Captain Hook: (sarcastically) "Good heavens, run. Run for your lives. It's... a little girl."
Wendy: My parents wanted me to grow up.
Captain Hook: Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience... and pimples.
Wendy: Might I have time to consider your generous offer?
Captain Hook: Absolutely. You must!
Katherine was baffled at the coincidence that she and Sirius had worn costumes from the same story, but she had no time to think this over more as they entered the Great Hall.
After first it was too dark compared to the hallway that she could not see anything, but when her eyes finally adjusted after much blinking, she was captivated. The ever-changing ceiling of the Great hall was dark and stormy with bats flying across the sky but not making as much noise as one would expect. Below that hung the glowing pumpkins, carved with fiendish faces, suspended in mid-air by magic. The torches on the walls were toned down to small flames, just enough to see the person in front of you while dancing. Fake cobwebs and real spiders covered the walls as a freaky background. In the far corner was a mini-stage where the Weird Sisters played their songs while white light flashed over them. In the other corner was a snack bar full of pumpkin pasties, treacle tarts, cauldron cakes and pumpkin juice, Katherine could smell the treats from the door.
Katherine and Marlene immediately attacked the snack bar without another word leaving the boys to their own conversations. Lily and James also broke off from the group in their own conversation but soon after Lily dragged James to the dance floor.
After filling themselves up with treacle tarts, Marlene left to dance with her date Carter while Katherine walked back to where the boys had been.
As she approached them, Sirius looked right at her while sarcastically saying, "Good heavens, run. Run for your lives. It's... a little girl."
Katherine laughed at him quoting Hook when one of her favourite Weird Sisters' songs came on. She grabbed Sirius by the wrist and pulled him to the dance floor.
This left Peter all alone in his Rat King costume sulking, for Remus had been asked to dance by a girl from Ravenclaw.
As Katherine walked with Sirius to the dance floor, she noticed other peoples' costumes. The Slytherins had mostly taken the scarier approach with their costumes dressing as dark creatures while Ravenclaws dressed mostly as famous figures and Hufflepuffs dressed in classic muggle Halloween costumes.
For the next while Katherine and Sirius spent their time together dancing to the fast tunes enjoying themselves immensely in the pulsating atmosphere.
After a couple of songs a few of Sirius' ever-so-faithful fangirls got up the courage to ask him to dance but every time he sent them away saying he was dancing with Katherine.
Katherine found this strange so she told him, "You know there are plenty of people here we're dancing around. It's not like I'll be alone if you want to dance with any of those girls."
"The thing is, I don't want to dance with them. I very much like dancing here with you." He grinned to prove his point and Katherine just smiled shaking her head not at him but at the fluttery feeling in her stomach.
There were only three slow songs in the Weird Sisters' repertoire for the dance and for each song Sirius did some very unusual things.
When the first slow song came on, couples rushed to find each other, girls looked around for the boys they secretly wanted to ask them to dance and boys marched up to the girls who they had finally had the guts to ask to dance.
One of these said boys was Gregory from Hufflepuff who had walked across the dance towards where Katherine and Sirius were to ask Katherine dance. Gregory was a handsome fellow, tall, blond, charming which was one of the reasons why Sirius instantly hated him.
"Katherine, do you want to dance with me?" Gregory asked Katherine flashing his million-dollar smile.
Before Katherine could say anything, Sirius stepped between them, his back to her, saying, "I'm sorry but Katherine and I were just on our way to have some pumpkin pasties. Better luck next time." He then grabbed her arm and with much protest on Katherine's part, and dragged her to the snack bar.
Katherine yanked her arm out of his grasp. "What was that? Why did you get involved when he was asking me to dance? I'm pretty sure you're name isn't Katherine." she asked incredulously.
"I was helping you out. Gregory has the worst breath; you don't want to be anywhere near that toxic gas." He made a gagging face for emphasis but Katherine knew he was lying she just wasn't sure why he was lying. Marlene had told her before about Gregory since she had been considering him as a potential date. Marlene had said that Gregory was absolutely perfect and that's why he would never say yes to her. Katherine was sure that Marlene would've mentioned it if he had horrible breath.
Katherine couldn't see why Sirius was doing this but she decided not to dwell on it and have fun, it wasn't like she liked Gregory anyway.
She snacked on pumpkin pasties, still slightly angry at Sirius and looked over at the couples dancing. She noticed Peter leaning against the wall looking dejected while a spider climbed on his shoulder without him noticing. He had obviously been rejected by a girl.
She saw Lily and James under one of the low-hanging pumpkins dancing closely, immersed in each other's eyes like no one but they existed in the world.
Sirius had followed her gaze and said matter-of-factly, "They're perfect together."
Katherine replied with an envious sigh, "Yeah. They are."
In the distance she heard a high-pitched scream. Peter had finally noticed the spider.
Sirius' second unusual act came at the second slow dance. Gregory, who had obviously taken Sirius' words, "Better luck next time." to heart, walked over to them to ask Katherine to dance again. At the same time, a boy from Ravenclaw named Jeff made his way over for the same reason.
Katherine was not used to this kind of attention from boys and Sirius didn't even give her the chance to find out as he distracted the boys saying, "Oh, there you two are! McGonagall just told me she was looking for you two. She said something about being very disappointed and detention for week. You should probably go see her before she bumps it up to a month." Both boys' faces turned flustered and worried as they rushed off to find McGonagall unaware that she had just left the Great Hall altogether.
"You've done it again, Sirius. And don't tell me Jeff has bad breath too." she shot him a glare.
"No, Jeff has a load of dandruff. You definitely don't want that flaking on your shoulder." he said with a sly grin and ran off before she could beat him across the head.
"I will never dance with a boy with him around." she said quietly to herself.
Finally, after dancing quite a lot and sweating through their clothes, Sirius and Katherine left the dance floor to get some fresh air and rest in the hallway.
The hallway torches were now dim unlike before so they were still cloaked in semi-darkness. The two of them spent this time walking along the corridor talking about nonsense and laughing anyway.
At one point in their conversation Sirius complemented Katherine's costume saying it suited her very well.
"I only wish my mother could see it. It's my first time dressing up for Halloween since I was five and I think she would've liked to see at least a picture. My grandma always said that my mother loved dressing me up in ridiculous costumes." Katherine said thoughtfully.
"I'm sure she would have been proud that you don't look ridiculous this time." He said with a small, very small but sweet smile.
Katherine smiled at him and to change the mood, she crossed her arms and said abruptly, "My parents wanted me to grow up."
Sirius laughed at her reference to the movie and replied, "Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience... and pimples."
They both burst out laughing and finally made their way back inside the Great Hall where the dance was almost over. The lead singer of the Weird Sisters spoke into the microphone, "Okay guys, this is going to be the last song of the night, so grab that special someone for the last time tonight."
People were shuffling around to find partners as the lead singer began the song with a soft and enchanting voice. Katherine glimpsed Lily and Marlene each happily moving to the dance floor with their dates. She turned towards Sirius to find him trying to tell her something but she couldn't hear him over the music.
"What? I can't hear you!"
He obviously lost his patience so he stepped right up to her and leaned his head in the space next to her ear, saying, "I said...May I have this dance?"
Katherine shivered at his breath on her neck but she replied with an innocent look, "Might I have time to consider your generous offer?"
"Absolutely. You must!" he said with the authority of a Captain. They laughed lightly together and Katherine nodded her consent.
Sirius moved his head a little ways back but he was still close to hers. He lightly took her waist in his hands, his fingers resting naturally on her hips. Katherine tentatively placed her hands on his broad shoulders not sure what to do or how to act but Sirius soon lead her into the slow rhythm of the music and they swayed lightly.
Though their bodies became more natural, Katherine did not know where to place her gaze. At first, she could only look down and then at the stain on the wall behind his head but suddenly when he raised his head they're eyes locked and she couldn't hear a thing around her or see anything but him.
There was something so fascinating about his grey eyes, calm and steady yet mysterious like the moon.
Katherine could feel something stirring in her heart. Something more than just a simple friendship. Something more like love.
They stayed locked in the embrace of their bodies and eyes long after the song had ended not noticing at all what was going on around them.
Katherine felt her palms get sweaty and broke contact and Sirius soon followed her as they let go of each other.
"Well, I'll uh...um see you tomorrow." said Sirius nervously rubbing the back of his neck. Katherine had never seen him get nervous or not be perfectly poised in any situation. She liked seeing his vulnerable side.
They parted ways and Katherine found Lily and Marlene and they headed up to the dorms totally exhausted.
When they arrived in the room, Lily and Marlene took off their costumes and jumped right in bed. Katherine changed into her doggy pyjamas and found on her bed a letter signed on the envelope by her Grandmama. Katherine had not gone to breakfast that morning so the letter must've been left for in her dorm.
She opened it, always glad to hear from her grandmother, even if she had gone against her wishes to come to Hogwarts. Everything about the letter was the usual news, questions about school and friends, questions about her time there but at the end of the letter was something Katherine had known her Grandmama would eventually bring up.
"I hope you're having a great time there and I hope it was worth all the trouble you had going against my judgement but please tell me you have been careful. I hope you have been thinking of the prophecy and haven't gone looking for trouble. And if you have, which I know you probably must've, I hope you didn't meet anyone at a blossom tree or that you are staying away from them. I don't want to see my only granddaughter hurt and I definitely don't want to see your demise. Just be careful, my little Katherine.
Always with love,
Grandmama."
Katherine sat on her bed with a sigh, dropping the letter on the bed. She had not thought about the prophecy in a long time with her mind so focused on school and settling in. She knew she should've been heeding the words of her prophecy but she couldn't bring herself to listen to it. She did not believe that her fate was decided and she definitely did not want to shape her actions on the possibility of something bad happening. If she was to follow this prophecy's warning and stay away from the man she meets under the cherry blossom tree, she was doing a very poor job of it.
Sirius was getting much too close and she wasn't sure if it was for the best. But she wasn't going to do anything to stop it.
He seemed to be worth too much in her heart to lose.