Katie Bell had just graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was going to be a teacher at a wizard primary school. She had always like little kids. She was very smart and enjoyed helping others. She was thrilled when she had been offered the job so quickly out of school, even though she still had a year of schooling left to get her degree in teaching, they had asked her if she would like the job as she had already sent in an application.
She had just gotten off the Hogwarts Express for the last time, she didn't really have anyone to say goodbye to. Most of her friends were a year older than her, however, she did take the time to say fare well to a few who she had grown fond of over the seven years she had been with them. After walking through the barrier into the Muggle world, she looked around and sighed. The full effect of graduating had still not fully sunk into her mind.
Dragging her trunk, which she had charmed to become feather light, behind her, she stepped out into the blinding sunlight of London. She had no need to get a cab, or to look for anyone who would be picking her up. She lived a little up the street in a small apartment with her mother who was often sick and couldn't keep a steady job.
When she arrived at home, she found a note on the stove. It was attached to a letter that was addressed to her. She picked the note up and looked at it carefully. She recognized the writing as her mothers' and that on the envelope as her friend George Weasley's.
The note simply said that a letter had arrived for her and that her mother had gone out to get some groceries and she'd be back later. She put the note aside and took the letter over to the kitchen table. Once she sat down and flicked her wand a few times causing several objects to start the process of making tea, she pulled the letter out of the envelope half expecting it to explode.
Much to her relief, it did not. She unfolded it, waiting to grow some strange appendage, when this didn't happen, she finally let go of her suspicions and read the letter. It was just a normal letter from her friends, Fred and George who had left Hogwarts a year before. They were to graduate the year that they left, but due to circumstances named Dolores Umbridge, their time was cut short and they left Hogwarts on their own accord.
"Katie,
Hey there, how's the graduated life treating you? We wouldn't know! We didn't graduate. Mum is still mad about that mind you…it's really no need to get her panties in a twist, we're doing quite well with our little business…Sorry we haven't written as much, but damn being a business man is time consuming! This letter really has no point other than to congratulate you and to ask you to stop by the shop, you remember where it is don't you? From last summer? Well anyway we need to talk to you about something, and we wanted to do it in person. Send us an owl if you can make it to Diagon Alley on Saturday. Well send one even if you can't…
Oh and George wants to know how long you put off opening this for fear of a curse of hex? Actually I'm quite curious myself.
Well lots of love and congratulations,
Gred and Forge, the proud owners of Weasleys' Wizardry Weezes"
Katie sighed and chuckled to herself. Those two hadn't changed at all since she had seen them last. They had left school to open up a joke shop. From what she saw last summer, and what she heard in the letter she had just read, they were doing quite well. When she had seen them briefly on the platform last year they both had on dragon skin jackets, which weren't exactly cheap.
After finishing her cup of tea, and writing a quick response to their letter, Katie picked up her truck and dragged it to her bed room. It was rather small, but what would you expect in a small apartment in the middle of London? A bed was against one wall, and a bookshelf filled with books that had hardly been touched, and some old school books, on another. There was a desk in the corner that had a few quills and a roll of parchment. It was exactly how she had left it after Christmas Holliday.
She walked over to her closet and started to hang up her robes, knowing that she wouldn't need them anymore. She took out her school book and placed them on the very top shelf of the book case, which had seven shelves. She had devised this organizational system herself; or so she liked to think. She had all of her first year books as well as any extracurricular from first year on the very bottom shelf, second year on the second from the bottom and so on and so forth.
After she had all of her things unpacked, she heard her mother in the kitchen. She had been too caught up in her thoughts to notice her arrival. She closed her trunk and slid it under the edge of her bed before walking out across the living room and into the kitchen.
She was surprised, to say the least, that it wasn't her mother in the kitchen. It was a tall man with dark hair and dark eyes that held little feeling. She had only met him once before at a small dinner banquet for her mother's job. She worked at a grocery store as an assistant manager.
The man that was in her kitchen was just as surprised to see her. "Katie," he greeted, nodding his head before continuing to put groceries away.
"Hello, Harold," she said, trying to sound pleasant, but failing horribly. She had never gotten along with any of her mother's boyfriends. No matter how nice, how mean, how cute, how homely, it didn't matter, it was a pure and simple fact that she could not get along with anyone who was seeing her mother.
He didn't seem to notice her struggling to smile sweetly as she helped put away the groceries. "Do you know where my mother is?" she asked suddenly noticing that her mother was in fact no where around.
He looked at her suspiciously, "No, no I don't, why?"
"Well, she is my mother, and she's always here when I get home from school." She said shrugging her shoulders. There was a certain tone in his voice that made her uneasy when he replied.
"Well, I guess there's a first time for everything now isn't there?" it wasn't his response that bothered her. It was how he had said it. "But I haven't seen her since we parted ways at the grocery store. I figured she had come running home to see her darling daughter. But I guess I was wrong, now wasn't I?"
Something was very wrong about how he was acting; she just couldn't put her finger on it. He had an expression of, well she couldn't tell what it was, but it had never been in any of the pictures that her mother had sent of the two of them, nor had it been present when she met him over Christmas. It was almost as if he was happy her mother wasn't there. And the way he said things, "Parted ways," it sent chills up her spine. She just didn't know why.
She tried to push these thoughts to the back of her mind as she finished helping with the groceries. Shortly after she had gone back to her room and sat down at the desk with a good book and a cup of tea, her mother had arrived home.
"I'm sorry dear, I was going to be here when you got back, but I couldn't get back in time," she said, her words sounded sincere, but her eyes showed nothing of the sort. She looked unsure of herself, her mother had never been a very good liar; her eyes had always given her away.
"It's ok Mum," she said simply, dismissing her strange behavior for lack of sleep.
"Alright, dinner will be ready soon," she said before closing the door, not even looking at her daughter. Shrugging, Katie just went back to reading her course book for her next year of schooling at a one year wizard college that she was going to be attending the next year.
The next two days went by rather quickly with more strange things happening. She tried to ignore them, and it was working until her meeting with Fred and George. She had figured it would just be old friends talking, hanging out and just having a good time.
How very wrong she was. When she walked into the medium sized shop near the middle of Diagon Alley, she was greeted by grim faces and taken by the elbows to the back room where no one would over hear what was going on.
"Katie, this is really important and you have to trust us ok?" Fred started out before she could say anything. His voice was low, his face was grim and George mirrored his facal expressions. This was something that George could never do, he couldn't lie very well because his expressions always gave him away. He couldn't help but smiling in the middle of a prank, always giving them away and blowing their cover.
There was, however, not one sign of a grin on his face that was a little more pale than usual. She decided that it must be serious so she just nodded her head dumbly waiting for one of them to continue.
It was George who started to speak now, his voice also low, she noticed that he kept looking around at the door and had a worried look in his eyes. "Ok, here's the deal, you are in big trouble. You didn't do anything, but something happened and now you're not safe." He said, letting it sink in to her.
"Wh-what?" if she looked confused, it was nothing to how she felt. Her mother and her boyfriend had been acting strangely, she was in danger, and her friends some how knew about it. Nothing seemed to fit together.
"We're not exactly sure how this happened," Fred started, "We didn't get the full details, we were just told to protect you, from well, you're mother and her boyfriend," he said.
"Why would you want to do that? I mean she's my mother I'll be safe from whatever it is that I'm in danger of there wouldn't I?" she asked, not hardly believing that it was real. "And what are you going about 'protect me'?"
"Well you see, you're not safe at home because what you're in danger of is your mother and her boyfriend, don't look at me like that, and well… the second part we can explain later because we can't really talk about that away from well…headquarters." George said, struggling to find the right words.
Katie laughed. "Right, so what kind of joke is this anyway? It's not very funny you know. I think you two might be losing your touch. You might want to see someone about that," she said, eyes narrowed at her two friends.
Fred sighed, "Look this isn't a joke Katie. Think about it, have they been acting weird? You're mum and her boyfriend I mean,"
She thought about it for a second, "Well…yeah I guess they have been," she said slowly.
"When was the last time that you saw either of them in a teeshirt?" George asked, the first thought that came into her mind was that he was crazy, and the second was that he had a point.
"Well… so what? Maybe they're cold?" she said.
"It gets to be 90 degree's outside." Fred said, looking at her pointedly.
"You don't mean that they're hiding something do you?" she asked, hoping what she was thinking wasn't true.
"That's exactly what they're doing Katie," he said, "They're hiding the dark mark that's burned into their arms."
Katie couldn't say anything. She just looked at them with realization dawning in her eyes.
"Ok, here's what you do," George started. "You go home, you get your things, you bring them back here, without them noticing mind you," he continued. "Bring your stuff here, we'll take you to our place for the night, and then after that you'll be staying at headquarters,"
"Ok…but what exactly is headquarters?" she asked, suddenly suspicious of her friends.
"Can't tell you right now, we'll tell you tomorrow, once we get there. If anyone finds out about it, we would all probably be killed." Fred said, "Now, go on and get back, we'll be here, and if you don't show soon we're going to go looking for you."
She nodded her head and walked out of the store in a daze. She wasn't quite sure what had happened, or why her own mother would want to kill her. She wasn't even sure why her mother was a Death Eater; she was, as far as Katie knew, against the Dark Arts.
Once she returned home, she found that her mother was waiting in her bed room for her.
"Have a nice walk did you?" she asked, tying to be pleasant.
"Yes, actually," Katie said, sitting down on the bed, not quite sure what to do. "Went to Diagon Alley and had some ice cream," she said, trying to go on as if everything was normal.
"Really?" her mother said without any emotion. "Well I just wanted to say good night." With that she stood and walked toward the door. "Might want to enjoy it while it lasts,"
With her mother's words echoing in her head, she grabbed all of her things within reach and tipped them into her trunk, trying not to make too much noise. She summoned her books from the shelves and the robes out of the closet. She grabbed her broom from his shelf and locked it, along with the rest of her belongings, inside her trunk.
After once more making it weightless, she grabbed onto the handle and apparated into the alley behind her apartment building, walking in the shadows the whole way to the Leaky Cauldron.
Once inside the little pub, she took a pinch of floo powder from the small bag she had grabbed off her desk. She tossed it into the fire and in a clear whisper said 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes".
She stumbled out of the fire place in the back of the shop and looked around for any sign of the twins. She finally found them behind the desk placing several security spells on the cash register.
"Katie!" Fred said, putting down his wand and walking out from the behind the counter. "How'd it go? No problems?"
She shook her head, trying to get the strange voice of her mother's out of her head. It was giving her quite a headache, and not to mention it was starting to scare her. It was almost like it was taunting her, telling her she was never going to make it through the night.
"Good good," George muttered, finishing up the locking spells. "Did you bring your broom?"
"Do I ever leave home without it?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Fred rolled his eyes. "Well, out with it, you're going to need it. Moody's not going to want to wait."
"Moody? As in that old bat that taught Defense?" she asked as she pulled her broomstick from her trunk. "Wasn't he the one with the freaky eye?"
"Yeah, that's him. He's in the…" he trailed off. "Later," he said, when she gave him a puzzled look. "I'll explain later,"
"Where are they? They're never late! You don't think something happened to them?" George asked from the window.
"Of course nothing happened to them, they've got Moody. I bet he made them go the long way…" Fred said shaking his head a little bit.
"The long way?" Katie repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh I'm sure you'll find out soon enough," Fred said. "I think I see them."
Sure enough, not even a minute later, a woman with bright pink hair, a man that Katie recognized as Mr. Weasley, the old defense against the dark arts teacher, Mad-eye Moody, and few other people that she didn't recognize came into the shop, glancing around.
"Hello there, I'm Tonks. You must be Katie," the woman with pink hair said, holding out her hand and smiling.
"Um… Nice to meet you," she said, shaking the woman's hand, not entirely sure what to do.
"Nice too see you again, Katie," Mr. Weasley said, nodding his head in her direction. "Good to see that you're not green and red this time."
"Yes, that's always a good thing isn't it, sir?" she said chuckling a little at the memory.
"No need for this sir business," he said as he glanced around again. "You do have a broom stick with you don't you?"
"Yeah. Are we flying to…where ever?" she asked, despite the fact that it was really a rather stupid question.
"Not as easily tracked," Moody spoke up. "Don't want any of them to find us eh?" his blue eye was looking at her trunk, and she could only guess that he was inspecting the contents.
"Well, we should get a move on then." Tonks said, ushering toward the door of the joke shop. Katie hadn't realized how late it was before then. She was too confused and worried about the news that had suddenly been brought on her.
Soon, they were up in the misty clouds speeding toward somewhere that Katie only hoped wasn't that far away. Her hands and face were cold from the chilly night air and the moisture of the clouds.
About ten minutes later, after circling around a separate way, they landed behind a bush. She peered out from behind it, clearly not too impressed with where they were.
You could hear yelling, and loud music off in the distance. There was a baby crying somewhere. Katie wasn't sure, but she was sure that if she looked out across the town during the day she would see quite a bit of trash laying around on the sidewalks and in the grass.
"Where are we?" she asked in a whisper, not knowing if it was safe to speak in regular tones.
"Number Twelve Grimmauld Place," said Fred, she could see his white teeth shining in the darkness.
Looking out across the ground again, she thought about that address. It was a rather name for a place wasn't it? She then noticed that there was a new building sitting where there had been nothing but empty space before.
"Come on," George whispered, taking her by the arm and leading her out behind the others. They walked right up to this strange new building that looked just the same as all the others that she could see.
They stood at the door for a short period in which she could hear many clicking noises from within. Finally, when the door popped open she was flooded with warmth and greeted by the kind face of Mrs. Weasley.
"Katie dear, how wonderful to see you again!" she said, pulling her into a hug. "You must be so tired! I'll show you to your room," the lady with graying red hair put her arm around the younger girl and led her up the flight of stars.
"Ginny, Hermione, come on now, get to bed," she said, knocking on one of the doors. "Katie's here, now come on, off you go," she said as two girls came out of the room looking slightly dejected.
After being shown to a room another floor up that she shared with Hermione and Ginny, which she really didn't mind, she fell asleep almost instantly. She didn't notice when the other two girls snuck off. She didn't even noticed when George and Fred apparated in to check on her.
It had, after all, been a long day and they didn't have the heart to wake her up.
"We'll tell her tomorrow," George said to his twin as he closed the door after them.