A/N: This was one of my first fics… this is the de-suified version. I'm still workin' on it; it was written terribly before, and I never put it on so now I'm putting the good version up. Please read and review. Tell me wutcha think, what you think I could improve, and what you like. Thanxies. -RG
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Disclaimer: The only thing I can claim ownership of is a single character: Katherine… well, her and the romantic plot. Everything else, the characters, the basic plot, etc., belong to the amazing JKR. I am merely a lowly fic writer. Seriously, who'd believe I own any of this? -rolls eyes- Anyway, on with the fic!
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Staring up the weathered stone steps, my eyes following their way up to the great oak doors, I couldn't help but smile. Things had changed a lot; I missed this place. It had been years since I'd been here; years. Ah, the memories! Memories of my childhood, my school years, my friends; the memories flooded my mind. There was one in particular...
...It was our fifth year. As for 'our,' it may or may not come as a surprise that my friends were mostly boys. If you're talking about whom I'd spend time with on a normal basis, you could say all boys. I did, of course, have friends who were girls, like Lily and Diana. Being in school together, living under the same roof for almost seven years, not including summers, it was hard not to be friends with those of your own gender. However, I preferred the boys for some reason, and whether or not I went on all their escapades, we were as close as could be.
I was a year younger than most of my friends, boy or girl, so I was currently fourteen rather than fifteen as most. Because they felt I was ready, I had been accepted into the school a year earlier than usual. It didn't seem to make much of a difference, because I never truly felt any younger.
Anyway, we had just finished our O.W.L.'s. It was a beautiful day, so we chose to spend our leisure time out by the lake. We sat in the pleasant shade of a tree, I laying on a low branch and the four boys at the base. We were having a perfectly good time. It was perfectly good, that is, until he came along.
"He" was one whom everyone, most of all my friends, loved to pick on. Then again, "everyone" never truly includes everyone, and this "everyone" didn't include me. "Him" and I at first spent our classes bickering, but we had become friends when we finally got past that. Usually we met secretly, so my other friends never knew.
They had done and said many terrible things to "him", but this topped them off. Eventually, our group's "leader," James, who had used a charm to flip "him" upside-down, was stopped by Lily, my friend whom I had mention previously. He stopped for the time being, but only because Lily was his crush. Lily left, though, after being called a mudblood by "him" when "he" told her he didn't need her help. James went right back into his vicious torment after she left, and he would have continued for a long time had I not used a tripping charm on him. He never knew I did it.
I slipped "him" a note to meet me that night at the Room of Requirement. I had spent half of the time apologizing for not doing more, while "he" sat listening and seemingly emotionless. It turns out he wasn't really emotionless at all. It was at that time that we shared out first kiss...
...As the memory faded, I sighed. I looked back at the lake, partially out of longing for my childhood againand partially out of regret of things that had happened. The friends I had were the renowned Marauders, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs; Remus, Peter, Sirius and James, respectively. That "him" I spoke of was now a professor. That "him" was named Severus Snape.
I looked above the great oak doors to the towers and turrets of Hogwarts, where I, Katherine Avexton, now 31, would also be teaching. I inhaled deeply, placing my foot down, thus taking my first step up these beautiful steps since about fourteen years before. Things would be different, but hopefully I'd have many more wonderful memories.