Chương 208: Ch198- H.E.A.R.T.

Draco stood stiff near the edge of the benches, hand in his pocket, clearly second-guessing himself. He bit his lip and looked around the empty room like he expected a ghost to pop up.

"You knew it was me," he said finally.

"Right?" Cassian tilted his head with a grin.

"Not sure what you're on about." Draco didn't buy it. He kept staring at the floor.

"Thank you," he said after a beat.

"For stopping Moody." Cassian shrugged.

"Don't get the wrong idea, Mr Malfoy. I'd have stopped him either way. Whatever you may or may not have done last summer doesn't come into it." Draco gave a small nod.

"Sir... I've had Occlumency lessons. Most of us, proper heirs, have. But the family methods always have... gaps." Cassian nodded. He'd figured as much years ago. Pure‑blood families hoarded secrets the way dragons hoarded treasure, piled deep, warded tighter, and absolutely lethal if someone tripped the wrong charm, most of those secrets would bury them if they ever saw daylight. The Rosiers weren't any different.

Most houses had built-in safeguards to keep embarrassing history exactly where it belonged, under lock, rune, and generational paranoia. If Regulus didn't want something repeated, his wards would clamp down on the listener's throat like a vice. Hear it inside the boundary, and you couldn't speak it outside without his say‑so. Helpful for inheritance. Less helpful for therapy. But that wasn't the only rot Cassian had spotted.

The Occlumency method in the Rosier line had a gap, small, intentional, and pointed straight to whoever held the family seat. A quiet backdoor. The kind that let the head of the house slip through mental walls unnoticed. He'd bet galleons other families had their own versions. Probably worse. Lucius didn't strike him as the sort who'd let his heir wander around with a mind he couldn't peek into if necessary. Made sense of how Draco had warned him before the attack, vague as fog, never naming anything directly.

Perhaps not that he didn't want to. More likely he couldn't. Not with his father's magic stitched through his shields. Draco drew a breath, shoulders tight. It looked like he had to shove the next words out.

"Can you... can you help me patch mine?" Cassian leaned back against the nearest desk.

"Patch it, hm?" Draco didn't look up.

"Yes, sir." Cassian rubbed his jaw.

"Your current one's locked to your family line. Hidden hinges. Old bindings. If I tweak the wrong bit, you'll end up with an Occlumency collapse and a headache that'll make you swear off being conscious." Draco swallowed.

"I know."

"And patching a new structure," Cassian added, "means building something that doesn't trigger the family hooks. There is a big chance that your father will feel it the second you put it up wrong." Draco's fingers curled around the edge of the bench.

"I know that too." For a second, Cassian didn't answer. Patching Occlumency was a surgery, not a simple trick. It was a blindfolded sprint across live wire. And if Cassian was honest, a part of him wanted to say no. But if Draco was willing to burn the bridge back to Lucius... Then someone, somewhere, had taught him what pain really meant. Cassian sighed and set a hand on Draco's shoulder. The boy startled like he'd been touched by a Dementor, eyes flicking to the hand as if it might bite. He gave the boy a smile.

"Of course." The tension in Draco's spine loosened. Relief washed over his face so clear Cassian almost felt bad for not doing this sooner. He couldn't help himself, though. The question came out before he'd thought twice.

"Why not ask Severus? He's better than me at Occlumency. Knows you. Knows your family's quirks. Easier option." Draco's mouth tightened. He stared past Cassian's desk. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"He'd tell my father," Draco said quietly.

"Not to be cruel. He'd think it was his duty. He's... loyal. In his way." Cassian let his hand fall back to his side, humming. Draco shifted, looking anywhere but Cassian.

"I need someone who won't report back. Someone who won't say it's disloyal. Or stupid. Or..." He cut himself off, swallowing whatever else he'd been about to confess. Cassian nodded.

"You want a clean wall. Not one with your father's hooks in it." Draco didn't answer, but the silence said enough.

"Alright," Cassian said.

"We'll patch it. Carefully. Quietly. No fireworks unless something catches fire, in which case we blame Finnigan." Draco huffed a short breath that might've been a laugh. Hard to tell. His shoulders dropped an inch.

When Cassian got a visit from Moody later that evening, he didn't even look surprised. The knock was too sharp, too impatient, and too angry to belong to anyone else. He opened the door halfway.

"Alastor. What can I do for you?" Moody pushed past him without waiting to be invited. Both eyes locked onto Cassian.

"Why do you keep interfering in my business?" He growled. Cassian shut the door with his foot.

"When that business involves harming my students, I don't care whose name's on the door." Moody's jaw jumped.

"You think you know better than me? A few books and you reckon you can lecture me on real threats?" Cassian folded his arms, unsurprised that his conversation with Dumbledore had likely been repeated verbatim to Moody.

"No. I think the moment you start waving Unforgivables at children, you've lost the right to whinge about people stepping in." Moody took a step closer.

"You're soft." Cassian gave a slow blink.

"Right. That must be it. Me, soft. Can we skip the posturing and get to why you're in my room instead of wherever you store the eyeballs you polish at night?" Moody's lip curled.

"They're weak." Cassian straightened.

"They're children."

"You don't sharpen steel by leaving it in the drawer," Moody snapped.

"You don't sharpen it by hitting it with curses until it bends." Moody snorted.

"War doesn't care how old they are. Better they see it now." Cassian tilted his head.

"Funny philosophy for someone who couldn't tell a dinner squabble from a duel." A flicker of something went through Moody's face. Annoyance. Offence. Hard to tell with all the scars. He jabbed a finger at Cassian.

"You blocked my spell." Cassian shrugged.

"You were aiming at a fourteen‑year‑old eating shepherd's pie. I'd block it again." Moody stepped in so close Cassian could smell knotgrass and damp sock.

"You think you know danger? You've no idea what crawls out when you're not looking." Cassian didn't flinch.

"If something's crawling out, maybe don't condition half the school to obey the first voice that tells them to jump." Moody's real eye narrowed.

"You don't trust my judgement."

"Correct." That seemed to catch him. He'd expected an argument, maybe a hedge. Not blunt honesty.

"Why?" Moody's stare didn't budge.

"Heard you had a row with Lucius. Why protect his mutt?" Cassian's brow furrowed. Something itched at the back of his mind, familiar phrasing, a shape of a thought he couldn't quite trace. Deja vu, maybe. He shoved the feeling aside.

"A child doesn't carry his father's debt." Moody grinned.

"Cassy, Cassy... you of all people should know that's bollocks." Cassian's brow creased deeper.

"What the hell are you on about?" Moody gave a short, ugly snort. Whatever he remembered, he kept it to himself. He turned and started for the door.

"Stay out of my business," he tossed over his shoulder, already halfway down the corridor.

The next few weeks passed without anyone setting fire to the Great Hall, so by Hogwarts standards, it was practically peaceful. Cassian kept drilling the club through each step of the mental shielding work, layering complexity week by week, brick by brick. Some students started seeing results. Others saw flames. Same difference. Private lessons with Draco were trickier.

Between their names alone, if the two so much as breathed in the same corridor, someone somewhere would start whispering about favouritism, conspiracy, or an elaborate father-son rivalry with extra curses. So Cassian kept their meetings tucked out of sight, ducking between classrooms, spare storage spaces, and at one point, the back end of the owlery where privacy came at the cost of constant feather-shedding. There was one room, warded and silent, hidden in the stone like the castle had tried to forget it existed.

They could've trained in peace, solid protections, no listening charms, no nosy portraits, but that room... no. Not yet. He and Bathsheda had used it over the years for more... delicate work. It was... just personal. Private. And if he didn't trust Moody, he really didn't trust fate to keep that room secret once others started poking. Hermione, meanwhile, had apparently taken their house-elf discussion and run full tilt with it.

She'd founded a student initiative with the kind of acronym only a very specific brand of Gryffindor could love, H. E. A. R. T. - House-Elf Abuse Reduction Taskforce. Cassian signed on the second she shoved the form under his nose, and Bathsheda followed not two seconds later. That early support gave it legs. By the end of the week, several professors and at least a third of the student body had joined, either out of genuine belief or sheer fear of Hermione's relentless badge-making campaign.

To be fair, the badges were impressive. Enchanted parchment pamphlets let students report mistreatment anonymously, and the group even started collecting signatures for a formal petition. There wasn't a law, yet, but Cassian had promised to work on that too. Which meant writing letters to the Ministry and pretending not to imagine flinging them all into a pit instead. Even Snape signed. Reluctantly. With a scowl and a groan, but he did it.

"Anonymity does not equal impunity," he warned, as though a badge might invite rebellion. Cassian only smiled.

"Glad to have you on board." No one asked, but Peeves got involved too. Sort of. He started flinging enchanted flyers into classrooms mid-lesson, mostly the wrong ones, and cackled every time someone sat on a pamphlet that screamed, "HOUSE-ELVES AREN'T YOUR BLOODY SERVANTS." Progress, Cassian figured, came in strange shapes.