Chương 174: Ch166- Patronus

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

Fawkes let out a soft trill, already airborne, circling around the shining Patronus. He chirped again, brighter this time, and zipped higher, darting between the upper branches like he'd found a new toy. Cassian tilted his head, watching the phoenix fly.

"Well, at least someone's impressed." Dumbledore stood slowly, craning his neck to follow the topmost branch.

"I've never seen a tree Patronus." Cassian's eyes were still on the silver canopy of leaves overhead.

"Read they're rare." Dumbledore gave a slow nod.

"More than that. Perhaps less than a handful ever recorded." He hummed, not commenting Dumbledore stepped closer, gaze tracking a low-hanging branch that flickered as Fawkes zipped past.

"You can send multiple leaves to deliver messages?" Cassian nodded.

"Yeah. About a hundred, last I counted." The older man blinked like he'd misheard, giving him a long, sceptical stare.

"A hundred?" Cassian shrugged.

"For now, I guess. Depends on the charge. Range drops if I get chatty." Dumbledore looked faintly alarmed, which Cassian took as a compliment.

"Oh," he added, "should thank you. I read you came up with the function." Dumbledore smiled, faint.

"Not entirely alone."

"Still," Cassian said, stepping back as the leaves started dimming, "nicely done. Beats the hell out of waiting for a school owl that's half feather, half resentment." A few leaves drifted to the floor and winked out on contact. The light around the trunk started to fade, curling inward like smoke sucked back into a bottle. Fawkes chirped and landed again, feathers rustling as he settled. Cassian tucked his wand away, rolling his neck.

"Well, if that's all, I'll take my leave before anyone decides I look helpful." Dumbledore sank back into his chair.

"Good night, Cassian."

"Night."

The following weeks passed too normal. No oversized dogs lurking near kitchens, no Dementors fogging up the pitch, and nothing exploded, which, for Hogwarts, felt suspicious. Even the poltergeist looked bored. Bathsheda kept seeing two versions of the same moment. In one, Hermione Granger sat at her desk, hand always half-raised, questions stacked up. In the other, the seat was empty, sometimes filled by someone else, sometimes not at all. Names would swap on the attendance scroll.

A conversation she'd had would rewrite itself, answers missing. She didn't say anything. Just noted it, folded it tight inside her mind, and carried on. On one of those normal days, Cassian stood in front of the board, chalk in hand, sleeves rolled up.

"Right, Battle of Thebes. Anyone here heard of Oedipus?" A few tentative hands went up. Most just blinked at him.

"Excellent. At least no one shouted 'isn't that the bloke who married his mum?' We're making progress." He tapped the board. The word OEDIPUS appeared.

"A really old myth, he's the poster boy for tragic irony. A man who tries to dodge fate and runs straight into it headfirst." He turned slightly, eyes skimming the rows.

"But in reality, or what passes for it in ancient magical history, he wasn't just some idiot with a prophecy problem." Astoria's hand hovered.

"Yes, Greengrass?" She lowered it slightly, cautious.

"He was cursed?"

"Correct. His father, King Laius, went to a witch, begged her for a son. She obliged. He didn't pay." A few of the Gryffindors shifted uncomfortably.

"Worse than that," Cassian added, pacing in front of the first row now, "he had her burned. Old Greek nobility were charming that way." Derek muttered, "Idiot move." Cassian pointed his chalk at him.

"Exactly. Never stiff a witch, lads. Especially one that can tie a bloodline curse tighter than your mother's apron strings." A couple of them laughed. Romilda Vane just blinked, clearly trying to decide if this was going to be on the test.

"The curse landed on the boy, Oedipus. Laius tried to dodge it. Left the baby on a mountain with his ankles tied together." He raised a brow.

"Which is an interesting take on parenting." Some winced at the image. One of the Slytherin boys near the back went, "Bloody hell." The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Precisely," Cassian said.

"But the kid didn't die. He was found, raised in Corinth. Grew up thinking he was someone else's son. Then, boom, prophecy shows up.

'You'll kill your dad and marry your mum.' Oedipus runs off, tries to escape it." He gave a tight smile.

"And what happens next?" Astoria answered quietly, "He kills a man on the road." Cassian nodded.

"Random argument with an old stranger. Didn't realise it was his real father. Then he rocks up to Thebes, saves the city, marries the widowed queen. She's beautiful, clever, about twenty years older."

"His—?"

"Yep," Cassian said.

"Mum." Half the room groaned.

"He finds out years later, rips his eyes out, becomes a wandering curse vector. Moral of the story?" He clapped the chalk against the board.

"Magic doesn't care if you meant well. A blood curse is a blood curse. It sticks." He waved a hand, and the timeline of Thebes unrolled across the blackboard in tidy golden script.

"Which brings us to his sons. Eteocles and Polynices. Two brothers, one throne. They try splitting the rule. One year each. Guess what?"

"They fight," someone said.

"They fight," Cassian confirmed.

"Because Eteocles gets a taste of power and decides, 'You know what? My brother can sod off.' Jealousy is an ugly beast. It can make a brother try to kill a brother. I pray I am not that strong." The class chuckled at that. He shook his head.

"Still... It is the same curse, just shoving the next lot into its mess." He turned back to the board to add it, chalk dragging a crooked line halfway through the word inheritance...

"Greengrass will marry her mum too!" Cassian didn't even hesitate. His wand was snapped up. A thin curl of light slipped straight out of the girl's throat, like it'd been hooked mid-joke. It floated toward his hand. Cassian sighed. He fished a bottle from his coat pocket and flicked it open. The light dropped in with a faint pop. The girl clutched her throat, mouth open, trying to speak. Nothing. He sat on the edge of his desk, staring at her.

"In all my years in this school," he said, "I've seen the rivalry between houses make absolute morons out of decent students. And only twice has someone made a comment that stupid." He tilted his head.

"Congratulations, Smith. You're the second." Cassian didn't like doing this to kids. Not because it was harsh, he'd seen far worse handed out for far less, but he felt that sort of spell belonged in interrogation rooms, not classrooms. But they were forcing his hand. Let things like that slide, and it always got worse. One joke today, three curses next week. That was how it started. He held the bottle up between two fingers.

"Here's how this works," he said.

"You'll write two letters. One to your Head of House, explaining why your voice is in a jar. The second to Miss Greengrass. And if I hear you repeat that," he said, voice flat, "you'll lose more than your voice next time." Smith shrank an inch in her chair. He glanced over at Astoria. She was sitting upright, chin high, like she'd grown an inch taller on the spot. Didn't flinch. Didn't blink.

Cassian slid the bottle back into his coat and turned his attention to the board like he hadn't just hexed a eleven-year-old in front of twenty witnesses.

"Now, where were we before someone thought incest was comedy gold?" He tapped the timeline with the chalk. It snapped back into order.

"And that's when the clever spells start showing up," he said.

"Most of them were wandless fighters, artefact-bearers, enchanted blades, but Thebans had proper casters. Wrights, mostly. City-sanctioned cursecasters. Their favourite trick?" He tapped the board again.

"Phobos hex." A few students leaned forward.

"Spell targets adrenaline. Amplifies it instead of hindering it. Sends your fear response into overdrive. Your heart races, your muscles twitch, and your brain starts inventing threats." He glanced at the front row.

"Imagine trying to fight while convinced your own sword's about to stab you." Derek muttered, "That's evil." Cassian nodded.

"It's war. They didn't hex your sword, mind you, just made you believe it was cursed. By the time you realised it wasn't, someone else had already put one through your gut." He flicked his wand. A shimmering outline of a soldier flickered into view at the edge of the board, twitching, panicked, sword raised against shadows that weren't there.

"That's the part history books skip. Everyone wants battles clean and heroic. Nobody wants to write about screaming men and bloody hexes."

"Phobos was outlawed eventually. Claimed too many of their own. It spreads if cast poorly." He carried on.

"Thebans lost the city, but not before Polynices and Eteocles gutted each other. Their curse didn't kill them. They fulfilled it themselves."

"Eteocles locks the gates, Polynices storms them with seven champions. Each one takes a gate, each one dies messily. Brother kills brother, and Thebes gets painted red for the trouble." The class was quiet. Even Derek, who usually couldn't shut up about battles, was scribbling fast. Cassian didn't slow.

"What does this story tell? Blood curses don't care about treaties. They wait. Years, decades, doesn't matter. They rot from the inside. And when it hits the next generation..." he drew a clean slash across the board, "... it doesn't care who lit the fuse."

"Homework," he said, turning back to them.

"Two-foot. One on the war itself, one on how curses shape magical history. Use examples. If I see a single line about Oedipus being 'tragic but romantic,' I'm setting it on fire." Groans followed him to the desk. The bell hadn't even rung, but a few were already packing up.

"Off you go, then. Tell your friends what happened. Might save me the trouble next time." As the last few students filed out with their bags half-zipped and faces still twisted from the Oedipus bit, Astoria stayed seated. Maggie Smith lingered by the desk, clutching two rolled-up parchments in her hands. She stepped forward without being told and held them out. Cassian took them without a word, unrolling the first one and skimming it. He flipped to the second. No foul rhyme tucked in the margins.

No slur shaped into the looping letters. No attempt to be clever. He glanced at her. She wasn't smug. Just blotchy cheeks and eyes glassy from holding it in since the moment her voice vanished. He uncorked the bottle and the thread of light slithered back to her. Maggie flinched as it slipped into her throat. She coughed, then burst.

"I'm so sorry!" she choked out, face scrunched up, tears spilling.

"I didn't mean... I didn't, I just... I thought it'd be funny." Cassian raised a hand and lightly tapped the top of her head like he was silencing a noisy kettle.

"Save it for the one you said it to." She nodded, hands shaking, and turned toward Astoria.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, quieter.

"It was stupid. You didn't do anything. I was just... being awful." Astoria didn't reply at first. She stared at Maggie for a long second, then flicked her gaze to Cassian. Whatever she found in his expression seemed to settle something in her.

"I know," she said simply. Maggie wiped her eyes on her sleeve, half-sobbed a thank-you, and fled. Cassian let out a breath and set the scrolls down, sliding the apology letter to her.

"Better than most adults manage." Astoria finally moved, collecting her satchel and slipping it over her shoulder. She reached the door, then paused, hand on the frame, knuckles white from how tight she gripped it.

"Sir," she asked, her voice shaking, "Did they ever break it? The curse, I mean. Oedipus' family." Cassian looked up. Saw the kindle of hope in her eyes.

"No." She didn't flinch, no disappointment, just tired.

"I see," she said with a smile.

"Thank you." He leaned back slightly, arms folded.

"But you will." She turned, to see if he meant it or was tossing comfort. It wasn't. The way he looked at her, he'd already made up his mind.

"How do you know?" she asked. Cassian shrugged one shoulder.

"Because you're already this stubborn now. Can't imagine what you'll be like in a few years." She beamed, her eyes curving into crescents.

"Thanks, sir. You're just like Daphne said." He waved her off.

"Go on, lunch is waiting." She disappeared down the corridor with a skip in her step, and Cassian let out a long sigh.