LEGEND OF THE SEEKER FIC: Cara/Kahlan
Title: From Hogsmeade to London: My Year Among the Muggles [Quirrell, Q.]
Cast: Cara/Kahlan, with Chase, Dahlia, and others.
Summary: The fifth part of Anthology. Cara spends her Christmas holidays amongst Muggles. I should probably work on writing more enticing summaries.
Notes: Still a Harry Potter crossover. Around 8,600 words.
They meet at the Three Broomsticks and drink just enough butterbeer to become a little light headed -- and for Chase to decide that all his own jokes are hilarious -- before Cara slips away on her own. She prefers to get the shopping for her sister done sooner rather than later, and time spent staring at Madam Rosmerta is hardly productive. Even if it is always pleasant.
Zonko's is out of the question. Grace loved the frog spawn soap Cara brought back in third year, but the Muggles had felt very differently. Every year, shopping becomes harder. The list of items that aren't very obviously magical that you can buy in Hogsmeade is already very short and getting shorter every time Cara plucks something else from it.
Her first thought is Honeydukes, but she rather doubts there's anything left there suitable for Grace that she hasn't already found. Last year she spent hours scouring the shelves only to settle on a sack of every flavor beans. She made Grace promise not to share any with the Muggles, but still Cara had felt guilty. It was a fairly poor gift in all.
This year she'll have to do better. Something surprising.
And what's more surprising than Cara Mason exploring Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop? Usually the only students in there on a Hogsmeade visit are Ravenclaws and prefects.
And apparently Head Girls.
*
Seeing Kahlan is almost enough to make Cara retreat back out the door. After all, she hasn't spotted Cara yet. It would be so easy to slip back out unnoticed and return later.
It's not that she's afraid. It's more a concern for productivity. If Cara stops to talk with Kahlan Amnell, who knows where it will end up? Probably in tears.
Kahlan's tears and Cara's guilt, and what a waste of an afternoon. Better just to duck out now.
"Cara!"
Too late. "Amnell," Cara says as neutrally as she can manage, which isn't very. There's a lift in her voice, but Cara couldn't say where it comes from. "Hello. Shopping?" Of course she is, Cara. What a daft question.
But Kahlan just smiles, as if she sees nothing wrong with Cara asking. "Mm, yes. I need a new quill, I lost my old one." She lifts her eyebrows a little, which Cara is fairly sure is intended as a questioning look.
"I'm…" Cara is absolutely certain that she should lie here. Kahlan already knows more about Cara's sister than she probably ought to. Not to mention the fact that Kahlan's sister very recently warned Cara off of Kahlan entirely. There are so many reasons that the appropriate response is to simply lie, say she needs a new quill for herself, and move on. "It's for my sister." So many reasons, and yet something compels Cara to honesty.
It's almost maddening, though she supposes it's a slight improvement that the impulsive response this time isn't as rude as the last. Still, it would help Cara a great deal if her mouth took the time to check in with her brain before going off on its own.
Judging from the smile on her face, however, Kahlan still doesn't notice anything unusual about the direction of their conversation. Maybe she's back to playing that game where she pretends that she and Cara aren't horrible at speaking with each other.
That game where Cara can't be entirely sure of the rules and inevitably loses.
"Do you know what she'll want?"
"Well…" But maybe Cara's mouth had the right idea after all. If Kahlan is the sort of person who spends her free day in Hogsmeade shopping for quills, then it well may be that she's precisely the person to help find the perfect gift for Grace. For Cara's own part, she's only dimly aware of a sort of quill that writes automatically as the owner speaks. It sounds like the sort of convenience that might be useful for essays and homework, surely.
The trouble is that Cara has no idea what it's called, how it works, or whether it's very obviously magical enough in its appearance to cause a problem.
So eventually, almost cautiously, she admits, "I'm looking for… one of those quills that writes on its own." Cara hesitates, frowning considerably, and only continues once Kahlan nods a few times in encouragement. "But she's non-magic, you see. And so…" Cara shrugs, feeling useless in a way that's especially unique to time spent with Amnell.
Just as there's no one else who touches Cara quite as frequently as Kahlan does, like now, squeezing her elbow along with a sudden burst of a smile. "Oh, I think I know just the thing!"
And before Cara can tell her off properly for the touching, Kahlan is rushing off to the back of the store without looking back. As if she expects Cara to simply follow.
And of course, she does. Good on Amnell, apparently.
*
It turns out there are many brands and varieties of Quick Quote Quills, and Cara eventually decides on one in a mid-range price. It's less flashy than some of the other models that zoom about the air, twirling with personality and flourish.
This one is subtle enough that you can hold it in your hand as it works and it will almost look as if you are directing the movements. A perfect tool to allow her sister to lose her focus in class and still take passable notes. Just see if Cara doesn't get points for that.
"It's perfect," Cara says by way of thank you, and Kahlan nods.
"You're welcome, Cara."
It's absolutely infuriating when she does that. So presumptuous. But then, so is what comes next.
"So, your sister. What--" When Cara looks up at her sharply, it almost seems as if Kahlan will abandon the question. She stammers, turning red, but then presses on. "What is that like?"
"… having a sister?" Cara blinks. "You know." But then she realizes, that isn't what Kahlan means.
Amnell is wondering what it's like to have a muggle for a sister.
"… oh."
"I only mean--"
"I think I know what you mean." Even before realizing, Cara's expression has gone cold and stiff like the hunching of her shoulders as she turns to go. "Pleasure as always, Amnell."
"Cara, please." And Kahlan is reaching out suddenly, touching her hand. What gives her the right? Why is she always touching?
Still, it must work. Because Cara is still here. "What?"
"I've never met a muggle before. That's all I meant." She sounds so sincere, and so sorry too. It almost makes Cara feel… something. "I don't know any."
"You know me."
Somehow Kahlan is a master at looking both wounded and reproachful at the same time. "Cara."
"What? It's nearly the same."
"That's not how I think of you."
Cara almost hates the part of herself that wants to smile. She pushes it back down, holds it in tightly. "You think of me." Just a simple statement. It isn't a question. She can't be bothered to care enough about any of Amnell's excuses to actually ask.
But Kahlan Amnell still thinks of her. That's something.
*
The three Hufflepuffs share a carriage to the train and talk about the upcoming holiday. In the end, it's left to Dahlia and Chase to provide most of the conversation since Cara has little to say. She hardly knows what to expect from the Muggles this time, or what sort of mood she'll find Grace in. They're becoming more like strangers every time they meet.
"And dad says I'll get a new broom if I keep up the quality of my work." Chase imitates polishing a broom, and if the gesture becomes a little vulgar at the end, it'd hardly be the first time a teenage boy has done such on Hogwarts grounds. "I'm looking forward to riding it against Gryffindor."
Dahlia laughs, but it's more good natured than sneering. "In what universe has your school work ever been up to begin with?"
"Exactly. Hard for it to go much further down, isn't it?" He grins and blows imaginary dust off the carefully polished woodgrain off the imaginary broom earned for imaginary good marks in class. "You've got to learn to set lower expectations, ladies. Works out for you in the end."
And if Cara laughs a little too loud and too long at Chase's jokes to keep the conversation from stalling and turning into questions she has no answers for, at least it's a nice distraction from the clenching in her chest.
*
Most of the snow has been cleared off from the train platform, but there are still lingering trails of it at the very edges and they can see their breath in the air. No matter how they try to fight it off, winter is upon them.
Cat prances through the snow, making a big show of being very brave until he lands in a hill large enough to bury him. Apparently that's all it takes for him to give up on this life of grand adventuring. He clambers up Cara's leg so quickly it's certain to leave claw marks and buries himself up the length of her robe's sleeve, soaking it straight through to the bone.
Cara shivers convulsively before plucking him back out to tousle and fluff some of the dampness out of his fur with the only dry spot left on her sleeve.
*
They board the train and choose a spot to the back. Cara changes quickly back into her muggle clothes and though Chase turns his back politely, covering his eyes with one hand, Dahlia makes a point of staring.
"Dahlia…" Cara drawls in a voice as icy cold as the half-removed robes still clinging partially to her back. "If you don't mind."
"Oh, but I do."
Cara shrugs and unceremoniously drops Cat into Dahlia's lap so that he hisses and claws at her leg, driving her to distraction. Cara quickly finishes changing while the other girl shrieks and squirms.
Back still turned, Chase laughs until Dahlia flings Cat at his back. The poor rascal hisses and yowls, scrabbling for purchase along the back of Chase's robes before plummeting back to earth. Cara just barely finishes changing in time to catch him with a levitation spell before he smacks against the floor of the train car.
The look she gives Dahlia after that could probably freeze butterbeer.
*
It takes most of the ride back to King's Cross for Chase to convince the two of them to start talking again.
Cara mostly does it in the hopes that Chase will finally shut up.
It's a theory that proves rather unsuccessful once tested.
*
The platform in London is even more crowded than it usually is at the start of the school year. Happy families brought together for Christmas jostle together, hugging and kissing.
There's Denna and her family, reserved and demure in their affections but still looking pleased to see one another. Over there a group of gingers so large they might form their own Quidditch team. There's Leo, risking quick glances and probably hoping that Cara doesn't notice, which she is kind enough to play along with. Richard Cypher hugging a younger girl who still looks quite old enough to be with them at Hogwarts. Perhaps a cousin, come in for the holiday.
And Kahlan, along with her sister, being hugged by their mother and father. That young girl with them must be another sister, still too young for school. Judging by that slightly imperious look on her still childish features, Cara can certainly see the family resemblance. The Amnells all have the sorts of faces that are best suited to the cold. Like the way Kahlan lifts her head just so, strong and pointed chin looking pale and sharp like ice or glass, especially in stark contrast with the dark hair falling across her cheek.
Or Dennee, who is watching Cara watch them with an expression far colder than anything you could find in mother nature. She gives Cara a dark and warning look that only leaves her with the strong (and growing) impulse to shove Kahlan back against the train and kiss her until her mouth is swollen, sharp and numb like the stinging wind against their cheeks. Heat rising in their throats to bring them warmth.
The sound of Dahlia's voice at her side brings Cara back to herself, saying, "Do you want us to wait here with you?"
Cara turns to find nearly ten pairs of eyes blinking at her with patient smiles in place. Everyone has their holiday cheer face on and set.
And absolutely none of them are Grace.
*
Dahlia and Chase's families both wish Cara a very merry Christmas and offer well wishes for the new year. Chase's mother, in fact, drags Cara into a hug that she just leans into awkwardly rather than reciprocating in full.
"You'll be alright?" Chase asks for probably the twentieth time.
"Yes, I'm fine. Unlike you, I know how muggle transportation works." Cara takes this chance to sneer, just to make it clear how thoroughly unconcerned she is with traveling alone through London. "And I'm old enough to apparate." She smirks then. "Also unlike you."
"Two weeks! And that's not very kind, Cara."
Chase looks prepared to attempt hugging Cara as well, so she takes a step back and shoves her hands deep inside her pockets.
"I'm fine," she repeats, and he nods.
*
Once Chase and his family finally leave, the platform is nearly emptied out of most of the Hogwarts students and their families. There's really nothing for Cara to wait around for.
A bit stupid really, to imagine the Muggles would come to fetch her from the station. It's amazing that they've even agreed to let her come. Imagining actual hospitality was just madness on Cara's part.
She gathers her bags together, checks her wand inside her pocket one last time, and reaches down to pick up Cat… who abruptly races off down the platform.
Merlin, just what she needs. A race with a cat.
Fortunately for Cara, she doesn't have far to go as Cat quickly skids to a (relatively) graceful stop at someone's feet.
And not just any someone either.
*
It's Grace who bends down and lifts Cat up onto her shoulder where he settles in, purring. "He's missed me, I think."
So have I, Cara thinks to say, but it catches somewhere deep in her throat. Instead she reaches to fondle Cat's fur and then shifts the embrace down to her sister's back. Cara squeezes, and if someone was being generous they might even call it a hug.
Judging from the way Grace returns the embrace, pressing her face almost against Cara's neck, she's feeling very generous indeed.
Maybe the holiday won't be so bad after all.
*
This holiday is going to be awful.
The Muggles refuse to remember even the most basic things about Cara. Like that she doesn't want to hug or touch them in any way, and she's not particularly interested in their Muggle sports or politics either. Or that such a lack of interest does not make her "uncivilized" and "ignorant," however quietly they might think they're whispering about it at the kitchen table as she's coming down the stairs.
She tries to get on with them the best she can. She is polite and well mannered, saying "yes, ma'am" and "no, sir" along with "please" and "thank you." It's more than she ever gives anyone at Hogwarts.
But the Muggle Man says things like, "Cat is not a name," and it's all Cara can do to keep from answering. Instead she gives him the look she usually reserves for particularly annoying first years. As far as she can tell, he's only looking to annoy her. Mission very much accomplished.
His wife is no better, even though she seems to think she's putting effort in. "Have some biscuits. Eat," she says, and then waits expectantly for compliments.
They always want Cara to talk -- about their effort, their feelings, their good intentions -- except when they prefer her to be absolutely silent. It's so confusing. They like to imagine Grace as always having been theres, no prior attachments necessary to maintain, but they'd also like the living and breathing prior attachment to be made very much aware of their countless contributions to her sister's superior upbringing.
As if Grace's own developing unease in the presence of her apparently delinquent and disrespectful sister weren't already evidence enough.
*
Cara ducks out to Diagon Alley just as soon as the niceness and the silent scoldings are starting to drive her mad. At least Dahilia and Amnell's disappointment is usually verbal enough for Cara to be able to offer a response. The Muggles just stare and tsk softly under their breath, clucking to each other like two agitated hens.
"I'm going out," she says, halfway down the stairs, and neither of them look up as she walks past.
"Back soon?" asks Grace, her head poking up from behind the sofa, and Cara feels a minor pang of regret. She lingers at the door, spare set of keys in hand, and for a moment she contemplates taking her sister with her.
But the Muggles are still watching, scowling and disapproving, so she only smiles a thin, strained smile and says, "Of course."
She closes the door and locks it tight. Stow away the key.
*
Cara is fully down around the corner before she apparates to a familiar spot directly in front of Quality Quiddtich.
There in the window, the latest Nimbus gleams behind glass so severely smeared and smudged by anxious hands and noses pressed too close that no amount of charms has been able to keep it spotless. Even now, a small boy with dusty brown hair is pressing his face against the glass. If anything, he might be halfway to cleaning it again as he's practically drooling.
Cara has no interest in a new broom for herself. There isn't any point when her Quidditch career is so close to an end, now in her final year at Hogwarts. Such a pricey luxury purchase would be ridiculous, but there's no harm in looking for something small for herself.
The point here is to make the hours pass by away from the Muggles until she can tolerate more of their questions and false kindness, and that's easier to accomplish if she actually spends the time searching for something. Anything at all will do.
So she starts along the back wall, examining the spines of books about Quidditch theory, before quickly growing bored and switching instead to the small corner set aside for broom maintenance. There are only a few shelves here with tools for twig grooming; incantations to regenerate lagging charms for improved handling and control; and a few polishes to give it a nice sheen. Cara wonders idly if the section dedicated to broom care is so much smaller than all the rest to encourage lazy witches and wizards to buy a new broom instead.
Judging by the fact that she's currently the only person in a relatively crowded store looking at the broom maintenance and grooming products, they might be onto something.
*
Cara has only been in the store long enough to select a new polish for herself and to handle a few new Beater's bats before her luck takes an abrupt change for the worse.
She'd recognize Richard Cypher's stupid grin and cockeyed haircut anywhere. Merlin, but Cara has had bad luck with shops this month.
At least he hasn't got Kahlan with him. That's a (small) mercy, as Cara's fairly certain she wouldn't be able to tolerate seeing the two of them joined at the mouth today. Might upset her stomach and lose all the contents that nice Mrs. Muggle shoved down her throat for breakfast and lunch.
Still, that's no reason for Cara to go out of her way to say hello. In fact she does exactly the opposite, doing her best to angle her back toward the Gryffindor Seeker while paying especially close attention to a pair of dragon-hide gloves.
But apparently to no avail.
"Cara!" Richard calls from across the store, waving to her as if they're the best of friends.
It's almost uncanny how bad both he and Amnell are at reading a situation. Maybe they really are perfect for one another.
"Oh, hello." Cara's smile can really only be described as pained -- or perhaps long suffering -- when Richard comes over with a ready smile and a hand held out to shake. Cara stares at it for a moment until he at least takes the hint well enough to retract. "… no Kahlan today, I see."
Richard shrugs and holds up his hands as if to indicate that he isn't hiding her in his pocket. Which Cara really could have deduced all on her own, but that's the Gryffindor standard for helpfulness for you. "Yeah, I'm with my little sister today." His eyebrows lift and his smile gets even wider.
So not a distant relation then, but a sister -- one who isn't at Hogwarts. There are only so many things that could mean, and Cara does her best to keep her curiosity from registering on her face. She settles instead for a sort of bored and blank neutrality, with just the slightest hint of a sneer. "And is your sister invisible?"
Richard laughs the hearty laugh of good friends sharing a special inside joke, and now Cara's sneer is immediately much larger. "No, she just doesn't like Quidditch as much as I do. We're meeting up again after." He points somewhere further down the alley through the window, but Cara is far too distracted to make note of which shop.
Is he deliberately avoiding explaining how he has a sister old enough to be in fourth or fifth year who hasn't ever been to school or is he just too dense to notice the obvious question that any fool would want answered?
Given that he's a Gryffindor, Cara is willing to lean toward the latter.
"What about you?" Richard smiles and moves his hands in a way that almost look as if he's about to touch, and Cara sways back around to the other side of the table just to be sure. Friendly gesture or not, she's not interested.
"Gloves." She points, just to be clear. "For me."
"Dragon-hide?" Richard whistles, sounding impressed. "Very nice." He picks up a pair and tries them on, flexing the fingers. "Very nice." His smile somehow grows even larger, if you can believe it. Cara barely can. "These are fantastic, Cara. You should definitely buy them."
Cara sneers. "I'll take your much needed opinion under advisement, Seeker."
It's true that dragon-hide is meant to be especially responsive and improve one's grip and handle of a Beater's bat. It'd be a fantastic Christmas gift to herself. When you swing and thwack as enthusiastically as Cara does, there is little room left for improvement in pure technique and craft. At that point, it's all down to strategy and equipment.
Unless your family is rich and can afford a new broom almost yearly.
It hasn't escaped Cara's notice, for example, that Richard received the latest Nimbus model via owl post just one month ago. A more modest family might have sent it to the dorms in the evening, but leave it to a Gryffindor to unwrap his gift in front of the entire school.
Once again, Cara's unsure if Richard was being spiteful or simply oblivious.
But since it seems that subtlety is an art which escapes nearly all Gryffindors, she makes a point of saying very slowly and with great enunciation, "Well, it was nice seeing you, but I'll pay for these now," before turning sharply away.
Just see him try to follow.
*
But he does.
Richard follows her into the line, still talking, and then rushes through paying to join Cara at the door.
Merlin, does he really somehow think that they are friends because he threw poor, confused Leo at her one day?
That hardly makes them friends. If anything she's a customer who sampled merchandise Cypher was eager to hoist off onto others. But now she wants her money back if stalking was always included as part of a secret package deal.
"Look," Cara says, trying not to let her annoyance show since poking at Gryffindors generally only makes them incensed and further irrational -- and then he might never leave. "I've really got to get back."
Then she turns to see Richard looking at her like she just tried to murder a small litter of kittens right in front of him. Merlin, she wouldn't have thought he'd take it so hard, but the expression on his face is positively horrified.
Though come to think of it, he's not really looking at her so much as directly past--
"Brother."
Oh, well at least that makes more sense. And if Richard's look is one of horror and mild disgust, Cara can't quite disguise her gleeful excitement. Anything that makes Richard Cypher squirm this much will at least have to be interesting.
Like just now his voice is thick and sandpapery, worn through like old leather. "… Rahl."
"Now, now. That isn't any way to wish me a Merry Christmas, is it?" The man is handsome in a different way than his brother. While Richard is squat and stubborn in a way that makes him sturdy, this man is sleek with even a smile that seems somehow dangerous.
"You're not invited to Christmas," Richard almost spits.
"Oh, what a pity. I'd hoped the invitation was merely lost mid-flight."
Richard swallows thickly, as though he's perhaps about to cry, and suddenly this is not nearly as fun as Cara had hoped. Not if people are going to start crying and expecting Cara to sympathize for no good reason other than she happens to be in proximity.
"After all," the man continues; "If that stunted little Squib is welcome to dinner, I can't see how you'd turn me away."
Apparently that emotion Cara perceived welling up in Richard was actually white hot rage. She can see it much more clearly now in the slight twitching at his jawline. Now this Cara understands all too well.
It's as familiar as the uncertain look of surprise and disdain sent her way when the man finally notices her standing there. "And who are you?" he sneers slightly.
Not to be outdone, Cara immediately redoubles her own smirk. "Cara Mason. Disinterested observer." Which is apparently enough to earn Cara a smile as the man extends his hand. This time she accepts the handshake, and notes the way it makes Richard bristle.
"Mason?" His voice is oily but his hands are soft. Cara immediately dislikes the combination. Something about him stinks of weakness and letting other men do his fighting for him. "I'm afraid I don't know the name."
Richard looks ready to intervene, but Cara won't have Richard Cypher rushing to her rescue. "That's because I'm muggle-born," she says challengingly, her eyes flashing with unspoken threats.
"… really."
He makes no effort to hide the expression of distaste or the way he rubs his hands against his robes, as if to clean them. Cara's eyes travel over to Richard, one single eyebrow lifting. You can't pick your own family, but judging by the look on Richard's face you can at least be mortified by them no matter if they're Muggle or wizard.
*
Cara leaves her wand bound up in a sock and hidden at the bottom of her bag. It wouldn't do to have one of the Muggles spot it, and she feels certain they'd never reach inside of her things. Probably scared of what they'd find. The way they jerk or flinch away, they seem half-convinced Cara carries a knife on her at all times.
Maybe she ought to start. She feels completely naked without her wand.
At night, with all of them asleep, she takes a few moments to herself to handle it gently. Breathe softly enough, and you can almost hear the hum of the magic in the vine wood.
"Lumos," she whispers, filling the cramped side bedroom with an eerie blue light. It illuminates every scratch and crack of paint, every stain that reveals their disinterest and disuse. This is the dusty corner they've shoved her into, far across from the other side of the house where her sister sleeps.
But alone in the dark, the magic itself is almost like a second being, humming in the air around her.
It slips into the empty space inside her bed, crawls deep under her skin. It's almost like feeling whole, or being a real person who really has a place somewhere. An unusual sense of belonging.
Until she hears a sound beyond the door, out there in the hallway, and it's time to hide it all away again.
Nox.
The night is empty and dark and Cara is alone.
*
On days when the snowfall is heaviest, Cara can't escape to Diagon Alley. She tries slipping out "to see a friend," but the Muggles are having none of it.
"You're our responsibility," they laugh, and don't bother to hide the regret and dislike behind their eyes.
She spends most of that time alone with Grace, trying to think of things to say.
Her sister's silence is much more unbearable than any Muggle kindness.
*
A few days worth of The Daily Prophet show up one morning, clutched in the beak of an eager owl that pecks several times at the window before Cara is able to drag herself from the bed to let him in.
He prances along the ledge, looking quite pleased with himself, but Cara just shoos him away and slams the window shut. She hasn't anything to feed him and it wouldn't do for the Muggles to notice an owl showing off in the upstairs window.
The papers are from Dahlia. It's either her idea of an early Christmas gift to keep Cara still in the loop of the goings on of the wizarding world, or it's an attempt to get her in trouble with the Muggles. Possibly a bit of both.
She takes a coffee from downstairs along with a bit of toast and eggs. Cara thanks Mrs. Muggle several times, but only gets a strained smile in return before retreating back upstairs.
Let them have breakfast to themselves if they like.
In the meantime, Cara studies the Prophet and tries not to drip egg and crumbs all over it.
She examines the Quidditch scores and mentally vows to bring along a copy of the league standings when she meets up with Chase on the train ride back to Hogwarts.
*
She carefully tears the scores out with her own hands. It wouldn't do to receive a notice from the Ministry for a charm cast in a Muggle residence just to cut a paper loose.
But the tear is jagged and uneven, and the center of her palm aches to reach for her wand.
*
Sometimes in the middle of the day, Cara finds herself reaching for her pocket and the familiar weight of her wand.
There is a moment of flickering panic when she finds it isn't there before the reality registers fully in her mind again. It wouldn't be, not this week.
One of these times, Grace catches her checking and gives a warning sort of look. Disapproving.
Cara doesn't reach for it again, not while she's downstairs.
As a solution, she spends more and more time upstairs alone.
*
Grace and her family of Muggles go off to church in the evening, but Cara stays behind. It earns her a dirty look that she easily ignores. It's not as if they can hate her anymore than they already do.
She hears bells in the street chime as midnight strikes and it's fully Christmas.
There are lights on the tree downstairs casting an eerie glow, but the pale blue light from the wand in her room is enough for her.
*
Another day, another owl on the window ledge, but this one is far more restrained. It's so considerably well mannered that Cara couldn't really say how long it had been waiting once she notices.
But she recognizes that owl.
It's Kahlan's, the one she had borrowed before, clutching a parcel and pecking at the window.
Cara nearly trips over her own feet in the process of getting to the window. Once there, her hands grab hold of the sill to steady herself, swaying a little, before she wrenches the window open.
"Wenlock," she says, the surprise showing in her voice. In Cara's experience, wizarding owls are capable enough at understanding english -- at least as good as many people -- that she only feels slightly foolish for speaking aloud in a room with only an owl for company.
Wenlock drops the package lightly in her hands and flies up to settle on her shoulder. She weighs a great deal more than she looks.
"You-- oh." Cara blinks. "Merry Christmas?" The owl hoots once, almost expectantly, and then watches. "I… didn't get Kahlan anything," Cara says rather lamely, feeling almost embarrassed. Which is completely absurd. Why should she be embarrassed? Since when do she and Amnell exchange gifts?
But Wenlock only hoots again, this time with a definite hint of reproach.
Feeling frustrated and perhaps a little ashamed -- shamed by an owl of all things -- Cara digs through her shopping bag from the trip to Quality Quidditch the other day. She sighs and rounds back on the owl. "These are Beater's gloves. She won't even have a use for these."
Wenlock simply blinks.
"… polish it is then."
Preferring not to think whether or not polish for your broom is the sort of gift that Kahlan would be inclined to read something into, Cara wraps it quickly using the same simple brown packaging that Kahlan sent along, unwrapping her own gift in the process.
It's a pair of thick, woolen gloves in simple black with trim in Hufflepuff's buttercup yellow. Attached is a note in Kahlan's familiar, careful script:Cara,
I've never seen you with gloves on, even when it's very cold.
It isn't good for your health.
Please keep warm, and Merry Christmas.
- Kahlan Amnell
When would she have seen? It's strange to think of Kahlan watching her at times when Cara might simply be passing across the lawn or down the hillside. How long has she been watching?
Another impatient hoot brings Cara back to the moment, and Wenlock's unwavering stare.
"… I'll send a note as well, shall I?"
The only creature with a gaze more impertinent than Kahlan Amnell is her bug-eyed, irritating owl. Hoot, it says again, and Cara sets down to writing.
Dear Kahlan, she writes, but then quickly strikes it out.
She starts over.
Amnell
I appreciate your gift, and hope that you are well. Here is some polish for your broom.
I wouldn't know what else to give to the perfect girl who has everything.
- Cara
Once finished, Cara stares at her own writing for several moments, wondering if it sounds especially harsh and not at all grateful. It's not as if Cara isn't pleased by the gift -- except for how much it has inconvenienced her to have an owl bossing her around so early in the morning.
Still staring, still thinking, she bites the tip of her quill and looks back to the window where the owl came in. Snow has begun to fall, buffeting the glass in waves of white. Wenlock really ought to leave soon, before the weather gets worse.
Mind made up, Cara crosses a line through the final full sentence and stuffs the note down inside with the package. "Alright then, off you go." She ties it carefully to Wenlock's leg and smiles despite herself. "Go bother Kahlan for a while."
*
Apparently quite displeased by Wenlock's intrusion in their room, Cat finally reemerges from his hiding place beneath the bed. He creeps along with his belly to the ground and tail stuck up at an odd and agitated angle.
"There you are." Cara rolls him over with one gentle shove and toys with the soft underside of his chin. "Traitor."
Cat yowls with indignation, but quickly surrenders in a slump.
Outside, the snow falls even harder.
*
It is snowing at King's Cross two days later when Cara readies to board the train back to Hogwarts.
"I'll miss you," Grace says with tears in her eyes, and Cara knows that her little sister must really think that it's true. It can't be, of course. Not exactly.
Grace misses the memory of a sister more like her, the one she shared a childhood with.
She doesn't miss the real Cara: half witch and all bitch. What would be the point?
But Cara lies easily enough even as she strains to kiss her sister's cheek in a way that seems even halfway natural, saying, "I know." And then, far easier, comes the truth. "I miss you too." It's only a whisper, as is often the case with confession. Like a prayer murmured flush against Grace's ear. "I'll visit again."
It well may be that that's just another lie.
*
Cara takes off down the platform at a run, Cat falling in step beside her.
They hit the bricks with a shuddering gasp and a brief involuntary wince. Every time, even still.
It's not fear exactly, but a sort of reluctance all the same.
The barrier between one world and the next draws closed behind her. She glances back over her shoulder and Grace is gone.
She simply isn't there.
*
Classes back resume as if they'd never left off, but for the students it serves as a violent jolt to the system.
Like a machine left to idle for two weeks starting back up again, their internal engines grind and sputter. It's the sort of metaphor that most of the other students wouldn't even understand unless they happen to be excelling in their Muggle Studies courses, but it strikes Cara as especially apt.
She consumes large helpings of coffee at breakfast every morning and isn't even put off by Dahlia's casual remarks about stunted growth.
"I'm finished growing, I think."
"But not done with maturing, I hope," Dahlia drawls with a thin-lipped smile.
A few dozen snide responses spring to mind, but Cara isn't interested in picking a fight, not now.
They have a match to win soon. The peace must be kept.
*
Once Snape threatens to schedule detention during Quidditch practice, Chase tackles his Potions work with a never before seen enthusiasm. Cara even offers suggestions when she sees him struggling over the last foot of an essay one night, but then warns him to cross-check with the book to be certain.
She won't be held responsible for a missed practice. They need the time on the field together working out strategies to deal with distracting Richard, and Cara especially needs the extra time to wear in her new gloves. They're slick and impressive, but still very raw and stiff. Dragon-hide takes several hours to work in. Worth the effort in the long run, but worrying in the moment when her hands still feel clumsy and stiff holding the Beater's bat.
"You ought to roll them around the bat. Like dough, you know?"
"Like…"
Chase nods, hefting his broom across his shoulder. "For cooking."
Dahlia's eyebrows draw so high up along her forehead they're almost in her hair. "Since when do you know anything about cooking?"
"Come off it, Dahlia." Chase nudges them both and winks. "If eating were part of an exam, I'd get an O for certain."
Cara smiles despite herself, but draws back from the touch. "Right, so I'll roll my gloves like baking dough. But alright if I wear them in the meantime?"
"Or, you know what you ought to do…" Chase slows to a stop, speaking in the quietly speculative tones of someone thinking very hard or trying to recall something. "Is get some time in at the practice room."
For as stupendous an idea as Chase clearly thinks this is, Cara hasn't the foggiest what he's on about. "The-- Sorry, what?" She exchanges a quick look with Dahlia, who looks equally confused.
Chase just blinks at them, nonplussed. "Well, surely you've been there." More blinking. "It's on the seventh floor. Loads of equipment for practicing Beating. Found it my fourth year before trying out." He frowns, eyes traveling quickly between the two of them. "You mean that neither of you have seen it?"
Cara can see Dahlia's skeptical expression from the corner of her eye. It's almost a relief really to not be the only one to find the idea of a hidden room on the seventh floor made just for Beaters… well, absurd would probably be too polite.
"No," Dahlia says, with feigned interest. "I've never been. Please, tell us more."
But Cara elbows her sharply to make her relent. Chase is too nice and naive -- which are nearly one and the same -- to realize when Dahlia's having a go at his expense. It's almost inconvenient to always be the one to have to intervene, but such is Cara's lot in life.
Always in between, if not also in the way.
*
They march down to the pitch as dark clouds gather in the sky.
It's looked that dreary for days now, but the storm has yet to break. The most they can hope for is that it will hold off another 48 hours until after the match against Gryffindor.
"Probably best you got the new gloves, eh?" Chase says, nodding at the overcast sky.
Apart from a nod, Cara refrains from comment.
"Maybe it'll snow instead," Dahlia offers, which isn't especially encouraging. They'll all freeze to their brooms instead of slipping, and the only thing more painful than a Bludger is one that's frozen solid.
Cara slips her hands -- wrapped in black gloves with yellow trim -- deep inside her robe pockets and hunches her shoulders against the cold. She breathes into the wool of her scarf and winces as the wind picks up.
*
In the days leading up to the match, Cara tries to keep her mind fully on Quidditch and beating Richard -- along with the rest of the Gryffindors, obviously.
It'd be a pleasure to wipe a smirk off Dennee's face for one.
So she thinks about flying formations with Chase and rhythms for disrupting the passing patterns she's seen the Gryffindor Chasers running on the pitch over the past week when their practice time has run over into Hufflepuff's. Professor Sprout, usually so accommodating and friendly, has told Dahlia to feel free to toss them off with force if need be the next time it happens.
Cara would be glad to oblige in assisting. It's such a relief really to have a target to direct her frustrations toward other than an ominous and uncertain Future that's so ill defined and difficult to pin down. Take her feelings out on what might be and she wouldn't even know who to blame.
Other than maybe herself.
Sometimes at night, lying in bed with Cat bumping his head repeatedly against her arm and shoulder, Cara thinks of all the things she might have done with her little sister over the winter break. They might have visited Diagon Alley together, or at least spent time in the record shop next to The Leaky Cauldron. They're finally both old enough to leave the house without Muggle supervision, and it would have made for a nice change. She feels a fool for never thinking of it then, when the opportunity was there.
It's a bit like people say they feel shortly after the death of a loved one, going back over the maybes and what might have beens. Excepting of course that Cara's sister is still ver much alive.
And yet, the feeling lingers on.
*
One day before the match against Gryffindor, Cara goes looking for Chase's secret room.
She doesn't tell Dahlia, of course, because that'd only lead to unrelenting abuse and she'd rather give Cat a bath than antagonize Dahlia today. She's already enough on edge on any given normal day.
Aside from that, Cara is a bit embarrassed really to find herself roaming the hallways, in search of an imaginary room. Perhaps she'll find Chase's imaginary new broom for high marks there as well.
In all honesty, Cara's not even sure what she expects to find there even if it does exist. What does a room full of equipment to practice Beating even look like? She should have asked Chase for greater detail, but that would have left Dahlia with the distinct impression that Cara actually believes in the room's existence.
Which she doesn't. Not exactly. It seems ridiculous to believe.
But then, ask her younger, more Muggle self and she'd have said the same of any magic.
If she's ever to find a place fully here in the wizarding world, one of the first steps is probably faith in the things you see, even when they defy most basic logic or instinct.
And if that means giving Chase's ludicrous suggestions a chance at proving true and helpful, then she can spare a quick walk up to the seventh floor, left corridor.
Maybe it'll be a room filled with machines that fling Bludgers for her to practice hitting. Or perhaps flying dummies to aim swats at. Might be there's other equipment for toning her upper body strength and losing some of the lazy weight she gained from spending most of winter hols hiding upstairs from the Muggles and seldom going out.
*
The truth is that Cara doesn't know what to expect when she finds a plain, simple door precisely where Chase said it would be.
The strange thing is that she recognizes the hallway now that she's here, but not the door. She doesn't recall ever noticing it before.
Stranger still is how it almost seems to open slightly before her hand has even reached the handle.
But surely strangest of all is finding Kahlan Amnell waiting on the other side, blinking at her.
Not one Kahlan, in fact, but several -- maybe hundreds -- mirrored over and over. All of them with their eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, with one hand raising to cover it.
All of them blinking, all of them staring, and there in the center, standing from where she's perched on a stool, is the real Kahlan Amnell. "Cara," she says, sounding more certain and far less surprised than she looks.
"… fuck," says Cara, almost certainly sounding as overwhelmed as she feels.
The door closes shut behind her, and for one fleetingly terrifying moment Cara's certain she hears it lock.
*
"What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same thing."
"So are you?"
"Am I--?"
"Asking."
"Oh. I-- Yes? Well, no. I don't know. Maybe."
Cara sneers. "Are you always so decisive?"
"No," Kahlan says with absolute certainty. "Only with you."
Somehow they've drawn closer, though Cara doesn't remember taking a single step toward Kahlan. "With me." She has a strange habit of repeating things once Kahlan has said them, just as she mimics the way Kahlan licks her lips now. Mirror images, just like the many reflections of themselves along the walls. All around them, other Cara's blink back, slightly wide-eyed. Almost dazed.
And there, over and over, the faint smile of Kahlan Amnell lingers, just as her mouth hangs slightly open.
It's only once Cara finally looks back at Kahlan's eyes that she realizes that they've both been looking at each other.
"I was hoping to see you," Kahlan says softly, almost a whispered confession.
"Why?" Kahlan's eyes are on Cara's mouth again, and she hates herself for how she shivers. "Amnell," Cara says, hoping that the firm and cold resolve in her voice will somehow seep into the rest of her.
If it's working at all, the progress is incredibly slow.
"I…" It's a small comfort that at least Kahlan seems to be as lost as Cara -- but only a small one. "I wanted to." Her voice is very low, soft as the sound of her footsteps. "I like talking with you." Another step.
"We don't talk."
Kahlan's laughter is like bells. It sort of rattles and clangs, discordant and jolting, but still soft somehow. Cara isn't sure why she notices, but she tries not to let such sentimental observations show in her face, keeping her arms crossed and her expression a firmly stoney resolve. "Oh Cara," Kahlan says, as if they're old friends. "Dennee told me you'd said that."
It isn't what she expect to hear. Somehow she never imagined that her conversation with the little Gryffindor would ever get back to Kahlan. What else have they been saying to each other? It's so unnerving in fact that she says, "Don't talk to her about me," before even thinking about how it might sound.
How it sounds is really rather defensive.
"I didn't mean to--"
"You don't mean a lot of things, it seems." Cara frowns, sounding much more stern than she intends to. Yet again, the conversation has gotten away from her. She tries to look away, to recompose herself and find some sort of neutral ground, but everywhere she turns is another Kahlan. "Are you so ashamed of your need to kiss me because I'm a woman?" Cara pauses, wondering where such honesty suddenly came from and thinking perhaps it's easier to ask when directed at a reflection. "Or because I'm a Mudblood?" She licks her own lips, and focuses intently on not staring at Kahlan's.
"Cara," Kahlan says in her most reproachful voice. A sudden darkness comes over her expression and settles somewhere in a building knot in her shoulders.
She looks ready to argue, but Cara will not be put off. Not now, when she's finally given voice to the nagging concern that rises up to the back of her mind every time Kahlan has pulled back from her touch. She turns to face Kahlan -- the real Kahlan -- and frowns. "Which is it?"
They both stare at each other long and hard, but in the end it's Kahlan who blinks and looks away first. She relents under the pressure of Cara's steady glare. In the end, most do.
"You don't know what my family is like," she whispers.
And Cara scoffs, a laugh much crueler than she means to use. But it's already there, at the tip of her tongue and over sharp teeth. "At least you have family." She draws closer, one slow steady step, and then another. "A mother and a father who are very proud of--"
"No." This time it would seem it's Kahlan's turn to laugh. "Oh, Cara, no. Cousins."
It's surprising enough that it interrupts Cara's entire train of thought.
Kahlan Amnell hasn't got a family either? No direct family, at least. Cousins.
"Distant cousins." Kahlan shakes her head slowly, and her hair drifts slightly against the pale skin of her shoulder. Cara can't help but notice. "Dennee and I have lived with them ever since--" Kahlan doesn't even seem to choose to stop speaking. Her words just snap off of their own accord. Sharp and stiff like the tensing of her shoulders, and the heavy darkness that returns to her eyes.
Cara hates herself a little for how desperately she wants to know the source of that heaviness. Maybe, she thinks, she could lighten it. It's these foolish notions that only Amnell inspires that keep resulting in Cara being hurt.
She obviously still needs to work on that.
"It's been a long time," Kahlan says at last. "We've lived there nearly all our lives, but-- They're only my cousins." She runs her hands carefully along her robes, inspecting and adjusting, never meeting Cara's gaze.
"Both, is it?"
Without looking up, Kahlan nods slightly. "But…" Again, the words almost seem to run out all on their own, leaving Kahlan looking small and uncertain.
Cara is ready to give it up at that, maybe finally resign to things and accept the inevitable disaster that this would turn out to be if ever pursued. But then there is a but, and she has to know what follows after. "What?"
"I don't… use that word. Not-- I don't know." The way Kahlan looks at Cara now, so desperate and unsure, it seems strange to realize that she is the taller of the two. She seems so small -- almost smaller than Cara -- with the way her shoulders slouch as she still fusses with straightening her own tie. "They wouldn't understand. That's all."
"Understand." There's something to understand.
What that is, Cara doesn't have a clue.
"Yes." Suddenly, Kahlan's hand is on her own, touching. Gripping. Holding and tugging, and then Kahlan's mouth is on her own. Tasting, shoving, claiming.
Somehow her mouth is almost as aggressive as her hands, which immediately wrap themselves around Cara's back, slipped up underneath her robe and across the back of her sweater. Give Kahlan much time, and Cara's certain she might be halfway toward undressing without even breaking fully from the kiss.
She's not sure that she'd mind.
Cast: Cara/Kahlan, with Chase, Dahlia, and others.
Summary: The fifth part of Anthology. Cara spends her Christmas holidays amongst Muggles. I should probably work on writing more enticing summaries.
Notes: Still a Harry Potter crossover. Around 8,600 words.
They meet at the Three Broomsticks and drink just enough butterbeer to become a little light headed -- and for Chase to decide that all his own jokes are hilarious -- before Cara slips away on her own. She prefers to get the shopping for her sister done sooner rather than later, and time spent staring at Madam Rosmerta is hardly productive. Even if it is always pleasant.
Zonko's is out of the question. Grace loved the frog spawn soap Cara brought back in third year, but the Muggles had felt very differently. Every year, shopping becomes harder. The list of items that aren't very obviously magical that you can buy in Hogsmeade is already very short and getting shorter every time Cara plucks something else from it.
Her first thought is Honeydukes, but she rather doubts there's anything left there suitable for Grace that she hasn't already found. Last year she spent hours scouring the shelves only to settle on a sack of every flavor beans. She made Grace promise not to share any with the Muggles, but still Cara had felt guilty. It was a fairly poor gift in all.
This year she'll have to do better. Something surprising.
And what's more surprising than Cara Mason exploring Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop? Usually the only students in there on a Hogsmeade visit are Ravenclaws and prefects.
And apparently Head Girls.
*
Seeing Kahlan is almost enough to make Cara retreat back out the door. After all, she hasn't spotted Cara yet. It would be so easy to slip back out unnoticed and return later.
It's not that she's afraid. It's more a concern for productivity. If Cara stops to talk with Kahlan Amnell, who knows where it will end up? Probably in tears.
Kahlan's tears and Cara's guilt, and what a waste of an afternoon. Better just to duck out now.
"Cara!"
Too late. "Amnell," Cara says as neutrally as she can manage, which isn't very. There's a lift in her voice, but Cara couldn't say where it comes from. "Hello. Shopping?" Of course she is, Cara. What a daft question.
But Kahlan just smiles, as if she sees nothing wrong with Cara asking. "Mm, yes. I need a new quill, I lost my old one." She lifts her eyebrows a little, which Cara is fairly sure is intended as a questioning look.
"I'm…" Cara is absolutely certain that she should lie here. Kahlan already knows more about Cara's sister than she probably ought to. Not to mention the fact that Kahlan's sister very recently warned Cara off of Kahlan entirely. There are so many reasons that the appropriate response is to simply lie, say she needs a new quill for herself, and move on. "It's for my sister." So many reasons, and yet something compels Cara to honesty.
It's almost maddening, though she supposes it's a slight improvement that the impulsive response this time isn't as rude as the last. Still, it would help Cara a great deal if her mouth took the time to check in with her brain before going off on its own.
Judging from the smile on her face, however, Kahlan still doesn't notice anything unusual about the direction of their conversation. Maybe she's back to playing that game where she pretends that she and Cara aren't horrible at speaking with each other.
That game where Cara can't be entirely sure of the rules and inevitably loses.
"Do you know what she'll want?"
"Well…" But maybe Cara's mouth had the right idea after all. If Kahlan is the sort of person who spends her free day in Hogsmeade shopping for quills, then it well may be that she's precisely the person to help find the perfect gift for Grace. For Cara's own part, she's only dimly aware of a sort of quill that writes automatically as the owner speaks. It sounds like the sort of convenience that might be useful for essays and homework, surely.
The trouble is that Cara has no idea what it's called, how it works, or whether it's very obviously magical enough in its appearance to cause a problem.
So eventually, almost cautiously, she admits, "I'm looking for… one of those quills that writes on its own." Cara hesitates, frowning considerably, and only continues once Kahlan nods a few times in encouragement. "But she's non-magic, you see. And so…" Cara shrugs, feeling useless in a way that's especially unique to time spent with Amnell.
Just as there's no one else who touches Cara quite as frequently as Kahlan does, like now, squeezing her elbow along with a sudden burst of a smile. "Oh, I think I know just the thing!"
And before Cara can tell her off properly for the touching, Kahlan is rushing off to the back of the store without looking back. As if she expects Cara to simply follow.
And of course, she does. Good on Amnell, apparently.
*
It turns out there are many brands and varieties of Quick Quote Quills, and Cara eventually decides on one in a mid-range price. It's less flashy than some of the other models that zoom about the air, twirling with personality and flourish.
This one is subtle enough that you can hold it in your hand as it works and it will almost look as if you are directing the movements. A perfect tool to allow her sister to lose her focus in class and still take passable notes. Just see if Cara doesn't get points for that.
"It's perfect," Cara says by way of thank you, and Kahlan nods.
"You're welcome, Cara."
It's absolutely infuriating when she does that. So presumptuous. But then, so is what comes next.
"So, your sister. What--" When Cara looks up at her sharply, it almost seems as if Kahlan will abandon the question. She stammers, turning red, but then presses on. "What is that like?"
"… having a sister?" Cara blinks. "You know." But then she realizes, that isn't what Kahlan means.
Amnell is wondering what it's like to have a muggle for a sister.
"… oh."
"I only mean--"
"I think I know what you mean." Even before realizing, Cara's expression has gone cold and stiff like the hunching of her shoulders as she turns to go. "Pleasure as always, Amnell."
"Cara, please." And Kahlan is reaching out suddenly, touching her hand. What gives her the right? Why is she always touching?
Still, it must work. Because Cara is still here. "What?"
"I've never met a muggle before. That's all I meant." She sounds so sincere, and so sorry too. It almost makes Cara feel… something. "I don't know any."
"You know me."
Somehow Kahlan is a master at looking both wounded and reproachful at the same time. "Cara."
"What? It's nearly the same."
"That's not how I think of you."
Cara almost hates the part of herself that wants to smile. She pushes it back down, holds it in tightly. "You think of me." Just a simple statement. It isn't a question. She can't be bothered to care enough about any of Amnell's excuses to actually ask.
But Kahlan Amnell still thinks of her. That's something.
*
The three Hufflepuffs share a carriage to the train and talk about the upcoming holiday. In the end, it's left to Dahlia and Chase to provide most of the conversation since Cara has little to say. She hardly knows what to expect from the Muggles this time, or what sort of mood she'll find Grace in. They're becoming more like strangers every time they meet.
"And dad says I'll get a new broom if I keep up the quality of my work." Chase imitates polishing a broom, and if the gesture becomes a little vulgar at the end, it'd hardly be the first time a teenage boy has done such on Hogwarts grounds. "I'm looking forward to riding it against Gryffindor."
Dahlia laughs, but it's more good natured than sneering. "In what universe has your school work ever been up to begin with?"
"Exactly. Hard for it to go much further down, isn't it?" He grins and blows imaginary dust off the carefully polished woodgrain off the imaginary broom earned for imaginary good marks in class. "You've got to learn to set lower expectations, ladies. Works out for you in the end."
And if Cara laughs a little too loud and too long at Chase's jokes to keep the conversation from stalling and turning into questions she has no answers for, at least it's a nice distraction from the clenching in her chest.
*
Most of the snow has been cleared off from the train platform, but there are still lingering trails of it at the very edges and they can see their breath in the air. No matter how they try to fight it off, winter is upon them.
Cat prances through the snow, making a big show of being very brave until he lands in a hill large enough to bury him. Apparently that's all it takes for him to give up on this life of grand adventuring. He clambers up Cara's leg so quickly it's certain to leave claw marks and buries himself up the length of her robe's sleeve, soaking it straight through to the bone.
Cara shivers convulsively before plucking him back out to tousle and fluff some of the dampness out of his fur with the only dry spot left on her sleeve.
*
They board the train and choose a spot to the back. Cara changes quickly back into her muggle clothes and though Chase turns his back politely, covering his eyes with one hand, Dahlia makes a point of staring.
"Dahlia…" Cara drawls in a voice as icy cold as the half-removed robes still clinging partially to her back. "If you don't mind."
"Oh, but I do."
Cara shrugs and unceremoniously drops Cat into Dahlia's lap so that he hisses and claws at her leg, driving her to distraction. Cara quickly finishes changing while the other girl shrieks and squirms.
Back still turned, Chase laughs until Dahlia flings Cat at his back. The poor rascal hisses and yowls, scrabbling for purchase along the back of Chase's robes before plummeting back to earth. Cara just barely finishes changing in time to catch him with a levitation spell before he smacks against the floor of the train car.
The look she gives Dahlia after that could probably freeze butterbeer.
*
It takes most of the ride back to King's Cross for Chase to convince the two of them to start talking again.
Cara mostly does it in the hopes that Chase will finally shut up.
It's a theory that proves rather unsuccessful once tested.
*
The platform in London is even more crowded than it usually is at the start of the school year. Happy families brought together for Christmas jostle together, hugging and kissing.
There's Denna and her family, reserved and demure in their affections but still looking pleased to see one another. Over there a group of gingers so large they might form their own Quidditch team. There's Leo, risking quick glances and probably hoping that Cara doesn't notice, which she is kind enough to play along with. Richard Cypher hugging a younger girl who still looks quite old enough to be with them at Hogwarts. Perhaps a cousin, come in for the holiday.
And Kahlan, along with her sister, being hugged by their mother and father. That young girl with them must be another sister, still too young for school. Judging by that slightly imperious look on her still childish features, Cara can certainly see the family resemblance. The Amnells all have the sorts of faces that are best suited to the cold. Like the way Kahlan lifts her head just so, strong and pointed chin looking pale and sharp like ice or glass, especially in stark contrast with the dark hair falling across her cheek.
Or Dennee, who is watching Cara watch them with an expression far colder than anything you could find in mother nature. She gives Cara a dark and warning look that only leaves her with the strong (and growing) impulse to shove Kahlan back against the train and kiss her until her mouth is swollen, sharp and numb like the stinging wind against their cheeks. Heat rising in their throats to bring them warmth.
The sound of Dahlia's voice at her side brings Cara back to herself, saying, "Do you want us to wait here with you?"
Cara turns to find nearly ten pairs of eyes blinking at her with patient smiles in place. Everyone has their holiday cheer face on and set.
And absolutely none of them are Grace.
*
Dahlia and Chase's families both wish Cara a very merry Christmas and offer well wishes for the new year. Chase's mother, in fact, drags Cara into a hug that she just leans into awkwardly rather than reciprocating in full.
"You'll be alright?" Chase asks for probably the twentieth time.
"Yes, I'm fine. Unlike you, I know how muggle transportation works." Cara takes this chance to sneer, just to make it clear how thoroughly unconcerned she is with traveling alone through London. "And I'm old enough to apparate." She smirks then. "Also unlike you."
"Two weeks! And that's not very kind, Cara."
Chase looks prepared to attempt hugging Cara as well, so she takes a step back and shoves her hands deep inside her pockets.
"I'm fine," she repeats, and he nods.
*
Once Chase and his family finally leave, the platform is nearly emptied out of most of the Hogwarts students and their families. There's really nothing for Cara to wait around for.
A bit stupid really, to imagine the Muggles would come to fetch her from the station. It's amazing that they've even agreed to let her come. Imagining actual hospitality was just madness on Cara's part.
She gathers her bags together, checks her wand inside her pocket one last time, and reaches down to pick up Cat… who abruptly races off down the platform.
Merlin, just what she needs. A race with a cat.
Fortunately for Cara, she doesn't have far to go as Cat quickly skids to a (relatively) graceful stop at someone's feet.
And not just any someone either.
*
It's Grace who bends down and lifts Cat up onto her shoulder where he settles in, purring. "He's missed me, I think."
So have I, Cara thinks to say, but it catches somewhere deep in her throat. Instead she reaches to fondle Cat's fur and then shifts the embrace down to her sister's back. Cara squeezes, and if someone was being generous they might even call it a hug.
Judging from the way Grace returns the embrace, pressing her face almost against Cara's neck, she's feeling very generous indeed.
Maybe the holiday won't be so bad after all.
*
This holiday is going to be awful.
The Muggles refuse to remember even the most basic things about Cara. Like that she doesn't want to hug or touch them in any way, and she's not particularly interested in their Muggle sports or politics either. Or that such a lack of interest does not make her "uncivilized" and "ignorant," however quietly they might think they're whispering about it at the kitchen table as she's coming down the stairs.
She tries to get on with them the best she can. She is polite and well mannered, saying "yes, ma'am" and "no, sir" along with "please" and "thank you." It's more than she ever gives anyone at Hogwarts.
But the Muggle Man says things like, "Cat is not a name," and it's all Cara can do to keep from answering. Instead she gives him the look she usually reserves for particularly annoying first years. As far as she can tell, he's only looking to annoy her. Mission very much accomplished.
His wife is no better, even though she seems to think she's putting effort in. "Have some biscuits. Eat," she says, and then waits expectantly for compliments.
They always want Cara to talk -- about their effort, their feelings, their good intentions -- except when they prefer her to be absolutely silent. It's so confusing. They like to imagine Grace as always having been theres, no prior attachments necessary to maintain, but they'd also like the living and breathing prior attachment to be made very much aware of their countless contributions to her sister's superior upbringing.
As if Grace's own developing unease in the presence of her apparently delinquent and disrespectful sister weren't already evidence enough.
*
Cara ducks out to Diagon Alley just as soon as the niceness and the silent scoldings are starting to drive her mad. At least Dahilia and Amnell's disappointment is usually verbal enough for Cara to be able to offer a response. The Muggles just stare and tsk softly under their breath, clucking to each other like two agitated hens.
"I'm going out," she says, halfway down the stairs, and neither of them look up as she walks past.
"Back soon?" asks Grace, her head poking up from behind the sofa, and Cara feels a minor pang of regret. She lingers at the door, spare set of keys in hand, and for a moment she contemplates taking her sister with her.
But the Muggles are still watching, scowling and disapproving, so she only smiles a thin, strained smile and says, "Of course."
She closes the door and locks it tight. Stow away the key.
*
Cara is fully down around the corner before she apparates to a familiar spot directly in front of Quality Quiddtich.
There in the window, the latest Nimbus gleams behind glass so severely smeared and smudged by anxious hands and noses pressed too close that no amount of charms has been able to keep it spotless. Even now, a small boy with dusty brown hair is pressing his face against the glass. If anything, he might be halfway to cleaning it again as he's practically drooling.
Cara has no interest in a new broom for herself. There isn't any point when her Quidditch career is so close to an end, now in her final year at Hogwarts. Such a pricey luxury purchase would be ridiculous, but there's no harm in looking for something small for herself.
The point here is to make the hours pass by away from the Muggles until she can tolerate more of their questions and false kindness, and that's easier to accomplish if she actually spends the time searching for something. Anything at all will do.
So she starts along the back wall, examining the spines of books about Quidditch theory, before quickly growing bored and switching instead to the small corner set aside for broom maintenance. There are only a few shelves here with tools for twig grooming; incantations to regenerate lagging charms for improved handling and control; and a few polishes to give it a nice sheen. Cara wonders idly if the section dedicated to broom care is so much smaller than all the rest to encourage lazy witches and wizards to buy a new broom instead.
Judging by the fact that she's currently the only person in a relatively crowded store looking at the broom maintenance and grooming products, they might be onto something.
*
Cara has only been in the store long enough to select a new polish for herself and to handle a few new Beater's bats before her luck takes an abrupt change for the worse.
She'd recognize Richard Cypher's stupid grin and cockeyed haircut anywhere. Merlin, but Cara has had bad luck with shops this month.
At least he hasn't got Kahlan with him. That's a (small) mercy, as Cara's fairly certain she wouldn't be able to tolerate seeing the two of them joined at the mouth today. Might upset her stomach and lose all the contents that nice Mrs. Muggle shoved down her throat for breakfast and lunch.
Still, that's no reason for Cara to go out of her way to say hello. In fact she does exactly the opposite, doing her best to angle her back toward the Gryffindor Seeker while paying especially close attention to a pair of dragon-hide gloves.
But apparently to no avail.
"Cara!" Richard calls from across the store, waving to her as if they're the best of friends.
It's almost uncanny how bad both he and Amnell are at reading a situation. Maybe they really are perfect for one another.
"Oh, hello." Cara's smile can really only be described as pained -- or perhaps long suffering -- when Richard comes over with a ready smile and a hand held out to shake. Cara stares at it for a moment until he at least takes the hint well enough to retract. "… no Kahlan today, I see."
Richard shrugs and holds up his hands as if to indicate that he isn't hiding her in his pocket. Which Cara really could have deduced all on her own, but that's the Gryffindor standard for helpfulness for you. "Yeah, I'm with my little sister today." His eyebrows lift and his smile gets even wider.
So not a distant relation then, but a sister -- one who isn't at Hogwarts. There are only so many things that could mean, and Cara does her best to keep her curiosity from registering on her face. She settles instead for a sort of bored and blank neutrality, with just the slightest hint of a sneer. "And is your sister invisible?"
Richard laughs the hearty laugh of good friends sharing a special inside joke, and now Cara's sneer is immediately much larger. "No, she just doesn't like Quidditch as much as I do. We're meeting up again after." He points somewhere further down the alley through the window, but Cara is far too distracted to make note of which shop.
Is he deliberately avoiding explaining how he has a sister old enough to be in fourth or fifth year who hasn't ever been to school or is he just too dense to notice the obvious question that any fool would want answered?
Given that he's a Gryffindor, Cara is willing to lean toward the latter.
"What about you?" Richard smiles and moves his hands in a way that almost look as if he's about to touch, and Cara sways back around to the other side of the table just to be sure. Friendly gesture or not, she's not interested.
"Gloves." She points, just to be clear. "For me."
"Dragon-hide?" Richard whistles, sounding impressed. "Very nice." He picks up a pair and tries them on, flexing the fingers. "Very nice." His smile somehow grows even larger, if you can believe it. Cara barely can. "These are fantastic, Cara. You should definitely buy them."
Cara sneers. "I'll take your much needed opinion under advisement, Seeker."
It's true that dragon-hide is meant to be especially responsive and improve one's grip and handle of a Beater's bat. It'd be a fantastic Christmas gift to herself. When you swing and thwack as enthusiastically as Cara does, there is little room left for improvement in pure technique and craft. At that point, it's all down to strategy and equipment.
Unless your family is rich and can afford a new broom almost yearly.
It hasn't escaped Cara's notice, for example, that Richard received the latest Nimbus model via owl post just one month ago. A more modest family might have sent it to the dorms in the evening, but leave it to a Gryffindor to unwrap his gift in front of the entire school.
Once again, Cara's unsure if Richard was being spiteful or simply oblivious.
But since it seems that subtlety is an art which escapes nearly all Gryffindors, she makes a point of saying very slowly and with great enunciation, "Well, it was nice seeing you, but I'll pay for these now," before turning sharply away.
Just see him try to follow.
*
But he does.
Richard follows her into the line, still talking, and then rushes through paying to join Cara at the door.
Merlin, does he really somehow think that they are friends because he threw poor, confused Leo at her one day?
That hardly makes them friends. If anything she's a customer who sampled merchandise Cypher was eager to hoist off onto others. But now she wants her money back if stalking was always included as part of a secret package deal.
"Look," Cara says, trying not to let her annoyance show since poking at Gryffindors generally only makes them incensed and further irrational -- and then he might never leave. "I've really got to get back."
Then she turns to see Richard looking at her like she just tried to murder a small litter of kittens right in front of him. Merlin, she wouldn't have thought he'd take it so hard, but the expression on his face is positively horrified.
Though come to think of it, he's not really looking at her so much as directly past--
"Brother."
Oh, well at least that makes more sense. And if Richard's look is one of horror and mild disgust, Cara can't quite disguise her gleeful excitement. Anything that makes Richard Cypher squirm this much will at least have to be interesting.
Like just now his voice is thick and sandpapery, worn through like old leather. "… Rahl."
"Now, now. That isn't any way to wish me a Merry Christmas, is it?" The man is handsome in a different way than his brother. While Richard is squat and stubborn in a way that makes him sturdy, this man is sleek with even a smile that seems somehow dangerous.
"You're not invited to Christmas," Richard almost spits.
"Oh, what a pity. I'd hoped the invitation was merely lost mid-flight."
Richard swallows thickly, as though he's perhaps about to cry, and suddenly this is not nearly as fun as Cara had hoped. Not if people are going to start crying and expecting Cara to sympathize for no good reason other than she happens to be in proximity.
"After all," the man continues; "If that stunted little Squib is welcome to dinner, I can't see how you'd turn me away."
Apparently that emotion Cara perceived welling up in Richard was actually white hot rage. She can see it much more clearly now in the slight twitching at his jawline. Now this Cara understands all too well.
It's as familiar as the uncertain look of surprise and disdain sent her way when the man finally notices her standing there. "And who are you?" he sneers slightly.
Not to be outdone, Cara immediately redoubles her own smirk. "Cara Mason. Disinterested observer." Which is apparently enough to earn Cara a smile as the man extends his hand. This time she accepts the handshake, and notes the way it makes Richard bristle.
"Mason?" His voice is oily but his hands are soft. Cara immediately dislikes the combination. Something about him stinks of weakness and letting other men do his fighting for him. "I'm afraid I don't know the name."
Richard looks ready to intervene, but Cara won't have Richard Cypher rushing to her rescue. "That's because I'm muggle-born," she says challengingly, her eyes flashing with unspoken threats.
"… really."
He makes no effort to hide the expression of distaste or the way he rubs his hands against his robes, as if to clean them. Cara's eyes travel over to Richard, one single eyebrow lifting. You can't pick your own family, but judging by the look on Richard's face you can at least be mortified by them no matter if they're Muggle or wizard.
*
Cara leaves her wand bound up in a sock and hidden at the bottom of her bag. It wouldn't do to have one of the Muggles spot it, and she feels certain they'd never reach inside of her things. Probably scared of what they'd find. The way they jerk or flinch away, they seem half-convinced Cara carries a knife on her at all times.
Maybe she ought to start. She feels completely naked without her wand.
At night, with all of them asleep, she takes a few moments to herself to handle it gently. Breathe softly enough, and you can almost hear the hum of the magic in the vine wood.
"Lumos," she whispers, filling the cramped side bedroom with an eerie blue light. It illuminates every scratch and crack of paint, every stain that reveals their disinterest and disuse. This is the dusty corner they've shoved her into, far across from the other side of the house where her sister sleeps.
But alone in the dark, the magic itself is almost like a second being, humming in the air around her.
It slips into the empty space inside her bed, crawls deep under her skin. It's almost like feeling whole, or being a real person who really has a place somewhere. An unusual sense of belonging.
Until she hears a sound beyond the door, out there in the hallway, and it's time to hide it all away again.
Nox.
The night is empty and dark and Cara is alone.
*
On days when the snowfall is heaviest, Cara can't escape to Diagon Alley. She tries slipping out "to see a friend," but the Muggles are having none of it.
"You're our responsibility," they laugh, and don't bother to hide the regret and dislike behind their eyes.
She spends most of that time alone with Grace, trying to think of things to say.
Her sister's silence is much more unbearable than any Muggle kindness.
*
A few days worth of The Daily Prophet show up one morning, clutched in the beak of an eager owl that pecks several times at the window before Cara is able to drag herself from the bed to let him in.
He prances along the ledge, looking quite pleased with himself, but Cara just shoos him away and slams the window shut. She hasn't anything to feed him and it wouldn't do for the Muggles to notice an owl showing off in the upstairs window.
The papers are from Dahlia. It's either her idea of an early Christmas gift to keep Cara still in the loop of the goings on of the wizarding world, or it's an attempt to get her in trouble with the Muggles. Possibly a bit of both.
She takes a coffee from downstairs along with a bit of toast and eggs. Cara thanks Mrs. Muggle several times, but only gets a strained smile in return before retreating back upstairs.
Let them have breakfast to themselves if they like.
In the meantime, Cara studies the Prophet and tries not to drip egg and crumbs all over it.
She examines the Quidditch scores and mentally vows to bring along a copy of the league standings when she meets up with Chase on the train ride back to Hogwarts.
*
She carefully tears the scores out with her own hands. It wouldn't do to receive a notice from the Ministry for a charm cast in a Muggle residence just to cut a paper loose.
But the tear is jagged and uneven, and the center of her palm aches to reach for her wand.
*
Sometimes in the middle of the day, Cara finds herself reaching for her pocket and the familiar weight of her wand.
There is a moment of flickering panic when she finds it isn't there before the reality registers fully in her mind again. It wouldn't be, not this week.
One of these times, Grace catches her checking and gives a warning sort of look. Disapproving.
Cara doesn't reach for it again, not while she's downstairs.
As a solution, she spends more and more time upstairs alone.
*
Grace and her family of Muggles go off to church in the evening, but Cara stays behind. It earns her a dirty look that she easily ignores. It's not as if they can hate her anymore than they already do.
She hears bells in the street chime as midnight strikes and it's fully Christmas.
There are lights on the tree downstairs casting an eerie glow, but the pale blue light from the wand in her room is enough for her.
*
Another day, another owl on the window ledge, but this one is far more restrained. It's so considerably well mannered that Cara couldn't really say how long it had been waiting once she notices.
But she recognizes that owl.
It's Kahlan's, the one she had borrowed before, clutching a parcel and pecking at the window.
Cara nearly trips over her own feet in the process of getting to the window. Once there, her hands grab hold of the sill to steady herself, swaying a little, before she wrenches the window open.
"Wenlock," she says, the surprise showing in her voice. In Cara's experience, wizarding owls are capable enough at understanding english -- at least as good as many people -- that she only feels slightly foolish for speaking aloud in a room with only an owl for company.
Wenlock drops the package lightly in her hands and flies up to settle on her shoulder. She weighs a great deal more than she looks.
"You-- oh." Cara blinks. "Merry Christmas?" The owl hoots once, almost expectantly, and then watches. "I… didn't get Kahlan anything," Cara says rather lamely, feeling almost embarrassed. Which is completely absurd. Why should she be embarrassed? Since when do she and Amnell exchange gifts?
But Wenlock only hoots again, this time with a definite hint of reproach.
Feeling frustrated and perhaps a little ashamed -- shamed by an owl of all things -- Cara digs through her shopping bag from the trip to Quality Quidditch the other day. She sighs and rounds back on the owl. "These are Beater's gloves. She won't even have a use for these."
Wenlock simply blinks.
"… polish it is then."
Preferring not to think whether or not polish for your broom is the sort of gift that Kahlan would be inclined to read something into, Cara wraps it quickly using the same simple brown packaging that Kahlan sent along, unwrapping her own gift in the process.
It's a pair of thick, woolen gloves in simple black with trim in Hufflepuff's buttercup yellow. Attached is a note in Kahlan's familiar, careful script:Cara,
I've never seen you with gloves on, even when it's very cold.
It isn't good for your health.
Please keep warm, and Merry Christmas.
- Kahlan Amnell
When would she have seen? It's strange to think of Kahlan watching her at times when Cara might simply be passing across the lawn or down the hillside. How long has she been watching?
Another impatient hoot brings Cara back to the moment, and Wenlock's unwavering stare.
"… I'll send a note as well, shall I?"
The only creature with a gaze more impertinent than Kahlan Amnell is her bug-eyed, irritating owl. Hoot, it says again, and Cara sets down to writing.
Dear Kahlan, she writes, but then quickly strikes it out.
She starts over.
Amnell
I appreciate your gift, and hope that you are well. Here is some polish for your broom.
I wouldn't know what else to give to the perfect girl who has everything.
- Cara
Once finished, Cara stares at her own writing for several moments, wondering if it sounds especially harsh and not at all grateful. It's not as if Cara isn't pleased by the gift -- except for how much it has inconvenienced her to have an owl bossing her around so early in the morning.
Still staring, still thinking, she bites the tip of her quill and looks back to the window where the owl came in. Snow has begun to fall, buffeting the glass in waves of white. Wenlock really ought to leave soon, before the weather gets worse.
Mind made up, Cara crosses a line through the final full sentence and stuffs the note down inside with the package. "Alright then, off you go." She ties it carefully to Wenlock's leg and smiles despite herself. "Go bother Kahlan for a while."
*
Apparently quite displeased by Wenlock's intrusion in their room, Cat finally reemerges from his hiding place beneath the bed. He creeps along with his belly to the ground and tail stuck up at an odd and agitated angle.
"There you are." Cara rolls him over with one gentle shove and toys with the soft underside of his chin. "Traitor."
Cat yowls with indignation, but quickly surrenders in a slump.
Outside, the snow falls even harder.
*
It is snowing at King's Cross two days later when Cara readies to board the train back to Hogwarts.
"I'll miss you," Grace says with tears in her eyes, and Cara knows that her little sister must really think that it's true. It can't be, of course. Not exactly.
Grace misses the memory of a sister more like her, the one she shared a childhood with.
She doesn't miss the real Cara: half witch and all bitch. What would be the point?
But Cara lies easily enough even as she strains to kiss her sister's cheek in a way that seems even halfway natural, saying, "I know." And then, far easier, comes the truth. "I miss you too." It's only a whisper, as is often the case with confession. Like a prayer murmured flush against Grace's ear. "I'll visit again."
It well may be that that's just another lie.
*
Cara takes off down the platform at a run, Cat falling in step beside her.
They hit the bricks with a shuddering gasp and a brief involuntary wince. Every time, even still.
It's not fear exactly, but a sort of reluctance all the same.
The barrier between one world and the next draws closed behind her. She glances back over her shoulder and Grace is gone.
She simply isn't there.
*
Classes back resume as if they'd never left off, but for the students it serves as a violent jolt to the system.
Like a machine left to idle for two weeks starting back up again, their internal engines grind and sputter. It's the sort of metaphor that most of the other students wouldn't even understand unless they happen to be excelling in their Muggle Studies courses, but it strikes Cara as especially apt.
She consumes large helpings of coffee at breakfast every morning and isn't even put off by Dahlia's casual remarks about stunted growth.
"I'm finished growing, I think."
"But not done with maturing, I hope," Dahlia drawls with a thin-lipped smile.
A few dozen snide responses spring to mind, but Cara isn't interested in picking a fight, not now.
They have a match to win soon. The peace must be kept.
*
Once Snape threatens to schedule detention during Quidditch practice, Chase tackles his Potions work with a never before seen enthusiasm. Cara even offers suggestions when she sees him struggling over the last foot of an essay one night, but then warns him to cross-check with the book to be certain.
She won't be held responsible for a missed practice. They need the time on the field together working out strategies to deal with distracting Richard, and Cara especially needs the extra time to wear in her new gloves. They're slick and impressive, but still very raw and stiff. Dragon-hide takes several hours to work in. Worth the effort in the long run, but worrying in the moment when her hands still feel clumsy and stiff holding the Beater's bat.
"You ought to roll them around the bat. Like dough, you know?"
"Like…"
Chase nods, hefting his broom across his shoulder. "For cooking."
Dahlia's eyebrows draw so high up along her forehead they're almost in her hair. "Since when do you know anything about cooking?"
"Come off it, Dahlia." Chase nudges them both and winks. "If eating were part of an exam, I'd get an O for certain."
Cara smiles despite herself, but draws back from the touch. "Right, so I'll roll my gloves like baking dough. But alright if I wear them in the meantime?"
"Or, you know what you ought to do…" Chase slows to a stop, speaking in the quietly speculative tones of someone thinking very hard or trying to recall something. "Is get some time in at the practice room."
For as stupendous an idea as Chase clearly thinks this is, Cara hasn't the foggiest what he's on about. "The-- Sorry, what?" She exchanges a quick look with Dahlia, who looks equally confused.
Chase just blinks at them, nonplussed. "Well, surely you've been there." More blinking. "It's on the seventh floor. Loads of equipment for practicing Beating. Found it my fourth year before trying out." He frowns, eyes traveling quickly between the two of them. "You mean that neither of you have seen it?"
Cara can see Dahlia's skeptical expression from the corner of her eye. It's almost a relief really to not be the only one to find the idea of a hidden room on the seventh floor made just for Beaters… well, absurd would probably be too polite.
"No," Dahlia says, with feigned interest. "I've never been. Please, tell us more."
But Cara elbows her sharply to make her relent. Chase is too nice and naive -- which are nearly one and the same -- to realize when Dahlia's having a go at his expense. It's almost inconvenient to always be the one to have to intervene, but such is Cara's lot in life.
Always in between, if not also in the way.
*
They march down to the pitch as dark clouds gather in the sky.
It's looked that dreary for days now, but the storm has yet to break. The most they can hope for is that it will hold off another 48 hours until after the match against Gryffindor.
"Probably best you got the new gloves, eh?" Chase says, nodding at the overcast sky.
Apart from a nod, Cara refrains from comment.
"Maybe it'll snow instead," Dahlia offers, which isn't especially encouraging. They'll all freeze to their brooms instead of slipping, and the only thing more painful than a Bludger is one that's frozen solid.
Cara slips her hands -- wrapped in black gloves with yellow trim -- deep inside her robe pockets and hunches her shoulders against the cold. She breathes into the wool of her scarf and winces as the wind picks up.
*
In the days leading up to the match, Cara tries to keep her mind fully on Quidditch and beating Richard -- along with the rest of the Gryffindors, obviously.
It'd be a pleasure to wipe a smirk off Dennee's face for one.
So she thinks about flying formations with Chase and rhythms for disrupting the passing patterns she's seen the Gryffindor Chasers running on the pitch over the past week when their practice time has run over into Hufflepuff's. Professor Sprout, usually so accommodating and friendly, has told Dahlia to feel free to toss them off with force if need be the next time it happens.
Cara would be glad to oblige in assisting. It's such a relief really to have a target to direct her frustrations toward other than an ominous and uncertain Future that's so ill defined and difficult to pin down. Take her feelings out on what might be and she wouldn't even know who to blame.
Other than maybe herself.
Sometimes at night, lying in bed with Cat bumping his head repeatedly against her arm and shoulder, Cara thinks of all the things she might have done with her little sister over the winter break. They might have visited Diagon Alley together, or at least spent time in the record shop next to The Leaky Cauldron. They're finally both old enough to leave the house without Muggle supervision, and it would have made for a nice change. She feels a fool for never thinking of it then, when the opportunity was there.
It's a bit like people say they feel shortly after the death of a loved one, going back over the maybes and what might have beens. Excepting of course that Cara's sister is still ver much alive.
And yet, the feeling lingers on.
*
One day before the match against Gryffindor, Cara goes looking for Chase's secret room.
She doesn't tell Dahlia, of course, because that'd only lead to unrelenting abuse and she'd rather give Cat a bath than antagonize Dahlia today. She's already enough on edge on any given normal day.
Aside from that, Cara is a bit embarrassed really to find herself roaming the hallways, in search of an imaginary room. Perhaps she'll find Chase's imaginary new broom for high marks there as well.
In all honesty, Cara's not even sure what she expects to find there even if it does exist. What does a room full of equipment to practice Beating even look like? She should have asked Chase for greater detail, but that would have left Dahlia with the distinct impression that Cara actually believes in the room's existence.
Which she doesn't. Not exactly. It seems ridiculous to believe.
But then, ask her younger, more Muggle self and she'd have said the same of any magic.
If she's ever to find a place fully here in the wizarding world, one of the first steps is probably faith in the things you see, even when they defy most basic logic or instinct.
And if that means giving Chase's ludicrous suggestions a chance at proving true and helpful, then she can spare a quick walk up to the seventh floor, left corridor.
Maybe it'll be a room filled with machines that fling Bludgers for her to practice hitting. Or perhaps flying dummies to aim swats at. Might be there's other equipment for toning her upper body strength and losing some of the lazy weight she gained from spending most of winter hols hiding upstairs from the Muggles and seldom going out.
*
The truth is that Cara doesn't know what to expect when she finds a plain, simple door precisely where Chase said it would be.
The strange thing is that she recognizes the hallway now that she's here, but not the door. She doesn't recall ever noticing it before.
Stranger still is how it almost seems to open slightly before her hand has even reached the handle.
But surely strangest of all is finding Kahlan Amnell waiting on the other side, blinking at her.
Not one Kahlan, in fact, but several -- maybe hundreds -- mirrored over and over. All of them with their eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, with one hand raising to cover it.
All of them blinking, all of them staring, and there in the center, standing from where she's perched on a stool, is the real Kahlan Amnell. "Cara," she says, sounding more certain and far less surprised than she looks.
"… fuck," says Cara, almost certainly sounding as overwhelmed as she feels.
The door closes shut behind her, and for one fleetingly terrifying moment Cara's certain she hears it lock.
*
"What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same thing."
"So are you?"
"Am I--?"
"Asking."
"Oh. I-- Yes? Well, no. I don't know. Maybe."
Cara sneers. "Are you always so decisive?"
"No," Kahlan says with absolute certainty. "Only with you."
Somehow they've drawn closer, though Cara doesn't remember taking a single step toward Kahlan. "With me." She has a strange habit of repeating things once Kahlan has said them, just as she mimics the way Kahlan licks her lips now. Mirror images, just like the many reflections of themselves along the walls. All around them, other Cara's blink back, slightly wide-eyed. Almost dazed.
And there, over and over, the faint smile of Kahlan Amnell lingers, just as her mouth hangs slightly open.
It's only once Cara finally looks back at Kahlan's eyes that she realizes that they've both been looking at each other.
"I was hoping to see you," Kahlan says softly, almost a whispered confession.
"Why?" Kahlan's eyes are on Cara's mouth again, and she hates herself for how she shivers. "Amnell," Cara says, hoping that the firm and cold resolve in her voice will somehow seep into the rest of her.
If it's working at all, the progress is incredibly slow.
"I…" It's a small comfort that at least Kahlan seems to be as lost as Cara -- but only a small one. "I wanted to." Her voice is very low, soft as the sound of her footsteps. "I like talking with you." Another step.
"We don't talk."
Kahlan's laughter is like bells. It sort of rattles and clangs, discordant and jolting, but still soft somehow. Cara isn't sure why she notices, but she tries not to let such sentimental observations show in her face, keeping her arms crossed and her expression a firmly stoney resolve. "Oh Cara," Kahlan says, as if they're old friends. "Dennee told me you'd said that."
It isn't what she expect to hear. Somehow she never imagined that her conversation with the little Gryffindor would ever get back to Kahlan. What else have they been saying to each other? It's so unnerving in fact that she says, "Don't talk to her about me," before even thinking about how it might sound.
How it sounds is really rather defensive.
"I didn't mean to--"
"You don't mean a lot of things, it seems." Cara frowns, sounding much more stern than she intends to. Yet again, the conversation has gotten away from her. She tries to look away, to recompose herself and find some sort of neutral ground, but everywhere she turns is another Kahlan. "Are you so ashamed of your need to kiss me because I'm a woman?" Cara pauses, wondering where such honesty suddenly came from and thinking perhaps it's easier to ask when directed at a reflection. "Or because I'm a Mudblood?" She licks her own lips, and focuses intently on not staring at Kahlan's.
"Cara," Kahlan says in her most reproachful voice. A sudden darkness comes over her expression and settles somewhere in a building knot in her shoulders.
She looks ready to argue, but Cara will not be put off. Not now, when she's finally given voice to the nagging concern that rises up to the back of her mind every time Kahlan has pulled back from her touch. She turns to face Kahlan -- the real Kahlan -- and frowns. "Which is it?"
They both stare at each other long and hard, but in the end it's Kahlan who blinks and looks away first. She relents under the pressure of Cara's steady glare. In the end, most do.
"You don't know what my family is like," she whispers.
And Cara scoffs, a laugh much crueler than she means to use. But it's already there, at the tip of her tongue and over sharp teeth. "At least you have family." She draws closer, one slow steady step, and then another. "A mother and a father who are very proud of--"
"No." This time it would seem it's Kahlan's turn to laugh. "Oh, Cara, no. Cousins."
It's surprising enough that it interrupts Cara's entire train of thought.
Kahlan Amnell hasn't got a family either? No direct family, at least. Cousins.
"Distant cousins." Kahlan shakes her head slowly, and her hair drifts slightly against the pale skin of her shoulder. Cara can't help but notice. "Dennee and I have lived with them ever since--" Kahlan doesn't even seem to choose to stop speaking. Her words just snap off of their own accord. Sharp and stiff like the tensing of her shoulders, and the heavy darkness that returns to her eyes.
Cara hates herself a little for how desperately she wants to know the source of that heaviness. Maybe, she thinks, she could lighten it. It's these foolish notions that only Amnell inspires that keep resulting in Cara being hurt.
She obviously still needs to work on that.
"It's been a long time," Kahlan says at last. "We've lived there nearly all our lives, but-- They're only my cousins." She runs her hands carefully along her robes, inspecting and adjusting, never meeting Cara's gaze.
"Both, is it?"
Without looking up, Kahlan nods slightly. "But…" Again, the words almost seem to run out all on their own, leaving Kahlan looking small and uncertain.
Cara is ready to give it up at that, maybe finally resign to things and accept the inevitable disaster that this would turn out to be if ever pursued. But then there is a but, and she has to know what follows after. "What?"
"I don't… use that word. Not-- I don't know." The way Kahlan looks at Cara now, so desperate and unsure, it seems strange to realize that she is the taller of the two. She seems so small -- almost smaller than Cara -- with the way her shoulders slouch as she still fusses with straightening her own tie. "They wouldn't understand. That's all."
"Understand." There's something to understand.
What that is, Cara doesn't have a clue.
"Yes." Suddenly, Kahlan's hand is on her own, touching. Gripping. Holding and tugging, and then Kahlan's mouth is on her own. Tasting, shoving, claiming.
Somehow her mouth is almost as aggressive as her hands, which immediately wrap themselves around Cara's back, slipped up underneath her robe and across the back of her sweater. Give Kahlan much time, and Cara's certain she might be halfway toward undressing without even breaking fully from the kiss.
She's not sure that she'd mind.