BOOK THREE OF THREE
Sirius and Cassio enter their last year at Hogwarts, filled with confessions, sarcasm, and (of course) mischief. But, as always, the war lurks just beyond the walls of the castle.
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this is in third person now. i'm tired of first person and i'm def not gonna go back and change the first chapter so we're suffering together.
ALSO!! TW: suicidal/depressive thoughts, fire, in depth descriptions of deaths lmao the chapter summary will be left in the comments if you don't want to read it!
skip to the second set of stars to continue reading without the nightmare sequence.
☆★
Cassio awoke nestled under a thick duvet that smelled like lavender and honey and home. She could feel the warmth of the morning light as it filtered through her sheer lavender curtains, cascading across the light wood flooring like honey spilling out of a jar. In the distance, she could hear the laughter of her parents and her brother floating in through her cracked door with the smell of her father's homemade blueberry pancakes wafting in and filling the room.
But something was wrong. It felt like a memory from too many summers ago to count — one so jumbled up and squeezed through the lens of youth that it feels as if she's seeing everything through hollow, rose-colored glasses.
The laughter lacked the life it should, bouncing around the house like throwing knives waiting to find home in a warm chunk of flesh. The air wasn't filled with the alluring scent of blueberry pancakes, but rather the scent of smoke that burned as she breathed in, almost liquidating her insides.
Cassio sat up with all the speed that depression allowed, the flames of red hair falling down her back in waves and pale hands clutching desperately onto the duvet – anything to confirm that this reality is true. Her sleep-burdened eyes settled on the window across from her bed, waving lavender curtains doing nothing to shield the state of the window: shattered.
Broken pieces of glittering glass rest on the window sill. What was left of the window was colored gray, making the light cast molasses shadows on the ground. The more she looked through the ash-covered glass, the more she could see fire dancing around. It was as if dancing fire was stuck within the window.
She had always loved fire, for as long as she could remember. She loved the way it danced, the way it flowed, the way it was uncontrollable. So how could she resist a closer look?
She swung her legs over the side of her bed, her toes brushing against the coarse fabric of her. rug before she pushed herself into a standing position. With each step she took, Cassio felt pins and needles crawl their way up her legs as if she had been lying too long in bed for the Universe's comfort. But she had to see the window.
In a state of hypnotic wonder, she reached a hand towards the flame-ridden glass shards holding tightly to the window frame. Cassio was quickly snapped out of the trance-like state when she flew a little too close to the sun, her finger leaking blood down the broken window pane – fire and blood mixing in the most beautiful way, like rain and hot pavement.
