chapter six / a grim hogsmeade trip

                                 LIKE A FLIP HAD BEEN SWITCHED, THE ENTIRE SCHOOL WAS ON EDGE. Harry, the poor kid, looked like he would crack at any moment, under the stress of classes, Sirius Black, and (worst of all), Quidditch. Oliver Wood chased him down any minute he could find and went on rambles about techniques for beating Cedric at finding the snitch. Harry had learned to just ignore him.

     One sunny day, Harry, Ron, and Cassie were walking from Hagrid's hut to their next class, when Oliver cornered them and began listing off strategies. Cassie glared at him, but he didn't even notice. He rambled on and on until Cassie realized they'd been ten minutes late for class. The three excused themselves from Oliver's lecturing and rushed off. Luckily, it was just her father's class.

     Except, when they arrived, sitting behind her father's desk was the unwelcome body of Professor Snape. His black eyes glanced up as the door slammed open, and he tutted.

     "This lesson began ten minutes ago, you three, so I think we'll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Each. Sit down."

While Cassie and Ron moved over to their desks, Harry stayed put, a determined glare in his eyes. "Where's Professor Lupin?"

      Cassie lifted her head. "Harry, it's—"

     "He's feeling too ill to teach today," Snape replied, ignoring Cassie. "I believe I told you to sit down."

    "Drop it, Harry," Cassie whispered, hoping he would listen.

     Alas, he wouldn't. "What's wrong with him?"

     "Nothing life-threatening. Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask again, it will be fifty. Sit."

     Harry walked slowly to his seat and sat, never taking his eyes off of Snape. Cassie buried her face in her hands.

     Snape stood, spreading his hands across the desk and leaning into it. "As I was saying before these three interrupted, Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far—"

     "Please, sir, we've done boggarts, Red Caps, kappas, and grindylows," Hermione informed him.

"When'd she get here?" Ron whispered to Cassie, bewildered.

Hermione ignored Ron, her hand still in the air as she spoke to Snape. "And we're just about to start—"

"Be quiet," said Snape coldly. "I did not ask for information; I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin's lack of organization."

     "He's the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had!" said Dean, his eyebrows furrowed. There was a murmur of agreement from their classmates.

     Snape's lips pursed. "You are easily satisfied, then. Lupin is hardly overtaxing you – I would expect first years to be able to deal with Red Caps and grindylows. Today, however... we shall discuss werewolves."

     Cassie tried not to choke in surprise. She let out a sharp exhale, trying to ignore as Snape's eyes landed on her for a moment.

     "But, sir," Hermione said again, oblivious to the girl next to her's discomfort, "we're not supposed to do werewolves yet. We're due to start hinky-punks."

     "Miss Granger," Snape said in a deadly calm voice, "I was under the impression that I am teaching this lesson, not you. And I am telling you all to turn to page three hundred and ninety four. All of you – now!"

     With a few side-eye looks and some muttering here and there, the class flipped to the page in the book.

     Snape prowled his way around the front of the classroom. "Which of you can tell me how we distinguish between the werewolf and the true wolf?"

     Everyone sat in silence. That is to say, everyone except Hermione, whose hand, as it often did, had shot straight into the air.

     "Nobody? Hm.. what about Miss Lupin?" Snape asked lowly, his eyes hovering over Cassie, who'd shrunken back into her seat so far she almost fell off.

     With what seemed like great difficulty, she sat up again and cleared her throat. "Um.. a werewolf... has a much skinnier snout than a normal—"

     Snape's eyes glittered. "Incorrect. Really, Lupin, I'd have thought you'd known better," he said dully, as though disappointed she got it wrong.

     The rest of the class was horrible, to say the least. There came no improvement from Snape. And even after the bell rang, he held them back.

     "You will each write an essay, to be handed in to me, on the ways you recognize and kill werewolves. I want two rolls of parchment on the subject and I want them by Monday morning. It is time somebody took this class in hand. Weasley, stay behind, we need to arrange your detention."

     Harry, Hermione, and Cassie left the classroom after sending Ron apologetic looks. They were barely ten steps away before Harry exploded into a furious tirade about Snape.

     "Snape's never been like this with any of our other teachers, even if he did want the job!" he said to Hermione and Cassie. "Why's he got it in for Lupin? D'you think it's cause of the boggart?"

     "I don't know," Hermione admitted, shrugging. "But I really hope Professor Lupin comes back soon.. what's wrong with him, Cassie?"

     "Oh, don't worry. He's just got the flu, is all," she waved a hand nonchalantly. Hermione looked as though she were going to question how Remus had gotten a Muggle sickness from someone in a wizarding school when Ron thankfully cut her off from behind them.

     "Do you know what that" — he called Snape something that Cassie didn't quite know what it meant, and earned a 'RONALD!' from Hermione — "is making me do? I've got to scrub out the bedpans in the hospital wing. Without magic!" He clenched his fists. "Why couldn't Black have hidden in Snape's office? He could have finished him off for us!"

CASSIE'S FIRST QUIDDITCH MATCH WAS A BIT OF A BUST, in her own opinion. Through the pouring rain, it had been much too difficult to even see ten feet in front of her, much less an entire game of Quidditch.

Not that the match had even lasted twenty minutes. Within the first half of the game, Harry had fallen off his broomstick and soared eighty feet through the pouring rain to land on the hard ground beneath him. Luckily, he hadn't suffered anything too serious that Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix, but he still wasn't allowed to leave until she cleared him—which, of course, wouldn't be for another few days.

Fortunately, every night that Harry'd been locked inside the Infirmary, Cassie had managed to sneak inside and stay with him so he wasn't so lonely in the dull corridor. She would until dark, watch Madam Pomfrey lock the door, then Alohamora it like her father had taught her to do.

    Now, she sat at the foot of Harry's bed, an open box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans between them and a beige bean in her hand.

"You said the Grim was there?" she confirmed, her eyebrows furrowed in thought.

Harry nodded slowly, popping a bean in his mouth. "In the bleachers, just before the dementors. It was like... This is going to sound mental, but hear me out, okay?" He raised his eyebrows, and she nodded her head quickly to assure him. He shifted around and leaned in. "I'm almost positive the Grim is following me. I.. don't know why, and I don't know what I means, but I do know that every time I see it, something happens."

"Like..?"

"Like when I saw it the first time on Privet Drive; I saw it, right there, and then the Knight Bus almost ran me down. And then I saw it yesterday at the match, and not even a moment later, the dementors appeared."

Cassie stared at him for a moment, deep in thought. "Well... that certainly could mean something. But I doubt it means death, right? You.. you'd already be dead."

He twisted his lips to the side. "I mean.. But, still, it is strange, isn't it? That Trelawney predicts the Grim just days after I've first seen it?"

"I'm almost positive it's just a coincidence, Harry. Don't go mental about it, okay?" She raised an eyebrow, tossing a bean in her mouth. Immediately, she scrunched up her nose and quickly reached for the trash can, spitting it out. "Bloody hell! That was cat piss flavored!"

Over the the pair's laughter, the looking grandfather clock at the end of the hospital wing chimed once, twice, thrice.. all the way until it pealed twelve times. Cassie frowned. She glanced over her shoulder at the clock, checking the time just to be sure she hadn't misheard.

"Everything alright?" Harry asked tentatively, following her gaze.

"Yeah.. no, it's nothing.." she said, biting her lip. After a moment's hesitation, her breath caught, and she shut her eyes lightly. "Okay, promise you won't tell anyone? And I mean anyone — I don't want to cause a... big thing."

     "Of—of course." Harry scrunched his eyebrows together, leaning in. "What is it?"

      She puffed up her cheeks. "It's my birthday."

     "Oh." With a pause of confusion, Harry's expression softened into a smile. "Well, that's not nearly as bad as you were making it out to be. Are you fourteen already?"

     She shook her head. "Thirteen. Not sure how I'm in this year, to be honest. But I'm not complaining." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, shaking her head dismissively. "It really is nothing big. I just don't want people to.. know, you know? And if they start to worry because they didn't get anything even though I'm the one that never told them—"

   "Cassie," Harry said, recapturing her attention from her rambling. He met her eyes, a smile dancing across his lips. "I promise I won't tell anyone, if you don't want me to. But it's not as bad as you'd think, celebrating your birthday. You should try it sometime."

     She managed a smile. "Maybe I should. But not right now, alright?"

     "Of course," he said earnestly, his eyes wide as he nodded his head. "And, uh, Cassie?"

     She fiddled with one of the sweets wrappers before her, not meeting his eyes. "Mhm?"

     He didn't speak until she looked back up to him. When she did, his lips split into a grin, and he held out a jelly bean. "Happy birthday."

                              "IF SNAPE'S TEACHING Defense Against the Dark Arts again, I'm skiving off," Ron grumbled as they approached the Defense classroom, all four of the Gryffindors slouching. Ron, in particular, had been in a consistently bad mood ever since Snape had given him such unfair detentions; and add onto the fact that Gryffindor had had such a poor loss over the weekend, he was practically eternally sour.

    "He's not," Cassie assured him. Sure enough, when they entered the classroom, Remus stood behind his desk. His eyes were on a paper but when Cassie cleared her throat, he looked up, grinning. He had dark circles under his eyes.

    "Hello, hello," he said. His voice sounded tired, scratchy with strain. "Take your seats, please..."

Once the rest of the class filed in and all took their seats, Remus hushed them, spreading his hands across his desk and leaning forward to listen. His eyebrows rose. "Well?"

    At once, the class burst into explosions of complaints about Snape's behavior whilst Remus had been ill. Cassie kept her lips tightly together, her eyes glued to her desk as she listened to her classmates' complaints.

     "It's not fair, he's only filling in, why should he give us homework?"

     "We don't know anything about werewolves—"

     "—two rolls of parchment!"

     Remus lifted his hands and hushed the students momentarily; long enough to ask, "Did you tell Snape we haven't quite covered them yet?"

    The babble instantly broke out again, this time even more charged than before.

     "Yes! But he just said we were behind—"

     "—he wouldn't listen to us!"

    "—two bloody rolls of parchment!"

    Remus smiled at the many indignant and furious expressions on the faces before him. He held up his hands once more and leaned against his desk. "Don't any of you worry, you lot. I'll speak to Professor Snape. You don't have to do the essay."

    "Oh no," whispered Hermione, who had already finished both rolls of parchment.

    The lesson that day was, beyond the beginning of the class, quite enjoyable. Remus had brought along a glass box containing a hinkypunk, a little one-legged creature who looked as though he were made of wisps of smoke, rather frail and harmless-looking. Cassie privately named it Twinkly because its eyes twinkled when Remus brought it into the light.

    When the period ended, everyone gathered up their things and headed for the door—Cassie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione alike—until Remus called for Harry to hang back a bit.

    "See you at lunch?" Cassie asked Harry, and he nodded his head and gave her a small smile.

    Hermione and Ron were mid-argument over their pets once more when Cassie caught up with them. Ron was convinced Crookshanks had given Scabbers the bloody scratch on his tail, and of course Hermione was convinced otherwise, because they could simply never agree on anything.

     Much too engrossed in their argument at hand, neither Ron nor Hermione noticed the two tall figures snaking around Cassie and directing her the opposite way from the Great Hall. She stumbled to a stop, looking up to her captors.

    "Well, hello, boys," she said, giving them each a smile. "Do you need anything, or are you merely kidnapping me for your own merriment?"

    Cedric wiggled his eyebrows, sharing a glance with Atticus before looking back to Cassie. "We saw you last night," he said teasingly. "Sneaking into the Infirmary.."

     "I say, Ced," Atticus said, stroking a fake beard and feigning confusion, "I don't believe there was a single person in the Infirmary last night. Well, other than—"

     Cassie's cheeks burned. "Harry."

     Cedric pointed a finger at her like he'd cracked the case. "Aha! So if you were caught red-handed sneaking into the Infirmary..."

     "And Harry was the only person bedridden in the hospital wing last night.." Atticus continued, tapping his chin. "Then that means..."

"You snuck out to see him!" the two agreed loudly in sync.

Cassie hushed them, caving in on herself, ignoring the heat in her face. Cedric waved a finger in her face.

"Ah, so it's true!" he deducted, proudly.

"Will you be quiet?" she whispered, dragging them both away from her father's open door. "Fine, sure, you caught me. But so what if I snuck out?"

    "Oh, that hurts my heart." Atticus clutched his chest. "She really thinks it's the sneaking out that we care about."

    "Oh, no, no, no, Cassie." Cedric shook his head. "We don't care that you snuck out — hell, we do it all the time — we care that you snuck out to see Potter!"

    She shrugged. "No big deal, alright? I just figured he was lonely—the hospital wing was empty except for him, you said it yourselves—so I wanted to keep him some company."

    Atticus lifted his eyebrows. "What kind?"

    Cedric elbowed him.

    "What's that supposed to mean?" Cassie huffed, hiking her bag up on her shoulder.

    "Oh, nothing." Cedric shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "Just that you and Potter have gotten very... eh, friendly."

    "We have not!" Cassie whispered, glaring at the two boys. She paused, hesitating for a split second, lowering her eyes. "...Have we?"

    Atticus sighed wistfully and gazed into the distance. "Oh, to be a child, clueless and in love."

    Cedric scrunched up his eyebrows. "You know you're only a year older than—"

    "Oh, to be a CHILD, clueless and in love," Atticus repeated loudly, earning a scoff from Cedric.

     Cassie faked a laugh. "Very funny, you two. I'm not a child, and I'm not in love. Boys are the last thing on my mind," she said matter-of-factly. Ignoring their sputters of surprise, she continued. "I have too much to do; between my classes, trying to figure out my entire life story, and journaling all my dreams for Divination. See? My schedule is completely full."

    "So then how d'you manage to spend half of it with Harry?" Atticus mused, smirking. Cedric wiggled his eyebrows.

    "I do not!" Cassie exclaimed, quieting herself as a passing group of Ravenclaws stared. "Besides, it's not like you two don't get distracted by girls every now and then."

    "We don't," they both answered defensively.

     Cassie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright."

    "We're just saying, Cassie," Atticus said, "you just have to be careful. I don't want you to even touch a boy until you're thirty!" he shouted as the bell rang. Cedric pulled him off to their next class by the shoulder. The boys shot her matching grins over their shoulders as they began to rush off down the corridor to their next class, leaving a faint scent of mahogany and pure ridiculousness in the air.

    When Cassie finally made her way to the Great Hall for lunch, she slid onto the Gryffindor bench next to Hermione, running a hand through her hair to settle her disheveled appearance.

     "And where have you been?" Hermione asked, obviously still in a sour mood from her ongoing row with Ron. Cassie was beginning to grow tired of their incessant arguing, truth be told; it was getting old, hearing them at each other's throats all the time. And all because of their bleeding pets.

    "Atticus and Cedric," was all Cassie could say before Ron (also sour) cut her off with a grunt.

    "Fraternizing with the enemy, you mean," he muttered, and Hermione hit him over the back of the head.

    "Where's Harry?" Cassie asked, ignoring Ron, to which the other two shrugged their shoulders.

    Ron swallowed his bite of mashed potatoes. "Still with your dad. I hope he doesn't have detention..."

                              "OH, COME OFF IT! It's been forever since Black was last spotted in the castle – even in Hogsmeade, for Merlin's sake!" Cassie cried to her father, who held no emotion on his face as he shuffled through rolls of parchment. "He's probably gone by now. Why would he return?"

    "No means no, Cassie. You can't go to Hogsmeade," he told her simply. She stood, glaring at him, but he didn't so much as look up.

    "This is so unfair, I hope you know," she said, to which a small smile appeared on his lips. She'd finally caught his attention. He looked up, pleased with himself.

    "I know," he said. Cassie rolled her eyes and turned on her heel, walking straight out of his office.

    "Well?" Ron asked when she reached where they sat in the courtyard.

     Cassie plopped herself down on the stone bench. "He said no," she grumbled, her face still scrunched in anger.

    "We're sorry, Cassie," Hermione told her soothingly. "Really. If there was anything we could do..."

     She just shrugged, dropping the angry expression. "It's fine, I suppose. As long as you guys promise to drink enough butterbeer for Harry and me, right?"

     Harry, otherwise engrossed in journaling last night's entry in his dream chart, glanced up at Cassie, his lips pursed. He glanced around, as if checking if the coast was clear. When he deemed it well enough, he leaned in. "Cassie, listen. Fred and George... erm, they gave me something earlier."

     Cassie raised her eyebrows, leaning in as Harry did. "Well, go on."

     "It's a map," he offered. He reached into his pocket and pulled from it an old piece of parchment. He tapped the paper once with his wand and said "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," and ink immediately seemed to pour from the tip of his wand onto the parchment.

    Ron peered at the paper as words assembled right in the center of it. "'Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Snouts; Surveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present'.."

     "The Marauders' Map!" Cassie groaned. "Oh, Atticus told me about this ages ago. I didn't think it actually existed, to be honest. I'd thought it was just some bleeding joke."

    "It's real, alright," Harry said, beaming. He pointed to the top portion of the map, scooting closer to Cassie so they could share a peek. "Look — it shows where everybody is in the castle. See? Dumbledore's pacing in his office again, Snape is walking round in his classroom, Neville's stuck outside the portrait... brilliant, innit?"

    Hermione looked as though she could punch Harry, while Ron looked as though he could kiss him. "Bloody amazing!" he cried, pulling the map closer to him. "Look, Mcgonagall's walking this way, we're sitting right there... Oh, bloody —Mcgonagall's walking this way!"

    Harry tapped the parchment again and whispered "mischief managed," and the ink disappeared, seeping off the paper just as it had seeped onto it a moment ago. Slyly, Harry tucked the map into his pocket just as Mcgonagall approached.

    "Lupin," the professor said shortly, nodding in Cassie's direction.

    "Mcgonagall," Cassie replied, in the same tone.

    Mcgonagall's lips pulled tight. "I trust you're doing well?"

    Cassie's eyebrows knit together. "Just fine. Why... why wouldn't I be?"

    Mcgonagall lifted her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. "No reason you should be worried about. Have a nice day, you four, and don't get into any more trouble than you already have." She cast her sharp gaze over Ron and Hermione. "I trust you two know Hogsmeade is open, but not for much longer." And with that, she walked off.

Hermione consulted the clock hanging on the wall of the courtyard's entrance, not at all plussed by Mcgonagall's momentary oddity. She pursed her lips together, then sucked her teeth and stood, brushing off her robes.

"She's right," Hermione granted, checking her own watch. "Ron and I'd better go before it gets too late. We'll see you later, then, you two?"

"Yeah, alright," Harry said, trying not to sound too bummed as he waved Hermione and Ron goodbye. The moment they'd left earshot, Harry turned to Cassie, his green eyes downcast as he pulled from his pocket the Marauders' Map. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

He tapped it with his wand, and the map again appeared on the otherwise blank parchment, tracing out walls and portraits and tiny footprints labeled with the names of Cassie's fellow classmates. She gazed at the map for a moment, eyeing all the corridors and classrooms, before her attention caught on a few odd tunnels she'd never seen before.

"What're those?" she asked Harry, pointing to a few of the unusual passageways."

"Oh, I'd suppose that's one of the secret passages Fred and George were on about," he said, his eyes wide. He stood, still gazing at the parchment, and used his other hand to grab Cassie's own hand. He began to lead her off into the corridor to their left. "Look, the twins recommended this passage," Harry told her as they walked, his eyes glued to the map, tilting it so Cassie could see the passage he spoke about. "Filch doesn't know about it; it leads straight into the back of Honeydukes."

"You're sure?" Cassie asked, hesitant. She'd only been at Hogwarts for so long; it wouldn't do her any good to be caught sneaking into Hogsmeade, in her own opinion. She pulled Harry to a stop in front of a statue of a one-eyed witch. "Harry, what if someone sees us?"

"Oh, that's not a problem." Harry smiled cheekily at her, in a way she'd never quite seen before, and reached down into a hole beneath the statue of the witch. From it, he pulled a long cloak, silky and made of a velveteen material. "That's what this is for."

Cassie crossed her arms, unconvinced. "I don't see how an old cloth can help us."

Harry waggled his eyebrows. Without further explanation, he tossed the cloak over his head. Cassie's eyes widened; he'd disappeared the moment it covered his body. She reached out and found a fistful of velvet material.

"An Invisibility Cloak," she whispered, as she watched Harry pull the cloak off his head. "Bloody hell, Harry. Where did you—?"

"Not important," he said, dismissively, before turning to the statue. He tapped the base of the witch and muttered "Dissendium."

Not a moment later, the statue's hump opened wide enough to admit either a small person or a very large pet. Luckily, Harry and Cassie were both fairly scrawny, so they both fit tolerably easily, and found themselves in a cramped tunnel on the other side.

"Dark in here," Cassie muttered, peering into the blackness. "Mind lighting us up?"

Harry lifted his wand and lit up the tip, illuminating his face, which was much closer to Cassie than it'd ever been before. She took a half step back, before finding herself against the wall of the tunnel, and stumbled forward.

"Watch yourself, there," Harry said, reaching out with his free hand to stabilize her by the shoulders. "You alright?"

"Just fine," she whispered, unable to stop the heat that had rushed to her cheeks. She cleared her throat, turning forward, and began to walk ahead of Harry. "What were you with my father so long for?"

"He just wanted to give me some tips on the dementors," he replied, and Cassie could just make out a faint smile on his face from the corner of her eye. "He's going to be giving me lessons on casting a Patronus charm."

"Oh, brilliant," she said, her voice echoing down the empty tunnel. "That's amazing, Harry. You'd better get it down fast, honestly; we can't have you falling off your broom at every Quidditch match, now, can we?"

She laughed, but Harry had fallen behind, and was no longer smiling when Cassie turned to see what had stopped him. She frowned, then looked in front, and only then did she see what caught his attention so grimly.

A faint whimper escaped her lips as she stood two feet away from the daunting black dog she'd recognized so many times; in the bottom of Harry's teacup, in every Divination textbook she'd ever opened.

Just in front of Cassie, staring right into her eyes, was the Grim.