The Clockwork Locket || SIRIUS BLACK

The Wrong Crowd

Cassie stared at the wooden doll in front of her, chin propped on her hand and brows furrowed in concentration. Her hazel wand rolled between her fingers in her other hand as she skimmed through the lines of her Defense book, trying to memorize the correct wand motion to use for the Shrinking Spell she was attempting to cast.

She pointed her wand at the practice doll and gave it a wave. "Reducio!"

The doll gave a little twitch but otherwise did nothing. She sighed in frustration, dropping her eyes back to the book and pinning the page in place with her thumb when a breeze blew by.

Despite the coldness and greyness of the day, she sat beneath the beech tree by the lake the Marauders usually claimed as their own, bundled in her robes with a handy jar of flames nearby to stave off most of the late November chill. She had skipped breakfast to catch up on some of the work she was behind on, and to avoid the multitude of people inside the castle, she had gone out to the grounds. It had been a good idea, in hindsight – at least no one would see her abysmal attempts at such a simple spell and have another thing to mock her for.

She closed her book and rested it in her lap, tracing the leather cover absentmindedly, lost in thought. The past fortnight had been difficult, and not just from her strenuous workload; on top of the jeers and whispers that swirled around about her brother still, news had spread about her alleged "attack" on the fourth year, Zella Knightley, and the taunts had become particularly worse, especially from the Slytherins. Even the Gryffindors had given her a cold shoulder after Zella had begun to spread the rumor in the common room upon her return from the Hospital Wing; except, of course, those who knew her (which was painfully few) and those who couldn't care less.

"All I did was express my sympathies for her brother, and how awful the Prophet is making him out to be," she recalled Zella saying tearfully in the common room several days ago, a few of her classmates and some younger students sitting around her in sickening concern, though the fourth year had given her a triumphant smile when she had caught Cassie's eye. "And the next thing I know, I'm on my knees after a hex to the face, with that awful girl standing over me and threatening to silence me forever if I said anything to her ever again!"

The other students had gasped and shot Cassie furtive, mutinous looks, and she'd nearly snapped her quill in half where she was doing homework a few tables away with Remus and Peter.

"Unbelievable," she muttered, watching Zella bask in all the attention. "If the brat keeps this up then maybe I will have to silence her for good."

"Easy, Cassie," Remus said, not once looking up from the essay he was writing. "Didn't you say two days ago that you couldn't get in any more trouble, or McGonagall would write your parents?"

She'd blanched at the mention of her parents. "Good point."

The day Zella had attacked her in the lavatory, she had been called to Professor McGonagall's office before dinner, and the witch had not been as kind as she had been the day she found Cassie wandering the halls after the news about her brother was published. After hearing Cassie's version of events, however, her Head of House had decided not to write her parents over the matter, though she had slapped the girl with a week's worth of detentions scrubbing bedpans in the Hospital Wing, and warned that if such a thing happened again, then her parents would have to be contacted to discuss "progressive disciplinary options."

The only other people who knew about the real story were the Marauders and Alice, who had gone back to sitting next to her in lessons again.

"I feel terrible, Cass," she'd said the next day in Transfiguration, talking in hushed voices while they were supposed to be practicing turning their mice into teacups. "I should've waited for you; none of this would've happened if I had been there!"