I haven't been able to get what Theseus said to me out of my head for the past month. I was so annoyed by it that I didn't even bother going to the Slytherin versus Hufflepuff quidditch match.
Slytherin won by the way. Which means that it's going to be Slytherin and Gryffindor in the final game early June.
I also haven't been able to get into the Room of Requirement recently. All my professors have been giving us homework and study sheets like their lives depend on it. The only semi-interesting thing that has happened in my life recently is hearing about James and how some girl accidentally performed non-verbal magic while they were.. intimate, and his, thing... fell off...
It sends shivers down my back just thinking about it and I don't even have a thing. I mean... that can happen? I didn't know there was a spell for that...
Well actually, another sort of interesting thing happened. But it's not that interesting at all if you think about it... Because I sat beside Ophelia in every class that we had together, Theseus now sits beside me in every class that we have together because that's the only empty seat that was available. And I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's been hell.
"Cassiopeia, I thought you knew better than that."
We're in potions right now, and Theseus being Theseus is watching what I'm doing to my cauldron instead of what he should be doing to his.
"Theseus, you'd be surprised, but I know how to brew Girding potion." I snap at him.
Theseus hums and leans closer to me, "Really? Because the recipe calls for two fairy wings."
My heart falls into my stomach, "What? No, it does not." I grab my textbook and hold it in front of me, "See? Add one set of fairy wings to a boiling cauldron of water and stir till turquoise."
"Exactly."
"What do you mean exactly?"
"One set. Not one wing."
I stare down at my potion, racking my brain trying to remember if I added one set or if just added one. He could be messing with my head just to get a rise out of me or he could be serious. Slughorn takes five points away from you if you restart a potion in his classes... but five points is better than a failing grade...
I take my cauldron off the burner and go over to the sink and dump the contents out.
"Five points from Slytherin Miss Weasley," Slughorn says lazily from his desk.
I measure more water and add it to my cauldron before carefully walking back to my work station and putting it on the burner again.
Theseus watches me as I work. I take one set of fairy wings out of the communal jar in the middle of our work station and lay them flat on my cutting board as I wait for the water to boil again.
"You know it was all your fault," I say to Theseus.
"My fault?" I can hear the smile in his voice so I don't have to look at him to know what his face looks like, "Darling I didn't touch your fairy wings."
"No, but if you weren't watching me all class then I wouldn't have felt pressured and make a mistake."
"And why do you feel pressured when I'm around Cassiopeia?"
"It's not you so you can hop right off that high horse of yours. It's people watching me in general."
Theseus laughs, "You've got to get used to people looking when I'm around Cassiopeia."
I loop up from the water in my cauldron just as it's beginning to boil. Georgette, Cheryl, and Sacha are glaring at me from their work station on the other side of the room.
I look back down at my water and add the fairy wings into the bubbling water, "You know that Georgette isn't a pureblood." I say to him.
"I thought you didn't care about blood status?"
"I don't."
"Then why bring up Georgette's?"
"Because you care about dumb things like blood status and I have a feeling that if your family knew that you've been talking to a muggle-born."
Theseus glares at me, "Don't speak of things that you don't understand."
"Bit rich coming from you. You love speaking about things you don't understand. Tell me again why your father had to leave Greece? You say it was because of work but for some reason I don't believe that."
Theseus shakes his head and suddenly gets interested in his potion which is bubbling softly in front of him
I add Doxy eggs into my cauldron and let it bubble some more. I turn my wand into a spoon like I normally do and stir it occasionally.
"How did you do that?" Theseus asks.
"Look who needs my help."
"I don't need your help. I'm just curious."
"here, give me your wand."
Theseus hesitates and I roll my eyes, "I'm not going to steal it from you, I've got my own."
He gives me his wand, it's a lot heavier than mine, and longer too, "What type of wood is this? I've never seen it before."
"First you ask about my father, then you ask about my wand-type?" Theseus tilts his head, "16 inches, purpleheart wood, with a niffler spine core."
When he tells me his want type he drops the act that he's been using, and for a split second I think that we could actually be getting somewhere.
"Never mind, I don't care enough for you to show me. Hand it back." He goes right back to being a total ass and grabs his wand out of my hand.
I go right back to my potion, instantly trying to forget how blue Theseus's eyes are and how his skin felt against mine when he took his wand back.
Once my potion is pink I add a few toasted dragonfly thoraxes. Theseus clears his throat and I pass him the jar of them. His fingers brush against mine again as he takes it away from me, I want to meet his eyes again but I refuse.
He's a complete arse Cassiopeia. You don't need that. The voice in the back of my head tells me.
By the end of the class, both Theseus and I finished a perfect potion and were awarded ten points each for Slytherin. As we are packing up our things, Georgette comes over and practically throws herself on top of him talking about how she knew he was going to brew the perfect potion blah, blah, blah.
I don't bother sticking around to hear the rest of her praises. I should just head to the library and study for my exams, but on the way up to the library I chance course and end up in the Room of Requirement.
Just being here again makes me feel safe, being surrounded by a bunch of practice dummies and mirrors so I can watch myself twirl around the room laughing. I waste no time, I want to get as much dark magic practice out of the way before dinner so I can do my actual school stuff in the common room later.
"Okay..." I mutter to myself as I take seven dummies off of the wall and line them up in the middle of the room, "Gytrash are just spirits, they can be dispelled by red sparks and Lumos. If things go wrong just cast those. Not hard,"
I step back from the dummies and take my wand out from my robe pocket before tossing my robe to a corner of the room. I crack my neck and roll my shoulders a few times before I raise my wand arm and point my wand at the first dummy.
"Relax," I mutter to myself.
Without saying anything, I draw a figure eight figure in the air and bright green light shoots out of my wand, before it hits the dummy it morphs into eight different dog-shaped figures. Together, the dogs attack the dummies, ripping them to shreds before my eyes. It only takes a few seconds for all seven dummies to be piles of fabric and metal on the ground.
Then the dogs turn to us, and I swear they bow their heads and wait for a command. I don't want to send them away, they're mesmerizing. I walk towards one, my hand extended, I want to touch them and by the looks of things they're going to let me.
The door behind me opens, I can hear Freddie and Evie giggling. The two of them stumble into the room. Freddie realizes that I'm in here pretty quickly. His eyes go wide, Evie looks confused out of her mind.
"What are you doing in here?" He asks me.
The dogs behind me snarl, waiting for me to let them attack Evie and Freddie. I sin around to face them and shoot red sparks out of my wand towards them. The dogs yelp, and fade to mist.
"Practicing for my charms practical. What are you two doing in here?" I say turning back around to Freddie.
"We were uhm... looking for a place to uh... nevermind." He says awkwardly.
I nod, "Well I'm using this room so if you could not?"
"I've never seen that spell before. What one was it?" Evie questions.
"Just something that Flitwick is having us practice."
"He never made us practice that when we were in third year."
"Yeah well, curriculums change."
Freddie puts his hand on Evie's arm, "Let's go, dinners soon and I'm fucking starving."
Evie looks at me hard, she clearly doesn't buy my excuse, "Flitty would never have you learn about a charm that would do that to practice dummies." She nods at the mess behind me.
I turn around and look at the debris that the dogs have left. I rack my brain trying to figure out what to say, "Yeah I was uh, practicing reducto earlier."
"That's a Defense Against the Dark Arts spell. Not a charms class spell." Evie states.
I half wish that my dogs were still here so I could have them rip Evie apart for asking so many questions.
"How about you don't put your nose where it doesn't belong. Find somewhere else to have sex, this room is occupied." I say the last bit looking at my brother, "Or if you want I can just tell Mum and Dad that you two have been doing it in every possible room in this castle."
"Don't be a bitch Cass, we'll leave," Freddie says. He pulls on Evie's arm a little.
"Fred that's not a charm that she should be messing with and you know it." I can hear Evie whisper to my brother as they leave.
"We'll talk about it later," Freddie whispers back to her.
The door closes and my shoulders slump. Evie knows. Evie knows what I've been up to, I can tell. And she's going to tell Fred and Fred's going to tell Mum and Dad and then it'll all be for nothing. They'll take it away from me, they'll make me stop. It's the only thing that makes me happy right now.
I turn back around to the mess of dummies and put them all back together using a simple spell. Then I move them back to where they're supposed to be. By the time I'm finished the dinner bell rings. I pick up my robes and my backpack and head out into the corridor.
Fred is standing there, alone now, and looking pretty pissed off.
"Evie might not have seen that charm.. sorry, dark conjuration but I did a composition on it earlier this year for Defense. What the fuck are you doing playing with that kind of shit?"
"I don't know what you're on about. I was studying for my charms exam. It's less than a month away." I walk past Fred but he grabs my arm and holds me in place.
"Cassiopeia. I'm serious."
"Let go of me, Fred."
"You seriously are practicing the dark arts. I just thought that was you fucking around. All the rumours and shit... Oh my god."
"I said let go of me, Fred."
"What are you going to do? Hex me?"
I channel all of my anger to where his hand is gripping my arm, every emotion I have toward Fred, towards Theseus, towards Evie, I focus it all on the spot on my arm that Fred is holding onto.
I can feel my arm heat up but it doesn't hurt me. Fred on the other hand yelps and kind of throws my arm away from him. I look at him and the hand that he was holding me with is red and smoking.
"What the fuck Cass? You hurt your own family now?"
"I told you to let me go."
Fred scoffs, "I can't fucking believe you. Dark arts is one thing, but using them against me? Against your own brother?"
He looks like he might cry but I don't think it's because his hand hurts. I step forward and try to take his hand in mine but he pulls away.
"I can fix it so you don't have to go to the hospital wing," I say quietly.
Fred's eyes look like they have fire behind them, "I don't even know who you are anymore. What happened after that talk we had?"
"This has been going on long before that talk Fred."
"How long?"
His hand is still smoking, and I can tell that he's in a lot of pain, "Fred just let me fix that. Here," I reach into my bag and pull out some burn paste, "You've gotta trust me."
He laughs, "Trust you? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I didn't mean it. I was just so mad..." I take his hand in my own, his hand is like five times bigger than mine. I dip my fingers into the burn paste and spread it over his hand. Both Fred and the skin on his hand hisses when I make contact. It takes a second but the skin on his hand starts to repair itself.
"How did you do that anyway? Burn me like that?" He says.
I look up into his face and shrug. "I've read stuff about wizards being able to harness their emotions and use them as a form of defensive magic. I haven't tried it till just now."
Fred looks at his hand, which is back to normal again, "I..."
"Don't tell Mum and Dad... please, this is the only thing that makes me happy right now."
Fred looks at me, confusion drawn across his face like a bad tattoo, "Are you mad?"
"Probably. But please, if you love me you wouldn't tell Mum and Dad."
Freddie scoffs and looks away from me, down the corridor, up in the air, anywhere but my face, "Is this how you really hurt your leg? Dark magic gone wrong?"
"It didn't go wrong. I got cocky. Big difference."
"Dad lost his ear to dark magic you know. And Mum fell out of love with magic and hid in the muggle world for five years because of it."
"I know the dangers of it, and I'm practicing it safely. There's no need to go running to Mummy and telling her about your big bad little sister."
"Cassiopeia..."
"I trust you with my life, Fred. Do you really want to displace that trust I have in you by taking the one thing that makes me happy away?"
That's when Fred looks at me, his facial features soften, his eyebrows unfurrow themselves.
"I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't know it would work. It was a one-off and it will never happen again. I've never used dark magic on a living thing let alone a person before and I don't plan on doing it ever. I'm just trying to become a powerful witch. That's what you want for me isn't it?"
Freddie sucks on his teeth, "If you get hurt again, I'm going to have to tell Mum and Dad."
"I'm not going to get hurt again I promise."
"You can't put yourself in danger."
"I won't."
Freddie looks long and hard at me, "Alright... I won't say anything... let's go to dinner."
I fall in line beside my brother as we walk down the corridor towards the staircase. I do my best not to smile but it's pretty hard. I love Fred, I really do, he's a great big brother but he's so easy to manipulate. Like that weird play-dough stuff that muggle kids have, you can shape it into anything you can think of. And I know he's not lying. None of us are too good at that, and Freddie always clenches his jaw when he lies so it's a pretty tell-tale sign.
As long as Fred doesn't tell anyone then it'll be fine. Everything will be fine. Evie is going to assume that Fred told Mum and Dad so she won't say anything either, not like she would go to Mum with everything after that monstrosity of a dinner we had together.
The spot on my arm that Fred was holding onto is still warmer than any other part of my body but it doesn't hurt me. The fact that I did that blows my mind and makes me so happy you have no idea. I can feel the power coursing through my veins, I can physically feel the magic inside me as it twists and turns, ready and waiting to do whatever I want it to do.
It's like a drug, and I'm fucking addicted.