Kate spent the first weeks of her summer walking the back roads and country lanes of rural Surrey, counting the days until she could go back to school. She was at the village shop using fake ID to buy tobacco which she could send to Sirius, she didn't know why, but all her friends seemed to have a preference for roll ups. So that is what she bought. Once outside she rolled her own cigarette has she meandered slowly down the lane, in the general direction of her parent's house, so she could owl Sirius. Before she had the chance to even light her cigarette her name was called from behind her.
"Oi, Kate!" She spun round and saw three boys she used to go to school with when she was a child.
"What?"
"What are you doing here?" One asked.
"I'm home for the summer," she replied.
"Oh… where's your school again?"
"It's a boarding school in Scotland," she said tonelessly.
"Oh… is it an all-girls school?" The guy who asked was raising his eyebrows and surveying her critically.
"No." She responded in disgust. "Get your mind out of the gutter." They laughed as she turned away from them.
"You wanna come out with us?" One shouted.
"I have better things to do than take drugs in the park with you, thank you very much," she called back to them not looking back. As she walked away she heard:
"She's hot, it's a pity she's so stuck up her own ass," and the others murmur in agreement. Kate smirked to herself and carried on walking.
When she got home a long letter was waiting for her from Morgan, and slightly shorter one from Sirius.
Dear Kate
I hope you're having a good summer, and that your family are being tolerant. The muggles here are being quite nice actually, they let me go shopping and to the cinema without supervision and they've given me my own bedroom this year! It has its own bathroom and a really nice view of the Thames. It's so weird living without magic, and without a room filled with you girls! It's too quiet, it's slightly unnerving for me if I'm perfectly honest, when I sleep through the alarm there is no one to tip me off the mattress and no one to wrestle with over the first shower! I've been helping look after some of the younger ones since I got here, there is one named Kate! She is four and the sweetest little thing, so nothing like you at all.
I've also met a guy, his name is Samuel, he's a muggle from round the corner, and he's very persistent! But kind of cute as well, he asked me out to see a film seven times before I agreed. Am I turning into Lily? I'll let you know how that goes of course. I thought maybe you could come to London a few days before school starts. We can meet up and buy our new things in Diagon Alley. It would be lovely if we could. Would your parents let you come?
Just an idea of course.
Have you heard much from James or Peter, I barely had two lines from each of them, they must be having too much fun to write letters. I don't have much more to say about life at the moment, so I'll end this letter by saying that I hope you are okay. That I love you and miss you and cannot wait until September. We must be some of the only teenagers in England dying to go back to school, how sad!
Lots of love,
Morgan x
Kate smiled and opened the letter from Sirius.
Dear Katie.
I hope you are having a better summer than I am. My own mother tried to hex my ears off. I can't wait to leave and I don't know how I am going to be able to come back next year, it's terrible here. Bellatrix and Narcissa have been staying (you make any jokes I will put owl droppings in your breakfast. Oh and don't tell James, sick bastard) along with other ghastly relatives. Mostly I have been stuck in my bedroom; I've read more books in the past few weeks than all of last year. I'm absolutely dying to get away, preferably before I go insane from the boredom. I hope your summer is all right, and you can leave the house and enjoy the sun. Though I can't imagine you letting your parents stop you. Thank you for your last letter and the cigarettes, you're a life saver. When are you going to Diagon Alley? My mother can't stop me from buying school supplies.
I miss you a lot KatieKins, almost as much as my darling James.
Yours, Sirius
Kate smiled at the last line and sat down to scribble replies to both of her friends.
Three days later Sirius, Kate and Morgan had a plan.
Kate had her trunk packed waiting on the pavement outside the house, no one would see it, it was a pretty secluded lane. She walked tentatively into the kitchen where her mother and stepfather we cooking dinner and reading the paper. Her mother looked exactly like her, except with dark tunnel like eyes, instead of glistening blue ones. Her stepfather was big and burly, with an army buzz cut, she disliked him intently.
"I wondering if you could give me some money," she said quietly. "I need to buy uniform and textbooks." Her stepfather groaned and pulled out his chequebook, writing down the usual figure. "And when are you leaving?" Her mother asked haughtily. "I mean when does school start."
"September the first," she said, plucking the cheque and pocketing it before pulling her wand from her sleeve. She held it high, aimed at her parents. This wand had been her saving grace, her parents hadn't dare hit her since she got it. "I'm leaving."
"You can't leave," he mother spat, eyeing the wand uncertainly. "Where would you go? You've got no friends."
"Just because I would rather not converse with the Neanderthals who inhabit this village does not mean I do not have friends. I'm going to London. Believe it or not I have a friend who also has insufferable parents. You're going to let me leave, and you're going not going to follow me. You're going to back to pretending you don't have a daughter like you do the rest of the year, and if anyone asks…. I've gone on holiday France with one of the girls in my dorm."
Her parents glared at her, but dared not contradict her when she was holding her wand like that. "See you then," she said, as she crossed over to the door and wrenched it open. "This was nice," she said in a sweet voice. "Longest chat we've had in five years, I'd say we could do this again, but I really don't plan on ever coming back."
Kate felt strangely liberated as she walked from the house toward her trunk, as she picked it up she could hear the shouts of her parents arguing inside. The freedom she felt when she board the newly appeared Knight Bus was incomparable to anything she had ever felt before.
"Where'd you say you were going sweetheart?" asked the conductor.
"Grimmauld Place, London," she replied, he nodded and left her to wait out the rest of the journey.
