Just once I would like to have a normal family gathering. Like the ones you see in all the movies. Cousins laughing, talking loudly about their days and stuff. Getting to know each other, sharing deep, personal secrets.
Too bad I'm a Weasley.
"What do you mean Victoire is pregnant?" Rose says.
Dominique looks at her, "I mean she has a cluster of cells in her body that could turn into another body? Come on Rose you're supposed to be the smart one."
"I – I can't. Nope, I'm done. Victoire is dead to me." James says throwing his hands in the air, "She just broke up with Teddy! I mean honestly!"
Louis snorts, "Bit rich coming from you James. Tell me, how many times did one of your girls go to Madam Pomfrey for the morning after spell hm?"
"How many girls do you sleep within a week, James? Honestly, let's see how good of a person you are." Dominique spits.
James stands up, it looks like there's fire bubbling in his eyes, "She walked all over Teddy simply because she could."
Dom and Louis stand up now, both of them have got their wands in their hands, "Better watch yourself. Daddy's not here to protect you." Dominique says coldly.
"Hey!" Lily shouts scrambling to her feet, "Don't say that!" She has her wand out now too. So does James.
"Victoire is in the wrong here. You don't do that to someone you love." Albus says standing up and joining his siblings.
Louis laughs, "What do you know about love? Mister 'oh shit I forgot that my boyfriend's mum died today, quick Cassie makes a plan?"
As they fight loudly, threatening to hex each other to bits, I make eye contact with Scorpius on the other side of our blanket collection. I can tell from here he's hurt by the things that they're all shouting. This is Aunt Astoria's day. And they're ruining it for all of us.
I stand up quietly from my spot, no one seems to notice me moving along the edge of the blankets so I can get a decent angle. I'm mad... no, I'm fucking pissed. All I ask for is one day that isn't about them, that it's about someone that we all care for. And they're ruining it.
"Petrificus Totalus!" I say loudly pointing my wand at Dominique. Instantly she freezes over and falls to the floor. Everyone looks at me with wide eyes.
"Dude, what the fuck?" James shouts.
He points his wand at me but I'm faster, "Alarte Ascendare!" I say loudly. A bright light hits James square in the chest and he goes soaring straight upwards about ten feet, screaming like a little girl the entire time. On his way back down I manage to slow his fall so he hits the ground with a light thud instead of breaking all his bones. He looks at me flabbergasted.
"This is not about Victoire! This isn't about Teddy, or the Potters or fucking anything that has to do with you people! This is about Aunt Astoria and Scorpius and you managed to fuck it up like you always do! Christ! For once, ONCE can you people put someone other than yourselves first? You won't die if you're not the center of attention for a few fucking hours!" I don't really know where the sudden burst of anger comes from but Godric does it feel good. It's like something deep inside me finally snapped after all these years of being walked on by not only my family but everyone.
No one says anything. I stare each of them down, my breath heavy. My wand hand is twitching, waiting for someone to try and say something just so I can hex them. Once I'm satisfied that no one will say anything I walk across the blankets and go over to Scorpius, "Let's go." I say to him. I didn't mean for it to sound as harsh as it did.
Scorpius gets up and takes my hand and we walk back to the castle together. No one says anything to stop us.
"Thank you." Scorpius whispers to me once we are far enough away from everyone else, "You said everything that I couldn't get myself to say."
That makes me feel good. But all I can really feel right now is anger, coursing through my whole body, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up on edge. I don't think it's about my family anymore, it's about the world. The utter crap that people have been dealing me my whole life. I think I'm finally done being a pushover.
Scorpius and I walk back to the Slytherin common room together, going into our respective dorms. Georgette, Sacha, and Cheryl are all sitting on the floor talking and laughing.
"Little Miss rules and regulations coming in after curfew? Colour me surprised." Georgette says, watching me with a smirk on her face.
"I'm not in the mood for you right now." I snap at her, changing into my pyjamas.
Georgette and the other girls make an 'oooooh' sound, "Is someone missing their sister?" Georgette says. She's talking in a baby voice, making fun of me.
I spin around and look at her dead in the eye, "I said..." The mirror on the wall behind me cracks into a million pieces, "I'm not in the fucking mood." The girls stay quiet this time. I crawl into my bed and pull the curtains around my four-poster, casting a silencing charm around me so I can't hear them and they can't hear me.
The only thing I can hear is my heartbeat in my ears. Did I do that? Did I break that mirror? I couldn't have, I don't know any non-verbal spells. I wasn't even thinking of breaking the mirror. But it couldn't have been a one-off, that's too weird, even for Hogwarts.
I don't remember falling asleep but I guess I did because when I wake up all the girls are gone and there is pale green light seeping in from the windows under the lake.
I get dressed in my school things and start to put the books I need for my Thursday morning classes in my backpack. I glance at the mirror that is on the wall, still destroyed... guess that happened. I put my wand in my robe pocket instead of my backpack like I normally do. No real reason I don't think. I just want it within reach today.
Leaving the dorm, people in the common room stop talking and look at me. Dominique is sitting beside Lucas on the couch. We make eye contact for a second. She stands up from her spot and I walk out of the common room and into the dungeons, pretending like I can't hear her calling my name.
"Cassiopeia!" Dominique shouts. I don't stop walking, "colloshoo"
My shoes stick to the floor underneath me, stopping me from going anywhere. Dom walks up from behind me and stops in front of me, staring at me. If I didn't know her I would think that she was mad. But she's got a bit of hurt in her eyes, wonder if I caused that.
"Screw you, I'm going to be late for breakfast," I say to her.
Dominique crosses her arms over her chest, "Listen, last night..."
"If you think I'm going to apologize Dom..."
She rolls her eyes, "Would you just shut up for a second? You were right. I feel horrible for acting the way I did. I shouldn't have attacked James like that."
I scoff and look away from her, "No fucking shit." I say under my breath.
If Dom heard me, she ignores me, "Are you alright? I mean I've never seen you act like that before... no one has."
"I'd be better if you let me go eat," I say looking at her.
"It's just... the way you acted, and your family's history with dark magic... you've got to be careful."
My fingers twitch, I want to grab my wand and jinx Dom for just thinking about my family. But I stop myself, my family is her family, and what she's saying sort of makes sense. "Let me go to breakfast," I say again.
Dominique does the reversal spell and my shoes unstick themselves from the floor. "Don't dismiss what I said Cassie." Dom says, holding onto my arm, "I know I sound dumb but it's a slippery slope, and it's something that you're genetically susceptible to."
"Whatever Dom." I pull my arm away from her and walk out of the dungeons and into the Great Hall.
Freddie immediately excuses himself from Evie and follows me over to a pretty empty spot at one of the tables, "You freaked me out last night." He says cutting right to the chase.
I shrug, "Not my problem."
I pour myself a glass of pumpkin juice and take a sip while looking at my brother, "Not your problem? Cass, you tossed James into the air like he was a ragdoll, you petrified Dom..."
"Are you saying that they didn't deserve it?" I say, putting my glass down and pouring cereal into my bowl, "Are you saying that Victoire getting knocked up by someone who isn't Teddy was more important than the death of our Aunt?" I put the box of cereal down and grab some milk, "Are you saying that you wanted to watch those idiots rip each other to shreds for no fucking reason?" I look up at Freddie who is still quiet and slack jaw. I pick up my spoon and point it at him, "Didn't think so."
I take a bite of my cereal and Freddie watches me carefully, like I'm a bomb, and I'm programmed to go off soon. "Lily cried when you left. She was terrified that you hurt James. She was scared of you."
I laugh, "I stopped him from hitting the ground. If I really wanted to hurt him I would have let him fall flat on his stupid face. Besides, you know better than anyone how good it feels for someone to be scared of you. I see it on your face every time you fight someone."
"Not my family." Freddie snaps.
"Yeah? James wasn't just a little bit scared of you at Christmas when you broke his jaw?"
I continue to eat my cereal, Freddie continues to watch me, "Whatever's going on... you can talk to me about it."
"Why does something have to be going on for me to stand up for myself? After all the years of bullies and being forgotten or being compared to Ophelia and you and fucking Dad. Years of you treating me like I'm some fucking porcelain doll that will break if the wind hits her, years of Ophelia talking over me, telling my stories as her own, taking all the credit for the shit that I've done. Don't you think it's high time I snapped?"
Freddie shakes his head, "You sound mental you know that? You sound absolutely fucking mental."
"You've been telling me for years to fight my own battles because you're tired of doing it for me. Here I am. This is how I fight my battles. If people get hurt then that's on them. They shouldn't have fucked with me."
Freddie looks at me hard, I can't read his expression, "You know who you sound like?"
"Who?"
"You sound like Bellatrix. You sound like what Mum told us about Bellatrix."
That hits me in a way I didn't expect it to. It's like someone just glued whatever it was that snapped inside me back together. I don't say anything to Freddie, I can't even look at him in the eyes. Freddie hits his palms on the table, "I'm going back over to Evie, I have some shit I've got to talk to her about." But he doesn't get up quite yet. "If this is the new you, I don't like it." Then he gets up, goes back over to Evie.
Leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Too bad I don't have any.
I mean...
...
...
Nope, nothing.
Today I've got Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, and double Care of Magical Creatures in the afternoon. I might just bum the whole day off, go on a walk by the lake or hide out in the Forbidden forest or something.
I feel like this is the sort of thing I should write to Mum about, she's bound to understand it. There's no doubt in my mind that she acted like Bellatrix when she was younger. Or maybe she didn't who knows.
That really hit a nerve. Bellatrix was beyond mad. She fancied Voldemort, she never loved Mum, tortured Professor Longbottom's parents to the point where they could never function properly ever again, killed her own cousin. I'm not like that. I could never be like that.
You did hex two of your cousins, and you managed to break a mirror without even looking at it.
I still don't know how I managed that mirror thing, but I know that all my dormmates are scared of me now. It feels great to be feared, but that doesn't make me like Bellatrix. Or maybe it does.
I'm too wrapped up in myself to notice the breakfast bell go off and people file out of the Great Hall. It's not till Professor Crespo comes over and taps me on the shoulder that I move out of the Great Hall.
I don't go to class. I can't do that today. Instead, I walk out of the castle and towards the whomping willow. I take my wand out and shoot some red sparks at the knot in the tree that gets the branches to stop moving for a minute then walk over to the trunk of the tree.
Dominique is right, I do have a genetic whatever for dark magic, even Mum said it herself, it's going to be hard for us not to slip into it. Mum warned us that dark magic feels good, it makes you feel alive, but it's addictive. Once you start it's hard to stop.
I haven't even done any dark magic but I can already feel myself getting closer and closer to practicing it. It's like all of the stuff that I've dealt with and put up with has lead me here, hexing my cousins, making my dormmates scared of me, and practicing the dark arts.
I watch as a bird perches itself on one of the branches of the whomping willow. One of the other branches slowly moves over to it, and in one swoop, comes smashing down on the bird, causing it to explode. I pull out a roll of parchment and one of the muggle pens I bought off of James a while back. I stare at the empty parchment for what feels like an eternity. Then I start to write a letter to Mum. Whether or not I send it is the real question.