Eight
You and me, we used to be together. Every day together, always. I really feel that I'm losing my best friend. I can't believe this could be the end. It looks as though you're letting go. And if it's real, well, I don't want to know.
- Don't speak, No Doubt
Cassiopeia Adhara does not like the Gryffindor Common Room much. That is to say, she likes the room itself - it is warm and cozy, filled with blankets and cushions and couches, and somehow there is always a fire crackling in the fireplace. But she does not like the people that spend their time in the common room; they are children, and they are cruel in the ways that children always are. They whisper about her when they think she cannot hear, and they stare at her whenever she enters the room, and they move away from her whenever she dares to sit anywhere in the Gryffindor Common Room.
Minerva McGonagall frowns at the actions of her students, her proteges. Children can be cruel, she knows that, but she never thought that they could be this divisive. (Truly, Minerva? Did you not know? Did you not see the Slytherins and Gryffindors, the spells hurled between them in corridors and insults shouted across the hall?) (You are blind, Minerva, wilfully blind. This will be your doom.)
Amelia Bones sees the way Cass is cast out before she has even been accepted, and her heart aches for this child who has never once belonged anywhere. She glances at the Cass-of-now, the one sitting in the hall between four people who claim to be her siblings, and although her heart still aches terribly (what would she do if it were Susan being outcast like that?) she manages a smile. At least Cass is not entirely alone in the world. It seems that she found a place - a people - to belong to, and truthfully, Amelia Bones could not be more happy.
(That is not to say she does not write this down on her almost-full piece of parchment. This division, this clear judgement, is another one of Hogwarts' failings. Once, she would have defended the school and its reputation with her life. Now, she is seeing how it has failed, how the teachers have failed, and she is ready to tear it down brick by brick to build something better for the children that deserve more.)
(Amelia does not know it yet, but Narcissa Malfoy sees the look of fury on her face, sees the way the other witch's hands shake as she forces herself not to spell Dumbledore then and there, and the once-Black woman hums in consideration. She has never known Amelia Bones, not well, but it is clear that the woman cares about children. Narcissa can respect that.) (Narcissa will do more than respect it, when it comes to Amelia Bones.)
Draco sees the whispers of the Gryffindor children, and thinks back to the whispers that followed his cousin for her first three years at Hogwarts, and he frowns. He looks around the hall, at the children looking ashamed, at the professors looking shocked, and his frown becomes a scowl. How dare they treat his family like that. How dare they. (He will have his vengeance. This, Draco swears. He will have vengeance on the population of Hogwarts, for the cousin they outcast, for the Slytherins they gave no choice but to be cruel.)
So no, Cassiopeia Adhara does not like the Gryffindor Common Room much, unless it is late at night and she is the only one there. And so, she does not find refuge in the Common Room, like everyone else of her age does.
Instead, Cassiopeia finds a haven in the Hogwarts grounds, in the spaces outside the castle where hardly anyone goes. She spends nearly every moment that she is not in class outside, wandering on the shores of the Black Lake, creeping through the shadows of the Forbidden Forest. It is wild, outside the castle walls, wild in a way that reminds her of the forest she raised herself in.
She loses the comfort of the Gryffindor Common Room, but in losing whatever comfort may have been found there, she gains the freedom of the Hogwarts grounds.
(It is a fair trade.)
The students do not know it, but they were almost caught in the trap of a fae. Even now, sitting there watching Cass' life play out before their very eyes, they do not know how close they came to destruction.
(What does a fae do when they are not satisfied with a trade? They take and take and take. They rip the world to pieces until they are content with the destruction.) (Cass may not have known she was fae then, but she shares their instincts, she shares their nature. She would have brought ruin upon Hogwarts had she not been satisfied with the trade.)
The students do not know how close they came to feeling the wrath of a fae, but the Pevensies do. The siblings see this trade happening on the screen, and they trade fanged smiles, because if the students of Hogwarts traded with a fae without even realizing it, what else would they give to a fae before they knew what they were doing?
Luna, too, knows how close Hogwarts came to seeing a fae's anger. (She is waiting for the day she will show them her wrath. How have they treated her? How have they taken from her? She will repay them tenfold, and it will be glorious.) So do her lovers, because they know of Luna and they know what her kind are capable of. (They have heard the stories.)
"She should have made them burn," Ginny murmurs, and Neville nods his agreement, and Luna smiles at her loves and grips their hands tightly. (She has never loved them more than when they looked at Hogwarts and turned their backs on it.) (They did it for her, and for Cass. And they have not regret it once.)
Harry joins her, sometimes, when he chooses to abandon Ronald in preference of joining his first friend in her exploration of the school grounds. He is more comfortable than many others would have been, used to wandering through forests after his childhood spent fleeing the Dursley household whenever possible, although he still prefers to stay within the castle when he can. (He has been cast outside enough. He wants to belong somewhere, and he has never belonged to the wild like Cassiopeia always has.)
"They're talking about you," he says every time he joins Cassiopeia in her exploration, bringing news of what the other children whisper about her when she is not there. "They say that you're strange. They say that you're evil. They're scared of you."
It hurts Cassiopeia slightly, that she is outcast so easily, but she does not tell Harry that. (Once upon a time, he would have known without her needing to tell him. He has lost that ability, since they have entered Hogwarts. Cassiopeia tries not to mourn the days when they knew each other better than they knew themselves.) Instead, she smiles. "People always fear what they can't understand," she quotes a passage from a book she read, ignoring the longing she feels to be understood by someone who accepts her in her entirety. "Our yearmates are no different."
The Cass-of-before may have been hurt, but when the hall cranes to get a glimpse of her face, the Cass-of-now is smiling. She is smiling, fangs glinting in the light from the screen, her eyes filled with an emotion that is decidedly not human. "They were right to be scared," she says, and the hall is so silent everyone hears the words. The Pevensies are smiling too, laughing softly amongst themselves, and never have they looked so inhumane as they look in this moment.
They look to Draco then, the students, but he is smiling too. There are no fangs in his smile, and there is nothing inhumane in his eyes. And yet, the students still shudder. (It is almost more terrifying, to see him look so painfully human, when they know he is not.)
(He knows they were right to be scared. He knows this because he knows his cousin better than he knows himself. She has never claimed to be nice. She has never claimed to be anything but powerful and fierce and dangerous to those who have wronged her.) (And oh, how Hogwarts has wronged her.)
Harry eyes her doubtfully, but does not say anything more on the subject. (He does not want to hurt Cassiopeia. He does not want her to know just how strange the other students think she is.) (She already knows.) And Cassiopeia does her best to distract him, not wanting him to worry about her, not when he is so happy to be learning magic. To take his mind off of everything the students say, she teaches him everything her grandmother had taught her, because this world is cruel to those that don't know its ways, and Harry does not know its ways. She tells him of blood feuds and rivalries, of lordships and factions and types of magic.
(Harry listens to her, but he listens to Ronald more, because Ronald is his friend and Ronald has been in the Wixen World for longer than Cassiopeia ever was. And Ronald believes all of it to be pureblood bullshit - and so Harry believes that too. Not that he tells Cassiopeia this. He is happy to let her talk, even if he does not care enough to listen.) (You should have listened, Harry Potter. This will be your doom.)
Harry listens to what Cass had to say, once, so very long ago, and although he regrets how their friendship ended, he still does not think she was right about all the things she said. He does not believe she was right to warn him of the consequences of refusing a handshake, to warn him of how carefully he should choose his words, to warn him to hold his beliefs close to his chest and show them only when they are in danger of being violated.
(He listens to Ronald, after all. He always has, ever since the first time he met the red-haired boy. Ronald does not believe in the same things the Purebloods know to be true, and so Harry does not either.)
"You should have listened to her, Potter," Draco calls across the hall, and Harry scowls at the sound of his rival's voice, glaring at the blonde who does not deign to so much as glance at the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry opens his mouth (to insult, to deny, to yell) but is cut off by another voice, one so unexpected it has him falling silent in shock.
"You really should have," Susan Bones says, looking at Harry from where she sits close to her aunt. (There is a pitying look on her face.) "You have caused your own downfall."
Harry does not see it, but Remus and Paddy are looking at him too, eyes filled with worry for the boy who is the son of their best friend. They know how to deal with purebloods - they had to know how to deal with them - and they know how easy it is to cause offense. (And causing offense is never good, not when you are an enemy of many of the purebloods, not when it is the purebloods who have family grimoires that teach them spells no one else could even guess at.)
"What is he doing?" Remus whispers, and Paddy whimpers in agreement. (Will they be able to save him from himself, if he chooses to make enemies wherever he goes?)
In between her time spent exploring the grounds of Hogwarts and attending the mandatory classes that teach her about her magic, Cassiopeia finds the time to get to know her cousin. They meet up wherever they can, wherever Draco will not be found by those he is hiding from, wherever Cassiopeia will not feel trapped between stone walls and unfriendly stares. Often, it is the library that they meet up in; there are many hidden corners in the library, and Madame Pince likes them more than she likes many other students, and is always willing to tell them of the best hiding spots.
"How did you get her to like you!" Hermione shrieks, and half the students burst into laughter whilst half the students wince at the pitch she'd reached in her scream. The bushy-haired girl leaps to her feet and starts forward, seemingly intent on making Cass answer. She does not get further than two steps, because suddenly Ginny is there, sparks flying from her fingers as she places herself between Hermione and Cass.
(Ginny Weasley, ever loyal, ever protective. The girl of flames, who would rather die than let harm befall those she considers her own.) (Cass is her own, in the sense that Cass is what she worships. And the other may not need her protection, but Ginny will give it to her anyway.)
"Not another step, Granger," Ginny snarls, and Hermione pauses for a moment before retreating to the seat she'd been sitting at. She keeps a wary eye on Ginny Weasley, who smiles a cruel smile and watches Hermione with eyes of burning embers.
(She will not be cowed, this Hermione tells herself. She is Hermione Granger, the Brightest Witch of her Age. She will not be cowed by her friend's younger sister.) (Then why are you sitting down, Hermione Granger? Ginny has the fire; what do you have to fight that fire?)
Although they never knew each other before, although they are both naturally cautious children with a distrust of others, it isn't long before Cassiopeia and Draco become close enough to call themselves cousins in every sense of the word. They spend afternoons in the library, poring over their school books together, paging through tomes no one has touched in years. They sneak out of their dorms at night to stargaze, pointing out the constellations that they grew up knowing and making up elaborate stories about each constellation that has them in fits of laughter. They chase each other around the Black Lake, laughing in a way they rarely do, and when they tire of running Cassiopeia shows Draco all the plants she knows are edible.
It is a strange thing, this blossoming relationship, this tentative thing that is so new to both of them. And yet, somehow, it works. A snobby boy (who has long-since buried whatever wildness he may have had) meets a wild girl (who has distanced herself from the ideals with which she was raised) and they learn to bring out the best parts of each other.
Narcissa and Amelia smile at the sight of these children being children, despite the troubles they have grown up with, despite how their innocence was taken from them when they were too young.
Narcissa smiles, and places a hand over her heart, but there is grief there, too. (She could not give her son this. He had to leave his home, leave her, to find the happiness he had never found anywhere else.)
Amelia sees the look on Narcissa's face, and the sight of such abject sadness mixed with unadulterated happiness tugs at her heart. She is not sure when she moves; one moment, she is sitting by her niece, and the next, she is asking if it is alright to sit next to the other witch. Narcissa nods (touched by the thought, touched by the sympathy she can see in Amelia Bones' eyes) and Amelia sits. Susan joins them just moments after, flopping onto the seat where Draco sits, introducing herself with a smile and an extended hand.
Draco takes her hand, after a moment of surprise, because she is smiling and there is no judgement in her gaze. (And there is a fire in her eyes, one that surprises him because it is aimed at Dumbledore and Hogwarts, rather than at Cass as so many people target in their anger.)
In the front of the hall, Cass sees this, and smiles. (It seems her family just keeps growing.) (Susan Bones will be her cousin's friend. This, Cass knows, because she can see how their magics are playing with each other, can see how the colours mix and tease and taste. And Draco is hers, so Susan is too, now that she is Draco's friend. And Cass always takes care of what is hers.)
That is not to say they do not fight. They do fight, just as much as any other children do. They do fight, but they fight in secret, whispered arguments held in the corners of the library, icy glares traded across classrooms. (They are both Blacks, by blood if not by name. They know how to keep things secret, they know the value of never revealing their weaknesses to the school.) (And make no mistake, they are each other's weaknesses. Children starved of love will cling to love with all their might; they will rip and tear and claw to keep their loved ones safe.) (They are dangerous, these starving children.)
They make up easily, when they do fight, and often are laughing together over their cauldron in Potions just an hour after they have been glaring at each other so fiercely their friends feared one of them was about to be murdered. (No one is entirely sure whether it is more terrifying to see them glare, or more terrifying to see them laugh.)
(Of course they make up easily. They are children, who grew up in households that did not want them to be themselves, who have now found another person who they can call family. They will never do anything to endanger this budding relationship.)
Draco smiles at Cass, lightly touching the bracelet clasped around his wrist in acknowledgement, and she smiles back, tapping a finger against a ring adorning the third finger on her right hand. They match, the ring and the bracelet, although many have never noticed the similarities between the jewels adorning the jewellery, have never noticed the runes etched into the silver.
(What? Did you think Cass would not claim what is hers? She is a fae, she is More than a fae, she is Other; of course she claims those who are hers. It is a symbol of love, of protection, of devotion. It is a warning and a blessing, and something all who are hers accept willingly.)
A mountain troll breaks into Hogwarts on the night of Samhain, and Harry goes after it. He goes after it, because he is trying to fit into a house that should never have been his, because he is trying to become the person everyone seems to think he is. (If he becomes who they want him to be, they will love him, won't they?) (He never learned that that is not how love works.)
Harry goes after the troll, with a red-haired boy at his side, and he leaves Cassiopeia behind.
She is furious when she hears about it, when she hears what could have happened, how her best friend could have died. She yells at Harry in a way she never does, and when he refuses to accept the stupidity of his actions (refuses, because he believes what he did was brave not stupid, and everyone wants him to be brave, and surely not everyone can be wrong?) Cassiopeia refuses to speak to him for a month.
It reminds Remus of his years in Hogwarts, this scene, this silence between two best friends. It reminds him of a prank (cruelty, not a prank) and a boy who betrayed his trust in a way he never thought possible. It reminds him of the silence after, of how he hadn't spoken to the boy in over two months, how he'd gone completely silent with the realization that Sirius was sorry he had almost exposed Remus, not how he'd almost killed someone.
(Come now, Remus, of course Sirius would not be sorry. He grew up a Black, did you forget that? He grew up in a dark household, with a dark family that thought the curses were a sign of love. And your daughter grew up like that, too, just as dark as your husband with no one to tempt her out of the shadows.) (And it is all your fault.)
Harry remembers that month, where Cass refused to so much as glance at him, and his teeth grit as he thinks back to it. Because he was doing what he was supposed to, he was a Gryffindor, he was making his parents proud, and how dare she yell at him for doing what everyone wanted him to what any other Gryffindor would do?
(He is using anger, channeling anger, because otherwise guilt will swamp him over his last words to her. And he does not like guilt, so he will choose anger every time, and he will ignore any feeling of shame or guilt.) (You will be angry for a long time, Harry Potter, and what will be left when you are tired of your fury?)
(She is scared, terrified that he will leave her, terrified as she watches him become someone she never thought he could be. Where did his hatred of anyone different come from? It is not so long ago that he was considered a freak, as was she. Has he forgotten that already? He knows what it is to be hated, how can he inflict that upon someone else?) (He is changing, and Cassiopeia is terrified, because she can see what he is becoming and she hates it.)
Cassiopeia does not talk to Harry for a month. (They are both miserable, but try to hide it.) She spends her time in the library, in the forest, anywhere that she knows he will not go. (She becomes a ghost in the castle, only seen at lessons, never seen at meals or in the dormitories.) The teachers wonder about her, but she never seems to stay still long enough for them to corner her. (They are worried. About her, or about what she is up to, no one truly knows. She is tainted by the sins of her father, that is the truth, and the teachers view her through this tainted lens.)
(It is not their fault, this taint to their view of her. She, too, views herself through the sins of her past, the sins of the fathers that chose to do anything except stay with her. This is the truth she has grown up knowing - how could she see herself in any different light, other than this one tainted with abandonment and betrayal?)
It is only after Harry's first match, after she sees her best friend dangling from his broom stick in a place that was meant to be safe, after Hermione sees Cassiopeia as she, Ronald and Harry rush towards Hagrid's hut and blurts out, "Snape is trying to kill Harry!" It is only then, that after a month of silence, Cassiopeia speaks to her best friend. She speaks to him, and plans with him, and it is almost the same as it was, back when they were eight years old, planning out ways to steal food from the shops.
(They do not speak of their fight, of the month-long silence between them. It becomes something heavy, a barrier of sorts that has never been there before. Once, they would have told each other everything. Once, Harry would have never left her behind in order to do something foolishly stupid. Once, they would have talked about this issue. They do not, this time. It is the first barrier, but there are still many to come.)
Cass sighs and closes her eyes tiredly, remembering the time when Harry was twelve and she was eleven, remembering the screaming matches in the corridors and whispered barbs as they passed each other on the way to class. She was a fool, to believe that things would stay the same, to believe she could simply ignore her problems and they would all go away.
Her twin and sister feel how she grows tense, and they frown. Lucy wriggles her way onto Cass' lap, looking up at her older sister and smiling, and Edmund's grip on her hand tightens, reminding her that they are always there for her, that they will never leave her. (Like her parents left her. Like Harry left her.)
"Until the stars fall in every world and there is no life left in the universe," Edmund whispers, reminding her of what he told her when she asked how long her siblings would be at her side. And Cass presses a kiss to Lucy's forehead, and squeezes Edmund's hand, and smiles.
"Why do you want them to love you?" Cassiopeia asks Harry once, on one of the rare nights which they spend together, lying on the grass outside the Forbidden Forest and staring at the stares they used to tell each other stories about. (When did that change? When did she stop telling him those stories? When did he stop listening?)
Harry does not answer for a long time. When he does, it is three simply words. A lie that he tells himself, because he does not want to face the hunger inside of him, does not want to name the starving child clawing for affection, for love, for acknowledgement. "I don't know."
Cassiopeia does not push, although she knows it is a lie. Closing her eyes, she breathes in the scent of the forest. If she tries hard enough, she can almost imagine that they are nine-years-old, and they are still hungry but have not yet tasted the food they starve for. She can imagine that they are in the forest where she raised herself, and there are no barriers between them, and the world is...not kind, never kind, but kinder to the two children who lost everything before they knew they had anything.
There are lots of noises of sadness, after that scene. Hermione leans into Harry's side and rests her head on his shoulder, eyes filled with tears for her friend, who never had the chance to be a child. Lucy looks at all of her older siblings with a pain too great to name, knowing that none of them were ever innocent and young. (She is the only lucky one in that regard.) Susan grabs onto Draco's hand, and when he looks over in shock she is already looking at him, achingly sad for the person she is now calling friend.
"Cassiopeia!" Harry shakes her shoulder and she wakes with a gasp, scrambling away from the hand that is grabbing-shaking-touching her, away from the noise that her brain does not recognize at first. (She thinks it is a long-dead woman, and has a knife drawn before she can take another breath. She will not go back there. She will not, she will NOT, SHE WILL NOT-)
Paddy whimpers when he sees how his daughter wakes up swinging, when he sees how she scrambles away from touch when she is not expecting it. It reminds him of himself so much it hurts. Because he did this. He left, and thus his daughter was sent to the one person she was never meant to meet.
He left, and doomed his daughter to the same life he'd once run from.
Edmund sees how Harry wakes his twin, and a scowl paints itself onto the face of the boy-man-king. Because Harry has spent years with Cass at this point in the scene, and yet allows himself to forget her aversion to touch when she cannot see it coming. (And when she sleeps, Edmund knows, it is better to call her name than to touch her, unless you have been holding her throughout the night like he used to do. Because touch used to mean pain, and sometimes Cass is too confused between the past-present to know whether the touch will mean comfort or pain.)
It grates on him, seeing how this boy had changed, seeing the downfall of the friendship between his sister and her once-friend. Edmund knows how it tore her apart, and he cannot help but hate Harry for that, hate the boy for causing his twin sister so much grief.
(He is slightly grateful, too. All of the Pevensies are. If Harry had not spurned her, they may have never met Cass, and that is the worst fate any of them can imagine.) (They hate Harry, too, all of them. Because as grateful as they are that he lost her, he hurt her too, and no one hurts their sister.)
"Harry." A breath escapes like a sigh of relief, and she releases the knife she does not remember grabbing. Her friend starts talking, words falling out of his mouth too fast for her to catch, too fast for her to interpret, and she shakes her head, rubbing her eyes groggily as her brain attempts to wake her up. Harry continues talking, and eventually she must lean forward, placing a hand over his mouth and glaring at him with tired eyes. "Harry," she repeats, because she needs his full attention. "Why the fuck did you wake me up when you know I haven't slept in days?"
Remus Lupin knows he does not deserve to coo over his child's adorable image, so he does not. He goes soft though, eyes warm and loving in a way they rarely are nowadays, a small smile on his face betraying his feelings towards the sight of a young Cass who is sleepy and grumpy. (He does not deserve this, not after abandoning her, but it is also the only time he will ever see his daughter like this. He will cherish every moment, even as he drowns in guilt for doing so.)
Narcissa does not bite at her lip, because every pureblood lady knows any sign of worry is unbecoming for women of their station. If she had not been raised in a pureblood household, however, she would be biting her lip. She would be biting her lip, and wringing her hands, and pacing the floors, because she is worried. She is worried for Cass, this new family member she has vowed to protect.
She is worried, because of the casual way the young girl says she has not slept in days. She is worried, because no one reacts to that. Even Draco, notoriously protective over his younger cousin, has no reaction other than shaking his head slightly and rolling his eyes. And that worries her, because it means that this is not an unusual thing for the younger girl.
Is this normal, for Cass? How many nights has she gone without sleeping? Is it insomnia, or is it something else that keeps the girl awake far too often to be healthy? (She knows which one it likely is, and that breaks her heart.) (She renews her vow. She may not have protected Cass or Draco as much as she should have, but she will burn down the earth for her children in order to keep them from coming to any more harm.)
Harry bats her hand away and drags her to her feet. He is beaming, and again words are tripping out of his mouth. She gives up on trying to understand what he is saying; instead, she does her best not to recoil at the feeling of him gripping her hand as he pulls her towards the castle, still lost in the hazy bleed-over from nightmares and memories, still thinking of a woman who never touched so much as hit.
(There is a reason they are careful when waking each other, a reason they do not grab, do not yell, do not overwhelm. They need to be oriented, or else they disappear into the past.) (She does not blame Harry for forgetting. He is obviously excited about whatever he has discovered.) (Too excited to remember what she has gone through? Too excited to take into account the trauma she still bears?)
Harry rolls his eyes at the scene, and whatever guilt he may feel he takes care to bury so deeply beneath his anger he can pretend it does not exist at all. (It is not fitting for a Gryffindor to feel guilty. They are brave, not scared, not regretful.) He is angry at Cass, he tells himself, because she is weak. He got past his aversion to touch within a few months of living in the Gryffindor common room, so she should have been able to as well. (Gryffindors do not have weaknesses. And he is a Gryffindor, no matter what the hat said. He is a Gryffindor, just like his parents.)
(He has not overcome his aversion to touch. He has simply learned to ignore it, as he ignores so many other things.) (And you forget, Harry Potter, Cass is not a true Gryffindor. She has no reason to become a true Gryffindor, like you do.)
When Harry shows her a mirror, a mirror standing by itself in a seemingly abandoned part of the castle, Cassiopeia is not impressed. And then he explains a third time, what the mirror is, what it does. "It shows my parents!" Harry beams, and now Cassiopeia is not unimpressed.
She is scared. (She knows what the mirror is now, has heard her grandmother speak of it enough time, has read about it in the library with Draco as both of them wonder what they would see. The Mirror of Erised is dangerous, and she knows this.) (It will not show her parents, she knows this, but what if it shows a desire she is not even aware of? What if it shows her something she has hidden from even herself?)
"You found the Mirror of Erised," Minerva says, feeling rather as if she might faint. How had she never known that the mirror was in the castle? How had she never known that two of her students had come across it? What if they had gotten lost in their desires? Would she have even known, or would they have only found them after they had wasted away?
(Why was the mirror in Hogwarts at all? Where were the protections that were supposed to protect the students from artifacts such as that?)
Murmurs of confusion arise from the students, those who have never heard of such a thing, accompanied by looks of horror from those who know what it is that Harry and Cass found. A Ravenclaw speaks up eventually, too curious to keep their questions to themself, desperate for answers. "What is the Mirror of Erised?"
"It shows you your deepest desire," Hermione Granger answers absent-mindedly, busy staring at her friend in horror. "Many people have gotten stuck in front of the mirror, wasting away as they pine for whatever it is that the Mirror shows them."
Now there are more horrified looks than there are curious whispers. Some of the students look scared, terrified that such a thing is still in Hogwarts, and Lucy cannot bear to see the fear on those faces. "Don't worry," she smiles at them, a smile far kinder than anyone has seen on her face thus far. "The Mirror was removed shortly after this. Cass told me. It's gone now."
Amelia Bones sighs in relief at the Pevensie's words, but still writes the instance down on the parchment on her lap. She frowns at the parchment, which is filled with notes now. (How dangerous is Hogwarts? How has no one ever reported any of this?) A new parchment appears on her lap, and she glances at the person she is sitting beside, seeing Narcissa tuck her wand back into its holster.
"Tear Dumbledore down and make this castle safe for our children," Narcissa whispers, looking into Amelia's eyes, and the Auror smiles (a vicious smile of fire and blood lust) and nods.
She tries to step back, but Harry pulls her forward, dragging her towards the reflective surface until they are standing side by side in front of the glass. He looks at her, expectantly, but she does not see anything asides from him and her. (Are those figures in the background? She cannot see them properly. They are blurred, little more than shadows, and she cannot be sure they are even there at all.)
(For a moment, the image blurs. The image of Harry wavers, and the figures in the background grow a little more solid, a little more believable. She blinks, and the distortion disappears. She tells herself it was nothing.)
(It is a lie.)
Susan smiles at her younger sister. All of the Pevensies smile at Cass, because they know who those figures were, and they are touched that even before she knew them, her soul was aware that they existed, and longed to meet them.
(They longed to meet Cass, too. But they knew of her, even if they didn't know her. There is something different, about their sister knowing nothing of them and yet longing to meet them anyway.)
Around the hall, curious looks are sent towards the Pevensies, because with the knowledge that they are her siblings people can guess who it was that Cass saw in the mirror. How did she meet them? How did she know them?
(They may regret asking these questions, once they receive the answers.)