Discovering You
Parents
“Alright?” grinned Ron, leaning against the wall and watching Cassandra topple out of the fireplace, her face pale and her bag clutched tightly in a sooty hand. She staggered ungracefully before straightening up and glaring at him.
“Well, thanks for your help, I really do appreciate it.”
He shrugged, dropping down into the worn sofa he had recently vacated and stretching his long legs out. “So? Do you think it would work?”
Cassandra had shaken her long hair out from the knot at the back of her head and was shaking it to get the soot out. “Yuk,” she said, holding up the long strands. “This is one serious drawback.”
“It looks fine,” said Ron automatically, knowing that this was the right answer when she complained about her hair. “I meant about the Floo powder.”
“Oh, that?” she kicked his feet out the way and sat down. “Brilliant. Saves a lot of time, it’s great, I don’t have to wander up and down from the common room to the Divination room with Sir Cadogan screaming nonsense to me. I mean, I’ve tried telling him to shut up, that he’s a midget knight who can’t even get on his own horse without needing a stepladder, and that he is very badly painted, but he doesn’t listen! No, Floo powder is a much better alternative.” She rummaged in her bag and withdrew a mirror, which she peered critically into. “Even though it makes me feel sick and gets ash all over my hair.” She began to brush it.
Ron yawned lazily. “It’s a pretty good idea. Wish we’d thought of it when we were in third year.”
“Ah, you obviously did not have my superior brains or talent then, did you?”
“What brains?”
She aimed at his shoulder with her brush.
“Where’s Harry and Hermione?”
“Down at Hagrid’s,” replied Ron, rubbing his shoulder with a slightly pained expression.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why aren’t you with them? Didn’t fancy a little stoat in a sandwich?”
“Had detention with Snape, didn’t I?” scowled Ron, his face darkening. “That slimy git. It was for the incident in Potions on Wednesday, d’you remember?”
“Oh yeah, the ‘sir-my-potion-is-crawling-on-the-table-and-has-now-fallen-into-my-sock’ incident.”
“Yeah.”
Cassandra snorted and placed the hairbrush away. “I thought it was quite funny.”
“So how was Divination?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, actually it was really good, I was really surprised because I normally hate it, you know? But today I thought I’d take Yolanda in with me – here she is,” Cassandra reached into her bulging bag and withdrew her little white cat.
She made Yolanda wave a fluffy paw at Ron. Yolanda gave Ron a look that plainly wished him a long, drawn out, and agonising death.
“There you go, girly,” said Cassandra, kissing Yolanda’s head and placing her lovingly onto the floor. Ron drew his knees up to his chest hastily as Yolanda stalked off to terrorise a group of fourth-year girls.
“Anyway,” said Cassandra, turning back to Ron. “It turns out our dear old Trelawney is terrified of cats and there was a little problem when Yolanda jumped up onto my desk to drink the tea – we were reading tea leaves, you see - and it ended up with Trelawney running from the room. Yolanda drank the rest of the tea, but we didn’t mind, because it was really cheap stuff and I brewed some more for us out of the more expensive teabags Trelawney has hidden behind her desk. She also has a secret stash of Firewhisky.” Again, she plunged a hand into her bag and took out a bottle full of warm amber liquid. “I got this for you three. We all drank the rest.” She gave a wide smile. “It was great!”
Ron laughed as he examined the bottle. “Wow. Just don’t tell Hermione how you got this, okay?”
“Why not? I told you, and you’re a Prefect.”
“Yeah, but she’s Head Girl.”
“Oh, she won’t mind, she hates Trelawney.”
Ron shrugged as Cassandra checked her watch and quickly sat up, her eyebrows knitting together. Her hand grabbed her bag and she made to swing it over her shoulder.
“Hey, where’re you going, Cass?”
She looked back at Ron, still lounging on the sofa. “Sorry…I’ve got to go.”
“Where? I was going to say we should go and see Hagrid.”
Cassandra bit her lip, thinking. Rachel had said to meet her in the Room of Requirement at half past four, and she was already five minutes late. They had made progress on their task – with Gryffindor’s sword and Rachel’s surprisingly wide range of memories that she had insisted were all about the founders, it seemed excitingly real. It was as if it was really happening suddenly, as if one moment, one shining moment, the four founders would suddenly rise in the Room and they would have done it.
“I said to Rachel I’d meet her,” she said to Ron, her eyes not meeting his, instead looking over at Yolanda.
He groaned. “Come on. You’ve been off doing other stuff all this week, and the week before, and the week before. It’s Friday! C’mon, let’s just go and hang out with Hagrid. Rachel’s always obsessed with homework, she’s always found in the library, you can’t want to do homework that badly, Cass.”
She could have laughed. It wasn’t homework she had Rachel had been doing during all those long hours in the library, often the Restricted Section, searching through tired yellow pages brimming with fading words. “I know,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
“So come on. Why’d you want to spend all your time with Rachel recently, anyway?”
Harry had asked her the same question only a few days before, and then she hadn’t really had a proper answer. She didn’t really know Rachel that well, though they had worked hard on the task they had assigned themselves. But now…
“I feel so sorry for her,” Cassandra said, wrinkling her nose as she thought of their last meeting in the Room of Requirement, two days ago.
*
“And then,” said Rachel, screwing up her freckled face as she dropped her wand and left the cauldron to bubble, “All we would need to do would be to put the memories in. Simple!”
“Oh, ha ha.” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Simple? I didn’t know you made jokes, Rach.”
“I am the one holding the sword.”
“Okay, okay!” Cassandra held her hands up, crossing over to where the small girl was bending over a book, her ponytail falling over her shoulder.
“Rach?”
“Hello?”
“How’d you get all those memories about the founders? Bit of an odd thing just to having lying around in your house? I mean, we have embarrassing photos of me in my house, I keep putting graffiti on them and trying to burn them, but Debbie always manages to keep them, it’s quite annoying, but-“
Rachel cut her off. “They weren’t just hanging around. My parents have collected them.”
Cassandra raised her eyebrows.
“What?”
“Well, why would they collect them? Bit of an odd thing to do.”
Rachel turned her back pointedly on the other girl, ignoring her.
“And…” carried on Cassandra determinedly. “I never asked why you’re doing this. I mean, it’s another odd thing to do. Are your family just crazy fans of the founders or something?”
She watched as Rachel opened her mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again, sighing and shaking her head as if annoyed. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You are the worst liar I have ever seen.”
“Oh, right.”
“Tell me.”
“Shut up.”
“Please.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Pretty please.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
“Come on,” sang Cassandra, grinning. “Tell me.”
Rachel rolled her eyes.
“Tell me…”
“Fine!” snapped Rachel, whirling around. “Fine! But wouldn’t you understand why I wouldn’t want to tell anyone. You think I have a choice to do this? No, I don’t. I don’t and it’s just so damn unfair!”
She was clutching a little glass bottle full of a silver memory so tightly Cassandra was worried it might break.
“I don’t have a choice, Cassandra! You…” Rachel ran her hands over her head and gripped her ponytail.
“Your parents. What were they like?”
“What, you mean my actual mum and dad?” Rachel nodded impatiently and Cassandra shrugged in reply. “Don’t know. Can’t remember. Debbie or John didn’t tell me much about them, because they didn’t know-“
“I’m not talking about Debbie and John! God! Is that all you ever talk about?”
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. As far as she knew, she had only mentioned her adoptive parents once in front of Rachel, telling a old story about how they had run wild for a day, changing the colours of everything in the house with magic until they sat down in a living room that was filled with flashing, spotty, stripy and glittery objects, and had actually kept it like that for two weeks until Sturgis Podmore came round. They had had to wear sunglasses practically all the time.
“No,” she said calmly. “But you never talk about your parents either.”
“Why don’t you care about them?” said Rachel, and Cassandra was disconcerted by the look in her eyes. “They’re your actual parents – not some people who decided to take you in because they couldn’t have a baby!”
“I-“
“You don’t care about them do you? Not your parents.”
“I do. Rach, that’s unfair. I do, okay!”
Rachel suddenly seemed to lose her anger. She sat down on a stool. “Why you?”
“What?”
“Why you? Your parents cared about you. They loved you and you don’t know the slightest thing about them.”
“I know some things,” said Cassandra, slightly hurt by this. “They were called Harold and Damaris James. They worked full time for the Order. They-“ She stopped, her mind running over what Rachel had said, and suddenly, desperately wishing she was not here. “What do you mean ‘they loved you’?”
“Nothing.” Rachel shook her head and frowned at her knees. Cassandra shifted her weight onto her left leg, awkward and feeling as if she was much too tall.
“Nothing,” Rachel repeated more forcefully. “My parents do love me, of course…”
Cassandra stayed silent. Please don’t let Rachel cry, please let me get away, please don’t let Rachel cry, please let me get away…
Rachel shook her head determinedly, and looked up at Cassandra, her face bright and calm. “I said I don’t have a choice trying to make the four founders of Hogwarts come back. I don’t, but I still want to do it. I’d do it anyway,” and Cassandra nodded.
“But,” continued Rachel, swallowing and still speaking in the calm, pleasant and perfectly normal voice. “When I was seven, my father made me make an Unbreakable Vow that I would try and do this. Don’t worry,” she said quickly, seeing Cassandra’s disgusted face. “It’s okay, I’m used to it. But he made me do it, and so I did, and now I have no choice but to try.”
“Why did he do it?” whispered Cassandra.
“Well. His father made him make the same Unbreakable Vow as I made. For generations, my family have been trying to make the founders come back, all because of Unbreakable Vows. But the Vow took over their life, as it did with my father. He could see no way out of it – the Vow said he would have to keep trying. But he saw a way out of it by making me make the same Vow he did, which would mean he would still be trying through me, but could rest.”
“And?”
“What?”
“Did it work?”
Cassandra only noticed when the words left her mouth how unfeeling they were.
“No,” said Rachel, with only the slightest pause. “No, it didn’t. He went two years without trying in the slightest. He died.”
She continued looking at Cassandra with the same, even gaze.
“I’m sorry,” said Cassandra hesitantly when the silence had stretched on for long enough.
“It’s alright. I didn’t really know him.”
“And your mum? How do…you know. You get along alright?”
Rachel smiled. “Oh yes. My mother’s fine, but…let’s just say I don’t think she’s quite like your foster mother,” she nodded, grinning, a fake grin that was only part of a mask she kept on.
Cassandra fiddled with her hair awkwardly, still standing a long way away from Rachel. “I wonder what my real mum was like,” she said slowly. “I kind of wish now I had the chance to meet her.” And then, as an afterthought, she added another, “Sorry.”
They had left the Room not long after.
*
Cassandra ran a hand through her hair and wearily over her face, her gaze on the firelight instead of Ron, who was sitting still sitting in front of her.
She liked Rachel, she did, but Rachel sometimes scared her, though she would never, ever admit it to anyone. Rachel scared her and yet she felt sorry for her in equal measures.
“Cass?”
She blinked. Ron was chewing on a Peppermint Toad and offering one to her. “So?”he asked through a mouthful. “Are you going?”
Cassandra shuffled on the worn rug, and then grinned. “Let’s go to Hagrid’s,” she decided.
Ron smiled and unwrapped her Peppermint Toad. “So you did decide to brave a stoat sandwich?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The taste grows on you somewhat.”
Cassandra repressed only the faintest twinge of guilt as she and Ron exited the common room and walked past the staircase that led to the Room of Requirement.
“Well, thanks for your help, I really do appreciate it.”
He shrugged, dropping down into the worn sofa he had recently vacated and stretching his long legs out. “So? Do you think it would work?”
Cassandra had shaken her long hair out from the knot at the back of her head and was shaking it to get the soot out. “Yuk,” she said, holding up the long strands. “This is one serious drawback.”
“It looks fine,” said Ron automatically, knowing that this was the right answer when she complained about her hair. “I meant about the Floo powder.”
“Oh, that?” she kicked his feet out the way and sat down. “Brilliant. Saves a lot of time, it’s great, I don’t have to wander up and down from the common room to the Divination room with Sir Cadogan screaming nonsense to me. I mean, I’ve tried telling him to shut up, that he’s a midget knight who can’t even get on his own horse without needing a stepladder, and that he is very badly painted, but he doesn’t listen! No, Floo powder is a much better alternative.” She rummaged in her bag and withdrew a mirror, which she peered critically into. “Even though it makes me feel sick and gets ash all over my hair.” She began to brush it.
Ron yawned lazily. “It’s a pretty good idea. Wish we’d thought of it when we were in third year.”
“Ah, you obviously did not have my superior brains or talent then, did you?”
“What brains?”
She aimed at his shoulder with her brush.
“Where’s Harry and Hermione?”
“Down at Hagrid’s,” replied Ron, rubbing his shoulder with a slightly pained expression.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why aren’t you with them? Didn’t fancy a little stoat in a sandwich?”
“Had detention with Snape, didn’t I?” scowled Ron, his face darkening. “That slimy git. It was for the incident in Potions on Wednesday, d’you remember?”
“Oh yeah, the ‘sir-my-potion-is-crawling-on-the-table-and-has-now-fallen-into-my-sock’ incident.”
“Yeah.”
Cassandra snorted and placed the hairbrush away. “I thought it was quite funny.”
“So how was Divination?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, actually it was really good, I was really surprised because I normally hate it, you know? But today I thought I’d take Yolanda in with me – here she is,” Cassandra reached into her bulging bag and withdrew her little white cat.
She made Yolanda wave a fluffy paw at Ron. Yolanda gave Ron a look that plainly wished him a long, drawn out, and agonising death.
“There you go, girly,” said Cassandra, kissing Yolanda’s head and placing her lovingly onto the floor. Ron drew his knees up to his chest hastily as Yolanda stalked off to terrorise a group of fourth-year girls.
“Anyway,” said Cassandra, turning back to Ron. “It turns out our dear old Trelawney is terrified of cats and there was a little problem when Yolanda jumped up onto my desk to drink the tea – we were reading tea leaves, you see - and it ended up with Trelawney running from the room. Yolanda drank the rest of the tea, but we didn’t mind, because it was really cheap stuff and I brewed some more for us out of the more expensive teabags Trelawney has hidden behind her desk. She also has a secret stash of Firewhisky.” Again, she plunged a hand into her bag and took out a bottle full of warm amber liquid. “I got this for you three. We all drank the rest.” She gave a wide smile. “It was great!”
Ron laughed as he examined the bottle. “Wow. Just don’t tell Hermione how you got this, okay?”
“Why not? I told you, and you’re a Prefect.”
“Yeah, but she’s Head Girl.”
“Oh, she won’t mind, she hates Trelawney.”
Ron shrugged as Cassandra checked her watch and quickly sat up, her eyebrows knitting together. Her hand grabbed her bag and she made to swing it over her shoulder.
“Hey, where’re you going, Cass?”
She looked back at Ron, still lounging on the sofa. “Sorry…I’ve got to go.”
“Where? I was going to say we should go and see Hagrid.”
Cassandra bit her lip, thinking. Rachel had said to meet her in the Room of Requirement at half past four, and she was already five minutes late. They had made progress on their task – with Gryffindor’s sword and Rachel’s surprisingly wide range of memories that she had insisted were all about the founders, it seemed excitingly real. It was as if it was really happening suddenly, as if one moment, one shining moment, the four founders would suddenly rise in the Room and they would have done it.
“I said to Rachel I’d meet her,” she said to Ron, her eyes not meeting his, instead looking over at Yolanda.
He groaned. “Come on. You’ve been off doing other stuff all this week, and the week before, and the week before. It’s Friday! C’mon, let’s just go and hang out with Hagrid. Rachel’s always obsessed with homework, she’s always found in the library, you can’t want to do homework that badly, Cass.”
She could have laughed. It wasn’t homework she had Rachel had been doing during all those long hours in the library, often the Restricted Section, searching through tired yellow pages brimming with fading words. “I know,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
“So come on. Why’d you want to spend all your time with Rachel recently, anyway?”
Harry had asked her the same question only a few days before, and then she hadn’t really had a proper answer. She didn’t really know Rachel that well, though they had worked hard on the task they had assigned themselves. But now…
“I feel so sorry for her,” Cassandra said, wrinkling her nose as she thought of their last meeting in the Room of Requirement, two days ago.
*
“And then,” said Rachel, screwing up her freckled face as she dropped her wand and left the cauldron to bubble, “All we would need to do would be to put the memories in. Simple!”
“Oh, ha ha.” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Simple? I didn’t know you made jokes, Rach.”
“I am the one holding the sword.”
“Okay, okay!” Cassandra held her hands up, crossing over to where the small girl was bending over a book, her ponytail falling over her shoulder.
“Rach?”
“Hello?”
“How’d you get all those memories about the founders? Bit of an odd thing just to having lying around in your house? I mean, we have embarrassing photos of me in my house, I keep putting graffiti on them and trying to burn them, but Debbie always manages to keep them, it’s quite annoying, but-“
Rachel cut her off. “They weren’t just hanging around. My parents have collected them.”
Cassandra raised her eyebrows.
“What?”
“Well, why would they collect them? Bit of an odd thing to do.”
Rachel turned her back pointedly on the other girl, ignoring her.
“And…” carried on Cassandra determinedly. “I never asked why you’re doing this. I mean, it’s another odd thing to do. Are your family just crazy fans of the founders or something?”
She watched as Rachel opened her mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again, sighing and shaking her head as if annoyed. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You are the worst liar I have ever seen.”
“Oh, right.”
“Tell me.”
“Shut up.”
“Please.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Pretty please.”
“There’s nothing to know.”
“Come on,” sang Cassandra, grinning. “Tell me.”
Rachel rolled her eyes.
“Tell me…”
“Fine!” snapped Rachel, whirling around. “Fine! But wouldn’t you understand why I wouldn’t want to tell anyone. You think I have a choice to do this? No, I don’t. I don’t and it’s just so damn unfair!”
She was clutching a little glass bottle full of a silver memory so tightly Cassandra was worried it might break.
“I don’t have a choice, Cassandra! You…” Rachel ran her hands over her head and gripped her ponytail.
“Your parents. What were they like?”
“What, you mean my actual mum and dad?” Rachel nodded impatiently and Cassandra shrugged in reply. “Don’t know. Can’t remember. Debbie or John didn’t tell me much about them, because they didn’t know-“
“I’m not talking about Debbie and John! God! Is that all you ever talk about?”
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. As far as she knew, she had only mentioned her adoptive parents once in front of Rachel, telling a old story about how they had run wild for a day, changing the colours of everything in the house with magic until they sat down in a living room that was filled with flashing, spotty, stripy and glittery objects, and had actually kept it like that for two weeks until Sturgis Podmore came round. They had had to wear sunglasses practically all the time.
“No,” she said calmly. “But you never talk about your parents either.”
“Why don’t you care about them?” said Rachel, and Cassandra was disconcerted by the look in her eyes. “They’re your actual parents – not some people who decided to take you in because they couldn’t have a baby!”
“I-“
“You don’t care about them do you? Not your parents.”
“I do. Rach, that’s unfair. I do, okay!”
Rachel suddenly seemed to lose her anger. She sat down on a stool. “Why you?”
“What?”
“Why you? Your parents cared about you. They loved you and you don’t know the slightest thing about them.”
“I know some things,” said Cassandra, slightly hurt by this. “They were called Harold and Damaris James. They worked full time for the Order. They-“ She stopped, her mind running over what Rachel had said, and suddenly, desperately wishing she was not here. “What do you mean ‘they loved you’?”
“Nothing.” Rachel shook her head and frowned at her knees. Cassandra shifted her weight onto her left leg, awkward and feeling as if she was much too tall.
“Nothing,” Rachel repeated more forcefully. “My parents do love me, of course…”
Cassandra stayed silent. Please don’t let Rachel cry, please let me get away, please don’t let Rachel cry, please let me get away…
Rachel shook her head determinedly, and looked up at Cassandra, her face bright and calm. “I said I don’t have a choice trying to make the four founders of Hogwarts come back. I don’t, but I still want to do it. I’d do it anyway,” and Cassandra nodded.
“But,” continued Rachel, swallowing and still speaking in the calm, pleasant and perfectly normal voice. “When I was seven, my father made me make an Unbreakable Vow that I would try and do this. Don’t worry,” she said quickly, seeing Cassandra’s disgusted face. “It’s okay, I’m used to it. But he made me do it, and so I did, and now I have no choice but to try.”
“Why did he do it?” whispered Cassandra.
“Well. His father made him make the same Unbreakable Vow as I made. For generations, my family have been trying to make the founders come back, all because of Unbreakable Vows. But the Vow took over their life, as it did with my father. He could see no way out of it – the Vow said he would have to keep trying. But he saw a way out of it by making me make the same Vow he did, which would mean he would still be trying through me, but could rest.”
“And?”
“What?”
“Did it work?”
Cassandra only noticed when the words left her mouth how unfeeling they were.
“No,” said Rachel, with only the slightest pause. “No, it didn’t. He went two years without trying in the slightest. He died.”
She continued looking at Cassandra with the same, even gaze.
“I’m sorry,” said Cassandra hesitantly when the silence had stretched on for long enough.
“It’s alright. I didn’t really know him.”
“And your mum? How do…you know. You get along alright?”
Rachel smiled. “Oh yes. My mother’s fine, but…let’s just say I don’t think she’s quite like your foster mother,” she nodded, grinning, a fake grin that was only part of a mask she kept on.
Cassandra fiddled with her hair awkwardly, still standing a long way away from Rachel. “I wonder what my real mum was like,” she said slowly. “I kind of wish now I had the chance to meet her.” And then, as an afterthought, she added another, “Sorry.”
They had left the Room not long after.
*
Cassandra ran a hand through her hair and wearily over her face, her gaze on the firelight instead of Ron, who was sitting still sitting in front of her.
She liked Rachel, she did, but Rachel sometimes scared her, though she would never, ever admit it to anyone. Rachel scared her and yet she felt sorry for her in equal measures.
“Cass?”
She blinked. Ron was chewing on a Peppermint Toad and offering one to her. “So?”he asked through a mouthful. “Are you going?”
Cassandra shuffled on the worn rug, and then grinned. “Let’s go to Hagrid’s,” she decided.
Ron smiled and unwrapped her Peppermint Toad. “So you did decide to brave a stoat sandwich?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The taste grows on you somewhat.”
Cassandra repressed only the faintest twinge of guilt as she and Ron exited the common room and walked past the staircase that led to the Room of Requirement.