Back at Hogwarts
Kathleen Dove and her family lived in Dove Hall, a large and luxurious ancient manor, located in France. It had many spare rooms and lush furnishings, and a special 'moon room' with a steel door and extra strength magical locks. At the turn of the century, the Doves had been an extremely wealthy and influential Muggle family, but they had made a few bad investments and lost almost everything, except for the huge mansion and another in America, both of which were in turn passed down as the years went by.
As they always did, the Lupins had stayed with the Doves in Dove Hall the previous night so that the families could travel to King's Cross together.
Sunlight streamed through Kathleen's windows, gently stirring her. Still a little drowsy, she realized what had woken her: her door, which she always kept closed at night, was open. She yawned and looked around her room. Suddenly, someone jumped from the carpet onto her bed, causing her to shriek and curse loudly in French.
Her cousin, Remus, smirked at her. Remus had tidy light brown hair and shining, ocean blue eyes. He was a bit on the short side, though he was taller than Kathleen, and was rather scrawny-looking. "That was for last year," he said simply as he hopped to the floor.
"Hey," she warned. "If you wanna be like that, I could take it again."
"That's quite alright," Remus assured, shuddering at the memory of last summer, when he'd woken without a certain, err, part.
Already forgiving him, Kathleen sat up and stretched. "What time is it?" she asked through a yawn.
"Five minutes after 10."
"Merde (shit)! We're gonna be late if we don't hurry! I gotta get ready."
He left the room, presumably going downstairs. With Remus gone, Kathleen got out of bed and walked to full-length mirror, where she turned around to get a look at her scars. She was lucky; most of them were on her back and upper arms, both easily concealable, as opposed to Remus, who had a few on his face and some on his chest. "Nah, they don't look too bad," she muttered to herself.
Excluding the scars, Kathleen was happy with the way she looked. Her teeth were even and dazzling white and her smile was charming, if slightly wolfish. She had long, wavy chocolate brown hair that fell to her shoulder blades. Her alluring celery green eyes were accented by long eyelashes. Her exceptionally beautiful elf-like features were accompanied by soft, smooth milky skin and slightly chapped pink lips; she needed no makeup to look pretty. She was in shape from doing yoga every morning and ballet during the summer, though her figure was still curvy in the right places. She was also quite short, a trait she'd acquired from her mother.
She ran a finger along the most obvious scar, which was on her left shoulder from when she'd first been bitten. She bit her lip as she recalled how most of those wounds had happened. Trying to push all the negative thoughts the marks brought out of her mind, she took a shower and dried her hair, then grabbed the Muggle clothing she'd set out the night before.
She dressed quickly in a pair of bellbottom jeans and a tie-dyed shirt, as well as a pair of faux-leather sandals.
She walked over to her side table, where an old but still exquisite looking ruby ring gleamed. The ring itself was made of gold which formed a sort of frame with small diamond accents around the red stone. She slipped it delicately on her right ring finger, where it fit as though it was made for her. Kathleen had inherited the ring years ago, and never went anywhere except to sleep without it.
"Kathleen, ma chère fille, tu es s'habiller? (Kathleen, my dear daughter, are you dressed?)"a woman's voice called from downstairs.
"Oui, maman! Je vais venir en bas dans une seconde! (Yes, Maman! I'll be down in a second!)"
She smiled at her lovely reflection and descended the stairs, went down a hallway and took a right to the living room. Sounds of giggling and gossip filled the room. The sources of the noise were identical twins Alayna Dove and Ambre Lupin, and they were laughing like they had when they were teenagers. Their bright ocean blue eyes seemed to light up as they talked in fast-paced French. Identical long shiny locks of golden blonde hair fell down their backs, and they were very petite, a trait they both seemed to have passed to their children. The sisters hadn't seen each other or been able to talk almost all summer because the Doves had been to Italy for three weeks and the Lupins had traveled to America. Remus was sitting on the couch, looking rather bored as he flipped through a magazine.
"Morning Mum, Tante Ambre," Kathleen chirped happily.
"Good morning, Kathleen," Tante Ambre smiled, managing a bit of horribly accented English.
"Good morning, dear. You all packed?" her mother asked, her English about as good as her sister's.
"Yes, of course."
She was about to collect her things when there was a loud crashing from the other room. A man with tangled brown hair and the same celery green eyes as Kathleen stepped out of the kitchen, covered in white flour. His name was Brian Dove, and he had a huge smile on his face as he brushed the flour from his hands. He was tall and thin, and his handsome, elf-like features bore an incredible resemblance to his daughter. "My apologies relatives, it seems that the flour bag hit my cranium and burst," he explained sheepishly.
"Morning Dad," Kathleen said brightly, not seeing the flour as anything unusual. In truth, her father was very eccentric, and he was also very clumsy. Things like that tended to happen quite often.
"Salutations, Moon-kissed," Brian replied affectionately, using the nickname he'd given her when she was five. "Are you two prepared to go?" he asked, addressing both his daughter and nephew this time.
Kathleen and Remus nodded.
"Superb, then just go get your things and we shall depart." He had managed to get all the flour off him already.
Remus and Kathleen gathered their things from the guestroom, and soon the Doves and the Lupins were standing on Platform 9 ¾
Alayna and Ambre looked slightly teary-eyed as they told their children what kind of snacks they'd put in their bags. "Bye Mum," Kathleen wheezed as her mother squeezed her in a surprisingly strong hug.
While Ambre continued reminding Remus of various things, half of which he never forgot to do and half of which he didn't need to do, Kathleen turned to her father.
"Farewell Kathleen," Brian began fondly. "Make well-informed decisions this year, and don't forget to contact us often." He smiled proudly and hugged her.
"I won't, Dad. Have a good year, I'll see you at Christmas." Although she hated to admit it, she was 'daddy's little girl' at heart, and she always missed him more than her mother. She didn't like to upset him, which is why it was probably a good thing her father thought rules were confining.
After all the goodbyes, Ambre, Alayna, and Brian Disapparated back to Dove Hall.
"Hey Moony, Lunar!" someone called. Behind them stood Sirius Black, who was casually leaning against his school trunk. His long dark fringe fell gracefully into his stormy grey eyes. He was quite tall and very handsome.
"Hey Sirius," Remus grinned.
"Hey Padfoot," Kathleen said happily, standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. "How was your summer?"
"Well, I decided that I'd had enough of my parents' pure-blood mania, so I ran away to live with Prongs."
"I'm so proud of you, Sirius! Way to make a stand," Kathleen beamed. "Where is James anyway?"
"He and Peter are saving us a compartment. I said I'd wait 'till you two got here."
"So what'd your parents do when they found out?" Remus asked with curiosity.
"They probably blasted my name off the family tree," laughed Sirius. "As if I even wanted to be on the wretched thing."
"Yeah," Kathleen agreed. "That's kind of like how my mum and Tante Amb- oomph"
Her sentence was cut off when her ball of energy of a friend, Audrey Jacobson, nearly tackled her. Audrey dyed her hair unnatural colors like blue, and changed it so often that no one, including herself, could remember what color it had originally been. Today she was sporting loud, Gryffindor-y streaks of red and gold.
"Audrey!" Kathleen shrieked, her voice rising girlishly. "I love your hair!"
"Thanks Kath!" Audrey gushed in the same girlish squeak.
"Would you like some help with your trunk, Audrey?" Remus questioned, a faint pink coloring his cheeks.
Audrey went red and giggled. She nodded wordlessly.
Remus sent her a smile as he disappeared in the Hogwarts Express with his trunk and hers, followed by Sirius, who rolled his eyes but took Kathleen's trunk with his nonetheless.
Kathleen squealed. "He so likes you Auds!"
Audrey turned even redder. "No, that's just Remus," she insisted. "He's always polite."
"Yeah, ok Auds, whatever you say."
Audrey, obviously wanting to change the subject, asked, "So how was Italy?"
"Great!" Kathleen answered. "And where'd you go over break?"
The pair, now talking about their summers in detail, got on the train and headed for the back, where Peter, James, and Sirius were sitting.
"Where'd Remus go?" Audrey asked, visibly disappointed.
"He's in the prefect's carriage, Jacobson," James said simply. "Along with Evans," he added with longing.
"Hey Lunar," Peter squeaked when he saw Kathleen.
"'Ello Wormtail, Prongs."
Everyone sat and discussed various things and ate junk food James bought. When they were nearly to Hogsmeade Station, Kathleen and Audrey went to the bathroom and changed into their uniforms while the boys changed in their compartment.
When they were all off the train, and had found Remus, (Lily, though friends with Audrey and Kathleen had refused to sit with the Marauders; she'd met up with Mary MacDonald instead) they got a carriage.
Skeletal horses with leathery wings and shining white eyes stood in front of both Audrey and Kathleen, while the boys only saw their harness. Though Kathleen made an extreme effort to ignore them and got in without a second glance towards the creature, Audrey patted the Thestral before entering the carriage.
Remus scooted over and Audrey swiftly took the empty seat next to him. He was apparently the only one that noticed what she'd done.
"Audrey," Remus began cautiously, "can you see the-"
"Yes," Audrey answered. "When I was eight, I was visiting my very sick grandfather in the hospital; he was a Muggle you see, and he went into heart failure and died in front of me."
Kathleen was glad no one noticed she could see the Thestrals as well. Remus, naturally, knew, but she wasn't sure the other Marauders did, and she hated recalling the rather dark story.
"We're finally sixth-years, eh Lunar?" Sirius said.
"What? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sixth-years..." Kathleen answered distractedly. Coming out of her stupor, she grinned at him. "Since we're back at Hogwarts, we'll need to pull a start-of-term prank."
"Of course we will, Kath. No sense breaking tradition."
The pair shared matching, mischievous grins until they arrived back at the castle.
A/N: Thanks to TheNightimeSky for reviewing! Please review if you're reading and don't forget that anything in French will be translated in parentheses.
