chapter twenty eight / unforgivable curses 101

                        The following day passed so slowly that Cassie was convinced the universe was purposefully dragging it out in order to keep her nerves on end.

   She couldn't sit still all day – so horribly that in Transfiguration, Professor Mcgonagall even asked if she needed to visit Madam Pomfrey and take a swig from a calming draught. Cassie politely declined, though part of her was convinced a calming draught was just what she needed to keep her nerves in check. Nevertheless, she wanted to stay alert for when seven o'clock finally rolled around.

   She bade goodnight to the boys the moment the four of them returned from dinner, much to their confusion, and Cassie promptly retired to her bed with the curtains drawn tightly by six fifty-seven. She lifted her wand and cast a quiet Impertuable Charm so Lavender or Parvarti wouldn't overhear anything.

   Three minutes later, the faint chiming of the grandfather clock in the entrance hall signaled seven o'clock. Cassie drew in a deep breath and picked up her mirror, biting her thumbnail as she stared into it.

   She wasn't quite sure how it worked – she had no background knowledge on this kind of magic. Should she tap it three times to alert him that she was there? Or was she supposed to speak into it? How did she even know this was going to—?

   "Cassie?"

   Oh, so it was that easy.

   Sirius's face appeared in the mirror. Cassie didn't know what she was expecting, to be honest – maybe for it to function like a Muggle telephone. She'd had some experiences with those, but this was unprecedented.

   She cleared her throat. "Hi.. Sirius."

   It suddenly dawned on her that this was her first conversation with her father since that night in the Shrieking Shack, and they hadn't done much catching up then.

   Judging by the look on Sirius's face, he felt the same nerves as her.

   "How.. how are you?" she tried, awkwardly.

   "I'm fine," he replied. "You?"

   "Yeah, fine."

   There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.

   "Um, about my letter–" Cassie began, at the same time as he said,

   "So, your letter–"

   They both shut their mouths at the same time. Cassie exhaled an awkward laugh.

   "You first," Sirius offered.

   Cassie nodded and cleared her throat again. "So.. I sent it from the Quidditch Cup," she began slowly, furrowing her eyebrows, "right after the whole... well, you know what happened this year, right?"

   "Bits and pieces," replied Sirius, nodding in confirmation. "Only that the Death Eaters attacked the Muggles working it. Were there any deaths?"

   "Not that I know of," she answered hastily. "But– well, what I wanted to ask was.. how many people know that I'm– well, know that I'm..."

   "My daughter?" he finished, raising an eyebrow.

   "Yes." Cassie winced inwardly at her timidness. "Because apparently Mr. Crouch knows. He blamed me for casting the D– the Dark Mark and said 'you know who her father is' when Mr. Weasley asked why. So, I was just.. wondering."

Sirius was silent for a moment in thought, his brow creasing together as he formulated a reply in his mind. "Well, let's do a head count together, shall we? There's you, me, your mother—wherever she may be—Dumbledore, Remus... I assume you've told Harry and friends, so that's eight already–"

"Ten," interrupted Cassie, grimacing slightly. "I told Atticus and Cedric the day I found out. Oh, and Malfoy," she had to fight not to roll her eyes, "said something that made me suspicious, so I suppose we can count him. And Crouch, plus whoever he's told at the Ministry, so.."

"So we have an undetermined amount," he finished, nodding slowly. "Well, I'm sure it's not a big deal unless they find out you're in contact with me. That could be a whole different story."

   Cassie pressed her lips into a thin line. "So.. that's all I needed to know. Thank you, Sirius. I've got to—"

   "Wait!" exclaimed Sirius. "Don't put it away yet, just... h– how are you?"

   "Fine," she repeated, trying to suppress her urge to put away the mirror and end the interaction before it got any worse.

   Sirius nodded again, finally seeming to give in to the fact that the conversation was hitting a dead end. "Well, I'm always near my mirror. Just shout if you need me."

   "Thanks." Cassie nodded. "I'll talk to you later, then?"

   "Whenever you need me," he smiled.

   Cassie dropped the mirror and shoved it behind her pillow, before exhaling and running her hands through her hair.

                It didn't take a genius to notice something was bothering Cassie. When confronted about this, though, all she did was shrug her shoulders and say she wasn't sleeping enough or hadn't finished her homework in time for Potions.

Neither of these excuses were the case.

Cassie, truthfully and honestly, had no clue what was putting her on edge. It had been a feeling she couldn't shake since the Triwizard Tournament was announced at the first feast and had stuck around ever since. She hadn't a clue what it meant, but her gut was telling her not to trust the tournament.

"C'mon, Cassie," pried Harry excitedly as they walked to the DADA classroom, "we've got to get good seats.."

Harry was thrilled about this new teacher, along with nearly every other Gryffindor in their year. In fact, Cassie seemed to be the only one not bouncing on the edge of her seat when Moody finally walked in.

"Right then," he said, clapping his scarred hands together, "I've spoken with Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling dark creatures – boggarts, grindylows, hinkypunks, Kappas, werewolves. Is that right?"

The class murmured in confirmation, all eager to know what stood Moody out from the rest.

"But you're very behind on dealing with curses, I'll say," he grumbled. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you–"

"What, you aren't staying?" Ron blurted out.

Moody's magical eye spun around unnaturally and landed on Ron. He smiled after a moment, and it was quite... a sight to behold.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son," Moody grinned. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner recently. Yeah, I'm staying just the one year... a favor for Dumbledore." He chuckled to himself, then returned to his lesson.

"Straight into it, then. Curses. They come in many shapes and sizes. Ministry says you're too young to see what these curses can do, eh? Dumbledore thinks different. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful."

Cassie disagreed, but kept her mouth shut.

"So.. any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"

   Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron and nodded once.

   "Er," said Ron, slowly standing, "my dad did tell me about one called the.. Imperius Curse?"

   "Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know about that one. gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time."

   He got heavily to his mismatched feet and pulled a glass jar from his desk. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside. Ron whimpered, and Cassie had a flashback to when he'd been confronted with a spider at the Burrow over the summer. She fought a giggle.

   Moody reached into the jar and pulled a spider from it. He held it so everyone could see it and, upon pointing his wand at it, muttered, "Imperio!"

   He swung it around maliciously, throwing it from desk to desk and making it climb atop students' heads. Everyone was laughing – save for Cassie, who was watching the ordeal with her lips pressed in a thin line.

   "Years back," Moody began, throwing the spider back into its jar, "there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced, and who was acting of their own free will.

   "The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it.

   "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

   Hermione's hand flew, unsurprisingly, into the air, and so did Neville's. Moody pointed to the latter.

   "There's one, I know... the Cruciatus Curse," he said in a small voice.

   Moody watched Neville intently, then nodded sharply. "The Cruciatus Curse." He removed another spider from the jar. He raised his wand and pointed it at the spider again, then muttered, "Crucio!"

   Cassie tried not to squirm as she watched the pained spider rolling about the desk. She stood suddenly, causing Moody to stop torturing the spider and replace it into its jar.

   "Yes, Lupin?" he asked expectantly.

   "I know – the last curse," she said, holding eye contact with Moody, trying not to show her discomfort. "It's the killing curse."

   The class shifted uncomfortably.

   "Ah, yes, the last and arguably worst of the curses," Moody said, nodding. "Avada Kedavra... the killing curse."

   He withdrew the last spider from the jar and held it in his palm.

   Cassie watched with a dignified expression as he raised his wand, pointed it at the spider, and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"

   She only winced slightly.

   "Not nice," Moody said flatly over the reactions of the class. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter curse, no blocking it. Only one person's been known to have survived it, and they're sitting in this room."

   All eyes shifted uncomfortable to Harry. All eyes — once again — except for Cassie.

   She decided she could have said the same thing about Moody – not nice, not pleasant. He was definitely a change from Moony, and Cassie would apparently have to adapt to this change rather quickly.

                        After a long study session with Ron and Harry for Divination in which they worked on their predictions for the coming month, Cassie felt loads better. She'd realized, in the now double periods she had with Trelawney, that she had a natural knack for the class. Not that she believed in being able to see the future, or anything – that was all still rubbish, in her head – but it was nice to get good marks in that class.

   Ron and Harry didn't share the skill that Cassie had, though. They'd fudged their entire charts with fake readings, some being so utterly ridiculous that only a fool could believe them.

   Cassie hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep until she awoke to Hermione's bickering with Ron. What a brilliant wake-up call.

   "What's– spew?" Cassie asked curiously, having walked over to her friends and picked up a badge from Hermione's box. Whatever 'spew' was, though, Cassie would have to find out later, as Hedwig had just flown through the window right as Hermione began to explain.

   Harry clambered over to the window and greeted Hedwig warmly. He untied the letter from her talon and sat to read it, Hermione, Ron, and Cassie surrounding him.

   He looked up once he'd finished reading it, an unreadable expression on his face.

"He's coming back?" Hermione hissed in disbelief.

Harry hit himself in the forehead with his fist, slumping back in his chair. Cassie, Ron, and Hermione shared a curious look.

"I shouldn't've told him!" Harry said furiously.

"What are you on about?" Ron asked, taken aback.

"It's made him think he's got to come back!"

"No, Harry, I'm sure he was planning on coming back in the first place," Cassie tried to say soothingly, though all four of them knew it was an empty promise. Nobody wanted to say it, but what Harry was saying was true.

"Harry," Hermione began in a sympathetic sort of voice.

"I'm going to bed," Harry said sharply, standing. "See you in the morning."