Transfixed: A Draco Malfoy Fanfiction

Chapter 30

PART 2

I turned 17 on July 15. I woke up to the sound of the waves as my sister hovered above my bed to sing "Happy Birthday." On this particular morning, I did not wake up feeling happy or excited or even groggy. I woke up terrified.

That day was the day everything changed, and I knew it was only a matter of hours.

Since sixth year ended, Voldemort was insidiously taking over the Ministry of Magic, and Harry, Ron and Hermione were all making plans to go into hiding and destroy the Horcruxes. As for me, I had been laying low with my mother and Cassady. In the few months that Cassady and I were separated, she had completely changed, too. When I left her after my father's funeral, she seemed like a terrified, traumatized 15-year-old witch. She was struggling with nightmares that would send her screaming for minutes at a time, and she was constantly jumpy around everyone, including her own family.

We made the decision that it would be best for her not to return to Hogwarts for the rest of the year. She stayed home with Mum, who unbeknownst to me, received special permission from Dumbledore to train Cassady at home. Mum was an immensely powerful witch, but never used her magic flamboyantly or dramatically (like us Gryffindors were sometimes known to do.) She was a Ravenclaw like Cassady, and she meticulously and quietly studied to become Head Girl and the best student in her year during her time at Hogwarts.

I was never her favorite. In her eyes, I was always making missteps wherever I went. My marks in school weren't as great as they could be; my head was in the clouds, too easily distracted, temper too easily lost..... You get the picture.

But Cassady was her pride and joy. Cassady was the child she succeeded with, and now that Cassady was home, she saw herself as the only one who could help Cassady move on from the trauma of the kidnapping. So, she got to work.

Her goal was to make sure Cassady never felt weak or harmless again. She trained Cassady daily in all magical subjects, with a strong emphasis on Defense Against the Dark Arts. She taught Cassady charms more sophisticated than I had ever seen, spells that she herself invented. She taught Cassady potions designed to incapacitate enemies in dozens of ways; she even revealed spells created to control the elements. The only two wizards I had ever seen with that power were Dumbledore and Voldemort, who had called on the water and fire elements, respectively, when they dueled.

I was kept in the dark about all of this at my mother's request. She did not want me to feel jealous or worried that she was pushing Cassady too hard. The former was ridiculous; I had stopped being jealous of my mother's favoritism a decade ago. But as for the latter, she was right to be concerned about that. I had always been protective over Cassady, and the last thing I would have wanted was for her to feel overwhelmed.

When I first came home, I barely recognized my sister. She had grown while I was away and now stood a solid two inches taller than me. She was wearing a navy long sleeved dress that fell to her ankles, but even still, I could see the defined muscles in her arms and legs. She was not only training in magic, but in physical strength too.

Of course she was thrilled when she saw me. She threw herself in my arms and told me how much she missed me, but she did not cry. Even when we spoke together that night about Dad and about her kidnapping, she did not cry like she did before. She had always looked like Mum, but now they were almost twins. Now that they were the same height, it was truly spooky how similar they were.

It was during that conversation the first night that Cassady revealed her training to me. At first I wasn't surprised; I assumed that she wouldn't be doing nothing the whole year. But she just shook her head and told me I didn't understand. She then proceeded to take me to the beach, which was empty and completely dark. Using the lumos spell on my wand, I watched as she aimed her wand at the waves and quietly murmured a spell I couldn't hear. Then, about 50 meters out from the shoreline, a wave appeared. I felt all the color drain from my face as it dawned on me. A tsunami.