Cassie carefully adjusted the skirt of her dress after having apparated from her home to a secluded little alley behind a business just around the corner from the Stardust Theater. Truthfully she still wasn’t sure how she had managed to allow Mrs. Medina, her favorite regular customer, to rope her into this. She had not intended on seeing the show at all, especially after Virgil had mentioned it. But the old witch had been insistent that Cassie take her ticket, since she was no longer able to attend, especially since Cassie was “rarely going out these days.” Cassie wasn’t sure how the woman knew she had been going out less and less, but after Mrs. Medina had twisted her arm, and made her swear to fill her in on all the details, Cassie felt like she had no choice but to oblige.

Walking down the sidewalk towards the entrance, Cassie found herself smiling ever so slightly as fellow witches and wizards passed alongside her with a similar destination in mind. Mrs. Medina had been right, she hadn’t gone out in so long. Having been so preoccupied with the shop and the strange circumstances around her parent’s deaths, she had become a bit of a recluse, having really only gone out to spend time at her dear friend Theta’s home. Taking in a deep breath of cold night air, she wondered why she hadn’t forced herself out of the house before now. Just outside the entrance she saw why. Across the street, partially hidden by shadows, someone watching, so clearly fixed on her as opposed to the general bustling of people around her. How had they known she’d be here? Had they seen her travel? Cassie squashed the unsettled feelings and hurried inside to find her seat.

Mrs. Medina hadn’t been lying when she said she had the best seats in the house. Cassie found herself front and center, close enough to see the stitching on the actor’s robes as the curtain lifted and the music of the orchestra swelled. It took her a few minutes, but by the time the second act rolled around, Cassie had found herself lost in a beautifully presented story that had every ounce of her attention. The audience roared to life as the actors started to take their final bows, Cassie joining the rest of the crowd on their feet as she clapped for the spectacular performance they had witnessed, their collective gaze lowering as the lead actor motioned to the musicians in the orchestra pit, which magically started to rise up so everyone could see who was behind the talent they had only been able to hear.

It only took her a moment to realize who was looking back at her from their spot in the orchestra.

“Bloody hell…” she muttered to herself.

He was maybe crying a little as the pit orchestra rose to their feet, their floating sheet books snapping shut. The floor shifted and the pit was rising to stage level so Virgil ducked his head to wipe at his eyes.

The last couple of visits to Stardust had seen him replacing the first violinist, who claimed to be unwell. What a lie. They just thought it would be sweet to have him there because of what Threepwood meant to him. V had not gotten emotional on opening night[1] and yet, tonight, as he played the single solo notes for the death of his father's stage persona...

Threepwood was a beloved character to audiences. But to Virgil, he was inextricable from Edgar.

A reprisal of the applause greeted the orchestra as they emerged to make their bows. He felt someone tousle his hair from behind and knew his father had hopped over the floor lights. Virgil was pink in the face, grinning, feeling and looking younger than his age. Then he saw her in the front row: Cassiopeia.

The magic of Stardust dropped out of mind, abruptly. He remembered Mysteries. He remembered what he had to do. So he met her in the eye and winked, affecting a subtler bow.


Later...

"Cassie!" V caught up with the witch in the theatre foyer, securing the clasp of his cape. "What a pleasant surprise, I thought you'd forgotten all about your poor friend Virgil."

He was flushed with the joy of music, a touch boyish.

The audience was still hanging about - collecting their things from the coat check and filing out into the alleyway. A few familiar faces flashed him smiles or patted his shoulder in passing.

"Nice dress," Virgil continued, blithe. "Chinese? I'm starving," he gestured with his violin case. "They serve some brilliant rice wine if you aren't hungry."

1.	17th Feb - Pride and Joy, Et Cetera

She had hoped she had sufficiently lost herself in the crowd that had trickled into the foyer of the theater. She hadn’t known Virgil was going to be there, she thought there was a possibility, but after having gone the entire production without one hint of his presence, Cassie had been lulled into thinking she had managed to get off scot free.

“Cassie!”

Oh how she had been wrong. Turning she smiled as Virgil approached, hoping he wouldn’t immediately find some way to get under her skin for entertainment.

“How could I ever forget?” She asked rhetorically, hoping it hadn’t come off too snarky and quickly moving on to a genuine compliment. “You played beautifully, the show was incredible!”

Cassie scanned the crowd of people as several briefly paused to congratulate Virgil on a job well done, which she couldn’t disagree with, he certainly deserved it. Among the bustle of people, one figure stood out amongst the rest, a wizard, far off in the opposite corner, not preoccupied with a coat or discussing the performance, not joining in as the surrounding wix maneuvered their way around each other to exit the theater. No. His emotionless gaze was fixed on her. It felt like a rock had suddenly formed in her stomach. Who were these-Virgil’s voice ripped her from her thoughts and set her attention back on him.

“Wh-Chinese? Oh, um…” Cassie glanced to where the man had been, only to see he had disappeared in the crowd. Anxiety twisted her insides. Damn it! Ordinarily she would never in a million lifetimes agree to going out to a late dinner with Virgil Carstairs…but the thought of an extra hour or so with him seemed far less distressing than making her way back home, constantly looking over her shoulder….at least this way she wasn’t alone. Fixing her blue eyes back on Virgil, Cassie relented, smiling ever so slightly.

“...actually that sounds lovely, I hadn’t eaten very much for dinner.”

China Town was not far from the nook Stardust occupied in Covent Garden. He had not expected Cassie to refuse to join him - if propriety did not compel her, then the ominous stalking would. Yavin thought it was a good idea to have the witch observed, and for her to be aware of it. She might slip up in nervousness.

If there was nothing for her to slip up on - which was Virgil's opinion - this would at least make him look less creepy in comparison.


"Thanks" he smiled at the waiter who set down a squat bottle of Baijiu for them to enjoy.

Lotus Garden was a popular restaurant-all-year round but they were currently on the tail end of the Chinese new year, and the place was busy even this late in the evening.

They had been sat at a window table upstairs: overlooking the tiled eaves and red lanterns strewn outside.

"What was I saying?" he turned back to Cassie when they were alone again, having made their order. "Oh, right. It's sort of the end of a chapter in his life, the play. No more Aloysius Threepwood."

V poured the clear liquor out into tiny cups. "When the run is over, I suppose he'll become a hermit and try to compose something altogether different. It's important, isn't it?" he lifted his cup to toast.

"Trying new things, I mean."

Something about being in the crowded restaurant with Virgil was comforting compared to having to find her way back home to Diagon Alley alone. The constant and regular stalking was starting to wear on her mental health, making her more and more jumpy with each passing week that it didn’t end. At first she assumed it was just a coincidence. Now she was certain it was happening, but that seemed to be the only thing she actually knew for sure. As far as who was the culprit, she had no clue. She had considered confronting them, demanding they tell her who they were and why they were following her, but each time she quickly talked herself out of it, all the various ramifications quickly keeping her from even looking in their direction for too long.

Cassie smiled along politely as they placed their orders and were given the bottle of Baijiu. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think she’d be sitting having dinner with Virgil. Admittedly it was proving a bit difficult to keep her full attention on what he was saying, the shadows cast by the lanterns outside tricking her brain to thinking someone was out there.

“Yes, indeed it is important. To new things.” she said, joining Virgil in the toast and quickly shooting back the Baijiu. Unfortunately, Cassie hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t for it to be similar to taking a shot of whiskey. She occasionally enjoyed sipping a nice cold glass of whiskey after a long day, but she’d never just take a huge gulp of it.  Trying not to make a complete fool of herself, Cassie stifled her cough.

“Pardon me.” she rasped, quickly grabbing her water and taking a long drink. “That wasn’t quite what I was expecting.”

Composing herself she tried to continue as though nothing had happened.

“Does he truly become a hermit while he works on something new. Surely you must see him occasionally, right?”

Did she...? He put down the baiju he was sipping and didn't even try to stifle his laugh. That was probably his fault. Virgil had a taste for Asian wines and liquors but he couldn't assume everyone would know what he was ordering.

Cassie moved on, like a cat pretending it hadn't just done something undignified.

"Hm?" he recovered from his laughter and wiped the corner of his eye. "Oh, yes. Not a literal hermit. It's more like..." V tapped the rim of his cup thoughtfully as he glanced out the window. "More like he always has one foot in some other world we can't see."

It was funny. One of those things he was used to because he grew up around it. Edgar getting up in the middle of lunch to scribble something down, or spending all day in the music room.

Virgil looked back at Cassiopeia. "Sort of like being an Unspeakable, come to think of it," he tilted his head to the side. "I mean, you must know. Your parents."

For the first time since she had met Virgil all those years ago, Cassie found herself laughing along with Virgil at herself. It was embarassing, but she wasn’t beyond seeing the humor of the situation. As he moved on to explaining his father’s artistic habits, Cassie nodded along in understanding.

“I suppose you’re right, it is a bit similar.” she agreed. “Mother, Father and Uncle used to spend hours after dinner in my father’s study. Goodness I remember my Mother used to be completely engrossed in her journals sometimes, so lost in thought you practically had to shout to get her attention. She used to go through dozens of them…I suppose my father did too, though he usually would lock himself away in his office if he was working in his journals.”

Cassie wasn’t sure why it felt nice to reminise about her family, it seemed safe to talk about the mundane routines she had grown up with. It wasn’t like it was anything secret, it was just her normal. Perhaps it was because she had shot back a drink meant to be sipped over a longer period of time.

“When I was a 3rd year,” she remenised, “I remember my mother was so angry because they kept all their journals on this one bookcase, but they all looked the same so sometimed they’d get a bit disorganized. She inisted my Father get his own set of shelves so he could leave hers be.”

Looking over at Virgil, Cassie reminded herself she wasn’t exactly sitting across from her dear friend Theta.

“My apologies, I’m rambling.”

It was easy to listen. When Virgil wasn't trying to play some insufferable version of himself, he liked to listen. The liquor clearly went straight to Cassie's head so she had plenty to say.

"No, no," he waved off her apology with a twitch of his lips and then leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. "It's such an Unspeakable thing. I keep journals just like that, except mine are more like scrapbooks..."

Nowadays Virgil kept his out of plain sight, though he wasn't surprised the Collins kept them somewhere Cassiopeia could see. Unspeakables used a cypher - and the really paranoid ones, like him, used cross writing too.

A waiter interrupted to set down some boiled peanuts to accompany the baiju.

"Both your mum and dad being Unspeakables must have been intense," V used his chopsticks to pick at the peanuts. "I don't know if I could ever settle down with one. Don't like the idea of my entire life being consumed by Mysteries, you know?"

He would have preferred to ask about the journals but Virgil didn't want to seem too eager on that front. For now he just wanted to keep Cassie talking.

Cassie shrugged nonchalantly, grasping her chopsticks between her fingers and using them to lift a peanut into her mouth.

"I suppose it was a bit intense at times, looking back." she admitted. "I can't say I ever really noticed though. When it's all you've ever known it doesn't feel strange."

Cassie's words were simply the facts. Her parents were often pulled away for work, Uncle Nickie was as well. It was par for the course for them to be locked away in her father's office until long after she fell asleep.

"It's not as though I didn't have a lovely childhood though. They were certainly very caught up in there work at times, but they weren't absent. We were always together for family dinners and holidays or birthdays. We always spent most of the summer at the cabin. It was wonderful to have that time together, even if occasionally one of them had to go to work for a few days".

Cassie vividly remembered those warm summers spent by the lake, sitting on the porch reading book after book. She had found it somewhat foolish how her father had insisted they only ever take muggle transportation to get to the cabin, or was adamant that the whole family put their wands away as much as possible, but as she had gotten older she had found the annual trip to be soothing and enjoyable, chalking up her father's odd rules to him simply wanting his daughter to know how to get by should she ever find herself in the muggle world and unable to use her magic for any significant amount of time.

He tried to imagine the kind of childhood Cassie was describing - it was very different from his own, though Virgil knew this had more to do with him being pulled into theatre so young. But his parents were open, social people. The Collins had a very different private life than the regular private lives of parents.

"I'm almost envious," V drawled as if to obscure the genuine nature of his envy. "We didn't do that as much, get away from it all. It was always summer garden parties and Stardust parties...."

Manicured hands pinching at his cheeks, bangles clinking, the fragrance of floral liqueurs and peaty whiskies, damp grass, string music, laughter.

Virgil sipped a little more baiju. "People people people," he sighed without dropping the smile. "Was it just you three at the cabin every summer, then? It sounds heavenly."

That hadn't been in their file. He had looked it over. The Collins, like many rich purebloods, owned properties. But he couldn't remember reading anything about a cabin.

"If I had a place like that I'd be there every weekend," V remarked dreamily. "Although I suppose you would find it difficult, all those memories."

Cassie nodded as she appropriately sipped some baiju out of her tiny cup.

“Most of the time it was just the three of us. A few weeks every year my Uncle Nickie usually stopped by and stayed a while. It was a nice retreat. The rest of the year my parents hosted their large holiday parties….at least when I was in school they had…”

Cassie paused. She hadn’t talked about her family to someone who hadn’t already known all this. Theta knew of her upbringing since they had been very close all through their school years, but she and Virgil had never exchanged niceties long enough for them to have gotten to know each other well. It was interesting to see this side of him, the nicer side, not the petulant boy who always sought to fluster and anger her in school. As much as she could feel the sadness of losing her parents slowly bubbling in her chest, talking about the past felt safe, it felt nice. He didn’t need to know about how Uncle Nickie had burst through her store, screaming cryptic warnings at her. He didn’t need to know how nightmares plagued her sleep. He didn’t need to know about the people who were regularly watching her.

“Honestly I haven’t visited the cabin yet. I will…eventually…” Honestly now that he had mentioned it, maybe eventually should come sooner. It’d be nice to try and escape. Not only that but… “That's all I have left of them, everything else was lost when they died…”

The waiter approaching with their ordered food interrupted their conversation once again, and Cassie took the opportunity to compose her thoughts to keep them from dwelling on the aching hole in her heart that longed to see her parents once again, to hear their voices, to hug them. Glancing down through the window, Cassie almost immediately spotted the silhouette of a figure, unmoving as they looked upwards in her direction. A twist of dread squeezed at her stomach. How had they managed to find her, again! She had thought, perhaps, if they had noticed her with someone they wouldn’t have bothered to follow. Apparently she was wrong. Trying not to call attention to it, Cassie fixed her thoughts back on Virgil.

“That must have been exciting getting to grow up around the theater though, all that creative thought. Were you involved in it as much as you are now when you were younger?”

He made a mental note to look into the matter of this cottage, which seemed to play a significant role in the Collins' private life. Virgil had known them professionally in the Brain Chamber but their projects rarely overlapped and they certainly weren't in the same social circles.

Now, at least, there were goals beyond just befriending Cassie. He needed to get his hands on those journals too.

"These things take time I suppose," he commented pensively before they were interrupted by the arrival of food.

The clinking of plates punctuated their silence, Cassiopeia clearly in her own world. Virgil thanked the waiter once the dishes were served, and reached for his rice bowl. Their conversation altered course for less choppy waters.

"Involved?" he laughed lightly. "I acted. Did a bit of everything else too. Stage make-up, dancing, music..."

It sounded nice and magical, that, though V could hardly explain what it was like to go into theatre so young. He was given a lot of leeway because of Edgar but it was still a job - still required routine and discipline and responsibilities.

Virgil served himself some stir-fried vegetables as he spoke in an easy, chatty way. "I guess I was used to it the way you were were used to your mum and dad being Unspeakables."

In a way, performing primed him well for this kind of work.

"Didn't you ever get curious, though?" V raised an eyebrow at Cassie. "About what they were doing, all those secrets. You never pried?"

The change in conversation had been a brief respite from having to talk about herself, Cassie taking the opportunity to serve herself from the plates and bowls that had been placed before them. But just as she was ready to ask Virgil a follow-up question about his time in theater, he had skillfully re-directed the spotlight back to Cassie. She may not have noticed before, but as she placed a chopsticks amount of food in her mouth, Cassie’s eyebrows pulled together in a questioning way.

“Curious?” she echoed. “Well I suppose it was intriguing at times, but it wasn't as though they would have been able to tell me anything had I asked, so I didn't. It wasn't any of my business.” she explained, feeling as though this was something he, of all people, shouldn’t need spelled out for him. Silence lingered strangely between them for a moment as they took a few more bites, Cassie suddenly feeling a bit less comfortable than she had been just moments ago.

“It wasn’t as if I couldn’t ask how their day had gone. They would tell me if it was good or if things went poorly. But I’m sure if I asked you what you did this week at work, you wouldn’t be able to tell me the specifics.” she pointed out in a matter of fact tone. Was this making any sense at all?

“They'd commiserate with my Uncle at the dinner table sometimes, talk about something they heard was said, or complain about someone they called Morgenthau's pet. But it wasn't really my place to meddle.” She concluded, trying to bring the topic to a natural end so they could move on, hoping by throwing Virgil a morsel of information by dropping a name she had heard her father say that he’d let them move on to a different topic.

He swallowed a laugh back, along with a mouthful of food, at how Cassiopeia almost seemed... affronted by his question.

Which was fortunate because if he had still been chewing he might have choked. It had been sometime since someone had said Morgenthau's pet to his face, even if she didn't realise she was speaking to the one and only.

"Wasn't really your place to meddle, hm?" Virgil smiled, a gleam dancing in his eyes. "You're really putting me to shame here, Cassie. Such a good daughter."

He drizzled a little more chili oil over his rice as she spoke. "My problem is that I meddle. That's how I heard about all those requests you were submitting," V continued casually. "Mate of mine has to deal with that sort of thing, he's up to his elbows in paperwork."

Cassiopeia's good-girl routine worked in his favour - she hadn't been nosy about Unspeakable business so she wouldn't know much about how things worked on Nine at least.

"You must know they can't tell you anything even if they wanted to?" he raised his eyebrows, expression mild. "It probably falls underneath our oath, whatever your mum and dad were doing. Better off finding your own little clues."

Cassie bit back the urge to say something about the way he was saying she was a “good daughter”. Something in his tone irked her slightly, but she reminded herself this was still the most pleasant interaction with him she’d probably ever had, and perhaps he was just right….she had always been as good a daughter as she possibly could be, even if it painted her in a certain light.

Looking down at her food, Cassie picked at a few grains of rice as Virgil explained his friend was flooded with paperwork.

“I hope that wasn’t all just from my requests.” she said apologetically. Taking a few bites, Cassie nodded. Again, he was right, she had known the odds of The Ministry giving her detailed information was slim, but she hadn't expected nothing at all. At the very least she had hoped they’d give her some vague idea other than “it was a tragic accident”

“I supposed I don’t know where else I’m supposed to look for an explanation.” she admitted. “I understand they couldn’t give me the finer details. But…..they were killed in their home, Virgil. Their entire house is a pile of dust….it doesn’t feel like an accident. Especially since Uncle Nickie-” Cassie cut herself short, suddenly feeling like she had said too much. She hadn’t told anyone about how Uncle Nickie had barged into her shop earlier that morning, telling her to run, telling her to get her parents and leave. She had always brushed it off, the entire ordeal feeling like a freak incident. Trying to continue on, Cassie switched the direction she was going in.

“It just feels like I should be allowed some answers, even if they aren’t very detailed.”