Black Blood

05 - Echoing Silence

She sat there and listened to her own breathing, slow and calm as it were. She gazed at the petrified muggleborn with cold, hard eyes, contemplating what she wanted to do and say, deep down, and why.

She couldn't count how many times she'd clutched at her wand when she'd laid sight on the savage girl during class, and how afraid and angry she'd felt every time they'd passed one another within Hogwarts' hallowed halls.

"I thought...maybe we could even be friends..."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she withdrew her wand from its holster upon her left hip and placed the tip of it upon the muggleborn's helpless, hapless throat.

"Do you know what I could do to you?" she quietly asked the unmoving girl, her words lined with deep loathing for the inanimate muggleborn. "Do you have even the slightest clue? Hm, do you?"

Cass always found herself wondering if Granger could hear her queries each and every time she snuck into the infirmary to sit at her side and contemplate the girl's ever-present, ever-haunting words she'd spoken to the pureblooded witch what seemed like a lifetime ago.

She withdrew her wand, placing it back into its sheath, then she reclined into the hospital chair with a miserable sigh.

"I thought...maybe we could even be friends..."

"Be quiet," she softly demanded of the silent girl, suddenly wishing to hex the muggleborn's ugly, imperfect buck-teeth so that they grew thrice their natural size.

She leaned to her side, placing her finely chiseled cheek into the immaculate, pedicured grasp of her right hand.

"You're so mind-scarringly ugly. Did you know that?" she quietly spat, sending the supine girl a disgusted sneer. "And your hands are so coarse and crude. One would think you were a full-grown man who'd toiled too many a field as though you were some low-born muggle."

No matter how often she was insulted, Granger never responded, nor could she, but Cass would still wonder if her insults could be heard, and if so, she wondered if they did similar damage to that of what the muggleborn had once done to her.

Suddenly, she sat up straight and pulled out her wand once more, pointing its yew end at the girl's unbreathing esophagus.

"You're nothing to me. You're just a muggleborn who studies too much, and look where that's found you," she snarkily said, adopting her sneer yet again. "Don't you worry none, Granger, I won't do anything to you in the state you're in. That would be beneath me, a coward's unspoken ruse, and I am no frightened cur who bites in the dark. You don't know me, muggleborn, and you never, ever will. Not ever."

Once more, she holstered her wand, sending the unresponsive muggleborn a displeased frown, wishing she would awake so Cass could be sure her words were heard.

"I thought...maybe we could even be friends..."

"You don't know me," she quietly repeated, feeling quite empty for some bizarre, inexplicable reason. "You don't know me at all, Granger. Not in the very least."

"I thought...maybe we could even be friends..."

Cass gritted her teeth and stood upright, preparing a good slap for the obnoxious muggleborn, only to stop herself short, knowing no pureblood, and certainly not one born of the noble House of Black, would ever assault another who was clearly unable to rally a defence of any shape or sort.

"I thought...maybe we could even be friends..."

"We could never be friends, Granger," she quietly said, gazing coldly at the petrified girl with deep contempt and harsh hatred. "Not ever."

And without a single glance back, she left the infirmary and the petrified girl resting within its confines, never once doubting her unheard words.