Lustful Alchemy

49. CASSANDRA*

I'm sitting in the defendant's chair again, frozen in place, even the smallest speck of dust suspended in the air, and yet the floor feels like it's trembling beneath my feet. My head is spinning, as if I've just woken from a deep, restless sleep—as if my body were trying in vain to recover from a shock too violent, all the while bracing for another one at any moment. But it's the silence that frightens me most. That silence which precedes something important, so thick it steals the breath from my lungs.

I should stay focused, concentrate on what's about to happen, on what this wait could cost me, and yet...

And yet I still hear his voice.

Aesop's testimony keeps echoing in my head like a refrain I can't silence. His words carved themselves into me with surgical precision. I can't forget the certainty with which he spoke about me. About us. I almost can't believe it. Not him, not Aesop Sharp—not in a courtroom full of eyes and judgment and power. And yet he did. He said those words as though they were the most natural thing in the world. He said love. He said forever.

Forever sounds good as long as she stands by my side.

I can't breathe.

I clasp my hands in my lap to stop them from trembling. I know I should be afraid of what's coming next, that I should let panic or anger or fear take over. But I can't. There's only one voice in my head, and it keeps repeating those sentences. Those truths. Those promises whispered under the icy gaze of the Wizengamot, in a courtroom that wanted nothing more than a verdict.

He risked everything. His career. His name. Even his dignity as an Occlumens. He did it in front of Spavin, in front of the Ministry, in front of the entire wizarding world. For me.

And I don't even know if I'll be able to look at him. I don't know if I could meet his gaze without falling apart. Because if I did, he would see everything. He'd see how much I longed to hear those words from him, how deeply I hoped they would come, someday. How a part of me, deep down, had already started to believe in them.

But now it's all too much. Too real. Too immense.

I feel suspended in a moment that doesn't belong to time, in a space where the sound of my heartbeat is louder than any word spoken in this room. The verdict looms, and still I remain there, clinging to those words like a lifeline in the middle of the storm. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes, what truly saves us is not the truth... but the courage it takes to speak it.

But what gnaws at me is the knowledge that if I'm condemned, I won't even be able to openly revel in the love I've just heard shimmer in his voice.

That's the thought that chokes me. Not the public humiliation, not the loss of my job, not the damp cell that might await me. But the fact that this feeling — so immense, so desperately awaited — might be taken from me just now, in the very moment it found its voice.

All I'd have left is the certainty that, at some point in our lives, we loved each other. Even without admitting it. Even without having the courage to name it.

All I'd have left is the memory of how he looked at me when he thought I wasn't watching, of the silences that spoke louder than any words, of the respect he always gave me, even in the hardest moments.

That would be all, and it should be enough.

But isn't that what love is? What he just did — laying himself bare before the entire Wizengamot, risking his title, his honour, even his reputation — isn't that his way of loving me? Isn't that his declaration, the one he never would've spoken in a quiet room, on a winter's night, but which he screamed without sound in the most exposed place in our world?