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Tweak says, ""Arg, me harties.""

Cassandra Vablatsky (welcomemystery) wrote in lockewood,
@ 2010-06-17 17:59:00

Entry tags:

cassandra vablatsky, harry potter

Who: Cassandra and Harry
What: Cassandra and Harry take steps to stop Gellert
When: June 17, afternoon
Where: Cassandra's house
Rating: Probably low
Status: Complete

Cassandra was immensely glad that Harry was coming over to see what he could do in order to keep Gellert away from her. Yes, there were wards up all around the cottage, but they hadn't done anything to Gellert yet. He had seemed to be able to surpass them so easily; it was disturbing. Quietly, she also hoped that he would be able to suggest more than what he had last time.

In all honesty, she hadn't told her roommate. She was still feeling fairly conflicted about the whole matter even if Harry had said that he should warn her. She wanted as few people to know as possible; she didn't want everything in the village to know just why Gellert Grindelwald had an interest in her. Gellert, Albus, Harry, Fenrir - that was more than enough in her opinion. Still, she knew that it was somewhat unfair. What if Grindelwald did come at a time when Roxy was at the house? Didn't Roxy deserve to know that he was dangerous? She hated that her own sense of self-preservation might hurt another. But, she supposed that she would wait and see if Harry brought it up again.

She had done some baking in anticipation of his arrival. He was doing so much for her that she figured it was a small show of her appreciation. She thought she was getting better. She always had had something of a knack for cooking, but being on her own had given her the opportunity to expand her skills. In any case, she had made a batch of strawberry muffins, which were cooling while she waited for Harry to arrive.

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bitoldernow
2010-06-18 02:12 am UTC (link)

Harry had pored over books, searching for better wards than he had set up around his own cottage. The wards around his and Ginny's home back... well, back home, were quite extensive, but he hadn't been the only one to set them up. He would, however, recognise them.

He might've felt ridiculous bringing the book of house wards to Cassandra's cottage if he'd cared what others thought of him, but thankfully, that wasn't a problem. He couldn't simply put the wards on her house without her approval, not to mention showing her how to take them off. Then there was the issue of not knowing how to put them on without the book's instructions, and the book was definitely coming with him.

Keeping an eye on Grindelwald's cottage, Harry turned into the short path leading up to Cassandra's. He would go see him later, when he knew Albus would be away. It was for the best.

He knocked on the door, announcing himself through the wood.

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welcomemystery
2010-06-18 02:30 am UTC (link)

Cassandra headed toward the door when she heard the knock, relieved to hear Harry's voice on the other side of the door. It didn't escape her notice that he was the first person to visit her that had actually knocked on the door and announced himself in a proper sort of way. It was a wonderful change of place, which had her slightly more relaxed.

"Good afternoon," she said as she opened the door for him. She was acting perhaps a bit more shy than she had at the end of their last meeting, but some time had passed now and she had recalled that, for all his help and all his advice, he was still a stranger and a man much older than herself. She had never been friends with anyone of Harry's age - the closest thing she had ever come to was the relationship she'd had with Professor Dumbledore. He had still technically been only a mentor to her. A mentor that was willing to try where all others had failed, yes, but they had met through the connection of school.

"Would you like to come inside?" she asked an instant later, taking half a step backwards and opening the door a bit further.

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bitoldernow
2010-06-18 03:36 am UTC (link)

When Cassandra opened the door, Harry noticed something was different about her. She seemed more subdued, more... almost smaller, as if she wanted to take up as little space as possible. Harry didn't know what he'd done, exactly, or what might have happened since their last meeting, but he decided not to dwell on it. As Albus had said, she was from another time. It was probably a scandal to have an older man in your cottage, especially without another person there to keep an eye on him, to make sure he doesn't do anything... untoward. Not that he ever would... and so he figured she would get back to normal soon. He returned her greeting and had been about to invite her to join him outside if she liked (and if it made her more comfortable) when she invited him in.

"Thank you," he smiled, stepping into her cottage. "Something smells really good. Where can we go to discuss your wards?" he asked, lifting the book to draw attention to it.

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welcomemystery
2010-06-20 08:05 pm UTC (link)

"I made some muffins," Cassandra answered, her mouth tilting up into something of a small smile, pleased to receive the compliment. Of course, taste was often quite different than smell, but it was nice to hear that something about them had gone right.

"And we can go into the kitchen," Cassandra responded after an instant, stepping forward to shut the door behind Harry, before turning and walking in the direction of the kitchen, assuming that he would follow her. She had noticed that he was carrying some kind of book, which seemed quite promising to her. She knew that the first man that had put the wards up around her house had been an Auror. Which made it all the more worrying that they had done nothing to dissuade Gellert - but it seemed as if Harry had several ideas or at least something to try. And there were a great many things that Cassandra would have been willing to try at that moment simply to keep Geller as far away as humanly possible.

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bitoldernow
2010-06-25 07:48 pm UTC (link)

Harry followed her into the kitchen and zeroed in on the table, pulling out two chairs for them. Once seated, he opened the book at the first of many tabs he'd attached to the top edge of the pages.

"I took the liberty of conducting a bit of research, but of course I want your input on everything. It's your house, you need to be able to get past the wards... Have you spoken to your roommate about the situation yet?" he asked, making sure. "She needs to be aware that the wards are coming up, in case she lets someone in who the wards aren't set up to accommodate. Or else, she'll need to be able to take them down to get in herself, depending on how you want them set up."

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welcomemystery
2010-06-27 09:57 pm UTC (link)

Cassandra went to retrieve the muffins that she had made, moving them from the counter to the kitchen table, placing them in front of Harry. That accomplished, she sat down in the second seat that he had pulled out, tucking her shirt underneath her before pushing a few strands of hair out of her face. Her eyes intrinsically followed the motion of his hands, peering at the first page that he flipped the book open to.

"I haven't spoken to her yet," Cassandra answered tentatively, avoiding his gaze somewhat. She was worried that he would be upset that she had chosen not to follow his advice, but was still asking for his help. If it was absolutely necessary, she would, of course, tell Roxie.

"Maybe the second?" Cassandra asked. After all, Roxie dealt with the wards that Alastor had placed around the house. She didn't really know much about wards - just what they did, but not the complexities of them. She hadn't ever had to worry about them before. Her parents' home was in something of an isolated area and nothing had ever threatened them.

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bitoldernow
2010-06-29 05:28 am UTC (link)

Harry eyed the muffins in front of him and smirked at Cassandra. "If you leave them there, they're forfeit," he informed her before turning back to the matter at hand.

"Alright, that's... alright, you're allowed your privacy." He didn't much approve of leaving the girl in the dark, but what was he going to do? It would simply get rather complicated if Grindelwald followed the roommate home or got himself invited somehow.

"Second it is." Harry flipped the book open to the third tab and started explaining the wards on the page without so much as looking at the words. "As you know, some wards are simply set up to prevent people from entering a home. Others cause... shall we say, discomfort for the individual trying to get past them. None of those work if the individual in question is able to remove the wards. However, I have found here..." he turned to another page and pointed at the words there, "It's a ward put upon the home but that cannot be removed. It isn't so much a ward as an escape hatch, if that makes sense. A..." Though he tried to find some wizardly way of describing an escape hatch, nothing seemed right.

"Let's say you were in your house," Harry continued, an idea of how to explain it to her having just occurred to him. "You're here. And for some reason, your roommate invites Grindelwald in. Maybe she's been cursed, maybe she's been charmed, I don't know. Regardless, she takes the wards down. Or else Grindelwald comes by and sheds the wards himself, which you say he's done before. This... spell, I guess, will make you disappear and appear somewhere else, somewhere we tell the spell to send you. It's instant apparition from any point in this cottage to another point of our predetermined choosing in the event that a certain specified individual enters the home. Do you understand so far?" It surprised him to notice that his must be what Hermione felt like.

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welcomemystery
2010-06-29 11:29 pm UTC (link)

"I made them for you," Cassandra returned, her voice somewhat teasing in return. Although he hadn't even tried one yet, she was quietly pleased that it seemed as if her gift was being well-received. She had been worried that he wouldn't like sweets or something like that, but that hardly seemed to be the case now.

Her gaze ducked down for just a moment as he replied that she had her own right to privacy. Even though he wasn't chastising, she still felt as if she had done something wrong, simply because she hadn't done what he had suggested. She twisted her hands together a little.

However, she listened intently as he began to describe the kind of ward that he had discovered. An escape? It seemed almost exactly what she had been hoping for. She didn't even know that such wards existed. It had been far too easy for Grindelwald to get through the first type of wards that Harry had named off.

"I understand," Cassandra said, nodding intently, although she had already several questions to ask. "Would he be able to break that spell as well?" Cassandra asked. Wasn't it possible that he could detect that kind of ward as well? He might have been mean and terrible, but Cassandra was also certain that there was no denying that he was a very powerful wizard indeed. "And where would I go?" The second question was a bit a softer and she bit at her lip as she asked. She didn't have any family here. It wasn't as if she had other people to escape to. What if she was merely being moved to a different place for Gellert to find her?

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bitoldernow
2010-07-01 05:48 pm UTC (link)

Harry ignore the muffins for now, though one of them in particular seemed to be calling his name.

He gave a shrug. "He might, but according to this, it doesn't require much magic until it gets used. He might not be able to detect it until it makes you disapparate. As for where, that's up to you. It essentially gives you a head start to get away from him. I should discuss it with- Actually, you should Apparate to my cottage. The one that was assigned to me. Alastor Moody is my roommate, he's an Auror. He's brilliant. I'll just need to warn him, he'll defend you if I tell him to. He doesn't need to know much by way of specific, just that Gellert is harassing you. If that's alright with you, of course. You would be safe there." That was, as she'd pointed out, if it worked at all.

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welcomemystery
2010-07-03 06:03 pm UTC (link)

"You'd let me Apparate into your cottage?" Cassandra couldn't help but ask in surprise. It seemed like the best idea to her, but that was hardly something that she was going to suggest; that would be rude and presumptuous. But she could hardly believe that Harry would offer something in such an offhand manner - as if it was nothing at all.

"Alastor Moody is the one that put up the original wards around the house," Cassandra offered. She figured that would make the subject a little easier to approach; Moody had known that there was some reason why she needed wards, but Cassandra hadn't ever told him that it was because Gellert Grindelwald had been bothering her. He had seemed perfectly polite when he had come to put the wards up, even if Cassandra had been somewhat surprised by how young he was; she supposed it was unfair to judge people by their ages here when she, herself, hadn't even graduated from Hogwarts yet.

"That would be more than all right with me," Cassandra answered, looking down at the table. "I appreciate your kindness."

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bitoldernow
2010-07-05 02:04 am UTC (link)

"Well yeah! Why not? It's a head start on Grindelwald and has two Aurors living there, at least part-time. It makes sense, and it's really not a problem." Harry took note of that on the bit of parchment he'd brought along, folded up between the pages of the book.

Harry was glad that Cassandra had made contact with Alastor - it would make the whole thing a lot simpler to explain and to get his approval on.

"Not. A. Problem." Harry said, putting the finishing touches on the sentence he'd been writing before turning to her with another smile. "I'm going to need a couple days, first to get the charm set up here, then at my cottage; then I'm going to need to add you and Grindelwald to the charm - don't ask me how I'm going to do that," he murmured to himself. "Then once the charm is set up, I'll put up the additional wards, including a few extras to hide the Apparition charm. To anyone scoping your place for magic, they should cancel each other out, make it seem like a big magic hole, but I'm going to need a few days to figure out that bit too. Oh, and we'll need to bring your roommate up to date on how to take the wards down, and we'll be set!" Harry smiled as though this wasn't the single most difficult set of charms he had ever considered setting up and grabbed the muffin that had been staring at him, taking a bite out of the top.

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welcomemystery
2010-07-06 04:21 pm UTC (link)

"I would hate to be any sort of imposition," Cassandra answered hastily. Logically, the plan that Harry was concocting did seem to make the most sense. However, that didn't mean that it wouldn't be troublesome to have some girl that they barely knew showing up inside the place that they were making out to be their home. Furthermore, if Grindelwald found out anything about this or discovered where she was disappearing off to, it would be Harry and Alastor in more danger. Harry seemed as if he was pretty adamant about stopping Gellert, but this was a different step altogether.

"Thank you," Cassandra said warmly when Harry was finished going through his list of things to do. She hardly understood half of it, but she greatly appreciated that he was willing to do all of this just for her. She didn't really understand why he would want to, but it meant so much to her. "I know I don't have much to offer in return, but if there's ever anything I can do to repay you, please let me know. And I will have a discussion with Roxanne about the new wards as soon as I possibly can." There was a new sense of conviction in her voice, but she figured if that was all Harry was asking of her at the moment, it was a relatively small price to pay.

She couldn't help the smile that broke across her face in return when Harry picked up one of the muffins that she had made and took a bite out of it.

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bitoldernow
2010-07-06 10:37 pm UTC (link)

"Don't get hurt. That's what you can do for me," Harry said, quite seriously. The fact of the matter was, it really wasn't a big deal to Harry, having the woman Apparate into his home. If anything, it made his job easier. It meant not having to check in on her quite as religiously every morning to make sure nothing happened overnight. It meant that if something was wrong, he would know right away rather than after the fact when there was hardly anything he could do to help her. No, this would make everyone's lives a lot easier and, hopefully, hers a little safer. "Please do talk to Roxanne. If she likes, we can have her Disapparate as well, if Gellert stops by. That's up to her, but I want to leave that choice up to her."

It was a really good muffin, and Harry had been talking with his mouth full. Lifting the muffin in a sort of salute, Harry rose from his chair. "I'm taking this with me. Thank you. I should be back tomorrow or the next day, but if anything happens, I want you to come by my cottage. Don't feel guilty, just come. I'd prefer it if you did." With a nod and a tight smile around his bite of muffin, Harry made for the door, waved, and was off, shedding muffin crumbs in his path.

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