Cassie paused for a moment, considering Virgil’s request for her to join him in a bit of silliness, an amused smirk appearing on her face as she relented.

“Well, alright…why not…” she said, seating herself across from Virgil at the table and daintily picking up her slice of french toast with her fingers and thumbs, carefully tearing off a piece and swirling it in the puddle of syrup collecting on the plate.

“Oh please, you’re not awful!” she said with a laugh before adding a playful. “At least not anymore.”

Popping another torn piece of bread into her mouth she thought over his question more seriously as she chewed.

“I’m not sure…I suppose you’re right, it’d be nice to come here again with others instead of letting it sit empty for so much of the year.”

Cassie had often wondered why she had really only ever been permitted to come to the cabin during the summer. She had only assumed it was due to her parents having such busy work schedules and school keeping her occupied elsewhere for most of the year.

“What do you think so far? Think you’d ever care to come back with me some time? I hope you don’t find it too abysmal considering the circumstances of our stay.”

At least he had been upgraded to not awful, which was the best Virgil could expect from anyone whose strongest memories of him were from school.

"Not too abysmal at all," he assured Cassie as he mopped up some syrup with the french toast. "Making new memories in old places is how we move on, sometimes. Call on me at any time."

It was a genuine offer. There were things about Cassiopeia's ignorance that occasionally got on his nerves but on the whole she was a nice person who meant well.


They finished their meal and did the washing up, and Virgil went about the very important business of changing records. It gave him another chance to examine the record player; he was certain that it was the anchor of the concealment and anti-apparition charm.

There were benefits to anchoring magic in objects; destroying the object to make a quick getaway, for example.

"How about that tour now?" he glanced at her as he got up from fiddling with records. "

“Right!” Cassie said, clapping her hands together. “A tour[1]. Of course.”

Glancing around she suddenly felt a wave of awkwardness wash over her for seemingly no reason at all. It shouldn’t have been an odd thing to do, to show a friend around their temporary residence, but it felt like suddenly a spotlight was being shone on her memories, glimmers of the past that, up until now, hardly anyone had ever seen or even known about.

“Well, obviously this is the kitchen, living and dining area…” she started off, motioning around them to the space they had been inhabiting since they arrived.

“Up here…” she continued, leading him up the staircase to the loft area. “Is a bathroom and my bedroom, well, the one I stayed in during the summer. Mother made sure I cleared out all my things after our visits in case they needed it for another guest room whilst I was away at school.”

Cassie motioned nonchalantly through the open door to the modest room within. It was comfortably furnished and pleasingly decorated, but true to her words there wasn’t a trace a younger version of herself ever resided there for any substantial period of time. She hadn’t minded much, in fact she had enjoyed the secluded bedroom away from the activity on the main floor. Many a summer night she had laid in that bed, crickets singing their lullabies as the voices from downstairs wafted up from below, the adults not realizing she had kept her door cracked. Ghosts of her past danced in her head for a moment as she allowed Virgil to take in the room.

“-kept in the dark like that!? You’re daft! You can’t honestly believe that’s the best solution for her! That’s going too far!” Nicholas Atkinson’s voice echoed into hearing range, a frustrated tone to his voice as Cassie lay in bed, listening as the voices slowly grew in volume as the adults below entered the living area from somewhere else in the cabin.

“Oh please, you worry far too much.” her mother’s voice followed in a laughing tone suggesting that Nickie was just up to his usual rant about some topic or another that wasn’t actually worth that much of a fuss.

“You’re playing a dangerous game here. If Mortimer ever found out he-” Nickie started up again, but Lawrence Collins cut him off.

“Mortimer trusts us, Nickie, honestly, have a little faith would you! Come on now, sit, relax! Besides, what one doesn’t know won’t harm them.”

A five year old Cassie rolled over to face the door, light from the light beyond it streaming through the crack she had left, shimmering on her blonde hair as she snuggled her teddy closer to her.

“You’re delusional!” Nickie roared, his emotions raising the volume of his voice involuntarily.

“Nicholas!” Saoirse scolded immediately, “Hush! You’ll wake up Cassiopeia!”

There was a long pause, the silence catching Cassie’s attention enough that she lifted her head from the pillow to look towards the door. It seemed like ages until Nickie’s defeated voice broke through the quiet.

“I should be going…I’ll be back next week…” he stated, sounding rather resigned to having lost the debate with Saoirse and Lawrence. The soft thudding or shoes against the stairs had Cassie quickly huddling down under her blankets and closing her eyes to pretend she was asleep. Though she couldn’t see, she could hear someone slowly opening the door, then carefully crossing the room to where she lay. Weight settled on the edge of the bed and a comforting hand brushed hair from her cheek as Nicholas’s voice whispered in the darkness.

“Goodbye my Little Star. I’ll be back.”

Before she felt a gentle kiss be placed on the top of her hair.

Back in reality, only a minute or two had passed while she had paused to reminisce, but catching herself fading into her thought, Cassie quickly caught herself and refocused on the task at hand.

“So down here…” she said, leading Virgil back downstairs and down the hall past the kitchen. “On the right is the bathroom, and my parent’s old room.”

Cassie pushed open the door to the half bathroom so Virgil could see, but skipped over the door that led to her parents room. Opening it felt too intrusive, too soon. Emotions were already so close beneath the surface. She could face that room tomorrow, or tomorrow night….or never….

“And over here on the left is your guest room, and this is the study my parents added once we bought the cabin.”

Pushing open the door to the study it was clear Lawrence and Saoirse had worked their literal magic and expanded the room inside to accommodate an impressive home office/library space, plush leather chairs sat in a circle in the middle while the walls were lined with books. Cassie had loved to lose herself in one of the many novels they had collected over the years, occasionally stealing one to take outside and read in the shade of a tree. Though she hadn’t been allowed to linger in the study for long, what with it being deemed her parents personal space, it hadn't left her a complete stranger to the space. Another quick memory flickered to life.

“Hello Mother!” A sixteen year old Cassie sang cheerfully as she skipped into the office, her golden ponytail swooshing behind her.

“Cassiopeia!” Her mother practically laughed out, startled by her daughter’s sudden appearance as she hastily put back a black leather covered book onto one of the shelves. “You startled me, Darling!”

“Sorry.” Cassie apologized, sliding past her mother and grabbing a book off a nearby end table and prancing out.

“Where are you off to now?” Saoirse asked, following her question up with a reminder. “You know you're not to leave the property.”

“I'm just going down to the creek, Mother. I won't go far.” Cassie assured, giving her mother a peck on the check. “I love you!”

“Don't get dirty please!” Her mother called after her as she exited the room.

Cassie blinked back to the present, clearing her throat as she cast her eyes downward, trying to suppress the emotions that came with the memories.

“Well then, that's everything…I think I'll make some tea…” she said in a casual tone that was somewhat forced. “If you want a moment to settle your things, make yourself comfortable, your bags should be on the dresser.”

With a smile that had a slight somberness to it she retreated to the kitchen to busy herself in some small way and collect herself.

1.	Layout of Cabin: Main Floor and Loft Area

He was the perfect guest, hands behind his back as he trailed after Cassiopeia and allowed his attention to be directed towards whichever part of the cabin they were exploring.

Virgil was careful not to meet her eye or to appear as anything besides politely curious - he didn't want her to suspect he was slipping through the gaps of her Occlumency to spy into a private past. It felt wrong and yet a part of him was brimming with professional pride, at being able to do this without detection.

Nick Atkinson was inescapable in Cassie's mind, as inextricably linked to the cabin as her own parents. He filed that away for later consideration; something didn't fit right there.


"Your parents must have been prolific readers..." Virgil murmured when they reached the study, the room he was most keen to examine. "It's very comfortable looking."

His words might as well have fallen on deaf ears. This time it wasn't 'Uncle Nickie' - a memory of Saoirse surfaced instead. Virgil, who had known the Collins on Mysteries, found it disarming how differently Cassie remembered her mother.

A softer face, the affection in her voice.

But Virgil's attention was on the book Saoirse was returning to the shelf. He recognised that book. Many Unspeakables would; they all carried some version of it, their work notes.

"Yes, of course," he dragged his eyes away from the shelf as his host went on about tea. "You go on ahead. Thanks for showing me around, Cassie."

 
As soon as he was certain of her being back in the kitchen, Virgil made a beeline for the corner shelf. His eyes scanned the book spines there - technical books, not novels. Spaced between the dark covers were those black leather notebooks.

Virgil smiled faintly to himself, picking one out and opening it to the middle.

Saoirse's familiar handwriting spilled across the page, cross-written in Unspeakable cypher. Her notes from the Brain Room, accompanied by diagrams. He flipped through, noting the date at the foot. Three years ago.

The notebook went back onto the shelf. Virgil took down another, doing the same. And then another.

The third notebook was the latest, though he couldn't figure out the cypher scribbled at the bottom of each page. It didn't belong to Mysteries. It was an Eldritch & Profane cypher.

"Fuck." V muttered, flipping through page after page, brow furrowed.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He stopped abruptly. Flipped a few pages back. This wasn't Saoirse or Lawrence's work.

Cassie pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands as she left Virgil where he stood to steal a moment to herself, though it wasn’t the respite from the memories she hoped it’d be as she rounded into the kitchen.

“Stop! Lawrence, stop this instant!” Saoirse’s laugh bubbled and tumbled over her words as she stood at the sink, wrist deep in suds as she attempted to clean a dish, which had been playfully interrupted by her husband who was trying to reach around her to splash a bit of water at her.

“No!” she squealed as he managed to get past her attempts to block him with her body, dipping his hand in the warm soapy water.

A fourteen year old Cassie giggled as she observed them from her spot at the table where she had been reading.

“Afraid of a little water my love?” Lawrence teased, about to lift his hand to flick water at his wife. Saoirse reacted too quickly, yanking her hand from the water and sending a sizable spray at her husband. The two paused in surprised silence as water dripped from Lawrence’s perfectly groomed beard.

“Well now you’ve done it!” Lawrence declared, reaching into the sink with cupped hands to send his own wave at Saoirse. A duel erupted in the kitchen, the two shrieking in laughter as they frantically tried to drench each other, ending in a heap of giggles on the floor, each with water soaked hair and clothes.

Cassie beamed from her seat, a warmth spreading through her at the sight of her parents in stitches from their childish behavior. The cabin always seemed to have this effect on them, they seemed to relax more, to drop the serious and strict facade they maintained so carefully at home and allow themselves moments of silliness.

Taking a deep breath she tried to push the aching sadness she felt as she collected the kettle from the cupboard. There had been times Cassie had wished that summers would last forever, that they’d be able to stay in their happy little bubble in the cabin endlessly, but that was not how life worked. It was a strange feeling, to miss them so deeply despite all the awful things they had done, and the mess they had left for her to tidy up. Placing the kettle in the sink she turned the faucet handle, staring out the window as she waited for it to finish filling. Looking out the window a streak of sunlight pulled her blue eyes in its direction as it bathed a patch of grass through the trees where a small clearing was filled with little white flowers.

“Don’t mind them.” Nickie said as he sat in the little clearing with a version of Cassie who had just turned twelve. “I know they seem strict sometimes. They’re just doing what they think is best for you.”

Cassie sighed heavily as she twirled little flowers between her fingers. She had stormed out of the cabin after a squabble with her parents, and Nickie had followed to try and smooth things over.

“I just wanted to visit the ice cream shop in town. They never let me do anything.” she complained, not realizing how caged she actually was. The two sat in silence for a moment before Cassie spoke again.

“Father says I read too much, that all those books will fill my head with silly ideas that aren’t real. He said proper young ladies shouldn’t ask so many questions…that if I continue on I’ll become obstinate and it’s an ugly trait to have.”

Cassie pulled her legs into herself and rested her chin on her knees, a soft breeze tugging gently at her blonde hair. Nickie, unthinking, laughed and replied.

“Ha! Unfortunately you get that from me.”

“What do you mean?” Cassie asked, turning her head to face him.

Nickie paused, studying Cassie, searching for a moment for the right words, his blue eyes a mirror of hers.

“I mean you’ve been around me too long, probably heard your father and I debating over this and that…I’ve rubbed off on you.” he explained, patting Cassie affectionately on the shoulder. “Trust me, stubbornness won’t get you far…”

The sound of water trickling down the drain caused Cassie to look down, seeing the kettle was overflowing.

“Shoot.” she whispered as she quickly turned off the water and poured the excess out. Grabbing a nearby tea towel she dried the outside of the kettle and placed it on the stovetop, turning on the burner with a twist of the knob. With another sigh she couldn’t help but return her gaze to the window again, this time to the old swing that had been fastened to one of the lower branches of a large tree, and once again she was transported back in time.

Sun shone warm on her cheeks as she swayed back and forth on the swing, her toes barely able to touch the ground as she tried to help herself push off, she had still been a petite little thing at the age of seven. The air smelled sweet from the rain that had fallen the night before and off in the distance critters could be heard scratching at bark and crunching through the leaves as they scampered about, equally thrilled to be out in the glorious warm weather. Life felt perfect, like time couldn’t touch them, like the worries and expectations of the real world couldn’t reach them so long as they stayed in their own personal haven.

“Cassiopeia!” Lawrence called out to his daughter as he stepped out onto the deck of the cabin, followed by Saoirse, and a small man no taller than Cassie that she didn’t recognize. “Come along Darling. Come meet our guest!”

Hopping off the swing she swiftly obeyed, dusting any dirt from the skirt of her dress as she approached the stranger.

“This is our daughter, Cassiopeia.” Lawrence introduced her as she offered her hand for a shake as she had been trained to do. “Cassiopeia, this is Gorey.”

“Nice to meet you.” she said politely with a sweet smile to the man who was just about eye level with her in height.

A harsh whistle erupted from the kettle and Cassie mentally scolded herself for getting so frequently lost in memories when she had her own guest to tend to. Shaking her head, as if she could shake off the nostalgic hold her surroundings had on her, she collected two tea cups and saucers from the cabinet, making an effort to stay focused on the present as she placed tea bags in the cups and began to pour in the hot water.

“Tea should be ready in a minute.” She called loudly to Virgil.

He had reached the end of the notebook, which was in itself unfinished. Virgil kept turning back to the diagrams. He knew those diagrams - they were his diagrams[1] from the Death Chamber. The layout of the chamber, the bells, the musical notes.

That strange presence he had felt and theorised on, beyond the veil. Were they in the hands of Eldritch & Profane, now? His theories?

Virgil got up. He felt curiously blank. Static. Notebook still in hand, he walked out into the corridor, slowly, not quite seeing. He could hear Cassie in the kitchen. Cassiopeia Collins, who knew... nothing. Nothing, right? Virgil stopped, leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. His heart was racing.

He needed to calm the fuck down.

But Cassie's thoughts were there, burning brightly, the glow of memories, practically spilling over the rim of her mind, on a sea of nostalgia and wine. The happiness between her parents. Atkinson's unquestioned ubiquity. A guest. A gu--

Virgil opened his eyes, almost as if he had been slapped awake. Gorey. Lawrence and Saoirse Collins had invited Gregory Pratchett to this cabin. He had only seen the Weapon Czar once, in the halls of CAWW headquarters, but he wasn't an easy man to forget.

Of course. Of course they knew Gregory Pratchett, of course Cassie fucking met Gorey.

       “Tea should be ready in a minute.”

The static in his head grew louder, bees in a hive.


"Cassie." Virgil emerged from the corridor, into the open space. "I need to ask you something."

Despite the noise of his mind he felt calm and focused. The polish, however, had come off his manners. He was not smiling and he had lost his boyish mannerisms. There was a heat behind his eyes that he couldn't explain.

The notebook was still in his hand and he placed it flat on the counter, open to a page upon which musical notations would have been obvious even to a layperson.

Cassie Collins either knew nothing or knew everything. And somehow, the former seemed worse. The ignorance, the blatant and purposeful ignorance.

"Do you recognise any of this?" he watched her carefully, with gaunt and wary eyes. "Can you tell me anything about it? At all?"

Virgil tried but failed to keep a slight tremor out of his voice. He could feel his anger, almost like it was something separate from himself.

1.	May 2016 - Nobody Knew and Nobody Knows

Cassie immediately noticed a shift in Virgil as he entered the kitchen area. Something felt off, like this wasn't the smiling friend she had left in the hallway, like some time between her turning her back and him appearing he had been replaced by a different version of himself.

"Are you-" she started to ask if he was ok, perhaps the charm she had performed to transport their luggage here had gone awry, perhaps his clothes had been accidentally shredded in the process. Either way, it didn't seem to matter as he cut her off with a question, laying a book out on the counter for her to see.

"Oh, um...let me see..." she said as she quickly finished setting some cream and sugar out for their tea.

"Here you go." she said, as she placed his piping hot tea in front of him, attempting to flash him a friendly smile that seemingly had no affect. What on earth had gotten into him, her smile disappearing before she turned her attention to the book. Cassie's eyebrows knit together as she looked over the pages.

"Um...no I can't say I've ever seen this before. Looks like music? Maybe a song? Why? What book is this?" she asked, picking it up and closing it, only to see it didn't have a title. Puzzled she opened it again, leafing through a few pages, a knot forming in her stomach as she recognized her mother's handwriting, though the words were garbled and incoherent. 

"I-I'm sorry, this was my mother's diary..." she informed him, closing it and placing it on the opposite side of the counter from them. "I'm sure you didn't realize, it's fine, I just...I don't want anyone going through her personal things."

It had to be an innocent mistake, right? Grabbing an interesting looking book off a shelf just out of curiosity, right? Surely he hadn't been seeking it out, right? But the air felt charged between them suddenly, an unsettled feeling forming in her gut as a voice echoed through her mind.

"They'll come for you. Don't trust them!"[1]

No...no surely she was overthinking this. He was her friend. This was just a coincidence, surely. Though despite her attempts to reassure herself she found herself hesitant to ask what had suddenly turned Virgil's mood so sour as she kept her gaze lowered to her tea as she stirred in her sugar and cream.

1.	(March 29th) In My Dreams, Shadows Beckon, Whispering Warnings. [SNAPSHOT]

Unbeknownst to the two - and the one remaining quantity keeping an eye on the cabin as well - a tree outside the front door of the cabin was wavering ever so slightly. One could say it was due to a mirage, a consequence of the hot sun, except there was no hot sun.

Garrett had remained within the shadows from the edge of the forest that hid this particular abode. It had taken him no time to shadowstep through the woods, striding through a greyscale landscape that brook no noise from either him or its surroundings, to the figure of of the cabin.

it loomed in the darkness like the silhouette of a ghost, its straight lines wavering like the wispy edges of a faint memory. In the world of shadow, Garrett tucked his hands in his pockets and waited. Watching the two figures through the windows. Hearing nothing, but sight was more important here.

He'd already detected the loss of his tracking bug. its copy had alerted him, glowing yellow and bright the moment its counterpart had been destroyed. No doubt then the young man knew that they had been followed, but he had made no additional securing of the cabin at any point from what Garrett could see. The Auror filed this away mentally, suspicious about the lack of alarm.

Mismatched eyes watched them from the darkness of the slender tree that beheld his shadowed form. Virgil would pick up a book, and his body language changed. Garrett slowly exhaled as he watched the young man put the book down and stalk through back to the kitchen.

The eyes outside would see the tree nearest to the front door seemingly distort painfully, its shadow distending abnormally. Then Garrett was there, whole and hale, none the worse for the wear, casually stepping up to the front door, one hand still tucked into the pocket of his nondescript leather brown longcoat as he knocked, kindly but firmly, on the door.

He stepped back from the door and waited calmly as only a man who could have done this many times before would.

He searched her face for a hint of anything that might betray hidden knowledge of the notebooks but there was nothing to be found.

Cassiopeia Collins, so full of secrets she hardly knew, was every bit as ignorant as she seemed. Her parents were traitors, liars. The information they had been leaking to the like of Gorey Pratchett effectively made them murderers. And here she was, making tea, telling him not to go through her mother's...

"Personal things?" he repeated, making a wandless gesture so that the notebook shot right back into his hand. "This? This belongs on Mysteries. And what's in it certainly does not belong to Saoirse."

Virgil kept his tone even but he was struggling to keep his heart rate in check, breathing slowly and deeply. The knock at the door, encroaching as it did on the scene, wasn't enough for him to take his eyes off Cassie.

If he were in real danger, Alain would intercede. Virgil did not feel in any danger. He only felt angry.

"Stay there. Don't reach for your wand."

He made another gesture, not as smoothly as before, so that the front door didn't so much as come open as it slammed open. And then he did glance at the entrance.

Virgil had half been expecting Garrett Dawson. The ladybird, the stupidly obtrusive questioning of Cassie in her flower shop.

"Come in," he turned his gaze back to the witch in question. "Perhaps you already know your way around, Garrett."

Perhaps he'd been here too, just like Gorey and Merlin knew who else.

Cassie flinched as Virgil snapped the book back into his hand. She didn’t like how he was speaking to her, as if she should have known, as if she was a child and he was passive aggressively explaining some simple concept that everyone knew. She was so sick of this, sick of people telling her horrendous notions of vague things her parents had been involved in without there being a shred of information she could actually use to solidify their statements in some sort of reality. It was all amorphis riddles locked behind supposed secrets she couldn’t find a way to solve. And anyone who had the ability to shine light on the situation was unwilling or banned from doing so. Now Virgil was snapping at her for her mother keeping a diary and writing in it about work? Part of her knew there were things she should have been told, or at least made aware of, but how was she at fault for not knowing when it had been so thoroughly hidden from her? How was she in the wrong for having respected her mother’s privacy?

“People keep diaries, Virgil, I’m sure it’s not a crime to mention work in a personal journal when you aren’t allowed to tell anyone about anything you do.” she tried to reason, a hint of frustration coloring her tone. One night, she had just wanted one night to find some respite from the hell her parents had left for her before finding the courage to face it again. One gods damned night, and even that now seemed like she had asked for too much.

Cassie was in the process of reaching out to take her mother’s book back from Virgil when a knock froze her hand in mid air before recoiling as her body involuntarily flinched when the door was slammed open, cracking loudly as it ricocheted off the wall behind it.

A sick feeling swirled in her stomach as the man she recognized as the wizard from CAWW stepped through the door. No…how did he get here? How did he know where they were? A look of angry betrayal mixed with shock washed over her face, her teeth grinding together as she started taking slow steps in the opposite direction towards the hall, something in her telling her she might need to run, even if it meant through a window.

“Did you bring him here?” She asked Virgil sharply, her gaze darting between him and Garrett.

Oh, this was the perfect time to walk in. Garrett tipped his hat, knocked the dust off his boots outside and walked in, shutting the door behind him politely. The expressions on the faces of the two were not wholly unexpected, but Cassie's expression of shock compelled him more than Virgil's restrained fury to answer her first.

"I ain't 'ere for 'im," he said to her, "and I ain't 'ere for you. I'm 'ere for whatever your parents left behind before they went a-missin'. That was my orders and I ain't got no dog in whatever's goin' on between the two o' you. I want answers for why's your parents dead and why's CAWW knockin' on your door."

He turned his head to look at Virgil, and this time the young man would see the crosshairs sharply focus onto him. "Though I think you know what's up on that now, don'tcha? Otherwise you wouldn't be assumin' that I been 'ere before, when you know there's been no records of my entry into this country ever. I'm sure you looked me up. Your boss knows I'm 'ere, after all."

Garrett sniffed and headed further in without so much as a second look behind him. The open doors allowed him to confirm his hunch, almost like following a scent as he barely took a moment to glance around the rooms on the ground floor, and  head into the study without so much as asking permission.

Not a crime--

It was astounding how little she knew about the nature of Unspeakables. Virgil rolled his eyes, unimpressed by the accusation. As if she hadn't been letting Dawson's ladybird hitch a ride on her person.

The man himself answered Cassie, using ten words where one would suffice. How the hell had V been charmed by all that? Who was this guy, if you took away that cowboy act, that accent?

Virgil blinked slowly at his ramble, his explanations.

"I think I know more than you do," he replied, deadpan and held up the notebook, "if this is what you've come for."

Between the notebook and Cassie's memories, everything was coming together in his head. He could see it now - the long friendship of the Collins with Gregory Pratchett, the slow trickle of intel, how wary the Americans were when Virgil visited Eldritch & Profane.

Not because they thought he was a thief but because he might suspect them of it.

He glanced at Cassie, still holding up the book. There was a cold gleam in his eyes and an angry tremor in his voice. "Your parents deserved everything that happened to them."

Virgil opened the notebook again, thumbing at the pages as he looked down.

"You wouldn't have told the Ministry about this place," page after page, searching for something, "because you're selfish at heart."

He stopped at the copy of his diagram from the Death Chamber. "And now people are dead. And you think it's got nothing to do with you or your fucking memories about mummy and daddy and Uncle Nickie."

“You’ve known?!” Cassie whispered in shock as Virgil spat out that he had more information than Garrett apparently did.

Virgil was lucky she had left her wand on the dresser upstairs, because the words that came next from his mouth had triggered a level of rage she had never felt before towards another human being. A deep, acidic, incoherent kind of anger that consumed every ounce of logic and reasoning in her soul and left her trembling. It was blinding, unstoppable, and had Cassie’s wand been within reach there was a chance Virgil would have been reduced to a steaming pile of ash on the ground. Instead, she swung, her open palm coming into contact with his cheek so hard it made the skin of her hand prickle and burn like she had placed it on a hot skillet.

How

Dare

He

It was all so clear now. This was all a game, an act, a charade to get what he wanted, what the ministry wanted. He wasn’t her friend, he had only pretended to be, and he had played her like a fiddle

“Get out.” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“You disgusting slimy pathetic excuse for a man, GET THE FUCK OUT!” Cassie’s voice was loud, quacking as she struggled to keep herself restrained.”You think you’re some savior? A Hero? Well if I have a selfish heart, then you have none at all!”

Lunging forward she grabbed the notebook by its pages, ripping several as she tore it from Virgil’s hands and flung it in Garrett’s direction. Her judgment was buried by her rage. There were no sides to choose right now, no good or bad, Ministry or CAWW, right and wrong, the only villain she could see right now was Virgil, and an anger that was born from betrayal and cut like a knife.

“Take it!” she snapped at Garret, though keeping her eyes on Virgil. “Take whatever you want, burn the place to the ground for all I care. I have nothing left anyway.”

At the mention of the notebook Garrett turned around, raising his eyebrows. The tension in the air was so thick a knife could cut through it. He walked back into the space the two were in, keeping his distance enough to lean against the wall, making no move to approach.

He could recognise a foundation shaken when he saw it. Revelations that scored perhaps a little deeper than one might have expected. Virgil's words lashed out like a whip, laced with the venom only a snake could muster. In self defence or as a predator? Garrett turned his gaze upon the younger man and felt the bitter seethe into the atmosphere.

She struck back in wrath, as she should. Garrett did not move to intervene or mediate. This wasn't his game to play, and it was a stupid one at that. Virgil remained, unmoving, while the sweet florist turned the wrath of a thousand suns upon him. She'd miss the American catching the book deftly without hesitation, the crosshairs in his left eye tracking it with lightning speed.

He flipped through the pages, some torn but he could read it anyway. The little ciphers at the bottom of each page... the dates. They all lined up. His lips parted slightly as  the work made clear the intent, the use. Words formed on his lips but he never spoke them aloud.

The scent of the chase had turned back, right where it'd started.

The sting of her palm against his cheek, blood simmering to the surface as he turned away. Cassiopeia's words washed over him and it wasn't real, it didn't feel real.

Like watching a scene on onstage, the anger of a woman scorned, nothing to do with him and everything to do with him. Virgil felt so disconnected that he didn't even try to get the book back - he just stood there wearing his sullen face, a red hand print livid on one side of it.

Dead. People were dead and people were going to die but no, of course this is all about Cassie Collins and her precious feelings.

"You'll live," he told her, and the tremor in his voice had steadied into something soft but sharp. "That's more than I can say about the people Saoirse and Lawre--"

Virgil stopped, swore. "Fucking oath. You've no idea what it cost."

He had lived a year halfway across the world, selling himself out in every bloody way possible, body and soul, trying to get at secrets that had been sitting in Cassie's brain all along.

A movement in the corner of his eye - Virgil turned, rounding on to Garrett, who was looking through the ripped up notebook. What was he looking for? V skimmed the surface of the auror's thoughts, keeping his wand within reach.

Dates. The cypher at the bottom of the entries were dates.

"Dawson." Virgil practically spat out his name. "If you want that book I won't fight you for it. But I need the date on that last entry. We can make this much easier than it has to be."