Blood Magic ✤ George Weasley ✓

82 - The Dead Don't Die

musical mood: voulez vous - abba

"What the fuck?" She stared at him in disbelief, blinking rapidly. Surely her eyes were deceiving her, or this was a Boggart, or a ghost, or a hallucination. But when she continued to watch the man in front of her, and he didn't disappear, she realised he was, in fact, real. "What the fuck?!"

"Be quiet." He said, his tone nothing like how she remembered it to be. While it had been years since she'd last seen the dead man walking, he'd changed more significantly than she thought possible. He no longer wore a turban, it being replaced with long blonde hair, about the same length as Henry's had once been, and had lost a considerable amount of weight, but it was without a doubt still him.

"What the fuck?!" She repeated once more, running a hand through her hair and taking a step backwards. "You're supposed to be dead! How are you not dead?"

"I think you know the answer to that, Cassiopeia." He gave her a sad smile, and he was right. She did know the answer.

"Blood Magic." She whispered. Of course, of fucking course. It always came back to Blood Magic, in the end. Everything did.

"I'm Bound to the Dark Lord. That Bind didn't end in your first year when Harry Potter defeated me. My body was returned to me in 1995, when the Dark Lord's body became his again. It's near impossible to break a Bind, which you would know, if you ever did read that book you stole from me."

She took yet another step backwards, shaking her head rapidly. "What do you want from me?"

"You're Bound as well, to your brother. I'm here to help you be set free. Help us be set free." He said it so matter-of-factly, so plain and out in the open, it made Cass frown. "Assuming you want to be free from your brother."

"I want it more than anything in the world." She breathed, her heart racing. Was this real? Surely she'd gone mad, the death of Alastor had been the thing to do her in. She'd gone mad and now she was hallucinating her dead professor. Yet, she still continued to talk to the hallucination, desperate for answers. "How...how did you find me? How are you here? I don't understand."

"There will be plenty of time for questions later, Cassiopeia. If you want to break the Bond, you'll have to come with me. Now. Before anyone notices you're gone."

"Where?"

He shook his head, blonde hair flopping about as he did. It was odd, seeing his hair, when he'd had a turban for the time she'd known him. A turban that had contained the darkest wizard of all time. While unwillingly, he had helped You-Know-Who, and now wanted to take her somewhere, alone.

"I'll explain everything when we leave, I swear. But we need to go." His eyes were wide with what seemed to be earnest begging. There was no ulterior motive she could sense in his expression, in his tone.

But, if there was, what would it do? He could hurt her, but she didn't care in the slightest. If anything, Cass craved the pain, craved a feeling that wasn't emotional turmoil. He couldn't kill her - and if what he was saying was true, that he wanted to break their Bonds, she could finally kill herself.

There was nothing left for her there.

Nothing except George.

But George didn't need her to protect him. He was surrounded by good people. For once, Cass needed to fully and truly put herself and her own interests first, like she had done as a young child. She needed to set aside her doubts, and put her full trust in the undead man in front of her.

"I don't have a wand." She eventually said.

"That's fine. You won't need one."

"Right. Let's get going, then."