Blood Magic ✤ George Weasley ✓

27 - Love Letters From The Dead

musical mood: disenchanted - my chemical romance

You really couldn't miss even a day of Hogwarts without something of major importance happening in your absence, apparently.

Cass returned to Flitwick's office in the late evening - she'd spent several hours after the funeral sitting on the ground of the parlour, hugging her knees to her chest and mentally berating herself for what had transpired that day.

You idiot. She internally screamed at herself for the hundredth time, banging her head against the edge of the couch. How could you just stand there? You should've done something, not just stare at him like a blundering dimwit! How could you leave him like that, after his father and brother's funeral! Connor probably hates you now.

She hadn't realised how much time had passed, she'd been so sucked into her melancholy thoughts, that the thing to get her to return to Hogwarts was her father apparating back home after what must've been a more carefree day at work, since he didn't look nearly as stressed out as he usually did.

"Cassiopeia?" He eyed her from where she sat on the ground, and she looked up from where her head was resting in between her knees. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be staying over at the Moore's?"

"Change of plans." She responded simply. Her voice was hoarse - more than usual, like she'd been crying. She hadn't been, but no doubt Bartemius thought so, between her cracked voice and red face.

"Is everything...are you...what's wrong?" He hesitated, lingering several feet away. Surely, their last interaction was lingering in his mind. It might've been in Cass's too, had there not been a far bigger situation at hand, one she had no idea how to push away.

"I'm brilliant." Cass forced herself up onto her feet, wobbling slightly in the uncomfortable funeral shoes she still wore. She'd completely forgotten to change out of her nun-like attire, which probably added to the bafflement on Bartemius's expression. "Sorry, I didn't mean to...I meant to go back to school earlier. It just slipped my mind."

Bartemius opened his mouth, searching for a response as Cass dipped her hand in the floo powder above the fireplace.

"Wait-" He began, but she ignored him, stepping into the fireplace and coming out on the other side far, far away.

*

Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater were petrified. Two in one day. It had been months since the last attack on Terry, and now it was starting again, just as utterly terrifying as before.

Perhaps even worse, Penelope Clearwater was a halfblood. It wasn't just muggleborns anymore, no. No one was safe.

Dumbledore was gone - kicked out, by a group of parents on the education board at the Ministry. Lucius Malfoy was now in charge of the school until they could find an actual headmaster, and the groundskeeper, Hagrid, had been arrested on suspicion of him being the heir of Slytherin.

Cass nearly laughed, when she found that part out from Padma, who seemed to find the idea of Hagrid being the one going around petrifying people just as ridiculous. Everyone found it preposterous, really, all of Hogwarts knew Hagrid was just a scapegoat, and with Dumbledore gone and unable to protect him, he was thrown into Azkaban without a trial.

"It's fucked up. It's so beyond fucked up." Cass was ranting to no one in particular about the subject, as she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling during their free period. Naia and Luna were working on homework together, Padma was flipping through a magazine, and Bethany was, per usual, absent.