Perfect

34. Dueling

For the next few lessons, Slughorn kept going on and on about how talented he knew this group of NEWT students would be ever since their first year.

Every other class was getting harder and harder and people were having to spend their free period relearning the lessons over and over again.

Cassie had even heard Potter, who never complained about Transfiguration, he was the best in their year, started looking lost during classes.

Nonverbal spells were now expected, not only in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but in Charms and Transfiguration too. This made the Slytherins laugh at anyone who wasn't in Defense because they would be so lost and behind.

Everytime Cassie looked at Regulus he seemed tired. He didn't want to touch his food and he was skipping classes a lot. Ash was doing the same thing. Izzy was excusing herself and locking herself in the bathrooms.

It was because of the Dark Mark.

Cassie didn't, she was getting used to it more so she could do her work while it burned. Even after getting it, it just blended into the normal vibrations of her body. It was an after effect of the cruciatus curse, something was always in pain, numb, prickly, or shaking. She could never get rid of it.

She used to see Sirius hiding his hands when they started shaking in class, but since leaving home, that hadn't happened as often and when it did, Remus would grab his hands and start whispering to him.

They weren't together, at least, that was what they claimed every time someone would ask. No one was convinced.

It was getting closer to time for the first quidditch match and Cassie was a little worried. 3/7 members of her team had the dark mark and if it started to burn during a game, they would be done for, but none of them wanted to quit.

Instead, they learned to try and play through it. Ash found that yelling and loud wind in his ears distracted him from it.

Theo and Den seemed more careful with their captain during practice, not throwing as hard or making as many dangerous passes to her. Everytime they did it, she glared at them and they just looked away.

She was getting annoyed, they couldn't do that in games unless they wanted to lose.

They all stopped in the locker room at the end of practice, "alright, guys we have to have a discussion." They all looked at her scared, that was never a good sign for anything. She first looked at Theo and Densel. "You two have got to stop."

"We're just–"

Cassie held up her hand, "I don't care, we're here to win, that's it. There's no, 'Oh, I don't want to hurt my fiance.' Guess what? I would rather be in St. Mungos for a month than lose the Quidditch cup this year. Because next year, we'll be busy with NEWTS and we'll be tired and we'll have more things to do, so I want to put my all into it this year, understand?"

Both boys sighed before they nodded, "We are a pretty badass trio though, right?" Densel joked and Cassie smirked.

"We're perfection, if you two don't try to be recruited by a professional quidditch team, I don't know what you're doing with your lives."

"Being boring Ministry officials," Barty laughed, it was what happened to everyone on the Slytherin team. No family thought it was proper for them to go into quidditch as a profession.

"You shut up!" Ash threatened. "I'm so fucking scared of that, only merlin knows." His eyes were wide and Cassie had to cover her mouth not to laugh.

"Next order of business," she said, being serious and looking at Ash and Regulus. "You've got to start going to class again." Her brother was about to open his mouth but she shook her head. "Not my requirements, Slughorn threatened to have you removed from the team."