Clover Hawkings and the Triwizard Tournament

27. Secrets Unveiled

I wait for the words to connect in my brain. "What do you mean...interesting?" I say slowly. "Are things not already interesting enough?"

"Um," Cass said, refusing to meet my eye. "Charlie was a valuable spy for the Order. She wasn't the only one, either."

I raise my eyebrows, remembering Tenebras Opacus.

"She worked very closely with another turned Death Eater- one of the Blacks."

"Yeah, I know," I say impatiently. "Hurry up."

Cass raised her eyes. "You know?"

I realize the mistake I might have made. "Um- well, continue."

"How do you know? Karkaroff," Cass answered her own question furiously. "Did he trigger your memories?"

"Of what?" I stand up.

"Of things! Did he or not? Did you have flashbacks, maybe, hallucinations?" Cass said frantically, also standing up.

"I think I deserve to know what's going on! I learned more about my mother from freaking Artemis than you!"

"You are so impatient," Cass snapped. "For once in your life, will you work with me? This is actually important!"

"And me knowing about my parents, how my mom was killed in front of me, and why I keep on having weird-ass dreams isn't?"

Cass sucked in a breath. "So he did trigger them."

"I wouldn't know!" I scream. "I haven't actually known anything!"

"Perfect," Cass reached for my temples, "I'll just check..."

"What are you doing?" I pulled away.

"Nothing that hasn't been done before," Cass said, waving a hand to dismiss the matter.

"Cass!" I screamed. "This is important to me. Please?"

Cass stared stonily. "Fine." She sat down stiffly on the bed. "Your mother and Regulus Black, the man she was working with, discovered that You-Know-Who was using a rare magickal....enchantment to keep him immortal. I- I won't say the name here- it's dirty- but basically, his soul is split into different pieces. And unless those pieces are killed, he'll live forever. Obviously, they're his most closely guarded secret. The pieces themselves are scattered, and protected with dozens of magical enforcements. Your mother found the location of one of them."

"And then?" I pushed.

Cass stared at the floor, looking increasingly sad and uncomfortable. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Yes!"

Cass's lips barely moved. "She was going to search for the rest of them. She thought she was on a streak, that no one else would be able to have this chance. She took it. She lost everything." Cass looked back at me. "Now you know the story-"

"That is not the story," I interrupted. "How does this relate to me? I know it does."

Cass pursed her lips. Several times, she opened them to speak, and then closed them again with a sigh.

"I-"

I could hear my heartbeat in my chest.

"Charlie- well, she-"

Cass's eyes were filled with tears.

"-she needed to hide that information where no one could find it-"

A sense of dread was washing through my chest.

"It's in you," Cass said in a rush. "The location- Charlie put it in your mind, then erased the trigger."

"The trigger?" I'm surprised Cass could even hear my voice. I can't feel anything.

"Like- if memories and information are all tied together by strings, and those strings are all tangled up in each other. So if you pull on one string, you think of the memory, or information, and all the strings tangled around it, or associated with it. She erased the string from your mind. So the thing itself is still there, but since it doesn't have a string, there's no way your mind could find it."

I nod, now seeing the appeal of staring at the floor. I try to feel something, but there's nothing there.

"She thought it would be safe," Cass's voice was soft, and heartbroken. "It would take an insanely powerful trigger to even think of that memory. She left the house, thinking we were safe, planning on finding the rest of them. I wanted to bring that information to the Order, but she wouldn't let me," Cass's voice cracked. "Didn't fully trust them, you see. They appeared in the yard, while she was talking to you. They killed her, and Disapparated again. It triggered the memory." I look up at the picture of my mother and Cass, faces split with laughter. Did she know she was going to die?

I think I do feel something- it's raw and sloshing, like a waterfall or some shit. Anger. "What happened then?" I stared at Cass. Please, no. Anything but what I thought this was. Anything...

"I....." Cass swallowed. "I....I, um... I may or may not have erased the trigger, and then shattered the memory."

"Why?" I looked into her damp eyes. They were a watery ocean blue, tears spilling out of the corners. "Why would you do something like that?"

"I didn't want you to grow up with that pain...I know what it's like to not have a mother. I didn't want that first memory triggered. I wanted to forget about all of it."

"How could you do that to me?" I screamed.

"I didn't want you to suffer! The Dark Lord was gone, it seemed like there was no threat!"

"You made me suffer- every. Fucking. Day- you didn't teach me how to deal with negative emotions and move on!"

Cass took a deep, rattling breath. "Listen, I know it's hard to hear Charlie did this-"

"It's not my mother, it's you! I've never known her, but you-

Cass waking me up, first day of school. She's not really my mother, I had thought just hours before. Cass making sure I got to Hogwarts on time. Cass buying me the fireworks that had exploded in the process of getting my trunk. Cass not forcing me to buy a dress for dress robes, Cass sending me letters every week until I asked her to stop, Cass offering to buy me any pet I wanted. 

I clear my throat. "From you, that feels like betrayal. You don't-" tears and panic are rising in my chest and eclipsing my voice. "You don't know what it's like."

Cass nodded, mouth in a tight line and eyes on the floor.

I think of Artemis, her hands on my shoulder, on my arm, on my waist, her fingers grazing my lip that time in the Hospital Wing. "I need you to be calm," I hear her say, and I break.