Six
Take my hand and we'll face the end of time. Let's take a stand against fate's design. I said, "I can't bear to see the end." And you said, "Close your eyes and count to ten."\
- Come with me, Chxrlotte
Cassiopeia Adhara arrives in Kings Cross at 8 a.m on the first of September, a shrunken trunk tucked into the pocket of her jacket and her wand stuck through the bun she'd managed to twist her hair into earlier that morning.
Remus Lupin sees how she has stuck her wand into her hair, and his treacherous heart twists in a way it has no right to, not since he gave her up, not since he abandoned her and Harry both. (He abandoned Sirius, too, in a way. When will he stop leaving people?) (He has caused so much damage by leaving.)
But nonetheless, the heart is a treacherous thing, and his twists as he sees her sticking her wand through her hair, because for a moment he does not see his daughter, but instead he sees a thirteen-year-old Sirius Black, bounding towards him with a grin on his face and bragging about the bun Lily had put his hair into, his wand being used to hold the hair in the style.
Isn't it amazing? Sirius didn't raise Cassiopeia, and yet she wears her hair the same way he once did. (Children truly are haunted by the ghosts of their parents.)
She is alone. Harry is not with her; she has not seen him since he was hauled away by Vernon Dursley.
(He will be there. She has to keep believing that.)
Guilt twists in Harry's stomach, hot and heavy and smothering. He had never thought about that before, how his absences had affected Cass. Or rather, he had thought about it, but never enough. He had never imagined the crushing loneliness she might have felt when her best friend was not there, when she was alone again.
(She was never lonely, but he doesn't know that. He used to know that, but he has forgotten over the years of not being her friend.) (It was too painful to remember the friendship he'd had with Cass, and so he'd done everything he could to forget. It seems it worked.)
With a frown, Harry raises his hand to his mouth, discreetly spitting out his guilt. Of course he feels guilty; he has always hated how it ended between them. But there is nothing he can do about it - Cass has not so much as spoken to him in years. Guilt will not help the situation in any way, not when he knows that their friendship will never exist again, not when he knows that Cassiopeia hates him.
(She does not hate him. If she'd hated him, she would have done everything in her power to tear him down. And she would have succeeded, because there is nothing the Queen of the Stars cannot accomplish.) (She is simply indifferent to him, and in some ways, that is worse.)
Cassiopeia knows how to get onto Platform 9 and 3/4, because she had once lived in a magical house, although most days she tries her best to forget that part of her life. (Not her childhood - she didn't have a childhood to forget. She was never a child. She was never that innocent.) She remembers her grandmother's rants. (Rants about the man who had given her life.) (He was not her father. She would never give him that title.) She knows to run through the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10.
Paddy winces slightly at that, although he knows it it nothing he does not deserve. It is not the worst he has heard from his daughter (because she is always his daughter, even if he is not her father) but it still manages to hurt him.
"They are your fathers," Hermione says quietly, ignoring Ginny shaking her head in warning, blissfully oblivious to how Lucy grips her knife and Peter reaches for his sword. Cass turns, slowly, eyes cutting into Hermione like daggers, but the young witch forces herself to continue. (She has seen the tears in Remus' eyes, she has seen the pain in the set of Harry's mouth, she has heard Sirius screaming at himself in the middle of the night. She is determined to try and help them repair their relationship with Cass.) (She does not yet know there is no relationship to repair.) "You shouldn't cut them out of your life entirely. It isn't fair, to them or you."
Cass is silent, but after a moment someone else begins to laugh. Heads turn, but to everyone's surprise, it is not the Pevensies that are laughing this time, although smirks have begun to tug at their lips as they gaze at the source of the laughter. (Smirks on their lips, apart from Susan, who is the only Pevensie to keep staring at Hermione, icy eyes promising pain upon the person who dared attempt to tell her sister what to do.) (As though Cass is not a Queen, as though she is not a worshiper of the Olde Magick, as though she is not above these wixen in every way.)
"She shouldn't cut them out of her life?" Ginny Weasley is laughing, cackling her delight at the sentence to the hall, the sound sending chills down everyone hearing it. ("Never anger Ginny Weasley," they have whispered ever since her first year at the school, "because she burns brighter than wildfire and is twice as dangerous.") (They really should have heeded their own warnings.) "Oh, Hermione. How hypocritical of you!" Ginny leans forward in her seat, and there is an unholy gleam in her eyes that has Hermione shuddering and leaning away from the younger witch. "Tell me, how many times have you seen fit to spend a holiday with your parents since you came to Hogwarts? Two times? Three? Are they too boring, Granger, too normal for the so-called Brightest Witch of Her Age? You tell Cass to have her family in her life, but how about yours? Or do they just not care? Have they even noticed that you're missing, all these holidays, all these years? Do they still think you're eleven years old?"
There are tears in Hermione's eyes, and a choked sound escapes from her lips. And Ronald leaps to her defense (trying to be her knight in shining armour, for all that they fight, for all that he has no armour, for all that he has no idea what he is talking about).
"Ginny!" The redhead yells, the sound echoing loudly in the silent hall of spectators. "That's enough! I let you run wild all these years, but-"
This time, it is Cass who laughs, although the sound is decidedly colder than Ginny's cackle. "Oh, you let her, did you?" Cass smirks at Ronald Weasley (are those teeth or are they fangs?) and he pales, swaying alarmingly in his seat. (Some knight in shining armour.) "Ginny Weasley does exactly what she wants to," Cass states, and there is something final in her tone, something sounding almost like a vow. "You have never let her do anything, and truly, you are naive to think you can tame a wildfire."
Ginny beams at Cass, who smiles back. (Stars have always burned bright; of course Cass would come to adore the wildfire girl.)
She does not wait for Harry, although she wants to. She doesn't know when he will arrive (if he will arrive) and already she is garnering suspicious looks from the security man, who is obviously wondering what a girl so young as her is doing there alone, that early in the morning. He stirs, begins to walk towards her, and Cass knows Harry will have to find his own way onto the Platform, as she darts away from the security man and slips through the barrier just as another person passes by her.
(It is strange, slipping through the barrier. There is a resistance, a force, that tries to stop her from going through. It tries to redirect her, pulling her to the side, snatching at her clothes and hair as it attempts to drag her somewhere other than Platform 9 and 3/4. But something within her whispers, "not yet," and the force backs away, allowing her through.) (Only later, will she recognize that force to be Olde Magick, Deepe Magick, Magick that has not been felt in the Wixen World for many years.)
(As she pushes through the barrier, for a moment she is sure that she can smell snow.)
Draco stares at his cousin, eyes filled with suspicion, mind racing as he tries to put together the puzzle that is Cassiopeia Adhara. He knows his cousin - he has been at her side for years, since they first met, since she saw past the front of Draco Malfoy and saw the lonely little boy who only ever wanted to be accepted. He knows how her eyes glow whenever she is in darkness. He knows that she scrunches her nose up whenever she is planning something.
And he knows how she loves-hates-fears-adores snow. On her good days, he has seen her play in the snow like a child, entranced by the crystalline wonderland the snow creates of the Hogwarts grounds. And he has sat with her on the bad days, the days when her hands shake and she cannot even look at the snow and she wraps herself up in every blanket she can find but is somehow still cold.
He has seen the good days, and the bad. He knows of the complicated relationship she shares with snow. And he has never asked, not once, because who is he to ask her to share whatever trauma haunts her?
But now, he cannot help but wonder what happened.
(It shall be revealed soon enough.)
Platform 9 and 3/4 is empty, as Cassiopeia expected it to be. It is too early for anyone to be there. It is off-putting: the platform, devoid of life, devoid of noise, devoid of everything that makes train stations places of joy and of sorrow.
It is just Cassiopeia, and the train, and the silence.
The doors of the train open when Cassiopeia approaches, parting with a near-silent hiss that sounds unnatural in the quiet that has settled over the rest of the platform. She steps onto the train, shoulders curling inwards protectively as she meanders through the carriages, until she stops at the very front of the train, standing outside of a compartment. There is something about the compartment that feels familiar, although she cannot say what, nor can she say why it feels familiar. (She does not see the initials carved into the doorframe, the initials of four boys who called themselves the Marauders.) (She would not understand the familiarity even if she had seen the initials.)
It seems as good a compartment as any, and Cassiopeia is sitting by the window before she fully realizes what she is doing. The magic of the compartment wraps around her comfortingly, a maelstrom of red and blue and silver and yellow (the magic of four young boys who had once sat there) and Cassiopeia relaxes into the seat.
Harry has never noticed the initials carved into the door of the compartment, and there are tears in his eyes as he sees this detail he has missed throughout his years of journeying towards Hogwarts. How did he never notice?
"Of course," Lucius Malfoy sneers, and several members of the hall jump at the imperious voice, having forgotten the Malfoy patriarch existed. The Pevensies do not jump. (They have not forgotten the presence of the man who has dared to insult their sister.) (They smile at the man, toothy smiles that seem far too large, but he does not see.) (It is better that way. Let him be unaware that he is being hunted.) "Of course the marauders have vandalised such a sacred heirloom belonging to Hogwarts. Lupin, school laws demand compensation."
Lucius Malfoy is unaware that he is being hunted. (A hunted being enjoying its last days of freedom.)
But Narcissa Malfoy has seen the smiles on the Pevensie siblings' faces, and she knows her husband is prey.
"Lucius, darling," she places a hand on her husband's arm, pretending it does not sicken her to speak his name, pretending she does not want to rip out his eyes with her fingers. "Shall we perhaps get this over with as soon as possible, and collect compensation after? We cannot leave the hall until we are finished - the Manor is vulnerable until then."
Lucius gives her a sharp look, but agrees after a moment. (He had not thought of that. Foolish man, always note your weaknesses so you may turn them into strengths.) Narcissa glances at the five siblings in the front of the hall, and she smiles when Susan Pevensie meets her eyes and inclines her head.
(Lucius Malfoy will not be alive by the time this is over.)
Hours pass, and although the Platform fills up and children begin to board the train, no one approaches Cassiopeia's compartment. The girl does not mind; unable to watch the families sending their children off with tears and smiles, she has long since enlarged her trunk and pulled out several books, burying herself within the pages as the platform filled up.
When someone does eventually knock on her door, Cassiopeia almost does not respond. But something in her - that feeling she has long since come to trust - begs her to open the door, to respond to whoever it is that is standing on the other side.
Draco Malfoy begins to smile, delight lighting up his face as he realizes what this is, what will soon be shown. (He will always remember the day he met Cass.) (He will always remember the day she appeared and changed his fate, changed the fate he had thought set in stone.)
Cass remembers this day, too, and there is a smile pulling at her lips as well. She glances at her cousin, and sees him looking at her already, a grin on his face and his magic dancing happily through the air around him. (She is glad to have met Draco. She has her siblings, that is true, but she has him too, and all of her family is utterly precious to her.)
She slides the door open, and a shock of colour greets her. A person with the palest skin and hair that she's ever seen stands there, teal magic wrapping around him protectively, snapping out at her it feels her eyes on it, the colour brightening as it attempts to change, although whether it is trying to become blue or green she cannot tell.
It tells her a lot, the way this boy's magic is so protective over him, so desperate to become something it is not. And she cannot help but frown, because she does not know this boy, but she already feels sorry for him. (He reminds her of herself, when she was a younger, when she was in the-house-that-was-never-home.)
Paddy looks at the boy standing outside of the compartment where his daughter once sat, and for the first time, he does not see Lucius Malfoy when he looks at him. He knows those tight shoulders, he knows that nervous twitch to the fingers, he knows that all-too-familiar insecurity hidden behind a facade of arrogance.
He knows these things, because he looks at this boy, this child, and he sees both himself and his younger brother. And it hurts, knowing he has called this child Lucius Malfoy's son without even trying to see that Draco was an entirely separate person.
(It hurts, because he would have hated anyone calling him his mother's son, and Draco reminds him far too much of himself.)
Harry and Ronald roll their eyes, already knowing who this is, already biased against whatever they will hear. "She's blind if she thinks Malfoy is anything but Lucius Malfoy's copy," Ronald mutters, and a few seats over, Luna Lovegood smiles.
"Only the blind call others blind," she croons (there is something compelling about the words, an invocation, a prayer) and when she turns her face towards where Ronald and Harry sit, they are certain that there is lightning flashing in the air around her.
And then Ronald screams, clapping his hands to his eyes, his eyes which have gone cloudy, his eyes which have lost the ability to see the world. Harry jumps to his feet, cursing out Luna Lovegood, and Hermione pulls out her wand to cast every healing spell she knows at the redhead, and Minerva McGonagall rushes over from where she was sitting. (Curiously, Albus Dumbledore does not move to help. He just stares at Luna Lovegood, an emotionless expression on his face, trying to figure her out as he has been trying to figure out the Pevensies ever since they stepped into Hogwarts.)
And Luna Lovegood turns back around, a serene look on her face, ignoring the screaming in favour of looking at the glee on her lover's face as Ginny takes in the chaos. (Never underestimate a fae. They don't like liars, and they will do whatever they can to avenge those they love.)
"Hello," he says, and there is an insecurity there, hidden beneath carefully cultivated arrogance. He sticks out his hand, and Cassiopeia was raised a pureblood, she was raised to be the heiress of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. So she does not take his hand, not yet. "I am Draco Malfoy. What is your name, if I may ask?"
"Cassiopeia Adhara," she murmurs, and finally she places her hand in his, smiling slightly as he presses a kiss to the back of her hand. (Like he was taught; like she was taught.) She adds a caveat to this expression of loyalty, because whoever has caused this boy's magic to act like it does is no one she has any interest in playing nice with. "I feel that you would make a good ally, Draco."
He releases her hand, looking at her silently for a long moment before smiling. This smile is genuine, she is pleased to see. He has caught her caveat, caught her allying with Draco rather than Draco Malfoy. (It is not quite enough to earn his loyalty, but it is a promising start.) "I feel the same, Cassiopeia Adhara."
There is something beautiful about this, Minerva McGonagall cannot help but think from where she sits next to Remus Lupin, having given up on fixing Ronald Weasley's eyesight. (How powerful is Luna Lovegood? To cast a spell that not even a professor can break?) (Minerva does not want to know.) There is something beautiful about seeing these cousins standing in front of each other, talking as they should have so many years before.
(They should have known each other since they were children. Minerva will never forgive herself for the role she played in breaking this family.)
"At least she had her cousin," Remus tries to console himself, tries to pretend that Cass did not lose her entire family that fateful Samhain night. (It does not work. She lost her family, and he has no one but himself to blame.)
When Harry finds Cassiopeia, she is alone again. Draco had left some time ago, stating that he needed to catch up with his friends, but that he would see her at Hogwarts. (He was lying about his friends; she'd seen his magic fluctuate. She didn't call him out on it.) She is reading in her compartment, jacket swamping her too-skinny frame and curls falling out of her bun, and Harry beams when he sees her.
"Cassie!" The emerald-eyed boy cries, and at the familiar voice Cassiopeia leaps to her feet, book falling to the floor as the two friends collapse into each other in a mess of love and tears and relief. Harry clings to her tightly, sobbing, and she clings back just as tight, tears blurring her vision as she assures herself that her friend is here, that he is safe, that he is alive.
(How sad it is, when it is a relief that someone is alive, rather than a given.)
"You're okay," Cassiopeia breathes, pulling back slightly to look at Harry, scowling when she sees the faint bruise yellowing his shoulder, the stiffness to his movements that speaks of wounds hidden by the clothes, possibly cracked ribs and certainly some bruises being hidden by Dudley Dursley's overly large shirt. But as much as it pains her to see her friend injured, she cannot help but be relieved; she may not want to go to Hogwarts, but at least it will get Harry away from his so-called family.
(She would do anything to help him.)
Edmund Pevensie smiles, because he knows his sister better than even she knows herself, because he knows just how loyal she is to the people she loves. (She does not love a lot of people; not in this world, at least. But those she loves, she loves fiercely, relentlessly. It is one of the reasons he adores her.) He glances at his siblings, and sees them looking at their sister fondly; they, too, know of her capacity for love.
(Her capacity for love, only equalled by her capacity for anger.)
Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood also know of Cass' ability to love. He knows this, because Cass has told him of her friends, whom she adores, whom she loves almost as much as she loves her siblings. Draco malfoy, too, has experienced Cass' love, and has basked in its warmth; Edmund knows what would have become of the boy if he had not met Cass, and it something he would not wish upon his sister's cousin.
Oh, how incredible his sister is. How special she is. He is so lucky to have met her. (He tells her as much, in whispered breaths that go no further than her ear, and she returns the sentiment, leaning into his embrace. She fits perfectly into his arms, as she always has - they truly are two halves of a whole.)
Harry sits down on the seat next to her, and she wraps an arm around his shoulders, smiling as he rests his head on her shoulder and curls into her as though terrified she will disappear if he moves away for a moment. They talk in whispers - Harry admits that he hasn't been able to read any of his books, and Cassiopeia tells him about the ones she has read. Harry shares the story of Dudley's pig tail, and Cassiopeia laughs quietly at the mental image of the porky boy with a porky tail.
"Are you excited?" Harry asks, when their stories have run out, when there is no more to say to each other. Cassiopeia sighs, and Harry shifts away to look at her intently, emerald eyes meeting silver.
"I'm scared," she admits after a moment of silence has passed, glancing away from Harry, unable to look her best friend in the eyes and tell him that she wishes they had never gotten their Hogwarts letters. (She wishes they never had to get older.) "What if it's all different? What if we stop being friends?"
Hermione winces at the words of the younger Cassiopeia, thinking back to her first two years at Hogwarts, remembering the young girl who was always at Harry's side, a constant shadow he didn't want to lose, a shadow that didn't disappear even in the middle of the day. If she could go back, she would do it all over again. She would hug Cass tightly and promise that neither she nor Ron were trying to steal Harry from her. She would ask Cass if they could be friends, because once upon a time they were both lonely girls and once upon a time Hermione had wanted to be her friend.
(But she can never go back.)
Draco hears the words of his younger cousin, and his heart aches. Because he knows now what neither of them did back then. He knows that the friendship will not last the next two years. (Shamefully, he was glad when Harry threw Cass away. He was furious too, because how dare the other boy abandon her like he said he never would, but when the fury passed, he was glad. Because Cass has always deserved more than to be someone else's support. She has always shone far too brightly to be hidden in the shadows of someone else's achievements.)
Harry gives her a look as though she is being stupid. (Her grandmother used to give her that look.) "We're never not going to be friends, Cassie." (Liar, liar, LIAR.) "This doesn't change that. We're going to be in the same house, and we'll see each other every day, and we'll learn about magic together and we'll be best friends forever!"
Harry cannot help but laugh at that, a bitter sound that has people around him flinching slightly. Oh, how naive he was. What a foolish child he was. He promised he would never leave Cass. (But all promises are made to be broken.)
Cassiopeia nods, and pretends her smile isn't fake. She pretends everything is fine, pretends she isn't terrified to enter this new world. She smiles at Harry, and Harry smiles back, gripping her hand tightly.
(There is a brightness to his eyes and a twist to his smile that speaks of hunger, that speaks of aching. A hunger he is trying to fill by immersing himself in the Wixen World, a hunger for more than Cassiopeia can offer him.)
(She knows then, deep down, that they won't be friends forever. Because Harry is hungry, and she is scared.)
(She can't bear to imagine a world where Harry is no longer at her side. She can't bear to think about the end, the end that is surely coming, the end that will surely destroy her.)
Cass smiles at the screen (a fond smile that only her siblings and friends have ever seen). Were she any other person, she would wish to tell her younger self of the future, tell her younger self that this will not break her, that nothing will ever break her because she is a queen-warrior-star and she is unbreakable.
But she is not another person. She does not wish to tell her younger self this. (She has told her younger self this, once, when she was just a girl-queen, when she was in between the girl she Was and the goddess she would Become.)
Instead, she smiles. (Her younger self will learn how unbreakable she is. Cass has never needed to tell her.)
Ronald Weasley walks into their compartment half an hour after the train has begun to move, and Cassiopeia knows that life will never be the same again.
"Everywhere else is full," he says, and Cassiopeia knows that he is lying because there are so many compartments in the train, so many places to sit, they cannot all be full. It is impossible. She grips Harry's hand, silently tries to tell him that this boy is lying, this boy has invaded their compartment and is already spitting falsehoods. (What a bad omen about this boy, she thinks, but does not say.) Harry does not hear her silent words; or if he does, he ignores them, inviting the other boy to sit down without so much as glancing at her to make she is okay with that.
(She is not okay with this.)
Harry grimaces when he sees the look on Cass' face, the look he did not see when they were younger, when he was a child that willfully blinded himself in order to become accepted. (Who still blinds himself, even though he doesn't want to admit it. Blind boy, broken boy, when will you learn to see?) (Have you been accepted yet, you naive child? Is it really acceptance if they need you blinded in order to love you?)
Would he do things differently, if he could go back and do it all again? Would he turn to Cass instead of Ronald, would he listen to his oldest friend instead of ignoring her? Would he do more to help Cass and Ronald get along, to integrate her more into his newfound friend group? (No, he wouldn't. Because he is still just as blind as he was when he was a child.) (You can't fix your mistakes if you refuse to admit that you have to choose between two people.)
(You chose wrong, Harry Potter. But you won't know that until it is too late.)
"Ronald Weasley," the boy says, and gapes when Harry introduces himself with a smile. He ignores Cassiopeia when she says her name, and that should have shown her what was coming. She should have screamed, cried, told him to fuck off and leave them alone. (Maybe then she'd have kept her friend.)
She does not do any of this, simply looks away from the boy as Harry grins delightedly at him. Fate is not set in stone, but this decision has been made, and now they will all feel the consequences. (Nothing could save their friendship now.)
Ronald Weasley has red hair and freckles, and is lanky in that awkward way that boys always are before they grow into their limbs. His magic (red, the colour of his hair, the colour of blood, the colour of anger) shows him to be full of contradictions, bright-dim-sad-happy-cruel-kind as it sparks around him. He is loud and confident and oblivious, and when he starts telling them about his family and about Hogwarts, Cassiopeia can see the moment where Harry decides that this boy is one he wants to call friend.
Remus Lupin looks at this scene, and cannot help but be reminded of another boy, so many years ago, another boy with messy black hair and thick-rimmed glasses and an insatiable need to be surrounded by loved ones. James Potter, always around people, having spent his entire life around people and being utterly terrified of being forgotten if he was not close to someone else. Harry Potter, having spent his life almost entirely alone, desperately attaching himself to everyone around him in the hopes that he would be accepted as he never had before.
Such different people, such different boys. And yet, so similar.
What does that mean for Cass, if Harry is like James despite not having been raised by the man? Is she more like Remus, or is she like Sirius? (It kills him, not knowing what his daughter is like.) (He prays she is not like him.)
(She is not hurt by this, because she knows of Harry's desperation to fit in, although she has never understood why he would want to be normal. And Ronald Weasley is normal in all of the best-and-worst ways; of course Harry would want to be his friend.) (Harry is hoping for that normalcy to rub off on him, she knows, and she aches to think of it.)
Ronald entices Harry into an animated conversation about Quidditch, a sport that Cassiopeia has only ever heard mentioned, and the young girl pulls out a book, leaning against the window as she continues to read.
"Ravenclaw," Ronald sneers slightly as he sees her turning a page in her book, and there is a disdainful undertone to his voice that has Cassiopeia bristling, magic coiling around her wrists as it feels her fury, responding to her wrath. Harry interrupts before she can unleash her magic on this boy, eyes cold as he stares Ronald down, asking him why it is wrong if Cassiopeia enjoys reading? Ronald has no answer for that, and looks away, and Cassiopeia's magic fades in strength, although still wrapping itself defensively around her shoulders. (Her magic does not trust Ronald, and neither does she.) (How can Harry trust him so easily? Harry is like her, he has been hurt like her, he has been betrayed like her, and yet he trusts this boy within moments of meeting him, without reason to trust him. Why is it only Cassiopeia who finds that strange?)
Ronald sneers at Cassiopeia and calls her a Ravenclaw, and the entirety of Hogwarts rears back in offense. How dare he insult them like that? How dare he judge someone simply because they are doing something as simple as reading a book? (They have long known Ronald Weasley to be a jealous being, but have said nothing because he is the friend of their hero. Now, their hero's image is tarnished, and Ronald Weasley is no longer quite so protected.) (Ronald Weasley, your judgement is coming.)
"What's wrong with being a Ravenclaw?" A blue-clad person stands up, and there is fury crackling in their voice as they stare at Ronald. They are joined by their friend, a girl garbed in Hufflepuff yellow, the two of them glaring at the red-headed Gryffindor, who shrinks slightly where he sits. "Answer me!" The blue-clad person yells. "What's wrong with being a Ravenclaw, Weasley?"
Hermione intervenes, because of course she does. She tries to smooth things over, promising the Ravenclaw that Ronald didn't mean what he had said, asking why they were judging him on something he said as an eleven-year-old. (They judge him because they know he has not changed.) The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw sit down, eventually, although they are still glaring at Ronald.
From where they sit, the Pevensies stifle laughter. And from his seat next to his mother, Draco Malfoy smirks.
Draco Malfoy walks into their compartment, and sneers upon taking one look at Ronald. Cassiopeia hides a smile behind her hand - it would seem she is not the only one to dislike the brash, poorly mannered redhead. The blonde boy with the green-blue magic does not stay long - just long enough to insult Ronald, much to Cassiopeia's amusement - and it takes Cassiopeia just two minutes to leave the compartment after him, deciding to leave Harry and Ronald to get acquainted on their own.
(She brings her trunk with her, and her books, because she knows she will not be returning to that compartment, not whilst Ronald is there. It pains her to leave Harry, but he has Ronald anyway, and they will see each other when they get off the train.) (She does not notice the magic of the compartment crying out as she leaves.)
Cassiopeia does not find Draco as she wanders through the train, but she is not looking very hard for him. She knows that he will be at Hogwarts; she knows that she will find him eventually, and it makes no difference to her whether that is before they reach the school or after.
And so, when she does not find him through her wanders up and down the train, Cassiopeia does not enter a new compartment. Instead, she slips through a door which hides behind a curtain of shadows, and is so covered with dust that Cassiopeia feels certain no one has found the door in many years. Opening it, she finds herself standing on a platform at the back of the train, and as the wind knots her hair and tugs at her clothing, she relaxes for the first time since getting on the train.
(She is a wild thing, remember that. She grew up in a forest, raised herself amidst trees and thorns and creatures lurking in the shadows. Of course she could never be relaxed being inside a building. Stars are not made to be contained.)