musical mood: songbird – n. flying
It felt like hours had gone by, with Cass standing in the Professor's closet, too frightened to even breathe, when in reality it had only been a few minutes. Quirrell had spent the entire time vigorously rubbing his temples, elbows resting on his wood desk.
If you're so bloody stressed, just stop! Cass wanted to yell. Stop letting trolls into the castle, and stop trying to curse Potter off of his broom! It's that damn simple! Stop trying to avenge terrible people! Stop-
"Why so down, Quirinus?"
A sound echoed through the room, something close to a human voice, but not quite. Cass imagined that's what a demon would sound like, the types Connor would talk about, but peering through the crack in the door, she confirmed that Quirrell was alone. In the physical sense, at least, no one else was there. Perhaps it was a portrait speaking to him? No, no portrait sounded like that...
She watched the professor open his mouth, hesitating while searching for the right words. "Fuck off." He said finally, his stutter vanished yet again.
Cass bit down on her lip to prevent a gasp.
"You'd do well to mind your manners, Quirinus, or have you forgotten who you're speaking to?" The Voice clearly held an authority over the professor, who began to tremble, despite its tone being placid.
"How could I?" Quirrell shot up onto his feet. "How could I 'forget who I'm speaking to' when you're whispering in my ear day and night?"
"Don't sound so ungrateful. Our deal-"
"Our deal should've ended by now!"
"It would have, had you not been completely incompetant."
"I've done everything you've asked-"
"Liar!" For the first time in the heated conversation, The Voice grew louder, causing Cass to jump and Quirrell to flinch, as if in physical pain. "The boy is not dead! I do not have the stone! The only thing that has been accomplished is getting myself stuck to the biggest imbecile at this pathetic excuse of a school. You will get your end of our deal when I get mine. Understood?"
Quirrell hesitated again, before speaking, in a much quieter voice, nearly a whisper."Yes, my Lord. I understand."
Cass stared in disbelief. Was he talking to God?
If everything before was confusing, this had become a full on fever dream.
"I am pleased you've come around, as there is a more pressing matter on our hands than your temper tantrum."
"I don't understand."
"We are not alone."
For a moment, Cass thought her heart had stopped beating, as the mysterious book nearly slipped out of her grasp from shock. She whipped out her wand, mentally listing all the hexes she could think of.
Quirrell opened his mouth to speak, looking just as panicked as Cass imagined she appeared. But before he could say anything, a sharp knock on the door cut him off.
"Professorrrr." A whiny voice echoed through the muffled door. "I need your help!"
Quirrell shifted his turban slightly, and Cass stared in awe as his facial expression changed in an instant, to his typical antsy, innocent look. He was an actor, and a bloody good one. She couldn't help but be impressed.
"W-what is it?" He sputtered out, opening the door. Fred Weasley was on the other side, hands behind his back and brown eyes wide in mock innocence. Cass could've kissed him, she was so grateful.
"I need clarification on our detention. Which lavatories are we supposed to clean?"
"All of t-them." Quirrell blinked, dumbfounded by the stupidity of the question. "All the b-boys ones, a-at least."
"Well, the problem is, I don't know where every bathroom is. The school is massive, or haven't you noticed?"
Inhaling sharply, Quirrell rubbed his temples with his fingers, before stepping towards the doorway. Though he presented annoyed, Cass imagined he was relieved to be away from The Voice. "F-fine. Come w-with me, Weasley. B-but there b-better be no f-funny business."
"Me? Funny business? Never, Professor!"
The door was shut behind them as Quirrell led Fred Weasley down the hall, their footsteps growing distant until Cass could no longer hear them, and she felt her muscles untense with relief. She was alone.
But...was she? The Voice had to come from somewhere, after all. Unless it was some sort of invisible demon and had followed the professor away. She'd have to come out eventually, though, unless she wanted to starve to death - and she had her wand, so she'd be fine. Right?
Taking one final deep, shaky breath, Cass summoned all the courage she could, before pushing the door open, and stepping back into the office. Just as she shut the door behind her, making sure everything was in the exact condition as it had been before she broke in, the entry door burst open, and she screamed.
"Flipendo!"
A bright blue light flew out of her wand and collided with the stone wall, only centimetres away from hitting George Weasley in the face, as he had dodged it just in time.
"Good Merlin!" He cried out, stuffing a piece of parchment he had been holding into the pocket of his robe, and pulling out his own wand, though he didn't aim it at her. "Why would you do that?!"
"Sorry! I thought you were..." she hesitated, shaking her head. "...it was a reflex."
"Yeah, a reflex that nearly took my ear off. At least go for the right one, I'm quite fond of my left ear." He rubbed it indignantly.
"I said I'm sorry!" Cass scrambled to follow him out of the room, still holding the mysterious book tight against her chest, as if he were about to steal it. "What were you doing in there anyways?"
"Rescuing you, of course." He eyed her up and down as they turned the corner, Cass speed walking her way towards the Ravenclaw common room. "Though by the looks of it, you can take care of yourself."
"How did you know I needed...rescuing? Or where I was, for that matter?"
"Fred and I have eyes everywhere." George winked at her. Cass would've usually demanded he elaborate, but she was in no position to argue, considering he had saved her arse twice that day.
"So, it's safe to assume that Fred coming in was intentional?"
"Yep." He nodded, his messy red hair bobbing up and down. "He got Quirrell away so I could get you out of that closet. Guess you owe us two favours now."
The corners of Cass's mouth turned up, though her heart rate hadn't gone down. Probably from the anxiety of what had just happened - and the questions that swam through her mind, though she refused to think about them until she reached her dorm room. Herbology with Sprout could wait - she could borrow Naia's notes if need be.
"Guess I'm a real knight in shining armour, eh?" He winked at her again when she didn't say anything, nudging her with his elbow. They were close to the Ravenclaw common room now, and luckily no Professors or Prefects had caught them in the halls, when they were supposed to be in class. "Why were you in his office anyways? It looked medieval."
"If you won't tell me how you knew I was there, I won't tell you why I was."
"Fair enough."
Just as they reached the bronze eagle - the symbol of Ravenclaw, and the entrance to the common rooms, its deep voice echoed out a riddle. "What is always in front of you, but cannot be seen?"
Cass pondered for a moment. A riddle being the Ravenclaw password was incredibly inconvenient in times like these, where she was stuck holding a massive book she had just stolen from a man who apparently made a deal with a Voice.
She almost forgot George was standing next to her, when she answered. "The future."
"Only time will tell." The door swung open, and Cass wasted no time rushing in, only hesitating when she realised George was following her.
"What are you doing? You can't be in here!" She demanded as he looked around the common room with wide eyes.
"I've always wondered what the Ravenclaw common room looks like." He replied, not looking at her, and instead gaping at the regal ceiling. "Why do you have so many books in here? Can't you just go to the library?"
"I think you've forgotten, one of the requirements to be a Ravenclaw is to be a complete recluse." Cass looked back and forth, confirming they were alone. "Don't you have a class to be at anyways?"
"Don't you?" George cocked his head.
"I have...other commitments."
"That's a fancy way of saying you're skiving."
"I am not skiving, I just...have something important to do."
"Like reading weird books?" Without warning, George lunged at her, yanking the stolen book out of her arms, with more strength than she had to oppose, even if she hadn't been caught off guard. "What even is this?"
"Give that back, Weasley!"
"Mag-jee-a eee gah-juh-koot." George sounded out as he read the title, tilting his head. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Give. It. Back." Cass attempted to rip the leather bound book from his hands, but he was easily able to keep hold of it.
"Did you take this from Quirrell's office?" When she didn't respond, his eyes widened, in a joyful sort of shock, like a little kid receiving a Christmas present that he really wanted but never imagined he would actually get. "Oh Merlin, you did! You're a proper thief, stealing from a Professor! Unfortunate for you that it's in gibberish."
"I did not steal it!" Cass insisted, though very unconvincingly.
George truly looked like it was his favourite holiday now. "You lie, too? Merlin, you're way different than I imagined."
"Just shut up and give me the book back!"
"Fine," Cass reached to grab it again, but he yanked it away, while he continued. "On one condition."
Of course. George Weasley couldn't make this easy for her. No, not one thing in her pathetic existence was allowed to be easy.
"What is it?" She reluctantly asked.
"I get to hang out with you today. I don't fancy going to classes or detention tonight, and I doubt McGonagall will look for me here."
"What about Fred? You'll have him go to detention without you?"
"He'll know where to find me."
Cass took a deep breath. Truthfully, she was too tired to argue any more with him. Besides, what was the harm of George Weasley being present while she decoded books and compared handwritings? He was annoying, but also harmless, at the end of the day. And if he decided to dump water on her again, she knew the spell to fix it, plus some hexes for revenge.
"Fine. Do what you like."
"Brilliant." George handed her the book, though Cass didn't take it.
"Actually...could you hold onto that for a moment? I need to grab something. I'll meet you over there." She gestured at a couch in a corner of the common room, concealed from most angles by a massive bookshelf. Not many students went back there - the lighting was terrible for reading, and the couch was scratchy and uncomfortable, so it would be the perfect spot to work on everything while going unnoticed.
"Er, sure."
Cass didn't waste any time running up to her dorm room, and grabbing the forged letter from her trunk. She knew she could compare the handwriting with the essay she still had inside her robe pocket without going back, but for some reason, she didn't want to. Maybe she was too scared to be alone in her thoughts after everything that had transpired - she'd need to address everything soon, though. Everything had been turned on its side once again. Unless she had misunderstood, Quirrell was working for someone - someone who wanted a boy dead. His motives were once again out the window, if he had made a deal with The Voice.
She ought to go to a different professor about everything, perhaps even Dumbledore. Her reasonings against doing such at first were for lack of proof - all she had was what her and the twins had seen on Halloween, and Merlin knew George and Fred weren't reliable eyewitnesses. Surely, they had to count for something, though Cass was still held back. A distrust of authority, maybe. Every time she'd go to a teacher at primary school when Connor and her had been bullied, they'd look the other way, and things would just get worse because she tattled. Now, with someone's death on the table, if she went to someone and it didn't work, she had no idea what the consequences would be.
Taking a deep breath, she expelled the thoughts out of her mind. Best she talk everything through with Bethany, and there was no use stressing on it until then.
When she got back to the couch, George had unravelled the book from its bindings, spilling the contents over the coffee table. The book was in his lap, and he was examining a muggle polaroid, with a curious smirk.
"Look at what was inside the gibberish book." He motioned for her to look at the image. "It's Quirrell as a teen. Am I allowed to look at his hair, or is that like...offensive?"
Cass shrugged, peering over his shoulder. Young Quirrell was surprisingly handsome, with dark brown curls, high cheekbones and a passive smile. But it was the boy next to him that caught Cass' eye - a short boy with a Ravenclaw uniform, his arm around Quirrell's shoulder and his mouth frozen in a laugh. Bethany was right - Quirrell and Barty had been friends.
Barty couldn't have been over 16 years old in the polaroid, and he radiated a rare sense of joy Cass had never imagined her brother possessed. In her mind, Barty had always been a raging maniac - a ticking time bomb, but somehow, a singular photograph made her question this. He seemed so...human, simply laughing with a mate, without the glimmer of insanity in his eye she had seen in older images of him; in the Prophet article about his arrest. What had caused him to go mad, if he hadn't always been so?
"Put that away." Cass snapped, pushing the thought out of her mind.
"You good, Cassie?" George nudged her. "You look a tad...green."
"Just put it away!"
"Alright, alright, calm yourself." George tucked it back into the book's pages, and Cass remembered her first order of business, pulling the stolen essay out of her pocket and lining it up next to the forged letter on the coffee table. Finding the bits Quirrell had wrote on were easy - he had made more corrections than there were words by the original student, it seemed.
"What are those?" He looked over as she examined the two, though it didn't take long. The handwriting, once again, was completely different. No, Quirrell hadn't forged the letter, which was both a distress and a relief for her. It was comforting to know her professor wasn't that crazy, but it was another mystery to solve, and she was back at square one.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it." She mumbled, folding them both and tucking them in her pocket. She ought to return the essay, lest the poor student who it belonged to fail, but after her experience in that room with The Voice, she'd rather take her chances with You-Know-Who himself.
She turned her attention to the book, pulling it onto her lap. The polaroid of Quirrell and her brother wasn't the only photograph hidden in the pages like a diary, but she refused to look at them. She already felt sick to her stomach seeing Barty once, if there were any more, she might actually throw up, and how embarrassing would that be?
Instead, she turned her attention to the cover, properly reading the foreign title for the first time.
Magjia e Gjakut.
At the very bottom, the words Mopsus Folës Vdekurve were scribbled down, which Cass assumed was the author. What kind of name was that?
"Sooooo, do you like...know what that says, or are you just reading nonsense for fun?"
"I don't speak the language, I don't even know what language this is." She said, flipping through the pages to find she didn't recognize a single word. No latin roots stuck out, meaning the language wasn't western European, but it was still in the latin alphabet, meaning it couldn't have been too far east, either. Somewhere in between Romania and Germany, she determined, while still scanning the pages .
"So, you stole a book that you can't understand, and don't even know the language of?"
Cass shrugged, barely processing what the annoying redhead was saying, her mind too muddled in search for a solution. Was there a spell that could translate it? Surely a spell like that would exist, but would she need to figure out what language it was in first?
For a moment, she considered asking Ana, but remembered Belarus was too far east for this language to originate from, and used a completely different alphabet. Alas, her only solution, once again, was Bethany Burke. She might know, or at least have an idea. She'd need to talk to her, and soon.
George shifted to look at her more intensely, as if he could read her thoughts. "You know, my brother Percy might be able to help. He speaks like, five different languages. Maybe he knows what it says, since it's so important."
Cass pondered this for a moment. Should she involve a stranger into this, especially someone as irritating as the Gryffindor prefect Percy Weasley? Was that in any way a good idea? For all she knew, he could be a complete narc, and turn her right in to Dumbledore if he found out the book was stolen.
But did she have another option?
Turning to George, she exhaled softly, staring into his brown eyes. "I think I owe you three favours, now."