~Astra~

For the fourth day in a row, I woke up on Teddy's couch. Today Charis had woken me, apparently by poking my face over and over again. I gently batted her hand away as she tried to do it again. "Okay, I'm up."

Charis giggled. "You snore!"

"No, I don't!" I tried not to smile as I sat up. "Who told you say that? Cassie?"

"Daddy!" Charis climbed up onto the couch to bounce right next to me. "You snore!"

I caught her mid-bounce, because she was perilously close to landing on top of me. Of course Teddy would've put her up to that. If I really did snore, someone would've told me over the years. Probably Colette.

But I wasn't thinking about her. No, no, no, stop it—

Charis was wriggling out of my grip, disgruntled that her bouncing got cut short. Instead of letting go, I stood up and spun her around. That rewarded me with a enough laughter that any other thoughts were completely drowned out.

Teddy, Victoire, Aunt Andromeda and I had been doing our best to try to cheer each other up, even though I was sure they were all as devastated and uncheer-upable as I was. But we kept pretending that that wasn't true, that a little teasing and joking around could somehow fill the yawning pit inside each of us, that it wasn't actually growing each day that passed with no news.

When I carried Charis into the kitchen, I found I'd slept through everyone else getting up. Cassie was already at the table, picking at a plate of what looked like blueberry pancakes. Victoire was cutting up a pancake at Charis's high chair, Aunt Andromeda was mixing more batter, and Teddy (covered in batter) was flipping another batch at the stove. The second we walked in, Charis started chanting, "Pancake, pancake, pancake!" so I put her down in her high chair before sliding into the seat beside Cassie.

It took me a second to realize that Cassie wasn't actually eating anything, just using her fork to slowly move a piece of pancake around her plate. I watched her for a moment, taking in the general gloom that seemed to be hovering over her. Then, I gently elbowed her in the side. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Instead of, giggling, Cassie continued to stare at her plate for several seconds. "I had more bad dreams," she whispered.

Though I shot a quick glance at Toire, she only shrugged, meaning she either hadn't known that or, more likely, had no idea if they were really something to worry about. I pursed my lips.

Over the past few days, getting to watch Cassie go through her normal routine, I'd noticed a pattern that Teddy and Toire hadn't bothered to mention before. I was used to a very excited or happy little girl who sometimes was a little timid or confused or upset, but she always seemed able to bounce back quickly. Even when she'd still been locked in the basement, when I'd actually started talking to her, it felt like she'd grown comfortable and almost carefree at the drop of a hat. I'd assumed that's simply how it always was, that Cassie was a generally happy child who occasionally got reminded of her horrible memories and had to be comforted a little before she was better again.

Now, though, I'd been observing something entirely different. Yes, Cassie had her times of being extremely happy, giggly and fun and completely carefree. But those were balanced with this gloom that I'd never seen much of before. Times when it was really hard to draw her out to play with Charis or do school with Teddy and Toire. It was like she wasn't fully there, lost in her thoughts, on the verge of tears, scared and distant. When we managed to get her attention, she could get incredibly clingy but also unsure of everything around her, like she was terrified Teddy and Toire might suddenly turn into Isaac and Katreena.

I'd asked Teddy about it the first time I'd noticed it, and he pulled me into the guest bedroom and explained that this was normal. They thought it was some sort of weird response to all the things she'd been through before she came here, like a kind of unconscious defense mechanism. Cassie never seemed to notice a difference, but often it would take a few hours of one of them holding her, talking to her, assuring her over and over again that she was safe and loved before she started to come out of it.

Apparently, this morning was one of those times. I fought the urge to put my arm around her. I'd learned quickly that she didn't want to be touched until she initiated it. Instead, I just leaned forward on the table so I could see her face a little better. "What kind of bad dreams? Do you want to talk about them?"

"No." She sighed heavily. "They were scary."

"Okay." I tried not to groan. How could I help her feel better if she didn't want to talk about them? Especially when there was a chance these dreams might have some kind of significance...

"Why were they scary?" Victoire asked gently, pointedly not looking over at us. Cassie shook her head. "You were telling me about them last night, remember?"

Finally, Cassie looked up at me, eyes wide. "They... they were the bad kind."

"The bad kind?"

She nodded. "The ones that aren't just dreams?"

A chill went down my spine, but I fought to keep my expression from changing. "Oh, I see. Um... you don't have to tell me about them, if you don't want to, but when I have dreams like that, it helps me to talk about them with... with my friends." I paused; I'd almost said Colette, who I  was trying not to think about. I shook my head. "Sometimes figuring out what they might mean can help them seem less scary."

She seemed unconvinced and shot an uncertain look at Toire, who smiled encouragingly. After a long moment, she finally turned back to me. "There... there was a fire. And Gran was there..."

I bit my cheek to keep myself from looking alarmed. "Oh? Where was it?"

"I don't know. A house?" Cassie looked back down at her plate, seeming to almost shrink in on herself. "It wasn't for very long."

I cast a glance at Aunt Andromeda, but she didn't seem more concerned than she'd been before Cassie had said that. I suppose that was a very general thing to dream about, without any more details. "Was... was she okay?"

"I don't know," Cassie whispered.

"How big was the fire?"

"Everywhere." She pushed her plate forward, then buried her head in her arms on the table and mumbled something like, "It was really scary."

It took some willpower to resist the urge to pat her back. "I'm sorry, Cass. That sounds scary. But look, Aunt Andromeda is totally fine, right?"

She did look up at Aunt Andromeda for a few seconds, but seemed completely unconvinced. After a moment, she put her head back down and said something I couldn't understand.

"What?"

Without moving, she yelled, "There were more!"

"More dreams?" I winced. "Okay. Let's talk about those ones, too."

All I could see was her quickly shaking her head, but Toire sat down on the other side of her just then. "Do you want to talk about the other one you were telling me about last night?"

Finally, she looked up, a few tears running down her face. "You were in it."

"Me?" A sudden wave of nausea had hit me. "What happened?"

"I don't know. Talking."

"With who?"

She glanced back at Toire, who pursed her lips. "Do you remember?"

"Wren, and Nico. And... and him."

Crap. Exactly what I'd been afraid she'd say. And Wren had been there, too? Maybe I really was about to throw up. Still, I found myself asking, "Who do mean?"

Cassie was trying to wipe away the tears on her face with her sleeve, but shrank back from me at the question. "You know. Him."

"Stillens?"

Instead of answering, Cassie slipped out of her chair and pulled Toire's arm around herself. Toire lifted the little girl up into her lap and kissed the top of her head, slowly starting to rock back and forth. After a moment, through her tears, Cassie managed to get out, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Victoire pulled her a little closer. "Whatever for, love? You don't need to be sorry for your dreams."

I shook my head mechanically, then blinked a few times to try to shake off the dread that was descending on me. "They come without any warning Cass. You and I can't control when they happen, or what they show. It's okay."

"If all they were doing was talking, then anything could've happened after," Teddy pointed out. He placed a plate of steaming pancakes in front of me, though I really didn't think I'd be eating this morning. "They've gotten away from tricky spots before, you know."

"Exactly," I said, though that wasn't really true. I'd gotten away from Stillens once by sheer luck, and a second time because of the sacrifices of a lot of people I loved. But now wasn't the time to tell Cassie about that. We just needed to assure her everything would be okay.

If only there had ever been a time when my own dreams had been wrong, or so difficult to interpret that they'd been better than I hoped. Unfortunately, I only ever seemed to dream about traumatic things that always happened exactly how I dreamed them. I couldn't comfort her with my own experiences without flat out lying.

Besides... I'd had my own dreams lately about Stillens and me, though I could never tell what was happening. These were the ones that were odd, never the same from one night to the next, rotating through all of my friends on who was there with me. Wren was probably more frequent than anyone else, but Colette (don't think about her!) and James and even Ciara had made appearances as well. And Nico, of course, though he wasn't my friend. But I couldn't very well tell Cassie any of that.

"I had another dream," Cassie said quietly, apparently past this particular bout of crying.

Victoire frowned. "You did? When?"

"Last night..." She tensed up, eyes on the floor. "I didn't... I didn't want to talk about it because it... it... it was too scary..."

Teddy crouched down beside them and smiled at Cassie. "It's okay. You don't have to talk about things you don't want to, right? We're not upset you didn't tell us."

I hadn't even realized that might be a fear of hers, but Cassie visibly relaxed and nodded. She again wiped at the tears still on her face before looking up at me again. "I think something bad is happening," she whispered.

"What do you mean?" I was barely managing to stay calm. Something bad was currently happening? How did she know? To who? But I bit my tongue and kept myself from asking any more questions.

"The scary man... Stillens... he was there. And Uncle Isaac. And they were making lights, the kind that hurt."

"Who were they hurting?" I asked quietly. Did I want to know? I didn't want to. I wanted to scream, make her promise to never tell me, run away from this horrible conversation. I did want to. The agony of not knowing would eat me from the inside out, the guessing and fearing and anxiety. "Was it someone you know?"

Cassie's brow furrowed as if that were a confusing question. "Not really?" she said after a minute, before raising her hand to point at something behind me. "It was her."

I whirled around, even though I already knew was there. A picture on the wall, one that I'd been avoiding looking at, one of the only pictures she'd ever let us take of her because she hadn't known it was happening at the time.

"Colette?" Victoire whispered, putting my fear to words.

"She's in trouble," Cassie said softly. "They were hurting her."

"Stillens and Isaac Predatel," Teddy said, his frown somehow both worried and thoughtful. "Do you remember anything else about that one? Where they were? What they were saying?"

She shook her head. "There was no sound, but their mouths were all moving. And it was a big room, but I don't know if anything was in it..."

"Was it somewhere you've been before?"

"No..."

Teddy nodded, staring at the table as if it were a difficult problem he was trying to solve. After a moment, he glanced up at Toire and me. "That might be useful. Cassie, your dream might help us find her!"

"Oh!" Victoire's eyes widened. "We need to call Aunt Ginny!"

I stayed put as everything seemed to swirl into action around me, Teddy running off for his mysterious DA mirror, Victoire standing up and whirling Cassie around the room before setting her down, even Charis throwing her fork across the room in a burst of laughter. Cassie looked surprised and confused, but not unpleasantly—all the gloom from before had dissipated. Everyone suddenly seemed full of energy, hopeful and happy for some reason that I couldn't wrap my head around. "I'm sorry, what's going on?"

"If that was Colette, and this is happening now, that really narrows the amount of places they could be keeping her," Victoire explained, eyes alight for the first time in days.

"It's also confirmation that she's still alive, dear," Aunt Andromeda added.

"Stillens doesn't spend his time running around like his associates do." Victoire took Cassie's hand and spun her around like they were dancing, making the little girl laugh. "If we've been tracking his movements accurately, he hasn't even visited all the detention centers. She could be in one of those, or one of the places Isaac Predatel likes to frequent, or—"

"Or at the manor," I said, the pit in my stomach growing. "Isn't that most likely?"

"Well..." Victoire winced. "We don't really know, do we? It's at least something to work off of."

"And Stillens is hurting her," I continued. "Even if he wants her to make a spell, we still don't have any idea what, why he's so desperate for her specifically." Suddenly I was on the verge of tears. "This doesn't seem like good news at all."

Teddy burst back into the room just then. "She'll be here within the hour!" he exclaimed, before taking in the atmosphere of the room. His smile faltered as he glanced at me. "Something wrong?"

I opened my mouth to response, but found I was choked up already. Victoire was watching me with alarmed concern, and Cassie was clinging to her leg, clearly scared. Before I could do anything, Aunt Andromeda stood up. "My dear, why don't we talk in the bedroom?"

I was following her to the hall before I'd even realized it, only barely registering the fact that Teddy and Toire were both trying to assure Cassie that everything was okay once again. Thankfully, Aunt Andromeda opened the door to their bedroom rather than the one she'd been staying in, the one Albus had so recently vacated (don't think about him!). I didn't think I could handle going in there, not right now.

"Astra, you seem concerned," my aunt said as she sat down on the bed.

I hesitated for a moment before sitting beside her. "I... I guess so..."

"Is everything moving too quickly?" she asked gently.

"I don't know." When I turned to look at her, she was smiling sadly at me. "Isn't it... is it really a good idea to get our hopes up about this? It's not going to lead anywhere."

"It might not," she conceded with a nod of her head. "But then again, it might. We won't know until the DA has had a chance to investigate. We want to follow any lead we might have, even if it's as small as this."

I was shaking my head. "If nothing comes of it, it's going to feel even worse, isn't it? I can't do that. I'm so worried about her..."

"We all are, dear."

"But if we start hoping for this, and it goes nowhere... she'd feel so close, only to be pulled so far away again..." I shook my head again, surprised at the hot tears that were starting to blur my vision. "I already feel like I'm going to die every time I think of her. Like there's something inside me that's trying to pull me under, drown me or something. I don't think I can handle being disappointed again."

Aunt Andromeda put her arm around my waist, pulling me closer so I could lay my head on her shoulder. "I know, dear. The grief feels like it's going to overwhelm you, never let you go." She stroked my hair, sighing. "Does that mean we give up on hope, though?"

"I don't want any more hope," I whispered.

"You would give up on her that easily?"

I stood up, blinking at her in shock. "Give up on her? I would never do that!"

"That's what choosing not to hope is." She took my hand. "As long as she still lives, we have hope that she could be returned to us. If we give up that hope, we give up on her. As much as hope can hurt, isn't the alternative even more painful?"

I'll admit, I hadn't thought about it that way. Slowly, I sat back down, frowning at the floor. The hope was that she was alive, she could be rescued, she would come back. Could I say I didn't want to believe any of that, just because the waiting hurt?

"If you're hoping for something, it hasn't yet come," my aunt went on. "That's what this entire war is built on, waiting and working for the day when Stillens will be defeated and we have peace. We hold back our grief with this hope that Colette might return, but we have to endure the waiting and working part, dear. We do everything we can to save her, and we hope it's enough."

"What if it's not enough?" I whispered.

The sorrowful expression in her eyes answered that for me. "That isn't the question hope asks." She squeezed my hand tightly, then let go and stood up. "You don't have to keep having hope if it's too much for you. But you won't be able to move on until the chance for hope dies, anyway. I think the heartache is worth it, to have something to look forward to."

As Aunt Andromeda walk over to the door, I pulled my legs up and hugged them to myself. I wanted so badly to believe Colette would be okay. I wanted to believe I would see her again, to believe we'd one day look back on all of this as a bad dream. But it felt absolutely mad to act like the DA could do anything to help her. I didn't know how to hold all of these things together in my head, the grief and the longing and the hope. Maybe I didn't have to know?

I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Wishing, no, hoping for this to all be over soon, for everyone to be safe, for no more grief. Hoping Colette knew I was thinking about her, even if it was about to tear me apart. Maybe it would give her the courage that I didn't seem to have.

~~~~

I went back to headquarters a few days later, once I started to feel bad for putting all the broadcasts on hold for so long. Mr. Jordan and Artemis had been working on everything from sound effects to nicer microphones to fixing the leak in the roof so it no longer rained in the sound booth, so I returned to what felt like a much more professional set up than I'd left. Of course, I had to jump right back in.

I didn't think I was going to figure out the balance between hope and despair anytime soon, so instead I'd opted for filling my time back up. I threw myself back into volunteering at the infirmary with more energy than I think Charlotte really wanted me to have, but that was fine. They'd gained a few new healers, meaning Oleander and Inessa were a little too busy supervising to babysit me, as well, but Oleander at least would let me follow him around when I didn't have anything to do.

Nico came for some more memory work, and I asked him if he'd anything about Albus. Haverna probably would've told them if she'd heard of him, I assumed, but Nico seemed surprised and asked if he'd gone somewhere, a clear sign that they hadn't heard a word. What he did have to share was a message to be delivered directly to Mr. Longbottom, so I took him there through the tunnels after we'd finished up with the unobliviating. That was kind of freaky, to be honest—apparently Stillens seemed incredibly confident all of the sudden, even telling Nico that the war was practically won. When Nico had asked why, he hadn't even been annoyed, just told him not to worry about it. Apparently, all his operatives would soon have a weapon at their disposal that would "take away threats for good." None of us had any idea of what that meant, except that it was nothing good. I was having enough trouble with my Albus and Colette thoughts that I decided to leave that particular issue to more capable wizards.

It had been about two weeks since Albus had disappeared when Cassie's dreams started coming true. Well, one of them, at least. Aunt Andromeda had been clearing out some of the things in Charis's old bedroom when our house had been attacked. More aptly, set on fire. She was completely unharmed, thankfully, and actually came to tell me about it herself so as not to scare me too badly, but I couldn't help but be shaken anyway. The fire had been put out quickly, and the house could be salvaged, but she was going to stay with Teddy and Toire until things were safe again.

Aunt Aundromeda told me she hadn't seen the arsonists, but as she'd run past Colette's and my open, she'd noticed that all of our things had been rifled through and thrown everywhere. Since that was where the fire started, it was impossible to know if anything was missing. Though I couldn't imagine what they'd want with our school clothes and textbooks, I couldn't help that the pit in my stomach grew a little larger that day.

~~~~

We've reached the part of the story where I have the rest of the chapters named and waiting in my drafts. The end is in sight, and I don't know how to feel about it.

Apologies for the late update! I should be moving faster from here on out now that I've got such a tangible goal. I've been substitute teaching this semester while I'm preparing for the next stage of my life, and being in a different classroom every day means that I've had a perpetual cold since late August. I've only really gotten sick once though, so nothing to worry about!

Question of the Day: Do you ever remember your dreams?

Answer: When I do, it's because they were really weird and unsettling, but I always wake up feeling like my dreams were unsettling whether I remember them or not. It's fun!

Vote and comment!

~Elli

Word count: 3820