CHAPTER FORTY;

SNOUTS, MOONY, WORMTAIL, PADFOOT, AND PRONGS

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By breakfast the next day, Ron and Hermione's bad moods had burnt out, and to Cassie's relief, Harry seemed to have forgotten about her slip-up from the Owlery.

Cassie had barely dived into her eggs before the post owls arrived. Hermione looked up eagerly.

"Percy won't've had time to answer," said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."

"No, it's not that," said Hermione. "I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."

"Good thinking!" said Harry brightly, also looking up. He smiled as a grey owl began soaring down toward Hermione. "I think you're in luck."

"It hasn't got a newspaper," she said, looking disappointed. "It–" Hermione abruptly stopped herself as six more owls landed before her. Cassie picked up her plate and moved it to the side as to keep it safe from the unending amount of owls landing on their table, but a small brown owl landed right in the center of her eggs. She groaned.

"What on earth is this?" Cassie demanded, dropping her plate and untying the letter from the smallest owl first. She yelped and jumped back as another nipped her on the knuckle.

"Did you get one too, Cassie?" said Hermione angrily, shaking her letter in the air. "They're horrible!"

Cassie, who had just finished reading her letter, nodded quickly. "Foul," she agreed, ripping it up and tossing the pieces to the side. "I assume yours say the same as mine?"

"What?" said Ron, glancing between the two girls curiously. Hermione thrusted her paper in his face, then Harry's.

"They're all like it!" said Hermione desperately, opening one letter after another. "'Harry Potter can do better than you'... 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn' .... Ouch!"

She had just opened the last letter, and yellowish liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils.

"Undiluted bubotuber pus!" said Ron, picking up the envelope and sniffing it.

Hermione attempted trying to wipe the pus off her hands with a napkin, but tears blurred her vision and the boils had grown to the size of golfballs.

"You'd better get to the hospital wing," said Harry as the owls took flight. "We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone."

"I suppose I'm lucky, then," said Cassie bitterly, tossing another letter on the table and rolling her eyes. "No boil pus in any of mine, but Moony's condition did come into play a few times. Ridiculous!"

"I warned her," said Ron. "I warned both of you not to annoy Rita Skeeter!" He began reading another of Hermione's letters, his face screwed up angrily. "She needs to watch out for herself."

"I didn't annoy Rita Skeeter," said Cassie, a sour taste on her tongue.

"You told her to shove it where the sun doesn't shine," Harry pointed out, raising an eyebrow. "But even if you'd told her that her mother was ugly or something horrible like that–"

"Calling one's mother ugly is worse than telling them to—?"

"My point," said Harry quickly, shooting Cassie a look, "is that it doesn't matter how horrible you were to her. It didn't warrant this reaction."

"I think she's incredibly childish," said Ron, matter-of-factly. "Hermione was right, she could've done better."

Cassie scoffed and stood. "Let's get to Herbology. I don't think I could handle Professor Sprout if we were late today."

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Cassie's sour mood stuck around for the rest of the day. In Care of Magical Creatures, in which Hagrid had finally returned, Cassie barely even spared a smile when her niffler found the most gold and she earned a sackful of chocolate coins.

   The hate mail continued arriving throughout the following week, and although both Hermione and Cassie had stopped opening them, a few of their ill-wishers had decided upon sending Howlers, which burst open and shrieked until the entirety of the Great Hall was listening.

   In their next Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Hermione had hung back to ask Professor Moody a question. The rest of the students were very eager to leave; Moody had given them such a rigorous test of hex-deflection that many of them were nursing small injuries. Cassie had fallen victim of such a bad case bewitched snowballs that she'd been pelted twenty-four times before Moody finally took pity and fired the counter-jinx.

   "Rita's definitely not using an Invisibility Cloak," said Hermione breathlessly a few moments later, who had just caught up with a twitchy-eared Harry, a hiccuping Ron, and a bruised Cassie. "Moody says he didn't see her anywhere near the judges' table at the second task, or anywhere near the lake!"

   "Hermione, is there any point in telling you to drop this?" said Ron, followed by a loud hiccup.

   "No!" said Hermione stubbornly. "I want to know how she heard me talking to Viktor! And how she found out about Hagrid's mum!"

   "Maybe she had you bugged," suggested Harry, shrugging.

   "Bugged?" said Ron blankly. "What.. put fleas on her, or something?"

   "Maybe bugged is a Muggle term for snitched on," Cassie suggested to Ron, raising her eyebrows. Harry and Hermione rolled their eyes, and Harry began explaining Muggle bugs and microphones and what-not. Cassie was quite interested, until Hermione interrupted them impatiently.

   "Aren't you ever going to read Hogwarts; A History?" she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. Cassie sputtered.

   "I did!" she said indignantly. Hermione ignored her.

   "All those substitutes for magic Muggles use – electricity, computers, radar, all those things – they all go haywire around Hogwarts, there's too much magic in the air. Rita has to be using magic to eavesdrop. If I could only find out what... oh, if it's illegal, I'll have her..."

   And she rushed off to the library without a backward glance.

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"Either Mr. Crouch attacked Viktor, or somebody else attacked both of them when Viktor wasn't looking," said Hermione, rubbing her forehead frustratedly.

The common room had practically cleared out entirely when Harry, Hermione, and Cassie had rushed in to greet Ron, all three bursting to the brim with what had just happened.

Harry had told the story from his perspective; Krum wanted to talk to him after they'd been taken around and shown the third task, though Barty Crouch had appeared and been mumbling strange things. Harry'd left Krum for barely five minutes to get Dumbledore, but when he came back, Krum was unconscious and Crouch was gone.

"It must've been Crouch," said Ron at once. "That's why he was gone when Harry and Dumbledore got there. He'd done a runner."

"I just don't think so," said Harry, shaking his head. "He seemed really weak. I don't reckon he was up for Disapparating or anything–"

"You can't Disapparate on the Hogwarts grounds, haven't I told you enough times?" Hermione said with a heavy sigh. Ron ignored her, and instead let out a low 'ooh'.

"How's this for a theory?" he said excitedly. "Krum attacked Crouch – but wait for it – he Stunned himself!"

"And Mr. Crouch evaporated, did he?" said Hermione coldly, to a soft snort from Cassie. The former had been trying to keep out of the conversation, keep her mind focused on the Divination work in front of her, but she found her concentration wandering toward the topic at hand. Neither of which agreed with the pounding and dizzying headache she was currently experiencing.

   "Just go through it again, Harry," said Hermione. "He said he wanted to warn Dumbledore about something. He definitely mentioned Bertha Jorkins, and he seemed to think she was dead. He kept saying stuff was his fault.... He mentioned his son."

   "Well, that was his fault," said Hermione testily.

   "He was out of his mind," Harry continued. "Half the time he seemed to think his wife and son were still alive, and he kept talking to Percy about work and giving him instructions."

   "And remind me what he said about You-Know-Who?" said Ron tentatively.

   "I've told you," repeated Harry. "He said he's getting stronger."

   There was a heavy pause, in which Cassie finally looked up from her Divination work. The other three laid their eyes on her for the first time and nearly started at the sight; there were prominent dark circles under her eyes, her hair was messily braided into a bun at the base of her head, she seemed to be running solely on the cup of coffee she'd demanded from Wipsy that morning.

   "Cassie, have you been sleeping?" Harry began carefully, sharing a glance with the other two before repositioning himself so him and Cassie were facing each other.

   "Why would you say that?" she asked quietly, returning her gaze to the Divination work in front of her, then glancing at her watch, then back to the Divination. Looking anywhere but the three people staring her down.

   "Well, you seem..." Harry paused, thinking of a nice way to put it. "Just tired."

   "I'm alright," she said automatically, checking off a star sign on her chart. "Just overworked, I suppose. You shouldn't be worrying about me, though; you've got another task at hand. I don't want you putting this one off like you did the last one, you remember where that got you? I expect you'll want to learn more defense spells, as well..."

   "Cassie," snapped Hermione, bringing the girl out of her slight daze. "It's late. You should sleep."

   "I'll go after I finish this ch–"

   "You can't fill out your dream journal if you don't have any dreams, mate," Ron pointed out wisely. "Can't have you failing your best class, eh?"

  "I can't sleep," she said, rubbing her forehead. "The– the nightmares come. I don't have any dreams, anyway."

   "What nightmares?" said Hermione soothingly, tilting her head to the side. Cassie hesitated, on the verge of telling them of her visions, then shook her head decisively.

"I'll see you lot tomorrow," she said, standing and gathering her books. "I'm going to go.... um, go.."

Ron, Harry, and Hermione watched her retreating figure in confusion. Cassie waited until she was sure she was completely out of their range of sight before keeling over and vomiting – the pain in her head had never reached such levels, it felt as though her brain were on fire.

She stood, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her robe, and shuddered. If these types of symptoms were what came with being a Seer, then Cassie wasn't so sure she wanted the ability of Sight anymore. Perhaps there was a way to get rid of it...

Cassie was ripped from her thoughts and into another vision; this one, it seemed, was not from her own point of view – in fact, the women and men standing before her seemed to be the younger versions of her mother, Remus, a man with Harry's messy black hair and a woman with his bright green eyes. The young James and Lily Potter.

"C'mon, Moony, don't be an idiot," said James Potter, reaching forward to place a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder, but Remus jerked away from his touch angrily.

"I'm not being an idiot!" he shouted, glowering at James. "You lot are only blinded by love! Why can't you see it!? It's– it's Sirius!"

"Mate, come on," said James again, though this time his voice wavered. "It's not Sirius. How could you think–?"

"HE'S A BLACK!" Remus bellowed. His entire body was shaking with rage. "How could you NOT think he's the spy!?"

Cassie exhaled a silent breath, her eyebrows raising. Remus thought Sirius was the spy during the first wizarding war... but didn't....

"Remus, my friend," said James, very softly, as though about to break him bad news. And bad news, it was; "Sirius thinks– he thinks it's you."

Lily let out a quiet sort of sobbing noise and clasped a hand over her mouth. James automatically stepped back and wrapped his arms around her protectively, whispering soothing words into her ears.

Adelaide was impassive as she watched Remus. Her top lip twitched once, though that was the extent of the emotion she shown over her lover and his best mate's quarrel. Her Slytherin side.

"He... he thinks it's me?" Remus said finally, looking up at his friends for confirmation. He had gone from angry to heartbroken in a matter of moments, but Cassie felt herself grow upset.

"You thought it was him only moments ago!" she wanted to shout at Remus. "You were so eager to blame him for all that's gone wrong, but the moment he turns it around, you play the heartbroken card!"

He couldn't hear her, so it wouldn't have made a difference if she did say it.

   "I'm sorry, Moony," said James, very genuinely. Cassie felt a pang of sadness overwhelm her and suddenly, she wanted to cry – James and Lily were such kind people, even from this short snippet Cassie had seen of their lives. They deserved to live longer. If not that, they deserved to be avenged.

   And, as if nothing had happened, Cassie was snapped back to her original life. She staggered for a moment, then stood up straight. With a soft cough and shake of her head to regain herself, she walked into her dormitory.

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