ink and bone chapter 10: cassiopeia
cw: language, mentions of scar, mentions of past, soulmate bond is acknowledged and seen!
the flat was humming with nerves.
you hadn't meant to care this much about dust, or pillow symmetry, or the teacups that didn't match. but now that they were actually coming—three men who made your bones fizz with something ancient and aching, and an auror with more war medals than you had spoons—you couldn't seem to stop tidying.
fortunately, the flat helped.
a match struck itself and candles lit without your touch, their flames steady even against the breeze from the open window. one of them you'd never lit before, a stubby beeswax thing tucked behind a stack of cookbooks, and yet there it was, flickering proudly. the scent of burnt sugar filled the room, sweet and singed. your mark buzzed faintly beneath your shirt like it was listening.
"stop it," you muttered, pressing a palm to your arm. "you don't know anything."
the mark didn't answer, but the kettle screamed.
you poured the water, whispering little warming charms to keep the cups hot. cloaks dripped by the door; yours, and one left behind by remus, wool still damp from last night's storm. the ward-light shimmered on the glass, bouncing off your bookshelf like nervous magic.
you sat down. stood up. sat again. rehearsed the same few lines, over and over:
"thank you for coming, kingsley. i think the shop is trying to help us. i think someone is watching us. i think i'm the reason the boys are in danger."
"do you know what code urchin means?"
"have you ever seen soulmarks burn like this before? does yours?"
"am i going to get someone killed?"
a knock interrupted your spiral. three short raps, then one louder.
sirius was first, hood up, hair wild anyway, grinning like he'd just been let into the most exclusive party in britain. remus stood beside him, wrapped in a charcoal cloak that looked charmed against rain and hexes. james was behind them, broad-shouldered and tense, eyes flicking up the stairwell like he expected to be followed.
and then there was kingsley. well...sort of.
the man standing beside james was tall. like, tall. broad-shouldered, rich brown skin, and short, dark hair that didn't move even as the breeze from the hallway snuck in behind them. he wore navy robes with a ministry sigil you didn't recognize, and he was handsome in a way that was almost suspicious like he'd been designed to be forgettable.
you blinked. "i'm sorry. are you—"
"shacklebolt." he said in a much deeper voice than you remembered. when you last saw kingsley back at hogwarts, he was still growing into his height, though he already one of the tallest in the year. his hair was longer then, worn in tidy braids pulled back from his face, and he had a laugh that boomed through the great hall during meals. he walked like someone who'd grown too fast to keep up with his own limbs, but he carried his wand with the kind of ease that made even professors wary. most memorably, he had a thin, curved scar cutting through his left eyebrow, earned during a dueling club mishap that was, according to rumor, more than half intentional. his voice was warm, clever, and often a little smug.
seeing him now with short cropped hair, a forgettable face thanks to polyjuice, and a voice two octaves too deep was disorienting. the real kingsley wasn't forgettable. he'd never been.
when you last saw kingsley—back at hogwarts—he was still growing into his height, though already one of the tallest in the year. his hair was longer then, worn in tidy braids pulled back from his face, and he had a laugh that boomed through the great hall during meals. he walked like someone who'd grown too fast to keep up with his own limbs, but he carried his wand with the kind of ease that made even upper-years wary. most memorably, he had a thin, curved scar cutting through his left eyebrow, earned during a dueling club mishap that was, according to rumor, more than half intentional. his voice was warm, clever, and often a little smug
"it's uncanny," you said. "except you don't look like kingsley."
"that's the idea," kingsley said dryly. "someone tried to tail me through county clare. figured i'd best come as someone less...important."
you stepped aside to let them in. "does the real you still have the eyebrow scar?"
kingsley grinned. "of course i do."
sirius was looking around the flat with undisguised interest. he took it all in: the candles, the warm glow, the bookshelf that had reshuffled itself again overnight. he padded into the center of the room, touching a book spine here, dragging a finger along a dusty side table there. his shoulders relaxed as the record player clicked on.
"your place is nice," he said, toeing off his boots. the flat hummed a soft, pleased sort of sound. then a record player, one you hadn't wound in months, clicked to life in the corner, and a low, slow jazz tune began to play. "oh my god," sirius muttered. "this ruddy building is too smart for its own good."
"tea?" you offered with a grimace, already reaching for the tray.
remus accepted first, murmuring thanks as he settled carefully into the armchair nearest the hearth, his hands cupped around the warmth of the mug. james nodded, still tense, and took his cup with a distracted kind of gratitude. he stood instead of sitting, eyes still scanning the room. his fingers flexed around the handle like he was steadying himself.
kingsley scanned the windows before settling onto the couch, one hand resting on his knee, the other reaching slowly for the coffee table and then froze when he saw what was there.
"your files," you said sheepishly. "well...and mine."
james raised an eyebrow and looked at you incredulously. "you've got our files?"
"just the ones the town archive had! and the sealed one from the war. which i probably maybe wasn'tsupposedtotake."
"bloody hell," sirius said, delighted. "you're worse than moony." he flopped down beside kingsley and leaned over to get a better look.
kingsley pulled the closest one toward him. james'. "this one's from dumbledore."
you nodded. "remus said you might know what code urchin meant. it's all over mine."
kingsley looked up, serious now. "i've only seen it once before."
remus leaned forward, tea forgotten on the floor beside him. "it wasn't in any of the order records. i would have known otherwise."
"it wouldn't be. it was highly classified. used only a handful of times, and always sealed by dumbledore himself. urchin meant the subject was at risk. magically sensitive, vulnerable to certain kinds of manipulation."
"manipulation how?" james asked, still standing near the window, arms folded.
kingsley hesitated. "soul magic. bloodwork."
the flat was suddenly very quiet.
"during the war," kingsley continued, "the ministry intercepted a few dark rituals—early prototypes, nothing complete. but they were designed to use soulbonds. to puppet people through them. like the imperius curse, but ten times worse. if you control one person, you control everyone linked to them."
"so this code," remus said slowly, "marked her as...what?"
"a potential target. someone whose soulmark was either manipulable or...expansive."
"expansive as in multiple links?" james asked, eyes full of something you couldn't quite read.
kingsley nodded, lips pursed. "we didn't understand it fully, we still don't. but dumbledore flagged her for protection. and he sealed the record. him and a few others involved in the old order."
maeve, you think, angry that you hadn't put it together before. "and me?" you whisper. "i'm... what? the source?"
your fingers trembled on the edge of your cup. your mark pulsed, like it knew it had just been named.
"we've heard whispers," kingsley said, gentler now. "dark marks on fish, blood circles washing up on the shore. something's building, and they want the kind of magic that gets right to the heart."
no one moved. remus reached over without thinking and touched your shoulder. solid. warm. his thumb brushed along your collarbone like a reassurance.
sirius watched you too closely, fingers tapping his knee in a slow, restless rhythm.
james moves suddenly, and crosses to the window nearest to the door. he doesn't look back at any of you. "dumbledore sent us here," he says, voice flat and angry.
sirius frowns. "yeah. so what?"
"no, sirius. not so what," james says, whipping around. his eyes are wide and his nostrils flared. "he didn't just send us here for the disturbance, or for the deaths, or for the fucking death eaters. he sent us for her. he knew."
"so now i'm the reason you're in danger," you said. flat.
remus's hand didn't move.
and then comes the second thought. the sharp one, the stupid one, the one you can't stop:
they're in danger because of me.
you don't know when you started trembling. you want to leave. not the room—kenmare. ireland. the planet, maybe. you want to vanish, to run so far that no one can use you to hurt anyone else ever again. you don't even know them. not really. not in the ways that matter.
so why does the thought of them in pain make your lungs seize? why does remus's hand on your arm steady your heart?
why does james—at the window, tense, silent—look like he's already made some impossible decision?
"i should leave," you said, quieter now. "i should go somewhere they won't find me. that they won't find you."
sirius turned to you. "you hardly know us."
but the flat disagreed. there was a low creak. a shifting in the walls. and then—thump—a book dropped from the shelf. slid itself across the floor. flipped itself open to the page it wanted.
cassiopeia: the constellations of love and war.
kingsley narrowed his eyes. "is that...?"
"it's happened before," you said, barely breathing, mind still racing. "the shop gave it to me a few days ago."
james picked it up. the diagram inside glowed faintly gold.
he read aloud, "cassiopeia was cursed for her pride, bound to the stars. but those same stars became a map for the ones who followed. love that endures through punishment, bonds that burn, but lead you home."
kingsley leaned forward. "that's it," he said. "that's the key."
"mate," sirius said. "what key?"
kingsley scanned the page again. "they're not just trying to use the bond. they're trying to overwrite it. bend it into something they can control. but if it's mapped—if it's part of a constellation—"
"they can't change the shape of the stars." remus said, standing suddenly.
kingsley nodded. "they can try to blot them out. but the stronger the bond, the harder it'll be to corrupt."
james looked up. "so what do we do?"
kingsley didn't answer right away. his eyes flicked from the book, to you, to the mark just barely glowing at your chest.
"you start by not running." he said, looking right at you.
and the flat, again, hummed its approval.
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