"Oh, Lockhart." Cassian shook his head, almost impressed. "Why?"
The man standing before him, if he could still be called that, smiled faintly, as if pleased to be recognised. His posture wasn't his own. The expression on his face didn't sit right. There was no sparkling smile, no sudden he...
2025-09-26 17:37:51 +0000 UTC View PostFor the next few weeks, the castle stayed still. Too still. Cassian had grown used to the rooster illusions crooning every hour, faint, scratchy caws that echoed through the halls like a haunted farmyard. Annoying, but comforting. Meant the wards were still alive and shrieking on schedule.
...
2025-09-26 11:39:53 +0000 UTC View PostLucius struck again, a week later. This time, he managed to have Dumbledore sacked. He was insufferably smug about it, gliding through the castle as though the victory had cost him nothing. But everyone knew the truth... he'd poured an obscene amount of gold into greasing the right palms and twis...
2025-09-25 22:16:48 +0000 UTC View PostAfter breakfast, Cassian walked into the classroom with a half-eaten apple in one hand and the other already drawing his wand.
He flicked the wand, and the centre of the room darkened. Wind picked up from nowhere, rustling hair and parchment. A black castle rose in mid-air, jagged at the ed...
2025-09-25 17:18:27 +0000 UTC View Post"I'm learning more of Yrsa's runes."
He caught something in her tone and stepped closer, tugging her gently into his chest. Her body settled against his without resistance, but her shoulders stayed tight.
"How's it going?"
She shivered faintly, breath brushing his collar. "I'm s...
2025-09-24 20:22:22 +0000 UTC View PostHalfway to his own room, Casian frowned, stopping.
He turned, changed course, climbed to the fifth floor and down an unused corridor most students forgot existed.
There, at the base of a short stairwell, sat a small figure in blue and copper, legs drawn up, a wand tucked behind one ea...
2025-09-24 16:32:45 +0000 UTC View PostStanding in the middle of the first Duelling Club meeting after Christmas, Cassian let his eyes sweep the room. Students in uneven lines, some fidgeting, some pretending not to. Glasses were actually on their faces, miracle of miracles.
He gave a nod. "Good."
Lockhart, after the embar...
2025-09-23 21:26:25 +0000 UTC View PostSince Dumbledore refused to station the last of the roosters inside the castle Cassian gave up on asking nicely.
"I’m not putting the safety of children in the hands of politics," he snapped. Bathsheda didn’t argue. Just handed him her hand and pulled the books open to the chapter on il...
2025-09-23 16:48:42 +0000 UTC View PostBathsheda caught his sleeve. "Cassian," she said quietly, "this is Minister Cornelius Fudge."
The woman puffed herself up, clearly pleased with the introduction but when Bathsheda didn't continue, she cleared her throat again, louder.
"Hem hem."
Bathsheda turned to her with a po...
2025-09-22 21:17:16 +0000 UTC View PostMiranda closed the book with a soft thud. "The charm's wrong, then?"
Cassian turned slightly, eyeing the diagram again. "The anchor's off-centre. As the book says, some of the old scholars used mirrored or twice mirrored writing. Mirrored is often upside down. Rarely right to left. Twice mi...
2025-09-22 18:12:39 +0000 UTC View PostDumbledore's hands folded together on the desk, but he didn't speak.
"Tom Riddle," Cassian pressed. "That name came out of the diary before it vanished. Was he Voldemort? Is that who opened the Chamber fifty years ago and pinned it on Hagrid?" His voice dropped slightly. "Voldemort could sp...
2025-09-21 18:40:03 +0000 UTC View PostThat night, once Bathsheda finally gave up pacing and drifted off to sleep, Cassian stayed put at the desk. A half-finished mug of tea sat by his elbow, cooling fast. His pen scratching over parchment, trying to piece his thoughts together into something useful.
Horcruxes.
Plural.
... 2025-09-21 16:20:09 +0000 UTC View PostThe snake froze mid-lunge. Its head lowered, and its body slackened until it lay on the floor like a coiled rope.
The hall went silent. You could've heard a pin drop.
Cassian lowered his wand slowly, his eyes flicking from the snake to Potter.
Harry was staring at the creature, ...
2025-09-20 18:13:17 +0000 UTC View Post"I watched James Potter take down a Slytherin half-blood with a charm no student should've known. And I watched the professors lie about it."
Flitwick stirred, but didn't speak. His silence was confirmation enough.
"I saw the Slytherin boy carried out," Cassian went on. "Still twitchi...
2025-09-20 08:59:56 +0000 UTC View Post"Sir... what about Mrs Norris? Could this spell have done that to her?"
"No," he said after pausing. "This spell isn't strong enough for that sort of work. What happened to the cat... that is a whole different kettle of fish."
He set the chalk down, brushing the dust from his fingers....
2025-09-19 19:02:15 +0000 UTC View PostHi! Just a quick reminder I love you all and really thankful for the support!
Now that I've made a wild confession, before we get to the new chapter, a quick note about Bathsheda's first guess being a Horcrux. It's not that I'm pushing the plot forward or giving her meta-knowledge. This isn...
2025-09-19 10:28:37 +0000 UTC View PostBathsheda's eyes flicked to him. "Then what is it? A horcrux?"
Cassian frowned faintly. "A what?"
She waved a hand. "Dark magic. Splitting a soul, locking it in an object. Just a theory."
Cassian's brow tightened as if the word itself left a bad taste in his mouth. Bathsheda rea...
2025-09-18 20:50:27 +0000 UTC View Post"That name mean anything to you, Headmaster?"
Dumbledore tilted his head. For a moment, the only sound in the room was Fawkes shifting on his perch. He then said, "Please, continue."
Cassian didn't press. "We thought we had it under control. The diary wasn't showing any real power. No...
2025-09-18 17:18:00 +0000 UTC View Post"What do you think you are doing?" Snape asked coldly, already drawing his wand.
Bathsheda stepped forward before Cassian could even open his mouth. "If you wave that wand, I will make you regret it."
Snape's lips thinned. His gaze flicked between them, but his wand didn't lower.
<... 2025-09-17 16:56:34 +0000 UTC View PostOn a casual and normal day, Bathsheda woke Cassian with an elbow jab to his ribs. He let out a groan, tugging her back under the blankets.
"What the hell?" His voice was thick with sleep. He wrapped her into the blanket and went on snoring.
She squirmed free, hair a mess, eyes sharper...
2025-09-17 09:49:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe first Quidditch match of the season kicked off under a sky that couldn't decide between drizzle and downpour. Cassian leaned back in the stands, coat collar turned up, breath fogging faintly in the cold.
Next to him, Bathsheda was halfway through a flask of something.
The Bludger ...
2025-09-16 18:24:57 +0000 UTC View PostCassian stepped into the classroom and scrawled a single word across the board, Avis. The chalk squeaked before snapping. He gave it a look, then turned to the students with a wide grin.
"Today," he said, tapping the board with what was left of the chalk, "we're learning a spell that's tech...
2025-09-16 08:30:34 +0000 UTC View PostFred grinned wide. "You actually know a werewolf, sir?"
"Course I do. He is very polite. Used to be a scholar before he got bitten. Knows more about lunar cycles than half the Astronomy professors." Cassian sipped his tea. "You lot probably think they are all drooling beasts who tear throug...
2025-09-15 17:01:54 +0000 UTC View PostCassian and Bathsheda made it something of a sport to bully the diary whenever the chance arose. "Daisy" managed to coax the name of its creator out of it, some chap calling himself Tom Marvolo Riddle. Cassian checked the archives for anything remotely close. Nothing. He considered asking Binns, ...
2025-09-14 20:31:39 +0000 UTC View PostNeville's gran turned up the next morning like a general storming enemy territory. Her handbag swing weaponized, and the clip of her heels on the stone floor announced she wasn't the sort to wait for an invitation. She rapped hard on the door, once, twice, and it swung open before Cassian even fi...
2025-09-14 17:30:04 +0000 UTC View Post'Let's be clear, you are not special. You are not clever. You are not even dangerous. You are a relic of someone else's failed plan, and now you are stuck here, begging me to care.'
The response came quicker this time, the words snapping across the page.
'I am not begging. You don't u...
2025-09-13 21:58:39 +0000 UTC View PostBathsheda’s fingers brushed the desk. “Do you want me to try?”
“Not yet.” He wrote once more, 'You say you can help me. How?'
The response came quickly this time, as though eager, 'I know things. Things hidden. Things others have forgotten. I can teach you, if you trust me.'...
2025-09-13 17:09:58 +0000 UTC View PostMarius Vale turned the envelope over twice.
It was thick cream parchment. The wax was indigo, stamped with a phoenix that looked like it might rise right off the flap if he stared too long. No mistaking the handwriting. No mistaking the sender.
Albus Dumbledore had written to him pers...
2025-09-12 19:57:05 +0000 UTC View PostThree weeks into the new term, Bathsheda ambushed him with what might’ve been her most dangerous idea yet.
“Absolutely not.” Cassian’s head whipped side to side so fast it stirred the papers on his desk. “You are out of your bloody mind.”
She leaned back in her chair, look...
2025-09-12 19:00:27 +0000 UTC View PostCassian stretched out his hand, palm open. “Right. Your wand, Mr Weasley.”
Ron jerked upright in his seat, clutching the battered stick as if Cassian had just asked for his right arm. “What? You are taking my wand?”
Cassian gave him a flat look. “Yes. Congratulations, you’...
2025-09-12 17:04:16 +0000 UTC View Post