Seventeen
Love run, love run. For all the things we wished we'd done. Run for all you know that's coming. Run to show that love's worth running to.
- Not yet/Love Run, The Amazing Devil
Hurt and grieve, but don't suffer alone. Engage with the pain as a motive. Today of all days, see how the most dangerous thing is to love. How you will heal and you'll rise above.
- Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths
By the time they manage to escape, the twins are bloodied and bruised and broken. There are cuts decorating their skin, and Edmund is bruised from where he has been hit by the Witch and her minion, and Cassiopeia's face is covered in blood where the stitches keeping her mouth closed pierced her skin. They are shivering as they stumble through the forest, Cassiopeia's magic cast over the both of them, hiding them from the Witch they are fleeing from. They are holding onto each other in order not to fall, and each step that they take is faltering, and every part of their bodies ache.
There are cheers upon seeing the twins escape. The Pevensies are weeping, as they have been too often in the last few things that they have seen, crying in pure relief that the abuse is over now. (The suffering has not ended, however.) Sirius Black is yelling encouragement to the children on the wall, as is Draco-Ginny-Amelia-Susan Bones. Luna is laughing happily upon seeing her sister-friend escape, and Neville is clinging to Cass as tightly as he dares. The twins themselves trade small-but-joyful smiles.
(This is when everything began to get better, slowly but surely.)
And they are smiling. Wide, jagged grins split their faces, pulling at Cassiopeia's barely-healed stitches, straining Edmund's bruised face. They are fleeing from their captor, they are wounded so badly they can barely stand, and yet they are smiling.
(If they have a choice between smiling and screaming, they will choose to smile every time.)
Those who have gone to school with Cassiopeia, those who follow her and those who don't, are intimately familiar with this sight.
They have seen this before, you see? They have seen her walking onto the grounds of Hogwarts, gore painting every inch of her skin and blood dripping from her fingertips even as a jagged grin cuts across her face. They have seen her in the blood of her enemies, the blood of herself. (The blood of her friends, on a few memorable occasions. And invariably, the blood of whoever dared to harm one of her people.)
They have seen her smile, choose to smile when the other option would be to scream.
And so they do not flinch as a select few in the hall do.
(Not many are fearful at the sight, though. They have been through war, are going through a war, do not forget this. They have seen pain and blood and suffering, have witnessed the madness and the grief and the fury that comes with bloodshed. Those who flinch upon seeing Edmund and Cassiopeia smiling despite being covered in blood are the ones who have never seen a battle, those who have not yet had their innocence stolen, those who have reason to fear the two not-children.)
"Cass, Cassie, wait, stop," Edmund whispers when he hears the sounds of their pursuer catching up, hysterical laughter threatening to spill from his lips. He is tired, and wounded, and scared. But Cassiopeia is with him, and they are no longer held captive by the White Witch, and that is enough to have him laughing. (If the laughter is a means to withhold the tears that wish to spill from his eyes, well, no one needs to know.) He ducks into a small cave under a tree, a hole formed by a combination of raised roots and a dip in the forest floor. (A hole that has never existed before, a hole that was not but became when a hiding place was needed.)Cassiopeia scrambles in after him and he helps her clamber into the hole, shifting so that he is in front of her, glaring at the opening of the cave (has it gotten smaller?) as they hear the sounds of the White Witch's sled rushing closer.
Cassiopeia tucks herself behind Edmund, clutching onto the back of his shirt with fingers that shake worse than they have since she was seven and scared and alone. (She hears the White Witch shouting, and the world around her begins to blur slightly. She tries not to remember the woman-who-called-herself-her-grandmother, the woman of dark curses and screaming and cruelty.) (She fails.) Edmund feels her shaking, and he wishes he could embrace her, but the hole is too small for him to turn around and he needs to be able to see if the White Witch is coming towards them.
There is something fundamentally wrong with this sight of fear-pain-memory, this sight which is seeing young-Cass curl into herself as though trying to hide in her own shadow. There is something wrong with the shaking of her hands, the shuttered-window-blankness of her eyes, the memory-stained darkness lingering around her.
Young-Cass is terrified and memory-muddled, and the students of Hogwarts have never seen anything quite so terrifying. (This is their leader, their general, their god.) (Is there anything so terrifying as seeing a god crumble beneath the weight of their own trauma?)
But whilst the Hogwarts students shudder at this world-ending scene, Draco Malfoy leans against Luna and sighs, a sound of exhaustion and resignation and remembered grief. He has seen this more times than he cares to admit; all of those in Cass' inner circle have. They see this at the first snowfall of every winter. They see this every time she must go somewhere they cannot follow. They see this every time someone screams just a little too loud, just a little too close.
They have seen this often, this memory-muddled trauma-riddled form of their closest friend. (It is only now that they begin to truly understand why these things affect her, have affected her, as they do.)
The sound of sleigh bells gets louder, and Cassiopeia cannot quite contain the quiet whimper that escapes from her mouth. She curls into Edmund, hand over her ears as she hears woman-shouting and insults-screamed and she feels the stiches keeping her mouth closed tug at her skin and the taste of copper and misery coats her tongue and for a moment she is back, in the house-that-was-never-a-home, and she begins to panic because she can't go back, won't go back, can't return to that life and that pain and that loneliness-
"She's gone," someone breathes, and Cassiopeia blinks. That's right. She's with Edmund, and they're away from the White Witch. They're safe, as safe as they can be in this strange country which is ruled by a sorceress who blackened her own heart.
She's with Edmund. They're safe.
Sirius watches this scene with a shattered heart and a broken mind. (A heart he broke and a mind he did his best to heal.) He watches the younger form of his daughter seek comfort from a boy she claims to be her twin. He sees the grief in her eyes, the terror in her hands, the disbelief in anything even resembling safety.
(He sees himself, as he once was, scared and shaking and lonely.) (He sees his brother, grief-filled and pained in a way he never got to heal from, and that memory aches for another reason entirely.)
Her fingers uncurl slightly, and it is only then that she realizes just how tightly she has been gripping the back of Edmund's shirt. There are holes in it where her nails tore through. Her hands are shaking, but almost as soon as she notices Edmund is twisting around (the cave expands a little, growing bigger so that he may turn to the other girl, although neither of them notice this) and he wraps his arms around her, holding her as tightly as her hands held onto him. She clings back just as tightly, swallowing the sobs that try to escape, tears burning her eyes as she tries to remember that they are safe, as she tries to forget the pain and the anguish and the hatred-
Edmund's hands are shaking, too.
Edmund's hands aren't shaking now. He has gone through too much for this to affect him anyway other than mentally. (He has seen and spilled blood, has killed and been killed. There is little in the world that can have his hands shaking anymore; little, that is, aside from memories and the absence of his siblings.)
Edmund runs a hand through Cass' hair, feeling the tingle of a glamour against his fingertips, a feeling akin to mirages on a hot day and the fog that rolls off the ocean. She shifts from where she still has her face buried in his shoulder, a quiet noise of contentment escaping from her mouth, her form relaxing slightly at the feeling of fingers gently detangling her curls. (Relaxing because it is over, the memories of the pain-sorrow-terror.)
Edmund's hands aren't shaking now, as he holds his twin and remembers when they escaped the tyrant who tortured them.
"We're going to be okay," he whispers, and the bruise on his face throbs. He sobs, just the once, as everything that has happened in the last few (hours? days? weeks?) sinks in. The enchantment, the betrayal (that was a betrayal, no matter how unwilling it was), the girl who refused to leave him even as he walked into the enemy's castle, the enslavement, the torture. (For what else can he call their wounds?) (Torture is such an ugly word, but it fits everything that has happened, and this realization almost makes him sob once more.) He swallows, takes a breath. (This is not the time to break.) "We're going to be okay," he says once more, and he almost believes the words.
Almost believes the words, because there is a pain in his ribs and skin scraped from his wrists and abrasions decorating his skin. Almost believes the words, because Cassiopeia's mouth has been sewn shut and her wrists are bleeding and she cannot speak. (Except for the one moment she did, the one moment she needed to, the one moment she spoke to him without opening her mouth to tell him of what and who she is.)
Shamefully, Minerva hadn't fully understood what Cass had done. Or perhaps she had, but had simply been too shellshocked for the non-verbal speech to fully register with her. But she understands now, and the realization of this show of power at such a young age leaves her speechless. She leans against Severus, who is also gaping slightly at Cass. (The youngest anyone managed to perform legilimency is thought to be fifteen years old.) (Are you only just realizing how powerful this girl is, professors of Hogwarts? Are you only now seeing her for what she is, rather than for who you thought her to be?)
Filius is not as shocked as his peers. He smiles at Cass when she happens to glance his way, and she returns the smile, the expression brightening when he does not flinch despite the jaggedness of her smile. (The jaggedness that is always there, even when she is trying to be soft.) (How can you be soft when you were never shown it is possible?) Filius bows his head slightly, and next to him Pomona does the same, and Cass returns the action. (An understanding, a peace treaty.)
(There are a few in the school who have learned from their mistakes. Filius and Pomona are among that number.) (There is a reason they are included amongst those Cass cares for.)
Almost believes the words, but doesn't, because they are children-who-are-no-longer-children, survivors and victims that have gone through something they never should have had to. (Cassiopeia does not quite believe the words either; she does not think she will ever be okay.)
Edmund sighs and rests his head on Cassiopeia's shoulder, and Cassiopeia twists her fingers into his shirt, and for a long moment the two children simply sit in silence.
No screaming.
No Witch.
Just Edmund and Cassiopeia, and that is enough.
Harry remembers when it was just him and Cassiopeia. He remembers when he'd fooled himself into thinking that it was enough, that it was good. (When he tried to pretend he didn't need more than she could ever have offered him.)
He remembers when she would point out all of the plants that could poison someone. He remembers when she would laugh after leaving Dudley or another child bleeding. He remembers the smirk on her face as she fed his family mushrooms that left them in hospital for two days. He remembers when she was evil, and he was not, but he tried to pretend he could not see her darkness.
(Ah, but do you not remember how she took the time to teach you the edible plants in order to ensure that you will be able to survive, even if you should have to live in a forest? How she only ever injured another child when they dared to injure you first? How she fed your aunt and uncle and cousin hallucinogenic mushrooms to ensure you would be safe for a few weeks?) (Cass was never evil, Harry Potter. Your anger has clouded your memories.)
"Are you ever planning to come out? I assure you, she's gone. She won't find you now." The voice is one neither of them have heard before, and both of them startle, Edmund twisting to place himself in front of Cassiopeia even as the girl's magic crackles around them both, no longer a force hiding them but rather a weapon being raised. They pause, stare at the entrance to the hole they crawled into to escape their pursuer. (Edmund is certain the entrance to the hole was smaller.)
A woman (a being who has taken a woman's form) looks back at them; Edmund calls her a woman, but she is less a body and more an impression of a person, frost-covered bark and leaves long dead and labyrinths of roots twisting together to form the approximate form of a person.(The body is a little too big and too sharp to be human, but that doesn't matter to the children.) (Neither of them have ever been very fond of humans, so why should this almost-but-not-quite-human bother them?)
A few in the hall squint at this not-woman, this being who has taken a human's shape but is not a human. Lucius Malfoy sneers, an expression mirrored more subtly on Albus Dumbledore's face. (They sneer at her, this woman-not-woman, this being that cannot even pass as a human.) (As if being human is something everyone should aspire to.) Amelia Bones tilts her head as she stares at this more-than-human being, this being made of bark and leaves and roots. (She looks like Susan's mother had, once, before she chose to walk among the mortals.) (She looks like what Susan Bones could be.)
For the first time since the hall was shown what the twins went through at the hands of the White Witch, Edmund and Cass uncurl from each other slightly. They turn to the wall, smiling at the being they once knew, the woman-not-woman who saved them when they needed a place to hide, the dryad who became one of their closest companion's. (They treasure the memory of her, as she once was, as she never will be again.)
She is smiling at them, and although she kneels at the entrance she is not blocking it entirely, has not trapped them in a hole. It is these two things that prompt Edmund to uncurl himself slightly and edge forward, looking her in the eyes as he demands to know whether she has any intentions of harming him or Cassiopeia.
And the dryad laughs lightly as she helps them out of the hole (the hole which she formed, when she saw two children fleeing from a tyrant and shifted her tree to give them half a chance of escaping) and she presses a kiss to each of their cheeks (the stitches fade from Cassiopeia's lips as if they never were as the dryad's magic caresses the child, leaving behind naught but silvery scars, unable to be seen by anyone who does not already know they are there) and as they stand there in the snow she bows to them and swears her allegiance to two of the true rulers of Narnia.
(More specifically, she swears her allegiance to Edmund and Cassiopeia, the two children with sharp teeth and sharper smiles, the only beings she has ever known to be captured by the White Witch and walk out alive. She swears her allegiance to the ones who survived the Witch, the survivors who made the Witch bleed, the beings that are everything Narnia is and everything Narnia could become.) (She swears allegiance not to the throne, but to these children who she has hidden and helped and seen.)
This is a surprise to a few of those in the hall, those who know the structure of Courts and Houses and Kingdoms, those who have grown up in the Pureblood world or dabbled in the politics of the Fae Courts or studied the hierarchies of the Mortal Kingdoms.
These people (Sirius-Draco-Ginny-Luna-Hermione-Harry) whisper to each other, confusion clear in their murmurs. For as far as they know, it is only possible to pledge allegiance to the highest ruler, not to two rulers who are not at the top of the social hierarchy. This is not how it is done in the Pureblood world, the Fae Courts, the Mortal Kingdoms.
But this is not a surprise to the Pevensies. (Of course it is not; this is a life they have lived. This is their past, their history.) They laugh at the shock colouring the hall, because how else would their people pledge allegiance? (They rule different parts of Narnia, and this is what many do not understand. The wild cannot follow Peter or Susan, for they are the leaders of the less terrifying aspects of Narnia.) (Of course their people pledge allegiance to them individually; there is no other option in Narnia.)
Standing hand in hand in a world that they do not know but which knows them, they accept her allegiance. (There was never any other option, not when they look at her and look at the tree beneath which they sheltered and see how similar she and the tree are in appearance, not when they realize how she helped them and hid them and saved them.)
Freckles bloom on their cheeks where the dryad's lips pressed, small marks that are nearly invisible unless someone is looking for them. (The first sign of kindness in this foreign world, a mark of the being who saved them when they were sure that they would be captured.)
The sun creeps above the horizon, and across Narnia, the snow begins to melt.
Susan sighs a little at the sight, a sigh filled with wonder-awe-happiness. This is the beginning of the end, you see? This is the beginning of them stepping into their power. This is where their reign begins. (This is where the legends will begin.) Peter mimics her expression of joy-relief-satisfaction, because this is when his siblings are all together again, this is the end of the White Witch's torment of the twins.
Lucy does not remember the snow of Narnia melting (she was so young when it happened, and there are so many better things to spend her time remembering) but the sight leaves her silent and awestruck anyway. (This is Narnia, as it once was, as it always should have been.) (This is the beginning of Narnia and all that it will become under their rule.)
When Edmund and Cassiopeia stumble into the fields of Cair Paravel (although they do not know this is the space's name at the time), it is a few hours past sunrise and already the snow has melted enough that the field is nothing but shades of green, no white to be seen anywhere on the ground.
They stumble into the camp hand in hand (they have not let go of each other since their escape), so tired they would not be able to stand were they not supporting each other and wounded so badly they are half delirious with pain. The dryad (Aeliv, she tells them to call her, without telling them what it means in her language) remains just a few steps behind them, supporting them with what little magic she has but not daring to touch them. (She touched Edmund once on the way to Cair Paravel, when he tripped, grabbed his arm to stop him from falling. He flinched, cried out, and Cassiopeia nearly burned Aeliv to ashes.) (She swears to herself that she will never again do anything that would cause either of them to flinch away from her.)
"Aeliv?" It is Draco who looks to Cass for clarification as to what that means (although Neville-Ginny-Luna follow the gaze, their own curiousity running wild) because there is no other person who would think to ask for the meaning of a word in the midst of the tragedy this showing has become. (Draco who stays awake 'til the Witching Hour poring over ancient manuscripts in forgotten languages, Draco who reads dictionaries for fun, Draco who studies the complexities of languages in whatever free time he has.)
"There is no real translation." It is Edmund who replies, twisting to look at Draco, smiling at the boy who has taken care of Edmund's twin in the times when the Pevensies could not look after her themselves. (The smile is too-wide too-sharp, but Draco does not even flinch.) (Draco has grown up with Cass, why would he be startled by a smile that looks just like hers?) "The closest thing you have would be...Guardian, I suppose. Protector."
The one who will lay down their life before allowing harm to befall the one they have pledged allegiance to would be a better translation. But Edmund does not say this, and none of his siblings correct him, because the hall will come to learn of this meaning and none of the siblings enjoy the idea of revealing too much of their home. (Not in this hall, with these people, with these soldiers.)
Heads turn to look at them as they stagger onto the field. Eyes widen and mouths begin to murmur, an awed whispering filling the air. (How did they break the enchantment the White Witch was said to have cast over Edmund?) (How did they escape the White Witch when no one else ever has?)
Cassiopeia and Edmund notice the gazes fixed upon them, as much as they can notice anything whilst they are in pain and tired beyond the point of exhaustion. They stumble into the camp, searching for the other Pevensies, desperate to know that they are safe, that all five of them are safe and alive and together once again. They barely make it three steps before Cassiopeia collapses, unconscious before she hits the ground, Edmund going down with her, tumbling to the ground at the side of the-girl-he-does-not-yet-know-is-his-twin. He does not lose consciousness as quickly as she does, not quite as exhausted (he has no magic to exhaust him, not yet). He remains conscious long enough to hear the shouts of alarm, to see the blurry figure of Aeliv leaning over the both of them. He remains conscious long enough to curl his fingers around Cassiopeia's own, ensuring that they will not be separated even after the world fades for him as it already has for Cassiopeia.
And then, on the greens of Cair Paravel, on the outskirts of a Narnia camp and next to the girl he does not yet know is his other half, Edmund Pevensie closes his eyes and sinks into darkness.
The last thing he hears is his siblings screaming.
His siblings are not screaming now, and it is this that Edmund focuses on. He takes a breath, runs his fingers through Cass' hair, concentrates on listening to the sound of the students around him. (He isn't there he isn't there HE ISN'T THERE-)
Cass drapes herself across Edmund's lap, and buries her face in his shoulder, and wonders if they will ever hear their siblings screaming and not think back to the day they escaped from the White Witch. (Even now, so many years later, she hears Lucy-Peter-Susan scream and her first thought is to look for whitewhitewhite.)
Sirius hears the screams of children (even though they aren't children, haven't been children for years) and his hands fly to cover his ears as his eyes squeeze closed. He leans down until his head is resting on his knees. Remus touches his shoulder, and the dog animagus shies away from the touch. (He screamed like that, once. Regulus screamed like that.) (Someone else screamed like that, once, twice. He doesn't remember who, but the memory is enough to leave him shaking.)
Peter Pevensie sits on the ground next to the pile of blankets that passes as a bed, one hand on his little brother's shoulder (a reminder, an assurance that Edmund is there, that this is real, that their brother is alive and safe) and sky-blue eyes fixed upon the girl who refused to separate from Edmund's side, even in the depths of unconsciousness, her magic sparking and lashing and raging at anyone who dared to try and move her from the other. Lucy lies next to Cassiopeia, arms wrapped around the older girl's middle and face buried in her stomach, and Susan kneels beside Peter, one hand holding Edmund's and the other resting upon Cassiopeia's shoulder.
Every now and then, a tear drips down Susan's cheek as she traces the silvery lines on Cassiopeia and Edmund's bodies, the wounds healed by Lucy's cordial but the scars remaining as a testament of what Peter has failed to protect the twins from. Every time, Peter leans over to wipe the tear from her skin, and she smiles at him tremulously, seeing the unshed tears that cloud his vision every time he looks at the siblings he has failed so badly.
Those who forgot about the gift Father Christmas (one of the many titles gifted to the man in the red coat) gave to Lucy cannot help but startle at the reminder of the potion that was passed to the then-child. The potion that can heal any sickness, the potion that can staunch any wound. (Eyes gleam with curiousity-greed-envy.) (Lucy sees the way everyone eyes her potion, and she bares her teeth in a smile, a challenge.)
Amelia does not look at the potion with greed, but there is grief in her eyes as she stares at the wounds healed by just a few drops of liquid. She glances away, and Narcissa holds her hand tightly, and her daughter-niece offers Amelia a sad smile, both of them guessing what the woman is thinking of. (How many people could they have saved if they'd had that potion?) (How many lives could have been improved with a potion that could heal in an instant?)
Neville looks at the then-Cass sleeping next to the person he now knows to be her twin, and he looks at the now-Cass lying on the lap of the other half of her soul, and he wonders where her scars have gone. (Why has he never seen them?) (Why did Cass never tell them?) He eyes Cass' arms, free of scars as they are, and wonders how much she is hiding from them, how much she has always hidden from them. (She says she trusts him, but how does he know this is not a lie?)
They have been sitting there for hours. (Hours that felt like days-weeks-years.)
They have been sitting there for hours by the time one of the twins stirs.
It is Edmund who wakes first, which Peter cannot help but laugh at; of course it is Edmund who wakes first, the first-born twin always the first to open his eyes. Edmund's eyes drift open, a dream-like look drifting across his face, and then he gasps and shoots upright, head snapping around to stare at Peter. This sudden movement startles Cassiopeia, too, the girl sitting up just a shadow of a moment after Edmund, shoving him behind her before she has even fully woken.
It breaks Luna's heart to see her sister-friend so terrified, so hurt. It breaks her heart to see the fear on the face of a girl they have all come to regard as fearless. It breaks her heart to see the desperation in young-Cass' eyes, and she has to look away before she bursts into tears at the sight. (This is what it looks like when someone breaks.) (Luna had once thought she'd seen Cass at her worst. But now she knows that she never even knew what Cass went through, and whatever she saw is nothing when compared to how Cass broke in Narnia.)
Albus looks at the scene (at the not-children cowering away from the other not-children, at the survivors looking at their siblings without recognition) and a thoughtful look plasters itself onto his face. He looks at Cass now, sees her sitting by her twin (intertwined bodies looking like a singular creature) and slowly, Albus Dumbledore begins to smile. He looks at the siblings (whose only weakness is each other) and begins to plot.
Augusta Longbottom sees how young-Cass protects her twin before she protects herself, and something in her heart breaks. She knows Cass, you see, knows Cass as well as anyone can know a stranger. (Recognizes Cass more than she is willing to admit, recognizes the fury and the fire. Her daughter-in-law was like that, you see?) She has seen Cass' fury, has seen Cass' fire, even if only from a distance. And it breaks her heart a little, to see the girl so terrified, to see the girl so scared. (No child should ever have to fear for their safety.)
And Peter's heart has been broken since they first stumbled into the camp, bloodied and bruised and beaten. His heart has been broken since he saw the blood on Cassiopeia's face, the bruise on Edmund's cheek. His heart has been broken since he lost them to the enchantment of the White Witch.
Peter's heart has been broken since his siblings first returned to him. But now, seeing how Cassiopeia moves to protect Edmund before she has fully woken up, seeing the terror scrawled across Edmund's face for the brief moment before he sees Peter, the eldest Pevensie's heart shatters.
"Peter?" Edmund's voice is quiet, tremulous, a shadow of a thing filled with fear and hope and grief and joy. (The hope is fragile, the joy is tentative. This is a child who has known more pain than happiness. This is a boy who has learned that he cannot trust the world when it seems that things are going well for him.) Edmund reaches out, hand shaking, and when Peter grabs his little brother's hand the younger boy's eyes fill with tears and he throws himself into his older brother's arms.
Peter wraps his arms around his little brother, and he begins to sob.
There are those in the hall who are of the opinion that boys should not cry. (Lucius-Albus-Harry-Augusta.) Boys should not cry, because it is weak and they are meant to be strong. (And yet girls are encouraged to cry.) (There are those in the hall who believe boys should not cry, and these people are wrong.)
Peter believed that, once upon a time. (When they were in a war and he was working late into the evenings to keep his siblings clothed and he couldn't cry (no matter how much he wanted to) because crying was weak and he needed to be strongstrongSTRONG for Lucy-Edmund-Susan.)
Peter doesn't believe that lie, anymore. He has seen too much, gone through too much, done too much. He knows weakness intimately, and has learned that crying cannot possibly be weak. (If anything, it is strength. Sometimes facing your emotions is the most difficult thing of all.)
Peter doesn't believe that crying is weakness. Not anymore. And so he does not hesitate in breaking down into sobs, when his baby brother untangles himself from Cass and throws himself into Peter's arms, a mirror of the scene playing out of the wall. Peter hugs Edmund as tightly as he can and sobs (for all that he did and did not do, for all that he knew and never was told) because crying is not and has never been a weakness.
(Their siblings watch joyfully, Lucy and Susan clinging to each other tightly as they beam at their brothers, overjoyed at this unsaid forgiveness for the twins' secret-keeping.) (Cass smiles too, but does not approach her siblings, not yet. They do not mind; as comfortable as she is with them, there are still times she does not wish to be touched by anyone other than her twin. It is enough to see that she is smiling.)
Edmun would have cried with his older brother, just a few days before. But he has been through too much now to shed his tears so easily. (This is what happens when a young one is left at the mercy of a tyrant.) (They say that innocence is the first thing to die in a war; they are right.) And so Edmund simply wraps his arms around his older brother and buries his face in Peter's shoulder, breathing in the smell of his older sibling, reminding himself that he is there he is safe they are both safe-
Susan joins the embrace barely a moment later, silent tears falling from her eyes as she wraps her arms around the brothers she feared would be estranged from each other forever. (Edmund has always felt like the shadow to Peter's light, no matter how she tried to tell him how special he was.) (He still feels like the shadow, Susan Pevensie. He just found a light he doesn't mind being the darkness to.) Lucy is but a breath behind her oldest sister, burrowing into the embrace, clutching onto Edmund so tightly his shirt tears beneath her fingers-nails-claws. (She is not crying. She is barely keeping herself from screaming.) (Little Lucy, Angry Lucy, Lucy who has grown up in a war. Lucy who sees the scars on Edmund and Cassiopeia's skin and vows to make the Witch burn.)
Ginny looks at Lucy consideringly, and the girl-queen-goddess looks back.
It is strange, for those observing, to see the two girls looking at each other as they are. It is strange, because of the similarities no one noticed until then. The flame-coloured hair, Lucy's a shade darker but no less fiery. The shade-of-brown eyes, Ginny's deeper colour resembling the coal left behind after the flames have burnt everything else, Lucy's dappled-forest-floor eyes shimmering with secrets and laughter and life. The curl to each of their lips, a shared love for laughing and taunting and yelling, a shared refusal to bow to anyone who considers them lesser than.
Lucy looks at Ginny. Ginny stares at Lucy.
(It is like looking in a mirror image.) (Lucy is everything Ginny could have become, had she discovered a land without constraints, had she discovered how to be wild when she was a child.) (Ginny is everything Lucy never was, hurt and broken and bloodied in ways the laughing queen of the wilds cannot be.)
Two girls stare at each other, and it is like looking at a reflection.
It is Susan who realizes that there is a person missing from this tangle of limbs and tears and hearts, Susan who reaches out to pull Cassiopeia into the embrace, Susan who is determined to help Cassiopeia see that this is where she should be.
Her hand meets empty air.
Draco looks at Cass, and his cousin looks back at him. Her lips pull up in a genuine-but-not-overly-enthusiastic smile, the smile that she only ever shows the world when she has done something she knows will vex him. (Not Neville, not Luna, not Ginny. No, this smile is for when she has done something she knows will vex him in particular.)
(He has learned to read all of her smiles, has taught himself to see the slightest shift in her lips, has studied the meanings of his cousin's smiles as if they are his god and he is their priest.) (Her smiles are not his god, she is. But it is a close enough comparison.)
Draco looks at his cousin, and she smiles at him, and he closes his eyes with a tired sigh.
(He knows her, you see? Knows her as much as she has let him. He knows that she loves-hates winter, he knows that she loves to dance even though it sometimes makes her sad, he knows that she has a preference for anything cinnamon flavoured. And he knows that when she gets scared, when she convinces herself she does not belong somewhere, she runs.) (It has been a point of contention between them. He wants her to talk to them instead of leaving; she cannot help but give into the itch in her feet as she flees. And so he sighs when he sees this scene, because of course she would run. Did he ever expect anything else?)
Just outside the camp where the Narnian army gathers in preparation to fight the tyranny of the White Witch, there is a tree. There is nothing particularly special about this tree - it is no taller than any other tree in the forest, nor is it an unusual colour not often seen in Narnia, nor does it grow fruit the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else.
No, the tree itself is not special.
It is the young girl perched upon the topmost branches of the tree who is important. The girl with hair darker than the night and eyes that shine as the brightest star does and magic the likes of which has never been seen in Narnia thrumming in her veins.
There is a moment when Sirius looks at this girl-being, this honey-skinned dark-haired waif of a mortal, this child-not-child, and he does not recognize her as his daughter. (He sees her, and he thinks creature. He thinks fae, god, inhuman.) (It takes him half a minute to realize that this is his daughter, and he immediately feels a sort of loss. What kind of parent does not recognize their own child?)
She is Changing, you see, has Changed in ways no Hogwarts student has had the chance to see. There is a set to her shoulders which speaks of a willingness to shoulder the burdens of others so that they can live freely. There is an unsteadiness to her hands, a constant curl-uncurl which speaks of a readiness (an eagerness) to spill blood. There is a depth to silver-starlight eyes, a depth that is past and future and present all at the same time, a depth that shows what was and what is and what will be.
She is Changing, in ways they have never seen before. (She looks like a queen, many people in the hall find themselves thinking.)
(This is the end of Cassiopeia Adhara. This is the beginning of Cassiopeia Adhara Pevensie.)
She has been up there since a little after noon, when she stumbled out of a tent in the middle of the camp (when she fled from an embrace she believed she had no place in) (when she fled from the people she does not know to be her siblings). The kinder, more humane Narnians (the fauns, the centaurs, the ones who will one day be ruled by Peter and Susan) bowed to her as she passed, but did not dare to follow, did not dare to meet her eyes as she fled. (Every Narnian knows that a cornered animal is a dangerous animal, no matter how tame the animal may have once been. And this star-girl-queen has never been anything but wild.)
The crueler Narnians (the ones that lurk in shadows and bathe in blinding light, the wild ones, the beings that no one dares to look in the eyes) are the ones that slink after the girl as she disappears from the camp. It is they who stare at her as she passes, smirk when she meets their gaze fearlessly, surround the tree upon which she finds herself in order to ensure that she remains safe. (Not that she cannot take care of herself. She is like them, a wild thing barely contained within the shell of a body. But she is to be their queen, and they are to be her subjects, and so they will protect her. Not because they have to, but because they want to.)
The kinder Narnians avoid her. The crueler Narnians accept her.
The to-be-rulers find her.
Luna lets out a noise of relief when she sees four-of-five Pevensies walking towards their missing member, sinking into her girlfriend's side as her worry fades away. She knows Cass, knows her better than most can claim to, knows that it is not good for her to be left alone when she is hurting and scared and not-safe-not-safe-not-safe. (Cass has a habit of running when she is in pain, and Luna wishes she wouldn't. It breaks the fae-girl's heart every time her sister-friend flees the emotions she cannot handle.)
Luna doesn't know the Pevensies, not like she knows Cass, but she still sighs in relief. Because she has been watching these kings-queens-rulers, has been examining them from the moment they entered the hall and swept Luna's friend-leader-god into an embrace. She does not know them, not as well as she wants to, but she knows that they love Cass, that they have loved Cass from the moment they met her. (And that is enough.)
(Her worry doesn't disappear, not completely. It never does. Because Cass always runs (emotionally or physically) and they always follow. They always pick up her broken pieces as best they can, as much as she will allow them to. But Luna still fears the day that they can't. The day that Cass runs, and they can't follow.)
It is Edmund who finds her first. (It will always be Edmund who finds her first, in every story, in every lifetime.) He finds her hours after she disappears, hoists himself into the tree and clambers up until he is sitting on the same branch she is. He does not say anything, not at first. He just sits there, silent but present, and at some point she sighs and leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"The White Witch was here," he whispers to her when she does not say anything, not daring to look at her as she flinches away slightly. He understands how she feels; he'd hated seeing the woman (the monster), even with his siblings at his side. Even speaking her title seems to cast a shadow of horror over the surroundings, a feeling of doom that has him shuddering. He doesn't want to talk about this, but Cassiopeia isn't speaking, and some part of him needs to hear the words be said. "She was looking for me. She wanted to kill me. Aslan did something - I think he's going to sacrifice himself for me."
There are mixed reactions at Edmund's statement.
The Pevensies snarl their fury at the reminder of the Witch who almost took their siblings from them, the tyrant who ruled their country in fear and pain and fury. They snarl and snap their teeth, more animal than human, more god than mortal. (They are no longer human, and their glamours are no longer concealing their true nature.)
Peter grips the handle of his sword, his hands curling in a way that they should not, his eyes filled with thunder and lightning and all the fury of the skies. (The stars disappear on the ceiling of the Great Hall, clouds of steel spilling over the heavens, looming threateningly overhead. His skin crackles with electricity.) Susan brushes a finger over poison-painted lips, strands of golden flame twisting through the hair cascading down her back. (The torches on the walls flicker, the flames leaning towards the one they call Queen. There is fire in her veins, and the smell of smoke on her breath.) Edmund goes quiet, too quiet, the air around him thick with the silence of a creature stalking its prey. (Thorns crack through the stone floor and the shadows grow darker, whispering things only the twins can hear. For a moment, when people look at him, they see not a young man, but a creature made of thorns and darkness and ice.) Cassiopeia bears her teeth in a facsimile of a smile, a rictus made of pain and grief and angerangerANGER- (Her eyes bleed light, and the freckled constellations on her skin pulse with all the fury of a star going supernova. This is what is looks like when a star explodes.) Lucy toys with the handle of her knife, nails too-sharp too-long and teeth glinting in the dimly lit hall. (In her eyes, tempests rage and oceans roar. The smell of salt fills the hall, and no one can pinpoint where it comes from.)
Ginny snarls too, flames wreathing her, crowning her an avenging demon. Luna merely smiles, knowing what is to come, knowing how this will end, but next to her Neville fumes, plants bubbling beneath his skin, aching to be let out of the confines of his mortal body. Draco closes his eyes, and breaths in, and breaths out; ice cracks up his arms, spreads over the place where he sits, and when he opens his eyes again there is a blizzard raging behind blue eyes.
Albus Dumbledore would laugh, if his voice were not stolen. (This is what they deserve, these twins, these monsters.) Lucius Malfoy does laugh, quietly-but-not-quietly-enough, and several heads turn to him, marking him for pain. (How dare he laugh at the pain of a child-general-god?) Harry Potter has no reaction, but Hermione gasps, tears filling her eyes at the thought of being eleven and knowing someone is going to sacrifice themselves for you.
There are many reactions at this knowledge of what the White Witch wants, of the White Witch's return. (And it is this moment that shows the beginning of the failing of the Pevensies glamours.) (Soon everyone shall see them as they truly are.)
Silence. Cassiopeia's grip on his hand tightens a little (an unspoken apology for not being there) and that is the only sign he has that she is hearing his words, that she is present in the moment at all. He keeps talking, the words spilling from his lips, finding himself unable to stop. (Unwanting to stop; it has been so long since he has spoken and felt like he is being understood.)
"Peter says we're twins," he breathes, and that gets a reaction from Cassiopeia, a confused noise and a slight distance, an action of pulling away and curling into herself. Edmund can't stand the distance, cannot stand the turmoil he sees when he glances at her eyes, and so shifts closer, grabbing her hand again and refusing to let go. "I had a twin sister, when I was born. She died before I got to meet her. Apparently Aslan caught her soul, and sent it to another baby that had died before birth. He says you carry the soul of my sister. I don't know if that's true, but I think I'd like it to be - I mean, I'd love to be your twin, if you'd let me."
There was a time, in his childhood, when Sirius had pretended that he'd been adopted into the Black family. He pretended this because it was easier; it was a reason his mother could hate him whilst she adored Regulus. (Or at least, adored him as much as she could, which wasn't much but was more than Sirius ever got.)
He pretended he'd been adopted for about two months, right up until his little brother had crawled into his bed one night and looked at him with the most serious face a five-year-old could wear and told him that "I would always choose you to be my brother, even if you're adopted. Even if you are actually a worm pretending to be a human."
That was the last time Sirius pretended he was not related to Regulus. (Until he went to Hogwarts.)
And so Sirius knows how tempting it is, to pretend. To pretend not to have a family (as he tried to do, as he tried to believe). To pretend that you have a family, despite everything (as his daughter tried to do). Except, did she ever have to pretend? He doesn't know what true and what's not; is Edmund her twin? Is she truly the soul of another girl in the body of a different child? Is she a queen, a god, a general?
There is only one thing Sirius knows for certain, and it is this: no matter how she pushes him away, no matter how he fucked up, no matter how much she hates him, Cass is still and will always be his family.
That's a promise. (Elsewhere in the hall, Luna feels the power of a vow being made, and she smiles with all her teeth.)
Silence, but a slightly less frigid one this time. Cassiopeia squeezes his hand, smiles when he looks at her cautiously, dips her head in acceptance. She'd never had a family before Hogwarts. (Except for Harry.) (Don't think about Harry.) She is leery of the idea that her soul belonged to another body, but she likes the thought that she might be Edmund's family. He and his siblings already feel like family to her, and isn't that the only thing that matters?
It hurts Remus, to hear his daughter except she isn't his daughter claim to never have had a family. (Before Hogwarts, Remus Lupin. She has a family, has had a family ever since she met Neville in the winter cold; you simply are not part of it.) It hurts him, because of course she has a family! She's always had him (except she didn't). (It hurts him, because he knows she is right.)
Draco looks at his cousin, sitting as she is in between her friends and her siblings, arms wrapped around herself and a small smile on her face, and he cannot help but laugh. He laughs, because of course Cass barely blinks before accepting these wild-children as her family. (He laughs, because it took him years to truly believe she saw him as her family, and now he has just been shown that she accepted him as her cousin almost as soon as she met him.)
"Why did you leave? After we woke up, I mean." The words spill out a few moments after Cassiopeia leans into Edmund's side, her head on his shoulder and their hands intertwined in their laps. The star-girl-queen sighs, and for the longest time Edmund doesn't think she is going to answer his question.
Cassiopeia chooses to surprise him, as she always does.
"It's just...a lot has happened. I guess I'm just processing." She grips his hand tightly, seeking the comfort of another human being. (Seeking the comfort of her twin.) He doesn't say a words, waiting for her to verbalize her thoughts, and after a few seconds of silence she does, the words spilling out of her before she can think about what she is going to say. "I was in a fight, before I came here. My friend...I thought he was my friend. I don't think he is my friend anymore. And I was sad, but now...does it all just feel like a dream to you? The other world."
"Yeah. It seems like a nightmare."
It does seem like a nightmare, sometimes. There are many things the students of Hogwarts thinks of the world they are in; the term 'living nightmare' is heard in the corridors more often than not.
It is a nightmare when Luna sees flames and is screaming her mother's name before understanding what she is seeing. When Neville shies away from their embraces, not because he is scared of them but because he never learned how to accept affection when he was a child. When Ginny has a panic attack after writing on a blank piece of parchment. When Draco is found sobbing as he dyes his hair, because he can't stand looking like his father anymore. When Cass has a panic attack after seeing the Hogwarts grounds covered in snow.
It is a nightmare when someone spills red paint in the corridor and Susan Bones screams because she thought someone else died. When Cho stumbles upon Cedric sleeping and thinks he's dead. When Fred and George Weasley hear someone yelling after them and their first instinct is not to run, but to fight. When Harry sees a flash of green out of the corner of his eyes and throws himself to the ground to avoid a killing curse that isn't there.
It is a nightmare when Sirius wakes up in the middle of the night screaming the name of the daughter-brother-friend he failed to save. When Amelia looks down at her hands and sees them dripping with blood that has long since disappeared. When someone screams just so and Narcissa panics because that is her son where is her son why isn't Draco safe-
The world is a nightmare to those who have survived a war.
Edmund wraps an arm around Cassiopeia, the movement slow so that she can pull away if she wants to, but the girl leans into him instead. A tear drips down her face as she whispers the truth that has been plaguing her since her arrival in Narnia, the truth that has haunted her every footstep in this strange land. "I don't want to forget my friends."
"You won't." The quiet voice prompts both Cassiopeia and Edmund to startle, the two of them holding onto each other for balance as they look down at where Susan stands at the base of three, Lucy at her side. The second eldest Pevensie smiles at the sight of the twins, lifting Lucy into the tree before climbing up herself; Susan leans against the tree on a branch just below the twins, whilst Lucy scrambles into Susan's neck, snuggling into her older sister's embrace even as she looks up at her other siblings.
(There is wonder in her eyes as she looks at Cassiopeia, the sister she never knew about, the sister she never knew she was missing. How could she have lived without her second older sister?)
"You won't forget them," Susan says, and Cassiopeia has learned better than to trust pretty words but there is something in the set of Susan's mouth and the slant to the shoulder that has the younger girl believing the elder Pevensie's words. "It's because you don't want to forget that you'll remember. And you can tell stories of your friends, too, to make sure you never forget who they are or where they come from. We'd love to hear about them, whenever you're willing to share."
Neville sobs at that, a singular sound which breaks the silence that has befallen the hall. He sobs, bending so that his forehead rests against his knees, tears dripping down his cheeks. His lovers murmur worriedly, and he feels Luna rest a hand on his back as Ginny tries to get him to look up at her, but he simply continues to rest his forehead on his knees and cry.
(He cries-sobs-mourns, because this is Cass. Cass who was the first person to ever call him "friend". Cass who adds cinnamon to her drinks and has a weakness for any type of fresh fruit. Cass who has a million different smiles and freckles that form constellations on her skin. This is Cass, who called them family and was terrified of forgetting them.) (This is Cass, who went to another world and still refused to give up her memories of them. Cass who was alonealonealone in a strange-land strange-place without them.) (Cass, whose sister promised to listen when Cass shared stories of her friends. Cass who lit up brighter than a thousand stars when told her family would love to hear about those she holds dear.)
He looks up only once, his gaze fixing upon the elder sister of his friend, the one they call Susan Pevensie. (Susan the Cruel, Susan the Poisoner, Susan the future-knower.) And he is crying, and he is sobbing, but he still manages to choke out the words that are all he can think of saying but also not big enough to encompass everything he wants to say. "Thank you," he cries. "Thank you for helping her to not forget us."
(He would not survive if Cass forgot him.)
Susan meets his eyes and smiles, a kind smile, the smile she reserves only for those she cares for. (The smile her subjects saw every day of her reign. The smile her enemies never had the chance to witness.) She dips her chin in a facsimile of a nod, and the firelight dances over her face. (Humans eyes don't reflect the light like that, do they?) "We would never allow our sister to forget those who she holds dear. The world will burn before we watch her go through that pain."
There is no lie in the words.
Cassiopeia does not cry, because the tears were beaten out of her by a woman who screamed more than she spoke, a woman who threw curses at Cassiopeia for target practice, a woman so dark she stifled even the brightest of lights. (Whose darkness almost smothered Cassiopeia herself.) But the star-girl thinks that she would have cried at Susan's words, if she'd still been able to shed more than a few lonely tears at a time.
Cassiopeia does not cry. Instead, she looks at Susan, who smiles at her. (A smile made of remembered grief and tentative hope.) She looks at Lucy, perched on her older sister's lap, staring at Cassiopeia. (Lucy, who was the first person Cassiopeia met in this strange world. Lucy, who trusted Cassiopeia before any of her siblings did.) She looks at Peter, arrived sometime whilst she was speaking, sitting lower in the tree with a hand on his sword. (A protector, a guardian, a brother.)
Cassiopeia does not cry as she looks at Susan (her sister, isn't that a strange title?) and nods. "One day, I think I'd love to tell you about them," Cassiopeia says, and then closes her eyes and takes a breath. When she opens her eyes, she is smiling. (A jagged smile, made of fury and broken glass and pain.) "But first, we have a bitch to kill."