Cassana decided it was official. She hated dating. She hated boys. She hated everything. She was currently fuming, seething, and any other synonym for frothing at the mouth in anger. Boys were just frustrating. Merlin, Crice, Nimueh and any other great magic figure knew just how much she loved Brooke (she was like her other half after all), but her matchmaking skills were as good as hers (so basically no really good at all). In a way, Cassie just sort of reasoned that this was also one part her fault that Brooke felt obligated to "hook her up" with another eligible guy. 


Cassie could only say that Brooke had terrific visual taste. The seventh years at Hogwarts were no frogs, they were all rather fetching and decent enough conversation. The majority at least.

All Cassie could say was that she was glad Brooke found Joe before they got into the serious dating age. They'd been fifteen when they swore off men, in Brooke's gorgeous and large backyard ranting about how terrible the boys that lived in her neighborhood were. One boy took her out to ice cream and promptly spilled it all over her shirt and shorts ensemble. Brooke complained about the ice cream in her toes for weeks. Another time, they had gone out for burgers and shakes and when Brooke tripped (as per usual) walking away from the diner, he just watched her fall before laughing far more necessary and telling her to catch up. ("He couldn't hold a conversation with toast" Brooke insisted before her and Cassie broke out into a large fit of laughter) Cassie had her own bad dates stories that only her close friends at Hogwarts knew about.

Basically Brooke and Devin.

It made perfect and clear sense that Brooke and Cassie would be friends even if they didn't share a dorm. They ended up becoming friends first year after incidents that ended up with them in the Hospital Wing. Cassie for DADA class in which she had somehow hit a mirror with a Flipendo and had broken her wrist upon impact (the Professor was astounded because first thing, how? The mirror was so small, like a pocket mirror) and Brooke for Herbology (how she'd managed to break her nose off tripping over a tree branch befunded the Professor). They were miracle cases, the Healer chided in a not so good way.


In any event, they spent much of their early years there and became friends in the Hospital Wing and outside the Hospital Wing. By the end of their second year, people begun to question whether despite their physical differences they were sisters. Their friendship was easy to define as Cassie and Brooke were both extremely friendly and outgoing people. Now her other best friend, Devin Brennham, that was harder to define. 


They were rivals turned best friends: they bonded over Potions and even though they originally struggled with getting along because of how often she talked and how persistent she was (You got bezoar for the Potions essay too right? No? Devin don't just look away, I know I'm screaming, it's because you're not answering!), by their fifth year, after Cassie had sworn off men, she realized just how settled into their friendship they were. She knew when to take pauses, how not to scream and make a scene in public (even if her face planting in the middle of dueling class was enough to generate it), and eveen how to sometimes enjoy silence.


She liked listening to the birds with Devin, more than she liked arguing with him or talking with Brooke some times, just existing with him made her feel content and she didn't know what that meant quite yet, but - anyway.



As she rounded the corner to the Dungeons, where she knew he'd be, she felt a little bit of her anger dissipate but not all of it. She approached him, the scrunch of her nose and disdain on her face making her emotions clear as day.


"Yes I did have a date, bless Brooke's ever so beautiful heart, but this had to take the cake on worse dates, and I am so- so angry! I'm bloody pissed!" She took a deep breath as she stepped closer to the desk, her hands automatically finding the edge and grasping onto it as she prepared herself to let loose a tornado of venting words, "this guy was just the epitome of a butthole. For one thing, it was just supposed to be a simple picnic under a tree by the Black Lake and he shows up with a basket full of enough food that was all weird and exotic. Did you even know they made canned caviar? I don't even like caviar that's made my professionals. I told him before we even did this little date thing that I hate sushi and he shows up with  butt-ton of it and whatever that's tolerable but get this afterwards he just grabs me and tries to kss me, when I tell him no he acts all haughty like he was just entitled to it. So I broke his nose and trapped him to a tree."

After a few heaving breaths she straightened her back and gave him a wan smile. "So how was your day? Anything interesting happen with you?"

Cassie always felt more relieved after talking to Devin. It wasn't the same as when she talked to Brooke, their energy always matched one another. In the truest sense, Cassana felt as if Brooke was her sister by soul. They were so alike, in thoughts, in ideas, it was crazy to think sometimes they weren't actually related by blood. In another universe (whoa she needed to stop watching Doctor Who seriously), Cassie likes to think that Brooke would have been her sister. Anyway, when Cassie told Brooke her energy was just as infuriated as Cassie, just as indignant, just as disgusted.

Devin's recation was different.

To put it in a sense, Cassie felt that somedays the way the world affected her, as she was so caught up in other people, in her empathy for them it was like she was getting caught in a river. The river of people's problems was endless and ever so tiring. It just tended to drain her, just listening and offering advice or listening and getting indignant for them. The latter always made them feel her fierce loyalty deeper than before. She'd had people question whether or not she should have been in Gryffindor to which she would launch into a long speech about stereotypes and why her audacity didn't make her a Gryff. Her intelligence wasn't to be question, nor was her creativity. Regardless, the people she spoke to always had something to tell her and some days she felt like she was just getting caught adrift in their problems.

And Devin just anchored her. Through all the issues of others that got her swept away, just talking to him, being in his calm, his collected presence soothed her wayward empathy. It reminded her that these problems weren't hers and that she was her own person because if she were those other people she would not be so close with Devin. Her friendship with him was so odd, but it worked. Being with Devin was the best part of her day.

He kept her grounded, let her say everything she needed without any interest in speaking about himself, without the ulterior motive to want to know the school's latest gossip (although he very well could be off of all the things she'd told him) or to know more about someone they liked or didn't. He didn't care about those things. From what she knew, he cared about few things; Quidditch, his schoolwork, (unfortunately) his parent's dictations, and his friends. Her eyes widened in surprise at his interrogation after she took her seat, she smiled softly. Although he didn't make his intentions obvious nor his feelings, it was clear by his interest on principle that he cared for her.

She reached out placing a soft hand over his.

"If his broken nose isn't enough, then his hurt ego about the pictures I took and the pathetic way he looks when he cries will, not to mention I Patronus'd Brooke right after it happened to handle him how she so saw fit," Cassie murmured softly, her eyes flashing dangerously as it did when she was angry, "but if you must know, it was Alec Pearson, the seventh year Hufflepuff, which brings around my point about why one should never trust stereotypes about houses. I mean, I never would've expected such arrogance from a Hufflepuff, granted that although I push Impartial House Opinions, all humans are hypocrites so it's only natural that I'd have some bias against Hufflepuff's as the sweetest house." She let out a huff of exhaustion at that point, unconsciously releasing the grip on her hand.

In the silence Cassie took a moment to slid her eyes from the table to Devin. He was very attractive. She didn't want to tell him, she really didn't want to, but before she slammed her fist into Alex's nose, she heard him talk about how there was a bet going around that her and Devin were 'indelicate' (that was putting it nicely, she reminsced her nose scrunching up in memory) and he betted against that so he planned to prove it by - "bagging" her. All the anger that she had, increased tenfold, and well the rest is c'est la vie. Still, Cassie couldn't help the pride she felt when she thought about how people could think Devin and her were together.

Devin had one of those faces that made you think: "Wow, his girlfriend must be that tall, Amazoness goddess over there with the blonde hair and perfect at everything." And Cassie was kind of like a potato. The mere idea that she was in his league was laughable, so she ignored the little way her heart skipped it's regular pattern in her chest. 


"No, I sent Brooke, and you know how that'll go." She rolled her eyes as her fingers, which always needed to be moving, played with the frays of his sweater, "besides I've had worse."