Chương 337: Ch327- The Talk

Cassian carried Bathsheda into his room. She wasn't unconscious exactly, more like her body had simply decided it was done for the day and submitted notice without warning. Her eyes had rolled back mid-sentence, and she'd gone dead weight in his arms before he could catch her properly. He'd managed. Barely. His back was going to file a formal complaint later though. He set her down on the bed with care, pulled the blanket up, and then stood there for a moment doing absolutely nothing useful.

Her breathing was normal but face slack. Whatever had hit her, five years of a world without him, had wrung her out like a cloth and left her here. Cassian sat down on the ground beside her, and sighed before sleep took him too. His head had dropped to his forearm at some point in the night, cheek pressed against the mattress beside her hand. Drool dripping from her arm. Bathsheda lay still for a moment and just looked at him. His hair was a disaster. Jacket still on.

One shoe half off, like he'd started to take it off and then given up. The position he'd folded himself into in order to stay near her was awkward, and she could already tell his neck was going to be brutal when he woke up. She took a look around. The room was quiet. Grey light through the curtains. Early, then. She looked down at herself.

He'd pulled the blanket up properly, tucked it in at the side, and she had the distinct impression he'd sat in that uncomfortable posture all night because he hadn't wanted to leave. She watched him breathe. After a while she reached out and pressed two fingers lightly to his wrist, not to wake him, just to... she wasn't sure. Check. Reassure herself of something. After five years of memories dumped into her mind... she wasn't even sure if this was the reality or the other one. He stirred anyway.

His head lifted, eyes blinking open, unfocused. He looked at her hand on his wrist, then up at her face, and the sleep cleared off him fast.

"Hey," he said, voice rough.

"Hey." He straightened, wincing at whatever his spine had to say about last night.

"How do you feel?"

"Strange." She considered.

"Heavy. Like the inside of my head is still catching up." He nodded like that made sense to him. Reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"You came back mid-sentence and went down. Scared the hell out of me."

"I remember going down," she said.

"I don't remember much of the middle."

"Good. Some of the middle was me swearing in three languages while trying not to drop you." She almost smiled.

"You managed."

"Barely. My back is going to hold a grudge." She pushed herself up against the headboard. He watched her do it without reaching over to help, which she appreciated. She wasn't fragile. She'd just had a bad night.

"You stayed," she said.

"Obviously."

"Cassian."

"Mm."

"I need you to tell me." She said it quietly.

"Whatever it is. The thing you've been carrying since before Norway." He slumped.

"Right now? You've been unconscious."

"I'm conscious now."

"You literally just woke up."

"I noticed when I woke up." He looked at the ceiling. She waited. He reached over and cast the privacy wards without saying anything. Then he folded his hands in his lap and looked at her, and she could see him deciding something.

"I'm going to need you to stay with me on this," he said.

"Because it's going to sound like I've lost my mind."

"I already think that, most days." He huffed through his nose.

"Rude but fair." He was quiet for a moment.

"I'm not him," he said eventually. She waited.

"Cassian Rosier." He said the name carefully, like he was handling something that might bite.

"The one everyone knew before I turned up at Hogwarts as a Teacher. The one the Rosier family was furious with. The one who- " he gestured vaguely, "exists in the Ministry records and on the family tree. I'm not him." She didn't answer immediately. For a moment, what she saw wasn't him at all. A castle where History of Magic was a joke. Where no one listened. Where students slept through lectures and nothing important ever came from the front of a classroom. Where the adults... didn't step in.

Her eyes refocused on him. She kept her face still.

"Go on."

"Something happened. Before I walked onto that stage at the festival five years ago, before I got the position." He paused.

"I don't know what to call it. A transfer. A... I don't know. I woke up in his body. In the middle of his crisis. And his memories started pouring in, but they weren't mine. I was just-" he made a short, frustrated gesture, "receiving them. Like reading someone else's diary." She said nothing.

"I know how that sounds," he said.

"I know you know." He kept going.

"Where I came from," he said, "magic wasn't real. This world... It was a book series. Children's boo- ""You're telling me this is fiction where you're from?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. About a boy with a scar who goes to a school of wizardry. There are seven of them, and the last one came out when I was..." he squinted at the ceiling, calculating, "mid-twenties, probably. A bit after. My mates talked about them constantly. I never actually read them." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Of course you didn't." Bathsheda said with an eyeroll.

"You ended up in them,""Yes." He pointed at her.

"That's the bit." She was quiet for a moment.

"What did you do? Before."

"History teacher." He said it with a shrug.

"Without magic that is. Which is Muggle, non-magical... never mind, it doesn't matter. I taught history. Medieval, modern, bits of ancient. I liked it." A slight pause.

"Some days I miss it." She gave him a look.

"The job, I mean," he said.

"Not the photocopier. The photocopier can stay dead."

"You liked teaching even then," she said.

"Well. Yes. Which is probably why the system works the way it does. For me, specifically." He rubbed his jaw.

"When I first woke up in Old Cassian's body, there was an interface. Like a list in my head. All the spells, all marked as insufficient. And I worked out pretty quickly that when I taught them, properly taught them, to enough people, the mastery jumped. Completely. Sometimes unlocks older variants I've never studied." Her eyes opened a little, but she didn't say anything.

"That's how I got here," he said.

"That's how someone who had the magical ability of a slightly damp cork ended up being remotely competent. Not really talent. Just, an absurd amount of teaching." Bathsheda sat with that for a moment.

"So every time you've stood in front of a classroom-""I got better. Yes." He looked at her.

"I know."

"That's why you taught at any opportunity," she said slowly.

"Even when it was unnecessary. Even when anyone else would've avoided extra lessons or clubs." He nodded.

"I liked the teaching anyway." She managed to smile this time.

"The thing that makes this worse," he said, "is that I don't actually know much about the books. I knew the main character's name. The scar. Roughly what the villain was. My mates argued about the films at the pub sometimes and I'd nod along and contribute nothing." He spread his hands.

"That is the sum total of my foreknowledge of this world. Pub osmosis."

"And yet."

"And yet, here I am." He said it a little flatly.

"Figuring it out as I go. Which is less 'chosen one destined hero' and more 'man who should've paid more attention at the pub.'" She noticed the tension in his jaw. He was casual about it, but there was something tight underneath it. He wasn't entirely comfortable. He was doing the thing he did when he was really uncertain, keeping the surface easy while the underneath worked hard.

"The memories," she said.

"You have his. The old Cassian's, right? You know details from our school days."

"Yes. And I hate most of them." He said it simply.

"He was... not a good person. The things he did to the house-elves alone. The way he treated-" he stopped.

"They're not mine."

"But you remember them."

"Yeah. They're in there. I can access them. I just try not to." She pressed her lips together. Didn't say anything.

"I spent a while trying to undo what I could," he said, quieter.

"Quietly. Without making it obvious. Because I couldn't exactly explain why the family embarrassment had suddenly developed a conscience." She looked at him for a long moment.

"I didn't want to lie to you." He started, "I wanted to tell you everything. I just... didn't know how without sounding completely mental." He took a deep breath.

"But now that you've seen it... it's not fair. I don't want to keep it from you." She sat silent for a while, then she pushed the blanket.

"You're a twat," she said. He blinked.

"Sorry?"

"You've been walking around with this for... how many years?"

"A few."

"Years, Cass."

"I was going to tell you-""When? At my funeral?"

"That's- you're being dramatic-""I'm being accurate." She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. He leaned forward slightly like he was going to argue. She gave him a look that stopped him.

"Go put the kettle on." He stared at her.

"That's it?"

"What did you want me to do, cry? I want tea." She stood.

"Go." He went. She found him in the small adjoining room, standing over the kettle with his arms folded, watching it like he was expecting answers from it which was fair, answers came with the tea. She sat at the small table and tucked her feet under her. He brought two mugs over, sat across from her, and pushed one toward her without saying anything. They sat for a moment.

"Pub osmosis," she said.

"Mm." Her gaze dropped into her tea, but she wasn't seeing it. First year went almost the same, with or without Cassian. Now it made sense, he simply had no idea what'd happen. But the second year was different. A boy wasn't forced into a battle. A girl wasn't forced into guilt. Two of them made mistakes, and events followed the alternative, but... at least, students weren't forced to shoulder the responsibility. Compared to the first two, the third year was different altogether. A shack. A confrontation.

Truth almost came to light and then lost to chaos. A man escaping. A lie surviving. She blinked. Then overlaid it with what she knew had happened. You. Arriving. Stopping it. Forcing the truth to hold. Her grip tightened, then she let out a breath.

"That's really the worst possible way to end up in a world."

"Believe me, I'm aware." He wrapped both hands around his mug.

"I spent the first two weeks really terrified I was going to get something wrong and cause a catastrophe."

"Did you?"

"Probably. Smaller ones." He thought about it.

"I allowed Dumbledore to send the Slytherins into the dungeon when the troll was supposedly in the dungeon. His fault, technically, but, yes. I've contributed to several small disasters." She stared at him over her tea.

"Does it feel different?" she asked.

"Being here instead of there." He considered it.

"It feels real," he said.

"I don't know if that makes it better or worse. Everything here is real. The magic is real. You're..." he stopped himself, something twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"This is real." She watched his face.

"I stopped thinking about it after the first year," he said.

"It's just, this is life now. I'm in it." She was quiet for a moment.

"The Norway cave," she said.

"Yes."

"What you saw there."

"The vision." He turned the mug in his hands.

"Yrsa. The storm. The runes. The name arriving in my head like I'd always known it. Like it was just a memory I remembered. That was one of the things that," he sighed, "it's not just Earth memories and Old Cassian's memories. There's other stuff in there. Older. From places. From spells. Some of it I can't explain at all." She said nothing, waiting.

"I saw her face on you," he said.

"In the cave. Just for a second. The runes. Same marks. I didn't mention it. Told myself it was the light."

"It wasn't."

"No." He paused.

"I know." She turned her mug in her hands, the same way he had.

"I felt it too," she said.

"I've told you that."

"I know." They sat with that for a moment. Outside, the castle was beginning to stir. Distant footsteps, somewhere far below. The light through the curtains had shifted.

"So," Bathsheda said.

"So," Cassian echoed.

"You're a transmigrated Muggle history teacher from a world where this is a children's book series, running on a magical teaching mechanic and several layers of incompatible memory, somehow muddling through."

"That's... yes. That's a very accurate summary."

"You're still a twat."

"I know." She reached across the table and flicked his ear. He flinched, rubbing it, and she pulled her hand back and curled it around her mug again. He smiled into his mug. She was already turning it over in her head, he could tell. The slight furrow between her brows, the way she'd gone quiet that meant she wasn't done yet. She'd come back to it. Probably tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe at three in the morning when she'd jab him awake to ask something she'd decided was urgent. And she'd flick him. Repeatedly.

Various locations. He was mentally bracing for it already. But she was still here, sitting across from him with her tea, her hair still a mess from sleep, and that was the only thing that actually mattered. He'd missed his old life, occasionally. Not often, not with any real ache anymore, but it was there sometimes. He missed it the way you miss somewhere you've moved away from. Not enough to go back. He wouldn't trade this for anything. A laugh escaped him. Bathsheda glanced up.

"What?"

"Just thinking." He set his mug down.

"Strange, really."

"You'll have to be more specific." He grinned.

"My interface and your ability. They're similar, but opposite." She tilted her head slightly.

"I pull from history," he said.

"Past, present, the shape of things through time. Patterns. What came before. You have the variations, different versions of the same moment, timelines that shouldn't coexist sitting side by side in your head." He shrugged.

"It's like we complete each other." She didn't answer. Her eyes unfocused in thinking. Then she flicked his forehead.

"Ow-""Finish your tea."

The light in the pit surged.

"You two, together, carry the Valley. You are the anchor and the sight. The tether and the blade." Cassian felt Bathsheda's hand tighten in his. He was staring at the spirit, at the pale glow still twisting above the pit, but he wasn't really seeing it. He was hearing his own voice from years ago, in a small room with grey morning light and two mugs of tea going cold. It's like we complete each other. He hadn't understood it then. It was just... true, the way that some things are true before you understand them.

He still didn't quite have the words for it. What they were. What they carried, each of them. It wasn't something you could set down cleanly, and he suspected that was the point. Just two people standing in a cave nine years after the first time, holding hands, realising they'd been the answer to each other's question for longer than either of them had known to ask it.