| T H E B E S T K I N D
O F
D I S O B E D I E N C E |
March, 1990
IF PETUNIA kept rejecting the gifts I sent for Harry one more time, I would set her gross wannabe beehive style hair on fire.
I was getting so frustrated! This was the only way it seemed I could be around him, even if I wasn't there in person and it was only the mailman making the delivery. It still felt special. It felt like I was his family. But Petunia was stealing that from me. On our last explosive phone call, she'd pulled the 'I'll tell the world your secret and bring the power of the media upon you'.
It didn't scare me. I was never afraid of Petunia. But I was worried she might drift into treating Harry even worse if I dared do anything more in protest. Then, another thought occurred. He was ten years old now. In a couple of months, he would be in his first year at Hogwarts. Dumbledore had promised me, and he would never back out of anything as serious as that.
Petunia could threaten with words all she wanted. Like hell she would prevent me from seeing that boy.
I apparated into his village of Little Whinging, on the sleepy street of Privet Drive, when it was in the early hours of the morning. I had no doubt he would still be up at this hour, as it was probably the only time he got to himself, when he wasn't forced to do things for those lazy oafs I had to, unbearably, call 'relatives'.
Approaching the mail slot in their door, I willed the piece of parchment I slipped in to go into his bedroom, wherever that may have been. As it was, through the mail slot, I could see the paper fly under the cupboard beneath the stairs.
Wow, Petunia, guardian of the century award.
The tiny patter of footsteps was what I heard next, but the Dursleys wouldn't. They didn't have the advantage of werewolf hearing. I backed away from the door to see it slowly open. Harry stood there, with the dark wild hair that his father had always sported, and broken glasses perched on his nose. I looked over his striped blue pyjama set, which was a little too light for the slight chill in the air — at this hour anyway.
I pulled his coat off of the coat stand. His was arguably the one that offered the least coverage and protection against the cold, much to my disgust. Honestly, could his life be any lesser to how Petunia treated her actual son?
"Put this on." I motioned to the jacket when I handed it to Harry and he did so, slipping the coat on before following me out the door.
He didn't ask any questions until we were absolutely out of earshot from the Dursleys or the neighbours. Then, just one question, with a rather simple answer for me to give him.
"Are you Cassie?"
"Yes."
Harry kept walking at my side. Several seconds passed where we were quiet. "Aunt Petunia doesn't seem to like you."
I tilted my head in fake obliviousness. "Oh?"
Don't bring up all the history, Cassie, he's just a kid.
A kid who survived the killing curse.
A kid who is my honorary nephew, who must be sheltered for as long as he can be.
"I heard her on the phone with you. She said nasty things afterwards."
Figures.
"Your aunt never was fond of the fact that Lily and I were wit— closer than they were."
It wasn't the whole truth but he would learn it soon enough. In turn from what Dumbledore had promised me, he'd asked that I not mention anything about my own... differences.
Harry looked up at me, and I could see the curiosity lingering in words he didn't say. We walked to a park. Past the park. Practically through another three blocks before I asked,
"What do you think about hot chocolate?"
~
Letting Harry go back to the Dursleys was one of the hardest things I ever did. Over the hour and a half we spent together, we had established an instantaneous connection, the same from when he was a baby and I held him in Dumbledore's office.
Those eyes glimmered with the hope that I would take him with me. It broke my heart. Each step he took up their driveway, closer to the terrible reality of the awful safe haven we'd chosen for him, felt like a stab to a new part of my body.
I'm always leaving everyone I love, for one stupid reason or another.
"Cassie!" Harry whisper-shouted from the doorway before he shot back over to where I stood at the street's curb. His arms wrapped my middle and instantly I enveloped him with my own embrace. "Can we do this again?"
"Keep it a secret and I promise, we can." I kissed the top of his head, hugging him one last time before I knew I had to let go.
After that night, late night walks became our thing. We faced several obstacles over the years; Harry being briefly mad at me for not revealing I was a witch, Vernon putting bars over Harry's bedroom window thanks to Dobby the House Elf, and the return of Voldemort.
The nights of talking while splurging on junk food were over. Harry was protected at Hogwarts, and when he was back in Little Whinging, leaving the house to talk wasn't really an option anymore. Not when danger lurked in shadow. Not when the ranks of Death Eaters was skyrocketing.
I saw him less and less, until his third year when the news came. Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban prison.
It was fantastic news for me, until I heard the other side of the news — the far-fetched idea the Ministry still believed was the truth. Sirius Black had killed Lily and James Potter and was back now for a second round, this time to kill Harry. The delusion Fudge was under, that Sirius could be a devout follower of Voldemort and kill his own Godson, it was blasphemous.
But I couldn't go out and say that. A decade and a bit later, I was still on the list of desirable criminals the Ministry wanted to collect and lock up. I tried writing a letter to Harry explaining the situation but soon realized my owl carrying the written truth might be caught and looked at by Dementors who now 'guarded' the castle.
My only relief was Remus being at Hogwarts, posing as the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. His transformations into his werewolf form were less and less often now, given that he used Wolfsbane, provided coincidentally enough by Severus Snape, as he told me one night through the Floo Network.
One day, I couldn't take it any longer. I had to see Harry. I used the Floo Network to get into Remus's office, and startled the poor man as a result. He practically tumbled out of his chair when he saw me.
"Good grief, Cassie. Give me a heart attack, why don't you?"
I laughed. "You're not that old, Moony."
"Myocardial infarction can happen to any age, actually." Remus frowned at me. Then his seriousness gave way to panic and his eyes grew wide until they were practically saucers. "You shouldn't be here."
"I want to tell Harry the truth. He deserves to know that his godfather didn't do this."
Sirius deserves to be exonerated.
Remus jumped in front of me to block my way out of his office. "That isn't happening."
I glowered at him. We matched each other in strength. If I really wanted to, I could push my way out of here. Instead, I honoured our friendship and heard him out. "Why?"
"Harry will need proof. Everyone is lying to him, yes, but you also don't have the proof you need to absolve Sirius of involvement in the crime. Harry could turn on you for what you claim."
I thought that to be semantics. Something simple that I could figure out later. But it wasn't. "Why is it like this? Why is it always like this?"
Remus pulled me into him when he saw the tears brimming. My wildly knotted hair was smoothed down by his gentle hand. "Because the world is cruel."
But is it the world or is it just me? Hasn't everything bad that has happened been because, of me, in some way at least?
"Do you ever... ever wish you never met me?"
It was a question I was terrified of offering up to him for an answer but I had been wondering for a long time, on and off, if some part of him thought maybe he would have been better off.
Remus's head snapped up in alarm and he shook his head instantly. "How can you ask that? You made our worlds better, Cassie. You tamed Sirius Black's unending ego. You got Peter to be more outgoing. You kept James on his toes and toned down his arrogance. And you made me realize that I am not a monster, even if I am a werewolf. You are not the worthless woman you paint yourself as. You are brave and brilliant, and while you may not see yourself as a saviour, that is exactly what I see you as."
Remus turned the waterworks on. I began to cry, pouring all of my frustration and rage out, and he let me. We stood in his office, embracing, until class was called and I vanished again, his words in my heart.
You are a saviour.
~~~
Awe. I had to add in Cassie spending time with Harry + talking to Remus because they're just too sweet.
Tell me all about what you thought.
CK