Potter's Girl / Butterfly Effect.

73. Lions V. Snakes

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE;

LIONS VERSUS SNAKES

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"Bloody... hell."

   "You can say that again," said Harry, staring incredulously at the Great Hall, barely able to take it in. Red and gold streamers hung from the magical ceiling; confetti cannons shot out red and gold confetti every two minutes; a poster hung at the very front of the Hall, from above one end of the teachers' table to the other that read "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASSIE!" in alternating colors.

   "Bloody hell," Ron repeated, still gazing with a slack jaw at the decorations surrounding the room.

   "It's only a figure of speech, Ron," Harry muttered, taking a few tentative steps into the Hall. "She's going to hate it."

   "Oh, no doubt," said Hermione, biting her lip anxiously. "Maybe we can jinx them to read something else? Better yet, take them down altogether?"

   "No can do," said Ginny, walking in, her arm looped with Luna's. "He charmed them so they'll stay up until midnight. Knew she would try to take them down, so he took extra precautions."

   "Under different circumstances, I would say that that was quite clever," said Hermione. She frowned. "But Cassie's already distressed enough after what Malfoy said."

   "I can't imagine she's going to take this very well," Ginny said with a wistful gaze, her eyes moving around to follow the dancing house-elves drawn into the posters.

"Oh, she's not, trust me."

The five of them turned to face Cassie, who had stalked over looking extremely uncomfortable. She crossed her arms across her chest subconsciously, glancing around at the frenzy, her lips tightly pursed together. She spun to see her friends watching her closely and pitifully, as if she were a delicate flower that was on the brink of wilting. Rage rolled through her veins, but she only drew in a deep breath and said, "Which one of you is behind this?"

The five of them shared an apprehensive look. Hermione winced. Cassie raised an eyebrow, putting her hands on her hips. "You expect me to believe that it wasn't one of you?"

"Well, it wasn't," said Ron reproachfully, his brown eyes sad. Cassie's expression of skepticism melted to that of dubiety, then to realization as Ron explained further. "Atticus put a charm on the Great Hall to magically hang up decorations every year on November twenty-third. He.." Ron furrowed his brow and turned to Ginny. "What'd he say?"

"He said that birthdays deserve to be celebrated," she supplied, her words disquieted and gentle, completely unlike the real Ginny. "They won't go away until midnight, Cassie. We tried getting them down, but Atticus must have been a lot better at Permanent Sticking Hexes than we expected, because they're not coming off."

"It's fine," she said, pushing past her friends to take a seat at the Gryffindor table and reaching for the orange juice. "A reminder of my half-dead cousin, right?" After a second, she dropped the lackadaisical act and turned to the others, her face void of its guarded expression and replaced with that of authenticity and genuine sadness. "The best birthday gift you lot can give me is acting like today's only a regular day."

A cannon exploded and glittered red and gold confetti onto her oatmeal. She winced. "As regular as you can make it, at least."

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