Sixteen
Who's in the shadows? Who's ready to play? Are we the hunters, or are we the prey? There's no surrender, and there's no escape. Are we the hunters, or are we the prey?
- Game of Survival, Ruelle
Shadows settle on the place that you left. Our minds are troubled by the emptiness.
- Youth, Daughter
When Edmund walks into what will later become known as The Castle Made of Pain, he does so hand in hand with a girl he does not know and with an insistent ache beneath his skin that will not let him stop and turn back (despite how much he wants to).
(And oh, how desperately he wants to turn back, to leave, to find his siblings and beg their forgiveness and swear to never leave them again.) (But he cannot. His skin itches, his blood feels so cold it seems to be burning him from the inside out, his body betrays him as it takes step after step after step towards the castle, even as he screams at himself to turn around.)
They are not more than a minute into this latest showing of Cassiopeia's life, and already the Pevensies know that this will be a difficult time to watch. They curl up on one beanbag, as they have many times before during this showing, clinging to each other so tightly they leave bruises on each other's arms. Susan curls her arms around Edmund and Cass, tucking them as close to her as she can as she blinks away memories of that awful time in which there were three Pevensies instead of four, instead of the five that there were always meant to be. Peter drapes himself around all of his siblings, a protecting spirit, whilst Lucy lies across them, a comforting weight they would hate to go without.
"Engorgio," a voice whispers, and Peter's head jerks up, a snarl settling on his lips as he feels the beanbag they are lying on shift in ways it is not meant to. But it is not a threat he sees, but rather Draco, his sister's cousin who is start enough to have already put away the wand used to enlarge the beanbag before Peter could see it. (Any one of the Pevensies would snap a wand, should they look up to see it pointing at them.) "My cousin has gone through something awful, something none of us knew about." Draco holds Peter's gaze when he speaks, lays the words out with the calmness of someone willing to fight the rest of the world so long as it gets him what he wants-needs. "We do not begrudge you comforting her, but we will not be displaced by your appearance."
Peter smiles, inclines his head slightly, and Draco does not say another word, offering the eldest Pevensie a smile made of glass as the Malfoy heir settles himself next to where Peter lies between his siblings and the rest of the world, Cass' cousin adopting a similar stance and thus doubling the protection around the rest of the group. Ginny follows moments after, draping herself onto the space next to Susan, whilst Luna chooses to perch on the edge closest to where Lucy has her head laid in Cass' lap. Neville sits on Ginny's other side, twining his fingers with hers and laying his feet over Luna's, seeking the comfort of his girlfriends in this troublesome showing.
They are an interesting image, a terrifying image, a beautiful image. They are gods and goddesses and their disciples; they are haunted beings that have found more of their kind. Those who see the group that has formed either shudder in fear or feel as though they are coming home.
He walks through the gates (the gates which close behind them with nary a whisper, trapping them and keeping them, the lack of sound far more terrifying than any noise), and there is a girl holding his hand who does not know him but has refused to abandon him (even though he begged her to). There are tears frozen to her cheeks, and she appears to be more substantial than she has in all the time he has known her, and there is a curious depth to her shadow. (It looks almost as if it is alive, but that can't be possible.) (You are in Narnia, Edmund Pevensie. Anything and everything is possible.)
Edmund does not think he has seen anyone so beautiful.
Beautiful, because of her adamant refusal to let him walk into the castle by himself. (She has no obligation to stay with him, but chooses to anyway, and he thinks he loves her for this.) Beautiful, because of the steadiness of her hand in his, the warmth combatting the cold creeping through his veins. (He does not see the magic surrounding their joined hands, the magic sent to combat the enchantment placed upon him as best as it can, but he feels it and knows that the warmth is something of hers.) Beautiful, because her wariness tints the air around them icy shades of blue, but still she stands as though there is nothing in the world that could have a hope of going against her. (Her courage lends him strength, and he will never thank her enough for this.)
It is hard for Harry to admit that Cass is beautiful, and so he doesn't admit this truth, not even to himself. It is a jealously guarded secret, a remnant of when they were children and she was the one person he loved and everything was golden. He tells himself that she was never beautiful, that it was his childhood adoration tinting his vision and casting her into a better light.
He is lying to himself, as he does so often.
Looking at Cass through Edmund's eyes, seeing how he viewed her (once upon a long, long time ago), Harry knows that he was lying to himself when he claimed Cass has never been beautiful. She was beautiful, once. Back when they were still friends, before she fell into darkness, before she chose cruelty over kindness. And it almost makes it worse, to see how beautiful she was. What happened? When did she become so twisted?
(She is still beautiful, Harry Potter. She is more beautiful than she has ever been, but you do not see this because you have blinded yourself.) (You tell yourself that darkness cannot be lovely, but how else would the stars shine?)
Sirius Black looks at the scene playing out on the wall, and there are tears in his eyes. Next to him, Remus Lupin is sobbing quietly, the werewolf breaking at the seams as he sees all that their daughter has gone through. (Has gone through without them.) Sirius holds his husband's hand, rubs circles on the back of Remus' palm, but does not dare to take his eyes from the screen for even a moment for fear of missing even a moment of his daughter's life.
(He watches Harry, too, keeps an eye upon Harry and Ronald and Hermione. He has not forgotten how the black-haired boy hit his daughter. He has not forgotten the cruelty Harry visited upon someone who was once his only friend.) (He does not know what else Harry might have hidden from him, and that is cause enough to be wary.)
Cassiopeia Adhara is a stranger in a strange land, and Edmund has not known her for longer than a few hours. And yet, it is her who stands at his side as he steps into the castle where the White Witch resides. (And yet, it is her who earns his unconditional loyalty, simply due to her presence at his side during the worst time in his life.)
Edmund has never been entirely sure what love feels like, never known whether love is meant to be as protective and dark and overwhelming as it seems to be for him. But now he looks at Cassiopeia, and he knows that he loves her, and isn't that just the strangest thing, to love someone without knowing them? (But you have always known her, Edmund Pevensie, and you always will know her. She is you, and you are her.)
It is a bittersweet moment for Lucy-Peter-Susan, the siblings who were not there when their brother needed them, the siblings who did not realize how much he needed their help until it was too late.
Sweet, because they are seeing the start of a bond they know will transcend time and space and worlds, two half-souls finding their other half and knowing that they will never be alone again. This is the moment Edmund and Cass become EdmundandCass, an inseparable entity, two halves of one whole. This is the moment the twins find each other, and consequently, find themselves. (This is the moment they become who they were always meant to be.)
Bitter, because this is proof of a time that they were not enough. This is when they left Edmund, this is when they did not notice Cass leaving them, this is when they failed in protecting their siblings despite always swearing to keep them safe. This is everything that the twins went through; this is what they had to face with no one to rely upon but each other.
And yet, bittersweet as this moment is, the Pevensies are grateful that they are being shown this. They have never known what happened between Edmund and Cass leaving and the twins returning to their siblings; Edmund and Cass do not speak of it except in passing, you see? (They did not want their siblings to blame themselves more than they already do.) The Pevensies have ached to know what their siblings went through. (They are terrified to see what Edmund and Cass had to endure.)
He pauses on the threshold of the castle, digging in his heels despite the enchantment biting at his soul, turning to look at the girl who should not be here with him. (She looks for real now than she ever has before, for some reason. She looks more present in the world than she has. Why? He does not know.) (He does not know that she has cast aside the shielding of her magic, her hiding, her shelter. He will not face this alone. She swears it.) She looks at him, and for a moment it feels as though he may be able to turn and run, but then the cold in his veins sinks its claws ever deeper and a voice commands him to enter the castle and he stumbles forwards, into the castle he does not want to enter.
Cassiopeia holds his hand, and she follows.
The doors shut behind them.
There is something final about this sight, these two children (and they are children, for all that they have had to grow up too fast) walking into a castle that means them harm, in a land no one knows about, with only each other to rely upon.
There is something tragically final about this scene, something that has tears brimming in Narcissa's eyes. (Although she is not sure who she is crying for.) She looks at them, these children walking into a trap, and some part of her knows that this was a crossroads.
They could have turned back. Cass could have turned back. And yet, they (she) didn't. And in doing so, they (she) sealed their (her) fates.
Is it worse, to know that there was a choice that would have led to a child not suffering as much as these two children surely have? Narcissa thinks it must be worse, to know that her niece could have saved herself so much pain but chose not to, because she is loving and loyal even to a stranger she has only just met. (Not that she would be that loyal to everyone. No, Narcissa has seen how the twins orbit each other, she knows that some part of Cass recognized Edmund as her other half.) (And doesn't that just make it more tragic? Two halves reunited through bloodshed and pain? Two halves that have never known anything else?)
"Where are your siblings, Edmund son of Adam?" And then the White Witch stands before them, a figure made of pain and ice who would tower over even the tallest of men. Once, Edmund had thought her beautiful, if in a terrible way. (Beautiful in the way of winter blizzards and a fracturing ice lake, beautiful in the way all horrific things are.) Now, he has seen Cassiopeia. (Who is fire and loyalty and love and hatred and the burning fury of a star.) Now, he knows what true beauty looks like.
"I have brought my siblings as close as I could!" Edmund is speaking, but he does not want to speak. He fights himself, fights the ice which surges through his body and spits words from his mouth that he does not mean. "They are in the lake, by the Beaver's house, quite close by! And they are going to meet Aslan quite close to a placed named the Stone Table! Please, may I have some more turkish delight?"
A few of the students, staff, and adults scoff at the words, casting their eyes and their judgement upon the second Pevensie boy sitting at the front of the hall. (They have never been enchanted, have never had their will stripped from them, have never seen themselves acting but been unable to stop their actions.) (Peter notes the faces of those who judge his brother, and he vows that they will pay for this crime.)
But for the few who see Edmund and name him "weak", name him "traitor", there are more who look at Edmund and name him "helpless". They see how he fights the enchantment, they see the words scraping his throat as they force themselves out of his mouth, they see how he knows that something is wrong but does not know what. (Remember, he does not know about magic. Not yet.) They see Edmund, and they know him to be strong.
The White Witch smiles, and it is an inhuman thing. And then, she turns to Cassiopeia.
"And who might you be?" The being says in a voice like cracking ice, bending down so as to better see the girl standing at Edmund's side. Edmund makes to step in front of Cassiopeia, but the White Witch sees the movement and her hand snaps out, cracking across the side of his face and sending him tumbling to the ground with a cry, letting go of Cassiopeia's hand as he falls. He hits the ground hard, elbow jamming into his side and winding him, the side of his face aching where the Witch had hit him. (He got frostbite once, when they did not have enough money to buy another jacket and he had given his to Lucy. This ache feels rather like the frostbite did.)
Surprisingly, it is not the Pevensies who cry out upon seeing the Witch's hand come into contact with the skin of the young boy. (They fume, that is true, but they know this part of the story. This, at least, the twins have told them.) (They saw the White Witch dead, and that is enough for them to be able to withhold their anger.)
Draco cries out, an inarticulate sound of rage, so different from the usually composed Slytherin prince. People look at him, but he does not care, for his gaze is fixed upon the scene playing out before him. (His father hit him like that, once.) (He has never been able to stand watching a person be abused.)
Ginny snarls the moment the White Witch's hand touches the face of Cass' twin, a snarl that sounds so like any creature that many in the hall hold their wands, looking around nervously for the source of the noise. (Cass was hit like that, by the woman who called herself Cass' grandmother.) (Ginny has never tolerated abuse, but she has scorned it more than she ever did before after learning what happened to her sister-in-all-but-blood.)
Minerva McGonagall does not snarl or cry out. (She is not so bestial as that.) She curses. Strings of cursewords drip from her mouth, vituperative and poisonous, her hands sparking slightly as she stares at this Witch who has dared to lay her hand (and her magic) upon a child. (It reminds her of all the ways she has failed her students, her children. How many times have they been in danger? How many things has she failed to protect them from?)
There are other reactions, too. Narcissa's hands curl into fists, her knuckles white with tension as she breathes through the urge to hit a woman who is no longer alive. Augusta Longbottom places a hand upon her wand, spells she has not used in years but will not hesitate to cast again at the tip of her tongue. (She has failed one child; she will not fail any other.) Amelia Bones closes her eyes and tries not to screamscreamSCREAM. (How could anyone do such an awful thing to a child?)
He is in pain. He is under an enchantment. And despite this, he does his best to scramble to his feet.
He refuses to leave Cassiopeia to face the White Witch on her own. Not after she has come all this way at his side when no one else noticed him drowning.
Sirius has not known what to make of Edmund Pevensie, not sure what to think of the boy who calls himself Cass' twin. He sees how Edmund loves his daughter; it is hard to miss the obvious adoration the boy has for Cass. (They truly do act like two halves of a whole.) (Sirius sees them interact, and suddenly Cass seems more complete than she ever has before.) (He didn't even realize something had been missing.) He sees the darkness inside Edmund Pevensie, too, the cruelty lingering beneath the boy's skin, just waiting for the perfect moment to show itself. (The darkness that matches Cass' Darkness, the madness shared by all member of the Black Family.)
No, Sirius Black has never quite known what to make of Edmund Pevensie.
But now, as he sees the boy get to his feet, seeing how Edmund tried to protect Cass even as he was aching and enchanted, Sirius finds nothing but gratitude in him. Gratitude that someone tried to protect Cass. (As he failed to do.) (As he never tried to do.)
There is a pulse of heat, as he tries to get to his feet, as his breath refuses to reenter his lungs and his feet slip upon the ice-covered floor and he hisses in pain as he moves his head. There is a pulse of heat, a brilliant wave of fury which ripples through the room, melting the ice of the walls and burning through the enchantment clawing its way through Edmund's veins. (For the first time since he met the White Witch, he feels fully himself.) (The enchantment was strong, but nothing is stronger than the furious magic of a broken girl.)
There are some approving nods in the hall, at this display of power. The Pevensies smile at their sister (proud of her rage, proud of her magic, proud of her) and her friends all laugh in delight at the clear fury on her face (this is the girl they know and love, this is the girl willing to burn the world down to keep her friends safe) and Narcissa and Amelia privately cheer the girl on (they have been through war, they have seen bloodshed; they know what happens when you anger a person with nothing left to lose).
There are some expressions of fear from those in the hall, upon seeing the power the younger Cass wields so effortlessly. The Golden Trio cannot help but shuffle backwards (what will they do if she ever chooses to turn that power upon them?) and Remus winces slightly upon seeing the fury in his daughter's eyes (the Black madness he always feared would pass to his child) and Dumbledore frowns from where he sits in silence (it seems Cass is becoming another dark witch that he must deal with before it is too late).
There are some expressions, hidden but present nonetheless, of curiousity from those who see how Cass' eyes sparkle with raw magic. (The kind of power that has not been seen in their world for too many years.) Minerva leans forwards in her seat, eyeing the burning magic curiously (if that is how powerful Cass once was, how much more powerful is she now?) and Augusta eyes her grandson carefully (can he wield this magic too?) and Sirius tilts his head and wonders why that fury in his daughter's eyes seems so familiar (it tastes the same as his own fury once did, but there is something else that is familiar about it, something just past the edges of his memory that begs to be remembered).
Something has happened. He does not know what (he does not know Cassiopeia's magic yet, remember?) but he knows that it is because of the strange girl who has supported him more than any of his siblings ever have.
He stands up, tears his gaze from the floor, finds Cassiopeia standing in front of him, placing herself in between him and the White Witch, a human shield. (He never asked her to do that.) (You didn't have to, Edmund Pevensie.) He sees Cassiopeia standing in front of him, and a gasp escapes his mouth; sparks crackle from her fingertips, and shards of ice float around her head like the angels he has only ever heard about, and her shadow seems to be shifting and thickening until it forms another person, another barrier between Edmund and the White Witch.
(She looks like the Queen she will one day be.)
"What is all this about you being a queen?" Remus Lupin finally reaches the end of his patience. He reaches the end of his patient, because that is his daughter (who has not been his daughter for a long time) and these are the people claiming to be her sibling's but cannot be (they are more family to her than he has ever been) and his daughter has been called a queen and a god many times over (she has been named all the things that she is) and he needs to know what has happened to her. "How are you a queen? Why do they keep referring to you as a god? Why did you never tell anyone of this land? When-"
He falls silent as suddenly as he'd spoken up, and Luna lowers her finger from where she'd placed it on her lips in a gesture meant to instill quiet. The fae girl looks at Cass, who does not deign to turn to the man-who-thinks-himself-her-father, rather raising her voice so that all in the hall might hear her. "All questions regarding my titles shall be answered shortly. No questions shall be answered, and for your own sake's, do not dare to presume I would lie about the titles gifted to me. It will not end well you."
(Her words echo across the hall, and there is something dark and olde and shifting lingering in her voice, something ancient that has people lowering their eyes.) (She sounds like the queen she has always been.)
"Don't touch him." The words are said quietly, not screamed or shouted or yelled, and it is this quietness which makes Cassiopeia's voice all the more terrifying. It is the silence just before an explosion, the eye of the hurricane, the moment of stillness before a star explodes. It is fury and grief and hatred, and it is love as well, because nothing can exist without love. She stands in front of Edmund, and she does not bow down even when the White Witch begins to walk towards her, and Edmund knows that she has his unconditional loyalty for as long as either of them may live. "You have enchanted him and manipulated him and hurt him, but you will not touch him. Not again."
The White Witch laughs, and it is a cruel sound, one that sends shivers down Edmund's back and has him taking a step back before he knows what he is doing. "And what have we here? A witchling who thinks she can command Jadis of the Forgotten Realm? Presumptuous creature. You are not nearly powerful enough to pose a threat to the Queen of Narnia. Your insolence shall be punished."
The Witch waves a hand, and Edmund leaps in front of Cassiopeia (trying to protect her like she protected him) but he is too late; there is a gasp as the White Witch's magic slams into Cassiopeia, and then there is a too-still-too-dead silence.
Edmund glances behind him, and for a moment his heart stops beating. Cassiopeia looks back at him with tears freezing on her cheeks and a quiet keening muffled in her throat.
Blood runs down her jaw from where her mouth has been sewn shut.
For a long moment, there is silence in the hall. A silence filled with horror and grief and disbelief. A silence of pain. A silence of fury.
And then Luna screams. She screams, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of her sister-friend, unable to look away from her sister-friend's pain. A hand brushes her shoulder and she starts, throwing herself into the arms of a concerned Cass, clinging to her friend as an endless wail tears itself from her throat, leaving it raw and painful. Ginny joins her, wrapping her arms around both Cass and Luna, the redhead's hair blazing with flames of fury even as tears drip from her eyes. Neville follows his lovers, crying quietly as he rests his head on the back of Cass' shoulder and allows his arms to encircle the group that has formed. Draco scrambles over as well, hands shaking as he carefully tilts Cass' face to the side, looking for any trace of this past that they knew nothing about. (He finds it, in the silvery scars surrounding her lips, so small he had never noticed them before. He sees these scars, and something inside of him breaks.) (He couldn't protect her. He didn't even know this had ever happened.)
Narcissa stares at the scene in front of her in horror, hand covering her mouth and teras brimming in her eyes. Amelia puts a hand on her shoulder, pale as she sees what has happened to this girl (what has happened without any of them knowing) and Narcissa shudders once before breaking down into sobs, barely feeling as Amelia wraps her arms around the grieving Malfoy woman. (What have they done? How could Cass have gone through this with no one knowing?)
Sirius does not weep. He does not wail. He does not scream, but that is only because his mouth cannot seem to open enough for the scream tearing at his throat to escape into the air. Next to him, Remus is sobbing, but Sirius cannot find it in himself to offer his husband comfort. He is numb, entirely and utterly numb. And then he looks at the front of the hall, where his daughter is surrounded by the friends-who-did-not-know, all of them weeping. He looks at the wall, watching the blood drip down his too-young daughter's face. And inside him, in a place he had long-since thought dead, fury burns. Sirius does not swallow it, as he has done ever since meeting James. No, he breathes in the fury, allows it to surge through his veins. (Fury, tasting like ash and fire and grief and love.) (Fury, like his father's, like his brother's, like his daughter's.)
Much like Sirius (although they would curse any who dared to mention that comparison) the Pevensie siblings do not weep or wail or scream or curse. No. Susan-Lucy-Peter do not react in any such way; instead, they go silent (like they never do) and still (as they never have). (They were never told about this.) They turn to look at Edmund, but he is not looking at any of them, gaze fixed upon Cass as his hands fidget uncomfortably, aware she must comfort her friends but hating her being away from him. Susan-Lucy-Peter look at Cass, and for the first time they think they understand what she must feel like most days of her life. (Fury burns inside them.)
(For a moment, her too-thick-too-real shadow seems to dart forwards, talons made of Darkness lunging for the Witch with the intent to rip-tear-kill-maim-punishpunishpunish, but then Cassiopeia shake her head slightly, and the blackness creeps towards her reluctantly.) (It is not the time for the Witch to die, not yet.)
Cassiopeia falls, hitting the ground on her hands and knees, and Edmund collapses next to her, wrapping an arm around her body and pulling her close to him, providing as much comfort as he is able, unable to top staring at the thread binding her lips together. (This is his fault. His fault his fault his fault.) (He should never have let her accompany him.) Cassiopeia latches onto him, hiding her face in his shoulder, body shuddering as she fights back the sobs of fury-grief-hatred that want to escape from her, and Edmund clings onto her as tightly as he can, fingers white and tears freezing as soon as they leave his eyes.
"Make ready the carriage," the White Witch calls to a dwarf who has been watching this from the side. She turns her gaze to them, the two broken children breaking more than they ever have, and she smiles. (Edmund glares at her, something dark unfurling within his heart as he swears that he will end her, no matter what it costs.) "Bind them behind the carriage; they shall keep up or be dragged along."
Draco never thought he could hate someone more than he hates his father, more than he hates his cousin's fathers, more than he hates Albus Dumbledore. (His father who beat him and molded him and tried to tame him, his cousin's fathers who left her and then tried to claim her, Albus Dumbledore who moves them around like pawns on a chessboard and tries to break Cass every chance he gets.)
Draco never thought he could hate anyone more than he hates these people.
He was wrong.
He looks at the White Witch as she smiles at his cousin, smiles at her after enchanting her twin and abusing her twin and sewing his cousin's mouth shut (and that thought makes him shudder, don't think about it don't think about it-), smiles as only someone who enjoys other's pain can. He looks at her, and suddenly realizes that he never hated his father, or Cass' parents, or even Albus Dumbledore. He can't have hated them, because what he feels now is a burning fury so far beyond anything he has ever felt before. (He could rip apart the White Witch with his bare hands, and he wouldn't even break a sweat.)
Susan Pevensie looks at Draco-Ginny-Neville-Luna, and she knows how to read people, she can see the hatred in the set of their brows, the curl of their lips, the flash of their eyes. She looks at Peter-Lucy-Edmund-Cass, and there is hatred there too, the kind of hatred that topples regimes and kills tyrants and ends worlds. (As it has before.) But there is hurt, too, written in the sheen of Peter's eyes, the tilt of Lucy's mouth. Hurt she understands intimately, because it is within her as well, a question begging to be answered.
(Why did they never tell us?)
And the truth is, Susan cannot fault Edmund and Cass for not telling them what happened in the White Witch's castle. She knows what it can be like, to not want to relive painful memories, to want to leave things in the past (where they belong). But that does not mean that it does not hurt, to know that there are things Cass and Edmund have kept to themselves for so many years. (Secrets and experiences and memories that have been plaguing them whilst Peter-Lucy-Susan were none the wiser.)
"We are going to be speaking of this." Susan looks at the twins, resolve filling her. (She needs to know that they are not keeping any more secrets. She needs it as much as she needs to breathe.) They meet her eyes, and Edmund nods. It is good enough; she settles back into her seat and fixes her gaze upon the wall once more.
If she clutches onto Cass a little tighter than she did before, her little sister does not comment on it.
They do not fight, cannot fight, are not given the chance to fight. A whistle from the Witch, and wolves surround them, snapping and snarling and growling whenever they move. Edmund makes to lunge at the White Witch, fury blinding him, and a wolf snaps its teeth so close to his arm he starts to bleed. The dwarf binds both of their wrists as the wolves keep them trapped, and then they are led to a carriage and shackled to the back like dogs.
Cassiopeia has stopped crying by now. So has Edmund. He is furious, and so is she. (Two broken children get pushed further than they can take it.) He looks at her, and she looks at him, and there is a moment of recognition as their souls understand each other. (Broken children will make the world burn if it kills whoever wronged them.)
The carriage begins to move, and they are forced to stumble along behind it.
Behind them, blood stains the floor of The Castle Made of Pain.
There is silence in the hall at the end of this scene. Silence as everyone watches the blood freezing to the icy floor of the castle. Silence as everyone sees the wrists rubbed raw as the twins stumble behind a carriage they have no choice but to follow. Silence as everyone views the pain, the agony, the anger that these children have had to experience.
And then the yelling begins.
Minerva McGonagall gets to her feet, screaming words at the screen that have the older students whistling in appreciation even as they cover the ears of their younger peers. She is joined by Augusta Longbottom, and Amelia Bones, and Sirius Black. Ginny Weasley rages too, flames licking at her hair, and Neville is at her side, thorns tearing through the ground around him as he fumes at this Witch who dared to lay a hand upon his first friend. Filius Flitwick joins them in their fury as well, coldly angry in a way no one has ever seen him before. (How dare this Witch touch Cass. Cass, who has helped many of his ravens. Cass, who has always been a student to come to him whenever there is a question she needs answered. Cass, who trusts him more than any other professor in the castle because he cares.)
Narcissa Malfoy weeps into her hands, broken at the thought of all that Cass has gone through, horrified at the fact that no one (not even Draco-Luna-Neville-Ginny, not even Peter-Susan-Lucy) knew what happened to this star-girl. Remus Lupin sobs too, as does Luna Lovegood and Draco Malfoy, wails tearing from their throats as they see what their daughter-friend-cousin has gone through. The two eldest Pevensies cry too, silent tears dripping down their faces as they see the pain that their sister has endured. (Why didn't she tell them? Why didn't Edmund tell them?) (How did they never know?)
A few among the hall have other reactions. Albus Dumbledore smiles when he sees the thread crisscrossing over Cass lips, smiles because he believes she deserves this, smiles because it thrills him to see the pain of someone who has been a thorn in his side for so long. The Golden Trio wince but do not scream, frozen in horror but impersonal in their lack of empathy. Lucius Malfoy laughs, quietly so that none might hear, but there is delight upon his face as he sees the girl who stole his son suffer as he has always wished she would.
Edmund and Cass watch as these people scream and cry and laugh at what they have gone through. They see their siblings break as they see the truths Edmund and Cass chose to keep from them; they see Cass' friends shatter upon being faced with the things Cass has had to endure without them knowing. They see all this horror on their behalf, and they cling to each other tighter than they ever have before, and they try not to lose themselves in the memories.
(Edmund is gone.)
Peter ushers his siblings in front of him (not all of his siblings), the three of them (too few too few where is their fourth?) hurrying after the beavers as they lead them away from the last place theysaw their brother the dam. The White Witch is pursuing them (the Witch who cursed their brother, the Witch who enchanted Edmund, the Witch who stole their brother away from them) and they are running from her. (They are running from the absence of their brother, running from the emptiness at their sides.)
Peter ushers his siblings in front of him, and the three of them run, and he tries to pretend he is not running from the thought that his brother wouldn't be gone if Peter had only noticed something was wrong, if Peter had been better, if Peter had not just assumed that Edmund was okay.
Peter has never run from his problems before. He has always been the one to stand up and fight, fists bared and teeth gritted and a roar aching to escape from his mouth. But he has always had his brother at his side, too, a presence which bolsters him and defends him and reminds him what he is fighting for.
And now Edmund is gone. And it is all Peter's fault.
Edmund watches how Peter coped with his disappearance, and there is a frown on his face. He looks at his brother (the brother who he once thought wouldn't miss him, the brother he once thought would be glad to see him gone) and there are tears in Peter's eyes.
Edmund flinches when he sees the tears. Perhaps he should not feel guilty, but he does. Because this is his fault. (This is the White Witch's fault.) He was enchanted, he left, he brought his siblings so much pain. (It has never been your fault, Edmund.) He looks away from Peter, bows his head and buries his face in his twin's hair. (She is the only one who notices when tears begin to trickle down his cheeks.) (She clings to him, and he clings to her. This is why he did not tell his siblings, why neither of them told their siblings. No one understands what they went through, no one could understand that fear and pain and fury.)
(It was easier, to leave it in the past.)
(Edmund is gone.)
Susan holds onto Lucy's hand as tightly as she dares, not once letting go even as they stumble past trees and tumble over logs and trip through the snow. She doesn't let go because she is terrified to lose Lucy (as she has lost Edmund); she doesn't let go because for as long as she holds onto her sister, she can pretend her little brother is behind them.
Susan holds onto Lucy's hand, and she runs, because it is not safe where they were and she refuses to lose another sibling to the White Witch of Narnia. (As she lost Edmund, as she lost the brother she swore to always protect, as she lost the person she has failed to keep safe.) Susan runs, and runs, and runs, and she weeps as she does so. (Every step she takes feels like another way she has failed Edmund.)
Edmund is gone. Susan has failed him.
That hurts. That hurts almost more than seeing Peter blame himself did. Edmund does not look at his older sister this time, because he is convinced that he will break should he see the grief he knows is on her face. (Cass looks at Susan when he does not, sees the tears on the older Pevensie's face, sees how Susan leans into Peter and sobs into her hands. And Edmund sees this by proxy, because they have always shared a soul and a mind, and he breaks, but only Cass knows it.)
It hurts to see Susan blame himself for his disappearance, because Susan has long been the one who took care of him. Edmund's memories of his mother have always been blurry, even before he went to Narnia; she was working more often than not, struggling to feed four children with no husband to help shoulder the load, and in her absence Susan stepped into her role. It was Susan who held his hand as they walked through the city, Susan who wiped the dirt from his cheeks and pressed kisses to his cuts, Susan who read him tales as he fell asleep. When he was younger, she was the closest thing he had to a mother.
It hurts to see her blame herself for his disappearance, even so many years later, and so he refuses to look. (But Cass looks, so he sees anyway.)
(Edmund is gone.)
Edmund is gone, and so is Cassiopeia, and Lucy cries at the loss. She holds onto Susan's hand, and she looks behind her to make sure Peter is still there, and she cries when she does not see Edmund next to her older brother, when Cassiopeia is not running next to her. Lucy reaches out, but there is no one on her other side to comfort her, no arms to hold her and no voice to whisper reassurances.
Edmund is gone, and so is Cassiopeia. Lucy wishes she could be happy that they are together, that neither of them are alone, but her soul is aching at the absence of those who should be at her side and her heart is fracturing and it is all she can do not to scream.
Edmund is not at her side, with his snarky comments and quiet gestures of affection and familiar scowl directed at the world from which he has sworn to protect Lucy. Cassiopeia is not holding her hand, strange yet familiar, invisible yet so very present, a person Lucy does not know but also a person she can no longer conceive living without.
Edmund is gone, and so is Cassiopeia. Lucy can't live without them.
This time, it is not only Edmund who cannot bear to look at their siblings. Cass curls up within her twin's embrace, and her tears soak his shirt from where she refuses to lift her head. (Sirius-Remus-Harry-Narcissa-Minerva look at the girl sadly. This is the first time they have seen her cry.) (This is the first time they have seen her break.) Edmund's tears fall down his face, too, dripping onto Cass' head as he buries his face in her hair. (His siblings look at them sadly, mourning all that they went through, mourning everything that no one knew happened.)
They cling to each other, Edmund and Cass, clutching onto each other as they try to remember that they are alive, that they both made it out, that they survived. (Even though somedays they still wake up not knowing if they are alive.) They sob, and no one touches them, although their siblings and friends ache to comfort the twins. (No one touches them, because in their shared grief they are unapproachable, curled into each other so tightly no one else can dare to try and break them apart.)
They break, and there is nothing anyone can do but watch as they shatter. (This has been a long time coming, you see?) (They pretended nothing had happened, even when Cass woke up clawing at her lips, even when Edmund screamed Cass' name in the middle of the night. They pretended nothing had happened, and their siblings didn't believe them but didn't press, and this is what happens when the past comes to light.)
(Edmund is gone.)
And he is still not there when they meet a man in a red coat, a man whose laugh sounds like the thunder preceding a storm as he presents them with presents. ("Christmas has come," the man says. Susan wonders who brought that religion into this world; she wonders what the Narnians celebrate instead.)
He hands Peter a sword and a shield, and tells him to wield them wisely. (Weapons for the one who will use them to protect his siblings.) He gifts Susan a bow and a horn, and promises her that she can protect her siblings, but that it is okay to need help. (A way to call for aid for the Pevensie who most understands the necessity of having others to rely upon.) He offers Lucy a dagger and a vial, and is not joking when he says it is to keep her safe until she grows claws of her own. (A gift of blood and a gift of healing for the little girl who loves too fiercely.)
Lucy-Peter-Susan smile at this scene, tremulous though their smiles are. They smile, but they're crying still, because at this time Edmund and Cass were still missing from them. There was still an empty space where the twins should be, and it haunts them even this many years later. (They still panic if the twins disappear for more than a few hours.)
Every muggleborn and half-blood in the hall frown at the screen, believing this to be a dream, believing this to be a lie. Surely this cannot be real? Surely this is a joke? Surely the existence of Father Christmas cannot be real? (Oh, but of course this is real. Are you not magic? What limits reality but your imagination?)
Albus Dumbledore sees the gifts bestowed upon the three Pevensie siblings, and there is greed in his heart. (What could he do with gifts such as those?) He looks at the Pevensies, and smiles when he sees the horn hanging at Susan's hip, the sword sheathed at Peter's side, the dagger with which Lucy is fiddling. He looks around, trying to take note of those still loyal to him, those unflinching in their knowledge that he is above them all. (Fools that they are.) Those gifts will be his, he swears it. (They will be his death warrant should he try to steal them.)
He makes to leave after that, but pauses when Lucy asks (pleads, whispers, demands) whether he has something for Cassiopeia and Edmund as well.
"We shall give it to them, when we meet them again," Susan says to the man in the red coat, coming to Lucy's aid, refusing to have her brother outcast so easily. She stands behind Lucy, puts a hand on the younger's shoulder, and Peter stands at their sides, hand on the hilt of his sword as he stares down the man in red.
(They look like the rulers they will one day be.)
The man in red laughs and reaches for his bag.
"Oh." Luna looks at the Pevensies, a small smile on her face, a soft expression no one but her friends have seen her wear. It is lovely, that they refused to allow the man in red to leave without sharing gifts for Edmund and Cass. It would have been easier, to let him go, but they did not. Even when the twins were not with them, the other Pevensies refused to tolerate them being forgotten. "You're good siblings," she says, and they smile at her tearfully, understanding the acceptance for what it is. (This is how a family grows.)
Cass and Edmund listen to their younger sister demand that they are not excluded from this gift-giving ceremony, and there are tears in their eyes. They did not know that they were almost forgotten; they did not know that it was Lucy who refused to allow them to be left out of this. They cannot bear to face their siblings, not yet, but their hearts warm at the sight of their youngest sister standing against someone so much older than her, steadfast in her determination to not allow her siblings to be forgotten. (She has always been the most eager to challenge traditions that should be questioned.)
By the time the Witch's carriage slows, Edmund and Cassiopeia are breathless and aching. Their wrists are rubbed raw from the rope chaining them together like dogs, and there are long cuts on their bodies from where one or both of them fell while trying to keep up with the carriage, and they have long since lost feeling in the hands with which they have been holding onto each other as tightly as they possibly can.
They are breathless, and aching. They have never been angrier than they are in this moment.
Those in the hall cannot help but shudder upon seeing the anger on the middle Pevensie's faces, the fury that birthed them and reared them and crowned them, the ire that has been present for their entire lives. They look at the scene, at the two children who broke and repaired themselves wrong (who broke and put themselves back together with their jagged edges surrounding them, the armour of survivors), and they shudder.
They shudder, because there is something bestial in the curl of the younger Edmund's lips, something wild in the flex of his hands (is that ice creeping down his skin?), something ancient in the slightly-off movement of his shadow. (He has always been the darkness to Cass' light, but it is impossible to know what it dark when there is no light to illuminate it.) (The hall does not know it, but they are seeing him step into his own darkness for the first time in his life. This is what a god looks like before coming into their power.)
They shudder, because there is something predatory in the glint of younger Cass' eyes, something unhinged in the curl of her lips, something explosive in the stillness with which she stands before the White Witch. (She has always been a star, and this is what happens when a star chooses to explode into light, knowing that there shall be darkness at its side no matter how brightly it burns.) (She has always been a god, too, but this is what it looks like to see a god stepping into their power.)
The carriage pulls to a stop, and the dwarf hops down, making his way towards them and reaching out as if to grab onto Cassiopeia's wrist. She snarls, snaps her teeth, and Edmund copies her, managing to lunge forwards enough that he can kick the dwarf into a nearby rock. Cassiopeia laughs through still-sewn-shut-lips when she sees the dwarf collide with the stone, laughs even as the White Witch stalks over and backhands Cassiopeia so hard that the girl tumbles to the snow, shoulder wrenched out of its socket due to her wrist still being bound when she falls. Cassiopeia laughs and laughs and laughs, and it is only when the Witch does the same to Edmund that the girl goes silent.
She goes silent, and then she glares at the White Witch with more anger than Narnia has ever seen. Her Darkness curls over her hands and flies at the Witch, a voiceless shriek echoing through the air as her Darkness lashes out.
Cassiopeia calls her Darkness back, but not before the Witch has begun to bleed from cut stretching from temple to jaw.
Sirius Black sees the Darkness his daughter carries within her soul, and shame surges through him as he looks away. He looks away because this is his fault. His fault she grew up in the house he ran away from, his fault she never knew the love of a family, his fault she almost became an Obscurial. (Did become an Obscurial. Do you not see her Darkness?)
He couldn't even keep his little brother safe. How could he have ever thought that he could be a father?
(But whilst he cowers in shame, the Black in his blood yells its pride. That is a true daughter of the Black family, some part of him is screaming.) (She may have abandoned the name, but there is Black in her blood and it preens at the Darkness she calls "friend".)
They pay for this, of course. They pay for this in pain and tears and anger, in hits and bruises and cuts, in cruel words spat from cruel mouths as they are tied to a tree. But they grit their teeth and wipe away each other's tears best they can and allow their own fury to fester in their hearts.
They will be free. And when they are, they will make the Witch pay.
"What are you?" Edmund asks when the White Witch and her loyal servant have stepped away, leaving the two children to sit in the snow, bound and bruised and bloodied but not yet broken. (Not broken how she wants them to be.) He twists to look at Cassiopeia, ignoring the pain flaring in his ribs at the movement, and finds her already looking at him. Her Darkness settles across her shoulders, and her hair sends sparks flying through the air with every movement.
It should terrify him.
It doesn't.
"Of course you did not terrify me," her twin whispers, voice so quiet no one but her (and perhaps Susan, careful Susan who always seems to know things she shouldn't) can hear. He whispers these words (a prayer, an oath) and Cass smiles where she has buried her face in his shoulder, knowing that he can feel the sharp-toothed danger-laden grin. He holds her a little tighter, and she allows it, because she remembers the times when they could not do anything but grip each other's hand and pray that they survived. "Of course you do not terrify me," Edmund repeats, and oh how she loves to hear those words, soothing as they are to the aching child she once was. "You loved me, you saved me. I would be nothing without you."
Cass hides her smile as she hides her tears, and wraps her arms tighter around Edmund. His heart beats a steady rhythm against her cheek. (He's alive, he's alive, he's alive.) Her hands curl into fists, nails clawing at the shirt overing his back, as she remembers how close they came to leaving their siblings alone. (But the White Witch touched Edmund, dared to harm him, and so Cass destroyed her as she'd longed to do since entering Narnia.) (Would they have won had the White Witch left Edmund alone?)
"Who are you?" Edmund amends his statement, and there is no judgement in his tone. And so, Cassiopeia tells him, the words arriving in his brain despite her not once opening her mouth. (How? He does not know. But he is in awe nonetheless.) She tells him that she is magic and fury and hatred, a girl brought up surrounded by violence, a girl who escaped violence and found herself in the wildest parts of the world. She tells him of her Darkness, she tells him of her cruelty, she tells him of the fierceness of her love. And he listens, without judging, and when she is finished he takes her hand and looks her in the eyes and although he does not say a word, she knows that he understands.
He understands, because he is wild as well, because he is cruel and petty and cunning, because he understands what it means to be a being made of fury and hatred and love. And she laughs, and he laughs too, two broken children who have shown each other their jagged edges and found a companion where they thought they would always be alone.
By the time they go silent, Cassiopeia's eyes glow with power, and there is a darkness to Edmund's smile that has never been there before. Narnia creeps into their hearts, wild and untamed and cruel and loving, and they let it in, breathe in the air and recognize themselves in the roar of the wind and welcome every part of this ancient magick into their souls.
They hold onto each other, and when the White Witch returns they do nothing but smile.
(This is how broken children become wild creatures.)
The Pevensie siblings are crying. Lucy sobs from where she has curled up between her two oldest siblings, keens like a wounded animal as she claws at her own skin. (She aches to approach the twins, but what right does she have to comfort them now, she who has spent the most time with them and yet has failed to understand what happened to them?) Susan weeps as she wraps her arms around her youngest sister, pretending that Lucy is Cass, pretending that it does not break her heart to have missed this secret. (Susan knows all, is privy to every secret whispered in Narnia. All except this.) (Oh, how she has failed her siblings.) Peter cries quietly as he wraps his arms around two of his siblings, remembering the days when he could protect them from anything they faced. (Except he didn't manage to protect Cass and Edmund, not as well as he thought he did.) (Peter, how did you never know what happened to your siblings?)
(Susan may know every secret spoken in Narnia, but the twins are being of darkness and light. They walk the line between society and wildness; less civilized than their two older siblings, less overtly wild than their youngest sister. Of course no one knew what they went through; they know how to hide secrets in places even their too-canny sister cannot find them.)
Harry thinks he should be crying. Hermione is crying, next to him, silent tears sliding down her cheeks and drip drip dripping onto the hand clasped over her mouth in horror. (She does not like Cass, has never liked Cass, but never would she wish someone like the White Witch upon anyone.) Narcissa Malfoy is crying, on the opposite side of the hall, as is Amelia Bones. Remus is crying, too.
And yet, Harry is not crying. (Although some part of him recognizes that he should be.) He looks at all that his once-friend has gone through, and feels no pity, no empathy, no grief. ("She deserves it," some part of him-but-not-him whispers, and he can do nothing but listen.) He does not understand why everyone is so horrified; has he not gone through horrid things too? Was it not him who grew up in an abusive household? (Was it not Cass who fled an abusive household?) Was it not him who went face to face with Voldemort in his first year at Hogwarts? (Was it not Cass who landed the killing blow on Quirinius Quirrel?) Was it not him who became the soldier everyone needed him to be? (Was it not Cass who became the leader in order to save everyone?)
When Peter-Susan-Lucy stumble onto the grass of Cair Paravel, a throng of creatures cheer. The creatures cheer for the arrival of the prophesied rulers, the ones destined to overthrow the White Witch, the ones who it is said will lead Narnia into an age of prosperity.
The creatures cheer. Peter-Susan-Lucy look at each other, and the space next to them seems emptier than ever.
A lion steps forwards, with fur the colour of sunlight and eyes that are both ancient and newborn, and Susan takes half a step back, pushing Lucy behind her even as Peter steps in front of them both. The creatures are still cheering, and they are chanting what the Pevensies assume to be the lion's name (Aslan, they call him, and Susan's lips curl into a sneer) (the way they say it sounds far too much like "god", and she has never been a fan of any god) and the lion stares at them with a cruelty lurking in his gaze that some part of them recognizes intimately.
There are breaths of surprise, as people see the lion that began this showing, the lion who stepped into their school (even though that should not be possible) and named Cass his "spirit daughter" (no one know what that title is meant to mean) and told them that they were to be watching her life (since when has that magic existed?).
Ginny frowns when she sees the lion, frowns in the way of those who have known evil and have taught themselves to recognize it. The lion is not evil, but there is something wrong about him, something ancient and eldritch and strange in ways that have shivers running down Ginny's spine. She looks at Luna, and her girlfriend mirrors her frown. (There is something wrong about this lion.)
Sirius looks at the lion, and there is something about that shade of gold which stirs a memory he did not know he had. He has seen that shade of gold before; he has seen that lion before, not when the lion stepped into Hogwarts but earlier than that. (How would he have seen the lion?) (Why can he not remember?)
Susan takes half a step back, pushing Lucy behind her, and Peter steps in front of them both, because the Pevensies recognize the lion in ways that the Narnian creatures don't seem to. They see the cruelty, the kindness, the darkness and the light. They see the sharpness of his teeth and the softness of his fur, the greatness of his roar and the meekness of his steps.
This is a god. This is a saviour. This is a monster.
This is Aslan.
"Where are the others?" The lion questions, and his voice is as terrible as any of them imagined it to be. He peers at them, gaze searching the depths of their souls, eyes turned to the empty spaces next to them. "Where are the two half-souls?"
Sirius' brow furrows as he hears this term. (He has heard this before.) He does not like hearing his daughter being referred to as a half-soul, but cannot deny the truth of the statement when he looks at where she sits, so closely interwoven with the boy she claims to be her twin that it is impossible to see where one ends and the other begins.
(Half-souls, twins, same-hearts.) (How do two children born to different parents have different parents?)
Peter looks at Susan, and Susan looks at Peter. They are silent, wondering what the words could mean, wondering what the lion means to imply. (Wondering if he knows what hurts he has brought up, what wounds he has reopened.) It is Lucy who answers him, in the end, brave little Lucy who steps forwards and raises her chin and speaks in a voice so clear even the creatures at the back of the throng can hear her proclamation.
"The White Witch has taken them," she states, and there is an edge to her words that all of the darker creatures recognize, the ones lingering at the edges of this gathering, the ones cast out but accepted, not welcomed but tolerated. They recognize the edge in little Lucy's voice, the growl hidden beneath the words, and their eyes gleam. (They know who their ruler is.) "The White Witch took my brother through an enchantment, and Cassiopeia chose not to abandon him."
(There is a flicker of understanding in the throng of Narnians, the beginnings of knowledge as to what the as-of-yet-unseen last two rulers are like. Loyalty is a trait much admired amongst the Narnians; Cassiopeia does not know it yet, but she has already begun to earn her subjects' respect.)
Lucius Malfoy sneers at the throng of creatures, and he sneers at the little girl the creatures have accepted as their ruler. He looks at the scene, and he sees a child playing at being a grown up, a throng of animals that know nothing about who should be a leader. (Sometimes the children are wiser than the adults, Lucius Malfoy. This is a truth all within Hogwarts should know.)
Lucy smiles when she sees this scene, teary as the smile is. This was the moment she met her subjects; this was the moment they knew her to be their ruler. This was the beginnings of her coming into her power. (And to this day, she mourns that Edmund and Cass were not there to see it.)
And then it is Peter who steps forwards, Peter with his tear-blurred vision and hands bloodied from the blood of his mother when a midwife could not make it to the house, and Susan is next to him with fingers that have never stopped remembering a face and the unspoken-ungiven name of a ghost on her lips. "Half-souls," Susan whispers, the words so quiet only Aslan can hear them. "You called them half-souls. But Edmund is the only half-soul I know; half-empty, half-haunted, half-ghost."
"His twin, my second sister, died moments after birth." Peter continues when Susan cannot, and Lucy frowns in confusion. (She has never heard of another sister before.) (She hears the word sister, and her mind goes first to Susan, but second to Cassiopeia.) "I held her as she died, I buried her nameless and breathless. So why do you say that there are two half-souls missing from our sides, when only one of them has ever known life?"
Aslan smiles then, and it is a terrible sight. And he pads close to the Pevensie siblings, so close that they can taste the divinity which drips from his every breath. "I name them two half-souls, for it was I who caught your sister's soul as it departed her body, I who carried it to another babe who did not make it long enough to open her eyes, I who gave your sister a second chance at life."
Remus Lupin blinks. He opens his mouth, pauses, closes it. He blinks again. In his mind, his wolf growls, confused and angry and troubled. He looks at the Pevensies, looks at his daughter. (Is she even his daughter? Did his daughter die before he ever knew her?) (Remus Lupin, why do you feel relieved at the thought that it may not be your daughter you have failed so abysmally?)
Luna looks at Cass, tilts her head to the side and squints, seeing the shadow of another life where she has never thought to look for it. (The shadow of the girl Cass was meant to be, the shadow of the girl Cass has taken the place of.) It is strange, to think that it is only due to this lion that Cass is here with them now. (Is this what he meant by calling her his "spirit-daughter"?)
Draco glances at his cousin, and there are tears in his eyes but a smile on his face. His mouth parts, and a peal of relieved laughter falls out. He feels his friends surround him, Neville placing a hand on his shoulder, but can do nothing but laugh and laugh and laugh. (Silently, he thanks every deity he knows that the lion saw fit to save Cass' soul. Whatever would he have done without her?) (He thinks of a world without his cousin, and his heart shatters.)
Peter sobs, and Susan crumples into herself. (They remember screaming for a midwife but no one arriving to help. They remember screams and curses and blood that they see on their hands to this day. They remember a boy shrieking for his sister; they remember a sister dying before she could see those who loved her more than life itself.) And again, it is Lucy who steps forwards, Lucy who looks Aslan in the eyes and demands the name of her second-born sister.
"Cassiopeia," Aslan murmurs. "Her name is Cassiopeia, and she has been with you since you entered Narnia."