It was morning. Sun filtered through the two dusty, old windows of room number twenty-four in the Leaky Cauldron, bathing everything a brilliant gold. Katrina was sitting upright in her bed, back propped up against the wall that acted as her headboard and reading through the book in her lap. In her right hand was her wand, and she flicked it here and there as if to practice a few movements before she actually had to cast anything. Blue-green sparks flew from its tip every once-in-a-while, evaporating after a few seconds of lazily floating through the air.
"Multicorfors!" she would mutter under her breath here or there, giving her wand a wave and a small jab — not that she was aiming to actually use magic. Underage wizardry was a crime in the wizarding world, and Katrina would greatly dislike her life henceforth if she was expelled from Hogwarts for a simple color-change spell.
Alex groaned from his bed, making Katrina jump. He pushed himself up, short hair ruffled and eyes bleary, and yawned. His sister laughed lightly.
"Did you stay up all night pouting?" came her teasing voice. She was clearly wide awake.
"No," Alex replied thickly, rubbing one of his blue eyes with the back of his hand, "I was just taking a long sleep while I can, I'll be up to my nose in homework this year, I can feel it. . . ."
"Yeah, well, I'm going to get about double what you're expecting," Katrina groaned. Alex gave her a confused look, and she merely replied with, "OWLs this year."
Alex made a disgusted sort of grunt and Katrina sighed. "Yeah, imagine all the books I'll have to read . . . and the homework! Oh, the homework. . . ." she leaned her head back and hit the wall behind her in despair.
"I won't fancy the year I have to do O.W.L.'s," Alex began ("Just call them OWLs, it's easier," Katrina mumbled), "I get enough homework from McGonagall and Snape. . . ."
They both sat in their beds in silence for a few minutes, scrunching up their noses as they thought of exams and homework and other things even most Ravenclaws disliked about school.
"We'd better get dressed," Katrina sighed finally, slipping out of bed and stretching out her back, "You never know when Mum and Dad are gonna show."
The two of them then got up, sifting through their bags and things (Katrina going nearly shoulder-deep into her bottomless suitcase) to find a fresh pair of clothes.
It didn't take them too awful long, as they were facing opposite sides of their room within moments and stripping down. With a quick shake of the head, Katrina's disheveled hair flattened itself and gained sudden curls at the tips. Alex, however, simply brushed a few fingers through his messy hair and decided that was good enough.
Katrina and Alex entered the main pub together again, where they were greeted by an empty quiet. The grandfather clock in the far back chimed seven, and Katrina nodded to herself.
CRACK!
Suddenly, standing right before the two teenagers, were two tall figures, both beaming. The man's hair was short and a bright lime green, while the woman's was a much nicer almond color that flipped out at her shoulders.
"Good!" said the man, placing his hands on his hips with a wide grin, "See, Maria, I told you they'd be up bright and early!"
"Oh, hush," Maria slapped her husband good-naturedly with her open hand. Katrina just realized she was holding a young child, no older than two years.
"Aunt Syl couldn't watch Tim?" Katrina asked, giving her parents both looks of confusion. Her aunt almost always watched over her youngest brother when they were all out of the house.
"He wanted to come for the ice cream," Mr. Rhinehart said with a wide smile. Immediately, Katrina and Alex began to grin.
"We're getting ice cream?" Alex asked, clearly excited. "Can I get two scoops?"
"Tell you what," Mrs. Rhinehart replied as she leaned forward, speaking over the giggling of her baby, "Whoever gets to Florean Fortescue's first will get an extra scoop. How about it?"
Katrina and her brother shared a look brimming with sibling rivalry. "You're on!" They both shouted at each other, and began to tear their way to the back door.
Mr. Rhinehart laughed loudly, surely waking up a few people on the rooms of the inn. He parted his children as they entered the small back courtyard, faced the far brick wall, and pulled out his long, spindly Dogwood wand. After pausing and giving his two eldest kids and wife a mischievous look over his shoulder, he tapped a single brick, and the wall moved away.
Immediately, Katrina and Alex bolted into the large crowd of Diagon Alley. If possible, it was more crowded than even yesterday, and it was only seven in the morning! Many last-minute purchases were being made by students (most third through fifth years) and parents alike, while a few witches and wizards buzzed about doing their normal morning errands.
Fortescue's wasn't too far off, and was right beside Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. The whole of the Rhinehart family was there within forty seconds, each panting and Alex and Katrina arguing loudly (yet not quite heatedly) as to who had arrived first. As Mr. Rhinehart approached them, though, with a thoughtful finger on his chin and a grin on his lips, he announced that they both deserved a double scoop for effort.
Katrina licked her triple chocolate and chopped chocolate frog ice cream idly as she daydreamed about the upcoming year. Now that she had caught those Weasley twins' attention, she might as well assume to be buggered by them throughout school. Glancing briefly at her father and smiling just a bit, she thought how much he would enjoy them. She supposed they weren't as bad as she had anticipated. In all truth, ever since the rowdy twins in Gryffindor had begun their antics (which was practically when they walked through the entrance hall) Katrina and most other Ravenclaws believed they were obnoxious and held no self restraint. But after their brief meetings, she had to admit that they were rather charming, if not stupidly so.
She took a bite out of her ice cream as it began to melt, eyes gazing over to her mother and youngest brother. She was feeding him a bit of vanilla ice cream with a spoon, and he was delightfully spitting it out all over himself. Katrina chuckled faintly to herself and wondered just how she and Alex came out normal.
Though you couldn't really call her normal, could you? A frown suddenly covered Katrina's features, which she quickly hid by another bite of cold, sweet goodness. If anything, Alex was the only normal one. He was free of the firstborn inheritance, and could play Quidditch, whereas Katrina could hardly ride a broom.
And then she began to think about O.W.L.'s again. It was silly, really, to worry about them, as she was an incredible student and made better grades on tests than most — but the looming shadow of dark thoughts seemed to take over her. She was entering her fifth year at Hogwarts, yet she didn't even know what she wanted to do when she was of age!
Not an Auror like her father, she was not very fond of being near any sort of dark wizard. An Artist, like her mother, though, sounded appealing. Katrina stared off, eyes glazed and unfocused as she thought of more complex jobs, such as Magizoologists or Dragonologists — she had always been intrigued by dragons. Curse-Breaking was out of the question, however, and she scowled. Arithmancy was not her favorite subject and she was happy to switch it with Divination this year. Katrina had done the same with Study of Ancient Runes, swapping it for Care of Magical Creatures as her friend, Cora, had suggested. In her mind, numbers and ancient translations were useless to whatever she was going to do, as Katrina felt she would crave creativity in her later years.
She could be a Professor, like the ones at Hogwarts. The thought of teaching kids, eleven to seventeen, in her older years of twenty and so on made Katrina's frown ease after another dreamy bite of ice cream. Yes, yes, that was quite appealing. . . .
"Kat? Kat, are you there?"
Katrina jumped as Alex waved a hand in front of her face. He wore a smug grin and she scowled at him, though smiled soon afterward.
"You went all out of it again, you know," Alex said, wobbling his head around and crossing his eyes for a moment, "that weird thing you do when you're fawning over colour-change spells."
"Come off it," she laughed lightly, giving her brother a small shove at his shoulder, "I was just thinking about school.
"What OWLs did you get, Mum?" Katrina asked suddenly, whipping her head around to her mother. Mrs. Rhinehart gave her a perplexed look for a fraction of a second.
"Outstanding in Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and Herbology. I got E's in everything else besides Arithmancy, where I got an A." she replied as her husband snorted.
"Well why don't you recite your OWLs then, sweetheart?" Mrs. Rhinehart asked with a reproachful smirk. Mr. Rhinehart straightened hi collar improtantly and cleared his throat.
"I got an O in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and E's in Potions, Astronomy, Transfiguration, and Charms. I got an A in Herbology —"
"And P's in every other subject!" Mrs. Rhinehart grinned triumphantly.
"No," Mr. Rhinehart raised his index finger and his eyebrows, staring at his wife with a straight face, "I got a D in Divination."
"A D?" Katrina laughed after taking the final bite of her ice cream. "Dad, I know you were a Gryffindor, but a D?"
Alex snickered beside her as Mr. Rhinehart smiled lopsidedly in a sheepish manner.
"I was never much of a Seer," he admitted as he himself finished off his raspberry ice cream. Katrina and the rest of her family laughed faintly, enjoying their last bit of sweets together.
The atmosphere at King's Cross Station was void of any excitement from the Muggles, as was to be expected. Most of them hurried about, only caring about being late to work or something incredibly silly like that; the Rhineharts, however had a much larger purpose.
Katrina walked along in long strides, in one hand her large, black leather briefcase and in the other a large cage, in which a positively ginormous owl clung to its perch as it gained many stares. Here or there, she noticed a few other teenagers carrying an owl or toad, gaining equal gazes. They all were mysteriously disappearing about half-way up the station, though. There was no use in hiding the grin on her face, and Katrina beamed widely as she passed platform six, then seven, eight. . . .
At the barrier between platforms nine and ten, she stopped briskly, turning on the spot and looking back to her family. Alex was struggling to catch up with his trolley full of bags (he really should have his mother charm one of them, like Katrina had done with her briefcase), and Mr. and Mrs. Rhinehart were sure to keep close to him as to not loose sight of their second child.
Aqua eyes glanced around the room eagerly. The Muggles had stopped looking. Casually stepping backwards, making sure to not bring any attention to herself, Katrina appeared to walk up to the brick barrier and, momentarily, it looked as if she was going to lean up against it. But no, in a rush of pure impulse, she stepped back into the wall and morphed into it, disappearing from the view of the naked eye.
Endless chattering filled Katrina's ears as she turned to find the Hogwarts Express blaring a brilliant red at her, smoking from its engine. It was still fifteen minutes till departure. Rushing away from the barrier that marked the entrance of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Katrina began to look wildly around, splaying dazzlingly lime hairs over her shoulders and face. She payed no notice to her sudden difference in hair color, instead searching fervently for a familiar face.
"Katrina! Ka — KATRINA!" Before she could even turn around, Katrina was hit with a huge hug from a blond-haired girl that was just a bit shorter than herself.
"Cora!" Katrina choked out with a jovial laugh, clapsing her arms around her best friend's torso.
"Oh, Katrina!" Cora nearly screeched, "I've missed you so much! I mean, I know it's only been a few months, but I've been up and down so often it's been like a confunded broomstick! What with leaving school and being sad, to thinking about the new foal that was born a few weeks in, then that horrible man who got out of Azkaban, and before I knew it, I'm here! With you! Oh, Katrina, I'm so happy to see you again!"
Cora was babbling on and on without taking any breaths, speaking so quickly that Katrina had to slap a hand lightly, yet forcefully, onto her friend's mouth to keep her from running her lips off.
"I've got something to tell you when we get on the train," Katrina grinned. Cora would love to know who she had met just a couple days before. "But it has to wait, I wouldn't want them to hear me when they could be so close by —"
"When who's so close by?"
Katrina and Cora jumped. Cora's eyes were wide, and her smile grew considerably.
"Mr. Rhinehart! Mrs. Rhinehart!" She exclaimed, bouncing away from Katrina and greeting both parents with a hug each, and gasped as she caught sight of little Timothy in Mrs. Rhinehart's arms. "And Tim! Look at how he's grown! And has Alex already got on the train?" Cora's head peered around the two towering adults, looking around for their first son.
"Yes, yes, he caught up with Cedric and hurried to get a compartment with him," Mrs. Rhinehart explained with a motherly smile.
"Are Sally and Nigel close by?" Mr. Rhinehart asked with a dashing, beaming grin. "I've got a bit to discuss with them about what's happened over the summer."
Cora immediately seemed to understand — Mr. Rhinehart was an Auror, after all. "Yes, they should be just a ways away in that direction," she pointed offhandedly behind her somewhere, where indeed, two blond heads could be seen between the bobbing crowd of heads, talking rather loudly.
"Ah, well, I've got to go, Sugarplum," Mr. Rhinehart smiled a bit sadly at his daughter, who gave him a lopsided smile. He quickly leaned down and pecked her forehead. "See you over Christmas, and be careful." After a meaningful look, he rushed off toward Mr. and Mrs. Calloway.
"You'd best go and get a compartment, dear," Mrs. Rhinehart said and ran a hair through Katrina's thick, lime-green hair. "And you too, Cora, off with you! Wouldn't want you to be late!"
"Bye Mum!" Katrina bellowed as she and Cora began to walk off to the nearest train car, "I'll see you, Dad, and Tim at Christmas! And I'll write!" She and Cora waved at their parents, who were waving back hurriedly. Mrs. Rhinehart soon rushed off to her husband, smile suddenly strained, but Katrina didn't notice, as she and Cora were already searching for an empty room on the train.
"What were you saying before?" Cora asked as she opened one of the many sliding doors, slipping inside and throwing her multiple bags on the luggage rack. Katrina followed in suit, closing the door behind her and hardly suppressing a grin.
"You wouldn't believe who bumped into me in Diagon Alley the other day — quite literally, really. . . ."
Cora sat down across from Katrina, intent and staring wide-eyed at her friend. "Go on!"
"Well," Katrina placed a finger on her chin, much like her father, who still visibly had his back to the train out the window, "Should I tell you or should I show you?"
"Show me!" Cora yelled excitedly, bunching up her hands into fists and pulling them into her chest in a wild motion, "Show me, Katrina!"
There was a twinkle in Katrina's eye as she pulled out her wand — now permitted to use magic on the Hogwarts Express — and waved it swiftly at her clothes. As they morphed, button-up shirt becoming a knit sweater and jeans growing baggy and changing into a deep green color, it was as if Katrina was transfiguring herself, too. She had an odd expression on her face and was growing taller, her shoulders jutted out, there were no longer dips in her waist nor was there a round, feminine face. Her jaw was rapidly turning jagged, and her hair was shortening considerably and lime-green turned into orange-red. As her final transition turned, crystalline blue eyes flecking themselves with maple-leaf green, Cora gasped at the Weasley twin replica before her. The train lurched and began to part station.
"No!"
"Yes!" Came the male voice of both of the twins, "Bloody gits they are, too! Really, Cora, you should've been there —"
They both jumped for the second time that day as the compartment door slammed open again. Katrina's disguised eyes didn't bulge nearly as much as Fred and George's, who were gaping so much their jaws could have hit the floor. Behind them was a black boy, the boy who commentated on the Hogwarts Quidditch Games, who looked baffled and guffawed.
"I — I can explain!" Katrina exclaimed, cursing herself in her mind as she should've blocked the window and door.
"You'd better!" said Fred, who sounded oddly outraged and curious at the same time.
"Just — just — get in, all of you!" Katrina rushed forward, grabbed a shoulder of each of the boys in turn, and pushed them inside. Closing the door and shutting the blinds behind her, Katrina stood still for a moment, not wishing to face the appalled faces of the twins and their friend.
"Well?" Came the other boy's voice, ringing loudly like it did during Quidditch. He seemed skeptical, and a little afraid.
"Er —" Katrina was fighting to think of a story. Her mind was blank, and she quickly glanced over her shoulder to see three boys, two identical, all with tightly-set jaws. She sighed.
"Just tell them the truth," Cora mumbled, shuffling uncomfortably in her seat and looking at the floor. "I know you don't like to, but it's sorta useless to not tell them. . . . They'd probably enjoy it, really. . . ."
"Enjoy what?" George asked stiffly. Katrina faced him, his brother, and his friend with a stern glare.
"If you tell anybody, it'll be the death of you," Katrina muttered, raising her wand threateningly, but obviously not attempting to hex any of the boys. They were perplexed at first, but as they saw the Weasley triplet's face contort, shrink, and their hair grow long, surprise and shock wrote all over their faces. With a wave of her wand, Katrina's clothes returned to what they once were, and she was then back to her original shape and form: All except for her hair, which was lavender rather than the color of brown mouse fur. There was a very prominent shade of pink on her cheeks as she looked in every direction besides at the boys, who's eyes were bulging more than before.
"Katrina?" The twins asked, both leaning forward in sync, as if to get a better look at her.
"That's right," she mumbled, "Little Katrina Rhinehart."
The compartment was silent, as the boys were slack-jawed and Cora was looking at Katrina sympathetically. Suddenly, the black boy piped up.
"You're a metamorphmagus, aren't you?"
Katrina shot him a look, astonished. "Y-yeah," she stuttered, looking down at the floor and wringing her hands together, "Runs in the bloodline, y'know. . . . Only firstborns so far. . . ."
"Blimey," murmured George.
"Wicked," Fred exclaimed, grinning with his brother. "Why didn't you tell us? Do you know how we could've freaked Mum out? Oh, oh, I bet you've got up to all kinds of things during school, haven't you?"
"What?" Katrina asked, stunned and stock-still as she stared at Fred, "No! No, no, of course not! That's horrible, why would I —?"
"Lee Jordan," said the black boy, shooting out his hand with a wide smile. "I'm Lee Jordan, I mean. I'm friends with Fred and George."
Katrina paused, then slowly shook Lee's hand. "Katrina Rhinehart, but I think I already said that."
"About three times, love," Fred beamed, seating himself across from Cora, who was now smiling fondly at the three of the boys, "You get a bit repetitive."
George sat himself beside his brother, followed by Lee. "Really, Katrina, we'd think you'd be a trifle clever what with your sass back in Diagon Alley."
Katrina's hair burned a brighter violet as she shimmied beside Cora, who was grinning widely by now.
"Oh, and who's this beauty?" George smirked, leaning towards Cora, who blushed in turn. "Can't be one of your friends, Kat, she's much too pretty." Katrina groaned as Cora giggled loudly, covering her face with her hands. George's smile widened into something rather charming, but none of the others beside Cora seemed to notice.
"So what have you been doing lately then, Kat?" Fred asked as he too leaned forward in his seat, "Not stalking us as the cleaning lady in the Leaky Cauldron, I hope?"
"Of course not!" Katrina's cheeks burned ferociously, and she could only see Fred's smile widen. "I-I — i-it's not like this — this thing that I can use, it's more like . . . like a thing that is . . . me?"
"But not you at the same time," said Lee. "You can be anyone or anything, can't you? Like an old woman, or a tiny baby."
"Yeah! Yeah, sort of," Katrina straightened a bit, happy to know at least one of the boys knew what abilities metamorphmagi had, "Like, I mean, I could become a chair if I wanted to, or a worm, or a hippogriff, too."
The rest of the room was looking at her expectantly now, even Cora, though she already knew Katrina's magical properties very well.
"And, er, I can do parts of myself, too . . . like changing my ears, for example. I'm practically a healing machine, too, in a way. Make scratches disappear on myself, grow back and mend my own bones, things like that. . . ."
"How?" Fred and George asked, amused and interested.
"Well," Katrina squirmed visibly in her seat, staring at her hands in her lap, "It only takes a little thinking, really. . . . Like if I wanted to grow out my fingernails, I would think of my fingernails growing. . . . If I can imagine it, essentially, I can be it."
The boys murmured excitedly between themselves, but Katrina was much to embarrassed to listen. This was precisely why she didn't like to tell people, they always acted so amazed, like it was some great feat that she could think of something and be it, when in all reality it was simplicity at its best.
"It's not all great, though," she said suddenly, attracting attention once more as the compartment went silent, "I can't control some things like — like my hair, it's purple right now, isn't it? I didn't make it that way, it just flares up like that when — well, when there's an influx of emotions, I think. I don't suppose I've ever thought much of it, but that's how Dad and I work, and every other metamorphmagus, too. It's like all magic, it sort of works on its own when you get overwhelmed with something."
"So you've got different colours for different emotions?" Lee asked.
"Yes, yes I think so. . . ." replied Katrina, "I think purple is almost always embarrassment, but I haven't paid any attention to other colours."
"What's got you so embarrassed, then?" George asked, motioning to her lavender hair with his hand. Katrina jumped a bit, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Dunno, I don't really like talking about myself. . . ."
Fred, George, Lee, and Cora all frowned.
" 'Course you do, Katrina," Cora chimed, bumping her friend lightly with a smile, "She's just shy, you see," she began to whisper to the boys, "Confidence issues."
"I heard that," Katrina quickly snapped, straightening herself up. After giving her head a swift shake, the lavender tinge to her hair seemed to go transparent for a brief millisecond, then began a much more normal, caramel-like brown. Fred frowned.
"Why such a dull color?" And as Katrina gave him a confused look, he added, "Well, I mean, if you've got rare talents, why not flaunt them? I don't see why you'd choose brown over blue."
Katrina snorted, but smiled regardless. "I s'pose you've got a point. Blue it is, then." And with a bit of a scrunched-up expression, her hair beamed a bright cerulean, as clear as her eyes.
"Much better," Fred winked. After a quick intake of breath, Katrina looked around the compartment, sure to not make eye-contact.
Before long, the outskirts of London were far gone and replaced by fields of wildflowers and overgrown forests. Katrina eventually found herself easing up toward the boys, laughing at their many jokes and listening, interested, to the twins' stories of traumatizing their older brother, Percy (who they affectionately call "Bighead Boy", since he had been appointed as Head Boy). It was oddly enjoyable, despite the fact that Katrina's hair was flaring violet here and there. Even Cora seemed more bubbly than usual.
And then, as foggy as the clouded sky, an inkling of foreboding seeped into Katrina's chest. It was faint, a thought in the very back of her mind, but it irked her. She became rigid, not noticed by the others, who were laughing jovially over some joke Lee had made. Something was very, very wrong.
The train was slowing. A deep, eery silence suddenly filled every car, every train, fingers of confusion and worry tightening around their throats. Fred and George's chuckles subsided immediately.
"We can't be there," whsipered Cora, who had shuffled over to the window and was peering outside, "it's got to be another hour till Hogsmeade. . . ."
Lee had stood, and was slowly, curiously, sliding open the compartment door.
Immediately came the murmuring and whispering of other students, mostly curious, but a few afraid. Lee closed the door again after peering his head through and looking both ways down the corridor.
"See anything?" George asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Nothing," Lee replied with a shrug, sitting beside him once more. "Doesn't seem like anything's wrong with the students. Maybe the train's broke down?"
"Maybe," Fred said, furrowing his brow with a frown. "Seems a bit odd, though, doesn't it? Train's never broke down before, or at least not when we've been on it.
The lamp above them flickered, and as Katrina and Cora jumped, they were plunged into darkness besides the little light drifting in from the window.
"Lumos!"
The room was alight again, albeit a bit dimly. Fred and George were smiling cheekily.
"Don't worry, love," Fred whispered with yet another wink, and Katrina knew her cheeks were pink, but easily pushed the thought of flirting away as the most peculiar and depressing feeling gripped at her heartstrings.
She could see her breath, she could see everyone's breath. There was no longer happiness, a twinkle in Fred's eye, or a smile on any of their faces. What had been light and airy only three minutes ago was dark and dreary now, and it was apparent on each of their faces that they had all witnessed the cloaked figure floating, ever so slowly, past the door.
END OF CHAPTER TWO
Grumbles something along the lines of "stupid horizontal ruler ruining my groove"
Anyways! Chapter two! I still dunno how to write author's notes!
Also seriously thank you for reviewing! I honestly didn't expect to have readers so soon o: Thank you, thank you, thank you! uwu
