When we align; a Neville Longbottom fanfiction

34. Avoidance

Cass didn't see Neville again.

Hogwarts had never felt so big, empty, and lifeless. The time Neville had spent scouring the castle for secret passageways during his seventh-year was paying off. Cass was certain he was purposefully avoiding her.

Not that she wasn't thankful for it. She knew she couldn't bear the built-up awkwardness, shame and resentment. She had been ignoring all the signs the universe had been sending her, but it was now time to come to terms with the fact that she and Neville were simply not meant to be.

Her mind was made. Her heart, however, was beating at a different pace.

Her dreams were a constant replay of that one perfect moment when their lips were almost touching. She'd always compared being with Neville to being in a different reality where time stood still and the events of the world couldn't reach them, and she always remembered only being able to reach precisely the edge of that flawless realm. In her dreams, she could enter it and roam around it as much as she liked, but not in real life. The closest she'd ever felt to doing so in real life was the moment Neville's green eyes had completely disappeared behind his eyelids and their noses had collided and their breaths had mixed.

After that, her dreams were precluding her from reaching any farther than the edge. It was as if she'd reached the highest point of tension in a movie that had finished right after. All build-up and no resolution. Utter dissatisfaction.

If when she was in America she could at least hold on to the hope that she would see Neville again, now there was a gaping hole on the left side of her chest.

What was worse, it was all her fault.

She tried to distract herself with her classes, doing her best to avoid eavesdropping on the excited conversations about Herbology of her students, giving out more essays than normal so that she would have the excuse of having work to do if anyone had asked.

She didn't go to the following gathering, nor the one after that. When letters from George started to appear on the desk in her studio, she wrote a couple of lines apologising for being busy and reassuring him that she would go back to the gatherings as soon as she could.

She kept visiting Frances every now and then, putting less and less effort into dissimulating her state of mind. She could see her aunt's worry gradually starting to consume her, making her appear bony and thin, painting dark circles under her eyes, until looking at her was like looking in a mirror. No matter how many times she would ask Cass what was wrong, Cass never gave a definitive answer. She was unable to. Uncovering the truth meant admitting that the scars that Arnas had given her extended deeper than the ones she had on her calf and jaw. It meant to let him win.

Cass couldn't afford to let him win.

"If you would only tell me..."

"It's nothing, ma'am, I'm just tired from working."

Frances could see right through her lie. And so could Theo and Blaise.

She knew they were somehow plotting something when, on the umptieth morning of what had become an uneventful life at Hogwarts, Gabriel and Jacob approached her with playful smirks plastered on their faces.

"So," Gabriel leaned against a column in the staffroom, arms folded over his chest, "how's it going?"

Cass didn't quite have the time to reply as Jacob had passed an arm over her shoulder and was looking at her intently.

"We'll cut straight to the chase."

"We want you to come have a drink with us, this Saturday night, at the Hog's Head."