She stomped, she stamped, and she screamed internally. Platform 9¾ was bustling with life like it did every September 1st. Smoke was billowing from the massive steam engine, the Hogwarts Express, and many teenagers and children and adults were crowded around in every which-way, talking and yelling and shouting at one another. Owls hooted, cats screeched, and toads croaked as Katrina Rhinehart, a Ravenclaw Sixth-Year who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, peered around every head and shoulder looking for somebody that was even remotely familiar. She, unlike the majority of the other students, was already dressed in her school robes and fingering something through the cotton of them idly. Not only was she oddly excited, but Katrina was more worried than the most worried worrywart and angrier than a Manticore.
They hadn't sent her an owl for a whole week. Now, normally she wouldn't be mad at all. Most of the time their letters were a good week apart anyways. But, you see, last week had been the Quidditch World Cup. And, not only that, but there had been a Death Eater attack.
Seeing as Katrina was not fond of Death Eaters at all, she was, of course, extremely concerned for her friends. The Daily Prophet hadn't said anything about casualties (other than some baloney about rumors — she hated rumors), but she still couldn't help thinking that there was a possibility that something much more horrible than the Ministry was letting on had happened.
Katrina had already located Cora, her best friend. They had found each other almost instantly, and Katrina had already ranted her thoughts to her. The two of them had found a compartment and put their things away rather early, and Katrina had changed, too. That left her enough time to find the boys and chew them out.
Finally, oh thank Merlin, finally, she spotted them. Or not exactly them, but rather a small sea of flaming red hair.
Hiking up her robes, Katrina began to stomp louder and faster in their direction. Now she could see them. Both of their tall, lanky frames crammed up against each other with the rest of their family. They were laughing, of course — one of them probably just told a joke. And they had no idea how worried they had made her! Yes, she was happy to know that they were in fact alive and well, but still! They had terrified her for a good while!
"Fred and George Weasley!" she yelled above the babble of excitement. "You — you haven't — not one —!"
Katrina began to stutter uncontrollably as she approached the twins, moving her hands from her robes to her hair, which was flashing from red to white to red again. Both Fred and George looked mildly surprised, yet at the same time extremely overjoyed.
"Katri–!" they both began, but Katrina threw her hands into their faces to cut them off.
"AH-BUH-BUH!" she shouted, still spluttering wildly. "Not a word!"
"But —" Fred began.
"Not one," Katrina said dangerously. Fred clacked his jaw shut.
Sucking in a deep breath, she said, "Have you any idea how — how worried and — how I've felt? You haven't sent me a — a single letter since the Cup! I-I thought you were killed! Or injured, or somewhere in St. Mungo's!"
"To be fair," George said as the rest of the Weasleys began to eye Katrina curiously, "if we were in St. Mungo's, we wouldn't be able to send owls."
"Exactly!" Katrina shrieked, stomping one of her feet and glaring at George, then to Fred, then to George again. "I was worried sick!"
"Makes for the better reunion?" Fred asked nervously,
"A better — a better reunion?" Katrina seethed. They smiled apologetically. Breathing loudly through her nose, she said, "I'm going to kill you both."
"But if you do that, it'd be counterproductive," one of the Weasleys pointed out. Katrina was about to snap back at them, expecting it to be Ron, but stopped herself once she looked at him. It wasn't Fred and George's younger brother at all, nor was it Percy or even Ginny. She had never met this Weasley.
"I — uh — I suppose," she said slowly, furrowing her eyebrows together curiously. This one, not unlike the rest of his family, had bright red hair, but was stockier and a bit shorter than the others. He was very built, though, and covered in scars varying in grotesqueness — not that you could really see them under all of his freckles. A large, very shiny burn was plastered over one of his arms, but he didn't seem to care enough about it to cover it up.
"Charlie," he said, shoving out his hand and grinning. Immediately, something clicked in Katrina's head, and she felt herself brighten up immediately as she shook his hand.
"Oh, Charlie!" she said delightedly. "You're the one who works with dragons!"
"Yep," Charlie said happily, eying the top of Katrina's head and cocking a brow. "In Romania — uh — does that happen often?"
"What?" Katrina asked as Fred and George sniggered quietly.
"Oh, yeah," Fred said dismissively. "All the time."
"Metamorphmagus?"
Katrina jumped, releasing Charlie's hand and staring at yet another Weasley that she hadn't met. This one was taller and slightly lankier, though still very well-muscled and quite handsome, now that she thought about it. His red hair was rather long and pulled back in a ponytail and his ear was pierced with a dangling fang of some sort.
After realizing she was staring, Katrina began to nod feverishly. "Oh, yes! Yes, runs in the family."
"Her Dad's Robert Rhinehart," Fred told the other Weasley over his shoulder. Katrina sent him a glance that might have held the smallest of glares. "You know him, don't you, Bill? He's an Auror or something."
"Oh, yeah!" Bill said, nodding ad holding his hand out, too. "I mean, I haven't met him formally or anything, but I've heard about him. Wasn't he trained by Mad-Eye Moody?"
"Was he?" Mr. Weasley asked interestedly as Katrina shook Bill's hand.
"Yeah, he was," Katrina said as she shoved a rather thick piece of blue hair behind her shoulder. "But that's a long story — um — oh! Wotcher, I'm Katrina," she said to Charlie and Bill, who both nodded in greeting.
"You know her," George chuckled from beside Fred.
"Fred's only talked about you all summer," Ginny whispered to Katrina. She nearly jumped again, but then noticed that the youngest of the Weasley children had sidled up beside her while she had been shaking the eldests' hands.
"I have not!" Fred said quickly. Katrina thought the tips of his ears might have turned pink. Ginny laughed a little into her hand.
"Anyways," George hummed, "have you got us a compartment yet? And where's Cora?"
Katrina really knew that George was only interested in Cora, seeing as they had been dating during a good lot of Fifth Year, but she didn't think to tease him about it. "Yeah, we found one. Cora's waiting for us in the third car, I think."
"Why don't we just go then?" Fred asked, making to grab Katrina's arm and get away from his family, but Katrina jerked away awkwardly. As he gave her an odd look, Mrs. Weasley butted in.
"Oh, no you don't!" she scolded, marching up to Fred and wagging her finger. "You've got to wait for Ron, Harry, and Hermione!"
"But why?" Fred groaned. "We see them all the time already!"
"Yes, but I don't!" Mrs. Weasley said finally.
As the Weasleys began talking amongst themselves again, Katrina rubbed her arm and looked anywhere but at Fred and George's faces. "I, uh, actually can't just go to the compartment yet. . . ." she said quietly.
"What was that?" George asked. Then he looked Katrina up and down, somewhat baffled. "And why are you wearing your robes already?"
"I — I uh —" Katrina mumbled, clasping her hands together and wringing them together loosely.
"What is it?" Fred asked. She looked down to her feet, blushing.
"I've been made a Prefect," she said.
Besides the rest of the talking going around the station, the twins had gone silent. Katrina was too nervous to look up at their faces and see their jaws hanging down to their collarbones.
"You — you've what?" George asked.
"I-I didn't mean to be!" Katrina said quickly, worriedly glancing up at him and Fred and then back down to her feet. "Professor Flitwick sent me a letter along with my school list and said that one of the old Ravenclaw Prefects had been kicked out for not doing their job, so Dumbledore had chosen me for some reason and — and I can't just turn it down! How rude would that be?"
"A Prefect," Fred whispered to himself, raising a hand to his forehead. "A — a Prefect. . . ."
"Do you have any idea —" George began.
"How utterly brilliant that is?" Fred finished giddily. Katrina snapped her head back up, surprised. The two of them looked like Christmas had come early.
"We can get away with everything now!" George said brightly, his eyes lighting up.
"Imagine it, we'll be walking down a corridor with you, and suddenly Filch shows up —" Fred said.
"But see, then you'll say that you found us in the hallways during your patrol —" George said.
"And then we'll be safe, because you'll say that you're taking us to McGonagall's to get proper punishment!" Fred continued.
"When, in reality —" George said.
"We'd be scot-free!" they chorused merrily.
"Wh–" Katrina started, abashed, "what? No! No, no, that's not how it works at all!"
Fred, who had begun to snicker, said, "Oh, yes, love. That's exactly how it works."
For a moment, she was incredibly tempted to snap back and say something witty. But Katrina thought that would be silly, especially seeing as Ron, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter had just hopped off of the train to say goodbye to the Weasleys. So, with a final, deep inhale from her nose, she said, "Whatever, get us all in permanent detention for all I care. I've got to go up to the first car to meet up with the other Prefects or something like that, so I'll meet you later, alright?"
" 'Kay," George shrugged.
"And if you see Lee, take him to the compartment, will you?"
" 'Kay," Fred said indifferently. With a final look, Katrina brushed past the twins and headed for the first car. This was going to be an absolutely fabulous year, she could tell.
Step, step, step, pause. Look around. Step, step, step, pause. Look around. And so the cycle continued. Katrina peeked into each compartment carefully, biting the inside of her cheek and wondering just why Dumbledore had made her a Prefect. She didn't even know how to do these Prefect-y things! Monitor the other students? Punish them for breaking the rules? How were you supposed to do that without looking like a prick?
Merlin, at this point even Percy was better than her. . . . With a sigh, Katrina entered the third car of the Hogwarts Express, glancing here or there into a compartment but otherwise loosing any and all motivation to actually check for shenanigans. Let the other, more experienced Prefects do that. Right now all she wanted to do was catch up with her friends.
As if he had read her mind, Lee Jordan, a close friend of Katrina's, slid open one of the glass doors just as she was about to walk by. He grinned widely, and Katrina smiled. It really was nice to see him again.
"Well, what are you doing, just standing there?" George asked from inside. "Get in here already!"
Quick as a jinx, Lee had gripped Katrina's arm and pulled her into the compartment, closing the door shut behind. Cora bounced up from her seat beside George, her blond hair splaying over her shoulders messily as she jumped around, positively giddy.
"How did it go?" she asked excitedly. "With all the Prefects? What'd they say?"
Katrina awkwardly glanced at the ceiling. "Nothing much, really. You know, standard stuff. The rules, standard procedure, duties, routines . . . stuff like that."
"What about the badge?" Lee asked eagerly, playfully pushing Cora out of his way and nearly shoving his face in Katrina's chest to look at her Prefect pin. "Ooh, look, it really is shiny!"
"Not with you fogging it up!" Katrina laughed as she lightly smacked Lee's face away. Laughing, he puffed out his chest and banged it against hers, as if to prove dominance. Katrina, however, only smirked. After a scrunched-up look on her face, she was suddenly much taller and much larger than Lee, despite his rather muscular build.
He blinked, looking up at Katrina. She didn't look anything like herself anymore, she was sure. She had been thinking of a half-giant before she hat metamorphosed, after all.
"Got some new tricks up your sleeves, have you?" Fred asked, impressed. Katrina grinned widely before furrowing her brow again, strained. Then she was back to normal. Her robes returned with a nearly-silent pop, as they had disappeared and had been replaced by ragged cloths the moment she had changed shape.
"Oh, yes," Katrina nodded sagely. "Dad's taught me lots of stuff over the summer, you know, and Mum's charmed every article of clothing I own. You can't just change yourself without some proper training first."
"So, what you're saying is," George said, smirking, "last year you actually couldn't turn into a troll and trample us all?"
Katrina contorted her face a bit in thought as she reached for her suitcase up on the luggage rack. Alphonse, her Great Grey owl, hooted calmly from inside of his massive cage as she hurriedly tugged the black briefcase out from under multiple sacks of quills and things and sat it on a bench, where the insides of it rattled and banged as if it held much more than it let on.
"No, I couldn't," Katrina mumbled absentmindedly, snapping her suitcase open and looking into it. Not that she could see anything, it was filled with some sort of inky black fog. "I could only do humans then, for the most part, and I had to transfigure all of my clothes." She shoved her hand elbow-deep into the suitcase, sifting around to try and find a certain something. Still distracted, Katrina plucked something from inside and threw it over her shoulder. "Heads up!"
Fred caught it rather easily. "What's this?" he asked, looking at the glass thing curiously. It was rather plain and simple, almost boring. Holding it up to his face, he gazed into his own reflection. "A mirror?"
"You're rather handsome, aren't you?" the mirror replied in breathy voice.
Exclaiming loudly and jumping nearly two feet into the air, Fred threw the mirror up. George caught it just before it hit the ground, Lee at his heels. They both exhaled, relieved, as Cora watched like an amused bystander.
"It's a Looks-a-Lot Mirror," Katrina answered as she shoved her arm, now elbow-deep, farther into the suitcase. "I got it around the time I was ten or eleven, I think. I used to love the thing. Dunno why, to be honest. I need to throw it out."
The mirror gasped, causing George to jump and throw it into the air again. Katrina, however, caught it expertly and dropped it back into her bottomless suitcase. Completely unaffected, she clacked the suitcase shut again and held up what she had been looking for. With a lopsided smile, she saw the looks on the boys' and Cora's faces light up with glee.
It was her camera.
"Me first!" Lee cried, leaping for the camera but being pulled back by his shoulders by Fred and George.
"No," they both said, "me first!"
"Excuse you," Cora said loudly over the three of them and sitting herself uncomfortably close to Katrina, "I'm the best friend, therefore I get the first go!"
"Yeah, but I'm the one who snogs her!" Fred said indignantly.
"Yeah, but you're the one who hasn't sent me a single owl over the past week!" Katrina retorted with a laugh, sticking her tongue out at him. Fred stuck his tongue out right back, much to the amusement of the others.
"And neither have you! Or you!" Katrina said to George and Lee, whose smiles immediately dropped into frowns. "And, sorry Cora, but the camera is mine, so I go first."
"Fair enough," Cora sighed, but still smiled. "What should we photograph first, then?"
"I was thinking a group shot," Katrina said as she stood in front of the compartment door, fiddling with one of the many nobs on her camera and listening to it click quietly. "Sort of like a documentation, you know? For the memories?"
While she fiddled, all four of them clambered about loudly and nearly made the floor shake. When Katrina looked up, they were already in line, grinning broadly and with their hands looped around each other in some way. Smiling, Katrina put the camera to her eyes and said, "Alright then, say 'Every Flavour Beans'!"
"Every Flavour Beans!" they all called cheerily, and with a resonating click! the picture had been taken.
Katrina looked fondly down at her camera again, turning a nob and popping a doodad. She meant to glance up briefly at her friends, who had begun to chatter again merrily, but found herself transfixed by them. Just over the break, they really had grown.
Cora had gained a bit of weight. Not much, really, and not in a bad way at all. The slightest bit of chub was protruding from her stomach, but the rest of it was filling itself nicely around her hips and waist. She was growing into quite the curvacious witch! Meanwhile, Lee had grown an inch or two and his long dreadlocks had been pulled into a high ponytail that fitted him nicely. Fred and George looked identical as always, but for some reason, when Katrina looked at Fred, she found herself much more interested in how his hair had grown out and how his face had grown longer and skinnier, and how — damn — he had gotten even taller! To think, she had made herself grow over the summer just to be eye-level with him, only to have him tower over her still. . . .
"Well?" Cora asked impatiently. Katrina shook her head and stared at her friend blankly. "Are you going to let me see the camera or not?"
"Oh!" Katrina said quickly, realization hitting her in the face. "Oh, right! Sorry, sorry — uh — here! Yeah, take it!"
Shoving the camera into Cora's hand, Katrina quickly stood between the twins again. Cora looked at the camera, confused.
"Do I look alright?" Katrina asked Fred quietly. He looked her over, knitting his eyebrows together and moving his head around as if to get a good look at her from every angle.
"Well, your hair's blue again, that's good," he said, the edges of his mouth twitching. "But you've got a speck on your nose — here —"
He raised his hand to Katrina's nose, where she expected him to rub the speck off. But instead he flicked her harshly, causing her to flinch, jump away from him and into George, and clap her hands over her nose.
"Ow!" she cried. "That hurt!"
"Oi!" Cora laughed as she clicked one final switch on the camera. "No horseplay!"
"Do you want me to kiss it better?" Fred asked, waggling his eyebrows. Lee groaned.
"Did you do that just so you could ask me that?" Katrina asked, rubbing the tip of her nose tenderly.
"Maybe."
"Then no."
"But —" Fred said, but Cora had started to shout over him.
"Say 'Every Flavour Beans'!" she said.
Throwing her hands behind her back, Katrina smiled at the camera despite the redness she could feel spreading over her face. Fred swiftly swung his arms over her shoulders, grinning charmingly.
"Every Flavour Beans!" they said together.
Click!
"My turn!" Lee yelled ecstatically. "My turn, my turn!"
"Okay, okay!" Cora laughed, handing the camera to Lee. Triumphantly, he began to whirl around, clicking madly at anything that he could lay his eyes on.
"Hey!" George said, jumping on him and beginning to wrestle Lee for the camera. "You've already taken your picture, come on, give us a turn!"
"Yeah!" Fred said, pumping one of his arms and cheering from the sideline. Katrina had the oddest feeling that George thought that Fred was wrestling with him, which was why Fred kept making odd grunting noises and commentating humorously. Cora giggled profusely into her hand, hardly able to keep her eyes open as the camera was launched into the air and expertly caught by Fred.
Almost immediately, he pulled Katrina closer by the shoulder and pointed the camera at them both, making a multitude of silly faces at it and clicking madly. Katrina tried to push him of, cackling with laughter, but got nowhere, seeing as Fred had an amazing grip and could hold onto her quite easily. Though she supposed she didn't really want him to let go, really.
George thudded over, long ginger hair ruffled and shirt in disarray, and ripped the camera out of Fred's hands to take it for himself.
"Hah-hah!" he yelled in victory. "I got it!"
As Fred began to shout back and forth with George, Katrina sighed contently and casually slid her hand around Fred's waist. It was nice to be in the middle of chaos again.
"I've missed you," she mumbled into his sweater.
"Oh, really?" Fred asked interestedly. Katrina pinched his side just a bit in surprise — she didn't expect him to hear. "Is that why you were so worried? I thought you thought you had just lost your boy toy or something."
"Boy toy?" she asked incredulously, looking up at Fred's face only to see him grinning down at her. He looked more gleeful than before somehow.
"If it's any solace," he said quietly with a wink, "I've missed you too."
And there we go, that started it. In a sudden rush of overwhelming emotion, Katrina felt her stomach burst alive with bubbles and butterflies. A brilliant flush washed over her cheeks as she looked away from Fred, and a highly uncomfortably prickling from her scalp told her that her hair had turned lavender. She could practically feel his grin spreading across his face.
"Oh, Katrina, my love," he said dramatically as George and Lee brought Cora into their scuffle, "how wonderful it is to finally hold you in my arms again! We have been separated for far too long!"
"I'll say!" George spat from between Lee's elbow in a headlock. "He went through relapses without you, Trina! You should've seen him!"
"Shut up!" Fred said hotly, pouting a bit as Katrina laughed a little and pushed a bit of violet hair off of her shoulder.
"If you care about me so much," she said coolly, "then you should've sent me an owl."
"Ooh," Lee cooed excitedly, releasing George and listening intently. George hit the floor with a muffled thud.
"The Prophet said there weren't any casualties!" Fred retorted elatedly.
"Yes, but I still worried!" Katrina retorted back, crossing her arms and satisfactorily feeling her scalp prickle again. She was back to blue.
"Look at you," Cora said jokingly, "already acting like a married couple!"
"Too bad that's ages away," George chuckled as he sat up on the floor. "I'd love to see them bicker as an actual married couple."
"Imagine the conversations they'd have!" Lee snickered. Katrina shuffled her arms awkwardly, trying to force back the rising prickling in her hair. Fred looked a bit awkward too, and with a glance up at him she thought the back of his neck might have been pink. " 'Fred, you left the toilet seat up again!' 'No, that wasn't me, that was the ghoul!' 'But we don't have a ghoul!' "
George had disintegrated into a fit of laughter, and Cora was right behind him. She collapsed on the floor beside him, leaning on him for support.
Fred feigned a grumpy attitude and huffed, sitting down roughly on one of the compartment benches and dragging Katrina with him. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he pulled her into his shoulder and firmly kept her there, despite the many jokes thrown their way by George and Lee. And, for a good while, that was where they stayed.
Finally, though, the topic changed and everybody got into a seat. George and Lee started a game of Exploding Snap, in which Katrina was only mildly interested in. She had her attention fixed on Fred and her camera, which he had swiped from Lee. Fred kept snapping photos of absolutely everything, from the compartment lamp to his shoes. He seemed rather fond of it.
"It's nice to know you pay more attention to my camera rather than me," Katrina joked.
"Jealous?" Fred asked as he turned the camera around and took another photo of the two of them.
"No," Katrina laughed. "Not in the slightest."
Fred chuckled quietly to himself as Katrina used his shoulder to her advantage. She leaned into him and settled her head on his collar, oddly comforted and finding herself dazing into space and thinking of what all had happened over the summer.
She and the twins had finally finished the Ton-Tongue Toffees. And, not only that, but Fred and George had also invented a line of fake wands that were growing more and more complex. Their order forms had, sadly, been destroyed by their mother, but that was alright. They were planning to sell most of their things during school, anyways.
Katrina had actually learned how to ride her brother's broom — not that she didn't know how to in the first place, but she had been rather horrible at flying since the beginning. Now she was moderately adequate.
Her father had taught her how to metamorphose into much more complex things, such as animals and beasts. Inanimate objects were scheduled for next year, he had said; that gave her plenty of time to practice what she had learned so far.
The Hogwarts Letters had also come, and with that was her shiny blue-and-silver Prefect badge and letter from Professor Flitwick. . . . She still didn't really know how she was going to deal with such a responsibility on her shoulders. But she supposed she would get through it somehow.
Then Katrina looked over the compartment again, where Lee had been covered in ashes from one of his cards blowing up and Cora was nearly rolling on the floor with laughter. George took the camera in victory again, almost like a trophy.
Yes, she thought, this was going to be a fabulous year indeed.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
And so begins Part 2 of our wonderful series!
Katrina's started Sixth Year along with her friends, Cora, Fred, George, and Lee. Who knows what could be in store? Oh, wait — I do! And I'll give you a hint, they're called hormones o;