Black Blood

029 - Detrimental Dilemma

"Harry?!" her ex-uncle asked, looking and sounding as bewildered as Cassiopeia, herself, internally felt.

Standing upright from his bow, the man, who seemed so much more well-kempt and younger than he had during their previous encounter, took a single step towards the surprised audience, but he never made a second, as Potter rushed past the girl and slammed into his taller form, nearly knocking the man from his feet in the scarred child's haste to hug the 'criminal'.

'What is this?!' Cassiopeia silently wondered, her mind numb and her heart thundering away in baffled alarm.

"What are you doing here, Sirius?!" Potter practically shouted as he pulled away from the man's grasp.

"Harry, what are you doing here?!" he returned with a look of shock upon his trimmed but still-bearded features.

"Cassiopeia?!" her father called, his tone a high pitch she'd never heard before.

"Yes, father?" she quietly asked, sending the man, who she suddenly wasn't sure she recognized, a blank stare.

They made and maintained eye contact for all of a second or two, until he broke it with an obvious look of discomfort upon his immaculate features.

'What is this?!' the girl silently repeated to herself, suddenly unsure for the second time tonight if she truly was awake or if she was simply having a rather lucid dream.

"The World Cup!" Potter shouted, forcing the girl's attention back onto the strange pair who'd been hugging only moments prior. "Sirius, there was an attack! And we met C...Black and Malfoy in the forest where we fled! And then this...thing appeared in the sky!"

'He sounds as though he's an unruly child telling their parent about exciting news,' Cassiopeia silently mused, only vaguely aware of how strangely calm she internally felt at the random thought.

"Harry..." the man slowly started, trailing off as he placed his hands upon each of the scarred boy's shoulders, a solemn, dangerous expression upon his face that Cassiopeia felt certain would've normally alarmed her, but now did little more than intrigue the girl. "I think you need to start at the beginning."

As Potter began his exuberant tale, Cassiopeia padded her way over to one of her father's leather recliners and took a seat, and from there, she locked her emotionless sight onto the man who'd sired her into the world, and who expertly ignored her blank, questioning look.

"And then the image appeared in the sky," Potter finished, and had Cassiopeia been in a right state, the girl would've been surprised that she'd somehow missed the entire tale over the course of what couldn't have been more than a minute, perhaps two.

"And...what did it look like? What color was it?" her uncle-who-wasn't-her-uncle quietly queried, his tone solemn and somehow seemingly eager.

"It was a skull, and a snake came out of its mouth," Potter responded, his own tone equally as solemn, all excitement, if that was what it had been, gone as though it had merely been a figment of the girl's imagination. "And it was a really bright green."

"The Dark Mark..." the man breathed out, which caused a shiver to crawl down the girl's spine as she remembered the dreadful sight. "What happened next, Harry? What happened after you saw The Mark? How'd you all end up here?"

"I...think we were teleported here after we saw The Mark. It was like when we'd touched that manky...uh, the portkey we used to teleport to the campground," the boy responded, and out of the corner of her eye, Cassiopeia watched as Potter's head tilted in her direction, indicating that he wanted her to continue the explanation.

But all she wanted to do was sit there and stare at her father in silent demand, and so that was precisely what she continued to do.

"I think it was Black's house elf that brought us here. I think...he was really afraid of The Mark, so he just...teleported all of us," Potter continued, his tone as unsure as it was solemn.