Black Blood

015 - Unreasonable Tango

She marched along at a quick pace, not knowing where she was headed, but sure of the path before each of her striding steps.

"Blimey, Harry, you can already produce smoke?!" a familiar voice excitedly said, one belonging to a certain redheaded blood traitor the girl had no interest in meeting.

"Yeah, but it doesn't really do anything," his friend replied, and Cassiopeia felt a sudden, unhealthy interest in the scarred boy.

She rounded a corner, coming up behind the two boys, and thankfully no girl, closing the distance between them in less time than it took for her to blink twice.

"But still, that's-" Weasley began, stopping short as he noticed her noisy footfalls, turning with a bemused look that quickly morphed into stone-cold anger. "What do you-"

"Potter!" she angrily snapped, pulling the attention of a very alarmed-looking Boy-Who-Lived to her sneering face.

"Wha-"

"You had no business telling him that!" she spat, interrupting whatever he was on the verge of saying, which caused him to look at his friend in bafflement, who readily returned the look with one of his own.

"What are you talk-" he began, turning back to her in complete confusion, only for her to rudely interrupt him once more.

"Professor Lupin!" she practically shrieked, which caused the halfblood to take a wide step away from her enraged form. "You had no business mentioning to him what occurred between Granger and I last year!"

"Black, did he...what did he say to you?!" Potter asked with bulging eyes and a severe frown, and through her unreasonable anger, she vaguely wondered if the boy was conceivably worried for her.

Cassiopeia could feel the tears returning, but she would not allow such a sight to be seen in front of the pair before her, nor would she accept that Potter might, in fact, feel genuine worry for her sake.

She'd known she was a coward before the man had ever spoken to her. She'd been running from the entirety of her house for some time now, and there were things she didn't want to know or hear, and one of them was that her image was under assault by practically every action Granger took towards her.

"Keep your muggleborn away from me, Potter," she quietly said, allowing a cold exterior to replace what had previously been nothing but hot. "And do keep your nose out of my business in the future, please."

"Black, what did he say?" Potter repeated, narrowing his eyes, but not in a hard or angry way.

"In short, Ms. Black, Ms. Granger...makes you feel insecure about your inner image."

She could never allow the truth to be heard, not even to herself. If truly she felt insecure concerning her image because of what a mere muggleborn had said and done, then that meant she felt a measure of doubt towards herself. Doubt, she knew, gave rise to faults, and faults gave opportunity to be broken, and being broken was not something that could occur to a pureblood, especially not a noble Black.

"Had..."

Except, she'd rather recently learned, a pureblood, a Black specifically, had, at some point, been broken, and if her uncle-who-wasn't-an-uncle could be broken, it meant she too could be utterly destroyed, and that, to Cassiopeia, felt frightening beyond measure, especially considering what Granger had been doing to her ever since they'd first met.

"I...do not doubt myself," she breathlessly said, ignoring the two boys before her.

"Black?!" Potter asked, his tone bemused and rather alarmed.

"As I said, Potter, keep your precious muggleborn away from me," she coolly replied, knowing what had to be done next.

With a calm inhalation, she marched past the stunned duo, intent on finding her cousin, and intent on rectifying her recent string of cowardice. She couldn't allow such weakness to go on anymore. It gave too much room for doubt, insecurity, and potential to break what couldn't be allowed to break. No matter what people thought of her, she couldn't, nor would she, allow herself to shatter any longer upon their thoughts and words.

She was better than such fault. Much, much better.