A few weeks had passed, and warm weather had started to come.

Meaning sitting up in the divination attic, filled with dusty velvet curtains and thick tablecloths was becoming increasingly unbearable.

They were doing crystal balls today.

Most people were just half asleep at their desks as Trelawney droned on.

"Broaden your minds! Only than can you properly see into the ball..."

Cassia and Poppy were no exception to this, Poppy's head on her best friend's shoulder as she almost dozed off.

"Oh, do you mind me trying?"

Hermione's clear voice across the room made Cassia turn, and Poppy look up, seeing the girl, a cruel smirk on her face, look into the ball.

"The grim. Possibly."

What is she playing at? Cassia frowned as Trelawney sat closer to her.

"My dear, from the first moment you stepped foot in my class, I sensed you did not possess the proper spirit, for the noble art of divination," she held Hermione's hand as she said all this, the girl becoming more annoyed by the second. "No, you see, there. Ah, you may be young in years, but your heart is as shrivelled as an old maid's, your soul as dry as the pages of the books to which you so desperate cleave."

Cassia sniggered slightly. "What the fuck?" She murmured to Poppy, the two of them giggling.

Hermione, however, did not see the joke, and swiftly got up, throwing her hand out of Trelawney's grasp. She then reached for her back and tipped the crystal ball off the table, letting it roll along the shiny wooden floor as she walked out.

Cassia was in shock. Hermione Granger leaving a class? What?

"Have I said something?" Trelawney frowned, making the situation a hundred times funnier.

What on earth had just happened?

❦︎❦︎❦︎

A week passed since that incident, and by the time it did, Cassia was feeling very out of it.

But today was different. Today was the day of Buckbeak's execution. And it was all her family's fault.

She and Poppy had just been walking around the castle, but as they got into the courtyard, they saw something. An executioner sitting on the edge of one of the stone walls, sharpening his axe.

Oh, shit.

"Cass?" Poppy asked, touching her arm. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Cassia said. "Um... can we go down to Hargid's? I kinda want to... to talk to him."

"Yeah, sure," Poppy nodded. "I have nothing else planned."

So, death glaring the executioner on the way, they headed down and over the bridge, towards Hagrid's.

They found Harry, Ron and Hermione halfway across.

"Are you going to Hagrid's?" Harry questioned.

"Yeah," Cassia nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. "I'm guessing we'll see you there."

And they saw someone else as well, as they walked off the bride and onto the grassy slope leading to Hagrid's Hut.

Draco, Theo and Blaise were standing at the top of the hill, laughing loudly and looking down at Buckbeak, who was tethered in a small paddock outside the hut.

"Ah, come to see the show!" Draco called with a big smile, arms wide open as he saw the five of them at the top.

"YOU!"

In that moment, an inhuman rage took hold of Cassia.

She was furious. How dare Draco sit there and laugh as an innocent creature got killed? He had learned well from their father, alright. And she hated it.

Even Draco looked scared of her as she neared him, her eyes wild with rage, her wand drawn.

"You fucking slimy git!" She yelled. "You don't deserve friends, or a family! You're a fucking coward! You KNOW Buckbeak's done nothing wrong!"

She finished with her wand at his throat, his body pressed back into the rock, her body alight with fury.

"I hate you," she told him.

"C- Cassia-"

"I HATE you!"

And then, before anyone could stop her, she punched him.

A good, hard punch to the nose, eliciting a satisfying crack.

And Cassia didn't care that she had just punched her brother, or that she had just probably gotten herself killed by her father, or anything else. She only cared about victory.

And this sure felt like her's, in the moment.

"Draco, come on, let's get out of here!"

"Quick, run-!"

"Let's get out of here!"

"Don't breathe a word to anyone, understand-?"

As the three boys all ran back up the slope, Cassia turned to face Poppy, Harry, Hermione and Ron. All of their faces showed shock and wide eyes.

"You've gone mad," Ron told her. "Mad-"

"Shut up, Ron! That was amazing!" Poppy countered, her eyes shining and a smile on her face.

"Yeah," even Potter was agreeing. "Yeah, it was."

Cassia was lost for words.

"Come on," she said, turning round. "We're gonna be late."

❦︎❦︎❦︎

The five of them ran down to Hagrid's, feet skipping over the grassy hillside.

When they got down to the hut, they saw Buckbeak, tethered in the pumpkin patch. Cassia's heart broke a thousand times over for him. He hadn't done anything wrong.

They knocked on Hagrid's door, the man eventually opening up and begrudgingly letting them in.

Inside, he made them all tea with shaky hands, letting them all take a mug as he and Harry watched Buckbeak from the window.

"Ah, look at him," the bigger man said sombrely. "Loves the smell of the trees as the wind blows through them."

"Why don't you just set him free?" Harry asked.

Cassia rolled her eyes. "Because, Potter, who'd you think's getting the blame if he gets let out?"

Harry's head snapped to her's, his eyes flashing in anger.

Hagrid, meanwhile, nodded. "Cassia's right, Harry. They'd know it was me, and then Dumbledore'd get into trouble. He's coming down, y'know, Dumbledore. He says he wants to be with me when... when it happens."

There was a small pause where everyone looked down.

Then Cassia stood up.

"This isn't fair, Hagrid! You know it isn't!" She said fiercely. "It's my arsehole father and brother controlling everything and you shouldn't be suffering from it!"

"Cassia..." Hagrid looked at the girl, his voice still shaky but comforting. "What's happened has happened, and I can't change it."

"But it's not fair!" Cassia snapped.

Silence.

No one wanted to announce the harsh truth.

That life wasn't fair.

So Hermione got up herself instead and told the man. "We'll stay with you too, Hagrid. All five of us."

"No you will not!" Hagrid dismissed it immediately. "Do you think I want you seeing something like that?"

I've seen worse, is what Cassia wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. She could feel the slap-

"You just drink your tea and be off," Hagrid went on. "Oh, and before you do, Ron..."

He winked at the boy, heading over to his kitchen cupboard and collecting something from it, coming back with a familiar rat.

"Scabbers!" Ron yelled, calling the name of his rat as he went and collected him. "You're alive!"

Cassia scoffed. "Why wouldn't he be?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Because he thought my cat had eaten him."

Poppy frowned. "Wh-?"

"Forget it," Hermione said, looking to Ron. "I think you owe someone an apology."

"Yeah, you're right," Ron nodded. "Next time I see Crookshanks, I'll thank him-"

"I meant ME-!"

"Argh!"

Cassia flinched heavily as a hard something that had been thrown in the window hit her in the side.

"Cass! You okay?" Poppy said concernedly.

"Fine," Cassia answered, rubbing the bit where the thing had hit.

"Blimey, what was that?" Hagrid frowned.

Cassia leant down, finding the object immediately; a stone with a small swirl pattern on it.

"Ow!"

Harry, too, had been hit by the same thing, rubbing the back of his neck as he picked up the same stone.

"Wha-?" Cassia started, rushing over to the window, looking out of it and cutting herself off as she saw three people coming down the slope.

Cornelius Fudge, minister for magic, Dumbledore, and of course, the executioner.

"Oh, shit," the girl murmured.

"It's late, it's nearly dark," Hagrid shook his head. "You shouldn't be here. Someone sees you outside at this time of night, you'll be in trouble, big trouble, particularly you, Harry!"

Why Potter-?

A knock on the front door interrupted that thought.

"With you in a moment!" Hargid called loudly, ushering the five up and round the back of the cabin, where there was a way out.

As the door continued to be knocked on, Cassia quietly opened the back door, peeking out of it and round. Hagrid had just opened the front door and was letting them in-

"Go, go!" Cassia hissed as the executioner, who was last in line, stepped inside.

They ran out the hut, quickly shutting the door behind them before running to the pumpkin patch and diving behind the huge pumpkins in it.

Cassia, breathing hard, peeked up past the pumpkins and in the window to see the four men standing in the kitchen, talking about Buckbeak.

"...Buckbeak the hippogriff, 'the condemned', shall herein be executed at sundown..."

Cassia clenched her fists-

Snap!

A twig snapping behind them made all five of them turn, all tensed up and gasping.

No one was behind them.

"What?" Harry frowned.

"I thought I just saw-" Hermione started, frowning heavily. Then she sighed, shook her head, and continued. "Never mind."

"Let's go!" Ron put in, clutching Scabbers determinedly.

Cassia tried not to look back as they legged it up the grassy hill, Potter right in front of her. But it was really hard not to.

Especially when she heard Buckbeak's cry behind her.

One of helplessness. And fear.