Disclaimer: As usual, the characters aren't mine and they never will be. I just do this because I can. The song belongs to Chris Shiflett of Jackson United (and that band with Dave Grohl in it that no one's ever heard of :winks:).

A/N: A new story! I haven't done one of those since April ("Get Me Outta Here!" doesn't count since it's a different fandom). So anyhow, I was working on the third (or fourth, depending on how you count) chapter of "Caught in the Middle" and this little plot bunny got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. It's a song fic to Jackson United's "Here Comes Hollow," short and just a wee bit angsty. And it's about Lee and Katie (they really need a category) because they hardly ever get a fic to themselves. Western Ballads is a great album; if you have an indie record store near you, go cop it when it comes out in the US this summer (or you can order it from HMV in Aussieland like I did a while back). And the reason George and Alicia are in detention while Katie has class is because she has that one extra First Year course – Flying.

Hard enough sometimes
You're missing the last step

Kathryn Bell began the trek to Gryffindor House from the Great Hall, trying unsuccessfully to keep a smile on her face while the other students followed her. She didn't want to be Head Girl. She didn't want to be Quidditch Captain either, and secretly hoped that McGonagall would pick Harry Potter instead. Hell, she didn't want to be at Hogwarts anymore, period. All her mates were gone. Fred and George had dropped out. Angelina and Alicia had graduated and so did he.

People had always found it odd that she didn't have any friends in her own year, but to Katie, it felt right. It was nice to have girlfriends that didn't think she was weird because she liked Quidditch. It was nice having guy friends that didn't treat her like she had some kind of weird disease just because she was girl. Later on, it was amazing to have a boyfriend. But most of all, it was nice just to have friends. Especially him.

Because she was lost in her musings, she forgot to remind the younger students about the trick stair in the middle of the case. Or rather she forgot about it completely and stepped on it. Immediately, she fell all the way through to the floor. "Fuck," she muttered. "Brill, Bell, just brill. You can fly through the air on a little broomstick, but you can't even watch your step on the ground. No wonder Lee doesn't want you."

Bad to good reminds us
Of when we first met

Lee Adam Jordan. The love of her life. Until about two weeks ago, she thought she was the love of his, too. They were a cliché, she knew. The good girl always falls for the bad boy and they were no different. She still remembered how they first met back in her first year.

Flashback

It's the first day of classes and Katie was lost. She knew that she had Herbology with the Ravenclaws in five minutes, but all she knew about it is that it's somewhere outside. Unfortunately, she's somehow managed to make it to the dungeons. Great, she thinks, I'll never make it to class now.

As she looked around, wondering how to get out of this place, she heard soft voices coming from the shadows. Two boys and a girl, by the sound of it.

"Fred, if I get detention for this, I will kill you," came the girl's voice.

"Angel, calm down," was the response from one of the boys. Fred, Katie mentally noted. "Look, as long as we have the map, we won't get caught. All we have to do is get George and Alicia out of detention, and then we can go."

"I'm with Angelina," said the third voice. "I say we leave without them. No one told them to start a food fight on Saturday."

"Finally, Jordan says something intelligent," the girl (Angelina, Katie thought) said. "Have you not learned anything from last year, Weasley? Snape will be waiting for us when we get there."

"So what?" Fred asked nonchalantly.

"So he's friends with my parents and after we caught, I'll get three Howlers - one for each rule we're breaking!" Angelina hissed.

"Your parents are friends with that greasy-haired git? Ha ha ha," Jordan laughed.

"Shut up, Lee!" Angelina and Fred said in unison.

(Is his name Jordan or Lee? Katie mused.)

"Sod off, both of you," he fired back.

"So that's why he doesn't treat you like the rest of the house in class." Fred again.

"No, it's because I'm the only one in Gryffindor that has a clue what the hell we're doing in Potions," Angelina answered. "The point is…"

"We're keeping you from being a Prefect. We know," Jordan/Lee snapped, obviously annoyed. "Look, no one said you had to come with us. At least Alicia isn't this maddening."

"Bugger off, Jordan," she muttered back.

"Or what, Johnson? After all, I'm not the one who kissed Montague over the summer hols."

"It was a dare! I had to do it. I'd have been called a girl, otherwise."

"Newsflash, Johnson, you are a girl."

"Take that back!" Angelina whispered vehemently.

Before Jordan/Lee could say anything else, Fred interjected. "Look, we're wasting time. D'you want to go to Hogsmeade or not?" He sighed. "So the map says that if we make a left at the end of the corridor, Leesh and George are in the second room on the right. Then we keep straight until we get to the statue. There's a passageway that leads to Honeydukes underneath it. Now hurry, the both of you."

Katie watched as the three stepped out and ran down the hall as if one of the Professors was after them. Angelina was a gangly black girl, very pretty with chocolate eyes and caramel skin. One of the boys had red hair with twinkling brown eyes while the other had skin the colour of amaretto coffee and hazel eyes. Angelina and the redhead ran past her, not even acknowledging the fact that there was a lost First Year in the hall. Their companion probably would have done the same had he not ploughed into her.

"Watch where you're going, you bloody -" the boy started to say, but changed his tune when he looked at Katie. "I've never seen you before." He held out his hand. "I'm Lee Jordan, but you can call me 'man of your dreams.'

Just as Katie reached out to take his hand, a call came from down the hall. "Jordan," Angelina yelled. "Sevvie's coming!"

"Sorry. Gotta run." Lee said snatching his hand back and running in the direction he had just come from, his friends hot on his heels.

End Flashback

In the hallway
On the rooftop
Sunset city lines
Lost and walking
Chain smoking
Speeding thru the night

Deciding not to make her way back up the stairs, she elected to think of Lee and all the times they had together. Like when they would just walk aimlessly around the halls and grounds of Hogwarts. Or the nights they spent in the Astronomy Tower just watching the sunset. Or the times that they would wander around the castle, discovering secret passages without the twins, talking about any and everything. (We didn't need a bloody map, she thought to herself.) On these adventures, Lee would smoke fags, one after another. Sometimes, he'd go through a couple packs a day. She hated the habit, but he wasn't willing to quit, not even for her. Fred, George, and Angelina all shared the same annoying inclination with him, but it hurt her more to watch him do it then the rest of her friends.

What had started out as an occasional thing became something of an obsession after the twins dropped out of school. And after he graduated, Lee had been avoiding her for days on end. He was always huddled with the twins, Angelina, and Alicia discussing putting something in order. They would talk about it all the time, but whenever she walked in the room, they'd change the subject like they thought she was stupid or something. And always with that damn smoking.

Try to bite my tongue
Until it's bleeding
Bond has come undone
See that you're leaving

Trying not to cry, Katie bit down on her tongue, not even stopping when she felt a bitter wetness in her mouth. The soul-tie that she and Lee had shared had been broken when he left.

Accusations
Explanations
Phone calls unreturned
Implication
Vindication
Hundred lessons learned

She remembered that day as if it were only a week ago. As a matter of fact, that was exactly when it was. Being the Muggleborn that she was, her family saw no use for their fireplace to be connected on the Floo. So when Lee broke their date, she rang him up. And was forced to listen to him state that they were through in a monotonous voice. She accused of him of being with another girl. He explained that that wasn't the case. She demanded to know why he didn't return her phone calls, if he wasn't cheating. He snapped that it was none of her business and he'd thank her for not sticking her nose in his affairs. Katie took this to mean that he was cheating and hung up. "I learned my lesson," she muttered bitterly. "Never fall in love."

Here comes - hollow
Hollow fills you up inside
Broken - borrowed
Follow insults all implied

She felt so hollow and broken now. She felt so lost. She had always been part of a sequence. It was always Angelina, Alicia, and Katie. Or Lee and Katie. Now she was just Kathryn Bell. Head Girl, (most likely) future Quidditch Captain, and… And alone.