The Clockwork Locket || SIRIUS BLACK

The Unexpected Exchange

"Cassie, you're going to have to get up eventually."

"There is a difference between 'having' to do something, and 'wanting' to do something," the young witch pointed out, currently buried in a tomb of sheets and pillows atop her four-poster bed in the dormitory she shared with the other three girls.

She could practically feel Marlene rolling her eyes.

"It's only the fourth day of classes," her friend countered. "You can't skive just because you don't want to go to Defense."

"I can, and I will," Cassie retorted. She knew she was being childish, but the memory of their first class and losing twenty-five points for Gryffindor was still haunting her two days later.

Marlene sighed. "Fine, stay here. But do you really think this is a good way of getting Professor Carlisle to like you?"

"I don't want her to like me." Cassie sniffed, emerging from her nest to glare at Marlene. The other girl stood at the foot of her bed, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "I just want her to be like every other teacher I've had and ignore me completely."

"Purposefully going out of your way to try and be ignored is only going to bring you more attention," Marlene said logically. "I get that you don't want a repeat of last year, Cass, but skiving off and snapping at your teachers – no matter how much they deserve it—" she added before Cassie could break in "—is definitely not the way to go."

Cassie sat, still wrapped in her sheets and trying to come up with an argument to that, but she couldn't. Marlene was right.

"Break's over in fifteen minutes," the blonde girl said. "I'll meet you down in the common room."

Cassie sat on her bed for another minute after Marlene left, trying to get over the dread that was settled firmly in her stomach. Even just thinking about Professor Carlisle made her tense. Just the way she'd talked about Cassie's brother, like he was a particularly nasty slug she had stepped on, had been enough. And while it didn't help her anonymity in the slightest, Cassie couldn't stop herself from feeling some satisfaction over the encounter, especially when she had felt those frosty eyes bore into her back every time she sat down to eat in the Great Hall.

Summoning enough courage to leave her bed, Cassie stood and walked to the washroom, straightening her robes as she went. She hadn't bothered to take them off when break started and she'd decided to take a nap (Lily didn't have a break this block, thankfully, or else Cassie would never have heard the end of it), so all she had to do was brush out her bedhead and be on her way.

She ran a brush through her long hair, tucking it behind her ears when it had returned to its usual flat style, and once again found herself wishing she either had Marlene's blonde curls or Lily's wavy, fiery red locks. Anything besides the brown curtain that hung past her shoulders no matter what she or her mother did to attempt another style.

Shrugging off her daily hair lamentation, she crossed back to her bed and gathered her books before shoving them into her bag and throwing it over her shoulder as she descended the winding staircase into the common room.

She found Marlene sitting in a chair in the corner closest to the portrait hole and plopped down next to her, figuring they had about another five minutes before they needed to leave.

"What was that stuff your mum sent you last year for the Halloween Feast?" Cassie asked, twirling a loose strand of hair and pouting when it still fell straight. "That really expensive hair gel that made anything hold?"