musical mood: let me out - jonghyun

Cass was hardly in the mood to celebrate her fifteenth birthday, but she couldn't tell her friends that. That would lead to questions, and she certainly didn't need anyone asking those. Not while Barty was still alive. Between everything that had happened with Barty, Cedric, and George, all she wanted to do was hide in her room and be miserable while she waited for the poison she had given her brother to be taken. To avoid speaking to both Cedric and George, she'd moved spots in Potions to the other Hufflepuffs, who were surprisingly competent. Cedric tried to talk to her on several occasions, spewing out apologies and excuses left and right, but she ignored him, and eventually, he gave up.

The only thing she had to look forward to was Parvati now being her friend again, and an enthusiastic one at that. Perhaps she felt guilty for giving Cass the cold shoulder for so long over something that wasn't her fault, because she was going overboard with birthday celebrations. She had the house elves make a massive cake, large enough for all of the Ravenclaw house to share, and even had butterbeer sent in from Hogsmeade.

There was a massive pile of gifts for her when she returned to the common room after dinner, larger than she ever could've imagined - most of them from Parvati. She had forgotten how rich the Patil's were.

"Come on, Cass, you're going to love my gift!" Ana was tugging on Cass's arm, pulling her into a comfy blue chair and handing her a box. Inside was a beautiful gold chain necklace with a heart locket on it and their pictures inside, and Cass immediately felt overwhelmed. What did she do to deserve such amazing friends?

"It's beautiful, Ana, thank you."

"I have one too!" Ana reached under her shirt and pulled out the same necklace that was strung on her. "We match! And now we'll have pictures of each other forever!"

"What's this?" Henry reached over, grabbing a tiny box that was in the corner, and had her name written hastily on the top. There was no indication of who it was from.

"I think the point of a present is that she isn't supposed to know what it is, Henry." Terry rolled his eyes.

"Oh, up yours!"

As the two boys bickered, Cass slowly unwrapped the tiny gift, and it took everything in her not to scream at the sight before her. All the blood drained from her face as she stared in horror at the contents of the box.

A severed finger, with olive skin and thick lines. It was impossible to mistake for anyone but her father - between the skin tone, and his wedding ring still on it, the sterling silver splattered with crimson blood.

On top of it lay a note, and she didn't need to analyse the handwriting to know who it was from.

Nice try, sister. Did you seriously not realise that was a test? Consider this a warning.

"I have to use the loo." She shot up, frantically tucking the box into the pocket of her robe, and dashed out of the Ravenclaw common room as fast as her feet would take her.

"You could just use the bathroom upstairs-" Naia called out to her, but was cut off by the door slamming shut.

Cass barely made it to Myrtle's toilet before she threw up, the contents of the cake and butterbeer from the evening pouring down her throat, leaving a horrible burning sensation behind. She was shaking so much she could barely keep herself upright, her elbows resting on the toilet seat, propping her head up. Myrtle was screaming profanities about how she was dirtying her precious toilet, but Cass could barely register it.

Barty had cut off their father's finger - and the said finger was now in her robe pocket. She had her father's fucking finger in her pocket! Of course this would happen on her birthday, on the anniversary of when Quirrell had poisoned her.

Another wave of vomiting hit, combined with the sobs that were emitting from her, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't breathe - it was like the night of the Yule Ball, where the walls were closing in on her. She was hyperventilating, trying desperately to breathe, to keep herself from suffocating, both literally and at the weight of what she had done.

She never should've tried to outsmart Barty. It was her fault, what had happened.

Her poor father. He was being tortured, and there was nothing she could do about it, other than obey what Barty said. If she wanted to save his life, she had to do whatever Barty wanted.

It wasn't fair! It wasn't bloody fair. Anger filled her blood this time, and if she wasn't busy trying to stop hyperventilating, she would've kicked something - why did she have to look after her father, when he'd hardly done anything for her? Why was it down to her to protect Bartemius from his own mistakes?

She could make this all go away.

Cass had her wand with her. She knew the spell. She could end it all, right there and now. Fuck the consequences. Fuck Connor, fuck her father, fuck everyone who could be affected by it. She didn't want the burden of their lives on her shoulders - she didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve to live in constant fear of her own brother, her own flesh and blood.

There was an easy way out, and she was going to take it. She had to take it.

With trembling hands, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her slender wand, aiming it at her temple.

"Av-"

"Cassie? You in here?"

She let out a shout of alarm, dropping her wand onto the tile floor with a clang. The stall door was shut, so she could've pretended to not be in there, had she not screamed.

"What do you want, George?" Her voice was trembling, and hoarse, like she had swallowed sandpaper. She was still kneeling on the ground of the bathroom stall, unable to stand, certain that she'd fall right back down if she dared try. She felt drunk, adrenaline coursing through her veins like she'd never experienced before.

Had she really almost done that? Had she really almost killed herself? If George had come in three seconds later, she would be dead. She nearly threw up again at the idea, but there was nothing left in her stomach. Instead, she dry heaved, coughing and choking. She'd almost killed herself, and she had her father's finger in her pocket. Brilliant.

"Er, I saw you run in here, you looked...funny. I wanted to see if you were okay."

"I'm fine." She managed to say. "Just sick."

"Do you need me to take you to the Hospital Wing?"

"No. I'm fine." She repeated.

"You don't sound fine...are you crying?"

She let out a small, strangled noise that was supposed to be a no.

"Can I open the stall?" His voice had grown closer now, and she could see his feet under the door.

"Go ahead." She sniffed. Chances were, he'd come in anyways.

There was a clicking sound, and the door swung open.

"Merlin, Cassie, what happened?" George instantly crouched down to his knees, his brown eyes searching her splotchy face with worry. "Who did this to you?"

She shook her head, another sob escaping her lips. Her wand lay uselessly on the floor next to her, and George picked it up and moved it, so he could sit where it was.

"Is this about Pretty Boy and Cho?"

She shook her head again.

If only. If only life were that simple. She wished that Cedric bloody Diggory was her biggest problem.

George pursed his lips, as if contemplating if he should speak. "Is it about me and Dahlia?" He said finally, avoiding looking her in the eye.

Cass nearly laughed at this. Nearly. Instead, she snapped, "Believe it or not, Weasley, I have bigger problems than who the people around me choose to date."

George looked like he didn't know how to respond to this. "I didn't mean..." he trailed off, biting down on his lip. "I'm happy with Dahlia, that's all."

"What does Dahlia have to do with this?"

"I don't know, that's what I'm trying to figure out."

"For fucks sake, George, you're so thick! Stop talking about Dahlia! I don't care about her!"

"I just thought-"

"You thought wrong." She cut him off. Honestly, what was he thinking? Did he seriously think she was the type to cry so hard she threw up over a stupid boy? She'd be insulted, had she had enough room for more emotions. However, she was maxed out, with nothing left to give.

"Got it." He wrung his hands, eyes flickering back and forth between her and the ground. "I'm sorry."

Cass paused, taking a deep, shaky breath to calm her racing heart, to calm the rage that was seething through her just as fast as the anguish had subsided. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped."

"It's alright." He gave her a goofy sort of smile, that somehow managed to make her feel better without him even trying. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong, or should I keep making a fool out of myself by guessing?"

"Neither. I'm sorry. I'm being dramatic." She most certainly was not being dramatic, but he didn't need to know that. She tried to stand up, to leave, but he grabbed the hem of her robe, pulling her back down to the bathroom floor.

"You're crying on your birthday. Clearly this isn't something you're being dramatic over."

"I don't want to talk about it." Even if she did, she wouldn't be able to. Not without endangering her father even more.

"Right." He clapped his hands together. "Can I cheer you up, then?"

"I doubt it. Just...leave me be, alright? I'll be fine. Thanks for trying."

"No can do. Sorry Cassie."

She blinked, a mixture of a laugh and a hiccup escaping her lips. "What?"

"I said, no can do. It's your birthday, I'm not about to leave you crying on the bathroom floor all on your own. If you want to just sit and cry it out, go ahead, but I'm not going anywhere."

"Won't Dahlia be looking for you?"

"Let her look." He shrugged, and Cass's stomach did a backflip at the statement. He was putting her over her girlfriend, did that mean anything?

Not the time. She told the delusional side of herself firmly. She could fantasise about George Weasley when her brother was dead and her father's finger wasn't in her pocket.

Shit.

Cass bit down on her tongue to prevent another round of hyperventilating.

"I'm sorry about the ball." George said after a moment of silence. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I wasn't...thinking straight. I didn't mean the things I said." He said the last bit with a strain in his voice, as though he didn't quite mean it.

She gulped. "It's alright. I'm sorry too. I was...preoccupied. Something had just happened, and my mind wasn't where it should've been."

"Want to tell me what?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Right, well, if you ever do, I'm here."

"Thank you."

Cass leaned back against the stall, resting her head on the stone wall. A passive quiet fell between the two, one she had no desire to break. It was peaceful, and she craved that peace, if not just for a moment.

"I know something fun we can do, if you're up for it."

Her eyebrows perked up. "Yeah? What's that?"

"It's a surprise." George pushed himself up onto his feet, and outstretched a hand to pull her up. She accepted. "Come on. I'll show you."

*

Half an hour later, the two were in the Hogs Head, sipping on Butterbeer and chatting away, without a care in the world, if just for a brief moment. George somehow knew of a tunnel behind the statue of the one eyed witch, that led into Hogsmeade. How he knew of this was beyond her, but she didn't question it.

"So then, Fred threw up all over Angelina!" George was saying, throwing his hands around in a dramatic gesture as he recalled a transfiguration class gone terribly wrong. "Like, it was everywhere. And she started screaming, and then Alicia started screaming, and it was a whole mess. Then McGonagall came back, and gave us all detention! Like come on, I didn't even do anything!"

"You didn't do anything? Why do I find that hard to believe?"

"Fair enough." George smirked at her. "Oi, you have a little bit of foam above your lip."

Cass reached to wipe it away, face flushed with embarrassment, but George beat her to it, his thumb brushing against her lip as he cleaned the spot for her. "There, much better." He winked at her.

"Thanks."

His brown eyes bored into hers, and she gulped, breaking the eye contact, and took a sip from her butterbeer.

George mimicked her, finishing off his glass and ordering another. Cass almost objected, surely if he had any more he'd get drunk, but she figured no one wanted to be lectured on their drinking habits. Besides, what was the harm in letting him have a little fun? "You know, I missed you."

"You missed me?"

"While we weren't talking. It was pretty miserable. Fred feels the same - in his words, it was less pretentious without you."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"Of course. You can never have too much of your Crouch pretentiousness."

She rolled her eyes. "You're ridiculous."

"You say that constantly, yet you're spending your birthday with me, so you must enjoy it."

"I never said I didn't." This time, she finished off her drink, and she was starting to feel a little woozy, a little lightheaded. She hadn't had that much to drink, had she? She hadn't been paying much attention. "But I missed you too. You and Fred."

"Good to know." He winked at her, and she bit down on the side of her cheek to prevent a grin. His voice was a tad slurred - not too bad, but he was clearly growing tipsy. "Have I mentioned how much I like your name?"

"What, Cassie?" She rolled her eyes. "It sounds like a name for a two year old."

"Well, yeah, but I like your real name too. Cassiopeia. It's pretty."

"Oh." She didn't think she'd ever heard him say her real name before. It had been Cassie ever since they met, way back in her first year. Oh how young they had been... "Thank you?"

"Does it mean something?"

"It's a constellation, from Greek mythology. The story is, Cassiopeia was a vain queen who got banished to the stars. I don't know why my parents picked it. It isn't very flattering, though, being named after a narcissistic shape in the sky."

He snorted. "Well, I like it."

"Better than Cassie?"

"Nothing is better than Cassie."

It was her turn to snort. "Thank you. For bringing me here. I really needed cheering up."

"Well, no shit. You were crying in Myrtle's bathroom. That's like, the epitome of sad."

"How'd you even know I was there?"

"Sorry Cassie, but I'll never reveal my secrets to you."

"You have secrets?"

"A few." He winked at her. "Maybe someday I'll tell you. After you share some of your own secrets."

"Oi, who said I have secrets?"

"You make it pretty obvious that you do."

He had a point.

"Maybe someday."

"I can't wait." He grinned at her, and she smiled back. "I want to know everything about you."

"Everything?"

"Everything." He confirmed with a nod, dead serious.

"I can guarantee you, I'm not that interesting."

"I disagree." He was staring at her so intensely, she thought it ridiculous to try and argue with him. "I find you very interesting. You're the most interesting person I know."

"Why's that?"

He shrugged. "I mean, for one, you're Scottish. That's pretty cool."

She nearly choked on her butterbeer. "I'm more interesting than everyone else because I'm Scottish?"

"Precisely. And you're smart. And you're pretty. And I like your hands."

"My hands?"

He nodded. "Yes, they're very lovely."

"You're so pissed, Weasley."

"I'm not as think as you drunk I am."

"Come on, let's get you back to the castle before you can't walk."

*

Cass really shouldn't have been thinking about romance. Really, she had much bigger things to worry about, like her father, and her brother, but for some reason, she couldn't get George Weasley out of her mind. Again.

George Weasley! The George Weasley who now had a girlfriend, who Cass didn't want to get on the bad side of. George Weasley who had been her friend, and a good friend. Ruining a friendship as close as her and George's was a terrible idea, especially when she didn't even know if he felt for her as she did him. He didn't, most likely, because he had a girlfriend.

Luckily, or unluckily, she was preoccupied, doing whatever her brother told her to allow herself to ruminate on George for too long.

"Cassiopeia, break into Snape's office and get me polyjuice ingredients." He would demand.

So she did.

"Cassiopeia, stand guard outside my office. Make sure no one comes by."

So she did.

Just like Dahlia, Cass had no desire to get on her brother's bad side, not after what had happened to her poor father. She'd save him, she had to save him, no matter what it took. And if that meant obeying her crazy brother, so be it.

Cass had flushed his finger down a toilet, but kept his wedding ring, just in case her father wanted it back. She kept it on her own finger at all times, using it as a fidget for when she grew anxious, which was often.

"What's that?" Theodore asked her one day when she was particularly anxious, nearly at the point of hyperventilating. She had had a very vivid dream the night before that Connor had been tortured by Barty, and woke up on the ground, having fallen off her bed. It reminded her of the odd dream she'd had in her third year, resulting in the concussion and hand injury. This time, there were no physical reminders of her nightmare.

"Just a ring." She answered, continuing to mess around with it, even as it left a red, inflamed circle in her skin.

"Since when do you like jewellery?"

She shrugged, not answering him.

Months went by without anything out of her new normal, and on May 27th, Cass was in the back of the library, reading a book and trying to ignore George and Dahlia making out in the stacks near her. She'd considered getting up and leaving all together, but didn't want to give off the impression that it bothered her. Though it did, very much so.

If she thought this couldn't get any worse, though, she would be sorely mistaken, when Cedric Diggory not only entered the library, but made a beeline towards her.

"Shit." She tried to cover her face with a book, but it didn't work.

"Cass, I've been looking for you everywhere." He approached her, his breath heavy, as though he'd been sprinting around the castle searching for her. Maybe he had.

"Fuck off."

"Okay, I deserved that."

"I'm serious." She set the book down, and stared into his eyes. "I don't want to talk to you. Go away, or I'll leave."

"Listen, Cass, I am really sorry about what happened, you know I am, but there isn't time to talk. I was sent to get you by Dumbledore, you're supposed to go to his office. Immediately."

Her eyebrows jumped up. "Dumbledore wants to speak to me?"

He nodded. "He didn't say what about, but it's urgent."

"Brilliant." She stood up, taking a deep breath to prevent a spout of hyperventilating from the wave of panic that had just hit her. All the blood drained from her face, and she could only hope Cedric couldn't tell how nervous she was. "This is just brilliant."

Had Dumbledore somehow worked out what she was hiding? Had he figured it out, and was going to send her to Azkaban? Shit, this was bad, this was really bad. She should just run for it, run into the forbidden forest and let herself be killed by the creatures that live in there, versus face the dementors.

But she didn't, she allowed Cedric to walk her to Dumbledore's office, which was apparently located outside of a massive statue of a golden eagle. It was an awkward walk, with Cedric attempting to make small talk that Cass didn't even bother engaging with. Even if she had the desire to speak to him, she wouldn't have been able to, with all the anxiety swimming through her veins.

"Bertie Botts." Cedric said to the statue, and a golden staircase appeared, which must've led up to his office.

"Good luck." He gave her a pat on the shoulder, which she shrugged off before slowly going up the staircase. She was shaking, her legs at risk of giving way entirely, and she clutched the railing for support. When she reached the door, she had nearly convinced herself to run away, but it swung open on its own, and Dumbledore was at his desk, hands clasped in his lap with a passive smile on his lips.

"Miss Crouch. So we meet again."

"Hello, Professor." Her voice trembled as she spoke. Shit!

"Please, have a seat." He motioned towards the chair across from his desk, and she did, avoiding looking into his piercing blue eyes. If she made eye contact with him, she might break down completely.

Play it cool. Cass told herself.

"What is it you want, Professor? Is everything okay?"

"I'm afraid not." Dumbledore said, and her heart sank. "Your father was found on the grounds today."

"My father?" She took a deep breath, and began to fidget with her father's ring.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He knew. She could just tell, by the way he looked at her. He knew, and she was about to go to Azkaban. Barty was going to kill her father and Connor before they got to him. Shit.

"Yes. He's been ill lately, as I'm sure you're aware of, and nearly impossible to reach. He showed up, battered and bruised, and, excuse me, not in a good state of mind. He then attacked Viktor Krum and disappeared. I can assure you we are looking for him, and he will be found. But the state he was in, both physically and mentally, leads us to believe that he may not have been ill at all, but rather being held hostage."

Disappeared? Yeah right. No, no he was dead. For sure this time. Barty had got to him.

She nearly burst into tears. Nearly.

When she didn't speak, Dumbledore continued. "Do you know anything about this? Anything that could be useful? Anything at all?"

Did he seriously not know? Or was he just messing with her?

"I don't, Professor. I'm sorry."

He eyed her up and down through his half moon spectacles, his gaze sending a shiver down her spine. "Miss Crouch, help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

She stared back at him, hoping her racing thoughts weren't obvious. Her father may be dead, but Connor was still out there, being threatened. She had to protect him.

So, she told perhaps the biggest lie she'd ever tell;

"I don't need help, Professor."