CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE;

WHEN THE STARS BURN OUT

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The concept of flying on something Cassie could not see scared her out of her wits – and, for that reason and that reason only, there was an upside to watching death occur.

Thestrals were interesting creatures. They flew at speeds that seemed impossible to mankind and, to be honest, Cassie felt quite nauseous on the back of her thestral (which Luna had so graciously named William). Her hair whipped behind her and the cold air stung her eyes to tears, but she did not break her focus from the growing speck of light on the horizon that had to have been Muggle London. The closer they got to the Ministry, the closer they were to Sirius..

   Finally, they landed on an empty and misty street and sent the thestrals off–they figured if they made it out alright, they could find another way home. The thestrals clomped off toward a nearby park, leaving the teenagers utterly alone in a dark alleyway.

   "Well?" said Cassie expectantly, looking around. "How do we get in?"

   Harry did not reply verbally. He stepped toward an empty telephone box and pulled the crooked door open, then stepped inside. He gestured for the rest of them to follow, and they did.

The Ministry was a place Cassie decided she hated. No particular reason, really, but the black tile floors and unending hallways gave her an uneasy feeling. It took them nearly twenty minutes to find the room Harry had seen Sirius in, and even then, its walls spread beyond their range of sight. Cassie reached forward to touch one of the many crystal balls on the shelves surrounding them, but Harry quickly grabbed her by the elbow.

   "I don't think we should touch anything," he said in a warning whisper, glancing around. Cassie frowned and turned back to the mystical balls, tilting her head to the side. As she approached another shelf, the crystals seemed to be calling out to her in harsh whispers; quiet at first, but as she drew closer, their voices were practically echoing around her mind. She winced and stumbled back.

   "What's wrong?" Harry was quick to say, pointing his wand in the direction Cassie had stumbled from. She held her ears and looked up worriedly.

   "You can't hear them?" she asked. Everyone shook their heads – even Luna, who believed in everything.

   "C'mon, let's get to row ninety-seven," said Hermione slowly. The group started down the rows, eyeing each shelf until they approached eighty-six, then eighty-eight, ninety, ninety-two, ninety-four, ninety-six... Cassie slowed to a stop and turned; Harry held his lit wand to a crystal ball numbered ninety-seven. But this couldn't have been right, could it? Sirius wasn't even here. How could.. Unless, of course, Voldemort had already killed Sirius... Cassie inhaled a shaky breath. Atticus subtly reached forward and slipped his hand into hers for comfort. She squeezed his fingers so tight, it felt as though they may pop off.

"He's not here," said Harry bluntly, his jaw tightening.

"That much is obvious, thanks," Cassie snapped, her eyes narrowing. Her mind ran through a million possibilities: her father was already dead; Voldemort had gotten what he wanted; it was a trap; Sirius had gotten away.. And then, it clicked into place as Cassie's eyes locked onto a swirling orb with Harry's name on it. The prophecy. "We need to get out of here," she muttered, pulling Atticus by the hand and hoping the others would catch on without laying their eyes on the orb titled with Harry Potter.

Unfortunately, Ron didn't get the hint. "Harry, this one's got your name on it!" he announced, reaching for the orb. A cold and drawling voice caused him to falter and Cassie spun around to be face to face with a man in a silver Death Eater mask.

"Good job, boy," the man said softly, waving his hand over the mask. It dissolved to reveal the sour and foul face of Lucius Malfoy. He sneered down to Cassie and said, "Hello again, Cassiopeia."

   The teenagers began to inch off in other directions only to be blocked by more and more Death Eaters, seeming to appear out of thin air. Cassie gripped her wand tightly and leveled her arm, glaring down Malfoy, but he just held his hand out toward Harry.

   "Give me the Prophecy," he instructed in a quiet voice, "and you and your friends shall live."

    "It's a lie, Harry," Cassie blurted, still glowering at Mr. Malfoy. "He'll kill us all the same. Don't give it to them."

   Malfoy quirked a blond eyebrow and tilted his head to the side, clicking his tongue. "No, no, I'm a man of my word," he said after a moment, though his eyes glimmered mischievously. Cassie set her face and stretched her wand arm out even further. Malfoy took a dramatic step back and held his hands in the air. "Give me the Prophecy, Potter, and we can all walk away from this."

   "I want to know where Sirius is," said Harry forcefully, clutching the orb closer to his chest as the woman on Malfoy's left took a step forward.

   "I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked the woman, now stepping fully into the light of the teenagers' wands. Her hair was mangled and hung around her face in dirty black ringlets that seemed to be the exact same color as her deep dark circles and shadowy cheekbones. Cassie recognized her immediately – from both the newspaper, and her ancestral tapestry.

    "Bellatrix Lestrange," Cassie muttered, her arm slackening only a bit as the woman bared her teeth in a nasty grin.

   "Bit late on the family reunion, aren't you, niece-y?" said Bellatrix in a mocking voice, a fake pout on her chapped lips. She glared at Cassie for a
moment and the teenager suddenly felt very self-conscious, hugging her arms closer to her body but still keeping her wand pointed to Bellatrix.

   "You're not my aunt," said Cassie firmly. "Your lot made that clear when they disowned my father. Now where is he?"

    "Give me the Prophecy, Potter," interrupted Malfoy, his voice now becoming more forceful with every step he took.

   "I know Sirius is here!" said Harry, his voice strained. "I know you've got him!"

   "It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," said Malfoy with a chilling smirk. His colleagues cackled loudly, the sound reverberating around and off the crystal orbs. "Now give me the prophecy, or we stop using wands."

   "Go on, then," said Harry, raising his own wand to and keeping it in front of the prophecy at his chest.

   "Accio Proph–" Bellatrix began, but Harry, thank Godric, was quick-witted enough.

   "Protego!" he shouted, still clinging onto the orb.

"Oh, he knows how to play," said Bellatrix, her mad eyes flickering darkly around the group of teenagers. "Itty bitty baby, Potter.. Very well, Cr–"

"NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared, stepping in front of the witch. "If you smash it, Bellatrix, it's your head!"

"So you want the prophecy?" said Cassie, attempting to stall and give Harry time to think of a plan. She glanced over her shoulder and saw his green eyes had clouded over – his mind was racing, she just knew it. If only she could buy him enough time... "Tell us why, and maybe you'll get it."

"Silly girl," said Bellatrix sneeringly. The woman glared at Cassie with such hatred, Cassie couldn't help but wonder if Bellatrix pictured her as Sirius. Bellatrix hated him enough, right? Did she hate Cassie purely because she was descended from Sirius? Bellatrix turned to Malfoy and said in a whiny voice, "Can't we kill her? She's already refused the Dark Lord–"

"We can't kill her," said Malfoy in a tight voice, his grey eyes – Cassie's grey eyes – boring so intensely into her that she almost took a step back. Instead, she lifted her chin and glared right back. "Black is important for his plan, Bella, I trust you know this.."

"Plan, right," grumbled Bellatrix, clearly upset that she had not been granted access to kill Cassie.

"Where is he, then?" said Harry daringly. "If it's his plan, and he needs the prophecy, then why isn't Voldemort here hims–"

   "YOU DARE SPEAK HIS NAME!?" Bellatrix shrieked madly, her eyes widening and giving her the effect of an animated character. "You dare speak his name from your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood tongue, you dare–"

   "Say, Harry," said Atticus loudly, earning the attention of teenagers and Death Eaters alike, "isn't Voldemort a half-blood too?"

   "Oh, Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch, but his dad was a Muggle," said Harry, nodding enthusiastically as though this were some sort of interesting fact. Bellatrix was enraged; she lifted her wand.

   "STUPE–"

   "NO!" A jet of red light had shot from the end of Bellatrix's wand, but Malfoy had deflected it. The spell hit a row of orbs near the floor and caused them to shatter. In the distraction, Harry leaned toward Cassie.

   "Smash shelves.. when I say go.. run in the opposite direction.." he muttered slowly. She gave a faint nod to let him know she had heard his instructions, before leaning over to mutter them to Atticus.

   "Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me," said Harry loudly to mask the sound of Atticus now whispering to Luna. "And he's made me come and get it for him. Why couldn't he just come and get it himself?"

   "Get it himself?" repeated Bellatrix with a cackle. "The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when they are otherwise preoccupied wasting their time on my dear cousin–?"

   "You say one more thing about him, and I'll–" Cassie said, struggling forward, but Atticus held her back. Bellatrix's eyes gleamed as she scanned the boy. She tilted her head to the side.

   "You'd be Forbes's son," she deducted, licking her thin lips. "Florian, is it? How's Mummy?"

This time, Cassie had to reach out and hold Atticus from pounding on the witch, but Bellatrix only smirked. "Yes, I suppose parents are a touchy subject for you," she mused, snickering quietly. There was a pattering of low laughter from the surrounding Death Eaters as Bellatrix inched forward. She frowned unconvincingly. "You miss Daddy, do you? Mmm.. shame, isn't it, for Daddykins to up and leave you like that."

   The way her eyes lit up as she spoke to Atticus sent a chill down Cassie's spine. It was as if she wanted to get under his skin, as though it were a game of cat and mouse–and Atticus was the mouse.

Cassie had nearly forgotten the plan within the midst of the Bellatrix/Atticus interaction, and she was almost startled when Harry suddenly shouted, "NOW!"

Seven different voices from around Cassie bellowed "REDUCTO!" Seven curses flew in seven different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit. The towering structures swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart. There was a loud hiss, and then suddenly, the whispering stopped.

"RUN!" Harry yelled. Cassie didn't have to be told twice; she sprinted off in the direction Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna had gone. Atticus stumbled behind her and she turned for a fraction of a second to see Bellatrix towering over him, a sick grin on her thin face. Anger boiled Cassie's blood and she spun her wand onto Bellatrix.

   "IMPEDIMENTA!" she shouted. The witch was startled enough to go flying back into another row of glass orbs, which promptly shattered on impact, leaving Bellatrix buried beneath a pile of broken glass. Cassie grabbed Atticus by the hand and pulled him out of the way of a falling row, both of them barely pausing to catch their breath before taking off down the isle toward the exit.

The pair of them sprinted in such a manner they had never done before. Cassie could barely feel the exhaustion of her legs through the adrenaline coursing around her body. She sent random spells over her shoulder without even looking back to see if they had hit their targets. Her eyes locked on the door her and Atticus were racing to; it was so close, she could almost touch it...

And then, they were through. Hermione barely let them pass the doorway before she shouted "COLLOPORTUS!" and the door sealed itself with an odd squelch. Cassie doubled over and gasped for air, gingerly touching her fingers to a cut on her cheekbone that had somehow appeared. She looked up, then furrowed her brow.

"Where are the others?" wheezed Harry.

"They must have gone the wrong way!" whispered Hermione, horror etched across her features. A horrible sinking feeling developed Cassie. If Luna, Ron, and Ginny were not with them, where else could they be, but with the Death Eaters?

"Listen!" Neville suddenly hissed. Footsteps sounded from the opposite side of the doorway. Cassie, Neville, Atticus, Harry, and Hermione all ducked under their own desk just as the door swung open with a loud crack.

"They might've run straight through to the hall," said a rough Death Eater's voice.

"Check under the desks," said another. Bad suggestion, Cassie thought, as a man bent down to check beneath her desk. She stuck out her wand and shouted "STUPEFY!", sending the Death Eater across the room with a surprised look on his face.

The other Death Eater had fixed his wand angrily on Hermione,who had crawled out from under her desk. "Avada–" he began, but his next words were strangled as Harry threw himself around the man's knees and wrestled him to the floor. Neville exploded from under his desk and shouted, "EXPELLIARMUS!"

"Nice one, Neville!" exclaimed Atticus as the Death Eater flew backwards and into the room he had just entered from.

   "Petrificus Totalus!" Harry yelled to another Death Eater, who fell flat on his back, stiff as a board. Before anyone could make another move, the door burst open again, and in stumbled Ron, Ginny, and Luna. Ginny seemed to be supporting herself on a broken ankle, but Atticus immediately rushed over to pick her up bridal-style.

   "THERE THEY ARE!" a mad voice shouted from behind. Stunning Spells shot across the room. Cassie barely rolled out of the way of a green jet of light – a Killing Curse?

   "CASS!" shouted Harry from somewhere on her right. She immediately ducked to where his voice had echoed from and tumbled into a room containing a rocky-veil-like thing that seemed to glisten in the moonlight that poured in from the fogged windows.

   The rest of the teenagers staggered in one by one, Atticus closing the rear with Ginny in his arms. Cassie, panting and gasping for breath with her hands clutching her stomach that felt as though it were on fire, stumbled toward the veil at the center of the room. It felt as though something were pulling her into it, like it was the sun and she, the earth. A firm hand on her shoulder pulled her back before she could step into the veil, and she turned to see Neville holding her back. As though seeing his face grounded her, she blinked and came back to reality.

"Are you oka–" Neville began to ask, but Cassie slammed a hand over his mouth and pulled him down; right in time, too, as Death Eaters began to circle them and snatch Cassie's friends off to the side. Somebody strong wrestled Neville from Cassie's hands and she let out a shout of indignation, but someone slammed into her and she fell back to the ground.

When she opened her eyes, her aching body was being supported by one of the Death Eaters, who had a tight grip on her upper arm and his wand prodding sharply into her neck. She struggled against his hold, but he did not budge.

"Your race is run, Potter," said Mr. Malfoy quietly, stepping toward Harry in the center of the circle. Harry spun around on the dais and held his wand toward Malfoy, the prophecy clutched tightly to his chest. "Now hand me the prophecy like a good boy.."

"Let–let the others go," said Harry bravely, "and I'll give it to you!" A few Death Eaters laughed, and Malfoy smirked, pleased.

"You are not in the position to bargain, Potter," said the man, still holding out a pale hand. "You see, there are ten of us, and you are the only one of your pathetic friends that is not... shall I say, preoccupied."

"DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM!" roared Neville, beside himself as he kicked and writhed against the Death Eater holding him back. "DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM, HARRY!"

Bellatrix rounded her wand on Neville with surprising speed. "Crucio!"

Cassie winced and turned her head as far as she could so she did not have to watch Neville's pained writhing on the floor; his screams were horrible enough. Cassie's eyes focused on Harry and she could almost see the gears turning in his mind. Slowly, he began to hold the prophecy out to Mr. Malfoy.

   "DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM!" a voice from above bellowed. All heads in the room swiveled to see Sirius, Lupin, Moody, Tonks, and Kingsley storming in with their wands raised. The Death Eaters didn't so much as get their mouths open before they were Stunned.

   "Are you alright?" someone shouted from Cassie's left. She turned to see Atticus, and he pulled her to the ground as a jet of red light soared just over their heads. "Are you hurt?"

   "I'm fine," she said, ducking to the side. A spell whizzed past her ear and she spun to face Lucius Malfoy. Atticus shouted "STUPEFY!" but Malfoy deflected it lazily, advancing on the pair with painstaking slowness.

   "Look at this," said Malfoy, giving a sneering smile. "Both the people I need."

   "You won't be getting them as long as I live," growled Sirius, who had jumped out of nowhere to in front of the teenagers and began to duel with Malfoy.

"Why does he need us?" Atticus muttered, pulling Cassie underneath the platform on which the veil sat. Cassie did not reply – she couldn't focus, as the whispering from the veil had amplified to sound as though someone were raising their voice at her. She thought she recognized the voice.. but no, it couldn't be..

"Atticus, d'you hear him?" she asked, swiveling her head around quickly and moving to crawl out from beneath the platform, but her cousin pulled her back.

"Hear who?" he asked, his bloody brow furrowed as his eyes skimmed the girl confusedly.

"It's Cedric," she muttered, successfully breaking from his grasp and moving out from underneath the platform to find her friend. He was nowhere to be seen, but Bellatrix noticed Cassie's disorientation and moved in on her with a loud cackle.

"Little baby Black's confused!" she shrieked, howling with laughter. "You hear your dead friend, do you? HA!"

"STUPEFY!" Cassie shouted. Bellatrix, taken aback, only barely avoided the spell. She bared her teeth to Cassie and raised her wand. The words "Cruc–!" had barely left her mouth when Cassie's father began striking Bellatrix with an onset of spells.

"Get away from my daughter!"

Sirius blasted the witch with so many spells that she began to stumble back, until the shock wore off and she glared at Sirius through her shield charm. Cassie stood at her father's side, teaming up with him against the foul witch. Bellatrix struck back with seemingly just as much power that Cassie and Sirius were using.

   "IMPEDIMENTA!" Cassie shouted, before realizing that she was the only one using verbal spells. She thought back to what Harry had said in one of the D.A. meetings: it's better to use non-verbal spells if you can, as it keeps your enemy on their toes... Cassie leveled her wand arm and thought, forcefully, 'STUPEFY!' A small jet of light erupted from her wand, and even Sirius seemed to be surprised. He let out a shocked laugh and glanced at her for a fraction of a moment, a proud grin on his face.

   "Look at you, taking after your–"

   Cassie wished she hadn't done it. If she hadn't cast the non-verbal spell, Sirius wouldn't have turned to congratulate her, and Bellatrix wouldn't have been able to blast Sirius with the beam of light that forced him back into the veil.

   Sirius stumbled back, his expression fading into a blank, mystified look as his body was enveloped in the hazy matter inside the veil.

   Cassie waited. She waited and waited, but her father did not come out the other side of the veil. He was.. gone? No, that couldn't be right, he'd just been fighting with her. How could he have gone so quickly? No, Cassie was sure he would reappear on the other side of the veil with that Sirius Black grin, knowing he had successfully pulled her leg.

   She kept waiting, staring at the veil hopefully, until the ringing in her ears finally faded and she heard Harry's desperate cries and Atticus's despairing shouts. Though – and Cassie wouldn't realize this until later – Atticus was not shouting out of anger for the death of Sirius, but instead for Cassie's attention. A loud crack of Apparation cut him off, and Atticus did not run back to Cassie's side.

   In the matter of ten minutes, Cassie had lost both her best friend and father. But for some reason, she did not feel pain, or hopelessness, or anger. She felt numb to emotions.

As though she may never feel again.