Ashes | 𝔇. 𝔐𝔞𝔩𝔣𝔬𝔶 [𝟙]

19 ⚡︎ The Madness of Mr. Crouch

♫ Outsiders by Suede ♫

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌ .・゜✧﹒☁﹒✧゜・．﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

"Carë mára quí tyarë naxa."

(Doing good may cause evil)

-J.R.R Tolkien

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Over the next couple of days Cassie waited impatiently for a response from Percy. Her third oldest brother sure took his time. She was sitting at the breakfast table one morning, eating some porridge and chatting away with Theo, Draco and Blaise when a small, bewitched paper aeroplane came zooming across the hall towards her. 

She caught it in her hand and unfolded it, seeing a small note from Harry, 'come to our table, we gotta talk. We also got easter eggs from Mrs. Weasley!' Was all it said. She frowned slightly, before crumpling it up and putting it in her pocket.

"I'll be right back, Harry wants a word!" She told her friends, before walking over to the Gryffindor table and sitting down next to Hermione. Ron was chewing on some toffee from his easter egg, while Harry held out the note. Cassandra noticed the easter egg Hermione was holding, and comparing it to her own, it was tiny. It was no bigger than the size of a chicken egg, whilst theirs were the size of dragon eggs.

Cassie took the note just as Hermione looked down with a disappointed look on her face at the tiny easter egg in front of her and spoke up. "Your mum doesn't read Witch weekly by any chance, does she?" She asked Ron, who nodded while chewing some chocolate now. 

"Yeah, she gets it for the recipes" He said, grinning. Hermione's face fell, and Cassie, shooting her a sympathetic look, unfolded the note from Percy and read it.

'As I am constantly telling the Daily Prophet, Mr Crouch is taking a well-deserved break. He is sending in regular owls with instructions. No, I haven't actually seen him, but I think I can be trusted to know my own superior's handwriting. I have quite enough to do at the moment without trying to quash these ridiculous rumours. Please don't bother me again unless it's something important. Happy Easter.'

Cassie frowned as she finished reading the short and irritable letter, before handing it back to Harry. She took her Easter egg before muttering a quick apology to the others, telling them she needed to finish breakfast because she had charms in 15 minutes.

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The rest of the day went by painfully slowly, and Harry approached Cassie a little while before Dinner. "McGonagall just told me that the champions need to go down to the Quidditch Pitch, Bagman is going to tell us what the third task is.." Harry told her nervously, and Cassie gave him a sympathetic smile. 

"Alright, good luck! You better be off, you mustn't miss it. Send me a note or come down to my common room after, and we can discuss it with Ron and Hermione." She said, and he nodded before going off. She went inside the great hall for dinner and joined her table, taking her usual seat next to Draco.

She and Draco had been fine ever since she woke up to him spooning her the morning after the second task, and they hadn't talked about any of it either. Cassie knew he was feeling bad about breaking down in front of her like that, but Cassie wanted him to feel like it was safe to talk to her and show emotion in front of her, but she hadn't been stupid enough to mention it. She knew it would only result in another fight, or in Draco feeling worse than she knew he already did.

In return, Draco hadn't brought up any of her trauma either and Cassie was very grateful for it. She ate and talked with her friends, hoping silently that Harry would be alright. The third task was approaching, it was less than a month away. 

After dinner, Cassie went back to her common room to read a book, since she had no idea what the third task was there was no point in looking anything up yet. Hopefully, they wouldn't need to spend every waking moment in the library this time, like they needed to for the second task.

After running up to her dorm to change into a cosy quidditch hoodie, she sat down in the couch in front of the fire in the common room. The moment she sat down, Jasmine came bounding down the stairs and jumped up in her lap. She smiled at the cat, before opening her book and starting to read.

It was hours until Harry came back, and the common room was empty by the time a third-year on his way back from dinner informed her that someone was outside the entrance and wanted to talk to her. Figuring it must be Harry, she ascended the stairs and opened the hidden door.

"Hiya!" Harry said before entering, followed by Ron and Hermione. They didn't have the password since they didn't usually come down here, but the common room was mercifully empty apart from a second year and his friend.

The four of them went over to the couch and sat down, Hermione sitting in an armchair in front of the warm fire. "So, what's the task? And why are you all looking so grim?" Cassie asked her friends, frowning slightly.

"It- It's a maze. We have to get through it and to the cup placed in the middle. But that's not important right now. Crouch turned up, stalked right out of the woods, completely bonkers." Harry told her. It seemed like Ron and Hermione already knew all of this. 

"He was talking about Voldemort half the time, saying he had done something horrible and needed to talk to Dumbledore to make up for it. The other half he seemed to think he was with his wife and son, and sometimes he talked to a tree, thinking it was Percy. He said- He said Voldemort was coming back and stuff like that.." Harry continued looking grim and nervous. 

Ron and Hermione both flinched horribly when Harry said Voldemort's name, and they both looked scared. "Yeah, but it's like you said, he was out of his mind, didn't know what he was talking about.." Ron said to Harry, looking more nervous than the others.

"He seemed most sane when he was talking about Voldemort." Harry said, a slightly scared look on his face. It took a while for Cassie to take everything in. Voldemort, back?

"Well, where is he now?" Cassie asked, realizing Harry hadn't said anything about that. A sick feeling erupted in her stomach and she was dreading the answer.

"Well, he's missing. I was talking to Krum when Crouch came out of the woods, and eventually, I left Crouch with Krum while I ran up to the castle to fetch Dumbledore. By the time we came back, Krum had been stunned and Crouch was gone. Hagrid appeared, then left to get Karkaroff, and when they came back Hagrid escorted me back up to the Castle. I had some dinner, then we went here." Harry finished, shifting awkwardly in his seat. 

She sat there for a while with them, eventually moving onto the subject of the third task. They talked about some spells that would be useful for Harry to know and debated on where they could practice, before Cassie decided to call it a night. They also left, not wanting to sit alone in the Slytherin common room without her. 

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌ .・゜✧﹒☁﹒✧゜・．﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Authors Note: Hii!! I hope you guys like this new chapter. I decided to add a song to all the previous chapters since I was copy-pasting the contents and adding them to my Google Drive anyway, in case the story gets taken down.

As always, please let me know if you have any feedback, requests or suggestions regarding the songs, quotes, my writing, the plot or the characters <3

Don't forget to vote and comment <3

xx Alma

 Word Count: 1.306

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌ .・゜✧﹒☁﹒✧゜・．﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌