The sound of someone rapping at the door filtered down the hall, into the bedroom, and slowly roused Sirius from his restless slumber.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
With a groan, he raised his head. The light streaming in through the rents in the curtain was strong and buttery-yellow, striking him across the face. It couldn’t be more than eight or so in the morning: he’d been asleep for no more than three hours.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The tapping grew more insistent.
Sirius shut his eyes stubbornly against the blinding morning glare, and buried his face in the pillow again. Maybe whoever it was would go away.
WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.
Maybe not.
Reluctantly, another thought worked its way to the surface of his sleep-clouded mind: what if it was important? What if something had happened? What if his help was needed? What if -- ?
"All right, all right, I’m coming," he mumbled, working his way around to the edge of the bed so that he could roll right onto his feet.
The crashing sounds at the door – they now sounded vaguely as though the visitor were hitting the wood with a rock – pounded mercilessly in his aching head while he stumbled down the hall.
"Okay, OKAY, I’m awake!" Sirius yelled as he wrenched the door open and found himself face to face with Cassandra. A very wide-awake, disgustingly perky-looking Cassandra, who still had one heavily-ringed hand raised. There were scratches in the worn paint of the door that hadn’t been there yesterday.
"What’re you doing here?" Sirius asked peevishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh, my, did I wake you up?" She had the grace to imitate remorse at least.
"Yeah, right." Sirius managed a smirk at that. "So, why’re you here so early, then?" Though he knew perfectly well he was being rude, he didn’t move aside or invite her in. She could stay on the doorstep for as long as she wanted. Perhaps sooner or later she’d go away.
A smile tugged at the corner of Cassandra’s mouth in return. "I got home, caught forty winks, and Apparated here. I figured I should get here early so I could catch you, before you managed to get away. After all," and here the smile turned bitter – angry, "you’re not about to trust a Slytherin, not now, hmm? Thinking I’ve turned traitor since our days at Hogwarts, are you?"
"No, I ..." Sirius was stumped. She was right – he was automatically assuming that she’d betrayed his side, just because she was a Slytherin. As Sirius had never been an introspective sort of man, this thought-process hurt slightly. He opened his mouth to reply:
"Er, you’re right, I suppose." Yes, well, at least he’d said something. Cassandra didn’t appear to be following this reasonable line of thinking, to judge from the way her mouth compressed. "Okay, so I’m prejudiced because you’re a Slytherin. So what? Take a look at what’s going on! Why in hell should I trust you, anyway? I haven’t even seen you for two years."
"A bit more than that, truly," Cassandra admitted. Her chin came up, stubbornly. "But curse it all, Sirius! D’you want me to swear a blood oath on my fealty to our side? I can, you know. I keep a dagger in my belt."
"No, you don’t." As if some other power had made his decision for him, Sirius stepped aside from his doorway. Inwardly, he was trying to knock some sense into himself, but he did it anyway. "Okay, you can come in."
"That’s better." Cassandra gave him a look that suggested he’d just invited a peeved wildcat into his house, and stalked inside. She arched her eyebrows as she entered his sitting-room-dining-room-kitchen, and sat down where he pointed, primly, at one end of the cigarette-burned sofa. "I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Sirius, but you live in a rathole."
"Yeah, thanks a lot." Sirius collapsed at the other end of the sofa.
Fortunately, for both parties involved, Cassandra let the discrepancy – both hers and Sirius’ – pass. For a minute, then another, a distinctly uncomfortable silence reigned. Cassandra stared quietly at him – or past him, he couldn’t tell – as if she were trying to decide how much to say. She was troubled, probably as badly as he, attempting to manoeuver the situation into a position fit for serious talk.
Sirius cleared his throat, just to break the atmosphere. "Okay, so you wanted to talk to me. So talk."
"I wanted to help, actually. Talking’s just part of the process."
"What did you want to help with? Stop dithering, for chrissake."
That caused a welcome flash of irritation in her eyes, a break from the solemnity that was, in fact, building the very barrier of distrust that she seemed to be trying to break down.
"Okay, fine, here it is again, all nice and straight. Voldemort has Lily and James high on his ‘to do’ list, doesn’t he? Don’t lie to me, Sirius, you’re cursed bad at it." She crossed her arms and sat back, chin tilted up determinedly. Daring him to naysay her.
"Okay, so what if he does? How can you help? You’re not a spy." But you might be a traitor. The phrase hung in the air between them, but it was almost half-hearted. Hard as he mentally slapped himself and insisted that anyone could be a traitor in these terrible times, Sirius found it hard to convince himself that Cassandra - the same Cassandra who sketched everything she saw and laughed in embarrasment about it later, who sang ancient Irish songs and refused to compromise her opinions of popular music - was even capable of betraying Dumbledore.
"Well, granted, it’s not me who wants to help," Cassandra conceded. "Lilith sent me a letter a few days ago. She’s foreseen something ... See, I have it here." She reached into a pocket and brought out a much-folded sheet of parchment. Sirius took it and studied the narrow, neat writing of Cassandra’s Gryffindor sister.
Cass –
I don’t know how much to tell you here. In fact, I don’t know how much I can tell you. The omens are horribly unclear. I shall try, anyway.
There’s something looming over our old friends from Hogwarts – you know who I mean – and I’m much too far away to warn them. Not in person, anyway. In any case, they hardly know me: I’m not at all sure they’d trust me if I did manage to speak to them.
They doubtless know already that there’s danger hanging over their heads, so you needn’t concern yourself with prophetic warnings of doom and destruction. But they will, I’ll wager, need some place to hide. The founder’s village should do well enough. I’m sure Mam wouldn’t mind the cottage being rented out for a good cause.
Don’t go to the couple concerned. They don’t know you well enough, and if you tried to warn them it’d doubtless start a panic. See if you can get their dog to listen to you. He’ll pass the information on.
Love you always
Lil
"She enjoys her metaphor a good deal," said Cassandra, no doubt noticing the expression on Sirius’ face at being referred to as Lily and James’ dog.
Sirius folded the letter back up. "And that’s the only reason you’re here? Because your sister told you to?"
"Yes, that’s about it. I wasn’t even going to bother going to that meeting, except that I needed to speak with you."
"Huh." He felt disappointed, strangely. Had Cassandra disappeared so thoroughly into the cold, rustling tawny wilderness of Connemara, that she’d only deign to come back here – to him – when her sister told her to? Spy or not, traitor or not, she could have visited him once in a while.
Finally, he cleared his throat, shaking off those thoughts. Cassandra’s eyebrow went up; Sirius hurriedly looked back down at the letter. "Wait a minute ..." Suddenly, he’d realized something. "Why didn’t you just give me this last night?"
"I tried to," she said simply, and he knew it was the truth, at least from her standpoint.
"All right, fine," he said, changing the subject. "So where is this cottage? What’s the ‘founder’s village’? This looks like a lot of code to me."
"Ah, yes, the village. It’s a little place called Godric’s Hollow - I think it’s called Avebury by the Muggles - pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. North of Salisbury, I believe, but I haven’t been there recently. It’s a tourist town, so Lily and James wouldn’t be remarked upon so much as they would in a farming village or suchlike. My mam’s family owns a little holiday cottage down there. It’d be comfortable enough."
"Huh," said Sirius again. "And you’re sure it would be safe."
"Nowhere’s safe, and well you know it," Cassandra replied, "but it’s remote."
"Yeah, yeah, you’re right, I guess ..." whatever Sirius was planning to say next got postponed rather suddenly by an earsplitting yawn.
"Poor little uan," Cassandra said, cocking her head like a cat watching a bird. "You’re fairly beat up, aren’t you?"
"Wiped out," Sirius agreed, flopping over on his back so that his legs hung over his arm of the sofa. "’Course, if certain people’d come later, instead of waking me up at this godforsaken hour ..." The rheumatic springs complained. Cassandra’s face appeared upside down in his field of vision.
"Sorry about that." Not that she looked remotely sorry. "You’re not going to tell me I shouldn’t have? You didn’t trust me, and I had to get that letter to you."
Christ, did she have to be so literal? "You’re not going to tell me I should’ve trusted you?" he threw her words back. "I don’t know who to trust anymore."
"Except James, Remus and Peter."
"Yeah ..." But her words struck a strange cord in him. James, Remus and Peter, he thought. My greatest friends. "I know I can trust them ..." Do you really? said a small voice in his mind.
A warm hand settled upon his brow, as if he were a fractious child that needed soothing. Were his doubts that obvious? Maybe Cassandra had picked up some of her sister’s clairvoyant talents since Hogwarts. Whatever the reason behind it, he still didn’t bother to shake away the physical contact.
"When can you see Lily and James?" said Cassandra, steering the conversation away from matters of trust with a tact extraordinary for her.
"What? Oh, yeah. Sometime today, I guess. There’s ... preparations we need to do." The hand ran its fingers gently through his hair, soft and soothing as a mother’s touch.
"Good. I’ll give you the letter to show them if you think they need proof of some sort."
"I doubt it." Sirius heaved a deep, dramatic sigh, and turned his head to watch the minutes tick by on the old clock by the window. Finally, he tilted his head back and gave Cassandra a wry if upside-down look. "Just what d’you think you’re doing?"
"Er." A blush rose in Cassandra’s cheeks; she snatched her hand away and sat back hurriedly. "Well, I have no excuse. My apologies."
"Hey, I’ve got nothing against it." Grinning, Sirius inched back and laid his head in her lap. "There, that better?"
"Less awkward, I’ll give you that." Cassandra grinned as well and went back to stroking his hair.
There were callouses on her fingers that had to be new, but they were gentle, brushing his troublesome fringe back from his eyes. No tension lingered in those fingertips, no fear. This had to be new, too; this strange gentleness that drew all the worry about of him, and left him feeling warm and safe. Sleep came lapping out of the peaceful air like a warm tide rising.
Rap, rap, rap, said the front door.
Sirius groaned.
"What is this, ‘Deprive Sirius of His Sleep’ day?" said Cassandra indignantly.
"No, I bet it’s James." Sirius hauled himself up, an effort achieved by sheer will and nothing more.
"Some best friend you have," replied Cassandra wryly, watching his back as he staggered off to the hall.
Sirius’ guess turned out to be correct. James smiled tightly at him as he was ushered hurriedly into the hall. That nervous coolness brought Sirius back to earth with an unpleasant bump. In one beat of the heart, every worry, every trepidation, every suspicion and fear came rushing back like some flash-flood of icy snow-melt from the mountains.
Being someone’s friend for years tends to build a link between two souls, especially in witches and wizards, whose magical emenations cloud around them in a mass that could be called an aura. Nothing so strong as the psychic link that sometimes exists between siblings, and not so easy to break as an artificially-made link with a human mind, but it is there, and Sirius felt it that morning. James was worried sick, he could feel it. Wherever he went, the dark fear of the hunter crouched ahead of him, blocking his path, like the pheasant that smells the reek of fox in the wood, and dashes frantically away from the scent, only to catch it again from another direction. He’d not yet come to that point in the human psyche where fear translates into the reckless courage that has suicide at its root, but his feet were set upon that road, and the sound of his footsteps fading into dust was so real that Sirius was terrified.
"Speaking of the Devil ..." Cassandra’s voice intruded, making Sirius feel sick with guilt all over again. "James, how are you?"
"Oh, hello, Cassandra." James’ smile widened in welcome earnest. "Sirius, I’m not , er, interrupting anything, am I?" His eyes darted from Cassandra’s wide-eyed, innocent look to Sirius’ ruffled hair and day-old beard.
Sirius forced a grin of his own and looked at Cassandra, who smirked her most affectionate smirk and arched a permissive eyebrow.
"No, not really ..." he said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, and looking as innocuous as he knew how. James wasn’t fooled for an instant.
"Just a tad, eh?"
"Yes," affirmed Cassandra.
"Look, James, what’s wrong?" asked Sirius in an undertone. Behind him, Cassandra leaned against the wall, accepting that she was being shut out of this conversation, but at the same time equally determined to listen in. "It isn’t ... ?"
"No, no, Lily and Harry are safe. We’re all safe for the moment, I think. I just came by to ask if you wanted to come to our place for lunch. Lily suggested it – she knows how you live." Another forced grin from James as he looked about Sirius’ waterstained hallway.
We need you; the tightness of his face and the new lines graved around his eyes said what his voice didn’t. Behind him, Sirius sensed Cassandra moving closer and turned to look at her. Her face was sculpted into a careful look of concern, and her eyes were utterly emotionless. No, not entirely. It was him she felt for, not for Lily or James or Harry. She felt the pain at their situation, the terror for their lives, through him, but it wasn’t any true worry; not for their sakes.
"Cassandra, d’you want a ride home?" Sirius caught Cassandra’s stare and held it, let some of the desperate anger he felt spill through, away from Voldemort and onto her. Her eyes widened, narrowed, as though she struggled to choose between retaliation or retreat.
Cassandra broke the contest first; she looked away and frowned, hurt by Sirius’ rage at an insignificant thing, or so it must have seemed to her. She mustered a wry smile, and said in a dry voice:
"On that demonic thing you call a motorbike? Nay, thanks, I’d rather walk. Or Disapparate. Whichever may come first." But there was anger in that voice. She wouldn’t forget this.
"I’ll see you later, then." Out of courtesy alone, Sirius bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. This gesture she acknowledged by drawing the letter out of her pocket and slapping it into his hand. With a curt nod of her head to James, she took one step out the door, and disappeared.
"What brought that on?" said James, frowning a little. "I remember her being rude, but not like that!"
"I’ll tell you later," replied Sirius shortly. He crammed the letter into his pocket, not caring that it got wrinkled. "Give me five minutes to shower, then let’s get out of here."
*
Saturdays were market days in the little cottage outside Cleggan, County Galway. Cassandra had no sooner Apparated inside her little flagstone-floored kitchen than she was out the door again with a rough canvas coat over her shoulders and a string bag on her arm. The air was cold on her hot cheeks, and it slaked the anger running through her effectively.
Cassandra wasn’t well-known in the farmers’ market in Cleggan. Some called her "Miss Ravenwood." An old family friend whom she avoided called her "Little Cass." Most everyone else referred to her as "that odd little lass from the moors", for that was the direction she always approached from. She’d been coming to the market every week for nearly two years now, and had achieved a certain comfortable anonymity with the folk of the village. They greeted her warmly when she drifted over to their stalls and gossiped about her in the old pub on nights when there was nothing else to talk about. In front of the flickering hearth and gleaming polished tankards she became a spy on the run from England; an exotic princess (never mind that she spoke Irish and English fluently) hiding from a prince she didn’t wish to marry; a witch who lived in the moors and came down to the village every Saturday to buy food for the faeries she served. It was a widely accepted fact, though, that she was merely a rather eccentric Clifden woman who enjoyed the taste of farm cheese. Why she appeared to walk the entire eighty kilometres from Clifden to Cleggan each Saturday, the villagers couldn’t have told you. For some reason, no one ever thought of the little house in the pine clearing that you could see from Ynisbofin’s shore when the day was clear.
"Morning, miss," said Pat Murphy, a young farmer whom Cassandra particularly liked. On weeks when he was not manning the dairy lorry with its crates of fresh milk and cheese, she went without.
"And a good morning to you, mister Murphy," said Cassandra as she chose a block of strong herb cheese. A punt and sixpence went into his hand. He wished her good day. She smiled absently, and moved on to the vegetable cart.
*
With the late afternoon came ruby-red sunlight and trees so bright and clear-edged against the azure sky that they seemed cut from jewels. Little Harry sat near the window in his mother’s lap. He laughed and reached for the spinning, falling leaves, only to be stopped by the cold glass, oblivious to the serious talk around him. On and on and round and round the conversation went, always leading back to one desperate question: could they trust Cassandra? Lily staunchly insisted that Cassandra had kept her mouth shut in school and wasn’t likely to betray anyone. James was more cautious; drilling Sirius mercilessly on his knowledge of Cassandra’s loyalties. Sirius himself simply didn’t know.
The remains of lunch lay growing stale on the plates in the kitchen.
"Look," Sirius said finally, in one desperate attempt to change the subject. "Whatever you decide, don’t tell anyone, okay?"
"Don’t you worry, Sirius." Lily’s voice was thin and hoarse, with worry and other things. "We daren’t. Dumbledore told us last night that someone close to us must be passing information to – to Voldemort. And they must have been doing it for a good year now. He told us that after you left."
She bowed her head and her shoulders slumped. When James reached out and put his arms around her, she leaned willingly into his embrace, as if all her problems could be solved there. But James looked if anything just as frightened as she was.
Sirius looked away and clasped his hands tightly together.
"I feel so sorry for Remus," James said finally. "The poor fellow keeps asking if he can help somehow. Think he feels helpless, Sirius?"
Sirius’ heart held still in his chest. "Yeah, probably," he hedged. "I mean, hey, he looks up to you, and ..." His voice caught in his throat. "He’d ... He’d be heartbroken if anything happened to you two."
Still shaking, Lily took Lilith’s crumpled letter in a white hand, and read it yet again. The rosy light spilling in through the glass panes illuminated her hollow cheeks and the tired lines beneath her green eyes – she looked, realized Sirius, as though she’d aged ten years. As though she were taking upon her own shoulders the greater part of the burden hanging above her husband and son.
It brought back the memory of a teasing musing of Cassandra’s:
"You men like to march to war with shining armour and glimmering shields," she’d said, with late afternoon shadows like these falling across her face, "vowing to protect the innocent and defend the weak; but for the real battle, get a woman."
*
Not too far from Sirius’ house was a common filled with mole hills and rabbit holes, and the occasional, intermittent band of children playing football. The entire place stretched for perhaps some two kilometres in every direction, and was used by Western Comprehensive, on the southern side, as something of a part-time playing field.
Sirius avoided the school as a rule whenever he went to the common, preferring instead to wend his way through the stands of beeches which dominated most of the north and western corners. For this is where he came when he was troubled. When the world became simply too much to bear when confined to one small house with stained furniture and peeling wallpaper. Like a creature caught and tamed against its will, he headed for the wilds – or as close as he could get to them in the midst of a city – in times of trouble and anguish. Times like now.
Sometimes he would slip unobtrusively into the shelter of the trees and assume dog form, leaving his human instincts and worries behind for a short while. Other times, he would simply walk along or through the wood, ignoring the cries of boys kicking a half-deflated football around on the bumpy ground. They never bothered him, whatever they shouted at other passersby. As with the little wood cottage in the pine clearing outside of Cleggan, no one ever seemed to notice the tall young man in the long black cloak, who slipped into the beeches and disappeared.
"Foul! Foul!" shrieked a skinny little boy as he watched his team-mate being plowed into the freezing October mud by a bigger boy on the other team. His friends egged him on, gathering around the two fallen ones in a welter of curses and cheers. They were hauled to their feet, breathless and laughing, and muddy. Out flew the football, and the whole little drama began again.
Sirius took a deep breath and cast a careful glance around. Was anyone watching him? No, he was alone. Another deep breath that rushed smoothly from his lungs. The air flickered around him, distorting his form. The change came so quickly now, after so many years, that all he felt was a brief prickle of growing fur, a twisting of muscle and bones into shapes that were not their own.
In a shaggy black shape more wolf than dog, for all its floppy ears, he loped past trees, his questing nose catching the scent of squirrel, cat, the aroma of rotting leaf and warm wood-smoke. Later, there would be cold, the sinking heart of the human body. Later, there would be hunger and fatigue, and a deeper, more pressing need, of the soul rather than the body. But that was later. Now, there was nothing but the easy pump of his muscles, the rush of air from panting mouth to lungs, and the thud of his paws in the soft leaf-mould.
*
Conall dubh the raven scratched distractedly at his perch. Normally, no raven is ever distracted. A raven can focus his thoughts until cold or heat or storm cannot disturb them, and examine them bit by bit with meticulous care. But today Conall was distracted. He hunched his wings and let his beady black eyes follow the uan y Sidhe – the lamb of the gods, as he thought of Cassandra - pace back and forth. It was she who was really worried, and she was affecting him with her mood.
Fretting over her human male again. Conall wouldn’t deign to call him a mate – particularly because they had no nestlings to look after – but he’d smelt the man’s scent on Cassandra the second she walked back in the door. A musky smell, of late nights, leather, anger, overlaid with a faintly spicy tone that Conall assumed to be aftershave, that strange liquid that human males splashed all over their faces every morning. A foolish custom, really, but then, humans were filled with foolish customs. It made them feel important, like hatchlings just beginning to grow their flight feathers.
Cassandra wasn’t truly a human, of course. Oh yes, she had no feathers or fur, and she was trapped firmly upon the ground when she didn’t have some helpful instrument, like a broomstick, to aid her, but Conall was willing to overlook her flaws. She disdained crowds where humans gathered like common starlings, and saw her raven familiar as a companion, not a pet. Sometimes, in his particularly good moods, Conall even condescended to think the best of her, that she even knew just how superior a raven was to her own ground-crawling species, and served him as he required, instead of simply "caring for" him.
Finally, Cassandra stopped her infernal pacing, and came over to lay a hand on Conall’s poll. He allowed her to scratch him there, because she needed the reassurance, and even went so far as to give a soft, musical croak. A distant smile tugged at Cassandra’s lips – an expression Conall approved of, because it was so coolly controlled. Any high-born crow might be proud of that smile.
"The problem is, my bird," said Cassandra in her native Irish Gaelic, "If I know Sirius Black at all, I know what he’s up to. And he’s just stupid enough to think he can do it, is he not?
Of course he is, Conall croaked scornfully. Cassandra lowered her hand to his unspoken command so that he could climb on. He rubbed his head reassuringly against her wrist, and let her stroke his head with one delicate finger. That distant, elegant smile began to fail; the corners tightened; grief began to show through, as though already she mourned.
With a curse, Cassandra whipped around angrily, so inconsiderately that Conall launched himself from her wrist with an indignant caw and flew back to his perch. From there he glared at her back as she leaned her forehead against the cool window’s glass.
"I don’t know what to do, my bird," she whispered. "I don’t want him killed."
Then don’t do anything. Conall whistled, still put out by her ingratitude. He knew she couldn’t understand; she was far too dense to comprehend normal speech. Let him make his own mistakes. It’s the only way to teach him.
No, she certainly hadn’t understood him, Conall observed, as he noted the tightening at the corners of Cassandra’s mouth widen into a real smile.
"Don’t worry, my bird, I won’t interfere," she said as she slid into the solitary chair that graced the kitchen table. No, perhaps she had begun to pick up rudimentary fragments of the complex raven tongue. "I will leave that to someone else." And without another word, she tore a sheet of parchment from beneath her paint-box, wet her quill, and began to write.