• Hogwarts, October 15th, 7:00 AM •
[Harriet Potter]
Walking through the small crowd of fellow Gryffindors in the common room, a morning scowl on her face and lazy energy in her steps, she nodded slightly—once again—to return a greeting from someone she didn't bother to turn her head to see.
She was not a morning person, and everyone knew that by now. It just so happened that, apparently, that wasn't an excuse to be late for breakfast or class.
So, to fend off lazy morning thoughts, she opened her Archive screen, checking if there were any new messages. There were none. Or more accurately, there were none that were important. The tone of chat messages was frankly just gossip and girl talk, and Hermione was just spamming emojis.
Still, she did respond to her friend, even if she wanted to beat the living daylights out of her, informing her that she was on her way.
She scrolled down and found Sirius's chat—still on read, still ignoring all her messages—and she couldn't help but sigh.
'So what if I said I didn't trust Cassius enough to be in the family home?' She complained inwardly, knowing full well that she might be overreacting or entirely wrong, but she just couldn't help it.
She grew up under the tutelage of Amelia bloody Bones. She knew how to read expressions—even if she was a novice at it. She knew to trust her instincts, and she knew not to let anyone suspicious come close unless their intent was verified.
So what's his problem? She scowled as she sent a moving image—a GIF, according to the Archive—of a stick hitting a dog on the head.
She loved her godfather, truly, but by Merlin, that man was so frustrating.
Now, it wasn't like the idea that she might be slightly exaggerating, and maybe, just maybe, about a 20% chance she was wrong—hadn't crossed her mind. But until proven otherwise, she wouldn't believe it.
She had gone through all her memories of Cassius since she first met him, and she saw a clear pattern of ulterior motives. The way he chose to sit in her compartment on the train. The way he kept bringing up different topics to talk about. The way he brought her and Hermione together while muttering something about "as close to canon as possible"…
There were a lot of such instances. She'd chalked them up to him being a bit of an oddball at first. She'd seen her fair share of those. Plus, there was all that Hogwarts excitement—magic and school and everything—so she might have just not noticed much at the time.
'But now I do'. She frowned and let out a long exhale as she finally arrived in the Great Hall and walked directly toward the Gryffindor table, taking a seat next to Hermione.
"Look who finally graced us with her presence," Hermione joked as she sat down.
"And you should be grateful for—" she paused and sighed. "Ah, it's too early for this."
Hermione chuckled, hitting her arm playfully, and let her be as she started to fill her plate with food and drink her cup of coffee.
She caught sight of Cassius looking her way as she took a sip, and she just turned her head the other way. "Humph."
"You two are still not talking, huh?" Hermione noticed and asked as she took a bite of her toast.
"I'll talk to him again when he comes clean with everything," she replied, eyeing her plate to decide what to start with.
"Didn't you discover that you're cousins or something? What happened with that?" Lavender Brown—AKA the Gossip Queen—interjected.
Hermione rolled her eyes, and Harriet took a deep breath, stopping herself from saying something hurtful. She knew why Lavender was interested in the topic. Apparently, The Girl Who Lived's love life was already a topic of discussion, and the situation with Cassius was not helping her case.
"Nothing, really," she still replied. "Cassius said he already has a family back in the muggle world and that he'll think about visiting Sirius during the holidays. And nothing else…"
"Is that why you two broke up?" Lavender threw her fishing line out, making Harriet laugh at how silly that sounded. "What? Why are you laughing?"
"Nothing. I just thought of how silly that sounds." She shrugged.
"So you two are really not in a relationship?"
"No, we are not."
"So it's okay if I want to ask him to snog, right?"
"By all means." Harriet nodded and took a bite of her food, chewing slowly and completely uncaring about who dated Cassius.
She had thought, at first, that maybe that was his motive, but she'd thrown the idea out of her head soon after. As it was now, she wasn't really interested in the motive as she was in the beginning. Now she just wanted to know what, how, and why he seemed to know things about her that she herself didn't know.
She had not forgotten how he reacted when she told them about the Horcrux and how she killed Voldemort. If he knew things like that, then how did he know? What else did he know?
'This might be the future Director of the Auror Department in me talking, but something about this whole situation smells fishy.'
X_
• Hogwarts, October 15th, 7:00 AM •
[Cassius White/Black]
He sighed as he saw Harriet give him the cold shoulder. This was becoming more of a distasteful chore than a friendship by now. He wished he could go back and beat his younger self and tell him to try to learn how to be subtle, but that's impossible now…
'And it's not like telling her is helpful at this point', he confessed to himself. He knew that his relationship with her would probably never return to what it once was. The spontaneous, innocent, and platonic aspect of it was gone forever.
'Was it even considered a platonic relationship if I wanted her in my harem?' He asked himself, before pausing. 'Of course it counted. Until I was eight inches deep in her, everything else could pass as platonic…
He nodded to himself, fully convinced his logic was sound. Plus, the chances of him succeeding in having a physical relationship with her had long since passed the theoretically possible line and entered the territory of "maybe if we're the last people on earth, and that's a strong maybe."
Yeah, the discovery of them being cousins—distantly related by blood, as it may be—had only hurt his chances with her.
'Yeah, that was not a fun talk'. He grimaced, remembering how awkward the familial ties discussion between him, Sirius, and Harriet had gone.
Him discovering that he was a Black by blood was not really much of a news to him. Harriet's attitude during it didn't help either. Sirius seemed genuinely happy about the news, but the overall situation didn't sit right with Cassius, so he came up with a lame excuse and walked away.
It was not like he was hurting for money. Nor did he technically lie about the orphanage being his family, seeing as he was very much cared for there.
He just didn't want to seem eager to join the family, especially since Harriet was suspicious of everything about him. So him seeming reluctant was very much a point in his favor, as at least he wouldn't look like he was after their money or resources.
'And it's not like I need anything at the moment'.
He truly didn't. The Archive showed him a clear path to power. Hogwarts gave him a cheat-level training facility, and he had a lot of inspiration from whatever stories he still remembered to help him rise above all else.
If everything went as he thought it would, then he would probably be Satan-class in a few years and maybe find a way to gain eternal life. There were a lot of ways to gain eternal life in fiction. He could probably create some pulled-from-my-ass magic that did just that…
'And then I can have my own harem and live the high life'. He sighed dreamily but was interrupted by someone elbowing him.
"Heaughk." He grunted and turned his head to the left, only to find Neville looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You were in your head again," Neville clarified, making him blush in embarrassment.
"Well, I was imagining myself all powerful, like Professor Dumbledore…" He tried to explain himself, but Neville didn't seem to buy it.
"I don't think that's all there is to it." Neville shook his head. "Your expression was wrong on so many different levels."
"Okay, fine." He gave up. "I was dreaming about how many girls I could get if I was as powerful as Professor Dumbledore. Happy?"
"Yeah." Neville chuckled. "And the answer is either a lot or none."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you are as strong as Professor Dumbledore, then many people would want to marry themselves—or their daughters—to you, for obvious reasons. Powerful offspring, among them." Neville paused to take a sip of his tea. "Or you would get fed up with all the strings attached to your marriage and future children that you just wouldn't…"
Cassius stared at his friend and finally remembered that Neville, despite how insecure and awkward he might have been at the beginning (when he thought he was a step away from being a Squib), was still an heir to a powerful family, with connections, political sway, and businesses.
"Hahaha, yeah. Pour cold water on my fantasies, why don't ya?" Cassius laughed slightly and took one last bite before standing up and nudging his friend's shoulder in a gesture to follow.
"Come on, let's get going."
Today was packed with activities, so he might as well get moving.
X_
Another side story to explain the situation between Harriet and cassius, dig slightly deeper into their characters and just shows their overall motivation…
I think I will write one more side story before we continue.
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