TheFanficGOD

CASS187- Unwelcomed

Ji stood as they approached, smiling like someone had just handed him a particularly thoughtful gift. Long grey robes, clouds and dragons, and that same quiet mirth in his eyes that suggested he'd already worked out half the room's intentions and still thought they were all charmingly dumb for trying.  

"Bathsheda," he bowed slightly. "Cassian. It is always a pleasure."  

Cassian bowed in return. "Careful with that. Say it too loud, someone might think you're b...

C- Thief's Chronicle I - The Burden (Read After -Rowena vs Illiteracy-)

What could go wrong with wearing a diadem that turns you into a genius, made by your mother, no less?

Well, everything. Everything can go wrong.

It began a little before I came into possession of the item. My intention was not to wear it, I promise. My intention, although, in retrospect, my actions suggested otherwise, was pure.

Others didn't see it. They thought it suited her. Thought it made her sharper. Brighter. More... herself. But I saw it.

She was breaking. Slow...

CASS186- Dread

Cassian and Bathsheda didn't leave until they'd picked apart most of the site... again. Or at least the bits that wouldn't try to kill them. The slab mechanism was still untouched, thank God. He hadn't so much as breathed near it, just in case. No one else could get past it anyway, and he did his best to keep people from hurling themselves into the dark room like moths toward a cursed bonfire.

A few still did.

Word spread fast. Brutal death did that.

But it was enough. Enoug...

CASS185- Djinn

Cassian shook his head hard, backing away from the centre of the room. "No, no, no. No, no! We need to leave. Right now."

Coriolanus caught his arm. "What is it?"

Cassian stared at him, eyes sharp, whispering. "We've woken something ancient. And strong. We need to leave before it realises we're still here."

The Old Masters frowned, uneasy murmurs passing between them. "Did you sense anything?" one asked.

Cassian bit down on his tongue. He couldn't exactly say visions, ...

CASS184- Wake and Heed My Command

Cassian looked at the walls and let out a sound, part dread, part something close to awe.

Yep. This was it.

The bloody great chamber where he'd learned Gravitas Ascendio. One of the first Ancient Variants he'd ever unlocked.

He should've clocked it earlier. Goat-hide robes on that statue were practically a glowing signpost. Same as the bloke in that vision.

He ran a hand along the stone nearest to him. The runes were identical.

The chamber curved upward ahead, sl...

CASS183- Monsters!

Silence hit hard. Nobody moved.

They stared at the man on the ground, if you could still call him that. Skin dry as parchment, face shrivelled and slack. He looked like a mummy yanked out of some sealed tomb and dumped in the middle of their expedition.

Then every eye drifted to Cassian.

He'd brought the statue back. Gave it breath, if only for a minute. Then someone had torn its mind out like yanking a plug from the wall. And that was it. Gone.

Even the Hit-Wizards we...

CASS182- Awake

Hi everyone!

First of all, sorry for the confusion. I didn't intend to skip "The Talk" between Cassian and Bathsheda, nor was I trying to create suspense. I chose to postpone it because following it up immediately would've made the next chapter feel too expository, and I didn't want that moment reduced to pure explanation. Instead, I sprinkled hints of that conversation across the next few chapters and will address it more directly lat...

CASS181- Force

Cassian and Bathsheda landed hard. Dry wind slapped across their faces from one side, dragging dust up from the cracked earth. From the other came a cooler breeze, tugging faintly at the hem of Cassian's coat. It carried something briny, sea, maybe. Long gone. Faded enough it almost didn't smell like anything at all.

Around them, the land stretched out in bleached ridges. Scrub grass clung to the dirt like it hadn't realised it was supposed to die yet. Thorny bushes crouched low, all br...

CASS180- Politics

Cassian strolled through the manor, shoulders aching like he'd wrestled a mountain. Which, all things considered, wasn't far off. It'd been a bastard of a year. Overdrawing his magic to snap Lupin mid-shift had fried something, Pettigrew was as revolting as expected, and punching Sirius had been satisfying, of course. Snape, sadly, continued to exist. That was enough on its own.

He reached the study just in time to see Lucian walk out. The door clicked softly behind him.

His broth...

CASS179- Without You!

After the end-of-year feast, the castle shifted gears, trunks scraped all over, owls sulked about the sky with last-minute deliveries, and the air smelled faintly of summer and stress. Cassian had just shrunk his bookshelf (carefully labelled, colour-coded, and mildly cursed to hiss if mishandled) when someone knocked at his door.

He cracked it open, expecting a student with a forgotten wand or perhaps a misguided attempt at bribery. Instead, Penelope Clearwater stood on the other side,...

CASS178- Avada

Snape sat slouched at his desk, absently tapping a knuckle against the wood. "Straying from the syllabus, huh?"

His gaze flicked to the bottle with the wrong colour. Pale gold instead of deep green.

He held it up, watched it catch the torchlight. It didn't separate.

When had he last taken a base formula and spent a week tearing it apart? Not for necessity, not for publication, just to prove it could be better.

A decade. No. Twelve years ago, maybe. Something about the ...

CASS177- Smile!

The next day, the papers were bloody delicious.

Cassian bit into his toast, crumbs sticking to the corner of his mouth as he unfolded the Daily Prophet. Bathsheda was loading his plate with eggs.

"'Ministry Clears Black: Pettigrew Lives,'" he read aloud, mouth half-full. "Bold of them to pretend they did the clearing."

She plopped two sausages next to his toast. "Read the subheading."

He read and almost sprayed his tea.

"'Rosier's Patronus Causes Earthquake, Pani...

CASS176- Immune

After dropping the kids at the Wings, Longbottom still shaking, Ron babbling about tree branches, Hermione dead silent, Cassian only let Harry tag along because well, kid was very much related to everything happening. So Harry got a pass.

Bathsheda floated Lupin on a slab of the ground he'd half-crumbled during the transformation, petrified mid-howl, eyes frozen wide.

No one said a word the whole walk back. Not even when Sirius tried to joke about the "bedside manners" of contain...

CASS175- Freeze!

Lupin's breath caught mid-gasp, and then he dropped to his knees, spine snapping back. His mouth opened in a silent scream as bones shifted under skin, robes tearing at the seams.

Neville made a noise as he took a step back.

The first snarl ripped out of Lupin's throat.

The werewolf stood where the man had been, fur bristling, eyes glassy. Still breathing hard.

Pettigrew whimpered from inside the rune circle.

Cassian sighed. "For the love of—"

His hand tr...

C- A Fool's Chronicles - It's April! Part 2 (Read After Ch170)

The chaos that followed was delicious, if the chef had a taste for absolute anarchy and a loose grip on health regulations.

Students wandered halls aimlessly. No one knew where they belonged. Common rooms refused them like picky bouncers at a club. The Ravenclaws got kicked out of their tower. A Gryffindor first year reportedly cried outside the Fat Lady's portrait for fifteen minutes, begging to be let back in. She didn't even blink.

Fred was in tears by the time they reached Cha...

CASS174- Moon

The rest of the term dragged by with nothing. No Pettigrew, no Sirius. The map stayed clean. Too clean. It was quiet enough to feel like a prank. Then exams crept in, dragging half the castle into revision panic, and Cassian almost started to believe they might've bolted for good.

One of those days, he strolled between rows of desks, hands tucked behind his back. The second-years were bent over their parchments, heads down, quills scratching, all trying not to look like they were panick...

CASS173- Always

Bathsheda, Aurora, Septima, and Charity were spread out across Aurora's floor, ankles tucked under them, surrounded by the soft chaos of pillows, snack tins, and one floating bottle of wine that kept drifting just out of reach.

"I got this carpet from Afghanistan last year," Aurora said, tossing a handful of pistachios into a bowl. "Astronomy conference. Dust, goats, and one man who kept trying to read my palm between lectures."

Septima ran her hand over the carpet's edge, nodding...

CASS172- Ominous

In the weeks that followed, they watched the map like hawks on caffeine and spite, and still came up empty.

Peter bloody Pettigrew didn't appear. Not once. Not a flicker of a name, not even a twitch in Gryffindor Tower. It was like he'd known the exact second to leg it.

"You think he left the school?" Bathsheda asked one evening as they collapsed onto the couch. Cassian ended up half-sideways across her legs, one arm draped over his face.

"I don't know," he huffed. "Feels li...

C- A Fool's Chronicles - It's April! Part 1 (Read After Ch170)

Fred was trying to launch a Dungbomb into Lee's sleeve without him noticing when the portrait swung open with a bang.

Neville barreled in, cheeks red, hair sticking up like he'd jogged through a storm cloud. "It's horrible!"

Nobody looked up.

"Horrible" from Neville could mean anything, usually meant he'd set his cauldron on fire or misread the page count on a Potions essay.

Lee didn't even blink. "Did you encounter Snape again, mate?"

But Neville kept going. "Pr...

CASS171- Rat

Cassian slammed the door with the side of his boot, as he strode in ahead of Bathsheda.

"How the hell did he get into Gryffindor?" he snapped, already pacing. "It's a bloody tower. With a password. And a portrait that bites."

Bathsheda dropped her bag onto the nearest chair. "I don't know. I've got four theories and they all start with 'we're surrounded by idiots.'"

"He either didn't know which bed Potter slept in, or he didn't care."

They'd just come from a disaster o...

CASS170- Love

Cassian stepped into the classroom and dropped his bag onto the desk with a thump. The seventh-years were already seated, looking back at him half-expecting another show and half worry.

He walked to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and wrote in large block letters...

Amortentia

Then scratched a deep, satisfying X through it.

He turned to face the class, brushing the chalk off his fingers. "Right. Let's talk about one of the oldest, most dangerous potions ever brewe...

CASS169- Serious Howl

Lupin's wand snapped up before he could ever see the face of the figure.

Weight slammed into him, all limbs and bones, a blur of grey and snarling breath. They hit the floor hard, boards cracking, dust kicking up in bursts of smokes.

The other man clawed for the wand, hand closing round nothing. Remus caught a glimpse, matted hair, gaunt face, eyes like something that hadn't slept in a year.

They wrestled, elbows cracking into ribs, knees into the floor. Remus got an arm fre...

CASS168- MWPP

Bathsheda was sitting in the armchair by the window, legs tucked under her, a half-drunk cup of tea on the sill beside her. Cassian didn't say a word as he dropped the parchment into her lap. She looked down at it, then up at him.

"What am I looking at?"

"You'll see."

He flicked his wand. The ink surged to life.

She sat up straighter. "Alright... that's not normal."

"Nope."

She traced a finger along one corridor. "This is the third-floor hallway. These dots...

CASS167- Map

One afternoon, Cassian was knee-deep in parchment and poor spelling. Seated cross-legged on the carpet, papers spread around him. His desk had given up hours ago. Dried biros perched on the floorboards like landmines. A biscuit lay forgotten beside his left shoe. Probably stale by now. 

The top scroll was from Romilda Vane, Gryffindor first year.

Title: "The Four Founders: Legacy and Stone."

Bit grand, but not bad.

The essay outlined the usual folklore, th...

CASS166- Patronus

The base of the patronus thickened as the light settled, roots curling outward across the floor in twisting spirals. The branches reached high, antler-like, every tip aglow. Wide, gnarled trunk twisting with age, roots cracking out along the stone as if they'd been clawing up for years. Its branches stretched near to the rafters, leaves flickering in the light, thousands of them, silver-edged and restless, whispering in a wind that wasn't there.

Fawkes let out a soft trill, already airb...

CASS165- Grim

Cassian led them down the familiar narrow stairway when he felt a pair of eyes watching from the shadows.

Cassian didn't pause. His wand snapped toward the shadows without so much as a warning word.

Light burst out, thin tendrils that split and twisted, stretching. They slithered forward fast, crawling across the stone walls. The shadows peeled back. A low shape hunched near the corner, canine frame crouched low, eyes catching the light, yellow, wild, panicked.

Cassian's spe...

CASS164- Chimera

Cassian strode into the classroom, radiating good spirits.

"Alright, my lovely students," he said, clapping. "Today we're talking about the peak of Transfiguration. A subject you studied not so long ago, if my sources are correct. Anyone want to guess?"

A few blank stares. Some already looked terrified. Draco was pretending not to care.

Cassian tapped the side of his head. "Come on. Bit of magical history. Bit of impossible human ambition. No? I'll help, starts with 'A', end...

CASS163- Cushions

Dumbledore turned to the rows of stalls, pointing. "And these?"

He followed Dumbledore's gaze, half-assembled booths, toolkits strewn everywhere, crates with haphazard labels. A few had handwritten signs hanging off them already. "Wand Buffing Station," "Protective Gear Rentals," "Snacksmiths." Most were crooked. Some sparkled.

Truth was, he was tired of watching students group up like separate clans, house pride warped into walls. Even with the war gone, the castle still pulsed w...

CASS162- Duel?

Harry turned up before the Christmas break ended, for another round of Patronus training. Cassian just gave him a once-over and raised a brow.

"Neville's not here. It wouldn't be fair, would it?"

Harry frowned. "How about I train, and you correct my mistakes?"

Cassian sighed through his nose, trying not to be impressed. "Fine. That was really Slytherin of you, by the way."

Harry grinned faintly. "Sorting Hat said I'd do well in Slytherin, too."

Cassian hummed. "A...

CASS161- Praise

When they reached the table, the air changed. Bagshot and Goshawk slipped off toward the front, already angling to greet Fudge and the foreign delegates, slipping back into the smooth rhythm of polite diplomacy.

Dumbledore, of course, was already seated, looking far too at ease for someone who'd just stepped into a nest of political snakes.

"Ah," he said warmly, "Bathsheda, Cassian. Didn't expect to see you here."

Cassian rolled his eyes and muttered, "Right," under his brea...