Chương 300: Ch290- Death

When Cassian stepped into the room, he'd barely shut the door before he realised something was off. Bathsheda sat on the edge of the bed, staring past the wall like someone had switched her off. Not blinking at all. Hollow, fixed look he hadn't seen on her for some time now. He crossed the room fast.

"Hey-" He caught her hand, checked her pulse, ran two diagnostic charms without thinking.

"Baths. What happened?" His voice seemed to drag her back. Her eyes refocused slowly, as if she'd woken from something too deep.

"Dumbledore is dead," she whispered. Cassian froze. His heart skipped a beat, then calmed.

"No, he's not," Cassian said.

"I was with him half an hour ago. He's fine. Very annoyingly fine. Told me off while duelling." He then froze.

"Oh you mean..." She shut her eyes.

"Yeah." Cassian eased her upright and pulled her against him. Her arms slid round his waist, her breath shaky against his chest.

"What did you see?" he murmured into her hair. She swallowed hard.

"Potter told it. He was on the tower with him. Draco brought Death Eaters in through the Vanishing Cabinet." Her fingers tightened on his shirt, "... it was repaired." Cassian pressed his chin to the top of her head.

"Go on."

"Draco cornered him. He was supposed to kill Dumbledore." She shook her head against him.

"He couldn't do it. He stood there shaking, saying he had no choice. Dumbledore wasn't afraid, Potter said. He even tried to encourage Malfoy. Like he knew this was his end.

"And... and Dumbledore was already weakened. Something had happened to his hand months before. Potter was stunned by Dumbledore, so he couldn't do anything. Watched as Dumbledore couldn't even defend himself." Cassian let out a slow breath through his nose. Probably the ring. The Gaunt ring he found. It's so dreadful, if he wasn't careful, he too could lose an arm. Bathsheda's voice thinned further.

"Snape came up the stairs." He felt her shiver. He held her a bit tighter.

"Potter said Dumbledore looked at him. Like he trusted him. Asked him for something. And Snape..." She broke off, jaw tight, eyes closing harder.

"Snape raised his wand and killed him." Cassian closed his eyes. She finished in a whisper.

"Dumbledore fell from the tower. Then the others arrived. The Death Eaters. They surrounded him. Taunting Draco. The Dark Mark above the school. Students screaming. Chaos everywhere. It broke the castle." Cassian stroked her hair slowly.

"Alright," he said quietly.

"I've got you." She breathed out, shaking.

"It felt so real."

"I know." He kissed her temple.

"But that's not our present. You're here. He's alive. I annoyed him just now. Nothing's unfolding like that here." She nodded against him, but her breathing was still uneven. He guided her fully into his arms, one hand cupping the back of her head.

"We've derailed that path," Cassian said.

"Draco's not doing anything of the sort. The Cabinet's in containment because we nicked it. The other one is stripped to its bones. And Snape-" he huffed, "Snape's many things, but right now he isn't in the business of murdering Headmasters." Bathsheda let out a breath that trembled on the way out.

"I hate seeing it."

"I know," he whispered.

"But that isn't us. That isn't this school." She shifted closer, her fingers curling in his shirt.

"It seemed I was preparing for a funeral tomorrow." Cassian tipped his forehead to hers.

"Then we make sure tomorrow looks nothing like that." Her eyes opened, still shaken but no longer empty. He brushed his thumb over her cheek.

"You're safe. He's safe. And we're several steps ahead of whatever mess that version of Hogwarts became." She finally let go properly and slumped into him.

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"Good," he said into her hair.

"Because I've got no interest in burying bosses. Paperwork alone would finish me." A weak laugh escaped her. He felt the tension loosen at last. He rubbed slow circles into her shoulder. Now that Bathsheda told him Dumbledore's death, he remembered a video he'd seen in his past life. At the time, he had no idea what the hell it was. Only now it clicked into the place. Some of his mates, bored out of their skulls during exam season, had decided Cassian needed "cultural enrichment."

They'd shoved a laptop in his hands, and said, "Mate, you've seen this scene. It was hella emotional." The old man, long beard, half-moon glasses, was falling from a tower. His mate had been narrating beside him, talking through a mouthful of crisps.

"This bit's everywhere online. Something-something Hogwarts, something-something betrayal." He remembered thinking the old man looked oddly peaceful on the way down. Dozens of people raising their wands to the sky. Light burst from every tip, shooting upward like a volley. The beams met a green mark hanging above the castle, skull-shaped with a serpent curling from its mouth. The collective spellwork cracked through it, shredding the clouds until the sky cleared.

At the time, Cassian had taken another sip of his drink and said, "Bit dramatic, isn't it?" His friends had laughed and shoved the laptop away, already switching to some stupid cat video. So, that was Dumbledore.

'That's how he died,' he thought.

"Alright," he murmured.

"You saw the chain reaction, not just the spark. Students panicking. Staff scrambling. A castle full of children thinking the war's landed on their roof. And Potter quitting because he's carrying more deaths than any teenager should." She nodded against him. She lifted her head from his chest only a little, eyes still glassy.

"Why do I see all of these?"

"I don't know," he said.

"I've no idea, love." He knew it was tied back to Yrsa, the witch he'd dragged into existence in their first summer escapade. That much fit. Bathsheda had said her other self, the version of her in the other timeline, never had anything like this. Fair enough. None of this would've happened if he hadn't opened the door in the first place. The powerful witch from the Fjords, nothing more than a faint scrap of history until he'd spoken her name aloud.

But past that he didn't have a clue what this was doing to Bathsheda. Or why she was the one catching the bleed of it. He scrubbed a hand over his face. For all his knowledge, he still didn't know who she really was. Whatever Yrsa had been, druid, scholar, war-mage, madwoman, it was clear she hadn't played by the limitations of her age. Her magic worked different. Every rune attributed to her ignored the rules the current theories insisted on. They reached across boundaries, life, soul, memory, instinct.

As if she'd stared at the scaffolding of magic itself and decided to rearrange it. And now Bathsheda carried one of her runes in her skin. No sane caster attempted a live magical link with a dragon. Dragons warped the air around them by existing. Their magic didn't run parallel to human magic. It pressed, crowded, overwhelmed. But Yrsa's rune let her meet it. Synchronise, balance and grow stronger. He couldn't shake the feeling that Yrsa's runes weren't inventions but memories, echoes of something she'd survived.

Her work always circled back to the same themes, connection, containment, harmony through force, force through harmony. As if she'd spent her life fighting things that didn't fit inside the world's tidy little boxes. Things like Crawlers. Things like the Crown. Things like dragons. Maybe Yrsa wasn't merely a powerful witch or rogue scholar. Maybe she'd walked through the same ruins Cassian stood in, seen the same broken seals, felt the same wrong magic humming under her feet.

Maybe she'd crafted her runes because she had no other choice. Because the world needed tools no existing theory could produce. Cassian sighed. If Yrsa ever existed in the flesh, she'd have been a menace. Bathsheda would have liked her. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"And, speaking of extremely poor timing but reasonably large topics..." He shifted to look at her properly.

"Dumbledore showed me the Elder Wand." Her gaze snapped to him.

"He what?" Cassian gave a small, tired laugh.

"Held it up like he was unveiling dessert.

'Here you go, Cassian, have a look at the stick several generations have killed each other over.' Very casual. Very Headmaster." Bathsheda blinked, now roused by something more urgent.

"He just handed it to you?"

"Not handed, no. Brandished. With enthusiasm." Cassian rolled his eyes.

"I've met safer tutors." She chuckled softly.

"So he really had it." Cassian nodded.

"When I first saw it that day, I thought he'd brought along some ceremonial wand for dramatic effect. Didn't clock it as the wand." Bathsheda rubbed her thumb along his sleeve.

"The Elder Wand," she murmured.

"Of course it'd be him." She eased back a little.

"He was the rising star of his time. Strongest wizard of his generation. Everyone forgets he wasn't always an old man in a cardigan. He defeated Grindelwald." She then paused, brows pulling together.

"Hold on. If that was the Elder Wand... he beat Grindelwald while Grindelwald had it?"

"Seems so." Her eyes widened.

"How's that even possible?" Cassian shrugged.

"Wands aren't gods. Even the Elder Wand's been bested before. It's swung between owners all through history. And half the duels that decided its fate were messy, unplanned, or plain lucky. Wands are temperamental, and act out." She nodded slowly.

"Like yours." Cassian let out a breath.

"Yeah." The old Cassian had never stood a chance with it. A wand might tolerate you, but it won't follow you unless something fits. The wand had woken up for him the moment he'd taken over this life, as if it'd been sitting there for years waiting for the person it actually recognised. Not the boy it had been paired with by accident, but the mind now steering the body. If so, why did Old Cassian have it? Did Ollivander make a mistake?

"Poor bastard never got along with it," Cassian said.

"Not only that. His intent was off, mental picturing was poor... everything clashed. But the wand fits me like it was made for my hand." Bathsheda hummed. She still couldn't quite believe the man holding her carried a soul from another world. He gave her a smile.

"Feels like it spent fourteen years in a drawer muttering, 'Any day now... any day...'" She laughed softly and rested her forehead lightly against his.

"Good," she murmured.

"About you, I mean." He huffed.

"Yeah... me too. It's the one bloody thing that went right. Led me straight to you." She eased into him, the last of the tension slipping from her shoulders.

"Well, you wouldn't cope without me." He didn't bother answering. He only held her a little closer. Because she was right.