Five
Even if it's all just a waste of my breath, for five minutes, can we, please, just talk before you jet? Don't leave just yet.
- Please Don't leave just yet, Holly Huberstone
"What kind of spell do you think is on the building?" Harry asks Cassiopeia in a whisper, the two of them watching with fascination as crowds of people hurry past the dingy old building Hagrid has brought them too. It is not an impressive building - squat and dirty, with a sign hanging above the door that looks liable to fall at the slightest gust of wind - but there is a cascade of magic wrapped around it, icy blues and gemstone greens and shimmering silver soaking into the wood of the building, wrapping around all those who enter it and embracing them as a mother would her children. Cassiopeia cannot tear her eyes away; she has always been entranced by beauty, and this is something beautiful, something enchanting that she would watch forever if she could.
"Imagine the applications of that spell," a second year Ravenclaw murmurs, eyes bright and excited as his mind spins, already coming up with different ways to use the spell. "Would it work on a person? Would it work on anything living, or does it have to be an inanimate object?"
Some of the professors open their mouths to contradict, but before they can, Cass is speaking, throwing the words over her shoulder with a grin and a wink towards the student. "Of course you can use it on a person," she says, and there is a glimmer of something in her eyes that have the nearest people scooting away from her warily. "You can use it on anything. Pair it with a confundus charm, and no one will even realize that they are not noticing something that it right in front of their eyes."
(She has used it before. Used it to cover up scars, used it to hide when she doesn't want to be found, used it as a punishment for those who dared to try and kill her siblings.) (There is something satisfying about knowing that they will live for the rest of their lives, always unnoticed, always invisible even to their loved ones.)
The boy grins at Cass, and she smiles back, and he subtly scoots his chair closer to where she sits. (He has only ever been told what he must do with his magic, not what he can do with this power that he has been given.) (How wonderful it is, to have someone who encourages his ideas, someone who tells him what is possible without telling him that it is illegal or inhumane or stupid.)
(Cass doesn't know it yet, but she has just gained a loyal follower.)
"Tha's a notice-me-not charm, tha' is," Hagrid booms next to the children, and a gasp escapes Cassiopeia as she dances away from the man, the man she has almost forgotten about as she got lost in the magic. Instinctively, Harry puts an arm in front of her, protecting her from a threat that is not there. (They have always protected each other. That will change, one day, but for now it is still true.)
Harry remembers the day it changed. Remembers the day when protection became accusations, when love became betrayal and friendship became disdain. He remembers Cass' face, streaked with tears. He remembers how tears of his own blurred his vision, how he watched her as she ran from him, disappearing into the darkness.
He remembers screaming her name until his voice was hoarse, choking out apologies until he could no longer speak for sobbing.
And as he has ever since that day, he wonders who he has become. (They say you become who you are raised by. That cannot be entirely true, because Cass has become someone entirely different from her grandmother. But he was raised by Uncle Vernon, a man who hurt and yelled and judged and hated. He has done all of those things, too. Who does that make him?)
(What would his parents say, if they saw him now?)
(Hagrid does not notice their reactions, and she cannot decide if she is furious or grateful.) (She chooses to be a furious, Fury has always tasted more powerful than gratitude.)
Paddy whines, and there is a sheen to his eyes that some would call tears, were he human. Of all the things he could have passed down to his daughter, why did his fury have to be what she inherited? Why was that the family legacy he had passed down to her?
He knows how fury tastes. He remembers choosing fury over gratitude, remembers choosing anger over grief. He remembers the burn, the taste of fire that accompanied his fury.
(He forgets how powerful it felt, to be angry, to be furious at a world that had never cared for him. He remembers the burn of the fury, but he forgets how his friendship with James Potter began. He forgets the two boys sitting in a dorm room, one angry at the world and the other angry at himself.) (Fury can hurt, but fury isn't bad. He forgets this.)
"What's a notice-me-not charm?" Harry asks, and Cassiopeia does not miss how he steps closer to Hagrid in eagerness, although he makes sure to still position himself in between his friend and the giant man. (He may not think Hagrid will hurt them, but he does not know the man, he does not know any adult who has not hurt them. He has only ever known Vernon's anger, Petunia's sneers, Dudley's fists. And so he will do his best to protect Cassiopeia from the possibility of a threat, as she has protected him before, as she will protect him again.)
Hagrid smiles down at the young boy standing next to him, and something hot and angry twists in Cassiopeia's gut. Harry is hers. Harry smiles back at Hagrid, trailing after the man as he strides towards the pub, (forgetting about Cassiopeia, still standing on the pavement, watching him leave) and the angry thing coils around her heart.
(It burns, but Cassiopeia likes the heat.)
Upon seeing his sister's fury, Peter cannot help but smile. He smiles, because this is his sister, and she has always been fury and ambition and love. (Fury and love go hand in hand.) Cass has never been a gentle creature; she is angry in the way that all wild things are, angry at the world and determined to change it for the better.
Edmund is like that, too, although his anger is cold where Cass burns hot. (They are two halves of a whole, and it is only together that they are complete.)
Cassiopeia forces herself to take a deep breath, following after Harry and Hagrid, who have already disappeared in the pub which the sign above the door names 'The Leaky Cauldron'. (Harry is not leaving her, she tells herself. He is just excited to see the new world.) (The lie tastes like ash on her tongue.)
"...Harry Potter," Cassiopeia hears as she walks into the pub, and immediately there is a cacophony of noise. Every person in the room leaps to their feet, and Cassiopeia curls into herself as they push and shove around her, every fast-quick-loud moment reminding her of a woman who screamedscreamedSCREAMED-
Narcissa Malfoy watches the scene, watches as the girl who would have been her niece in another world disappears into herself, eyes going blank as memories cloud her vision, and her heart aches. She wishes she had known about Cass sooner; she would have saved her, if she had known. She would have taken her away from her grandmother, and showed the girl what it was like to be loved, what it was like to have a family.
At least Cass has found a family of her own, Narcissa thinks, and there is a smile on her face as she looks over at the five siblings. At least Cass is not alone, not anymore.
(Not ever, if Narcissa can help it.)
Cassiopeia catches a glimpse of Harry through the crowd, and he looks panicked-scared-shocked-terrified, and she cannot get lost in her head now because that is her best friend and he needs her and he's panicking (but she's panicking too, why does she always have to go and help him?) and Hagrid is not noticing and no one is doing anything-
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" The scream echoes through the pub, terrible and strange, and it is only when everyone turns to stare at her that Cassiopeia realizes that it was she who screamed. She does not take the time to panic (she locks the emotion in a box and pushes it away, where it can't affect her); instead, she strides forward, putting herself in front of her friend and the adults in the room and staring down all of the wixen who thought it was okay to swarm a child. "Harry is eleven!" She spits, and all of the adults flinch at the venom in her tone. "He is not something for you to ogle at! He is a person! Now FUCK OFF and leave him alone!" Cassiopeia turns to the bartender, who stares back with wide eyes. (For a moment, everyone swears that they see an older woman standing there instead of a girl. For a moment, just a moment that no one will remember after, they catch a glimpse of the queen she will become.) "Let us into Diagon Alley before I burn your pub to the ground."
Lucy watches as her sister threatens the barman, and the young girl throws her head back and laughs. She laughs, and she laughs, and then Edmund is laughing too, and Cass is laughing with them, the sound of the three's laughter echoing throughout the now-silent great hall. (The people closest to them flee; there is something terrifying about how the siblings laugh. There is something unnatural in the glint of their teeth, the echo of their joy.)
"Now, my girl," Albus Dumbledore begins, and he is so perfectly patronizing that Susan begins to laugh, too, covering her mouth demurely as her soft giggles join the cacophany created by the laughter of her younger sisters and brother. (She has never been able to refrain from laughing at men who look down upon the Pevensies simply because they are children.) (Fools that they are; don't they know that the Pevensies are wild creatures? Don't they know that the siblings would tear out the throat of any who name them child, and would bathe in the blood?)
"She is not your girl," Peter says, when it becomes clear that Cass will not speak to the man, lost in her laughter as she is. "You are about to tell her not to make threats like that, because they offend your delicate sensibilities. But we were raised to never make threats that we won't follow through with, so I would refrain from speaking if I were you, before Cass chooses to burn that place down out of spite for those who say she can't."
Tom does not protest the command. Cassiopeia follows him, slipping her hand into Harry's and feeling him hold onto her hand so tightly she is sure she will be bruised by the next day.
Harry and Cassiopeia enter Diagon Alley hand in hand.
(They will not leave the same way.)
Remus Lupin sighs, and wonders whether things might have been different if James and Lily had lived. (If Remus had had the courage to stay, as he should have, as he didn't.) Cass and Harry would have grown up happier - would they have remained friends, still, or would their friendship have broken as it so obviously has here?
(He doesn't even know how their friendship broke. All he knows is that whenever he asks Harry or Hermione or Ron about his daughter, the former goes silent in a way he never does, and the latter two look ... guilty, almost.) (He has tried not to think about what could have caused those expressions, those feelings of guilt. He wants to like Ron and Hermione, because they are Harry's friends and Harry is the pup of his best friends. He knows if they have done anything to his daughter, he will despise them.)
(Even if he himself has damaged Cass far more than Hermione or Ron ever could.)
There is something strange about Hagrid, Cassiopeia decides as she stands on the steps of Gringotts, her fingers tangled with Harry's as they watch the giant disappear in the crowded alley, heading for the Leaky Cauldron. There is something strange (something awful) about how he does not seem to notice the bruises on Harry's skin, the gauntness of Cassiopeia's frame. There is something strange in how he had introduced them to the Wixen World, how he had not explained anything and withheld information when they asked for it. There is something strange about how he leaves them there, on the steps of the bank, two children lost in a world that they have never belonged to.
She says as much to Harry, when Hagrid is gone. She pulls him to the side (ignoring the guards standing by the doors of Gringotts bank, ignoring how the goblins sneer at Harry but pause when they see her) and lays it out for her best friend, explaining how she finds this strange, explaining all the things that are not adding up.
There is something wrong, Amelia Bones silently agrees with the child-Cass, but it is not with Hagrid. It is so much bigger than Hagrid; she has suspicions it is so much bigger than Hogwarts, too.
(Cass is aware of this. Amelia Bones knows this. She wishes it were a kinder world; she wishes Cass had had the time to be a child.) (It has never been a kind world. No world is kind, and Cass knows that better than anyone.)
"She was right. There was something wrong," Harry whispers under his breath, the words aching and sad and heard only by the friends sitting on either side of him and the werewolf sitting on the seat next to them. Hermione squeezes Harry's hand, and Ron wraps and arm around his friend's shoulders; Remus tries not to think about what could have been wrong, because some part of him suspects the answer and he is terrified of what it could be.
(Once a coward, always a coward.)
She is sure that Harry will agree with her, because like her, Harry grew up in an abusive household and abusive children teach themselves (in order to survive) to sense when things are being hidden, to sense when things are going to go wrong.
Even if he doesn't agree, she is sure that Harry will listen to her and at least consider her argument. He'll tell her how she is being ridiculous - lay it out for her as she is laying it out for him, show her what she has missed and explain how everything does make sense, she just misread the situation.
She does not expect him to scoff.
She does not expect him to step away from her.
She does not expect him to dismiss her words (to dismiss her).
"You're being an idiot, Cassie," Harry rolls his eyes, and Cassiopeia cannot stop herself from flinching back slightly at the snapped words. (For a moment, the figure of her friend wavers, and she sees the old woman she thought she'd left behind.) "There is nothing wrong here! You're just being paranoid!" Harry scoffs and turns away from Cassiopeia, throwing a last sentence over his shoulder as he walks away. "I'm going to go and get my uniform."
He disappears into the crowd (leaving her behind once again even though he promised he wouldn't) and Cassiopeia can do nothing but watch him go. (He has made his choice, the darker part of her whispers. She ignores it. She will not be ignoring it for much longer.)
Susan frowns when she sees how this boy has dismissed her sister, and unseen by everyone except Peter, her hands curl into fists. Suddenly, she desperately wishes she had her bow, or her knife. She wishes for his blood, his pain, his tears. (How dare he dismiss her sister. How dare he insult her. How dare he abandon her.)
(She was called Gentle, once. And Gentle she was, but only to those she loved. Her enemies called her the Queen of Cruelty, and they were right.)
"Soon," Peter murmurs when he sees the blood dripping from his sister's palms as her nails cut through her skin, putting a hand on her arm and giving her a solemn look. He is burning, just as Susan is; this boy had dared to abandon their sister, to call her friend and then betray her as though she had never meant anything.
(How could anyone abandon Cass? How could anyone want to leave her?)
"Soon," Peter promises his sister, and for a moment when he looks at Cass, he does not see the being she has become, but instead he sees the tear-stained face that broke his heart the first time he saw his sister. And he vows that, one way or another, Harry Potter will learn that his actions have consequences.
He hurt a Pevensie.
Now he will pay the price.
There is fury lighting up her lungs and pain clawing at her throat.
She takes a breath.
"My queen," a goblin approaches her, and she does not even notice how he addresses her, too lost in her own emotions. She only notices the goblin when he touches her arm; she jumps at the sudden touch, whirling away from the goblin, hand flying to her thigh. (She is not sure why; she has no weapon there, no weapon that she could use in defense of herself.) (She does not know it yet, but one day there will be a knife strapped to her thigh, and she will never be defenseless again.) "My queen," the goblin repeats, and this time Cassiopeia notices the title, her head tilting in shock-confusion-wonder, but the goblin continues speaking before she can get a word out her mouth. "My queen," he says once more (third times the charm), "Bank director Ragnok would like to speak to you. There are some issues he would like to address, and some concerns we have about your heirships."
"Narnia has always been within us," Lucy tells her siblings, and they all laugh quietly. They all know that it is true; after all, how many times have they almost slipped into Narnia without even knowing? Even now, even as they sit in Hogwarts Castle, far away from Narnia and her people, they can feel Her within them, Olde Magick wrapping itself possessively around their skin, around their bones, around their very souls. (There is a reason they can wield the power that they do; Narnia has claimed them, body and soul. She created them, She claimed them, She loved them when no other world did.)
(Narnia will always protect those She calls Her Own.)
Cassiopeia looks at where Harry disappeared. For a long moment, she does nothing but stare after her best friend, wishing he would come back, wishing he had not left.
And then she turns to face the goblin.
"Why do you call me that?" The young girl asks as she follows the goblin up the steps, back into the bank she has just left. The goblin does not answer, but simply smiles secretively, the smile of someone who knows a secret that will change the world.
(Why would they not call her queen? Goblins have always been able to See more than mortals; they know the woman she will become, the queen she will grow up to be. They know that she will be their queen, the Queen of the Creatures, the Queen of the Wild Things.)
(The Queen of the Stars.)
There is something about that phrase which has Paddy's hair standing on end. Something familiar. (Except it can't be familiar, because he has never heard the phrase in his life, and certainly not in regards to his daughter.) Something strange.
(He almost feels as though he has heard it before. But that is impossible.)
Cass smiles when she hears the titles that had been bestowed upon her, all those years ago. They are titles she has carried with her since, tucked into her heart for safekeeping, draped over her shoulders like a cape only those who follow her can sense. (One day, she will have more titles, and they will shine in her hair like that stars she was named after, cascading jewels of titles twisted into ebony curls. But for now, she drapes them across her shoulders, and she imprints them onto her heart, and it is enough.)
Edmund hears the title he first gave his twin, and a smile passes over his face. (Queen of the Stars, he'd called her, when he found her stargazing on the roof of Cair Paravel just days after they killed the White Witch, and she had shook her head. Queen of the Stars, he'd laughed, when he saw the naiads dress her in silver and crown her with moonstone, and she had rolled her eyes at the title. Queen of the Stars, he had said when he saw her burn down a kingdom that had dared to threaten her siblings, and she had smiled and accepted the title.)
Truthfully, Diagon Alley does not impress Cassiopeia. It is gorgeous, that cannot be denied, but there is something strange about it, something that the darkest part of herself recoils from. Perhaps it is the parents running after their children, smiling adoringly at dirty faces and pressing kisses to scraped knees. Perhaps it is the children themselves, carefree and laughing as they are, innocent in a way Cassiopeia is not, has never been.
Perhaps it is just Cassiopeia. Perhaps she is the problem.
(Her grandmother had certainly always thought so.)
Remus sighs and closes his eyes, wishing he could go back in time, wishing he could change the past. He has a feeling he will be wishing this forever; he has a feeling he will never forgive himself for his actions that night, his actions in the years after.
(Cass certainly will never forgive, and why should she? He is the reason she was abused. He is the reason she ran away. It is his fault, it is all his fault, and so even though it hurts that his own daughter will not even glance his way he cannot blame her.) (He has only ever blamed himself and his husband.)
"I'm sorry," Remus Lupin whispers, for the last time, and Cass turns her head slightly. (How did she hear him? She can't have heard him, surely it's just a coincidence.) She does not do anything, simply looks at Remus out of the corner of her eye before turning her attention back to the wall displaying her life.
Remus blinks away tears.
(Shamefully, he is happy that this has happened. He is happy that the lion had come, that Cassiopeia's life is now being shown to everyone who cares to watch it. At least he can get to know the person his daughter has grown up to be, even if he knows he will never be able to have a relationship with her again.)
But whatever it is, the fact of the matter is that Diagon Alley does not entice Cassiopeia, does not entrance her the same way it seems to have enchanted Harry. It is too light, she thinks, the magic permeating it consisting entirely of eye-watering yellows and too-bright golds and neon-orange. (The magic tastes like courage, and fervour, and lies.) And it is too open. It is not like the forest, with its hidden spots and shadows, with its magic so subtle it is almost not there. It is alien to her, and both she and the alley know it.
And so, when Cassiopeia sees an alley entrance drowning in darkness, it is a relief to slip out of the light, to slip into the shadows that curl around her like they are welcoming her home. It is a relief to find an alley that is narrow, and has many small places to hide, places no one could be found. It is a relief to be greeted by magic that is ocean blue and midnight purple and gentle, shimmering silver. (Silver like her eyes.)
"I can't believe you can see magic," Ginny Weasley sighs enviously, and Cass looks at her, a smile spreading over her face at the sight of the fiery young redhead. Silently, she gets to her feet and pads over to where her friend sits; Edmund trails after her, gripping her hand tightly, a shadow she has never wanted to be rid of.
"Here," Cass says to the girl who has been her friend ever since they were twelve, kneeling in front of where the redhead sits with Luna and Neville and placing her free hand on Ginny's knee. For a moment, there is nothing. Then, Ginny gasps.
"Is this what you see all the time?" She whispers, voice filled with awe as she sees the sparkling yellow magic curling around Luna, the calming green magic draped across Neville's shoulders, the vivacious orange of her own magic as it wreaths her head in flames she has never been able to see.
Cass smiles at Ginny's wonder and pulls her hands away, pressing kisses to the foreheads of her three friends before floating back to her seat and settling back down in between Edmund and Lucy. (She has bestowed her blessing upon the three, but they will not realize it until the blessing has fully taken hold.) (They are her followers too, as much as Draco is, as much as Edmund and Lucy are.)
Knockturn Alley, the sign hanging above her reads, and Cassiopeia smiles.
As Cassiopeia pads through the alley, ducking into shops and walking out with supplies for school (and supplies for her, only her, not for anyone else to see or use), she can feel eyes on her, judging gazes wondering what she is doing there, greedy eyes wondering whether she has anything worth stealing, cruel eyes wondering if she would put up a fight. But these gazes don't frighten Cassiopeia; the dark thing inside her purrs at the attention, resting its claws on her shoulders and shrouding her in an aura of danger.
(The dark thing the school wanted to save her from, the dark thing that she has known all her life, the dark thing that they call Obscurial but she knows is just Herself.)
"Oh," Minerva McGonagall whispers, and there are tears clouding her vision. She has known for years the reason Cass was accepted into the school early; she had always thought they had managed to prevent such a fate.
An Obscurial. Cassiopeia Adhara is an Obscurial.
Minerva thinks of the young girl with bright silver eyes and honey skin, and she thinks of another boy with the same eyes. She thinks of Sirius laughing with James, and Cass holding hands with Harry.
And she knows that she has failed both of them.
(She should have done more to help them. She should have looked up records of the trial of Sirius Black, she should have taken Cass into her own house.) (Should have, could have, didn't.)
(It isn't Minerva's fault things turned out this way, but she blames herself for it.)
And so Cassiopeia wanders through the alley, and she is not harmed, nor even approached, although several take note of the girl with the silver eyes that seem to glow and the hair that looks as though it was made from darkness itself. (They will approach her one day, these people living in shadow, these creatures cast out by society. They will see their queen, and they will adore her. But for now, they keep away. And they watch.)
Cassiopeia entered the alley, abandoned and alone, lost in a world she never wanted to belong to. Cassiopeia leaves the alley, still abandoned and alone, but no longer lost. She has found a place she can belong, a place where she will not be judged for the scars decorating her skin or the fury which has curled around her heart.
Cassiopeia leaves Knockturn Alley, and she turns her face to the sun, and she laughs at the bright magic of Diagon Alley.
(Light disappears so quickly in darkness.)
Amelia Bones wants to protest. She wants to take Cass by the hand, she wants to pull her into a hug, she wants to hide her away from the world. (The world that has hurt her, the world that has hurt her so much she only ever feels like she belongs in the darkest corners of it.) She cannot do anything but lift a hand to her mouth and hide the tears blurring her vision.
(A mother's grief is an all-encompassing thing.)
Narcissa Malfoy wants to rage. She wants to rage at Albus Dumbledore (and she will) because Cass was meant to grow up with her, not with Walburga Black. She wants to rage at Lucius Malfoy, because she has seen her son and she knows that he and Cass are far more similar than she would have thought. (Broken children love broken children; like calls to like.) She wants to rage at herself, for never asking about where Cass was staying, for never stealing her away from Hogwarts and making sure she was alright.
(A mother's rage will never die; when she snaps, all will feel her fury.)
There is a moment, when Cassiopeia returns from Diagon Alley, when she manages to sneak onto a bus heading towards Surrey, where she wonders if it would not have been better for her to simply stay in London. It is so easy to disappear there, in the city, amidst all the people. (She does not even know where Harry is. She does not even know if he will want to see her.)
(She does not know if she wants to see him.)
But regardless, Cassiopeia makes her to Surrey, and she walks past all the houses on Privet Drive until she stands in front of the forest where she has spent the best years of her life.
From just beyond the treeline, Harry looks back at her.
There is something poetic about this, Harry cannot help but think, watching as two children stare at each other in the fading light. There is something poetic about seeing Cass return, after he left her.
(She left him, once. After he betrayed her, after he hurt her like he always swore he would never do. But she didn't return, that time, and neither did he.)
(He wishes he had come back.)
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and there are tears on his face, glistening in the sunlight. Cassiopeia steps forwards, and he throws his arms around her, tears soaking through her shirt as he cries silently. "I'm sorry. I s-shouldn't have left you."
He does not apologize for calling her paranoid.
She does not mention it.
She does hug him back, tears of her own blurring her vision, although she refuses to let them fall because crying is weakness and weakness is something her grandmother destroyed in her long ago. (She truly thought she had lost her only friend.) "It's okay," Cassiopeia says, repeating the words over and over again as though saying it will make it true. "It's okay."
Lucy Pevensie knows that it was not okay. She knows this, because she remembers the nights she has spent in the forests of Narnia. She remembers how Cass hates to fall asleep, because of the nightmares awaiting her the moment she closes her eyes. She knows that Cass spent her childhood forgiving and forgiving and forgiving, and she knows that Cass refuses to do that anymore.
(Trust, once lost, is lost forever.)
It hurts her, to see her sister this young, to see her sister cling to her only friend, terrified that he will leave. It hurts Lucy, because she knows that this will not last. She knows that there is pain and betrayal waiting for Cass the moment she sets foot in Hogwarts.
(Selfishly, Lucy cannot wish Cass had never gone through that pain, that heartbreak. She would never have met her, otherwise. She would have lived her life without her older sister, and Lucy knows that a world without Cass is a world devoid of all colour.)
Harry pulls away, and beams at her.
For a week, Harry and Cassiopeia spend their time in the forest, wild and free and happier than they have ever been before. Cassiopeia shows Harry where to pick the best blackberries, and Harry teaches her the names of the butterflies that flutter through the trees. They splash through rivers and huddle together over their new school books and catch fireflies when the sun sinks below the horizon.
For a single, blissful week, life is perfect.
On the eighth day, the Dursleys return. And Harry is taken back, back to the household that hates him, back to the small bedroom he has only recently been allowed to use. And Cassiopeia is alone in the forest, again.
"King's Cross," Harry calls as he is pulled away by his uncle, who is gripping his arm so hard Cassiopeia thinks she can hear the creaking of a bone. She nods from where she is hidden amongst the trees, and can do nothing but watch as her best friend disappears.