Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
She's 9 years old. This is okay, she tells herself. Not everyone can be a hero.
Not everyone can make decisions on the fly, can solve tough choices and face their problems head on like that.
And so she stands, slashing at a pillow with a wand she stole from her father, using it the only way she knows how, up and down and across again, and she reminds herself.
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
"Are you okay?"
She looks up. Sirius is looking at her with curiosity in his eyes.
She juts her chin up at him, tears and sweat mingling on her cheeks, lifting a wand that feels much too heavy for her young arms. She points it at him. "What's it to you?"
He throws up his hands, surrendering. "No need to get violent."
Cassiopeia rolls her eyes. She turns back to the pillow, now pouring out feathers. Up and down and across again.
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero, she tells herself.
A hero would've been able to make Andromeda stay.
-----
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
She thought she could be, now that she's on her own, in a school where no one from her past can find her but Sirius, but now she's not sure.
She's stuck with a group of people that are stupid enough to trust her, lead by a cocky looking boy in round-rimmed glasses, and she doesn't understand how he's supposed to be leading them. He just pushed Peter into the lake. They don't know what they're doing.
Then again, neither does Casey.
She just wants a single moment, one to go down in the history books, one that will be sung down through the generations. Like the stories of old Greek heroes in the stars, the ones that are scattered across every name in her family tree.
And now, she's 11 years old after a particularly nasty christmas break. She's scrubbing her own blood off her hands in the lake, praying the others haven't noticed, praying her father's curses don't scar. It's stained underneath her fingernails, dark and red and angry.
Look mom! I'm hiding the pain so well! I'm Achilles! I'm Perseus! I'm Theseus and Odysseus and Heracles! She starts to scrub harder. Look dad! I'm covering up your mess! Aren't you fucking proud! Don't you give a shit about the work I put in every day just to keep you out of trouble! Look at me! Listen to me! She stops scrubbing, watching the red swirl into the water and disappear.
"Why are you crying?" James surfaces next to her. She startles and splashes him. He splashes her back.
"I'm not crying," she protests. She will not touch her face. She will not think about her parents.
"Okay." James shrugs. "Now, come on." He pulls on her hand.
"I'm not going deeper."
He sticks his tongue out at her then falls back into the water.
Immature jackass.
But then, he acts like a Greek hero.
Casey doesn't even have that.
-----
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
She hates how she jumped at the chance to prove it. She hates how everyone tells her she is for something as menial as quidditch.
She's not a hero.
She's not a hero, and it's because the family she grew up with still leaves scars, her friends still pity her every chance they get, and her mother and father still don't love her.
Whatever.
It doesn't matter.
She's not even supposed to be here. None of them are. And now they're bounding into the forbidden forest laughing, not a care in the world, and Camille keeps looking at her like she can stop their stupid ideas, and she can't. She's no hero.
The wind picks up, and she keeps walking.
-----
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero. Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero. Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero. Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero. Cassiopeia Lestrange is CassiopeiaLestrange is
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Cassiopeia Lestrange is in the worst pain she's ever been in. It's blinding, white-hot but still cold. She's screaming at an empty sky, at the stars that litter it, at Greek heroes and families and fate and herself and everything. Any moment now she'll fall and now Marlene won't be there to catch her
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero. Heroes wouldn't let their lovers die. Heroes would be able to stand the hurt. Heroes would hide the pain. Casey has no way to catch or prevent the tears that fall down her cheeks, carving trails through the dirt and dust and rain that scar her face.
Would her father be proud of her? Is her mother watching her? Is this how Achilles felt? When Patroclus was killed wearing his armor? When Marlene was killed by her family?
At least Alastor is on his way. At least her friends know where she is. Maybe when they get here she'll be okay. Maybe when they get here she'll wake up and it'll all be a dream.
She almost wants to laugh. She's not a hero. A hero would face her problems with her head held high, not with hope that her friends will come find her and most likely get killed themselves shortly after.
A hero wouldn't sit here, hiding from her family, seeing nothing, thoughts somehow blacked out and racing at once, helpless to the world around her.
Cassiopeia Lestrange is not a hero.
And she doesn't get it. If she fights and fights and her girlfriend still dies, what's the point? If her friends are still in danger, what's the point? If she's still not a hero, what's the point? She doesn't know why she's still doing any of this.
Well, that's not true. She knows the point. The point is a better world. The point is saving the lives of the friends she still has. The point is Reg is still out there not seeing straight and if he'd just fucking listen for once-
Cassiopeia Lestrange may have done many heroic things, but she's not a hero.
-----
Cassiopeia Lestrange is dying.
She can feel the wound in her side. She knows how much blood she's lost. 3 liters, at least, from that same god damn 'Sectum Sempra' curse that Snivellus used to threaten them with, back when they were the Marauders and not just a dying group of war torn 20 somethings.
She sees blurred faces like patterns in the clouds above her, floating in and out of her gaze. Healers. Camille. Remus. Alastor, once. Healers.
No matter the face, she can't see it for longer than a moment before it's replaced, like Perseus. Like fighting a Hydra of the people she knows.
At least she's dying for a cause, right? Heroes die for a cause, right?
Cassiopeia Lestrange might be a hero.
-----
Casey Lestrange is a hero. They've emerged victorious, and the pain in her side has faded. Maybe she won't die, today. She hopes she gets a scar.
Casey Lestrange is a hero. Alastor is there, smiling down at her. Her friends are by her side, dirty and grimy and smiling and alive.
Casey Lestrange is a hero. Her family won't leave any new scars. Her friends smile at her when they see her, now.
But those things don't matter. Casey Lestrange is a hero. She's always been a hero. She's always been brave, and stood up for herself, and Sirius, and the rest of the Marauders, and her parents don't affect that. She's a hero on her own two feet.
Casey Lestrange is a hero.
It's just taken her years to accept it.