A sixth year Hufflepuff was huffing and puffing as she ran through the halls. She chanced a look behind her and was pleased to see that she was losing the Slytherins.
While she was looking behind her she ran in to someone's chest and fell on her butt. She got up and looked at the three boys.
"It seems there are a lot of students out of bed tonight." She quipped, hands on her hips.
She was about to say something when she was roughly grabbed by one of the boys she was trying to get away from.
"I found you, you little mudblood." A white haired boy sneered at her.
The girl wrenched herself from his grasp and straightened her pajamas. "Good for you, it's probably the most productive thing your little inbred self has done all day." She teased.
The three boys she ran in to, stood and watched the exchange, ready to intervene if necessary.
"What did you call me?" the boy asked, putting his face close to hers.
She raised her eyebrows, "Oh, I'm sorry you must not have understood. You're inbred, stupid, and unproductive." She told him clearly.
He slapped her across the face. "Remember your place mudblood." He spat.
The girl was holding her cheek, but to her credit she was not crying.
The boy she ran in to pulled her away from the fight his two companions had started.
"How's your face?" he asked, bending over to look at it.
She probed it with her fingers and hissed in pain, "Well it hurts, but I think I'll live." She joked.
"I'm Remus, and those two idiots are James and Sirius." He smiled as he nodded his head to the two black haired boys taking on four slytherins.
"I'm Katie." She looked at the fight, "I could have handled them." She said as they watched the slytherins go down, one by one.
He nodded, "I don't doubt it, but we don't take kindly to striking women." He shrugged.
Two minutes later the three were walking Katie back to the hufflepuff common rooms.
"I could have walked back by myself." She told them. "You should both go have your noses looked at. They might be broken." She was worried for the boys.
"Don't be absurd, we couldn't let you walk back alone after you were attacked by those thugs." James said, holding his bleeding nose with one hand and waving her comment away with the other.
"Well at least let me look at your injuries, I'll feel bad if you get infections and die." She led them in to the empty Hufflepuff common room and had them sit on the couch.
Katie tended to their injuries and made sure there weren't any broken bones.
"So why were those guys chasing you?" Sirius asked after she was done.
She sat on a chair across from the couch, "I went to get a glass of water, and they were doing their prefect rounds. Malfoy and I don't see eye to eye." She said with a smirk, remembering how she burned him earlier that evening. "I could have taken them."
"Yeah, but it's almost Friday and we haven't been in one fight yet this week." James said miserably.
Katie shook her head and yawned, the grandfather clock struck one and the Marauders set off to the Gryffindor tower.
The next day after classes Katie and her friend Molly were sitting out on the grass, enjoying the rare sunshine.
"So how's Arthur?" Katie asked.
Molly was a Gryffindor too and she had a steady boyfriend named Arthur.
Molly blushed a bit, "He's good." She said with a smile.
Katie loved Molly and Arthur together, they just seemed to fit perfectly, like two sides of the same coin.
They were interrupted when three Gryffindor boys came and sat with them.
"Hello Ladies." James said.
"Nice day for a picnic." Sirius said.
Remus just sat down and smiled at his friends' joviality.
"Katie I didn't know you had fallen in with this horrible lot." Molly said jokingly.
Katie laughed, "Yeah, last night they deprived me of my nightly fist fight with Malfoy." She said happily.
"Nightly, you mean he attacks you every night?" Remus asked, concern marring his brow.
She shook her head, "No, most of the time I can ward him off with harsh words and threats of trauma to his nether regions." She said with just a hint of a blush.
Molly laughed at this, "If only you were a Gryffindor, you have the courage for it."
James left to chase after Lilly and Molly was pulled away by Arthur.
Katie watched as Sirius and Remus had a wordless conversation. Sirius then excused himself and left Katie to his sandy haired friend.
"That was subtle." Katie joked, laughing and falling back on to the grass.
Remus looked down at her, "What do you mean?" he asked,
"Nothing." She smiled and shook her head. "So have you ever heard of animangus?" she asked, a knowing look in her eye.
He had an alarmed look on his face. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He said, playing with the fraying edge of his shirt.
She laughed, "I won't tell, don't worry. Your secret is safe with me." She said happily, "I'm an animangus, as are your friends." She said knowingly.
"What about me?" he asked, wondering how much she knew.
She tilted her head, "I haven't quite figured you out yet." She told him, standing up.
"What do you shift to?" he asked, looking up at her stretching form.
She looked at him, "You'll have to figure that out." She said with a playful smirk.
"Housecat?" he guessed.
She shook her head, "Nope, and if we don't get going now we'll miss dinner."
She watched him get up and admired how tall he was compared to her.
She couldn't help but think how interesting her last two years at Hogwarts were going to be.
Author's Note!
Please let me know what you think. I don't like Peter Pettigrew, so I cut him out of my version of the story. If you have problems with this, I'm very sorry.
Thanks for reading,
Trekkie907