After dropping the kids at the Wings, Longbottom still shaking, Ron babbling about tree branches, Hermione dead silent, Cassian only let Harry tag along because well, kid was very much related to everything happening. So he got a pass.

Bathsheda floated Lupin on a slab of the ground he’d half-crumbled during the transformation, petrified mid-howl, eyes frozen wide.

No one said a word the whole walk back. Not even when Sirius tried to joke about the “bedside manners” of containment runes. Cassian shut him up with a look. Snape didn’t talk either, though Cassian noticed the way he kept glancing at Pettigrew. Like he still couldn’t believe it and very much wanted to kill him.

The man, rat, whatever, was unconscious, lashed with spell-bindings tight enough to hold a dragon. And that was not an exaggeration in the slightest. Wrapped head to foot in thick glowing threads that twitched if he even breathed funny. That one was Bathsheda’s idea. She looked mildly pleased about it.

They arrived at the Headmaster’s office, barging with surprises.

The room was already full.

Dumbledore stood by the window, hands behind his back. Fudge paced in front of the desk, red-faced and puffing, like someone had told him all the goblins were unionising. Flitwick sat in the corner with a clipboard. McGonagall and Sprout stood near the desk, not saying much.

Cassian walked in and said, “We brought snacks.”

Bathsheda floated Lupin gently into the open space by the fire and set him down like he was an oversized paperweight.

Sirius was last through the door.

Fudge didn’t react much. Kudos. His gaze just darted from Peter Pettigrew to Sirius, then to the others, all the usual suspects in this very illegal, very inconvenient disaster.

Sprout was the first to speak. “Is that…?”

“Peter Pettigrew,” Cassian said, deadpan. “Very much not dead, very much in trouble. You’re welcome.”

Sirius growled.

Fudge blinked hard. “Impossible.”

Cassian tilted his head. “That’s what we thought. Then he cried on the floor for ten minutes and confessed to twelve counts of murder and high treason. He’s had a busy few years.”

Fudge looked at Dumbledore, lips trembling. “But the records, he’s been dead for over a decade, there was a grave.”

“There was a finger… and a story.” Cassian corrected. “Let’s not give body parts airs.”

Fudge floundered. “But Sirius Black… he, he was guilty… he confessed.”

“No,” Sirius snapped. He stepped forward, face still bruised where Cassian had punched him. “I didn’t. I never confessed. You lot never gave me a trial.”

Fudge slumped into the nearest chair. Hands over his face, voice muffled.

“Oh god. We wrongfully imprisoned a Head of a Noble House for twelve years. Without a trial.”

Cassian crossed his arms. “Uncle, need I remind you what you did with Hagrid.”

Fudge froze.

Then jerked upright like the thought had zapped him through the arse.

“Yes! Yes. That… well. That was before my time. Irregularities inherited from past protocols!” He turned sharply toward the room. “I uncovered this injustice. I will see it rectified!”

Cassian sighed, barely disguising it as a yawn. “There you go.”

Sprout coughed into her drink. McGonagall didn’t bother hiding her eye-roll.

Cassian shrugged lazily. “So. We’ve got a fugitive who isn’t, a war hero who wasn’t, and a whole pile of Ministry paperwork that’s about to look very silly.”

“Cassian,” Dumbledore said mildly, “perhaps not so loudly.”

“Why?” Cassian glanced over. “You’re not embarrassed, are you?”

After a solid ten minutes of arguing over who’d get stuck writing the Ministry reports, someone finally remembered there was still a teenage boy in the room.

Harry had been standing stiff as a broomstick the whole time, eyes flicking between Sirius, the bleeding rat-man, and the grown-ups throwing law books and guilt at each other.

Dumbledore turned. “Harry,” he said, kindly, “Would you mind staying for a moment?”

Sirius looked like he wanted to step forward but caught himself. He stood there, hovering, like a stray dog not sure if the hand reaching out meant food or a cuff.

Dumbledore swept the rest of them out with a light dose of what Cassian could only assume was a Suggestion Charm tucked under the words.

Even Fudge shuffled toward the fireplace, clutching at his notes probably hoping they would save him from whatever was coming.

“And Minister,” Dumbledore added mildly, “perhaps your Dementors would be best kept… far from this castle.”

Fudge jumped like someone had whispered tax audits in his ear. “Yes, yes, of course. Terrible oversight. I’ll… I’ll see they’re recalled at once.”

Bathsheda nudged Cassian toward the hall, catching his sleeve. “You’re bleeding again.”

“Let it be. Adds charm.”

She grabbed him by the elbow anyway and dragged him down the stairs. “Come on. You’re due a scolding, and I don’t want Poppy to have to stitch your sinuses shut.”

When they arrived, Ron was recounting his heroic solid stance against the werewolf. Neville sat on the edge of his mattress holding a mug of something steaming. Hermione had a blanket around her shoulders and her nose buried in a book.

Madam Pomfrey looked up as they entered and zeroed in on Cassian’s face, with her usual frown.

“What did you do this time?”

Cassian wiped at his nose, his fingers came away pink. “Used my nose to stop a spell.”

“Sit.”

He sat.

Bathsheda helped him onto one of the stools. She didn’t hover, but she didn’t leave either, just stood behind him while Pomfrey got to work. Cool cloth. Quick charm. Bit of something stinging that made him flinch.

“You’re lucky this didn’t rupture anything,” she muttered, swiping a salve under his eye. “You can’t keep pulling power like that through your core. Not without cost.”

Cassian didn’t flinch. “Cost was paid. Worth it.”

“You’re not a bloody vault,” she snapped.

He smiled slightly. “Somewhat more expressive than Gringotts.”

She smacked his shoulder. Ow. He deserved it.

Pomfrey sighed and handed him a potion with a shake of her head. “Down it. Then lie flat.”

Cassian sniffed it. “This isn’t the one that tastes like cabbage, is it?”

She raised a brow.

He drank it. It tasted like carrots. It was nice.

While Cassian lay on the cot, eyes shut, trying to decide whether the ceiling had always had that many cracks, he heard the kids whispering across the room.

Sirius Black wasn’t a killer.

Peter Pettigrew was alive.

Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

And a tree had saved their lives.

Bathsheda was talking to Granger and the others, assuring them Potter was fine. Everything was fine.

Cassian didn’t get up.

He was slumped against the headboard, knees drawn up, a cool cloth stuck to his cheek where Pomfrey had patched him. They managed to suppress the memories for five seconds. Good that.

He’d only recently awakened Corpus Obstrictus. Another spell that came in bloody sequence.

Same bloke who’d taught him Apertis Oculus. Same one who pulled a dozen creatures into the light and got torn apart for it. Literally.

The bloke had been sitting in a room that was a lot like the previous one where he met his ending.

In the vision, the man across from him had leaned back in his chair casually. “We should get more people,” he said, all teeth and smugness. “Let them do our bidding. We’ll be untouchable.”

Cassian, no, the version of him in the memory, just stood.

And without a warning.

“Corpus Obstrictus.”

The man barely got a sound out before it hit. Muscles locked, limbs seized, mouth frozen in the start of a dread. He toppled sideways, chair clattering beneath him. Stone floor cracked under the weight.

The man walked out without a word.

Just left him there, petrified, blinking, caught mid-thought. Like a beetle stuck in amber.

Cassian didn’t know what the place was, where that memory kept circling from, but every time he poked at it, the feeling got worse. It wasn’t fear exactly. Just that sick, crawling sense something was out of place and hadn’t noticed yet.

The spell had worked. More than worked. Normally, Corpus Obstrictus was just a good threat. Bit of immobilisation. Not meant to stop a full-grown werewolf mid-transformation. He’d ramped his magic to pass that magic resistant and paid the toll for it.

Back in the real world, Cassian sighed through his nose. The pain had dulled to a throb behind his eyes.

Pomfrey’s potion was working, slowly. His fingers twitched around the cloth she’d shoved at him.

“Cassian?” Bathsheda’s voice came from somewhere near his elbow.

“Mm.”

“You alright?”

He opened one eye. “Define ‘alright.'”

“You’re not bleeding anymore, so I’ll take it.”

He grunted, shifted on the cot and tried to blink the ceiling back into one piece. “I liked the first version better. Less fuzz.”

She didn’t laugh, just leaned her hip against the edge of the bed.

“Poppy said to keep you here an hour. Maybe more.”

“Any chance she also said ‘with a side of whisky’?”

“Not even a sniff.”

He snorted and dropped the cloth on his chest. “Then I’ll suffer. Loudly. In protest.”

Her hand brushed his sleeve. “You scared the hell out of me.”

He didn’t look over. “Had to deal with the transforming werewolf. I didn’t want you to see me running screaming.”

“No,” she said. “But I watched you bleed magic.”

Bit dramatic, he thought. But he didn’t say it.

Bathsheda followed his glance. “They’re in shock.”

“They’ll live.” He paused. “Probably shouldn’t give them a scare by turning one of the Professors to stone, but well…”

She shrugged. “You stopped him from mauling children. He can send you a thank-you card once he unfreezes.”

“I vote we etch it on a plate. Maybe throw in a biscuit.”

She laughed, slapping his shoulder.

“Get some rest. We’ve got papers to mark.”

Cassian groaned, dragging the cloth off his face. “Should’ve let Lupin scratch me instead. At least then I’d be unconscious and off-duty.”

Bathsheda rolled her eyes and straightened. “I’ll take them to their rooms.”

He lifted a hand in vague agreement, then dropped it again like it weighed too much. “Brave soul. Watch out for Weasley. He’s at the stage of trauma where everything’s funny.”

“I’m immune,” she muttered, already walking off.

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