SPLITAPARTS: lessons in love ✔️

Birthday Surprises - Part One

Cassie woke up early on the morning of her sixteenth birthday, thinking of home. She inhaled deeply the scents of the neroli and frankincense oils that her mother had packed into her ruck prior to her travels. She placed several cotton balls that she had placed several drops of the oils into the little dream pillow that her brothers had made for her, placing it anew each night in her pillowcase...it had become part of her bedtime routine and it was as important to her as brushing her teeth. She uncovered her head and felt the cold air stinging her nose and covered her head once again and groaned.

Cassie's dreams consisted of the previous week's activities of the museums, the Royal Observatory, sharing a lunch and hot chocolate with Remus in Hyde Park with freezing fingers would prove to be a memorable experience and of course, pretending to fly on the double-decker bus. Her dreams then moved on to Sirius taking her up into the night sky on his flying motorbike, which he hadn't actually done, as well as the café and the music store...Playing some of her favorite music on the drums and then the guitar with two complete strangers was certainly a thrill. She learned a little bit more about Sirius, and he about her. It proved to be a long day and they were both exhausted when they arrived at the hotel and had dinner. She was still waiting for the Ministry officials to come to some sort of decision regarding her fate.

Beneath the blankets, she wondered how long Sirius's charade was going to continue, but decided that she would play along and she awoke finally with Snuffles curled up in a tight little ball at the foot of her bed, staring holes into her. His nose was tucked in his tail. She smiled and sat up.

"Outside?"

Snuffles raised his head and flapped his tail on the bed twice.

She yawned and pried the heavy blankets off of her. "I wonder if it's raining? I think it was supposed to." She slid off the bed and tiptoed to the window and pulled back the heavy hotel curtain. It was indeed raining. The room was chilly—chillier than she would have liked it to be and it made her uncomfortable. Even Snuffles seemed to be cold. When she pulled back the curtain, she sighed as she looked outside. "Well, of course it's raining. Why wouldn't it be? Wish I could teach you how to use the potty like I did my cat--well actually, he's my mom's cat. I think you'd like him Snuffles, he's pretty cool."

Snuffles rolled his eyes and she laughed. Sometimes, she thought that he could understand her every word and she wondered how much of Sirius was cognizant in Padfoot. There were times he would sat behind her with his chin on her shoulder as she sat on the carpeted floor on Sundays and read the paper in front of the large television, as if he was reading the paper with her. She liked that she got to spend her weekends with the dog instead of Sirius...most of the time, she genuinely liked Sirius...he was smart, talented, funny, a powerful wizard and quite easy on the eyes, but he could be so intense sometimes but then, so could she. Both understanding the need for quiet solitude, they could sit for hours and not say a word to the other, yet still communicate on some ethereal level. There were things she genuinely didn't like about Sirius...mostly things he did; she felt he drank too much and he would make her run and work out...she wondered how much of that was for him? He did confess that he was in the best shape of his life after all. Still, the dog was a nice break and she wondered if he remembered anything that he experienced as a dog.

She headed to the bathroom and exclaimed her disdain at having her bare feet touch the cold tile floor. A few minutes later, she exited the bathroom and found Snuffles sitting with his leash in his mouth; he had gotten used to the routine. So had she and she found it comfortable. She slid out of her nightgown and got dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans, a tee shirt and her boots, sans socks. Upon reaching the door to the corridor outside her suite, she grabbed her leather jacket and the umbrella and reached to open the door. Snuffles barked and she looked at him. He was looking at the middle of the door.