It was quite late at night as a tall woman walked along the cliff, smelling the sea's salty scent as she made her way away from the cave she'd just been in. She felt woozy, exhausted, and drained. Yet she was satisfied that she had succeeded in her task. She was now wearing a golden locket with a serpent-like 'S' engraved on it. Her lips curled in a smirk at the memory of the note she had left for the "Dark Lord" inside the fake locket she had put in place of the Horcrux, signing with her father's initials: R.A.B. The wind caught her robes and ruffled them around her as she stood looking at the dark blue water, pondering on its color. At dawn, it was a shade of light pink like the sky it reflected. It shifted to sky blue in the morning and afternoon; at sunset it was an orange drink, and then became black as the night awaiting dawn. It shifted, just like she did. It was always changing outward appearances, like her. But in the end it was only water. It would always be water: crystal clear water, in disguise. Yes, she concluded. She was like the water, always in disguise.
Inhaling the salty air once more, she focused on her destination with determination. She disappeared without a sound, the crashing tide swallowing the 'pop' of her Apparation. There'd be no proof Katherine Black was ever there at all.
Chapter 1:
She reached a familiar street, and walked up to the space in between houses eleven and thirteen. There was a vase there, and taking out a small delicate dagger, she pricked her finger, allowing one drop of blood to fall into the center of the vase. The vase, being enchanted, recognized Black blood, and allowed her to pass the wards, into the house only her eyes were permitted to see. Glancing back once more, just to make sure she wasn't followed, she entered the house.
"Home, sweet home," she muttered sardonically under her breath.
"What took you so long?" hissed a harsh voice.
"Oh, I'm fine, thanks for asking. A bit tired, but a good nap should do the trick," Katherine drawled. Her father, Regulus, looked at her with a scowl.
"You know, your face will stay that way, if you keep scowling," she grinned while his frown deepened, "then you'll look just like that foul woman you call a mother."
"She is your grandmother, and you owe her respect," he began.
"Oh, come now daddy, she's a right old pain in the ass and you know it," Katherine teased.
"Oh sod it, let me see it!" he demanded of his rather rude daughter.
"See, what?" she inquired with a smarmy little smirk. Katherine stared up at the ghost of her father. He had been killed by Voldemort, or rather his Death Eaters, while Katherine was still in her mother's womb. Regulus, however, had stayed behind as a ghost instead of moving on – quite a cowardly thing to do, in Kat's opinion, but she was thankful for it anyway. Her mother had abandoned her when she was four years old. It was a day Katherine Black would never forget.
"Mummy, where are you going?" a wide-eyed Katherine, then called Kathy, asked.
"I'm going to a store. Now you stay here and be good for mummy," the woman replied, remorse filling the dark blue eyes she shared with her daughter.
"Okay mummy, I love you," Kathy smiled, not knowing it would be a long time before she ever did truly smile again.
"I love you too." She gave Kathy a kiss on the forehead, and caught a bus, heading somewhere away from West Didsbury, the unfamiliar place she had left Kathy in. The moment the bus left, Kathy felt a chilly sensation on her left shoulder, and turned to face her father, who was always keeping an eye on Kathy and her Squib mother. He would only let Kathy see him, though he wouldn't tell her why.
"Hi daddy. That tickles," she giggled, referring to him touching her shoulder.
"I'm going to take you home with me," he said. Kathy decided he was talking about the place he went when he wasn't with her.
"Where's that?" she asked.
"You'll see." He managed a weak smile.
"Won't mummy be mad at me for leaving with you? I don't think she knows about you," Kathy inquired.
"I think she'll be okay with it," Regulus Black replied, not truly having the nerve to explain to the poor girl that her mother had left her. From that day on, he remained her guardian, and started instructing her in the ways of magic. Kathy became Katherine, or Kat as she grew older. She was trained in the ways the dark arts. Kat proved to be a quick study in Potions and the Dark Arts but could never master any other types of magic due to the fact that ghosts could not do magic, thus she never was truly taught. No one knew of the little girl doing magic because Regulus found a way to insure the wards would protect her from the ministry's watchful eye. She could do magic all she wanted, as long as Regulus was with her, that was the rule, but there'd be a time when Regulus would have to go.
"Kat? Kat. Katherine, are you listening to me?" her father bellowed, pulling her out of her pensive thoughts.
"I'm not deaf! God, I think they heard you all the way in Scotland," she droned in the same sarcastic tone her father tended to use when he wasn't yelling.
"Aren't you going show me the damned Horcrux, so we can destroy it?" He was truly frustrated now.
"Here. It is rather pretty, huh?" She showed him the locket, and knowing as a ghost he couldn't touch it, she tried to open it for him. Alas, it wouldn't budge. She tried magically as well, with every unlocking spell she knew. It was pointless.
"How're we going to destroy it?" she asked exasperatedly.
"I don't know." For once, he truly was clueless.
"Well, we'll have to hide it here, while I go out and look for the other Horcruxes. Or is it horcruxi? Kind of like when you say cacti instead of cactuses," she babbled, simply to annoy her father.
"Uugh, we'll put it in one of the old boxes we have in the house. No one comes here anyway, so they can't get their hands on it. The only other people with access to the house are my brother, who's hiding in a cave somewhere according to the "Daily Prophet", my cousin Bella who's in Azkaban, and her sister Narcissa. However, Cissy has a house and family of her own to take care of, and I doubt she even knows of Horcruxes anyway."
"Horcruxi," Kat interrupted.
"What?" Regulus was quite baffled with that random word.
"You said Horcruxes; it could be Horcruxi, it makes for sense grammatically," Kat explained cheekily.
"As I was saying," he glared at her insolence, "I do think it's impossible for anyone to get at the locket which just won't open. We'll take care of it later, after we find another one."
"Alright, father, you're the boss." She smirked; it was her trademark, and as close as she'd come to a smile.
"What will we do with you child?" Regulus groaned.
"Nothing, I'm practically perfect in every way," she announced to further agitate her father. "Now, let's go to our next destination. According to my research, Rowena Ravenclaw had a bracelet hidden in Egypt. If we go there, we could track down the location of where it is now. Are you up for a bit of a vacation, father?"
"Let's go," he answered. She put the locket away in the drawer of the dresser she used, once owned by one of her Black ancestors, and Apparated away. Her father would follow her shortly, traveling in that strange way that ghosts did.
She immediately found herself in Al-Sahel, Egypt, a tiny town on the coast of the Mediterranean. It was thought to be Rowena's favorite place for relaxation, and where most of her possessions were probably hidden someplace safe. Now Kat would have to do more research until they could find where the bracelet used to be, and then they could attempt to track down where Voldemort hid his Horcrux. Little did they know this would take nearly two years, enough time for their home in Britain to be invaded and cleaned by a bunch of teens and some of their guardians. In this cleaning expedition, a locket which was hard to open would be found and cast aside as junk, only to be stolen by a thief and sold to some unknowing, innocent person who merely thought it was a pretty piece of jewelry. Oh, how cruel fate could be.