CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE;

CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The first Hogsmeade trip of the year came much too slowly, as though teasing the students with its promises of Zonkos' products and Honeydukes sweets.

   Cassie awoke early on the day of the trip to find the weather proving extraordinarily snowy. The vast and untouched whiteness of it stretched further than her line of sight, giving the illusion of a never-ending emptiness. Somewhere in that emptiness, Cassie thought with a frown, Lord Voldemort hid out, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Cassie shuddered and rid herself of the thought by moving to the bathroom to splash her face with water.

Only an hour later, she trudged into the white desolation; Harry, Hermione, and Ron at her sides. The four of them had wrapped themselves up in multiple layers of clothing to protect from the harsh and biting cold air, but even still, a portion of their faces was left uncovered and caused their eyes to water against the extreme temperatures. Snowflakes slowly sprinkled onto Cassie's hair and the cold bit her nose and cheeks, both staining red. By the time they arrived at the small town of Hogsmeade, the bare portion of her face was raw and numb.

   Ron was busy recapping the story of Harry attempting his new spell during the early hours of the morning, ending in Ron hanging upside down in his bed, which he may have been laughing at currently, but was probably quite a scare as a wake-up call.

   "Was this spell, by any chance," bristled Hermione, "another from that potion book of yours, Harry?"

   "Always jump to the worst conclusion, don't you?" Harry frowned, though quickly shrugged and gave a dismissive expression. "Yeah, it was, but so what?"

   "So you just decided to try out an unknown, hand-written incantation and see what would happen?"

   "Why does it matter if it's hand-written?" Cassie asked curiously, deciding to jump in and save Harry's arse.

   "Because it's probably not Ministry-approved," said Hermione, as the two boys rolled their eyes. "And also, because I'm starting to think this Prince character was a bit dodgy."

   "Probably because he was better at Potions than you," said Cassie under her breath, huffing out a sigh that steamed the air in front of her face. "Listen, let's just enjoy our trip to Hogsmeade without any rows over the Half-Blood Prince and – and not visit Zonkos?" she finished in surprise, as they came up on the boarded-up shop. "They've closed up everything!"

   Cassie glanced around the town to see nearly every surrounding shop adorned with boarded windows or a large CLOSED sign on the door. She frowned, suddenly feeling quite dejected. "Where're we supposed to go?"

"Three Broomstick's open," suggested Ron, nodding toward the forever lively pub. Professor Slughorn was entering when the four teenagers looked over. Harry suddenly brightened.

"Fancy a butterbeer?" he offered, smiling slightly at Cassie, Ron, and Hermione.

The Three Broomsticks seemed to be stuck in a happier time, when the impending doom of war wasn't hanging over everyone's heads and all anyone wanted to do was order a butterbeer or some other drink. Torches lit the pub on the wooden walls and the light danced off drunk wizards. Cassie was almost sad to see such a sight.

"Harry, m'boy!" Professor Slughorn waddled over within the moment in which Harry, Ron, Cassie, and Hermione had settled into a corner booth, slowly removing layers of jackets as the warmth of the pub hit them. Slughorn beamed at them. Hermione and Harry gave him amicable grins, but Ron only ignored him and Cassie gave him a sarcastic smile. She still hadn't forgiven the Professor for his offhand comments about Muggleborns.

"Hullo, Professor," said Harry brightly, reaching over to shake Slughorn's hand. "How're you?"

"Dandy, just dandy!" said Professor Slughorn, pounding Harry upon the shoulder and grinning. "Say, I was wondering if you would be attending my next Slug Club dinner? And you too, Miss Granger, Miss Black, of course!"

"And Ron?" said Cassie curiously, an edge of accusation to her voice.

"Oh–Wheezer!" said Professor Slughorn, turning to face the boy in question with a shocked look as though he had only just seen him. "Didn't even see you, my boy! Anyway," Slughorn turned back to the others, "I hope you three will be in attendance. You've missed too many of my meetings!"

"We're sorry, sir," said Harry at once, shaking his head, "but.. ah, y'know, Quidditch practice. Always interfering, innit?"

"I certainly expect you to win your first match after all this hard work!" said Slughorn, oblivious to the fact that Cassie, Harry, and Ginny had deliberately been scheduling practices every time Slughorn had sent out an invitation to dinner. "But a little jollies never hurt anybody, I suppose. Now, how about Monday night? You can't possible want to practice in this weather?"

"Er–I've got an appointment with Professor Dumbledore that evening," said Harry, twisting his lips in a feigned frown.

"Unlucky again!" cried Slughorn, sloshing the drink in his hand onto Hermione in the dramatics. He barely spared her a glance before rounding on Cassie. "But I'm sure you'll make it, won't you, Miss Black?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," said Cassie, beaming, before burying her disappointed face into her mug of butterbeer. Slughorn let out a jubilant noise and dawdled back off to converse with Madam Rosmerta. Cassie set her drink back down with a sour expression. "I've lost my appetite."

   "Me too," said Ron, a discouraged look on his face. Cassie frowned and patted him on the shoulder, moving to stand and recover herself with all of her layers. "Let's head over to Honeydukes – if it's even still open.."

   Luckily, the sweets shop did not bear a CLOSED sign on its door when the four arrived. They trudged inside, noses and cheeks yet again stung pink, and all exhaled a shaky breath. The shop wasn't nearly as crowded as previous years, but at the moment, all Cassie particularly cared about was the restocked box of chocolate frogs sitting by the window. She bound toward them greedily, but was stopped immediately as someone latched onto her arm. Harry spun her around so she faced the window and he pointed to a shady man standing near a closed shop, glancing around suspiciously.

"No way.." said Cassie, recognizing the short man even under his many layers of clothes. "Is that–?"

Harry pushed the door open and shouted, "Mundungus!", striding over to the short man, who was so startled that he dropped his old suitcase and its contents spilled onto the snowy street.

"Oh, 'ello," said Mundungus, with a stab of airiness. "Well, don't let me keep ya." He began scrabbling around to retrieve the contents of his suitcase rather quickly, giving the air of a man who was eager to be gone.

"Are you selling this stuff?" asked Cassie, watching as the man scrambled around on the ground to pick up a familiar looking goblet. She peered at it, before an unpleasant stab reminded her just of where she'd last seen it. "Hang on–"

"Well, I'll see you all–OUCH!" said Mundungus. Harry had pinned him against the wall of the pub by his throat, his arm pressed tightly on the short man's neck. Harry pulled out his wand.

"You took that from Sirius's house," said Harry in a low voice, digging his wand into Mundungus's jaw. "It had the Black family crest on it. You stole that from Cassie."

Mundungus's beady eyes flickered to the girl and gave her the fleeting impression of Peter Pettigrew, which made her even more furious than she had been.

"I–no–what?" said Mundungus, who was slowly turning a deep shade of purple.

"What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the whole place?" Harry said brusquely, tightening his arm against Mundungus's neck.

"I–no–!"

"Harry," said Cassie, surprisingly calmly, as she looked between the two wizards, "let him go. It's alright."

Harry faltered at the sound of her voice, though he did not relinquish his grip until a loud bang forced him to. Mundungus, coughing, seized his fallen suitcase – Cassie could practically smell the static of Apparation and, before he could Disapparate, she swiftly said, "Expelliarmus!" Mundungus twisted from sight with a crack, but his wand had flown to Cassie's hand per her disarming. She stared at it sourly. "Best we can do is hope he's been horribly Splinched," she decided quietly, keeping her eyes on the wand in her hand. She didn't trust herself to look up and meet Harry's glare.

   "He's nicked your stuff, Cassie!" he said furiously, and though she didn't raise her eyes, she could tell he was seething with anger.

   "I know he has," mumbled Cassie, distractedly handing the wand to Tonks. "I don't care. All that rubbish does is remind me of my dad's shitty family. I don't much want to be evoked of that, thank you very much – and Grimmauld Place doesn't even belong to me until I have a son. So, please, forgive me if I don't give a damn whether or not people like Fletcher steal from that wretched house."

She met Harry's eye. His mouth twitched at the corner, but the anger had subsided from his expression and left him gazing at her in despondency. She merely shrugged her shoulders, unwilling to divulge into the reasoning for her detachment of the house. The main cause, she thought privately, was because Grimmauld was the last place she saw her blasted mother. Acquit Cassie if she didn't want to talk about that woman.

   "C'mon," she said after a moment, shoving her hands into her hoodie pocket, "let's get back to the castle. I'm sick of this weather." She avoided meeting the others' eyes as she pushed past them and plodded through the snow, keeping her head down and willing herself not to cry angry tears. No matter how many times she told herself not to pore over her mother's harsh words, she still found herself reminiscing on them every time she came close to tears.

   Nobody likes a crybaby, Adelaide had said.

   And nobody likes a bitch, Cassie thought in reply. Get out of my head.

   Hermione, Harry, and Ron caught up only a few moments later, but Cassie had completely lost track of her train of thought. Instead, she was focused on the two girls only a stone's throw ahead of her, arguing over some sort of black package. Cassie silently held a numb finger to her lips to keep any of her friends from drawing attention to themselves, hoping to get a bit of context as to why the girls were bickering, when an ear-splitting shriek rent the air and Katie Bell snapped into the sky as though pulled by an invisible string.

Harry and Ron instantly ran forward to Katie's aid, pulling her down by the legs. The girl fell on top of them and writhed around, screaming in such anguish that Cassie's gut clenched in confused sympathy. The blizzard made it hard to see further than a few feet, but it was quite clear that nobody was around to help. Harry noticed this first; "Stay there!" he instructed. "I'll go for help!"

And he bounded off into the white immensity surrounding them for an immeasurable amount of time. Cassie and Hermione attempted to kneel at Katie's side, but she was thrashing around too much and didn't seem to recognize either of them. After what felt like a lifetime, Harry returned, Hagrid just behind him.

"Get back!" Hagrid roared into the whipping wind. "Lemme see her!"

"Something's happened to her!" sobbed Leanne, Katie's friend. Cassie instinctively wrapped her arms around Leanne's shoulders comfortingly and watched as Hagrid scooped Katie into his arms and ran off into the castle with her.

"Leanne, what happened?" asked Hermione soothingly, rubbing the agonized girl's back.

"It was when that package tore," cried Leanne, pointing to a sodden paper package on the ground. Ron bent down to pick it up, but Harry seized his arm and Cassie screamed for him not to touch it.

"Ron, you idiot, it's cursed!" she shouted, stumbling over to hold him by the arm as if he were going to reach out for a second time. He gave her an alarmed look, but placed a soothing hand on her shoulder to wordlessly tell her that he wouldn't go near it again.

"I've seen it before," said Harry, staring at the black necklace in the package. "It was on display in B–"

"Borgin and Burkes," breathed Cassie, her heart rate picking up immensely. "Oh, Merlin, I've seen that thing. I–oh, Godric.."

Harry moved toward her, but Cassie turned back to Leanne. "How did Katie get hold of it?"

"Well, it's why we were arguing – she came back from the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks holding it, said it was a surprise for somebody at Hogwarts and she had to deliver it. She looked all funny when she said.. it.." Leanne trailed off, her eyes widening in realization. "Oh no, oh no, I bet she'd been cursed and I didn't even realize!"

Leanne shook with renewed sobs. Hermione patted her shoulder comfortingly. Cassie drew in a shaky breath, her grey eyes still penetrating the opal-encrusted necklace with rigid hatred. "She didn't say who gave it to her?"

"She wouldn't tell me," replied Leanne quietly. "I said she was being stupid and not to take it up to school, but she just wouldn't listen... and then I tried to grab it from her.. and–and– you saw what happened!"

   "It's alright, Leanne," said Hermione comfortingly, though she shot Harry, Ron, and Cassie a warning look.

   They escorted Leanne back to the castle, where she immediately rushed off to find Katie in the hospital wing. Meanwhile, Cassie, Harry, Hermione, and Ron made for their Head of House's office.

   "What happened when Katie touched the necklace?" questioned Mcgonagall the moment they step foot in the office. Clearly, she'd been informed right after it happened – probably by Hagrid.

   "She rose up in the air," answered Harry, "and then began to scream, and collapsed. Can I see Professor Dumbledore, please?"

   "The headmaster is away until Monday, Potter," said Mcgonagall, looking surprised.

   "Away?" Harry repeated.

   "Yes, Potter, away!" said Professor Mcgonagall tartly. "But anything you have to say about this horrible business can be said to me, I'm sure."

   "I think Draco Malfoy gave Katie that necklace, Professor." Cassie looked to Harry in alarm – his face was set, but Ron sniffed and looked to the side while Hermione shuffled her feet to put distance between her and the Boy Who Lived. Cassie felt a twinge of protectiveness and put a consoling arm in the crook of his elbow.

   "This is a very serious accusation, Potter," said Professor Mcgonagall after a shocked pause. "Do you have any proof?"

   "No," said Harry, "but–"

   "I–do," said Cassie shortly, glancing sideways at Harry before looking back to the professor. Cassie slowly began a retelling of what she'd witness at Borgin and Burkes; how Malfoy had been inspecting the cursed necklace right before she went in, and when he told Mr. Borgin to keep it on hold.

   When she finished, Professor Mcgonagall was absolutely blank-faced. "Mr. Malfoy was not at Hogsmeade today," she said flatly.

   "What?" said Harry and Cassie as one, both feeling quite deflated.

   "Because he was doing detention with me," replied Professor Mcgonagall, marching past them. "If you excuse me, I've got to get to the hospital wing to check on Miss Bell."