musical mood: xoxo - somi
Cassie had said not to expect much, but George hadn't a clue what that meant. Don't expect to get back together? Sure, he didn't think that would happen, no matter how much he prayed it would. Don't expect her forgiveness? Was she even still pissed at him, for calling her mad all those months ago, when they'd broken up? She must be, since she'd been ignoring him so much. He couldn't see any other reason she may have to do so.
He'd been sitting on a couch in the Shrieking Shack for over an hour, tapping his shoes on the wooden floor, anxiously waiting for Cassie to come.
Part of him didn't think she'd show. Cassie had never been one to stand someone up before, but she'd been so different, the last time he'd spoken to her in person. It was like she was a whole new person, not the Cassie he'd fallen in love with. Something had happened, while she had been away, that was only partially to do with Connor. He could just tell.
Eventually, just as he was about to leave, the door to the shack swung open, and in walked Cassie.
His stomach did a backflip.
She was drenched, head to toe in what must've been rain, that had been pouring down from the sky since he'd arrived.
"Do you want my jacket?" Was the first thing he asked, noticing her shivering as she shut the door behind her. He didn't wait for an answer, as he shrugged off the brown jacket he had been wearing and handed it over to her.
"No." She said simply, and George frowned, still holding it out for her to take.
"I don't want it." Cassie insisted, and he finally lowered his arm, setting the jacket back down on the couch. "What did you want, George? Why did you ask me to come here?"
"I wanted to talk to you. It's been forever since we last saw each other."
She shrugged, her drenched brown hair flopping about as she did. He resisted the urge to run his hands through it, to pull her close and kiss her. The only thing stopping him was not knowing if he had her consent.
"So? We aren't together. We aren't obligated to see each other." She said those words with such apathy in her tone, George thought his heart might physically break.
"I know you, Cassie. You wouldn't have come here if you didn't want to see me." Truthfully, he wasn't sure, he didn't know if he did know the new Cassie, but he was so, so hopeful that his instinct was right, and that she had wanted to be there. No one told Cassie what to do, after all. No one made her do something she didn't want to, not even him.
She said nothing, staring down at her shoes, and he only just managed to hold back a sigh of relief. George knew that look, the look she got where she wanted to deny something but couldn't. He liked to think he knew every Cassie expression, and what each one of them meant.
"I believe you." He said, after a long silence.
She glanced up at him, brown eyes muddled with confusion. Merlin, those eyes...they were perhaps his favourite thing about her. That and her accent; her deep, raspy voice and the funny way she pronounced words like subjective and hell.
And her hands. He really did like her hands.
Now that he thought about it, George couldn't think of a thing he didn't like about Cassie. She wasn't perfect, far from it, and he was keenly aware of that fact, but it was her flaws that had drawn him in so intensely. Now, it was her flaws, the error in her brain chemistry that was threatening to break them.
"What?"
"I believe you. About your brother, that he's alive. If that's what you need for you to take me back, I'll believe you. I'll believe anything you say." He didn't believe her, not a word she had been saying about that awful, awful man since he'd had his soul sucked out a little over a year ago. But he was so desperate for her back, he'd do anything, including feed into her delusions. He could help her, help her see reason, if only she let him in. She'd let him in before, maybe she would again, and maybe this time, he could fix it. Fix her.
"If you believe me, then you should understand why we can't be together."
"I love you." The words spilled out of him before he could stop them, like a river pouring itself into a waterfall. George couldn't help it, and he wasn't sure he wanted to help it. Just looking at Cassie made him want to spout love confessions all day, make her understand just how badly he loved her. Make her believe him enough to take him back.
Cassie didn't respond, but the look of devastation on her freckled face said it all – she still loved him too. He loved her freckles, the way they moved with every expression she wore. George had tried to count them once, when she was asleep in the dorm room they had once shared. He'd lost track and dosed off into a sleep of his own after around 70. He wanted to start again, to track constellations in them, maybe even find one that looked like Cassiopeia. But that wouldn't be able to happen until he won her back.
"You don't even know me." She shook her head.
"Yes, I do." He insisted, tucking a strand of loose, wet hair behind her ear, before leaning in and whispering, "I know you better than anyone. I know you're scared. I know you don't want to feel the way you do about me, but you do."
She took a step away from him, shaking her head once more, this time with more vigour. "How are you doing that? Get out of my mind."
"I love you." George repeated his earlier phrase. Cassie had backed herself into a wall, and when he moved closer to her, there was no more room for her to run away. Not that he would force her to stay there if she truly didn't want to be, but he knew deep down, that she didn't want to leave. "More than anyone. More than Fred, more than the rest of my family. More than any of my friends. It's you, Cassie, it's always going to be you."
A stray tear fell down her cheek, that she hastily wiped away with the palm of her hand, clearly trying to hide it before he could spot it. But he had noticed.
"Don't cry." He pleaded, a lump forming in his throat. "Shit, please, don't cry."
"You're making this so hard. Why do you have to make this so hard?" She sniffed. Another tear ran down her cheek, but this time, she didn't try to conceal it. So George did, resting her chin in his hand, and wiping it away with his thumb.
"I love you."
About a dozen different emotions eclipsed her face at the same time, going by so fast that it was impossible to make out and distinguish from each other.
Then, Cassie straightened her posture, turned her head up towards him, and pressed her lips against his.
Pure bliss flooded George immediately, the sensation of her lips against his providing pure ecstasy to his brain, giving him a better high than any drug could. Who was he kidding, Cassie was a drug, a drug he was addicted to, as he instantly melted into her kiss, grabbing her hair with one hand and her waist with the other, pulling her close, as if scared she might run away.
Never let me go. He silently begged her, and though he didn't voice his thoughts out loud, Cassie obeyed. Her breath was heavy against his mouth, her chest heaving with effort, but they didn't stop, not even when his hands trailed under her shirt before he could stop himself. He couldn't resist, he needed her, he'd been deprived of his Cassie for so long, it was unbearable. He needed the sweet touch of her soft skin against his more than he needed air.
She didn't try to stop him as he pulled her shirt off, tossing it to the side carelessly, it landing on the floor with a soft thump. Then, as George planted kisses on her jaw, he made the horrible mistake of opening his eyes.
Cassie seemed to realise her mistake at the same time he did, when his gaze was met with the grizzly mark of You-Know-Who on her left arm.
She recoiled instantly, taking a sharp breath as her skin went cold to the touch. George backed away from her, his heart racing even faster than it had been when they'd been just moments away from sleeping with each other.
"Shit." Cassie muttered, closing her eyes shut tight. Her breathing grew shallow, and for the first time in six years, George found he didn't care one bit.
"What the fuck?" His eyes were fixed on the horrible symbol, the snake and the skull, that seemed to move around on her wrist with every passing second. A sickening feeling filled his stomach, like he was about to throw up. "Cassie, please tell me that isn't what I think it is."
No response. Just frantic breathing, like she was on the verge of a panic attack. Tears welled in her eyes, as she opened them ever so slightly. "George, please. Let me explain-"
He held up a hand to cut her off, averting his eyes from her. He didn't think he could so much as glance in her direction, she had made him feel so physically ill.
Cassie had been right – the Cassie he knew was gone. This was a whole new woman, a woman he had no desire to speak to for the rest of his life. The mere thought of her began to fill him with an unprecedented rage – she'd joined the death eaters. Cassie, his beloved Cassie, had joined the people she'd spent all of her life trying not to be like. Trying to separate herself from. George had spent all of his final year at Hogwarts doing his best to defend Cassie, when in reality, she was just as horrible as everyone had said she was.
It was like reading that newspaper, that said she was dead. It was like she'd died all over again.
She was no longer Cassie. Cassie was dead. She was just Cassiopeia now.
"I have to go." His voice was thin as paper, and threatened to break at any given moment.
"George, please-" She took a step towards him, not bothering to cover up her dark mark or bare chest, but he didn't listen. In a moment, he had apparated away, leaving Cassiopeia alone.
*
George didn't return to his joke shop, he didn't think he could handle seeing Fred, at the moment. Fred, the only person who would be able to comfort him, when in reality, he didn't want to be comforted. He wanted to scream, cry, throw something, break something, kick something. Anything, he wanted to destroy, to ruin, like his life had been ruined.
Instead, he apparated to Grimmauld Place, where he knew Moody would be. Moody, he needed to talk to Moody, needed to tell him what had occurred with Cassie-no, Cassiopeia. Cassie was gone. Was dead.
His throat clenched up, and this time, the tears that had been threatening to spill now fell freely down his face. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, he'd apparated into the kitchen, directly in front of Moody, nearly knocking the poor man over.
"Weasley, watch it-what the fuck? Why are you crying?"
"Cassie's dead."
"What?!" His mad eye enlarged by a tenfold, a clear sense of panic filling the ex-auror, and guilt flooded George almost immediately. This was the girl Moody viewed as his daughter, he shouldn't mess around with his feelings.
"Not literally." He sniffed, wiping away at his face. "She...she's...Merlin, I can't say it."
Saying it made it real. That the girl he'd loved so dearly had joined the Death Eaters. Maybe he shouldn't tell Moody, it would only land her in trouble. Telling an ex-auror that his child had joined a terrorist organisation certainly wouldn't end well, but then...what other choice did he have?
"Cassie, I saw her, she..." his voice broke, and he shook his head, unable to finish his sentence.
"She joined the Death Eaters." Moody stated – not asked, but said, without a single hint of emotion in his voice. He knew, and George's head shot up like a bullet.
"H-how do you know?" He whispered, as if someone could overhear.
"I could see the mark though her sleeve." He nudged at his mad eye. "I knew something was wrong the moment she returned, so I checked, just in case. I would never invade someone's privacy like that, but I was worried she might've been, you know...hurting herself, so I looked. When I saw it, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to confront her about it, but...I didn't know how." This was perhaps the most vulnerable George imagined Moody could possibly be, him biting down on his lip, glancing around the room as he spoke, his voice less gruff, and more feeling. "I was about to, but before I could, we got a report back from the ministry. About that friend of hers – Connor Moore."
"What was it?"
"His cause of death. It wasn't drowning, like the prophet reported. It was poison. It still could've been a suicide, but I'm not too sure."
"You don't think Cassie..."
Moody shook his head. "No. I know my daughter. I know she loved this kid, even if she didn't talk about him often to me, I know. I also know Cassiopeia wouldn't join the Death Eaters without some sort of reason, without a threat, forcing her. She's impulsive, but she doesn't have that kind of hate in her heart. There has to be a reason."
"Like what? What reason could she possibly have?" George thought he might just collapse on the spot from relief. Maybe Cassie wasn't dead after all, maybe she was being forced, maybe she had a perfectly valid reason for why she did what she did. Shit, if he'd only let her explain...
Moody took a deep breath, clearly carefully considering his next words. When he spoke, George felt his heart drop to the floor. "I think...I think we ought to reconsider what she'd been telling us. I think it's possible that her brother is alive after all."