#cassiusm

❤ = kissing them . 

This was the worst. He’d whipped around a corner and bumped, quite literally, in to Cassius sodding Mulciber. (For some reason, he could never say his name normally. The expletive in between demanded to be said.)

To no one’s surprise, Cassius refused to let him pass, and snide remarks turned quickly into a heated argument concerning (strong, good as any pureblood, valuable) Mary MacDonald. Mulciber had the uncanny ability of pushing just the right buttons, his smirk at a perfect angle that sorely tempted Remus to sock the Slytherin in the jaw.

“You take that back – Mary’s twice the person you could ever hope to be,” Remus spat back, temper flaring despite his common sense screaming at him to back down. 

He was nearly nose to nose with Mulciber, furious but unwilling to break first. Every cruel line of his face was clear, every smug twist of his lips completely infuriating. For a moment, the other boy looked away, and Remus almost lowered his guard.

Then, cold fingers grasped his chin, a strong grip immobilizing Remus’s right hand (and, by extension, the wand he was holding). Mulciber began murmuring something about deception, about how Remus was a facade, a whitewashed tomb that glittered from the outside but held decaying corpses within (a masquerade, appeal that hides tainted blood), but Remus wasn’t listening. 

He could only stare in shocked horror as Mulciber (Cassius sodding Mulciber, the boy who loathed every fiber of his being), leaned in slowly (agonizingly slow, as if he knew the frenzied thoughts that were firing through his mind) and pressed an acid kiss to Remus’s lips.

Remus, in return, bit him.

The slight smirk that curved the Slytherin’s mouth was even more disturbing than before, and he barely hesitated before shoving the other boy away from him.

one cassius.

it is not rare for Marlene to dislike people, but no one has ever elicited such a hatred in her veins as Cassius has. the mere sight of him makes her skin crawl, as if her body is screaming danger, danger, danger. perhaps it's the look in his eye, the one of violence and destruction; perhaps it's the way he speaks so arrogantly, viciously. but since the past year, Marlene has found a much more concrete reason for her abhorrence. Mary flinches when he walks by, her body tenses in what can only be described as unadulterated fear. this alone causes her to believe the rumors that Cassius was the one who had attacked her, despite her friend's lack of confirmation. when they pass him in the hall, Marlene's fist curls around her wand - before, her fingers had only inched toward the object, but now it stays poised at her side for attack. 

two rita.

Remus would never regret standing up for Mary. It was needed, it was right, but it definitely made his life more difficult, especially since Mulciber was now keenly aware of him. He silently fumed, attempting to appear as if he didn’t notice the git looking in his direction. 

It was just his luck that the one person who irked him to the point of snapping was one person he’d decided to tell off. ( Well, one of two, but Rabastan didn’t seem to intentionally provoke him. ) A lot of the Slytherins had horrible ideas about blood purity, but Mulciber seemed to delight in it, sickly pleased by the suffering of “lesser beings.” Even worse, he had a penchant for doing just enough to ruin Remus’s peace of mind for an hour and slinking away before Remus could give a satisfactory retort.

“You think I’m not, Mulciber?”

The words escaped from his lips in a strained voice, eyes narrowed. Pulling himself up to his full height, Remus forced the wand pointing straight at the other man ( no, boy – they were barely eighteen, though war made veterans of all of them ) to not shake in anger. He couldn’t believe that he fell for the other’s ruse, a veneer of apology and politeness that played to Remus’s proclivity towards thinking the best in everyone. He’d given him a chance. Three months of civil indifference preceded six months of friendship, and for a while he almost believed that Mulciber had redeemed himself.

Remus, of course, had been sorely mistaken, and now he was left with nothing but humiliation and indignation brimming in his throat.

“Oh, so it’s Mulciber now, is it?” Soft, idle, mocking.

“After what you did, you’re mad if you think I’m willing to reconcile,” he snapped, heart screaming for him to avenge the pain dealt to his friends. Possessiveness was a trait clearly inherent in Mulciber, but Remus had never dreamed that it’d ever have repercussions as horrific as this. “You hurt them, and you fucking used me.”

Cassius Mulciber had the audacity to laugh, and Remus had the sudden urge to vomit. An idiot, he was such an idiot. He felt like kicking himself for his own foolhardy naïveté. Of course Mulciber hadn’t changed, of course he was just as selfish and cruel and sadistic as he’d always been, but Remus’s idealism had blinded him to the warning signals flaring in every conversation. He’d ignored them, thinking maybe there was a part somewhere in the Slytherin that could be saved, hoping against reality that the friendship they’d formed was genuine. 

Remus had even cared. 

( He paid for it dearly. )

Mulciber’s shoes clipped lazily against stone, each clack ringing in Remus’s mind until the other boy was standing right in front of him, grinning derisively. ( He remembered when that grin was lighthearted, mischievous, and it made him sick to think that all his memories were simply lies. ) “You won’t hex me, Remus. You don’t have it in you.”

Then hurt welled up in his chest, curdling with anger as his voice dropped to a seething whisper. Eyes blazed, fingers gripped tightly around the wand in his hand.