Chapter 9: Halloween
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and no copyright is intended. Everything that you recognise from the Harry Potter Universe belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: Thank you to beaniebun and the Guest reviewer for your reviews!
beaniebun; writing the big familiar characters is something I love too – I just want to do them justice, you know? And the Marauder era is my favourite HP era too! So many things are make or break for the plot! Are Katherine and Sirius the romantic end game? We'll see (I'm smiling as I write this), I thought I had an idea about who Katherine would end up with, but as I write I'm finding chemistry with other characters in unexpected places. Also, I just saw your comments on 'A Matter of Time' – thank you! I had a whopper of a grin while reading them!
And to my lovely Guest; I'm glad you enjoyed how I portrayed Voldemort, it's something I agonised over to ensure that his arc started right. I'd love to hear your suspicions about the plot!
Without further ado – here's Chapter 9!
For the two weeks following the Devil Snare incident, Lily and Marlene had stuck with Katherine for every class and bathroom trip, all the while trying to figure out who the culprit was despite Katherine's insistence that it was Greengrass (who was often firing trip jinxes at Katherine and her friends in the hallways which Katherine liberally returned).
It was while being consumed by the adrenalin of playing detective that Katherine forgot about the upcoming visit to Hogsmeade village and the innocent, unassuming permission slip that went along with it.
On the Saturday morning of which Halloween also fell, Katherine had been politely told by McGonagall that the slip required the signature of a parent or guardian; neither of which Katherine had. It was while at the head table that Katherine noticed Giles' absence for the fourth day in a row, thinking that perhaps he might have signed it; having been somewhat of a guardian and hopefully would see the unfairness of her not being allowed to go simply because she didn't have any family.
Resigned to staying at the castle, Katherine sat with the girls and Alice, tearing her toast to smaller pieces before eating it as students slowly filtered out with delighted chatter of things they were to buy and places they were to go.
"It's probably for the best, Katherine." said Lily.
Marlene perked up, "Yeah, Greengrass is going, and if you're not viciously savaged throughout the day – we'll know it's her."
"Or that it wasn't her and the person who actually attacked me also fancied a weekend out." said Katherine glumly.
"Well, it's most likely a Slytherin," said Lily, frowning, "almost half their table was empty at dinner on the night you were attacked because of a burst pipe in the dungeons."
"Convenient." said Katherine, popping a ripped piece of toast into her mouth.
"What if it's your mate, Snape?" asked Marlene, eyes boring into Lily with false calm, "What then?"
Lily sighed, "I know you don't like him, Marley, but he wouldn't have done this."
"To you, right?" said Marlene, throwing a nod to the Hufflepuff table, "What about to Mary MacDonald?"
"That was Avery and Mulciber." Lily was quick to clarify, pointing.
"Snape was right there with them in the days leading up to it, calling her a Mud–" Marlene broke off at Lily's tight jaw, sighing, "I'm sorry, Lily, but he's not as good as you think he is."
Lily frowned, poking her porridge around and shaking her head, "I just don't see it…" she hesitated, "And it's just a word – it doesn't define me anymore than 'muggleborn' does and it's truly lost its edge from all the times I've heard it..."
"Just a word?" Marlene laughed, "Who throttled Sirius Black in first year for accidentally letting it slip?"
Lily pinked slightly, a twitch at the corners of her lips.
"I think he fancied you for a bit afterwards," said Marlene, snorting, "The Blacks are a passionate lot, and how much more passionate can you get than a punch in the face?"
Katherine and Lily joined Marlene in a short laugh before the subject of their conversation plopped down across from them with James.
Sirius looked at James incredulously, "Shut it and go on your fake date with Pamela."
"It's Patricia." James corrected him off-handedly.
"Actually, it's Penelope." said Alice.
James and Sirius' heads snapped around, their expressions a mixture of surprise and trepidation.
"We're going to get a move on…" said Lily with a cautious glance at Katherine as she rose from the bench.
"I'll get you a sickly amount of sweets." said Marlene, clapping Katherine on the back as she passed.
Katherine couldn't help but grin at her friends, waving in farewell until they wouldn't be able to see her slip into a frown. She suddenly felt that the entire contents of the Gryffindor table couldn't even satiate her.
"Did Pete get caught?"
Katherine looked up from her ruminating to see that a maroon-jumper wearing Remus had joined his friends, yawning, and stretching what looked like a pulled muscle in his neck if his grimace was anything to go by.
"Remus, how could you?" said Sirius with feigned outrage.
Remus simply blinked, "He's not in trouble – he's seeing a girl."
James choked on a bite of his apple.
"Peter?" James coughed.
"He asked me not to tell you two, a good decision given how you've reacted," said Remus, blanching at his porridge before reaching for some plain toast, "Well, now you know – he wasn't caught, there's no need to worry."
"Except for the poor girl." said Sirius.
James suddenly launched to his feet, "Come on, I'll grab my cloak and we'll go find Peter and the girl and we'll help along his date."
"Help it along to an early finish…" muttered Sirius before putting down his spoon, "You coming, Moony?" he asked as he rose to his feet, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
"A bit too tired for it." yawned Remus, running a hand through his already tousled hair.
"Maybe you could use your Prefect-ness to look at you-know-what in you-know-where." said James, slinging an arm around Sirius' shoulders.
"Have fun, guys." said Remus, not showing any sign that he heard James.
Not wanting to waste her Saturday in the Great Hall, Katherine yet again found solace in the library.
"So you're the one checking out all the dark-arts books."
Katherine's eyes snapped up to find a maroon jumper by her table. Trailing up she found fluffed-up sandy blond hair still damp in places from a shower, and a hunched Remus Lupin.
"Oh, sorry," said Katherine, clearing her throat as her voice had come out broken from lack of use, "Do you need this one?"
"We can share,"
He placed down his ink, parchment, and textbook before taking a seat next to Katherine on the settee sofa squashed against the window with a table a little too high for it. Rubbing his chin and sighing, he suddenly stilled and looked to her with alarm flashing in his deep, intelligent green eyes.
"If you don't mind, that is?"
Katherine couldn't help but smile, "Of course not."
For the next fifteen minutes, they worked quietly; flipping pages back and forth to the sections they needed – Dementors for Katherine and Inferi for Remus.
"Should I be worried about you being one the Gryffindor's that turn bad, Katherine?" asked Remus, his eyes moving pointedly to the section on the killing curse she had flipped to.
"Should I be worried about you being one the Gryffindor's that turn out bad, Lupin?" asked Katherine, gesturing to his section and back to him.
Remus simply raised his eyebrows, his lips slipping up and apart but not forming an answer.
She gulped as she looked down at her knitted together hands, deciding to get the Dementor-sized weight off her chest.
"I was attacked by a Dementor in the summer."
Remus' hand lifted from his knee, almost touching Katherine's arm, but then lowered again.
"Defence is my best subject, I'm very hard to hit in a duel." he offered in exchange.
Katherine felt her eyes slip over him like a worn in glove, her having done it surreptitiously many times during classes. He usually had a look of surprised optimism about him, but he had taken on the distinct look of someone who had been blasted square in the face by an arctic gale.
"Right now it looks like a well-placed stunner would do you in," Katherine attempted lightly, "Are you not well?"
His lips smiled, but his eyes didn't dance; fixating instead on his cuffs that he compulsively straightened.
"Being a Prefect with friends that aren't exactly the rule-abiding sort can do wonders for the depletion of an already weak constitution."
Katherine nodded, and in brief reprieve from their conversation they stared at the table without seeing.
"Lupin?" said Katherine.
His eyes raised to her with a distinct guardedness, "Yes?"
"I think it fits you better than it would Frank."
His cheeks, covered in fuzzy facial hair – almost ginger, pulled up, along with his ears.
"Katherine?"
Her named sounded foreign from his lips, and Katherine had to check for a moment that she was, in fact, Katherine.
"Yes?" she asked, feeling every inch of guarded that he had been before.
His eyes glittered, "Call me Remus."
Katherine met his eyes on a whim in their moment of amusement, and in an instant, there was an inexplicable rush of unity between them; their green depths so similar it was if they had laughed together many times before. When she looked away, she felt his eyes on her still – sweetly, intensely – her busying herself by starting in on her Astronomy homework with twitching hands.
She couldn't figure out how to sit next to him normally.
"I accidentally slept through the first midnight Astronomy lesson…and it's been cloudy every time I've gone to the Tower since…" said Katherine, keeping her eyes low until she couldn't avoid raising them, "Would you mind so terribly if I peeked at your star chart?"
Katherine tucked her hair behind her ears and flattened her hands on the desk to stop them trembling.
"Not at all," said Remus, shuffling his pieces of parchment around, "I fell asleep myself back in first year…I remember what it's like…"
Katherine just smiled in what she was sure was an awkward manner as she accepted the parchment from him and set to work on copying the missing sections of the night sky. Once she finished, she took to reading ahead to note phenomena to be expected in the coming years. After realising that a comet was going to pass that wouldn't pass for another eighty years, Katherine looked at the Luna events.
"Did you know that there won't be another full moon on Halloween until 1981?" said Katherine, frowning and noting it in her essay.
"The one in 1981 is supposed to be a super moon too." said Remus, smoothing back his hair that dangled onto his forehead and righting his cuffs for the umpteenth time.
Katherine hummed, her eyes catching her defence essay on magical creatures that might feature in her O.W.L's in her pile of parchments – werewolves on the top.
"I wonder what sort of effect that has on werewolves…" said Katherine, her chin falling into her palm as she twiddled her quill, "Do you think we'll get a question like that on our Defence O.W.L's?"
She watched him while waiting for his response; finding it easier as he wasn't looking back.
"I'm sure it would make them more energetic," Remus rubbed his chin, not looking up from his parchment, "And, no… I don't think we'll get a question like that on our O.W.L's, perhaps our N.E.W.T's…"
Katherine nodded, unsure whether to continue to distract him from his seemingly important work – he hadn't met her eye since she handed back his star chart. And there was something strange about talking with him – something strikingly out of place; like the moon during the day.
"You've got to feel bad for them… werewolves…up until coming here I hadn't thought much about them at all…but after doing a bunch of reading it's…it's appalling what they have to deal with…legislation and what not…" said Katherine, feeling something shoot up through her at the injustice, "They're humans first – they can't help that they were bitten…"
"Honestly – it's probably curable!"
She huffed and puffed, glaring at the dust particles drifting in front of her as she thought on that very cure, thinking aloud about blood transfusions to try piece together a scenario where it may work. She had seen so many films vilify werewolves, which she hadn't thought much of while she thought they were fictional creatures designed to frighten children. But they were no longer fictional – not to her, or anyone else in the wizarding world, anyway.
"Katherine?"
Suddenly aware of her tirade, Katherine felt a red heat hug her chest and face, "Yeah, Remus?"
He opened his mouth, his eyes glinting, but then they flickered down and crinkled. He lifted a large hand to the hair hanging by her cheek and gently pulled, a valley forming between his brows.
Katherine looked down to his hand, a beetle fluttering on his palm, and realised that her knee was resting on his thigh and not a cushion as she had first thought.
"Could you please crack the window?" said Remus, bringing the beetle up to eye level with a faint smile as he observed it.
"You're not fond of flattening them with books like your friends?" asked Katherine, making a sound of effort in her throat when the scarcely-opened window gave way.
"I make it a point to not harm living creatures."
Katherine turned back to see him frowning at the beetle as he held his hand out over the ledge, it abandoning his flesh in favour of the cool window's edge, it's small wings beating in the breeze
"Well, you're definitely not heading for Azkaban after school." said Katherine lightly, manoeuvring back around to sit normally and not hang over the back of the settee.
"No," said Remus mirthfully, smiling and picking up his quill to mark something on his parchment, "We've all agreed that if anyone is going to end up in Azkaban that it would be Sirius."
Katherine laughed hard before realising that Remus hadn't, and found all humour leave her, "Surely not…?"
Remus hummed and sucked his teeth distractedly, "You've never been on the other end of his wand..."
"Why isn't he topping Defence, then?"
"He and James have natural talent out of the arse, but they're not fond of the effort required for homework," said Remus, smiling tightly and shaking his head, "Sirius will probably still get Outstanding's in all of his O.W.L's though..."
There was a bitter twist to his last sentence.
"Then why have you lot been lurking around the library?" asked Katherine.
Remus gulped as he smiled at her, and Katherine felt as if she were wrapped in gossamer with him right there on the velvet settee as his eyes gently narrowed at her.
"For some reason, I find myself blabbing a great deal to you today," said Remus, his eyebrows pulling up and his lips fighting a similar end as he pointed emphatically, "But that I will take to the grave."
Before Katherine could even laugh, the moment was broken by his eyes straying from her and going stony.
The official robes of the matron swished to a stop by their table, looking very out of place outside the Hospital Wing.
"Mister Lupin, I need a word."
Remus' lips parted, his head bowed, and his hands clumsily rushed to gather his things.
"Of course, Madam Pomfrey," said Remus, stuffing a quill in his pocket in his haste before balancing his books in his arms, "See you, Katherine."
Katherine smiled, feeling her forehead crinkle as she caught the increasing paleness in his face, "Feel better, Remus."
He was halfway to the door when he turned back and sighted Katherine over his pot of ink.
"Oh, and shut the window, that blasted beetle is still fluttering there."
Katherine kneeled on the settee to reach the ornate bronze handle, pulling the window shut; the motion conjuring a wave of air that knocked the beetle off the ledge.
She didn't spend long on her own, having to put her things back in the dormitories before heading down to dinner where her friends greeted her once more. Marlene; her arms laden with shiny pastel boxes of all shapes and sizes, and Lily; draw-string-held paper bags tucked under her arms, undoubtedly full of books and stationary top ups.
They were mid-retelling of their day when Rita Skeeter hobbled in; bandages wrapped around every inch of available skin, a neck brace flattening her bleach ringlets, and casts on both arms and one leg. But she was smiling as she was aided onto the bench at the Slytherin table.
"What happened to her?" asked Katherine, her awe stealing most of her voice's volume.
But Marlene had heard her, "That happened just as we were walking up to the castle actually," she said, raising her eyebrows before frowning, "She had fallen – from her broom, I think – from one of the high windows on the east side of the castle."
"She was probably peeking in through the Ravenclaw dormitories," said Lily, snorting, "Nosier than Bertha Jorkins, that girl… and a bigger gossip…"
Marlene cackled, clapping the table with a glimmer in her eyes that were the colour of the chocolate she had been nibbling on, "Remember the time Bertha caught Florence Fortescue behind the greenhouses with –"
Marlene frowned, having cut herself off, and looked either side of herself; up and down the Gryffindor table."
"Hang on, where is Remus?"
Katherine's pumpkin juice circled up from her mouth to her nose, and she violently shook with her coughs to expel it. The maroon-sweater-wearing Remus Lupin she had met didn't seem at all the type to have rendezvous' behind the greenhouses with girls.
Lily murmured a spell beneath her breath, circling her wand at Katherine, and the juice vanished from her nasal passage.
"Probably with the rest of the hex-happy-brigade," said Lily, flinging her hair back over her shoulders, "Just this afternoon I had to take points because they pulled their wands on Avery and Severus –"
"– Snape probably drew first –" muttered Marlene.
Lily went on.
Katherine's eyes circled around the room, nodding and humming at the right times to appease her red-headed friend, and found that the familiar crooked nose in the profiles of the Professors was still missing.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading!
I was wondering how you all envision a young Remus? I've always thought that he would look a lot like Luke Newberry (even though everyone seems to like him more as Teddy) or Charlie Rowe.
For James, there's no going past Aaron Taylor-Johnson for me – perhaps only for the actual young John Lennon.
And for Sirius I've always been torn. Reading the books, I envisioned him very similar to Jimmy Page at end of his Yardbirds days and the beginning of Led Zeppelin, and Regulus like Rory Gallagher in the 60's/70's (forgive me for my love old rockstars – I'm convinced that I loved Rory Gallagher in a past life or something).
I'd love to know what you all think – and I'll be back with Chapter 10 – hopefully – by the end of the weekend (a lot of plot bunnies and off-handed observations are going to come to fruition in it – I'm so excited for you guys to read the coming chapters)! :)
