"Gryffindor." Lucius Malfoy spoke to his daughter as soon as they got home. "Gryffindor. Of all the houses, you got put into Gryffindor. Do you not think about our family reputation? Do you not think about where I work?"

Cassia hadn't seen her father since she got on the Hogwarts Express for her first year. She hadn't gone home for Christmas deliberately, and she had purposely avoided anything to do with her father.

But she just couldn't avoid it here.

She replied shakily. "No, I didn't think about any of that, and I can tell you that I didn't tell the Sorting Hat to put me in Gryffindor-"

"But you didn't tell it to put you in Slytherin, did you?" Lucius retorted.

Truth be told, Cassia didn't want to be in Slytherin. Her best friend wasn't there, and her brother was. That alone told the story better than Cassia could've told it with words.

"It wouldn't've listened to me, even if I had," Cassia replied, still terrified. "It was set on putting me in Gryffindor. And I don't know why or how-"

"How dare you," her father hissed.

Cassia looked at him. "I can't tell you anymore, father. I've told you what I heard and what happened."

"Then get out of my sight," her father told her, his voice leaking poison.

And Cassia, not wanting to agitate him further, obeyed silently.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

15th August 1992

"Bet you loved that didn't you, Potter?" Cassia cringed as Draco headed down the steps in Flourish and Blotts. "Famous Harry Potter - can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page!"

Cassia rolled her eyes, staying in the background as the conversation went on and Draco called Ginny Harry's 'girlfriend' when she stood up for him.

Then Lucius came in the shop.

Since the whole 'getting into Gryffindor' thing, Cassia had been expecting her father to be angry at her, but he had done something unexpected. He had ignored her the whole holidays and pretended she didn't exist.

"Now, now, Draco, play nicely," he told his son, again, completely disregarding his daughter.

As her father talked with Harry, Cassia pursed her lips. When Hermione got involved, she studied Cassia hardly.

The girl frowned. She had always gotten on better with Hermione than Harry and Ron, considering she shared a dormitory with her.

It's probably just because she's now seen where I actually come from, Cassia thought.

She watched as Draco left the shop with her father, following them out a minute later with a guilty look at the Weasley's, Harry and Hermione.

It didn't say much. But she hoped it conveyed the message.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

1st September 1991

Needless to say, Cassia had been happy to get on the Hogwarts Express with Poppy Patil, her best friend, that year.

Well, until a flying Ford Anglia wrecked everything.

"What the fuck..." Cassia mused as the light blue car whooshed past.

"Oh, wait, I can see who's inside it!" Poppy grinned. "And you're not gonna like it-"

"It's Potter, isn't it?" Cassia rolled her eyes. "Of course, nothing would boost his massive ego more than flying a car to school..."

Poppy shrugged. Cassia and Harry had not had a very good relationship from the minute they set eyes on each other, and she knew that wasn't changing this year.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

1st October 1992

"You've got a new seeker? Who?" Oliver Wood asked Marcus Fint.

Cassia stood in her red and gold quidditch robes, shouldering her Cleansweep Ten, as the Slytherins facing them separated and revealed-

"Malfoy?" Harry asked the same time Cassia gasped out. "Draco?"

"Yeah, and that's not all that's new this year," Flint boasted, turning the team's attention to the sleek black broomsticks in each of the players' hands.

"Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones!" Ron Weasley, who had rushed over with Hermione, gasped out.

"A gift from Draco's father," Flint smirked. "But, I guess he forgot you, Cassia."

Instantly, all eyes snapped to the girl.

Cassia was shocked, but she snarled back. "Well I'm not on your team, am I? He wouldn't want me to have that advantage."

There was a small amount of silence, then Hermione spoke up.

"Well, at least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in. They all got in on pure talent."

Cassia barely had time to register what had happened before Draco was retorting back. "No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood."

Mudblood.

Cassia almost flinched at the mention of it. Her father had always told her to use that word. Because being muggle born was something to be ashamed of. It wasn't. But that was how Cassia had been raised.

She watched as Ron tried to make her brother vomit slugs, but his wand backfired the curse and made him do it.

Then she marched straight up to her brother.

"How dare you say that- that horrible word to anyone," she hissed. "I can't even look at you, now you've made someone feel so horrible about themself."

Then she marched back up to the castle. It was true. She couldn't even look at her brother.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

3rd October 1992

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Cassia stared at the message, written in blood on the wall. What did that mean? What the hell was happening?

"Enemies of the heir, beware?" Her brother scoffed from the other side of the room. "You'll be next, mudbloods!"

"And clearly my little spiel didn't help at all in making him a better human being..." Cassia grumbled to Poppy, who was sat beside her, also staring in disbelief at Draco.

But like it or not, that was the first petrification.

And Cassia certainly did not like it.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

26th October 1992

"LISTEN POTTER, I DON'T KNOW WHAT SORT OF GAME YOU'RE PLAYING BUT IF YOU COULD TELL YOUR BLUDGER TO STOP AIMING ITS ASS AT ME, THAT WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED!" Cassia yelled at Harry as the rogue bludger chased them both around the pitch.

Eventually, the bludger ended up taking out Harry's arm and Cassia's leg. The two spent the night in the hospital wing sleeping in beds across from eachother. They argued most of the time.

However, Harry made sure Cassia was very much asleep when he conversed with (though he knew not) her house elf.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

15th November 1992

"Weasley's wand causes devastation at the simplest of spells," Snape explained to Lockhart in the duelling club. "Might I suggest someone from my own house? Malfoy, perhaps?"

Lockhart smiled. "Actually, I was kind of wanting to see Miss Malfoy and Mr Potter. I think they would be perfect examples of a duel."

He had clearly seen how Cassia and Harry hated each other, then.

"Ready to get your arse kicked, Potter?" Cassia muttered venemously.

For once in his life, Harry didn't have a reply.

She hadn't meant to conjure up a snake during the duel, but with Harry facing her with a smirk and Lockhart being an idiot beside her, it was the only thing she could think of.

But as Harry started to speak to the snake, she decided that maybe that wasn't a good idea.

He started to direct the snake towards Justin Finch-Fletchly, a muggle born in Hufflepuff. Cassia looked upon the scene in horror, but she couldn't help wondering how it would play out.

Badly was the answer. When Snape finally vanished the snake, Justin looked at Harry angrily and asked. "What're you playing at?"

Then the crowd started to clear. Cassia went down to Poppy in confusion and strangeness as she looked back around and saw a very confused Harry Potter behind him.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

23rd February 1993

Cassia was just trying to use the toilet, she didn't need a flood to interrupt her-

She frowned as her eyes caught something on the floor. A... book.

Strange.

She picked it up, and saw, embossed on the front cover: T.M. Riddle

She frowned. Who was T.M. Riddle? Was this a diary? She didn't know of anyone in school with that name... but what could it be...

However, Cassia soon learned all about that book, and started to get very close to Tom, who she had, against her better judgement, told everything to. How annoying Harry was, what her home situation was like, and basically every other problem she had.

Tom would write back to her, and slowly, she started to get engrossed in the book.

What she didn't realise, however, is that the book was not the sort of thing she wanted to get engrossed in.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

10th May 1993

Writing with blood... killing roosters... writing in diaries... petrifying students.

This was all a mixture of what Cassia Malfoy's life became over those next few months.

She had no idea she was doing it, really.

But the problem was, she was.

And Hogwarts life was becoming hopeless because of it.

In the sections of life where she knew who she was, Cassia tried to have a normal life. Talk with Poppy, roll her eyes at Draco, and argue with Harry.

But slowly, she was becoming less and less aware of who she was. There were big sections of each day where she didn't know what she had done.

She was slowly losing herself to the diary and she didn't know what to do.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

16th May 1993

"I'm here to take you down into the chamber with me, Cassia," Tom Riddle told the girl.

Cassia didn't know what to think... she was quite happy actually... she had no idea what was really happening...

"Crucio!"

Soon, in a magical, mystical place, she was hit with the torture curse. She screamed until her throat was raw but all her mind felt was confusion. Tom was... he was good, wasn't he?

"You're mine," were the last words Cassia before she blacked out.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

Cassia Malfoy's eyes burst open as she lay on the cold, wet ground of the Chamber of Secrets. She became aware of a boy, sitting just across from her.

"Potter," she said, sitting up slowly. "I might've known you'd be here."

Harry studied her. "After everything I've gone through- and you're still worried about being annoying to me?"

"What, everything that you've gone through?" Cassia asked. "I'll have you know that you weren't down here before- before I blacked out," she shuddered.

Then she noticed something. Harry's arm had a puncture hole in it.

"You got stabbed, didn't you?" She asked him.

He nodded.

"You know, I've always said this world would be better without you, Potter," Cassia rolled her eyes and sat back. "But now that I'm gonna have to watch you die, I'm not so sure..."

Harry shook his head. "Cassia, listen. Just forget about me. I know that'll be easy. Go back along the chamber and you'll find Ron, then you guys can get out of here. Listen-"

"Turn around, noble guy," Cassia, in fact, found this whole interaction really amusing.

But just behind them was a phoenix. And its tears, both Cassia and Harry knew, would heal the boy.

But nevertheless, Cassia had seen a different side of Harry Potter that night.

It still didn't make her opinion of him any different, however.

So, after a hectic two years, Cassia was finally ready to begin her third year, where everything either got bigger, better, or worse.

Including her feud with Harry Potter, of course.