Ten
I did it all. I owned every second that this world could give. I saw so many places, the things that I did.
- I lived, OneRepublic
Harry returns to his aunt and uncle for the summer, although Cassiopeia urges him not to. She does everything she can to persuade him to escape from that house. (Escape like she once promised she would help him do, escape like they did when they fled to the Wixen World.)
Harry remembers this.
Harry remembers this, although he does not want to. (He wants to believe that Cass left him, you see. He wants to believe he was not given a choice. It is so much easier to believe you were abandoned when you can fool yourself into believing no one ever tried to help you.) (But Cass did try to help you, didn't she? From the moment she met you, that was all she did. She helped, and she helped, and she helped. And how did you repay her, Harry Potter? You stabbed her in the back. You left her. You broke every promise you ever made to her.) (You were never abandoned, Harry Potter. You were the one doing the abandoning.)
"I have money," Cassiopeia says with fever-bright eyes, gripping onto Harry's hands tightly (but not tight enough to cause harm) as she does her best to persuade him to leave his so-called family. "You have money, too. We can travel! We can stay in Diagon! We can do everything we dreamed of doing!" She laughs, and the laughter too is fever-bright, sparkling in the air like a million fireflies, lit by hope and excitement and giddiness. "It'll be just like when they go on holiday and you and I stay in the forest together!"
The scene hurts Paddy. He finds he cannot bear to look at it; his heart shatters as he glances away from the scene playing out on the wall. (The all-too-familiar scene; he knows this play intimately, you see. He has seen it before, has seen it when he begged Regulus to come with him, has seen it when Narcissa cried as Andromeda left her, has seen it when Marlene pleaded with Mary to come and stay with her for the summer.) (How often must this scene repeat itself? Why must he constantly see it wherever he looks?)
This scene is familiar to Edmund too, for reasons different to Paddy's. It is familiar, because he remembers Lucy's face, pleading with him to tell the truth for once in his life, pleading with him to tell Peter and Susan that she was not lying when she spoke of a land inside a wardrobe.
The scene is familiar to Edmund, because he looks at his twin's fever-bright eyes, and sees Lucy as she was before any of them knew what Narnia was. And he aches to remember the time when he was lost and alone, without his twin at his side and having driven away everyone who loved him.
"I'm sorry," he whispers to Lucy, clutching her hand tightly, and somehow his little sister does not even need to open her mouth to know what is troubling him. She shuffles closer, the two of them trapping Cass between them (she can get out whenever she wants, but she enjoys being with her siblings) as Lucy squeezes his hand hard enough to hurt.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Ed," she murmurs, and then she smiles and it is like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. (Edmund has never been more grateful for Cass. Would he have gotten to see this smile again, if she had not been there?)
Harry declines. Pulls his hands out of her grip, he steps away from Cassiopeia (physically and emotionally) and shakes his head. "I can't," he says, and he truly does look regretful. "Dumbledore says I have to stay with them. For my protection."
Amelia has not heard that phrasing before. Or rather, she has, but never with her own ears, never from a child who is supposed to be under the protection of an adult. She has always been thankful to not have heard the words; she knows well what they mean.
"Dumbledore is manipulating him," she breathes, and next to her Narcissa (who Amelia has come to know in the past few hours, who Amelia has come to appreciate as a woman who would do anything to protect children) snarls. The other woman very nearly gets to her feet to give Dumbledore a piece of her mind, but Amelia places a hand on her arm, a gentle pressure that does not restrain her (Amelia has seen how she moves away from Lucius Malfoy, has seen how she flinches away when someone makes a sudden movement) but which encourages her to stop and think.
"We cannot do anything right now," Amelia murmurs, and truthfully she should be surprised, but she has been watching diligently, she has seen how Dumbledore manipulates people to do his bidding. But they cannot do anything, not until she can take him to a holding cell, not until she can have him put on trial.
But oh, how she wants to make him hurt. (No one hurts children in front of Amelia Bones and gets away with it. And he most certainly has hurt these children.)
Cassiopeia cannot understand why he is refusing to come with her. (Because she is leaving, with or without him. She doesn't want to, but she cannot stand to be stuck in the same place, not when she has resources available to her and a whole new world to explore.) (She is wild, she is free, she cannot be contained or kept in one place any more than a star can be kept in a glass bottle.)"But what are you being protected from?" She tries to ask him, watching him turn away from her in favour of obeying a headmaster's orders. (Obeying his words, like a good soldier.) "Protection of everything outside means nothing if those inside the house can still harm you."
Augusta Longbottom frowns at those words, those achingly familiar words. (She remembers Cass saying them to her, once, spitting the words angrily onto the floor in front of Augusta Longbottom, leaving the old woman to wonder where everything had gone wrong as she watched her grandson walk away with a girl no one knew anything about.)
Susan Pevensie lets out a quiet noise as she hears those words. She has heard her sister speak that sentence before, has listened to her sister tell them of a past in which she was protected from the outside world but a victim to the woman who lived in the house her sister was raised in.
Susan Pevensies hears these words, this questioning of protection, and she remembers listening to her sister tell them of the life she has lived, and she aches.
Harry will not be budged. (And oh, does Cassiopeia try to get him to see reason.) Dumbledore has told him he must stay inside the Dursley household for his own protection, and so Harry will do so. (Cassiopeia does not understand where her rebellious, cunning friend has gone. Who is this person she speaks to, so eager to obey the whims of a man who has never cared about him?)
Cassiopeia urges him not to stay. He chooses not to leave.
Hermione frowns at the screen. It is not Harry's fault that it is better for him to be inside the household of his relatives, instead of traveling like Cass seems wont to do in her holidays. (No one knows where she goes, after the school ends. They've tried to find out; they've never managed to keep track of her after she leaves Kings Cross Station.) (It's suspicious, that the girl disappears so often, that even the most powerful wixen cannot determine her whereabouts when she leaves. Hermione does not know what Cass is doing, but she is determined to find out; it can't be anything good.)
Peter grits his teeth when he sees the hurt in Cassiopeia's eyes as Harry chooses to walk away from her. (How many times has this boy hurt his sister?) (He will pay, for every time he broke a promise to her, for every cruel word, for every taunt.) He sees Harry choose to leave her behind, choose to go back to a place that abuses him, choose to listen to someone he doesn't know instead of a friend who loves him dearly.
Peter sees this happen, and finds he cannot understand it.
How could anyone walk away from someone who loves them?
Peter does not think he will ever be able to understand this. His siblings are his world, his life, his everything. Nothing has been able to take them away from him, nothing will ever be able to separate them. (Something did separate them, once, a forceful separation.) (He has torn the world apart to get his sister back once, he will do it again if they are ever apart.)
Paddy whines and hides his face under his paws. This hurts, more than he ever expected it to. Because he does not see Harry and Cass on the wall - he sees himself and his brother, him beseeching Regulus to come with him, Regulus turning his back as he goes to their parents. (How could he do that? Why would he go back? He would have kept him safe, would have helped him, but the boy chose to go back to their mother and father.)
How many times does history have to repeat itself? (Paddy abandons Regulus. Paddy abandons Remus. Paddy abandons Harry. Paddy abandons Cass.) (A cycle, that's what this is, a vicious cycle that leaves no one unaffected.)
(Paddy, Sirius Black, how could you do this to the ones you love?)
In the end, as it has always been written in the stars, they must go their separate ways. Harry leaves first (as he always does, as he always will, as he is fated to), climbing into the Dursley's car with a single glance back at where Cassiopeia still stands. She waves, a forlorn gesture. He lifts his hand in response, but does not wave back.
He leaves her alone. Again.
It is only when she cannot see her friend or his magic that Cassiopeia leaves. Because she will not abandon someone first. Not like her fathers. Not like her grandmother. Not like Harry.
She has kept that promise.
She has kept that promise, everyone in Hogwarts knows it.
They have seen her defending Neville from those who would call him weak, those who do not notice his affinity for Herbology, those who do not see how he smiles at the deadliest plants and coos at them like they are his children. They have seen her listen to his rants on Herbology, seen her with a smile on her face as she gifts Neville a (carnivorous) plant to add to his collection, seen how she supports and adores the boy who has stuck by her since they were eleven.
They have watched her protect Draco ruthlessly from those who dare call him a copy of his father, those who do not see the ice in his eyes and the frost in his hands, those who do not notice how his gaze fixates on the metal blades of knives. They have watched her hold hands with her cousin in the corridors, watched her slip knives into his bag without his knowledge, watched as she loves the cousin she never knew about but has loved since they met.
They have observed her standing at Ginny's side as the two girls face those who name the redhead a slut, those who do not care to see the fire in Ginny's hair as she laughs at their taunts, those who do not care to see how she smiles at the flames in the fireplace. They have observed the two girls learning how to bottle flames, observed the dances they share when the night is young and spirits are high, observed the way they share laughs over their meals like sisters would.
They have witnessed Cass protect Luna from those who sneer at the blonde girl (although she does not need protection), those who take Luna's dreaminess for stupidity, those who do not see how the blonde plays with Thestrals and walks among Acromantula. They have witnessed the two girls dance through the snow, witnessed them disappear for hours at a time and reappear with smiles full of secrets, witnessed Cass cherish and protect and love her friend almost as much as she cherishes her freedom.
Cass has kept that promise, the entirety of Hogwarts is aware of this. (Of course she kept it; she has known fae.)
Cassiopeia visits Diagon Alley, but chooses not to linger long. It is as bright as it was when she first visited, filled with glittering magic that nearly blinds her with its brightness, and after spending her time at Hogwarts exploring the Forbidden Forest and wandering through the dimly lit corridors, something about the ever-present brightness of Diagon Alley is overwhelming. It is too much for the young girl, and so she does not linger long; she goes to Gringotts and pays her respects to the goblins, and then flees into Knockturn Alley.
(She can appreciate brightness, you see, can even love it, but only when it is tempered by darkness. That is why she chooses to flee to Knockturn - there is darkness, but there is also some light, and she appreciates the balance of both.) (Stars can only shine in darkness; nothing can be only light forever.)
"My dear girl," Albus Dumbledore begins to say something, and Cass' eyes narrow. Amelia Bones draws her wand, ready to silence the old man, and Narcissa does the same next to her. "My dear Miss Black, there-"
No one knows what Albus Dumbledore wants to say.
No one knows because a moment after he calls Cass that name (a dead name, a buried name, a lost name) someone lets out a low whistle, and what appears to be a ball of light is coughed out by Dumbledore. The entire hall watches in astonishment as the ball of light (his voice, some whisper, but that is the sort of thing that only happens in fairy tales, isn't is?) floats across the hall, coming to a halt in the open palm of Susan Pevensie.
"I warned you not to name my sister that buried name again," the oldest Pevensie girl smiles, reveling in the anger on Dumbledore's face, reveling in the power she holds over him. (She revels, too, in the way Remus Lupin flinches when he is reminded of Cass' decision to bury her name, in the way Paddy whines softly as he is reminded that he does not share anything except genetics with his daughter anymore.) (Come now, did you truly think Susan Pevensie would forgive them for abandoning her sister? They call her Susan the Gentle only as a way to fool other nations into believing she is kind.) "I will return this when I feel that you have learned your lesson." Susan closes her hand over the ball of light, the voice, and when she opens her hand, it is simply a marble, which she proceeds to hand to Cass, who smirks as she tucks it into her pocket. "Do enjoy your time of silence, Albus Dumbledore."
Just like Diagon Alley, Knockturn feels just as it did when Cassiopeia first chose to go there. It is dangerous, and it is wild, and Cassiopeia falls in love all over again. (Of course she loves the wilder parts of the world. She is the Queen of the Wilds, even before she claims that as her title.)
She stays in Knockturn Alley for a week.
It is a reminder Remus Lupin hates.
It is a reminder of how he was not there for his daughter.
It is a reminder of how she grew up. (He knows how she grew up, or at least some of it; he has woken Sirius up after the nightmares, has heard the sobs and the regrets of his friend-lover-husband.) (He knows some of how he grew up, and he hates knowing that his daughter went through the same things.)
Cass stayed in Knockturn Alley. Likely, she still stays in Knockturn Alley. And Remus knows it is his fault. It is always his fault.
Augusta Longbottom frowns as she watches the younger version of Cass walk into Knockturn Alley. She frowns, because she does not like the girl. (Lie.) She frowns because Knockturn Alley is dangerous, and even if she does not like the girl, she does not want her hurt either. (Half-lie.) She frowns because she sees how well Cass fits into the darkest part of society, and some part of her knows that her grandson belongs there too. (Truth.)
(Broken children find broken children, Augusta Longbottom. And oh, how you have broken your grandson.)
She does not rent a room, because she has long since learned to never make herself predictable, to never allow anyone to guess where she will be spending her nights. No, Cassiopeia spends her week living on rooftops and in alleyways, teaching herself to navigate the roofs and blend into the shadows until it becomes second nature. (She spends most of her time on the roofs - it feels a little like flying, when she leaps from rooftop to rooftop.) She ducks into shops and emerges with wares that are stowed in her apartment-trunk, things that she experiments with when she finds a place to sit, things that entrance her and intrigue her in equal measure.
"What did you buy from there?" Ronald Weasley spits from his spot next to Harry. (Not noticing Hermione's curious look, not noticing Neville's cold gaze, not noticing Ginny's cruel smile.) "Unicorn brains? Children's hearts?"
Cass turns to him, smiling. (The smile of a predator, the smile of a threat.) "If you must know, Ronald Weasley, one of the many things I bought was a bracelet cursed to scar someone's throat so badly they can never talk again. I still have it, in fact it should be in my bag at this very moment. Would you like to try it out?"
Ronald shudders and turns away, muttering insults towards Cass as he does so. Some teachers attempt to discipling Cass, but she ignores them (as she has always ignored them), instead turning to face her youngest sister. Lucy is pouting slightly, disappointed at not being able to see the violence, and Cass smiles indulgently as she kisses the younger Pevensie's forehead.
"Another time, dearest," Cass whispers, and this time it is Lucy who smiles. (Predatory, just like Cass. Of course they never called Lucy the Gentle - she is made of raging waters and strangling vines and teeth and claws. She was raised with the taste of blood in her mouth.)
They grow to know her, in Knockturn, as much as anyone in Knockturn can be known. They do not know her name, but they come to know her as the girl with silver eyes. (The girl with glowing eyes, they call her sometimes. Both names are apt.) They know her to be fleet of foot and silent, and they know her to be ruthless when threated.
(She is only threatened once, on her second day of staying in Knockturn. She is threatened by a man, who grabs her wrist and holds up a knife and tells her she is coming with him. Cassiopeia walks away with a few bruises and a new knife. The man does not walk away at all.) (When they find his body, they find it covered with claw marks, and with thorns stabbed into his eyes. No one says anything - they have seen worse than this - but word travels fast in Knockturn and Cassiopeia is not threatened again.)
When Cassiopeia leaves Knockturn Alley, it is in the dead of night, and it is because she is bored. There are other places to discover, and as much as she enjoys the Alley of Darkness, Cassiopeia is far too wild to stay in one place. And so she leaves, and people notice but do not comment, and the Alley is just a little bit less wild than it was when she was there.
Lucius Malfoy is not a man who fears easily.
He fears Voldemort, that is true, but there are very few who do not. He fears Voldemort because Voldemort is powerful, and can tear down everything Lucius holds dear at a whim. (He fears Voldemort because he has experienced the man's punishments, and knows there are more to come for having a failure of a son.)
Lucius Malfoy fears Voldemort, but not once has he ever feared Cass. He is wary of her, certainly. He knows she is powerful, and that is enough to make him wary, but Lucius has never had an especially high opinion of children (he does believe they can do any damage to him), and thus cannot find it in himself to be more than simply wary of Cass. (You are a fool, Lucius Malfoy.)
That is changing, now.
He has heard of her, you see. He did not know it was her they spoke of, but he has heard the whispers in Knockturn Alley, whispers of a girl with hair blacker than the night itself, a girl with teeth and claws and a Darkness willing to protect her by any means necessary. He has heard of her stealth, of her cunning, of her bloodlust.
He has never feared Cassiopeia Adhara. But knowing what he knows, knowing her to be the one they call "Queen of the Dark", Lucius Malfoy finds himself utterly terrified of the girl his son calls "cousin".
When she leaves Diagon Alley, Cassiopeia is not sure where to go. She has never been able to explore the world; or rather, she once had the chance to go wherever she wanted to, but chose to stay with Harry after she met him. (Robbing herself of her freedom for someone else's comfort, that is what she did.) (She should never have had to do such a thing.)
She has the passing thought of seeing how the house of her childhood has changed since she last left it.
"It hasn't changed much." Cass sighs at the remembrance, shaking away memories (slaps-blood-screams-yells-insults-brat-bastard-slut-) and leaning into Edmund's side. (It has been a long time since she thought of the house. It seems watching her memories is bringing it all back again.)
"You've been back?" Remus Lupin manages to choke out the words, despite the lump in his throat, despite the tears gathering in his eyes. (His daughter has been back, has been in the house he is currently living in. How did he not know? Why did she not say something to him?)
"Yes." Edmund throws Remus a cold glance, answering for Cass when she chooses to say nothing. (He knows her well enough to know she will not mind him answering for her. Few people have the privilege of knowing her that well; it is a knowledge he will always treasure.) "She has been back. Lucy and I accompanied her."
Remus asks more questions, but they go unanswered, the entire Pevensie group following Cass' example and pretending they cannot hear him. (They are not ignoring him out of spite, or pettiness. They simply do not care.)
Her Darkness growls at the thought, and Cassiopeia herself laughs at it.
She does not go back to the house of her childhood. In fact, she does not stay in London at all. She dreams of seeing the world, and see the world she shall do. (She does not dream of seeing the world, but she did once, when she was younger and still trapped in the house-that-was-not-a-home. She travels because she cannot stay in one place, but she also travels because somewhere inside of her, there is a child crying out to be freed from her prison.) (Cassiopeia will fulfill this dream, because once she was a child who dreamed it.)
Harry would like not to be jealous. He does not want to be jealous, because he knows it is for his own protection that he stays with the Dursleys, he knows that he cannot travel like he wants to like Cass does.
He knows this.
He is jealous, still. (Would he have gone with her, if Dumbledore had not told him to stay at the Dursleys? Once, he would have. Once, he would have followed her anywhere, regardless of what anyone else said. Once, he would never have left her.)
Cassiopeia spends the next seven weeks everywhere except England.
She goes to Brazil and finds herself at a Magical Creatures Sanctuary. And Cassiopeia remembers her grandmother telling her of places like this, telling her of how vile these places are, how they should be destroyed and the animals used for Potions parts. (The ghost of her grandmother haunts her as she stands outside the Sanctuary, a shadow Cassiopeia cannot quite rid herself of.) Cassiopeia chooses to go inside the sanctuary anyway. (She goes inside to spite the ghost that keeps her company, that haunts her memories.)
Peter smiles a little when he sees this scene. He has long since known Cass to be a spiteful, vindictive creature. He would expect nothing less of a wild girl, a wild Queen. And he adores it, adores his little sister's jagged edges, adores her tendency to cut those she loves when they get too close. (Holy things are worth bleeding for. And nothing is holier to Peter than his siblings.)
"How did you get there?" A third year Slytherin frowns in confusion. A child, that is what this student is, a girl too young to know not to question Cass (it is better for everyone that way) but too old to not wonder how an underage girl had made her way into a different country entirely.
Cass answers the girl, because she likes the younger students. (The ones who have not yet been tainted by the beliefs of their houses, the ones who are still innocent, the ones who have not yet accepted the rules given to them.) "Knockturn Alley has a little bit of everything," Cass winks at the girl, "including devices that will take you anywhere in the world you wish to go."
The girl does not say anything more, but there is a light in her eyes and a movement to her magic that has Cass smiling. (She knows what curiousity looks like.)
She enters the Sanctuary (to spite her grandmother's memory, to spite her grandmother's words, to prove to herself that her grandmother was wrong) and Cassiopeia Adhara promptly falls in love.
The Sanctuary is wild. That is the first thing Cassiopeia notices, and the first thing that she comes to adore. There are massive biomes for the animals to roam in; not a bar nor a cage can be seen in the entire Sanctuary. Occamies and Thunderbirds and all manner of flying creatures soar through the skies, Unicorns and Pixies and Canaima stroll the grounds, Kelpies and Hippocampi and Mug-wamps watch from the water sources. So many creatures, too many to name, and Cassiopeia falls in love with them all.
(Look at them. Look at how wild they are, how intelligent they are, how alive they are.) (They will never be tamed, never be controlled, and of course Cassiopeia falls in love with them. They share a part of her soul; there is a reason she is called Queen of the Wilds.)
Many people open their mouths to question this title. They have not given it to her, you see, as they have given her so many other titles. Where does it come from? (A land no one knows about, a land ruled by five siblings, a land that is wild as its Kings and Queens.) Who calls her thus? (Her siblings, her people, her followers.)
Luna looks at these people, casts a gaze over all of them, and silently puts a finger to her lips. Her magic reacts to her wish, cloaking the students and staff of Hogwarts in silence, so that they cannot ask question, so that they cannot query the title. (It is not time, not yet.)
A week and a half, that is how long Cassiopeia stays in the Sanctuary. (No one notices the young girl with the night-dark hair and honey skin.) She plays with the sprites and trades stories with the sylphs, endears herself to the hippogriffs and is gifted feathers from the thunderbirds. She interacts with every creature in the Sanctuary, and they all come to love her, this half-wild not-quite-human girl. They pledge their allegiance to her, to the power they can smell on her. (She does not know that they pledge their allegiance to her. She cannot understand them, not yet.)
Everyone looks at Cass, but she is not looking at them. Her eyes are fixed upon her family, her siblings and friends, and they are all looking at her too, smiles on all of their faces. (It is a little like being trapped with a pack of wolves, seeing all of them with those smiles. There is not a single gentle smile; they are all jagged and broken and twisted and devastatingly beautiful.) (It might be better to be trapped with wolves.)
"Olde Magick," Susan Pevensie breathes the words into being, the very sound of the forbidden art sending a shiver down the spines of everyone present. She leans towards her younger sister then, frames Cass' face in her hands, a beautific look in her eyes as she gazes into her sister's soul. "The Olde Magick has been in your veins since before you were born," she whispers, the words reverent, a promise, a vow. "You are more Magick than you are person."
(Remus Lupin does not hear these words. He is sobbing silently into his hands, overcome with the sight of his daughter in the Sanctuary, overcome with the knowledge that she is only wild because he left her.) (Paddy does, though. He hears these words, and something inside of him shivers. It sounds familiar, in the way a dream is familiar. He cannot explain why the words have a feeling of dread rising within him.)
Cass smiles. (It is a smile made of cruelty.)
When Cassiopeia leaves, it is with a heavy heart but new allies. She leaves with feathers woven into her hair and glittering stones tucked into her pockets, gifts from the creatures that love her so. (Not the only gifts, not by far. She treasures everything they give her.) (Gifts are a sign of loyalty, a sign of love, a sign of protection. Cass knows this. She treasures every gift she is given.)
Cassiopeia leaves, with a promise to return and a new love for the creatures that are just as wild as she is.
(Cassiopeia leaves, and she does not know it yet, but she is not alone. A creature leaves with her, a creature that has come to love her so much it chooses to stay with her rather than live in the Sanctuary.) (Cassiopeia does not know she has gained a companion, but she will soon learn.)
Luna smiles at this. She knows the creature that followed Cass, oh so long ago. A wild creature, a creature no one has managed to tame, a creature of freedom and independence and death. Luna cannot think of any companion better suited for her friend.
(She knows Cass, you see. She knows Cass as intimately as a sister, as distantly as a god. She knows Cass' flaws, she knows Cass' perfections, she knows what makes Cass mortal and she knows what makes Cass Other. If there is anyone who knows what would make a suitable companion, it is Luna Lovegood.) (The Pevensies are not the only fae ones.)
Cassiopeia spends a week in Japan, visiting temples (what does she worship? She still doesn't know, but there is magic in these temples, and it is beautiful to see even when she does not worship it) and delving into a culture entirely different from anything she has experienced in her life.
She teaches herself to speak Japanese. (She trades a vial of joyful tears and a happy memory for a Potion that helps her learn languages faster than she otherwise could have.) She spends hours in libraries, teaching herself the differences between the styles of clothing, teaching herself the symbolism behind the traditional accessories that Japanese Wixen wear constantly. (She buys a Kusudama type Kanzashi from a Wixen lady who promises it will never break. The flower petals of the Kusudama hairpiece are those of Aster flowers; they symbolize a promise. "I will not forget you.") (She does not know why she chooses this hairpiece, but it feels fitting. It feels fated.)
Edmund lets out a curious noise that has many people turning towards him, a noise that is somewhere between pain and anger. Cass buries her face in his shoulder, and he grips onto her tightly. (He remembers trying to go back but being unable to move, remembers tumbling out of the world where he belonged and into a world with no magic and no kingdom and no Cass-)
A tear trails down Lucy's cheek, dripping onto the floor unnoticed by everyone except her siblings. She grips onto Cass tightly, and Cass allows her, not complaining about the bruising grip of her younger sister. (She remembers Edmund's pained cries as half of his soul was ripped away, remembers the empty-sad-grieving-missing days after they were torn from Narnia, after they were torn from Cass.)
Susan does not dare to breathe. She does not dare to move at all, the old terror returning that this is just a dream, that any moment she will wake up and Cass will be gone again. (Have you ever felt empty? Susan has, she knows the feeling intimately. It took many moons for her to overcome that feeling, after they lost Cass, before they found her again. She was a shell of a person without her sister, an empty house haunted by memories.)
Peter grips the handle of his sword with white-knuckled hands, almost wishing Aslan would return so that Peter could allow the lion to experience the pain he has put Peter's family through. (He remembers Susan's empty eyes, remembers Lucy's quivering smiles, remembers his own anguished screams, remembers listening to Edmund sob throughout the night.) (He remembers cursing Aslan's name, because how dare the lion do this to them.)
Cass does not say anything, because there is nothing she can say that will help. She leans into her twin, and hugs Lucy tight to her, and reaches over to hold onto Susan's hand, and relaxes into Peter's grip when he stands up and places his hand on her shoulders. She does not say anything, but silently she reassures them that she is there, that she is not leaving, that they will not lose them again.
Cassiopeia leaves Japan, and travels to Scotland. She does not do this because she thinks it is time to move on and continue traveling - rather, a fae hears of a wild girl with eyes that glow silver, and becomes intrigued. (And it is never a good omen when a fae becomes intrigued enough to meddle in the affairs of mortals.)
Cassiopeia finds herself in Scotland a week after she arrives in Japan, brought before the Unseelie Court by a fae that kidnapped her. The Court debate what to do with this mortal, whose scent tastes of power and potential and stars. Cassiopeia fixes her gaze upon the fae that kidnapped her, smiles as her Darkness wraps around her like a second shadow, and pounces. (No one knew it was possible for a mortal to kill a fae before Cassiopeia was brought to the Unseelie Court.) (Then again, she is not wholly mortal, is she?)
No, she is not fully mortal. (But what else could she be?)
That is the question Remus Lupin asks himself now (trying to ignore all mentions of her in the Unseelie Court, trying to ignore the instinctual panic at the thought, trying to ignore the longing his wolf feels at the mention of the Court), gazing at his daughter (his daughter who he left, his daughter who wants nothing to do with him, his daughter who is not his daughter anymore) as she sits at the front of the hall. She is unique, that is undeniable, but to call her anything other than mortal is surely an exaggeration.
Of course she is mortal. (Have you seen her teeth, Remus Lupin? Have you seen her eyes? Have you seen her smile?) What else could she be? (Oh, you poor man. You have no idea what is to come.)
Draco Malfoy sees what his cousin does to the fae that dared to kidnap her (fool of a fae, did you think there would be no consequences?) and he smiles. (He has seen Cass' Darkness, has seen her jagged edges and broken parts, and he has loved them all equally.) Around him, there are gasps of horror, expressions of shock, looks of awe (horror from the teachers, shock from the students, awe from her followers) and through it all, Draco smiles. (Nothing could tempt him to abandon his cousin.)
She is welcome in the Unseelie Court, after they see what she does to the fae that dared to take her against her will. They see her, and although she is mortal, they recognize her as one of their own, a dark and wild thing with teeth and claws that rip and kill. (It is the first time she has been truly recognized for what she is.)
The Professors of Hogwarts trade glances, none of them sure what to make of this knowledge that one of their students has been a guest in the Unseelie Court. (Has been a guest, and survived. Cass is unique in this aspect, too; very few survive the Unseelie Court.)
And then Ginny lifts her head from where she has stretched over the laps of her lovers, turning her gaze languidly towards Cass, a distinctly predatory look in her eyes as she licks her lips in an undeniable feline gesture. "We should visit again sometime," the fire-headed girl purrs, grinning as her lovers agree with her words. "I have missed hunting these past moons."
That is a truly terrifying sentence, the entirety of Hogwarts decides, seeing Ginny's too sharp nails and predatory gaze, seeing Neville's excitement at his lover's words and Luna's sharp-toothed smile, seeing Draco's eyes brighten at the thought.
("Do not anger those that Cass calls her own," Hogwarts whispers. "She does not claim them because they are kind. Stars claim those who burn the brightest, who rage and scream and kill. Have you forgotten Ginny's first year? Have you forgotten her fury?"
Cassiopeia dwells with the Unseelie Court for a time. Full moons come and go, and she rides with the Wild Hunt, yelling her freedom at the stars as she crosses the sky on the back of a Nightmare. (Those who see her on those nights shiver in fear at the sight of glowing eyes and night-dark hair, nails twisted into claws and fangs shining as she smirks at the world.) She bandies wordplay with sharp-toothed sprites and teaches herself chants of the Olde Magicks. (The Olde Magick which is banned, the Olde Magick which has been lost to time, the Olde Magick that will devour her whole.) She learns the art of vengeance and dabbles in the magic of death.
By the time Cassiopeia departs from the Unseelie Court, it is with the knowledge that there are others like her. Others that are not quite human, not quite fae. Others that are wild and dangerous and vengeful. Others that accepted her (as much as they can accept anyone) and taught her (taught her by experience, rather than lessons).
She departs form the Unseelie Court, feeling like weeks, months, years may have gone by without her noticing. She has spent many full moons and dark moons with the Wild Hunt, has spent half-moons trading wordplay and waxing and waning crescents exacting vengeance upon mortals that deserved it.
Remus opens his mouth to tell his daughter that she should not be doing that, any of that. He closes it again after a moment. (What right does he have to tell her what to do, what not to do? He lost that right when he lost her.)
Amelia Bones, too, opens her mouth to speak, but finds herself saying nothing. She is not sure what she wanted to say; she is not sure of anything at the moment, she thinks. She should be scolding Cass for learning from the Unseelie Court, but cannot quite bring herself to do so. (Her sister-in-law was fae, you see, or at least a part fae. There is a reason nothing Susan plants ever dies. There is a reason Susan can always tell what direction North is. There is a reason Susan leaves offerings at the bases of certain trees, trees that fae have historically deemed holy.)
Four weeks have passed.
It is not as much time as she may have feared, but more time than she would have hoped. (Time is strange in the Unseelie Courts, you see. Sticky in some places, clinging onto every moment like it never wants to let go, stretching the seconds out until days become years. And in other places, Time is smooth, it glides past the fae so that years become days, days become seconds. Strange, how Time works.) (This is why Cassiopeia departs the Unseelie Court, unsure of how much time has elapsed, unsure what day or what year or what month it is. She is sad that her travels have come to an end, that the school year is just days away, but it is not unexpected.)
Four weeks have passed.
It is time for Cassiopeia to return to Hogwarts.
She is dreading it.
Remus wonders what it would have been like, had he been able to raise his daughter. (Had he not abandoned her like the coward he was, is, always will be.) Would he have traveled with Cass, seen her smile at the creatures in the Sanctuary, watched her wonder at the temples of Japan? Would they be a family, a true family? Would she have met the Pevensie siblings?
(Why do you look to the past, Remus Lupin? You cannot change what happened. You left her; now live with the consequences.)
When Neville Longbottom sees his first friend in Diagon Alley, three days before the start of their second year at Hogwarts, he almost does not recognize her. He does recognize her, because Cassiopeia is unforgettable and he will always be able to know who she is even if she changes herself entirely, but there is a moment where he looks at her and cannot recall having met her before.
(It terrifies him, that moment of forgetting, that moment of not knowing her. He knows he will always be able to know her in a crowd, but he still fears that one day he might not. He fears he will forget her, will be unable to describe her if asked.)
That will never happen. That will never happen, Neville knows this now. He has known Cass for years, has known her at her lowest and highest points. He has seen her covered in blood, has seen her smiling-laughing-crying-indifferent. He has been at her side through it all.
How could he not recognize her?
All of them would recognize her, no matter what she looks like, no matter how different she appears. He knows that. They are her friends, her followers, her worshippers. And she is their friend, their leader, their god.
Of course they will recognize her. They will recognize her because she has their hearts and souls. They will recognize her because they love her. (And isn't that wonderful? To love someone so much that nothing will ever stop you from knowing them?)
"Cass!" Neville calls a moment after he sees her exit Gringotts, a head of dark hair (darker than shadow, darker than sin) appearing on the steps of the marble building. She turns, and even across the alley, he sees the smile she wears, a jagged thing with edges that do nothing to conceal the love behind the action. (It is the smile that lets him truly recognize her.) He waves, and she steps towards him, disappearing into the crowd.
(He panics for a moment, wondering if she is running away, wondering if she has chosen to disregard him as her friend. Everyone leaves him, in some form; he has sworn to not be surprised when Cassiopeia does, too.) (Oh Neville, you sweet fool. She'll never leave you. You're her first worshipper, her first devotee, her first supporter. You mean far too much to her for her to ever be able to leave you.)
The crowd wavers, and the noises of the Alley continue, and then Neville blinks and she is there, standing in front of him where moments ago there was no one, smiling her jagged smile as her eyes glow with the warmth he grew used to seeing in their first year at Hogwarts.
"Hello again, Neville Longbottom."
Augusta Longbottom looks at this meeting between her grandson and his friend, and something in her heart aches. She has never seen Neville smile like he does in this scene. ("He looks like Frank," she whispers.) (Oh, Augusta Longbottom, you are blinded by your devotion to your son. He does not look anything like his father; he looks exactly like himself. But you have never managed to see him, have you?) (Neville is not Frank. He is so much more than his father ever was, ever could be.)
The holidays have changed her. Neville would be a fool not to notice that. There are stones, glittering and decorative, draped from her belt (they should make a noise as she walks, and yet she is entirely silent) and feathers woven into her hair. (Feathers of thunderbirds, crackling with electricity that does not seem to harm Cassiopeia. Feathers of phoenixes, singed and glowing, reminding Neville inexplicably of Cassiopeia's eyes. Feathers of occamies, of hippogriffs, of creatures Neville cannot even begin to name.) Her teeth are sharper than they were (they look like fangs when she smiles) and her nails are pointed in a way that Neville cannot describe as anything other than clawed. There is a thrum in the air around her, a song singing her name in a voice Neville cannot hear but can feel.
Narcissa smiles at the scene. She smiles because she can see the happiness in Cass' eyes. (A happiness rarely seen by adults, a happiness that only appears among children or forests or friends.) She smiles because she is happy that her family is happy. (And Cass is her family, that has never been in doubt.)
The holidays have changed her, and Neville notices. He does not care, because this is Cassiopeia and this is his first friend, and he will be at her side no matter how she changes. (She has earned his loyalty, you see, and thus he has gifted it to her.)
"It's good to see you," he says, and Cassiopeia grins.
"It's good to see you," Luna murmurs, and she is smiling. Ginny is smiling too, as is Draco, and so is Neville, because they know the importance of those words, they know how important those words are to Cass. (They are important, because they reassure Cass that she is not alone. That she is wanted. That she is seen.)
The Pevensies look over at Draco and Luna and Ginny and Neville, and they smile at the four friends that have been at Cass' side through everything. (Better friends no one could ask for.)
Cassiopeia sits on The Hogwarts Express. Harry sits across from her, and Ronald and Hermione sit next to him. Neville is at her side, green magic twining around her own as she does her best to have a civil conversation with Ronald and Hermione, the former being suspicious of her and the latter being wary of the changed girl.
Harry sits across from her, and there is a bitterness about him. He does not talk to Cassiopeia much, and when he does there is a snappish tone to the words, a hostility she has never heard coming from him before. She asks if he is okay, and he says he is fine.
It is a lie, she knows that, but what can she do? She cannot force him to tell the truth.
This is how her second year at Hogwarts begins. With suspicion, and wariness, and hostility.
She should have known it would not get better.