"They're still here, in that important room- you got their pictures up on the wall...

up on the wall....."

- Wallows, Do Not Wait 

I appear in Cass's living room without my stomach.

Metaphorically, of course- my stomach is still very much attached- I think. It's sloshing and spinning like on a merry-go-round.

Around me, everything looks familiar- the beige carpet, green couches, and a paring of knitting needles knitting a scarf in the corner.

Cass sits on one of the couches. Her red hair is straightened, her robes are over her jeans. She stares at me with a pretty bold expression, considering she's wearing crocs indoors. I drop everything I had been clutching and fly over to her not-exactly-welcoming arms. "You're alive!"

Cass grunts, and I remember I'm probably crushing her. She's here. She's not dead, or sick, she's in my arms and smelling like fear.

I pull away. "Is Mr. Tubble dead and/or dying?"

"No?"

"So, what's going on?" Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, anger is seeping in its place.

"You- you brought your trunk?" Cass looks at my abandoned trunk, embossed with the words Clover Hawkings.

"Yeah. I didn't know how long I would be here- can we just get to the point?" I say impatiently. Cass is still staring at the word Hawkings, not meeting my eye.

"Um- well- it's a long story."

"Well, I'm really impatient, so chop chop."

Cass turns to me with an exasperated expression. "Let's go to the kitchen."

Cautious, I follow her to the kitchen. With a wave of her wand, she puts water in the kettle and onto the stove.

"You're making tea," I note with distaste. Something is most certainly afoot.

"Go on, sit down," Cass ignores me.

"This is a sitting conversation?" I preach lightly in a bar stool, watch her carefully. Maybe there was a dead body in here or something....

"I wouldn't have brought you here if it weren't," Cass said with false cheer. She stops. "Although I have to admit, I didn't think you would come rushing over here."

"Your letter fucking said 'come home immediately!'" I almost yell, pointing to the living room, where the letter now lay.

Cass looked flustered. "I was thinking more of a week or two immediately...or three...or-"

I glare. Cass crumbles. She magicks a cup of tea by her and sits down across from me.

"Clover, I...." Cass stares at the floor for a long while. The words aren't coming, her face is drawn and tight.

By God, I realized. She's just as broken as I am.

"I...I don't know how to tell you this- it's always been so hard for me-"

"Tell someone who cares," I say, the anger rushing back.

Cass looks up and glares. "I am."

I bite my tongue. That was rude and unnecessary. "Sorry," I mumble.

Cass nods her head, but doesn't press. "I have something to show you."

She stands up. I frown. "Where are we going?"

"The attic."

"...We don't have an attic," I follow Cass up the carpeted stairs, towards the bedrooms.

"We don't have an attic," I repeat, less sure this time. Cass walks into her room, and after a second, I follow her. She points her wand at a very small circle in the corner of the crown molding. A set of fancy stairs pops out and curls around the wall, like the kind of stairs you would see in a French apartment.

"Oh." Apparently we have an attic. 

Cass hesitates, then dashes up them, as if wanting to get it over with.

I craned my neck. I can't see the top from this angle- I'm sure that was intentional. What was up there? Why did I not know this was here? The same reason I don't know anything about my parents, I think bitterly. Unless- and it was looking more like it every second- these two were connected.

"You coming?"

Slowly, I walk up, not missing how each step creaks beneath me.

The walls are made of panels of wood, painted a soft, eggshell white. Cass's Muggle house shows would probably call it 'off white'. The room is shaped like a huge tent- the classic attic shape, I guess. There was a window on both of the long walls, framed with sheer white curtains and letting in a lazy autumn breeze. A bed- screw the bed- I immediately dropped my eyes.

Pictures.

They covered the short, triangular wall. Most of them were in black-and-white, and even more of them held still- Muggle pictures. How curious. But no, I wouldn't look, shouldn't look, can't look- I looked.

Crawling on the bed, which creaked below me, I stared at the picture closest to me. A young Cass, hair tightly coiled, had her arm wrapped around a tall, freckled girl. Her fair hair was tangled and past her waist.

I moved on, refusing to acknowledge who the second person was.

Cass and her late husband, Eagle, at the altar. At the bridesmaid's spot was the same wild-haired girl, now a good seven years older and looking polished.  Cass's dress was the same one as the picture I had seen in the Room of Requirement, so long ago. I had never seen Cass wear that look before- happy. Concerned, yes, stressed, worried, tired, sad- all yes. But never that expression of carefree joy. A lump formed in my throat.  

"Cass?" I whisper.

Above that picture was one of the bridesmaid, now with shoulder-length hair, on her tiptoes, forehead pressed against a man's. He was a couple of inches taller than her, with short dark hair and a large nose. I touch my own self consciously.

The next was another one of her and Cass- faces frozen mid-laugh. I wonder who took the picture. Cass, probably. She was the only one stupid enough to buy a freaking Muggle polaroid. But still, they were happy. What were they laughing about?

The next picture was almost the second one reversed- Charlie at the altar, kissing the man. Cass was on her left, clapping and jumping up and down like a little girl who just got a pony. Unlike the other ones I had looked at, it was a Wizard's one- in full color, and moving, almost like a GIF. Charlie was wearing a dress such a pale blue, it was white. I don't blame her- white is boring. I squint at the photo. Her hair is done elaborately- with her wand sticking through it.

Picture Charlie smiles and breaks away from the kiss. You can see the golden ribbon tying her hands with my father's, a wizard tradition.

"Yeah," Cass said back softly, putting a hand on my back. "I know."

The next photo hurts even more.

My mother holds a lump in her arms- me. My father has one arm on her shoulders, and his other supporting my head. They aren't smiling anymore. Charlie is looking right at the camera, like if she glares hard enough, she'll get out of this. She's wearing elbow-length gloves.

I do a double-take at the first photo- she's wearing gloves there, too, clearly trying to hide her Dark Mark. So they must not be chronological.

"Cass," I say, louder. "What is this?"

"Pictures?"

"I mean.. Why are they here? How long have you had them? How does this relate to you suddenly telling me there's an emergency and getting out of school?!" My voice rose to a wail.

"November 12th, 1977," Cass said suddenly, sitting down on the bed. "Was the day your parents got married." she gestured to the picture. "It was the happiest I'd ever seen her."

I was silent. It occurred to me maybe this was a sit-down conversation, and I lowered myself on the bed next to Cass.

"I don't know when they were recruited. Sometime between then and your birth, two years later." Cass's voice was quiet, her eyes were lost staring at the dusty wooden floor.

"Regardless, she told me about it right after you were born. She was worried about bringing a child into that kind of environment, and frankly, so was I." Cass paused again. "You know what they were recruited into, right?"

"Death Eaters," I whisper.

Cass nods solemnly, and picks up the narrative. I got the feeling this is what she hadn't been telling me for years. "We argued about it constantly. I almost never saw her those first couple years- our father and I were in the Order. We were torn on opposite sides- split down the middle," Cass let out mirthless laughter.

"And your mother?" I didn't know where this story was going, and I was certain I wouldn't like it.

"Dead."

There was a long silence, in which Cass gathered the courage to break it. "When you were a little over one, Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord. The world sagged with relief. The Death Eaters were furious.

"It was a foolish plan, but I supposed they were desperate, having no idea where the Potter boy went off to. They wanted to kill Dumbledore. I don't know the logistics- it was a complicated, underground operation. He ended up dead, and that was when Charlie switched sides."

"Why?"

Cass shrugged. "She didn't think anything that killed her husband was worth fighting for, I guess."

I nod silently.

Cass takes a deep breath and continues. "By the time you were six, we had you in hiding. We didn't want them coming for you."

"Why would they come for me?" I say, not trying to mask the confusion on my face. "Charlie couldn't have been that good of a Death Eater, could she?"

Cass stared at the floor, not meeting my eye. It was like the situation was a scarf- it had taken forever to make, but to see everything you were working with, you had to unravel it all. "Well-no," she shifted, looking more uncomfortable then she had all day. "That's where things get....interesting."