"We were
Just friends
That spoke like lovers
And that seemed to be enough for
Two teenagers who were scared to love one another"
- k.a.t.
~~~~~~
Lorenzo Berkshire x Cassandra Avery (OC)
A sort of slow burn, childhood best friends to lovers story...
TW - smut. Also warning this chapter is almost 8000 words so apologies in advance but a lot has happened since Cassie got off the train before summer.
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"Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off" - Rohinton Mistry
~~~~~~
Cassie Avery
The manor was cold, especially for July. Not just in temperature, but in spirit. A heavy, silent kind of cold. The kind that lived in the walls and watched you from the corners.
I hadn't spoken to Draco or Theo in nearly a week.
They were here, somewhere, I knew that. But we weren't allowed to be in the same rooms. Not unaccompanied anyway. If it wasn't obvious before, it was now: we were being kept apart on purpose.
Divide and weaken.
That's what they were doing. And it was working.
No one said it out loud, but I could feel it in the way the Death Eaters looked at me. Like I was the soft one. The liability. The girl who didn't belong in a house of monsters.
But I wasn't stupid enough to let them see they were right.
I didn't cry. Not in front of them. Not when they made comments I pretended not to hear. Not when one of them let their eyes linger too long when I walked past. Not even when my mother, cold and stony, reminded me that I had chosen this.
Every night, when I was sure no one was looking, I snuck into Lorenzo's old room. I didn't sleep in my own anymore. Not since I found out that one of the Carrow men had been moved into the corridor beside it.
Lorenzo's room still smelled faintly like him. I wrapped myself in his scent and told myself I wasn't completely alone.
By the third week, I started going up to the gallery balcony after everything had gone quiet.
I was barefoot. The strap of my dress hung loose off one shoulder, one cigarette between my fingers. The firewhiskey bottle balanced by my knee was already half gone.
The stars overhead didn't look real. Too sharp. Too clean. I didn't think about the things I'd done that day. Or the things I hadn't stopped. Or the orders I followed without question.
It was easier not to think at all. But I couldn't stop myself thinking about Lorenzo. What he was doing. If he was okay. But those thoughts were almost as hard. Because that was over now. It had to be. I knew that and so did he.
I didn't hear the door open behind me.
But I felt him.
There was a change in the air, a stillness, like something had slipped inside and held its breath.
