Lone Wolf | SIRIUS BLACK

Chapter Fifty Six

| G L O R Y   |

July, 1997

CONSTANCE HAD caught me just as I was trying to get fresh air.  Everything had been spinning inside of the hall, too many bodies were packed in, sweat hanging heavy in the air, and there had been too much noise, and I remembered feeling sicker than I ever had in my life.

I recalled, in frightfully vivid detail, stumbling down the hills.  Every second step I took made my ankles twist this way and that because I wasn't looking at my feet; my gaze was tilted up at the moon, checking that it wasn't full.  At that point in time, I hadn't understood.

Now I did — all of the pieces were coming together.  I had joked with Lily upon entering the dance that someone had jabbed me with their wand but I hadn't seen who it was, they had melded back into the crowd.  But now I knew without a doubt that it had been Lucius, playing his part in Mulciber's revenge by hexing me — he had made me sick enough to go outside, lured me toward the forest with the fear of thinking I was going to transform.

And Constance... I thought that she was just there at the wrong time, a freak accident. But something clicked inside of me now, as I watched myself rising from the snow.  The last piece, fitting into its slot.

"Rose once predicted I would snog Lucius Malfoy." 

Constance had said it as I had sat on the bed with Lily, and I had seen stars glittering in her eyes.  She said the 'Slytherin bad-boy thing' was 'such a turn-off' but at the dance there must've been been that desire to go for it, just once, and that decision had been her undoing.  After Lucius hexed me, he got her, with the intent of luring us both to this moment in the forest.

And here I had thought they were too stupid to come up with anything so diabolical. Nausea roiled threateningly in my stomach at the realization of how wrong I was; it rose inside of me inch by inch, and I looked to my past — the girl who at seventeen years old, had her entire life ripped apart.  And the other girl, who had hers brought to an abrupt end.

Past Cassie's claws were sharper than daggers in the moonlight.  Our thoughts blended together, hers and mine, swimming with thoughts of blood and death and chaos.  Constance flattened herself against the gnarled tree trunk, her chest expanding as she took deep, fearful breaths, but the spell Mulciber had used to bind her there was null and void.  Now he decided he wanted her to move and when she was still frozen, he shoved her away from the tree.  Her hands batted at his to fight him off, which resulted in her being pushed to the ground.  Her dress drew the werewolf's eye — a stunning burgundy... a target.

I watched myself fall backwards. Past Cassie was scrambling away from Constance, not getting very far because of the captors, but the intent was clear: I don't want to hurt you.

I tasted salt in my mouth.  Tears were rolling down my cheeks, my eyes red and stinging, as I took in the truth. 

"Don't fight it, Cassandra." Mulciber whispered, somehow suddenly at my ear. Even though he was bent over Past Cassie, I could feel his breath scatter over the back of my neck in the present, feel his fingertips graze my skin with a touch so vile that I nearly threw up. Goosebumps flared on me, just as Past Cassie flared her nostrils, infuriated.