Chương 229: Ch219- Dread

Oh boy. If the old guard hated the new law... Lucius tried appealing the ruling twice. First time, the committee secretary sent the form back with a tea stain and "No" scribbled across the front. Second time, they didn't bother responding. The Ministry, to its credit, actually implemented the tracking ward on time. The Unspeakables patched it in quietly. Just a note sent to Dumbledore in a sealed black envelope and a ripple across the country's ambient grid.

Now, when someone cast a harm spell at a Class Three creature, the lattice flickered. Ministry staff were still figuring out how to process the alerts, early logs included a wizard shouting at his owl and a two-hour standoff in Kent involving a kneazle. Cassian reviewed the feed once. Decided never again. The number of grown men trying to Crucio their own teacups was frankly worrying. He wasn't given permission to do something he wanted... That was a bummer, but he hasn't given up on it yet.

Some families tried to bypass it with clever spellwork. Illusion layers, muted incantations, runes to mask intent. None of them worked. The patch was smarter than that. One bloke in Yorkshire ended up flagged seventeen times in a single night for "enhanced obedience rituals" on a pair of cats. The cats were fine. The bloke had to attend a seminar. Bathsheda had laughed herself hoarse. School picked up. Classes came and went. Hermione's lot kept H. E. A. R. T. running.

They moved out of the library and into one of the empty classrooms. Made signs. Assigned roles. It was slow. But it was something.

Cassian sat in an abandoned classroom with Malfoy.

"One more try and we will wrap this up." The boy nodded. Taking a deep breath. One hand steadying the boy's temple, the other flicking his wand, Cassian said, "Legilimens." Draco gritted his teeth. The air shifted. The classroom peeled back, and they dropped straight into memory. Cassian found himself in the Manor again. Same marble floors, same stiff air. It always smelled like old coins and cleaner. Draco's mind had taken shape in the only place he knew how to fortify, home turf.

Problem was, that also made it predictable. Malfoy Manor was built to impress and deceive. Perfect symmetry, corridors that looped when you weren't paying attention, doors that changed where they led if you didn't know the trick. Most people saw a grand house and missed the rest. Cassian knew better. The walls weren't just walls. They were watching. Every mirror had a twin. Every hallway had its decoy. It was like walking through a chessboard that hated you.

He moved carefully through the corridor Draco had chosen for the day's lesson. Walnut panelling, portraits of long-dead Malfoys glaring from the shadows. One blinked and tried to bark something at him. Cassian raised a brow. The frame snapped shut.

"Nice," he muttered.

"Paranoid. Effective." Draco didn't answer. He was behind him, somewhere deeper in the mindspace, dragging Cassian where he wanted him. The problem was, Draco was trying too hard to guide it. That made it clumsy. Cassian moved through the space like a ghost, careful not to trigger the obvious decoys. He'd been down this path enough by now to spot the habits. And patterns. Certain memories kept cropping up. Surface stuff. But the kind that stuck for a reason. Draco, eleven, stepping into the Great Hall.

The lanterns floating, the Sorting Hat humming to itself. His robes brand-new, his spine straight. Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. Then he caught sight of Cassian at the staff table, youngest professor in the room. Already infamous. Draco had laughed.

"That's the squib-turned-teacher," he whispered, just loud enough for a few other purebloods to catch.

"Bloody miracle he can hold a wand." Crabbe snorted. Cassian watched it replay without flinching. Another door. Another flick. Consequences came fast... First class. First blow. Draco had tried his little routine, sneering, showing off, some insult flung at Bathsheda about being a 'Mudblood sympathiser.' Cassian casually drew his wand. In three seconds flat, Draco's voice was gone, and his mates' too. They stood there, mouths moving like goldfish. He let them stew for half the period. Then gave their voices back.

Draco, back in his room that night, slammed his mirror down and cried for Daddy Lucius. The memory flickered. Lucius appeared in the mirror, pale and unbothered.

"Don't fear him," he'd said.

"I've handled it." A few days later, Draco walked into flying class with a touch more swagger. Tried again. Neville fell, Remembrall snatched, broom rising. Cassian intervened. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. He told himself it didn't matter. Cassian was biased. Potter-worshipping scum. Later that evening, Lucius sent a one-word reply to Draco's mirror call. Behave. That memory stuck hard. Cassian could feel the shame roll off it like steam.

The confusion. The fury. Draco wasn't used to being told no like that. He challenged harder. Mocked Potter louder. Pushed more. Never won. Second year was worse. The Chamber opened, and fear crept like rot through the corridors. That evening, reading the bloody letters, Draco called out for Mudbloods. Cassian was there behind students. He didn't see him. He just yanked Draco off the ground with a flick of his wand and left him dangling like a hung coat. Snape stormed in seconds later, snarling.

Cassian didn't budge. Punishment came. The Sorting Hat itself was brought out. If Draco wanted to speak like that, he could be re-evaluated. The whole Board watched.

"If he so much as breathes wrong again," the Hat had said, loud enough for half the room to hear, "I'll re-sort him. Third time, he is out." Draco left red-faced and quiet. He didn't speak for the rest of the day. When Potter was out as a Parseltongue, Draco thought that was it. Game over. Black mark on the boy's name, expulsion on a plate. Any normal year, it might've been. But no, Cassian, that interfering, history-obsessed menace, had rushed to save the boy.

Draco got banned from the duelling club over the whole mess. Potter got applauded. It only got worse from there. His father, furious, marched into Hogwarts with half the Board in tow, ready to sack both Cassian and Dumbledore in one go. Draco thought it was going to be a clean sweep. Bit of theatre, Cassian humiliated, school reset. Except the Board stepped back. As if someone had muttered "Rosier" and hexed the room. That summer, Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. Draco didn't care.

Technically, he was family, Uncle Sirius, pureblood, Black line and all that, but Draco had never met the man. All he knew was, if Sirius finally kicked it, the Black estate would be his. That idea became possible when an old man came calling.

"If Sirius dies before he signs a will," the man said, "you know what happens, don't you?" Lucius listened. Then bowed. And Draco... Draco just stood there and watched. That was the day he realised something important. His father wasn't the strongest. Wasn't the rightest. Wasn't even the richest. Lucius Malfoy had spent Draco's entire childhood telling him that Malfoys ruled by blood and coin. That Draco could do anything. Say anything. Get away with anything. Because they were Malfoys. But here he was. Bowing.

Not to the Minister or a Lord. Just to someone stronger. And the moment the door closed, Lucius turned and kicked a house-elf. Hard. Twice. That was the second realisation. They didn't rule. They just bullied better. Everything Draco had been taught started to wobble. That strength meant cruelty. That power meant control. That respect came from bloodline. But watching Lucius bow low, then kick low, it all started to rot. They weren't noble.

They were cowards who snarled when they had the leash, and cowered when someone else held it. He remembered a man. Who stood in front of the Board of Directors, called them old fools to their faces, then turned around and crouched eye level with House-Elves. Who gave Mudbloods time and attention. And still had time to correct essays with tea stains on them. That summer, when he heard Cassian Rosier dragged Peter Pettigrew out of a cupboard, exonerated Sirius Black, then punched him square in the jaw.

Because he felt like it. His jaw dropped when he heard it. He wasn't a child anymore. He knew what it meant to punch Sirius Black. That kind of thing had consequences. Family relations would be ruined. Cassian didn't care. Draco finally got it then. Power wasn't the name. It wasn't the robes, or the old money, or whatever limp titles Lucius liked to polish in his spare time. And that punch, it wasn't political. It wasn't careful. It was personal. It said more than all of Lucius's speeches combined. No fear.

No waiting for permission. Just truth and consequence, immediate and honest. Draco had known, he couldn't do that. Not to Sirius. Not to anyone. Not with Lucius breathing down his neck. Not with the family name strangling every choice he made. That was the difference. Cassian was a Rosier, yes. But he wasn't Rosier. He was Cassian. Power wasn't your surname. It wasn't how loudly you dropped your Galleons on the table or how quickly someone bowed when you passed.

And all the old books, the endless speeches about legacy and honour and proper breeding, none of it explained how a man like Cassian could walk into a cursed corridor with a smile, risk his job for a Muggleborn kid, or talk to the ghosts like they were gossiping neighbours instead of ancient threats. Draco had clung to the idea that power came from standing above people. Cassian proved it came from standing with them. Which was, frankly, disgusting. And sort of brilliant.

Towards the middle of the summer, his ideals were cemented when that appeared. It was late, past midnight, going on two. The heat had broken into something muggy and still. Draco sat in a corner of his room, wand loose in his hand, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. His thoughts had been spiralling for a while now. Lucius had disappeared downstairs hours ago, red-faced and livid after a floo call. He'd gone down. Into the cellar. Draco didn't follow. Didn't want to know. But his father called him anyway.

Draco remembered the look on his face, tight-lipped, pale, twitching like something had gone horribly wrong. Lucius was scared. Properly rattled. He'd looked around the house like someone was watching, someone worse than the portraits, worse than the wards. Draco thought he might actually bolt. But no. Lucius grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the stairs. The cellar was cold. Bare stone. No candles. Just enchantments humming under the bricks. Draco never liked it. His mother never came down there.

Neither did the elves. It was Lucius's space. A place for... things. That night, someone waited for them. With a scream, Draco tore himself free. The classroom snapped back into place. Dust rattled off the desks. Draco hit the floor hard, palms scraping stone, breath coming fast and shallow like he'd run the length of the castle without stopping. Cassian was already there, crouched beside him.

"Hey," he said.

"You alright?" Draco nodded, though it took him a second to make his head agree.

"Yeah. I..." He swallowed.

"I can't show that memory. It's guarded. My father can feel it." Cassian straightened slowly. His mind went where it had already been circling. Draco wasn't afraid of punishment. Or anger. Or failure. He was afraid of whoever waited on the other side of that door. Cassian's mind flicked back to the image that had slipped through before the break. The first old man who coaxed Lucius about Sirius was the Selwyn patriarch.

Magnus and Regulus had suspected it for some time now, someone nudging Lucius toward the Black inheritance, someone with a long hate and longer reach. The Selwyns would gain plenty from a Rosier fall. But that wasn't it. Draco hadn't been afraid of Selwyn. Lucius hadn't either. That last memory though, both of them rigid, cornered, stripped bare by terror. Cassian shook his head, pushing the thought aside.

"Go and rest," he said.

"You did well today." He reached out and gave Draco's shoulder a pat. Draco managed a weak smile as he got to his feet.

"Sorry. I really want you to see it. But... I'll try to overcome the trigger." Cassian waved a hand.

"Don't force it." Draco nodded, then turned and walked off down the corridor, shoulders tight. Cassian stayed where he was, staring at the empty space the boy had left behind. Who scared Lucius Malfoy that badly?