Remember Me

Hermione was very surprised, but pleased, to see Cassandra, Harry and Ron enthusiastically greet each other the next morning and go down to breakfast together, chatting animatedly.

“What happened?” she asked Cassandra as they lined up in front of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

“Couldn’t find a bloodthirsty troll, so had to settle for a giant. Not as fun, really.” Cassandra winked at Ron, who grinned back. Their friendship was the one that had surprised Hermione the most. From being bitter enemies, they had become like best friends.

During the lesson, they were worked harder than ever. Professor Grimstone was forever criticising them, how they duelled, saying it was far too obvious what they were about to do. He picked on Harry and Cassandra as guinea-pigs, so they were forced to spend the entire lesson shooting jinxes at each other, leaving Cassandra with a bad case of Twitchy Ears and Harry in fits of hysterical laughter from a Cheering Charm Cassandra had shot at him as a last resort.

“Harry, shut up!” she groaned as they left the lesson, Harry still laughing weakly.

“Why’d you cast a Cheering Charm anyway?” asked Ron.

“Be funny if you cast it on Voldemort,” she grinned. “Put him in a good mood for once.”

Hermione laughed and Ron joined in. Harry, who was beginning to calm down, looked thoughtful, his straight black eyebrows frowning over his jade eyes.

“Please don’t say you’re considering doing that, Harry,” said Cassandra. “I don’t think that’s quite the way to defeat Voldemort.”

“No,” he smiled. “I was just thinking…”

“He’s going to do it, Ron, Voldemort will suddenly become this really happy guy who works in Honeydukes…”

“Cass! No, it’s Malfoy. Don’t you think…I dunno, he looked really happy?”

Ron shrugged. “So what?”

“Well, his dad’s just been put in Azkaban, and I bet Voldemort’s really angry with his parents right now. You’d think he’d be…well, not…”

“I know what you mean,” cut in Hermione, nodding. “All the Slytherins look really happy this year.”

Cassandra raised her eyebrows. “Maybe their common room’s got a makeover or something. You two are being way too paranoid.”

Harry shrugged, and followed Ron down the marble staircases, but couldn’t get rid of the picture in his mind of Malfoy’s face, his dark eyes glittering triumphantly at him across the room. Something must have happened to make Malfoy look like that, and Harry wasn’t going to rest until he had found it out…

His scar suddenly throbbed painfully, and he automatically raised a hand to it. It had been hurting more this year than ever before, and again Voldemort’s voice echoed in his head. All you ever want, Harry…just tell me the prophecy…

Almost every night now. Almost every night Voldemort appeared in his dreams, searching, asking for the prophecy. He knew Ron had told Hermione about his dreams. She had begun to give him serious, searching looks when she thought he wasn’t looking at her and this, if possible, annoyed Harry more than the concern she had tried to show him after Sirius died.

Almost every night. Voldemort would never stop until he knew the prophecy. And Harry would never give it to him.

*

Debbie had a cold. She fumbled for yet another tissue as her nose dripped disgustingly, making Kingsley send an annoyed look at her from opposite the table. The Order of the Phoenix had just finished a meeting, and many witches and wizards were pushing scrolls of parchment into bags, screwing tops on ink and disapparating.

Debbie meanwhile went over to where Malik Grimstone and Kingsley Shacklebolt were. She had felt a wave of relief upon hearing that Malik was a teacher at Hogwarts, and that Aurors were stained around the school. Of course Cassandra would be safe there, but…

It wasn’t as if Cassandra had written proper letters to her either. Of course, they couldn’t say much in case someone read them and found out important information, but Debbie had expected Cassandra to write fat letters full of news; how she liked Hogwarts, who she had made friends with, the teachers, the lessons, the grounds and the building…but instead she had received two very short notes where the most important even seemed to be how a boy called Dean had accidently set the curtains in the Charms room on fire and had
detention for a week afterwards.

If that was the most important thing that had happened to Cassandra…

Well, she’d never been a very good letter writer…

And maybe Cassandra was just in one of her moods when she didn’t particularly want to talk to her or John; they had been more frequent over the years…

It was just…

Malik and Kingsley were discussing something in low voices, their expressions serious.

“…the Dark Lord knew about that, it must be someone from the Order that has told him, no one else would know…”

“Then who? Do you think Dumbledore is right about…”

Debbie crept closer. This didn’t seem like the right sort of conversation to interrupt with questions about her daughter, and, although she knew it was wrong to, she wanted to hear more.

“If there is someone from the Order that is passing information the Dark Lord, there can only be one person! Severus Snape!”

“Malik, Dumbledore trusts Snape.”

“But why? Snape could have hoodwinked Dumbledore…I hear he is a very accomplished Occulmens…”

“Dumbledore trusts Snape, therefore I trust him. But, all the same,” Kingsley bent closer to Grimstone and Debbie hastily turned her back as he looked cautiously around the room. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

Malik Grimstone nodded curtly, walked away and bumped into Debbie.

“Oh, hello!” she smiled, trying valiantly to seem as if she hadn’t been eavesdropping. “So, I hear you’re the new Defence teacher?”

“Yes,” he muttered, looking distractedly over her head to the greasy-haired Potions master behind. Debbie looked at Snape too. Was it true what Kingsley and Malik had said? That someone was spying for Voldemort, someone inside the Order?

Debbie quickly ran through all the members in the Order of the Phoenix inside her head, shaking her head. Malik was right. The only person who could do that was Snape. No one knew why Dumbledore trusted him…he was famed at school for being a lover of the Dark Arts…he had definitely been a Death Eater at some point…

But yet it was Snape who provided most of the information about Voldemort. With his inside knowledge he was easily one of the most important people in the Order.

And Snape was at Hogwarts.

With Cassandra.

Debbie suddenly grasped hold of Malik’s robes. He looked faintly surprised as she hung on. “My daught- Cassandra James – she’s at Hogwarts.” Debbie looked up into Malik’s dark eyes and thought inexplicably of John, and his snub nose and freckles, of his wide, crooked smile, of his tousled hair. “Promise me you’ll watch out for her. Protect her.”

Malik Grimstone looked down at Debbie and a strange, unfamiliar sense of sorrow stirred inside him. “Yes,” he said gruffly. “I will.”