Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.

Chapter 10 I'm in love with you

"That's not possible." Kat didn't realize she had spoken out loud until the words left her lips. Draco and Remus were nothing alike. He didn't have any gaping wounds and… Well, Kat couldn't remember a time when Remus ever let her see him sick, even when he was a professor. Still, Remus wasn't nearly as sick as Draco was all the time. "It-it doesn't make sense…"

"Disappointed?" Draco asked loudly, breaking Kat from her thoughts. He paused, and she was in too much shock to realize he was waiting for her to deny it. "You need to leave."

Lily was pretending to sleep when someone shook her shoulder. In fact, she was close to dozing and thought for a second that it was Molly. "You'll feel a lot better in the morning…"

"Mum!" Her eyes flung open when she realized it was Kat, and that she was crying. "I-I… It was horrible!"

She must've been still been half asleep. "It only hurts the first time. It won't after this, I promise…"

"WHAT?!" James picked up on it before Kat did. Maybe she shouldn't have had a few glasses of wine before bed…

Lily rubbed her eyes and forced herself to sit up. "What happened, baby?"

Kat sniffled, too upset to know what her wine clogged brain thought. "He-he thinks that I was waiting for-for him to d-die!"

"You've got a bit of a wait, Kitty Kat," James said flatly. His eyes narrowed, still suspicious as Kat started crying into her hands. "What happened?"

"I'm not!" she sobbed. "I just thought he was!"

"Why?" Lily asked slowly. Draco had been sick a few times, Pansy said, but Narcissa always shushed her and gave her a diagnosis from their family healer a day or two later. She had a nagging feeling that something else was up but tried to forget about it with everything else that was going on.

"Because he's always s-s-sick and I thought…" Kat started sobbing uncontrollably and didn't try to collect herself until Lily put a hand on her arm. She didn't say, "He's a werewolf!" until Lily pulled her into a hug.

"Oh… That makes sense…" Good to know James's insensitive mood didn't go away after the Weasleys went to bed. When Kat kept crying, he softened up a bit. "So what, Kitty Kat? Your mum will take care of him like she does for Remus, and he'll be as good as new. He's not going to die any time soon."

Kat couldn't stop crying while she tried to explain what happened. It was a while before Lily was able to understand what she was saying. Draco was convinced that she wanted him to die and now wanted nothing to do with her. Given how much blood purity meant to him, she was sure a simple apology and explanation wasn't going to be enough for him. She was going to have to have Narcissa talk him. She already felt sorry for the boy.

Yet again Mother blinded him with sunlight when he wanted to lay in bed all day and pretend to sleep. Draco groaned and turned over. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Katherine. He honestly wasn't sure if he loved her anymore. And if he didn't love her, what was the point?

"Draco!" She wasn't happy with him. Great. "You couldn't listen to what she had to say?"

He covered his eyes with is hands but knew wasn't good enough for Mother. "I don't want to hear her excuses."

"Is there anything she could say?" Mother demanded. "Or will you insist that anything she does say is a lie?"

"She was waiting for me to die. She was simply humoring me." There was nothing she could say that would make that okay. The only reason she showed him any kindness was because she knew that she wouldn't have to for much longer. His death would have been a celebration for her. "I want a divorce."

"It doesn't even make sense," Kat told Mum once she calmed down, took a nap, and had a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hands. "I've seen Remus's scar on his leg."

"And?" Mum didn't understand. Kat couldn't stop thinking about last night and the last few months, how she could have possibly missed that Draco was a werewolf.

"He has…" She gestured on her stomach to where Draco's wound was. "I think it was a bite mark on his stomach. But he freaked out and picked at it so it wouldn't look like a bite mark when it scarred. That was over a year ago. It never closed up or scarred over. He says it doesn't bleed, but he still keeps it bandaged."

Mum frowned like she didn't understand for a moment. Because she was smarter than Kat would ever be, it dawned on her after a few seconds. Her eyes filled with sadness, but she didn't tell Kat what was up. "You know how hard this must be for him."

"Not really," Kat grumbled. She wanted to scowl, be a brat and blame everything on him, but she couldn't. She felt too much like crying for that. "Because he never told me! He knows about Remus! I would never hate someone for being a werewolf!"

"He hates himself," Mum said softly. "You know they are different from us, Kat. You heard the things they would say about Remus after everyone found out. They pride themselves too much in something they're born with, something they have no control over. And now that he's lost that… It was his entire identity, Kat."

"It isn't to me." Kat took a sip of her hot chocolate, wishing it could warm her up. Her talk with Mum wasn't making her feel any better.

"Percy?" Mum blinked in surprise, although Kat didn't know why. The Weasley were staying here after all.

Maybe it was because Percy was all dressed up, like he had gone to work as usual. Kat wasn't surprised though because Percy seemed like the type who wore dress robes for everything, even for bed. What did catch her eye, however, was a roll of parchment in his hands.

"One of my colleagues stopped by." The night's events didn't seem to effect Percy at all. He was still the socially awkward, stick up the arse nerd. He pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat. Kat supposed he was trying to sound sympathetic. "I persuaded him to let me give you this. You've been served."

Lucius pulled a face at the sight of her stepping through the floo without James. He always did, so Lily decided long ago to ignore him. For once, he had something to say.

"Tell Katherine to disregard what my son sent to her the other evening," Lucius seethed. "He let his temper get the best of him."

"I did not." Draco was sitting at the window with a book that Lily was sure he wasn't reading. His pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes told her that he was feeling about as good as Kat was right now.

"You are not getting divorced," Lucius growled. "Especially since you told her…" He couldn't bear to say it. "Everyone's going to find out what you are!"

"Stop it!" There were a million more things Lily wanted to say, but because of the reason she came here, she held her tongue. No wonder Draco was so disgusted with himself. "Draco… There's something I need to talk to you about."

"I'm not apologizing."

Lily sighed. They'd both sit in limbo until they were forty if everyone let them. "Actually, I want to talk about your lycanthropy." Both Malfoys stiffened, causing Lily to bite her lip. "You took a repressor before your first transformation, didn't you?"

"Of course he didn't," Lucius snapped. "It was a punishment from the Dark Lord! Trying to prevent it would be defying him!"

Repressors decreased the chance that the person bitten would be infected. They weren't used at St. Mungo's because of the possible side effects, but they were sold on the black market for outrageous prices, a price that only a Malfoy could afford. Lily noted that Draco was suddenly very quiet.

"Honey…" This was the boy that was the reason Kat hadn't eaten or gotten out of bed in the past few days. He ripped her heart out and stomped all over it… but only because in his eyes, she had done the very same to him. "Draco, I can help you. You shouldn't be getting sick so much. And that bite mark should have healed a long time ago."

"He didn't take anything!" Lucius snarled. Lily had enough.

"There is no family healer, is there?" She rounded on him and would have taken out her wand, if she saw that he wasn't already scared. "Or at least, he doesn't know about this. You've been letting your son needlessly suffer—"

"No one needs to know." Lucius sneered at her, hiding his fear with judgement. "It is bad enough that our family has been tainted."

Lily wasn't a child. She knew better than to cower to a coward. "Because of you."

Lucius faltered. Her three words had finally taken him down a few pegs. He knew this all along, of course, but to hear it was an entirely different matter. He destroyed his son's life.

And Draco had tried to save himself. Secretly, he tried to remain as pure as his father wanted him to be. Lily felt her heart break at the sight of him, shaking at the fear of disappointing his father yet again.

"Which of the four repressors did you take, Draco?" He glanced at his father. "Voldemort is dead," Lily pressed. "There is no one to fear anymore."

Draco hung his head, making Lily wonder if he believed her or not. "All of them."

Lily was off with Kat's stupid husband, so James made it his mission to get her out of bed. What did she need that snot nosed brat for anyway? She had her dad.

"I don't want ice cream. Or fast food. Or both." All that could be seen of Kat was messy blonde hair with black roots coming in. The rest of her was stuffed under her blanket. By her stuffy voice, James could tell that she was still crying.

"Why are you so upset?" James poked her foot. "Come on Kat. We all know it's his fault!"

A hand popped out of her blanket and started clawing around for a handkerchief. Once it found its victim, it slid back under the covers. "He thinks I want him to die!"

"Do you?" James winced when she whimpered and covered her head with a pillow. "Then tell him you don't! Unless you want to get divorced and be done with it. Because that's all lying in bed is going to get you."

Kat tightened her grip on the pillow. "Leave me alone."

Although she couldn't see, James held up his hands in surrender and slowly backed away. He shut the door quietly behind him and wondered if he could get her to break her hunger strike with the smell of fresh brownies. Just before he was going to set the house elves to work, he heard the sound of her shower starting and smiled to himself. They were going to be alright.

After she was done getting dressed and was trying to comb the snarls out of her hair, Kat spotted Hermione awkwardly standing in her doorway. Hermione didn't do awkward. Once they eyes met, her sister walked into her room as regal as a queen. Their relationship was too strained for her not to be formal.

"Mum told me," she said stiffly. What a surprise. "Do you want to go to the papers wit—?"

"No!" With a grunt, Kat yanked at the brush to free it from her hair and tossed it on the ground. "I'm not running to the papers every time I have martial problems! And don't do it for me!"

"This could help Ginny," Hermione pressed. You mean it could help you, Kat thought. "People need to see that marriage has to have equality."

For... Well, it felt like forever, Kat had been listening to Hermione and Ginny preach and preach and preach. She never had the guts to say how she felt until now. The words felt selfish as they came out, but at this point, Kat didn't care. "Marriage equality doesn't matter to me as long as I'm happy."

Hermione didn't look surprised, or angry for that matter. Kat had to give her that. "But are you happy? Even if you do love him, your marriage will always be something you were forced into."

"I can't do anything to change that." Way to dodge the question, Kat thought to herself. Although she could defend herself by saying that Hermione couldn't ask her that when she was at her lowest.

"But you can." Hermione was going into full on speech mode. Here we go… "For so many others. So many women become content with what little they have. They don't have it as bad as people like Ginny and Sirius, so they don't care. So what if they're parents—"

"My marriage is not the government's business, Hermione!" Kat yelled to shut her up.

Hermione smirked in satisfaction. "Exactly."

"You were scared," Lily said as she gave him a third potion. There was no way to tell if it would work, but she took the fact that he wasn't getting sick as a good sign. The worst part was that him taking all the repressors guaranteed that they wouldn't have worked. Lily knew better than to tell him that though. "And now you aren't going to get sick so much. You'll have an easier time getting about and breathing when the weather's bad."

Draco ran his finger over the rim of the goblet he just drank out of. Like a child who thought he was in trouble, he wouldn't look at her. "I told Mum not to tell the healer."

"She shouldn't have listened to you."

"I'm the heir."

He shifted in his seat. His position in the family meant that his mother should do what he said, but the idea of telling his own mother what to do made him uncomfortable. Lily felt bad for the boy but didn't know what to say. She wanted to bring up Kat, but when she opened her mouth, only medical knowledge poured out.

"Well your mum can breathe easy." Lily forced herself to smile. If James was here, he would be gagging. "The potion you took will cure your sterility."

The joke didn't work, and Draco put his face in his hands. "What am I going to do?"

"Well, your immune system will be a hell of a lot better. And you should have a nice scar by morning. Hopefully your metabolism will slow down, and you'll put some weight on…" Lily tilted her head in his direction to try to force him to look at her. "And Kat can go back to making her quadruplet jokes?"

Draco closed his eyes. "I'm not talking about her with you."

"I guess I'll get your mother then," Lily said dryly. Draco opened his eyes and glared at her. "Kat avoids her problems, Draco. If she reaches out to you in any way, I hope you realize how important that makes you to her."

Draco didn't move when she rose to leave. Lily hoped he'd think about what she said.

"We don't know any lawyers." For the past few days in their crappy hotel room, Ginny had been poking hole after hole in Daphne's plan. Never mind the fact that it was a lot better than hers, which was live in poverty in the Muggle world, isolated from their friends and families for the rest of their lives. "Well…" She snorted. "Except Percy."

As usual, Daphne instantly proved her wrong. "Purebloods are practically lawyers. They've been studying law since before they knew how to use the crapper. A pureblood could represent us, and we know plenty of those."

"But not plenty that would be willing to represent us," Ginny countered. "Face, Daph. We're screwed."

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because I think Sirius has just as much to lose as we do."

Ginny felt her mouth run dry. The man who risked everything for her, and she abandoned him. "No."

"If we win—"

"But what if we don't?" Ginny shook her head. "I'm not risking his health for that. I think I've done enough to him in the past few months. And whatever he and Tonks and Remus have going on works for them."

"Well it doesn't work for us." Daphne kicked their rubbish bin, which was already full of take away cartons. "And it shouldn't have to."

Ginny shook her head again. This was one thing she wouldn't give in to. "I'm not doing that to him. I've done enough."

"Hmm…" Daphne threw herself on the couch in their living room/bedroom/kitchen. "I guess that just leaves Percy then."

Ginny rolled her eyes. That'll be the day. "He wants to go into politics. There's no way in hell that he'll so much as look at you right now. You completely trashed his reputation."

Daphne grinned and decided to show off the Slytherin in her. "He'll do it for us. Because if not, Hermione will be so angry with him. She won't want it to get out that they're in love and have been fucking. I heard them once, when I was in hiding in the bathroom to escape your mother's dreadful plans for the wedding."

"And you're just telling me this now?!" Looks like she wasn't the only one keeping secrets. Poor Ron…

Daphne shrugged. "I didn't care until it was useful to me."

Percy and Hermione… Ginny knew why Hermione wouldn't want anyone to know. She didn't want to be with anyone until society saw her and her partner as equals. In fact, she preached in opinion letters to the Ministry that she would never let herself fall in love until everyone was equal in the eyes of the law. That would not look good for her. And what did Percy think? Did he care if things got out between him and Hermione?

Ginny knew that Hermione would never forgive her, and perhaps that was the only reason Percy would care. If he didn't want to lose her, he would do it. And she would too. "There's no convincing you otherwise?"

"We deserve better than being pariahs," was all Daphne would say. "I love you and there's nothing wrong with that."

Ginny hesitated. Hermione couldn't help them. She was still in school and simply wouldn't have the time. As cruel as it sounded, she'd rather blackmail Percy than Sirius. "I love you too."

Narcissa was biting her nails, something a lady didn't do. She reserved such things for when Draco was sick. This wasn't something that she should be worrying about. The house elves informed her that Katherine was in the Manor. This was a good thing.

"They'll be back to bickering like they're twice our age in the morning," Lucius drawled. He was at the desk by their bed, writing letters and going about business as usual. He always pretended that he didn't worry about Draco. Sometimes Narcissa wondered if he was actually pretending.

"Lily tells me you were angry with Draco," she said quietly. Although she wasn't afraid to, she never liked raising her voice to Lucius.

"He could have gotten us all killed," Lucius mumbled, not looking up from his work.

"He was barely sixteen when he was bitten," Narcissa hissed. "And he was bitten because of you."

Lucius threw down his quill. "You think I don't know that?" he yelled. "You don't think that every time I see him that I don't think about what I've done to him? I've turned my son into a disgusting monster!"

"He thinks you don't love him." Narcissa winced. She didn't like saying it and had ignored it for over a year. Lucius tried his best to deny it, but it was the truth. "That's what he sees when you avoid him, Lucius. Not the guilt or the fear. He sees the hate."

Lucius's face hardened. One couldn't be blunt with matters of the heart. It wasn't the Malfoy way. "I love my son."

That wasn't enough. Love is an action, not a word. "Then start acting like it."

"I wanted to say I'm sorry." Kat's heart was pounding as she flooed into Draco's room. This was her only chance. Her one shot to show him how she felt, and the only way she could say it could, probably would, result in him leaving her.

He merely sneered at her and turned to the half-moon outside his giant window. "I wouldn't accept your apology."

"Well that's good because I'm not sorry," she said flatly. He straightened up, as if seeing how heartless she was for the first time. "Because I finally had the chance to see you as a person, not my rival or my enemy or a Death Eater, but a real person."

"Because you felt sorry for me."

"Because you trapped me! You went on with this horrible deal our mothers made and expected me to fall in love with you, as your prisoner?" Kat felt her eyes fill with tears. "You've made all the wrong choices. And if you weren't sick, I would have never seen you as human."

"I'm not," he said bitterly. "I'm not human and never will be again! You know why I went on with it? Because in my eyes, my life was over. I had nothing and with you… With you I thought I would have the chance to be happy again, to be me again."

"By living a lie?" Kat took a few steps closer to him, and to her surprise, he didn't take a step back. "I don't want the old you, Draco. I-I didn't know him… I'm in love with you now."

I don't believe you. Kat was waiting for it. He served her with divorce papers, for Merlin's sake. His fists clenched and took a few deep breaths. She didn't even notice him advance towards her until his lips were on hers.

This time, he didn't pull away.

Thank you Guest, Ern Estine 13624, Vi38, Child of Dreams, Megafan1, Ranma-sama, and Sakura Lisel for reviewing!

Draco and Kat still have a long way to go, but with the last scene, I was trying to get the feels like from that episode of TVD when Elena tells Damon she loves him for the first time. As some of you might be able to see, I watched that scene before writing this. It's from season four, episode 23. It's on Youtube and will come up if you type in Elena loves Damon if you want to watch it.

Child of Dreams: That's what Kat was thinking!

Draco still isn't a "normal" werewolf! The next chapter is going to be sad. :(