he sits at Harry's side, and half the hall winces when they see Cass stiffen at the incredulous words spat by the notoriously hot-tempered Weasley. Slowly, Cass climbs to her feet. She turns around. (The students sitting between her and Ron cower into their seats, praying they will not attract her wrath.)
"Your friend set a teacher's robes on fire because she believed he was harming her friend," Cass turns to face Ronald Weasley with a smile on her lips and a dark look in her eyes, thorns crowning her head as her magick reacts to her fury. (How dare he accuse her, as if he has done nothing wrong, as if he is not friends with people who have just as much darkness within them as she does.) "Your other friend killed a man with his bare hands when he was just eleven. You, Mr Weasley, chose to kill a troll when faced with one. What does it say about any of you that your first instinct in any situation is violence and death?"
Ron Weasley is silent.
"Do not presume to question my methods on dealing with people who have caused me or my loved ones harm," Cass spits, and there is no longer a smile on her face. She is angry, and she allows that fury to be seen by the world. "Not unless you are willing to examine your own behaviours first."
On the evening of the 24th of July, Harry finds Cassiopeia draped across the branch of an ancient oak tree (the same oak tree she buried her name beneath just a few weeks before), the young girl silent as she watches the leaves above her dance in the wind. She knows that he is there; Harry sees her eye dart towards him as he sits down at the base of the old oak, silver irises glowing in the soft evening light, although other than that she does not give any indication that she has noticed his arrival.
Harry starts talking anyway, knowing she is listening to the words coming out of his mouth.
"A letter arrived for me this morning," the young boy says, leaning against the trunk of the oak tree and closing his eyes, relaxing slightly for the first time since he'd woken up. (How awful, that he spends his birthdays in pain and fear.) "I think it was my Hogwarts letter; Uncle Vernon took it before I could see. He wouldn't let me read it."
Remus lets out a quiet noise of sorrow. "He took your Hogwarts letter from you?" The werewolf gasps, sighing sadly when Harry gives him a stiff nod. All of the purebloods and halfbloods in the hall (those that grew up with their families (as Cass and Harry should have)) cannot help but give Harry looks of horror. Receiving a Hogwarts letter is such an honour amongst Wixen; for a letter to be taken from a student before they have even read it, for such an occasion to be reviled rather than revered, is horrific.
Cassiopeia hums quietly, but does not say anything. Harry does not press; sometimes he has days like that as well, days where his throat feels like it has become a sealed cave and words leave bleeding scratches on the inside of his mouth when he has to force himself to speak. He doesn't know if it is one of those days for Cassiopeia. If it is, he will never force her to speak. (He is aware of how terrible it feels, to speak when you don't want to, to force the words out of your throat and hear them come out all wrong.)
"If it was a Hogwarts letter," Harry continues after a moment, because he does not love silence as Cassiopeia does and he needs something to distract himself from the thoughts that swirl through his brain, "you might be getting one soon." (Neither of them are actually sure when Cassiopeia's birthday is. It bothers Harry more than it bothers Cassiopeia.) "I can't wait to go to Hogwarts."
Once upon a time, Harry was excited at the idea of going to Hogwarts. Now, watching his younger self's excitement, the young boy just feels tired. If he could, he would tell his younger self to throw the letter away and forget about magic. He would tell his younger self to treasure Cass, because he never understood how much she did for him until he pushed her out of his life. (Until he broke her trust and lost the friendship he'd once held so dear.) He would tell his younger self to smile, and to laugh, and to never once step foot in Hogwarts, because magic is wonderful but it is not worth the price Harry has paid for his magic. (It is not worth the innocence that was taken from him, the friendships he has lost.)
There is the creak of a branch and a soft thud. When Harry glances to his side, Cassiopeia sits cross-legged next to him, a small smile ghosting across her face.
"I'm a year younger than you," Cassiopeia reminds him in a near-whisper, gaze fixed upon the zinnia flower she is fiddling with. (Where did she get that flower? Harry has never seen those kinds of flowers before.) The words catch in her throat, dragging roughly against her tongue, the sides of her mouth, but she just swallows and forces herself to continue, ignoring the pain, the discomfort. (Harry might be willing to let her be silent, but she needs to talk. Even on the days when she feels like she cannot. She has to be able to voice her thoughts, or she might as well be back at the house she grew up in, where no one listened to her and speaking was often punished with pain-blood-fear.) "I think. I might not end up going to Hogwarts with you. Not until your second year."
Some amongst the hall utter murmurs of confusion - Cass is a year younger than them? How did they not know this? (How is she so mature, so powerful, if she truly is a year younger than the rest of her classmates?)
Harry lets out a quiet noise that is a somewhere between pained and scared, reaching out and grabbing Cassiopeia's hand in a near-desperate attempt to prove to himself that she is still there, that she is still next to him. (He cannot imagine going anywhere without knowing she is nearby.) (He has never had anyone else - Cassiopeia was the first person to look at him and claim him as hers, baggy clothes and taped-together glasses and bruises and all.) (He will always be grateful for being his friend, his rock, his saviour.)
(He wants more than what she can give him.)
Cassiopeia does not respond to his obvious fear of being separated from her, but she does shift so that she is leaning against him, head resting on his shoulder and legs pressed together. She is still holding the zinnia in her hand; after a moment of thought, she tucks it into Harry's clenched fist, a secretive smile flitting across her face as she does so. Harry relaxes ever so slightly, resting his head on top of hers and silently mourning the fact that this quiet friendship may need to end.
It is a long time before either of them move.
Paddy whines when he sees the sight. (No one can tell if it is a whine of happiness or of grief.) (Remus rather thinks it is a mixture of the two.) He is glad that they have grown up together, despite his actions, despite Remus' inactions. But how tragic is it, that they only have each other? How much grief could he have prevented, had he simply used his brain for once in his life?
He doesn't deserve to be Cass' father; he doesn't deserve to be Harry's godfather.
Three days later, Cassiopeia arrives at the oak tree, and there is a folded note tucked into a small hole in the trunk of the tree. When she unfolds the note, she can see the jagged edge of the paper - it was torn in a hurry, that is obvious. A short message is written on the page in messy, rushed handwriting, the words swelling with anger before collapsing into themselves with grief, a clear indication of the feelings of the writer when they scribbled down the message.
Cassie
more letters came. Vernon taking us somewhere, running from letters. This is not goodbye. I will see you soon. Take care of yourself!
Harry
Slowly, the young girl re-folds the letter. (Her fingers are trembling as she smooths the crease of the page.) She tucks it into the pocket of her pants. (Her hands shake as she realizes that her best friend has left.) She sits down, leans against the oak tree with her head buried in her hands. (Tears blur her vision.)
Remus Lupin flinches when he sees the tears in his daughter's eyes, looking away from the screen, shoulders slumping under the weight of his own grief. (His daughter should never feel the need to cry. His daughter should be happy. His daughter should be loved.)
Narcissa Malfoy's lips tighten when she sees the tears in the eyes of the young girl, and a scowl paints itself onto her face when she sees Remus Lupin look away from the screen. She stands up, stalks over to the Pevensies, who are all once again sitting together in the front of the hall, Cass once more in the middle of Lucy and Edmund. "I'm sorry you were alone," Narcissa Malfoy says, crouching in front of Cass, who watches her with wide eyes. "But please know that you always have a place with me and my son."
Cass does not tell her that she needs no help from the Malfoy woman. (That she has a home already. That she has a family.) Instead, she smiles, a tremulous thing that is as fragile as the petals of a newly-bloomed flower. (Families can grow.)
"He won't leave me," Cassiopeia whispers. (A promise, a prayer.) (She ignores how her shoulders shudder slightly. She swallows back the tears that threaten to blind her.) "He won't leave me."
Slowly, Cassiopeia takes a deep breath. She releases it. Her shoulders stop shaking, and she raises her head from where it has been buried in her hands. She takes another breath, releases it, and presents the world with a practiced smile. "He won't leave me."
(He will leave, something inside of her whispers, insidious and dark. They always leave you. They always abandon you.)
(He might leave. But she will survive, as she has always done, as she will always do.)
(She will survive.)
Harry closes his eyes; he cannot bear to look at the scene, knowing that he has abandoned her, knowing that he has become a cause of her pain rather than a refuge from it. Remus and Paddy let out identical whimpers; look at what they have done to their daughter. (Look at what they have done to the girl who has never once called herself their daughter.)
"You are never going to be alone again," Peter murmurs when he sees Cass glance away from the screen, a pained look in her eyes and lips turned down in a frown. Reaching out, he places a hand on his sister's shoulder, squeezing gently as he smiles at her, ignoring how his own fury has sparks flying off of his fingers and flames stirring in his hair. (How dare they do this to his sister. They will pay.) "You survived," Peter whispers, "and now you have us. And we will never leave you."
Harry Potter celebrates his 11th birthday alone, on the floor of a shack in the middle of an ocean. It is the first birthday he has spent without Cassiopeia ever since she walked into his life, back when he was just shy of eight and she was a little past seven years old, and they were still lonely children who had nothing.
(They are still lonely children, but now they have each other. They do not have nothing.) (It is an important distinction.)
(It can be the difference between life and death.)
"Happy birthday, Harry," the boy whispers to himself, too-green eyes glowing in the darkness of the night as he gazes down at the cake painstakingly drawn in the dust that covers the floor of the shack. (The floor where he has been told to sleep, the floor that he is forced to lie on whilst Dudley takes the couch and his aunt and uncle snore the night away on a bed.) (He is not bitter.)
(That is a lie.)
"Oh, Harry," Hermione whispers as she sees the younger form of her best friend lying on the floor of a shack, too skinny and too pale and looking heartbreakingly, painfully alone. Harry (and this is Harry, she has to remember that, he is no longer the young boy with no one to care about him) smiles at her, trying to assuage her concern, but there are tears in Hermione's eyes and sorrow surging through her veins that will not be ignored. "You are coming home with me," Hermione promises in a fierce whisper, clutching onto Harry's hand tightly, refusing to let go of her best friend. "Mom and Dad won't care; I'm not letting you go back there."
When the giant bursts into the room and hands Harry his letter, the young boy smiles. He does not stammer, he does not question what is happening; he beams so brightly even the stars appear dim in comparison. (Cassiopeia told him that it is a chance to find a home, a family, and somewhere deep inside him, there is a lonely little boy still sitting in a cupboard, desperate for a family, aching to belong somewhere.) (Cassiopeia did her best to fill that hole, but Harry is a hungry being no matter how he denies that truth, and he wants more than what she can give.)
The man-who-might-be-a-giant spends the night at the shack. When they leave in the morning, the Dursleys curse Harry out, and Vernon yells threats that would make any normal person call child services, but at which Hagrid only frowns at.
Harry does not look back once.
Amelia Bones scowls as she scribbles down notes onto a piece of parchment, the look in her eyes promising pain as she watches Vernon Dursley curse Harry Potter's existence, as she watches a man who should be family threaten and verbally abuse a boy he should have loved. The mother in her is raging; the lawyer in her is doing the same. (She will not let this go unpunished.)
"Mister Potter," Amelia calls, and her scowl deepens when she sees the young boy flinch. "You will not be going back to that house. Effective immediately, I am doing an emergency guardianship transferal from Vernon Dursley to Remus Lupin. I will file the paperwork the moment we are allowed to leave the hall...but rest assured, you are not under any circumstances stepping foot in that house again."
Harry nods, looking surprised. (He didn't know anyone would care so much about it.) (He can't believe someone is actually trying to help him.)
Unseen by almost everyone, Albus Dumbledore frowns.
(He ignores how easily Hagrid brushes the threats off. Many people have brushed similar things off in the past. It is not unusual. But surely Hagrid should have cared. Hagrid had given him his first birthday cake. Hagrid was taking him away from the Dursleys. Hagrid clearly cared more than anyone else (excepting Cassiopeia) ever had.)
"Have to make a quick stop 'fore gettin' you ta Diagon," Hagrid tells Harry as they step into the rickety boat that took Harry to the shack the day before. Harry does not protest this additional trip, despite his burning need to see the Magical World, to prove (even if only to himself) that it is real. "There's another student ta pick up."
The journey is swift. (Harry is convinced magic aids them in their travel.) Soon, they are approaching a very familiar neighbourhood, passing a very familiar street and heading towards a very familiar forest.
Cassiopeia is waiting for them outside the forest, all of her worldly belongings thrown into a small bag and the leather jacket that once accompanied her flight from her grandmother's house is slung over her shoulders. She is holding a letter in one hand; the distinctive Hogwarts crest seems to brighten with joy as it catches Harry's eye.
"Oy, Cass, I still want to borrow that jacket!" Draco Malfoy calls over to his cousin, doing his best to ease the tension in the hall, doing his best to let everyone feel slightly normal, even if only for a moment.
"You can have it when I die, Malfoy," Cass laughs. Draco groans, and the Hogwarts students titter with laughter. (Edmund glances at Cass, and Cass looks back at him, and there is grief in her eyes.)
Both of them grin brightly.
"I got an early admission," Cassiopeia mumbles into Harry's shoulder when he tackles her in an embrace, laughing giddily with the realization that he will not be alone, that Cassiopeia will be there with him. Harry can feel her smiling into his shoulder. "Apparently it's dangerous for me to wait another year."
She does not tell him that she does not want to go. She does not beg him to leave Hagrid, and to forget about the letter, and to just stay with her. (She is so terrified everything will change when they enter this new world.) (She is right to be terrified, but she'll only realize that later.)
"How is it dangerous?" A young Ravenclaw asks, voice bright with curiousity. "Er, how was it dangerous, I mean."
Cass shrugs slightly when she answers, ignoring the horrified looks on the professors' faces, ignoring how Narcissa Malfoy and Remus Lupin and Amelia Bones look as if they have been hit. "I was close to becoming an obscurial," she answers honestly. "I would not have lasted another year without learning to control my magic."
(She does not tell them that it did not work, to bring her to Hogwarts. She does not tell them that there is a darkness in her, one which they would call an obscurial, one which she would call powerful.)
Harry barely listens. He does not care. All he knows, all he cares about, is that his best friend will be coming with him to Hogwarts.
(He does not notice how there is something distant in Cassiopeia now. She adores him still, but there is something strange in her. Something has changed in the few days Harry has been gone, but he does not notice it, because he is hungry for the Wizarding World, hungry for magic and Hogwarts and new friends, and his hunger blinds him to the change in his only friend.)
(It is the beginning of the end for Cassiopeia and Harry.)