bruises - james potter

twenty-nine

Cassie stared at James, an unamused expression on her face. She rolled her eyes as the Gryffindor lifted his hand up for a high five, he frowned slightly as she left him hanging, but then a smirk appeared on his face.

"That was very shellfish of you."

"No."

"Awwh, don't be crabby."

Cassie let out a small giggle, that only grew into a large laugh as she looked at James, whose grin grew as he looked at her laughing.

An odd, but nice, feeling settling in his stomach, one he only seemed to get when he was around her.

Maybe the fact that she was Sirius' sister didn't matter.

･・･☽✥☾･・･

Cassie shifted in her seat as Professor Slughorn looked at her from over the top of the piece of paper that was in his hand, the piece of paper that contained the information on how she was doing in all of her classes since their O.W.L year began.

Cassie was rather proud of all of her grades, even her marks in Transfiguration were slowly rising, but the fact that she hardly ever did her homework probably affected all of her grades.

Slughorn looked up at her from over the top of his circular glasses.

"Your marks are excellent, Miss Black, apart from Transfiguration, but Professor McGonagall has said that they are improving quite a lot, and you should be able to get an E by the end of the year with the right amount of work."

Cassie smiled slightly, Slughorn returned the smile as he put the sheet of her grades down on the table. Then, as he pushed his glasses up his nose more, he asked the girl.

"Normally, I would suggest what you can be when you leave school, but with your grades, you could be just about anything." He smiled a bit more.

"So, Miss Black. What do you want to be?"

Cassiopeia had been awaiting this question, and she had thought about it for months, as well as talking to James about it. But when faced with the question, she wondered if being a Professor was what she wanted to do.

There were pros, and cons of being a teacher, and she had obviously gone over all of them in her head multiple times, the pros outweighing the cons by over half-a-dozen.

She loved the thought of inspiring kids, and helping them get to where they wanted to be in life.

But, if she had a class filled with students like herself, she didn't know how she would cope. But, being a teacher had been her passion ever since she was little and being home schooled by her parents, something she had hated.

And that was what she wanted to do, and if it was hard, then she would deal with that when the time came, but as she knew from growing up, nothing came easily. So she decided to go with the passion she had, had since being a child.

"I want to be a professor, Professor."

Slughorn looked surprised by her response, but his smile grew a bit more nonetheless, and he bent down to reach into one of the draws of his desk. Cassie could hear a few things banging together as his hands reached for something closer to the bottom of the draw.

"Aha!" He quickly sat up again, slamming the draw closed as he sat up, a slightly old looking pamphlet in his hands, he placed the pamphlet in front of Cassie, who looked down at it.

"We don't get many students wanting to be teachers anymore, so after a few years, The Ministry told us to just keep the old pamphlets." Cassie nodded, continuing to look down at the folded paper infront of her.

"I do believe, this holds all the information for if you want to become a teacher, it also includes all the topics you will need to know in the subject that you wish to teach."

Cassiopeia nods, looking back up at her Professor, a small smile on her lips.

"Thank you professor." Slughorn nodded, waving his hand as a sign for the girl to be dismissed. Cassie stood up, grabbing her bag and placing it over her shoulder, holding the pamphlet in her hand. As she opened the office door, Professor Slughorn spoke once more.

"I believe you'll do great things, Miss Black."

･・･☽✥☾･・･

Cassiopeia and Regulus Black sat besides eachother in the library, their heads close together as they talked in rusher whispers. Every now and again, Regulus' voice would raise, which caused his sister to mutter an apology of some sort.

Anyone watching would have thought that the two siblings were just having a normal fight, maybe about something that happened in school, maybe the older sibling telling the younger one off for being irresponsible when it came to homework.

But no, normal sibling fights didn't include the discussion of someone needing to shut up in lessons, and get their head down and work, so that they won't be tortured when they get home from school.

Normal sibling fights didn't include the topic of the younger sibling being worried that one day, their parents will go too far, resulting in his only sisters death, which only made the dark-haired girl laugh, saying:

"They would never kill me Reggie, I'm way too 'important' for that to happen."

"You can't take this as a joke Cassie, they said-"

"It's just empty threats."

But both of them knew that they weren't empty threats, and they would do everything they said in the letter, and just reading it made Cassies hands shake so much that she could no-longer read the words on the page, as they had all just turned into one large mess of ink and spaces.

"You and I both know that it is not empty threats."

Cassie took a deep breath, running a hand through her hair and looking Regulus in the eye.

"Regulus, I know, alright? I know what they're capable of, and I also know, that I know how to handle it by now-"

"By handle it, you mean just let it happen?"

Cassie let's out another sigh, nodding,
"You just have to trust me Reggie, I know what I'm doing."

"But-"

"Just leave it, okay?" Regulus looked down, but nodded nonetheless, a frown on his lips. The truth was, that he was worried about Cassie, it was hard not to be, she went through so much when they got back to Twelve Grimmauld Place during the summer and during any other school break they had.

And she never seemed to break, she alwaye stayed strong, and Regulus wasn't sure if she was staying strong for herself, or for him. He really hoped it was the former, because he was so sick of feeling useless, and not being able to help Cassie, but he was also terrified of what their parents were capable of, and he knew he didn't want to be on the opposite side of one of their wands.

He hated feeling useless, but he feared their parents more.

･・･☽✥☾･・･

HEY,
I'M SO SORRY IT'S LATE,
BUT IT SLIPPED MY MIND,
AND I'M STILL ON HOLIDAY,
PERKS OF LONG CAR RIDES
= WRITING TIME  :)

ANYWAYS, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED
THIS CHAPTER, SOON, THERE
WILL BE A PROGRESS
IN JAMES AND CASSIES RELATIONSHIP, BUT I'M YET TO
DECIDE IF ITS A GOOD PROGRESS,
OR A BAD ONE

PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THIS CHAPTER,
AND UNTIL NEXT TIME

- EMILY xx