Blood Magic ✤ George Weasley ✓

7 - The Art of Apathy

musical mood: oh no! - marina and the diamonds

"Bloody hell, where is it?" Cass murmured, frantically tossing everything out onto the wooden floor without a care for the mess she was making.

After her...interesting...confrontation with her father, she had been told to go to the Moore's house, but for the first time in her life, there was a more pressing matter at hand than her best friend.

Surely her father was mistaken, surely he had just forgotten about the note he had written her. But the look of fear on his face...it was so raw, so real. Cass just had to check.

Finally, at the bottom of the trunk, all wrinkled up from the time spent crushed from her other items, was the letter her father had written her on Halloween.

She flattened it out on the floor, setting it side by side with the chores list her father had left Winky the night before. As she closely examined the two, her heart dropped to her stomach.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

The handwriting was completely different.

Her father was right. He hadn't written it.

She'd known all along that there was something off about that letter, but it had never occurred to her that her father hadn't sent it at all. Now that she read it again, it was obvious. Aside from the handwriting, how did she not notice every other flaw with the words - the tone, the care, the love? How could she be so damn stupid?

The anger with herself didn't outweigh the hurt for long, though. The only reason Cass had come back to Stromness for the winter holidays was because 'Bartemius' had said he wanted her to. She had thought he might've begun to care for her personal life, with the questions about friends, and boys, and schoolwork.

Then, her hurt shifted to fear, as the looming question shot to the front of her thoughts; if Bartemius didn't write it, then who did?

"What the hell is on your face?"

Cass stared down at the person who had answered the door - Connor's youngest sister Saoirse, a nine year old with fiery red hair and no filter.

"Er...ash." She mumbled, rubbing her palm against her cheek. When she pulled it off, her hand was caked with the black powder. She probably should've washed her face and changed her clothes when she had returned home from her fathers office, but she was in too much of a rush. "Is Connor home?"

"Yes." Saoirse answered, not moving out of the doorframe. It had begun to snow again, and wind began to blow the white powder into the home.

"...May I see Connor?" Cass peered behind her.

"Sure. Why didn't you just ask?" Saoirse moved out of the way, letting Cass in, and shutting the door behind her.

The house was clearly busy, a plethora of voices echoing down the halls, and people Cass didn't recognize pushed past her as she made her way through the cramped rooms. Usually, Connor would be in his bedroom, the one he shared with his brothers Brian and Fionn. But when she finally spotted her friend, he was sat on a couch in their parlour, watching some cartoon on the telly.

"Connor!" She called as she practically ran up to him.

Connor's hazel eyes met hers, and he jumped up off the couch. "Oh my gosh, Cass!"

Within moments, the two were clung to each other, Connor's face buried in her hair that cascaded down the front of her shoulder. Cass closed her eyes, tightening her embrace, as she let out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding.