Potter's Girl / Butterfly Effect.

92. Educational Purposes

CHAPTER NINETY-TWO;

EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The Quibbler was a nice break from reality, Cassie had come to learn. Her first time picking up an issue was in her fourth year, when Luna had insisted that Cassie read the article about the Triwizard Tournament Luna's father had written.

Now, during this Dark era at Hogwarts where came bad news around every corner, The Quibbler was the only thing keeping Cassie sane. She had been keeping up with the weekly issues since September, mostly because they were the only running magazine that still showed support for Harry.

But, as Cassie gazed at the shining silvery-blue cover of the tabloid, she felt an immense hatred toward it: Because why was her mother's face plastered across the front page?

"Luna," Cassie began, her voice a shaky whisper, as she could not lose her composure and shout in the library, "why is.. Luna, why is my mother on this week's cover?"

Luna's serene blue eyes went wide and she set down her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. "I guess Daddy must have interviewed her. I wasn't expecting him to, really," she said, nodding her head in earnest. "I hope you'll accept my apology on behalf of him. Do you want me to read it first to see if she says anything bad?"

Cassie twisted her lips off to the side (then ceased instantly, as she remembered her mother doing the same thing) and thought for a moment before nodding. "Please," she said, sliding the magazine across the library desk to Luna, who promptly began to read it with a faint head tilt and occasional dulcet hum of contemplation.

When she finished, she set down The Quibbler and folded her hands on the table. "She's quite a foul woman, you know. See for yourself."

Swallowing thickly, Cassie opened the magazine and flipped to the page that her mother's face blinked up to her from beneath teary lashes. Cassie scowled at the image childishly, then began to read the article printed next to Adelaide in a font that looked almost as if Xenophelius Lovegood had handwritten it.

Adelaide Hawthorne-Black on the Recent Death of Only Daughter, Cassiopeia Black

"It's– it's heartbreaking, really," says Adelaide Hawthorne-Black (unofficially wed to late fiancée, Sirius Black). "I mean, she's.. she was my daughter; I just got her back, and now I've lost her... It truly pains me to admit, but I wasn't nearly as loving to her as I wished to be. She was always a very closed-off girl, especially since her father's death, my nephew [Florian Atticus Forbes], and Cassie's old friend [Cedric Amos Diggory]. I mean, I know when Sirius died, it felt as though I lost a piece of myself...

I believe it would have been so much easier for me to understand what was going on in her life if she would simply speak to me. I remember she would ignore me when she returned home from school for holiday break. It was as though I wasn't her own mother; as though I wasn't the one that gave birth to her, almost seventeen years ago; as though she were more important than me. I was treated as a speck of dirt on her shoe. Still, I just can't believe that she's gone. I wish I had more time with her. Maybe if she had stayed home with me this year, like I had ceaselessly begged her to when she returned home from school the year prior–"

   "Are you bloody joking?" Cassie hissed. "She's– she's lying! She didn't even speak to me. Luna, we've got to write to your father, tell him–"