*******************************Fourth Year**********************************
“Thank you so much for letting me stay at yours over the summer,” said Sirius as they returned to the common room after the start-of-term feast.
“It’s nothing mate; it was great to have you there. You should come and stay more often.”
Sirius laughed bitterly. “Trust me; I’ll take you up on that,” he said as he saw Regulus heading towards the dungeons.
James ruffled his hair up as they climbed the stairs making the others laugh.
“You aren’t seriously still hung up on Lily, are you?” asked Lupin smiling.
“You should have heard him over the summer Moony; it was torture. ‘I’m going to ask Evans out again as soon as we get back to school, but what if she says no again… I’ll make her say yes… What if she gets a boyfriend…? If she starts going out with Snivellus I’ll…’” he said as he impersonated James. “On and on and on,” he moaned jokingly, “there was no end to it! I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was funny seeing him act like a girl but…”
“I don’t think you’ll ever be able to make her say yes,” said Lupin as they saw her climb through the portrait hole ahead. “I mean, she must be the only girl in the school who doesn’t drool over you.”
“Her and her friends; she’s probably got them convinced you have dragon pox or something,” smirked Sirius.
“None of them want anything to do with me; you should have seen the way Cassie looked at me last year.”
“We did!” said Lupin with a chuckle as he remembered James’ disastrous attempt at asking Lily out at the end of their third year.
“You know I’m surprised you’re not more bothered as well Sirius, they’re the only girls in this school that would be a challenge for you to go out with; all the others practically undress you with their eyes.”
Sirius grimaced. “It is well known that I am the best looking person in this school, but that image was unnecessary; I won’t be able to feel safe walking the corridors anymore. Anyway, I’m not interested.”
“Are you sure?” leered James. “You could have Cassie and we could double,” he said with a suggestive smile.
“I’m fine thanks! I wouldn’t want to go on a date with you anyway!”
“But Sirius… I thought we were made for each other.”
“Well you thought wrong. Sorry, did I crush your hopes?”
“Yes and all of my dreams as well.”
“Seriously though, I think you might underestimate just how much I hate them; they’re all fanatics – if you thought Narcissa was bad you’d be overwhelmed by her sister.”
“I thought you said you liked your cousin?” James questioned.
“Oh yeah, I don’t mind her middle sister; but Narcissa is practically a saint in comparison to Bellatrix.”
“Wasn’t she one of the Slytherin seventh years when we first started?” asked Lupin. “I think I remember her torturing someone in one of the corridors.”
Sirius laughed darkly. “She probably did a lot worse than that, if I know her well. Regulus practically worships her, as do half the other Slytherins; she used to hang around with Lucius Malfoy and that gang.”
“Didn’t Snivellus follow them around?” said James.
“Yeah; wouldn’t have surprised me to be honest. She’s awful, came over to see Regulus and the rest of my pure-blood loving family to tell them she’s become a Death Eater. Already! She’s been one since just before she left school.”
“A Death Eater?”
“One of Lord Voldemort’s followers Peter,” said Lupin.
“She’s so proud of herself, torturing and killing people left right and centre; should have seen it coming to be honest, the only person she’s actually ever cared for is Narcissa.”
“She hasn’t actually killed anyone has she?” they asked alarmed.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Sirius.
“But are the rest of your family Death Eaters?”
“No but you should hear them going on about how Lord Voldemort has the ‘right idea and we need to clean the wizard race.’ They want to get rid of all half-bloods, Muggle-borns, everything. If you’re not a pure-blood, you’ve had it in the eyes of my family. Blood traitors too, they think that that’s worse in some ways; you should see my mother spouting on about ‘respectable pure-blood marriages’, it’s enough to drive anyone insane. I’ve half a mind just to marry some Muggle somewhere when I leave Hogwarts and watch her keel over.”
“Hang on. Wasn’t Andromeda in Slytherin though?”
“Yeah.”
“So surely she must think the same way?”
“Well she may have done at one point, or maybe she was just better suited to Slytherin, but in comparison to her sisters she’s practically a Muggle; it would be hard not to be fanatical in that family though, I mean look what she has for sisters. One of them went out with Lucius Malfoy too so they can’t have the best taste either!”
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“Hey Cassie, your parents are called Jasmine and Archie right?” said Lily as she read her Daily Prophet over breakfast.
“Yeah why?”
“They’re mentioned in here: ‘Two of the Aurors who found the body were Jasmine and Archie Jones, Head of the Auror Department and his wife. ‘It’s very alarming that they managed to defeat her,’ says Archie. ‘But at the moment all we can do is advise people to be cautious; we at the Ministry, however, don’t think that there’s any need to be overly concerned, just don’t take risks.’” Lily read out.
“What happened?”
“Someone was found dead in her house; they think that it was Death Eaters.”
“Is that the first person that they’ve actually killed?”
“Well some people have been disappearing but they don’t know whether they’re dead or not; there have been a couple of murders but they seem a little disconnected… It’s not even like they’re all Muggle-born or anything, some of them were pure-bloods.”
“How strange; I hope my parents aren’t doing anything stupid.”
“They’re Aurors; surely they’d be more cautious than other people. And it would be hard for people to beat them anyway because don’t they have to be really good duellists?”
“Yeah I suppose,” said Cassie reassured, smiling at Lily as her frown disappeared. “I had a really strange dream the summer before we started… third year I think it was. It was about my parents and they were having some conversation about my mum lying to me about why she had a Sneakoscope in her office.”
“Sneakoscope? Those things that detect untrustworthy people?” asked Alice.
“Yeah; we were talking about it when my Hogwarts letter arrived. Anyway, it was an odd dream. I only mentioned it because we were talking about precautions; my parents can be a bit mental but they’re not stupid or anything. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
“Er Cassie; Marsali has a letter for you which you still haven’t opened,” pointed out Mary.
“Oops!” she said as she took the letter from her owl which flew away, back out of the window. “Oh it’s from my parents.”
Dear Cassie,
Just writing quickly to let you know we’re the Daily Prophet; Dad’s giving an interview. Of course, the reason why isn’t actually the best – we were called out to a house by a neighbour and found someone who been attacked by those wizards calling themselves Death Eaters. Anyway, don’t worry about us, Dad’s put a bunch of protective spells round the house, ‘Lead by example,’ he keeps saying, but they’ll keep us safe. Everyone in the Ministry’s beginning to get a little scared; the Department keeps being called by the Minister and asked for advice on protecting people!
But we thought we’d write to let you know how we are; hope all is well at school and fourth year isn’t too hard; it’s amazing to think how old you are now! I remember when you got your first letter and how excited you were to be going!
Lots of love,
Mum and Dad
xxx
Cassie laughed, “It’s all about their interview in the Daily Prophet!” she said merrily as she finished her pumpkin juice. “Arithmancy Lily?”
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Their first match of the Quidditch Cup was eagerly anticipated by the Gryffindors, becoming the sole topic of conversation as the days drew nearer. It was not an uncommon sight to see the players returning to the common room late at night, tired and often drenched or splattered in mud; the captain of the team was eager to win the Cup in his last year at Hogwarts and they trained extra hard to try and win back the Cup which they had lost the year before.
“This is the last time I’ll be able to win the Cup,” he said as they stood waiting to go onto the pitch, “and we’ve had a lot of good games in the past – we won the Cup a couple of years ago and we can win it again; don’t let last year’s defeat bring you down, we all know that we’re the best team in the school so let’s play like it.”
The team walked onto the pitch to thunderous applause; the calls of the Gryffindors raining down on the players as they took their places.
“Come on James!” they shouted as he raced towards the Slytherin goalposts balancing the Quaffle under his arm, even Lily’s antipathy towards him forgotten in the heat of the moment. “YES!” they all cheered as he scored and the commentator below cried, “Potter scores – 10 points for Gryffindor!”
The Gryffindors cheers got wilder and wilder as the match wore on, drawing further ahead of Slytherin by tiny amounts as the commentator shouted, “10 points to Slytherin – the score now stands at 70-90 to Gryffindor and Potter’s off again.” Between goals they sat, tense and hopeful, as they watched the players fly backwards and forwards across the pitch until suddenly, “And it looks like Taylor has spotted the Snitch – she dives, the Slytherin Seeker Smith just behind and – YES! OH YES! Gryffindor win 250 – 90! What a beautiful catch from Taylor there, a new find this year!”
The Gryffindor stands burst into applause as they yelled to the sky, waving their flags and banners in triumph they paraded back towards the common room, Sirius and Lupin supplying half of Honeydukes to the winning team. They had won against their biggest rivals and even McGonagall cracked a smile as she left the teachers’ stands.
At the party that night Cassie was grinning and smiling as she talked Sirius, receiving some very suspicious looks from Alice and Mary. “I thought you hated Black,” they said when she returned to them.
“I don’t… I dislike him yeah,” she replied confused.
“Lily’s going to be so annoyed with you!” Alice laughed.
“Why?”
“Come on Cassie, it’s so obvious that you fancy Sirius!” they teased as all the colour drained from her face.
“That’s funny guys,” she said, “but seriously, why is she going to be annoyed with me?”
“Wait… you mean to say that you don’t fancy Sirius Black?” asked Mary.
“No, of course I don’t! I mean Black is so… annoying and arrogant. We’re just friends; in fact we’re not even friends! I just thought that maybe I should be civil to him… we got on when we first came to Hogwarts so…”
“Sure… well if you don’t mind I’ll tell that story when you guys get married,” Mary laughed.
“How long have you liked him for?” asked Alice.
“Since some time last year,” Cassie mumbled, “I can’t believe you guys noticed, he hasn’t noticed!”
“Yeah but we’re your friends Cass, he’s a guy,” Mary pointed out.
“Besides, everyone has a stupid crush when they’re our age,” Alice said, “though admittedly they normally don’t last quite that long. I mean, come on, I thought that Frank Longbottom was kind of cute at the end of last year! We’re just at that age…”
“Come on Alice! I’m fourteen! I ought to know better than to fancy Sirius Black!” Cassie moaned.
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Christmas was preceded by another win against Ravenclaw which left the whole of the house in high spirits, singing songs as they walked along the corridors which were decked with holly and other, slightly less savoury, plants; Cassie walked past one boy telling another he was convinced that Peeves had snuck some Venomous Tentacula into the first floor Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor, which she found easy to believe; he was, as usual, causing havoc for everyone in the castle and was trying to topple one of the twelve trees in the Great Hall before Dumbledore managed to shoo him away.
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“Are you going home for Christmas Sirius?” asked James as they served yet another detention, this time for Filch.
“Not if I can avoid it; I’ll probably sign up to stay when McGonagall comes round.”
“You’re welcome to stay with me mate,” he offered.
“I already stayed with you over summer though; believe me, I’d love to escape my family but I feel a little guilty.”
“Trust me, they love it. Look, I’ll send them an owl suggesting the idea and we’ll go from there. Coincidentally, for the thing,” he said meaningfully, “I was thinking that we practise in the Room of Requirement tomorrow evening.”
“You’ve got the book?"
“Yeah it’s still in my trunk where we left it and Pince still has no idea it’s gone; I went to check in the missing books section of the library last week.”
A handsome smile stretched across Sirius’ face. “Good, are you going to tell Pettigrew and Lupin or should I?”
“Don’t mind, whichever. I have practice after this though so if we’re going to do it now it’ll be you.”
“Cool, sounds good.”
“I’ve been thinking about the map…”
“Yeah?” said Sirius casually as he moved onto the next trophy, eyeing Filch up from the other side of the room.
“What if we can make it look like a normal piece of parchment when it’s not being used?”
“That’s genius! And then-”
“If any teacher makes you turn out your pockets it looks like a spare bit of parchment.”
“You’ve missed a spot on this one!” called the caretaker as James and Sirius rolled their eyes.
“I’ll get it,” James said as he moved over to Filch who wheezed as he laughed. “Bet you’re regretting flooding the bathroom now aren’t you?”
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