Letters

Chapter Nine: False Memories

Cassiopeia's POV
I coughed as I emerged from the fireplace at Hogwarts. I'd accidentally inhaled some of the ash. Harry looked concerned as I stumbled toward him.

"Are you alright, Potter?" Mcgonagall asked, an eyebrow raised.

I nodded, "I'm fine," I choked out.

"Get some water," Mcgonagall instructed.

"Yes ma'am," I said as I walked out of the room quickly, Harry, Ron, and, Ginny were following me.

It didn't take long for Hermione to find us when we arrived at the portrait hole. Unfortunately from there, it didn't take long for Lavender to find us either. Nearly gagging at the sight, I quickly followed Harry and Hermione to a table.

Are Fred and I that gross? No way, I thought.

Ginny chose to go meet Dean, looking very unenthusiastic. I sighed, they must be having some trouble. Maybe if they broke it off, Harry would get the courage to at least acknowledge his feelings for her.

My mind drifted off to Fred. He hadn't been there when I left the burrow, he had to work. It was just as well, I was getting tired of all the goodbyes.

Harry and I arrived at Dumbledores office just in time for our lesson. Once again my mind drifted off to other things. They were to busy discussing the Minister and Harry's theories on Draco Malfoy to notice.

Still, as horrible and selfish as it made me, I was thinking about what would happen if I left all of this. If I just ran off, and joined the twins at the joke shop, would everything workout? No, no, don't think like that, I forced the thoughts out of my head. Harry would never run away from this.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Harry jabbing me sharply in the ribs.

"Ow!" I said a little too loudly.

"Pay attention," Harry said.

"Says you," I grumbled.

"That's quite enough sibling rivalry," Dumbledore said, though he seemed rather amused.

The first memory took us to a house that looked like no one had been there for hundreds of years. It was filthy.

I hadn't noticed Morfin there until Tom Riddle arrived, disturbing him. There was a short conversation of Merope, and then everything went dark.

As soon as we were back in Dumbledores office, Harry questioned him. "Is that all? Why did it go Dark? What happened?"

"Because Morfin could not remember anything from that point onward," Dumbledore stated.

From there, we found that this was when the Riddles had been murdered. Morfins ring had disappeared, and Morfin had been blamed for the murder.

After Dumbledore told us all of this, we entered a second memory- Slughorns. It looked like an older version of the Slug Club. There were only boys in it this time. The memory kept changing and dissolving into thick white fog, and then reforming.

It soon reformed and returned to the boys sitting around a table. Professor Slughorn soon told them it was time to go to bed.

"Good gracious is it that time already?" Slughorn asked. "You better get going boys, or we'll all be in trouble. Lestrange...."

I didn't hear the rest of what he said. I took in a sharp breath and grabbed Harry's wrist tightly. The younger Rodolphus Lestrange was exiting the room. Painful memories shot through my mind of everything he'd put me through. He was only there for a moment, but it was long enough.

Harry had pulled me closer to him, and now had his arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. But he was still absorbed in the memory.

The most interesting thing that this memory held was Tom Riddle asking about something called a Horcrux. I think I've heard that somewhere before...

But it didn't seem to matter. This memory was obviously tampered with and unreliable. The smoke came and went and none of it made too much sense.

I left the lesson that day with homework, get the memory from Slughorn.

The next week was filled with the usual boring classes and a failed attempt to get the right memory from Slughorn. It seemed like a useless task we'd never be able to complete. At least in my opinion. Harry, on the other hand, was much more determined than me.

As well as being determined to get the memory, he'd developed an obsession with Draco. Harry constantly checked the map to see where he was. Occasionally his name would disappear from the map; but it was easy to miss one little name in such a big place with so many people.

I didn't dismiss Harry's thoughts completely, but I did think he was going a bit overboard.

"He's up to something Cas!" Harry exclaimed.

"I know I know, I believe you Harry," I said, "I just don't think you have to be as concerned about it as you are."

"Well, maybe you should be a little more concerned with it," Harry grumbled, obviously hinting at something.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"You obviously don't think this whole thing is important. You barely pay attention to our lessons with Dumbledore. This is going to be important if we went to stop Voldemort," Harry said irritably.

I scoffed, "okay Hermione."

Harry glared at me, but the conversation was left at that.

"Hogsmeade has been cancelled!" I awoke to an extremely annoyed Hermione.

"What?" I mumbled into my pillow.

"They cancelled Hogsmeade. Which means that git will be around all day snogging Lavender!" Hermione said annoyed.

"You two could just-" I started.

"No!" Hermione snapped.

I sighed, was this feud ever going to end?

Instead of listening to an infuriated Hermione saying things she could never really mean about Ron, I went to the owlery. Harry had given me permission to borrow Hedwig the night before.

Quickly I tied my letters to Fred and George and sent Hedwig on her way. I sighed, if I couldn't see the twins in Hogsmeade, this was the next best thing.

"Cassie!" Harry said urgently.

My head snapped up. I blinked at what I saw in front of me. "What the-"

"Ron drank a love potion," Harry said, while trying to wrangle Ron in.

"Bloody hell," I said, rushing forward to help.

It took us much longer than it should have to get to Slughorns office. I was surprised he even answered the door. Although, it definitely took some persuading for him to let us in.

Thankfully it didn't take Slughorn long to reverse the love potion. I'd never seen Ron look so horrified. I couldn't say I blamed him, it had been a horrifying experience.

Slughorn decided it was necessary to have a toast for Rons birthday. He pulled out some oak-matured mead, and handed out the glasses.

I ignored Slughorns speech, and began to take a sip of the oak-matured mead. Moments after the glass slipped out of my hand, it fell from Rons as well. The floor swayed, it seemed to be getting closer as the room spun in circles. The horrified look on my brothers face was the last thing I remembered.

A/N- Here's the new chapter! Thank you all for reading. XOXO