Chapter 14: Sweet Passage
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 the reviewers on the last chapter; EviColt, and the ever-faithful beaniebun.
EviColt; I'm glad you're enjoying the story! Your two comments actually sparked me to start this chapter sooner than I had intended and made me realise people really wanted to know what happens next – so thank you! I'd love to hear your ideas about the perspective in Chapter 12 to see if I'm leaving enough a trail to give people a chance of figuring it out before the big reveal later on in the story!
beaniebun; I'm so thrilled that someone has remembered Rory Hawthorne from the first chapter! And I'm equally pleased that you took notice of the class division during the Defence lesson – it is symbolic of certain separations to come – but not all separations will be in death, I can assure you of that (disclaimer: there will be deaths though). As for Hawthorne's connection to Katherine, I'll just say that it has to do with the echoes from the original Harry Potter series that I'm trying to carry on.
And now – here's Chapter 14!
"Isn't he just a dreamboat?"
Katherine hummed, her eyes flickering between the one-eyed-witch statue and where the fifth year boys were huddled by the foot of the marble staircase leading to the first floor.
She had received an owl from James on Tuesday detailing that they were to meet after everyone cleared out for Hogsmeade, and was anxiously cataloguing where teachers and prefects were stationed. One prefect, in fact, was fiddling with their newsboy cap and gloves in front of her.
"Not really my type." said Katherine, her eyes straying back to the statue in restrained awe of what she knew it was concealing.
"He's like a clone of Gideon, Katherine."
Katherine observed where Bertram Aubrey and Dedalus Diggle snickered and shoved one another in their circle of friends in the Entrance Hall, smoothing their hair after the roughing around.
Bertram Aubrey was indeed fair-haired, handsome, well-liked, and tall. Katherine, though, thought that the sixth year Ravenclaw boy had none of Gideon's sophistication.
"Different demeanours."
Lily's already particularly violent shade of red hair was exacerbated by the wall torch the girls were warming themselves by, and glinted as the prefect tilted her head in consideration.
"Gideon is a bit more studious…"
"You could always have a crack at him," said Katherine wryly, seeing a tawny head of hair bob across her vision, "But – look, here comes your date."
Lily turned, gave a little jump of surprise, and turned back; eyes glittering.
"Are you sure you'll be alright here on your own?" asked Lily, anxiety leeching into her edge of her frown, "I'll cancel on Bertram right now if you change your mind."
"I'll be okay, Lily," said Katherine, nodding with a smile, "Go – have fun,"
Lily rolled her lips, glancing between an approaching Bertram and Katherine.
Katherine knew what she had to say.
"I'm catching up with Giles for a lesson," lied Katherine, before trying for truth even she believed, "There's nowhere safer."
Giles was remaining at the castle, that much Katherine knew, his name absent from the list of patrolling prefects and professors.
"Oh, I feel a bit better knowing that…" said Lily, her frown crumbling into a smile as she turned to meet a grinning Bertram who was being slapped vigorously on the back by Diggle and Wood, "Well, I'll bring you back some carrot cake from the bakery – I remember from last time that it's your favourite."
"You're a saint, Lily Evans." called Katherine after her friend.
Just as a waving Lily was reduced to a dot strolling past the courtyard, curls sprung into Lily's previous place.
"Hope you don't mind, Katherine, but Marcus and I just got word this morning that our cousin is in Hogsmeade..." trailed off Marlene, tucking her hands beneath her armpits and peering out from beneath the roll of her woolly hat.
"Not at all," said Katherine, secretly relieved and smiling, "I've got a lesson with Giles – remember?"
"Oh – good then!" beamed Marlene, like Katherine had expected her to, "Your Patronus is really coming along – I think I saw four legs the other day."
Katherine felt that perhaps it should have been legless and fork-tongued if the ease at which she lied to her only friends was an indicator of her inner self.
"Well, you two better get a move on," said Katherine, mustering up a cheery expression on her icy cheeks, "Have fun!"
Marcus gave a wave of his hand and turned, his hand finding Marlene's elbow and tugging.
Marlene dug in her heels, calling back at Katherine, "I could also pick up a broom for you – do you have that money still?"
"McGonagall is going to sort it out." lied Katherine.
"I'll bring you back something from Gambol and Japes then!"
Katherine smiled and waved, genuinely glad that she no longer had to lie.
"You're good at that,"
Katherine's chest spasmed, and her ankles all but twisted.
She whipped around to find herself pinned beneath an unflinching gaze; deep and catastrophic. No, decided Katherine, his eyes were, indeed, not simply grey.
"Lying." said Sirius in clarification, a flicker passing behind his lead-hued observation.
It was ironic that her stomach turned to that very metal – heavy and poisonous.
"I'm not proud of it." said Katherine, tearing away to look after her vanished friends.
"There you go again."
"Alright, in through here – quick." said James, tapping the hump and murmuring 'Dissendium' under his breath.
Katherine hadn't seen nor heard James approach and was startled into the passage, James and Sirius yanking the door closed behind them and bringing a shower of crumbled stone down upon the three of them.
Sirius tapped James' arm that was shoving a piece of parchment into his pocket "Just keep it out, mate."
"Merlin, what do you want me to give her next?" said James, shrugging some stone from his shoulders with an incredulous smile at Sirius, "My cloak?"
"Oh – no, thank you, I'm not cold." said Katherine, looking around the tunnel; similar to the ones she had already travelled within the castle.
James and Sirius shared a glance; Sirius' eyebrows pulsing before he nodded ahead, and James sighed, smiled, and led the way through the tunnel.
"The shopkeeper of Quality Quidditch Supplies is Jimmy Twills," said James over his shoulder, his wand lighting the gradually constricting rings of the stone passage, "He's an ex-England player and likes to waffle on a bit – so let us head him off first so he knows not to keep you and risk you getting caught."
Katherine nodded, and couldn't help but note the distinct lack of a fluffy head of sandy hair and a pudgy boy scurrying at their heels.
"Where are Remus and Peter?" asked Katherine, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Sirius before looking back ahead to James' shoulders; leaving the question open to both of them, "I thought you four were a group package…"
Katherine felt a shift in her hair, too firm to have been from any breeze the tunnel might possess, and – fearing that it was a spider – she whipped around and raised a hand to her hair, only to find another hand there, and Sirius' curving lips and patronizing head tilt.
"Bit of stone," said Sirius, showing the flake to Katherine before flicking it away, "Remus is patrolling the town this weekend – Peter's keeping him company."
"What have you done to Peter, by the way?"
Katherine turned back to see James' glasses against the light from his wand, his pupils flicking to corners of his eyes and back to the passage again.
"He raves about you every other minute."
Katherine frowned, "He didn't tell you about being cornered by Slytherins after Moody's visit?"
James' step faltered, as if to slow, but then he kept on, his frown turning away from Katherine as his shoulders widened.
"Not a thing."
James' voice was primmer than Katherine had ever heard.
"I just…stepped in, is all." said Katherine, shrugging and wishing the subject away.
Sirius might have had a direct line to her thoughts.
"So what are we going to do once we're finished?"
James shrugged, but it was tense, "We could stop by the Three Broomsticks – see Rosmerta…"
"Hmmm," hummed Sirius, "And why would you willingly want to subject yourself to Rosmerta's tongue lashing for annoying her?"
James' cheeks lifted, dark blue against the glow of his wand.
"Could it have anything to do with the fact that Evans might be there with Aubrey?"
James slowed by a ladder, turning back; his smile replaced by an expression of incredulity as he cleaned his glasses with the hem of his jumper.
"He's a sixth year – what do they have in common?"
Sirius snorted, "You put your glasses on and face the facts, James –"
James held up a hand, and his head fell back as he eyed the ceiling of the passage, "Shh! Someone's in the cellar…"
Sirius stepped around Katherine to stand shoulder to shoulder with James, joining in his inspection of the noise and squinting as powdered stone rained down on their faces.
Thinking quickly, Katherine disillusioned herself.
The noise passed, and James turned back with unfocused eyes gleaming with alarm, and Katherine cringed as she forgot to explain herself.
"Hang on, where'd she go?" whispered James, looking right past Katherine's shoulder, "Katherine?"
Katherine reached out a hand to lower James' wand that almost poked her in the eye.
"Disillusionment charm." whispered Katherine.
James grinned, reaching out and nearly sticking a finger up her nose in his blindness, "Excellent, I can't see you at all."
Sirius frowned, shining his own wand on what Katherine was sure that, to them, was a shimmery film over the stone walls of the passage.
"That might be a problem – we don't want to lose her if we're in a crowd." said Sirius.
"I'll hold on to your jacket or something." said Katherine, thinking.
James scoffed, "Sirius is wearing his favourite jacket – best not, he'll be in a right state if it's marked or stretched."
Sirius raised his eyebrows, blinking his moon-shaded eyes, "It's rather expensive."
His aristocratic lilt was jarring to Katherine's ears and a blanket of familiarity at the same time.
"It's muggle – it can't be that expensive." said James distractedly, testing the dusty rungs of the ladder, and wiping them with the inside of his travelling robe.
"Anything that makes the vein in my mother's forehead twitch is priceless." said Sirius, his amused gaze on some far off vision and his lips twitching in a suggestion of pleasure.
"Just stick close, yeah?" said James with a sound of effort at pushing up a cut out of stone, his eyes on Katherine's stomach.
Sirius' veiny hand sped across Katherine's face, her having to lean back to avoid getting hit, and it halted James where his white-dusted jet-black hair bobbed above their passage.
"She should go up first – tell us if the coast is clear…" said Sirius, his eyes finding Katherine without the difficulty James seem to have.
Katherine gently moved past, James jumping as she put a hand on his shoulder to move him away from the ladder.
The two promptly turned their backs; James' arms disappearing from his sides as he undoubtedly crossed his arms, and Sirius' bony wrists crossing as he clasped his hands behind his back.
"What are you two doing?" asked Katherine, paused in the middle rungs of the ladder.
"Well, you're wearing a skirt." said James, shifting his feet.
"I'm invisible." said Katherine, with a smile the boys couldn't see even if they were facing her.
"Still." The two boys chorused, James' voice lilting higher.
Katherine shook her head and continued up the ladder and crawled onto the stone floor of what seemed to be a cellar; stock-piled pastel boxes with 'Sugar Quills', 'Pumpkin Pasties', and 'Liquorice Wands' being the noticeably most carried items.
Only once she was sure of the fact she was the only person in the room, did she duck her head back over the new hole in the floor.
"It's clear."
James was next, hunching out widely like a spider, before bending at the hips and rifling through his already messy hair to shake the stone from it onto the floor.
Sirius' alabaster hands promptly appeared on the rim of the stone, his forearms next; clad in plum velvet that pulled away from his wrists to reveal more veins than usual. The knees of his pin-striped slacks found the edge of the passage opening and he rolled to his feet in one fluid motion. Turning, he raked a sole hand through his consummately neat locks and used the other to lift the heavy stone round back into place with a hollow THUNK.
James made a hand gesture that indicated for Katherine and Sirius to follow, and they maintained their line of order from the tunnel as they inched up a heart-stopping rickety wooden staircase, having to pause and listen to hear if anyone was going to check on each noise they made on the incline.
The longest pause was at the door to the main shop floor of Honeydukes, shrieks of delight and laughter leaking down into the cellar as James watched for a moment when they could slip out unnoticed.
And when they did, Katherine's eyes clung to images of sweets of mini-carousels, eclectically coloured shelves, and edible clouds their fellow students were chomping out the air, even when she was shunted from behind into the numbing, wet snow.
"Welcome to Hogsmeade, Spencer." said James, leaning by her shoulder in what she assumed to be his miscalculation to find her ear.
Regardless, Katherine heard him fine, but still couldn't find it in herself to respond.
The cream cottages, lined up neatly like gingerbread houses, could have been iced with sugar – not the snow Katherine knew it to be. Fires and laughter were locked away beyond frosted window panes, each bricked sanctuary shining with a different slice of life. The trees sheltering the town were wild and wet from the pale day and still smelling of a crisp winter night, and, twirling around, the blurred visions dazzled and dizzied Katherine.
"It's gorgeous…" whispered Katherine, her chest blooming to breathe in the sheer variety of beauty.
"Sirius, you're about to trip." said James, stepping across Katherine and blazing a path through the wet ground fall.
The words pitched Katherine back into the damp and harsh reality of their shadowed refuge under an eave.
"Never," said Sirius, loping ahead, "Come on – let's get her undercover before any prefects or professors catch her."
"I thought that the risk made it fun?" asked Katherine, jogging after the two long-legged boys.
"Calculated risk." said James, tucking his hands into his pockets and winging his elbow in a gesture for Katherine to hold it.
"Potter – Black – what are you doing down here?"
The chill down Katherine's spine increased tenfold.
Ahead of the trio, squinting over the snow glare, was Giles; Katherine's unknowing alibi, and the one to have taught her the means of going undetected that she had wielded full advantage of.
"Er, exploring?" said James, his arm tensing beneath Katherine's hand.
Katherine thought she caught Giles' eyes lingering on James' elbow where it seemed nothing was pulling the material taut, and stilled.
Giles frowned, looked to Sirius and then back to James, and Katherine breathed again.
"Well, explore closer to the inbounds areas of the town," said Giles, turning and eyeing them sideways as his feet freed themselves from the ankle-deep snow, "Wouldn't want anyone thinking you were up to something."
After Giles strode into the powdery snow, the three Gryffindors dashed through the sticking snow, stumbling and laughing all the way to the stoop of 'Quality Quidditch Supplies'. Pausing at the door to first look in through the window, Katherine lifted her disillusionment charm.
James barged unceremoniously through the belled door that Sirius caught, stepped beside, and held open with his usual carelessly handsome demeanour.
Katherine had forgotten such chivalry existed in her time at Hogwarts, often surrounded by teenagers of all backgrounds, and felt inexplicably comforted by Sirius' similarity to what she had been raised around.
She bowed her head before rushing through as composedly as possible, looking around for James with a grin, "That was close, I was almost caught –"
The chest she met was familiar, it having absorbed her impact once before, and Katherine's eyes caught the equally familiar gold hair above it, sectioned away by a strong neck and a handsome face.
"Almost?" asked Gideon, gazing down upon Katherine with combined amusement and dutifulness.
"Let her off, Gid," said Fabian, hooking a hand around his twin's elbow with a grin, "She's here on official Quidditch business."
"As her Captain I ordered her to get a broom, so I'll happily polish the cabinets in the trophy room in punishment as long as we crush Hufflepuff." said James, stepping up beside Katherine and crossing his arms.
"As her Captain, you could have come and bought it on her behalf." said Fabian, mirroring James and crossing his arms.
James frowned and his eyes focused on the ground, his arms falling back to his sides, "Oh, yeah… I guess I could have…"
"I needed to get robes for Slughorn's Christmas party too." said Katherine, hoping to get the point across that James' Quidditch fantasies weren't her sole reason for breaking the rules.
"You're on your own there, love," said James, his eyes casting out of the shop window and across the street to a mannequin fronted store, "The last time I went into Gladrags, Gwendolyn snitched to my mum about me not using sleekezy's anymore."
"Or basic dress-sense." said Sirius, stopping on Katherine's other side after having perused the shelves.
James grinned, looking around Katherine at his friend, "Oi."
"Hello, boys, back again to steal England's old training programs?"
Jimmy Twills had a boyish grin on his lined face that bled into wind-influenced streaks of chrome through his raven hair. He was decked out in muggle track pants and a zip-top with a whistle around his neck, goggles on top of his head, and a zip-bag tied around his hips.
"We're not in to listen to a retired man's yarns today, Jimmy," said James, resting a hand on Katherine's shoulder, "Spencer's in need of a broom."
"Rest my soul… Spencer?" breathed Jimmy, inclining his head and blinking solemnly at Katherine, "You're William Spencer's daughter?"
"Er, yes," said Katherine, uneasily, holding out a hand despite her trepidation, "Katherine."
"Pleasure to meet you…pleasure to meet you," said Jimmy, shaking Katherine's hand with both of his own and boring into her eyes with his peculiarly purple ones, "Your dad used to bring you along to games when he first started on the team – you used to make all the brooms fly out of the cupboards and clobber into your hand – even as a tike."
"My dad played for England?" asked Katherine, her skin buzzing and her eyes stinging in the combination of excitement and grief that she always felt at the mention of her parents.
"Don't tell me that you didn't know?"
When Katherine just blinked back at him, Jimmy reached out a hand to rest on the glass cabinet below the register, his eyes bulging.
"That's a crime!" cried Jimmy, jabbing his index finger at the boys either side of her, "Your old dad would even give Black and Potter a run for their money…"
Jimmy sighed, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on a stain of polish in the carpet.
"It's such a shame he…er…" Jimmy trailed off, caught Katherine's eye, and cleared his throat – clapping his hands together with a renewed grin, "Well – a broom, hey?"
Jimmy paced to a wall back-lit to catch the polish on the brooms for the ultimate appeal, waving an arm.
"Take your pick – I'll even give you mate's rates, for old time's sake."
"I saw the new Nimbus in the catalogue, do you have one in?" asked Katherine, stepping across the floor and trailing over the varying lengths, tail twigs, and shapes.
"A woman with taste – this way… this way…"
Katherine followed Jimmy to a glass cabinet in the middle of the store, shelves arranged in a pentagon around it.
"The 1700 has an added goblin-wrought-iron T-bar for stability…lovingly crafted bottleneck tail twigs…unbreakable braking charm…cushioning charm…" Jimmy clapped his hands, blinked appreciatively at the gleaming handle, "The works."
Her satchel of galleons seemed to begin burning in her pocket.
"I'll take it."
Jimmy flicked his wand at the case, a series of locks and latches non-verbally falling apart, and the broom followed them to the register.
"Let's see…with your dad's old discount…that'll be one hundred and twenty-five galleons." said Jimmy, wrapping the broom affectionately.
"That's thirty-five galleons off!" said Fabian, appearing beside Katherine and watching reverently as Jimmy wrapped layer after layer of wrapping tissue around the broom.
"That's William there…" said Jimmy, not hearing Fabian, and pointing at a framed photograph by a rack of binoculars.
Katherine had seen the photograph of her parents that graced the Daily Prophet after their murders, but was startled as Jimmy's photograph included colour.
The colour revealed that Katherine shared her father's hair down to the wispy hair at the very front which never picked a side of the part, and that his eyes were blue like faded denim and glittered up at her atop his dimpled grin. In the moving photograph he had laughed at something a younger Jimmy had said, and Katherine wished she could hear the sound – hear him.
"What's so important about nineteen sixty?" asked James, jarring Katherine from her reverie.
"It was the last photograph of the team before the league was disbanded…" said Jimmy, frowning and tying a ribbon around the mass of wrapping.
"The whole league was disbanded?"
"You were probably too young to remember," said Gideon from behind, "That was the year the attack on St Mungo's happened."
And the year that the prophecy was made, Katherine mused privately, and also the year everyone knew – without a doubt – that there was a new dark wizard to reign terror.
"Dark times…dark times…" said Jimmy, shaking his head.
Katherine wondered how many people had come through the shop and seen her father, and – fighting the urge to take the photograph and study it ruthlessly until she could map out her father's every feature and movement – pulled out her sack of galleons to rest beside the photograph. Galleons her father had undoubtedly once deposited in their vault.
"One hundred and twenty-five galleons."
It was oddly fitting to be spending it in front of him, for a broom to walk in his footsteps of playing Quidditch.
Fabian whistled lowly, "The best broom on the market – if you don't win the Quidditch cup, you'll be a right disgrace of a Captain."
Katherine accepted her change, put her significantly lighter satchel in her pocket, and read the animosity between the two Gryffindor players.
James sighed and turned to face the seventh years behind the trio.
"How about I buy us all a round of Butterbeers and we can put this Captain business behind us?" suggested James, patting Katherine on the back and grinning, "The Chosen One's our Seeker for Merlin's sake – that's enough to celebrate!"
"Potter's Captain?" Jimmy frowned, blinking and shaking his head as he shuffled to the emptied cabinet in the centre of the store, "I thought it would have been Black…"
"You guys go ahead and get a table," said Sirius, putting a hand inside his velvet jacket and leaning on the counter leisurely, "I've got to look at new goggles."
"Only to moan about how they mess up your hair…" said James as he tugged on Katherine's elbow.
Katherine glanced back, feeling as if she were leaving her father behind in the act of leaving the photograph. Just as the edge of the window bled into brick, Katherine could only catch the sight of Jimmy and Sirius conversing over the glass cabinet, the photograph well and truly out of sight – but not out of mind.
"You should do more overarm throws."
Fabian's advice to James reminded Katherine to hasten, lest be left in the soggy wake of the long-legged boys whilst longing over the photograph she had left in Quality Quidditch Supplies.
James shook his head, reaching down as he strode to scoop up some snow, "You lose control and height with overarm throws, whereas underarm throws –"
Katherine's broom slipped from beneath her arm as her hands instinctively shot to the side of her head, finding numbing ice melting into her hair.
"What was that about control?" asked Fabian, his lips fighting their lifting corners.
James face dropped like a stone as he bent over to pick up Katherine's broom, Fabian and Gideon swaying – hands-in-pockets and clearing their throats – behind.
"Oh, Spencer – I'm so sorry!"
Katherine also bent over, but bypassed the brown wrappings that protected her broom and, instead, opted for a fistful of snow. Hesitation reared its head, but, with a bashful smile, she deposited it down the back of James' collar.
"And equal." said Katherine, with wavering playfulness that gave way to guilt as she watched James to ascertain which one she stuck with.
James' hands stilled over Katherine's broom, his shoulders going rigid. Katherine watched the snow slide out of vision and a smile slide onto James' face.
"You're swimming in the deep end now, Spencer!" proclaimed James, retaliating in kind with a handful of snow to the top of Katherine's head.
Relief and snow trickled down Katherine's spine, the four teenagers breaking into an unlearned dance of snow-warfare; laughing as they attacked and retreated.
Katherine had never engaged in a snowball fight before. From a distance they had always seemed painful and cold. In the midst of burning breaths and tickles of ice, Katherine found that the only painful thing was her too-large grin.
Fabian dunked impulsively mashed together piles on top of James' hair when James wasn't sending bruising, well-packed missives back; hitting Fabian in the shoulder, stomach, and side with a crisp CRUNCH each time.
Gideon's golden head loomed closer and closer as Katherine hurriedly dropped down to scoop up what was left of the snow around the city's square, an arsenal of snowy orbs circling his right shoulder at the bequest of his wand. It was in rising up off her burning haunches to face a chilly defeat that Katherine spied a familiar plum jacket by a snow-heavy tree that snaked around the back of the town's statue.
Gideon's square shoulder blurred, Sirius' inky waves stark against the powdered township. His haughtiness leeched across the distance, so much so that when he blinked, Katherine thought she felt a cool breeze. The unflinching alabaster stopped her from noticing that his arms had uncrossed and one had quietly and smoothly pulled on a springy branch of pine.
The branch shivered beneath Sirius' hand, and promptly released it's takings of snow onto Gideon – encasing him as a real-life snowman.
Fabian and James howled with laughter; Fabian leaping across the square to admire and aid his brother all the same, and James crossing to Sirius to clap him on the back.
"Brilliant, mate," said James, the boys both watching on as Fabian spelled his twin free, "Head Boy and everything…"
Sirius smile was almost imperceptive as he jiggled something into his jacket pocket with haste, "Remus and Peter gave me the heads up that Katherine Spencer –" Sirius' lash-fringed stare of steel needled into Katherine's composure – "was visible as they passed the town square, and no less engaging in a snowball fight."
Katherine had indeed forgotten her disillusionment charm, she realised with a sick feeling of surprise, and promptly retrieved her wand from her jacket pocket to tap the top of her head.
As she endured the sensation of invisibility trickling down over her, she watched as their group reorganised themselves to start off in the direction of The Three Broomsticks; Gideon and Fabian taking the lead whilst James and Sirius lagged in wait of what appeared to be nothing to an outside observer.
James whistled, looking around in an inconspicuous manner before grinning and waving at Alice and Frank as they passed.
Katherine was startled, however, by Sirius' elbow skimming her own, and looked down to see him holding out the tail of his plum velvet jacket – to hold, she realised in a hurried confusion, having to act before they were left too far behind by James and the Prewett twins.
"How did you know I was there?" asked Katherine, taking a hold of the impossibly soft velvet – sure that she was holding onto a cloud.
Sirius shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets, "I can smell your perfume."
"I'm not wearing any." said Katherine, hastening beside him.
She caught his frown and quick flick of his eyes, "Not jasmine?"
"That's my shampoo… you must have a really good sense of smell." said Katherine slowly, making a note to use less that evening.
"You should see him find all of our sweets in the dorm," muttered James over his shoulder, shrugging his collar closer the back of his neck and swaggering onwards, "Bloody sniffer dog…"
The disparity in Katherine and Sirius' stride lengths made Katherine pull his jacket a bit too far away from his side for a gust and wind, and she had to avoid tripping before breaking into a jog to catch up. Righting his jacket, Katherine saw a glossy edge peek out of the pocket, but it vanished into the recesses of his velvet pocket before any more was revealed.
"Rosmerta!" cried James, opening his arms and crossing from the door to the bar of the Three Broomsticks with a jolly grin.
Gideon continued on, eyes searching for a table, while Katherine tried to communicate non-verbally to Sirius that she planned on following the Head Boy.
"Potter!" greeted Rosmerta, screwing a tea towel out of a glass as her eyes found the boy whose plum jacket Katherine had abandoned, "Black!"
Sirius nodded and grinned with careless handsomeness, surprising Katherine by waving to Rosmerta but catching on to the back of her invisible jacket as she shuffled around the bar to find a break in the tables large enough to pass through.
"I almost go out of business when you two leave for the summer," Katherine heard Rosmerta laugh, "You're usual seats at the bar?"
"Entertaining the Head Boy, actually," James' voice carried, "So we'll be on our best behaviour in a nice out-of-the-way booth in the back."
"Behave yourselves?" cackled Rosmerta, slapping the bar top, "Like you would know how."
"Five Butterbeers, please, 'Merta." said James, bowing his head and resting his forearms on the bar patiently.
Katherine lifted the disillusionment charm once seated on one of the hardback wooden chairs by the back windows, hidden from view by a rickety staircase.
"I'm just going to duck off to the bathroom…" said Sirius, standing and wiping his hands down the thighs of his slacks before weaving off through the tables.
"So, you said you had to get robes after this?"
Katherine turned from Sirius' retreating shiny jacket, remembering her company.
Gideon's golden halo of hair gleamed under the snow glare streaming in through the window – and he was looking at her, she realised with giddy light-headedness. He had his endearingly uneven teeth in the small, sweet cherry liquor that was her heart; the soft centre oozing through her chest.
"Yeah," said Katherine, gulping as delicately as she could manage, "For Slughorn's party…"
"Ah, I see," said Gideon slowly, half-liddedly; smiling and throwing a glance back to the bar, "You and Potter going together?"
"Actually," Katherine steeled herself, attempting casualness all the same, "I was going to ask you."
Gideon's honeyed gaze turned to hard resin as it flickered over Katherine's shoulder and back to her, his bow-shaped lips dropped open – already forming his response.
"Oh."
Katherine had never thought that a single syllable could sting like a hard slap across the face until that moment.
The backhand was swift and unmerciful with the clearing of a throat, Sirius slotting into the cramped space between the table and chairs to the seat next to Katherine; his table-bound-gaze giving away his over-hearing.
A burning sensation coursed through Katherine's veins.
"I'm flattered, Katherine – truly,"
Gideon's words did nothing to assuage the sink hole that had opened up in her stomach; her heart through the floor – through the earth's very crust – and swimming with the penguins at the South Pole.
"But I'm not attending the Christmas party this year."
It was Katherine's turn to use the ever-underwhelming single syllable.
"Oh."
It was a small justice that Gideon squirmed behind his eyes just as much as she outwardly did, the thick silence only sliced by the slapping down of tankards and James' cheery grin.
"Here's to there being no mutiny on the Gryffindor Quidditch team!" declared James, taking the seat beside Gideon against the window side of the table.
Fabian slid along the table and contorted his long body into the small space available in the chair on Katherine's left, suckling on his Butterbeer as if in reward for the feat without pausing for breath for a solid minute afterwards.
Both Fabian and James were blissfully unaware of the crushing rejection Katherine had taken just moments before, and it seemed to Katherine that Sirius wished to reignite the normality of the table with their help.
"How's Aunt Lucretia these days?" asked Sirius, turning to regard Fabian and Gideon lightly.
Squashed chair to chair and unable to scoot back without hitting another table, Sirius' arm slipped along the back of Katherine's chair as he manoeuvred himself – long, spread out legs and all – to manage the feat of being able to merely pay attention to their response.
"Fussing over her two impossibly ginger grandsons," said Fabian, letting out a laugh-lilted breath and lifting his tankard as if to sip before clunking it back down with a look of light exasperation, "Molly wants to name the one on the way Percy, and I think I might lose my top if she does."
"You three are related?" asked Katherine, having thought them polar opposites in appearance and demeanours.
Fabian gave a tired nod, "Sirius' dad is our mum's older brother."
Katherine used Fabian as a basis for her comparison, Gideon's mere direction being too gut-wrenching to even glance in, and found similarities in their oval faces, their bow-shaped lips, and their lithe builds despite Sirius still undergoing the transition into manhood.
"I'm still surprised she hasn't gotten Aunt Lucretia blasted off the tapestry for breaking her betrothal with Malfoy to elope with Weasley…" muttered Sirius, Katherine hearing his words and receiving his butterscotch breath to the side of her neck courtesy of his earlier manoeuvring.
"Malfoy moved on, obviously," said James, his eyes on something past all of their heads, "What's a nice way to tell Bertram Aubrey that I want to smack him over the head with a chair?"
Sirius dipped his index finger into the foam of Butterbeer and lifted it to his lips with an amused blink at his friend, "When Rosmerta laid down the ground rules 'no bar brawls' pretty much topped the list."
"He'll be seventeen in February – he's a predator – right?" asked James, glancing around, "Right?"
"Some girls like older boys." drawled Sirius, glancing around a tapping the glass handle of his tankard.
James slouched into his collar and lifted his tankard to his lips, "Lucky you – you're already sixteen."
At the three confused glances shot his way, Sirius said, "My birthday's the third of November."
"Who's next?" asked James, sitting up and counting on his fingers, "I'm on the thirtieth of April…"
"I'm on the sixteenth of February." said Katherine, looking down into her butterscotch swirled beverage she nursed in both hands but couldn't completely close them around.
"Right after Valentine's day – you'll get chocolates and presents, lucky duck." said Fabian, stringing an arm along the back of her chair with a grin.
Katherine kept it to herself that she wasn't expecting any chocolates, especially not after Gideon's rejection that his twin wasn't privy to.
Fabian and Sirius exchanged confused glances as their arms both met on the back of Katherine's chair, both promptly pulling their arms back into their own space; Fabian sipping from his tankard, and Sirius sitting back into the wooden chair and crossing his ankle over the opposite knee as he listened to James' aloud wonderings.
"Lily's the thirtieth of January – I remember now –"
Fabian's grin, so like Gideon's, left an ill, numbing sensation in Katherine's neck much like the one caused by stubbing one's toes – so she stood, hips squashing into the edge of the table, James cutting himself off.
"Where are you going, Katherine?" asked James, paused mid-gesticulation.
Katherine smiled tightly, avoiding Gideon's eyes watching her just centimetres to the right of James' "Bathroom."
Sirius stood, moving his chair back and negotiating quietly with the table behind them to do the same, creating a small channel between the tables for Katherine to pass through.
Murmuring apologies to all inconvenienced by her exit, Katherine shuffled around the remaining sea of tables to the bathroom sign and flew into a stall.
Katherine really had to stop herself before she made a habit of crying with her knickers around her ankles, but Saturday wasn't the day to do so. Knowing she had to go back – to return through the Honeydukes passage with James and Sirius – Katherine sighed, righted her clothes and left the stall to wash her hands and eye herself in the mirror.
"I wonder which Professor is closest –"
Two stalls, either side of Katherine's vacated one, opened, and Flint and Greengrass strolled out.
"McGonagall or Slughorn?" pondered Greengrass, looking to the ceiling in feigned contemplation.
Katherine realised a few fundamental issues in their discovery of her at the exact same time, only able to go pale in her mirrored reflection.
"They'll be so disappointed in you… their favourite student…" said Flint, tilting her head and pouting in taunt.
"You better start running now," said Greengrass, checking her fog watch, "I know for a fact that McGonagall's only across the square in Maestro's Music Shop..."
Katherine knew that she gave herself away when she glanced at the door to the pub and then back to the Slytherin girls; gauging the distance to discern who would reach it first. Them – if they were evenly matched. The glint in Flint's eyes told Katherine that she hadn't forgotten being stunned by Katherine, and it gave Katherine's vestiges of athleticism an extra boost as she launched for the door and untangled her wand from her jacket pocket.
Katherine discovered that Greengrass' elbow was as pointed as her features, she and Katherine wedged between the door frame. Flint shoved hard against Katherine's ribs from behind to dislodge them. The three girls burst free with a flash of pink and blue light from their wands; the stunner and engorgement charm ricocheting off the glass chandelier in the centre of the pub's ceiling.
Yells erupted, patrons jumped to their feet – a few even going as far to apparate on the spot. Those who had stayed, upon recognising that it were a bunch of school girls firing off spells, ducked in their seats and continued to sip their beverages while keeping an eye out for any more stray flashes of light.
Greengrass panted, levelling her wand at Katherine, but Flint had slipped on spilt Butterbeer from an abandoned tankard and nudged her arm. Her own stinging hex rebounded off of the mirror beside Katherine and gripped her own face in angry red welts.
"Should we do something?"
Katherine glanced back at her table to find Sirius blinking slowly and arrogantly at where Greengrass was flapping her hands around her bubbling face.
"You mean besides laugh?"
"Greengrass!" Gideon's voice was unmistakable, even at the sternum rattling volume Katherine had never heard before, "I will need to report you to your Head of House immediately – use of magic in Hogsmeade, as you well know, is forbidden."
As Fabian skulled what was left of his drink, Gideon tugging him away from the table and over to the scene, James and Sirius weaved between the tables to stand by Katherine; sparing glances to the mirror – Katherine's saving grace. But she didn't doubt that, between them, James and Sirius could reverse anything Greengrass could hex her with before it compromised her alibi.
"Is that why girls never go to the bathroom alone?" breathed James, revering the mirror.
Katherine righted her suede jacket lapels, them having stuck up in the commotion, "They were going to snitch on me to McGonagall."
"But Gideon –" Katherine's shoulders twitched at James' drop of the Head Boy's name and her eyes blinked involuntarily "– has Greengrass already."
Sirius' grasp was gentler than Katherine expected, but panicked, as his hand closed around her elbow and tugged, "But Flint's slipping out the front door – come on."
Ursula Flint, Katherine saw, was indeed trying to open the door without triggering the bell but, seeing the three Gryffindors on her tail, threw caution to the wind and her body into the near-blizzard conditions.
"Let the girl disillusion herself!" yelled James as Sirius pulled Katherine along, James having shrugged off Sirius' hold in the doorway, "Rushing back will be no use if someone sees her while we're still here!"
Katherine cursed herself for forgetting once again and only managed the security measure seconds before they passed the Hog's Head, the door opening with a sharp BANG as four cloaked figures paraded out. She paid no mind to them, secure in her invisibility, until they took notice of her – or more specifically, when a dark-haired young woman took notice of Sirius; who Katherine was attached to.
"Cousin?" asked the dark-haired woman, her silky tresses matching her travelling cloak that glinted with expense as she squinted over the snow.
Sirius' grip graduated to a surreptitious pinching of Katherine's suede sleeve, it not boding well for their cover for him to have a firm handful of air.
"Bella," said Sirius, bowing his head and close enough to Katherine for her to hear his faint gulp, "Quite a meeting – was I supposed to be there?"
"If you were invited it would only guarantee your absence." sniffed Narcissa from beside the imposing witch that shared in Sirius' hair and heavily-lidded eyes.
That's when Katherine saw a familiar mop of chestnut skirt around the two intimidating Black women with Regulus, and felt only confusion.
What business did Giles have with three members of the Black family in the Hog's Head?
"You know me too well, Cissa," said Sirius, beginning to step and tug Katherine's sleeve, "So you will not be surprised by my exit from the conversation on the grounds of just not wanting to be a part of it – tell Uncle Cygnus that I've done something terribly scandalous."
"But you haven't done anything even remotely scandalous." whispered James as the three burst through the door to Honeydukes, bringing with them confetti-like-snow.
"For your family's standards, maybe," said Sirius over his shoulder before taking a break in foot traffic and attention to duck down the stairs and into the cellar, "But the fact that I accidently nudged Evans in the hallway yesterday and didn't hex her within an inch of her life makes me the loon at family gatherings…"
Sirius voice died off as he jumped down the hole into the passage below, forfeiting the ladder, and landing with a CRUNCH in the dirt beneath his shoes.
"Take the disillusionment charm off in case you don't have time once we get to the other end…" said James, not bothering to try and figure out where her face was, and following Sirius down into the hole.
Heeding James' suggestion, Katherine tapped her head with a murmured 'finite' and then used the ladder despite their rush. She only made it three rungs down when hands closed around her hipbones and pulled her from the ladder and onto the ground, her stomach swirling up and away from her.
James stepped onto the bottom rung and pulled the round stone back over the opening overhead, Sirius' wand already lit and saving them from a moment of blindness so that the three could begin their careen along the tunnel in the same order they used earlier that day.
When the tunnel began another incline, undoubtedly up the foundations of the castle, there was a break in the three's hot jagged breaths.
"I can't believe you actually came with us." said James from in front, laughing through his pants.
"Whatever possessed you to do that should possess you more often,"
Katherine turned with a bashful smile, only to see Sirius' boyish grin in place of his usual haughty indifference. He shook his head, his eyes glinting against his illuminated wand and regarding Katherine with such esteem that she felt overwhelmed with pride despite the unlawfulness of their actions over the day.
"I have a feeling that we won't ever be bored with you around –"
Katherine piled against James' cloaked back in a sudden stop, and turned to find that they had reached the castle end of the passage.
James sprung out, checking down either end of the hallway, before turning and hurriedly waving Katherine and Sirius out.
The One-Eyed-Witch swivelled back into place over the hole, and James leant against it with a grin at Katherine.
"We're not half bad, right?" asked James.
Katherine laughed, raising her eyebrows as her eyes fell to her boots, "Perfectly well-behaved if you don't count the rules we had to break," she paused, looking between the two and pinking, "I don't know how to even begin to thank the two of you…"
"Just win us the match, love," said James, with a hearty clap on the shoulder, "And tell Evans how I –"
"There she is!"
"Yes, I can see that, Miss Flint."
James and Sirius gave nothing away as they stared at the stretch of hallway behind Katherine – an admirable feat, Katherine decided, considering the mass of tartan and sternness barrelling down the hallway with Flint in tow that she discovered upon turning around.
Katherine suddenly felt covered with the day's misgivings, hoping the snow had melted from her hair, lest it become a billboard for her certain guilt.
"Miss Flint tells me that you have just been down in Hogsmeade, Spencer," said McGonagall, breathlessly, as she came to a stop, "I, personally, would have thought your lack of permission slip would keep you from the Three Broomsticks' bathroom where she claims to have encountered you – would you care to shed some light on the situation?"
Hot shame filled Katherine's throat as she blinked back at her Transfiguration Professor, and James' arm slung around her shoulder in a way Katherine had seen him do to Sirius countless times. She was unprepared for the warmth and muscle in the gesture.
James went to open his mouth in what Katherine was sure to be an incriminating defence, when Sirius beat him to it.
"I would just like to say that we rushed back to tell Spencer the story of how Greengrass hexed herself in the Three Broomsticks – and that Flint is spreading a rumour to salve her friend's ego."
Flint, James, Katherine, and McGonagall all looked to Sirius in equal parts of surprise.
"You would, would you?" blinked McGonagall.
James' hand squeezed Katherine's arm, joining Sirius in a tandem act of lying, "And we found Katherine here, where we're sure she was all day as we didn't see her at all down in Hogsmeade."
Katherine almost wished she hadn't gone, her encounter with Gideon having next to near no chance of happening had she stayed in the castle.
Flint gaped openly at McGonagall's deliberating expression.
"Well of course they're lying!" shrieked Flint, "How did she get the broomstick, then?"
Katherine clutched her broomstick tighter under the sudden scrutiny upon it, heavy with it' expense.
McGonagall frowned behind her spectacles, "Yes, Spencer, how did you get your broomstick if you remained, rightfully, in the castle?"
"James got it for me," said Katherine, only in a half-lie as James was indeed the reason she'd been able to acquire it, "I gave him my gold and he's only just brought it back."
Flint scoffed, "That's a Nimbus – why would she trust him with so many galleons?"
Sirius said "I'd trust him with my life" at the same time Katherine said "He's my captain".
"I get more in my monthly pocket money, Flint," said James, blinking and dropping his arm from around Katherine's shoulders, "Do you not?"
If she were a dog, thought Katherine, Flint's hackles would have raised.
"They're all in each other's pockets – disgraceful blood traitors and –"
"I suggest you refrain from finishing, Miss Flint," McGonagall's voice was bordering on shrill, "I have made a decision that, perhaps, Mister Black's guess has some merit after all."
Flint widened her eyes and gave an exasperated arm raise before turning tail and muttering, "Should have gone to Slughorn…"
Before McGonagall could also vanish, Sirius stepped forward with a sideways glance at James and Katherine.
"Professor McGonagall?"
McGonagall turned and sighed, ever-patient, "Yes, Black?"
"I need to change my arrangements for Christmas," said Sirius, his brow creasing faintly as he pointedly ignored James' stare, "I'll be returning…home…this year."
While Sirius took a surprising turn that afternoon, the weather took a miserable one for the following week. The only thing that brightened up the castle was the fact that a dog had broken into the castle on numerous occasions to chase Mrs Norris around.
The dismal December complemented Katherine's morose mood; her heart as heavy as a sky full of rain. Every mention of Slughorn's Christmas Party wrung more rain from her heart, and every sighting of Gideon – doubled with instances of mistaking Fabian for him – reignited the ill, numb feeling in her neck.
She hadn't been to the library all week, and the common room was full of social trappings – that was if Katherine lingered there long between classes, meals, and Quidditch practises. The consequences of her new phobia reared their ugly head when Professor McGonagall placed down Katherine's homework; marked with an 'A' as opposed to the 'E' she was used to.
"You understood the principles and interrelationships with great depth – better than everyone else in the class – you just didn't have any examples and analysis on them," said McGonagall, frowning over her spectacles and pursing her lips, "And I know that you're very aware of where the library is, Spencer – try harder to make it there next time,"
Guilt clawed at Katherine's insides as she sighed and tried to fight back the prickle at the back of her eyes.
"Miss McKinnon, I must say I'm shocked that your grades have also taken a turn," continued McGonagall, shaking her head at Marlene, "Your brother topped my class in his time here,"
Katherine caught a glimpse of a 'T' and it was all she could do to not wince in sympathy.
"Miss Evans, lovely work," commended McGonagall as she stepped to the aisle end of the desk, gently smiling, "My only advice is that next time you focus on the main argument, you got side-tracked in the middle with the positives and were lacking in your negative counter-argument."
While Katherine and Marlene ruminated over their abysmal marks, Lily sat a little higher in her chair.
"You can't let a boy get in the way of your school work, Katherine." said Lily, frowning and wetting her quill to write down the next homework task on the black board.
Marlene's head lifted from her parchment.
"You weren't there, Lily – it was mortifying – I… I could have just died…" moaned Katherine, "I think I did die, and this is all some terrible nightmare…"
Katherine had naturally, and in painful detail, recounted her rejection to her friends in the dormitory Saturday evening.
"I'm sorry for pushing you into it," said Lily quietly, her eyes flashing sideways as she wrote, "I genuinely thought he would say yes…"
Marlene's chair scraped back and she swept her belongings into her bag in one go, "You heard McGonagall, Lily, you need to focus on more than just the positives."
The bell went when Marlene was halfway to the door.
Katherine blinked after her friend, "What was…?"
"She's been struggling with being compared to her older brother since first year," said Lily, slowly packing her things, "She tries to shrug it off, but…well…"
Lily shrugged, standing and slinging her bag over her shoulder.
"She usually gets A's or E's, though," said Katherine, tucking in both hers and Marlene's chairs, "A T owes to more than just frustration…"
"Well, look at you – you dropped from an Outstanding to an Acceptable in three days." pointed out Lily, as they tacked onto the back of the hallway bound throng of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws.
"Well, yes," accepted Katherine quickly, frowning, "But it's a bit different."
"And it can't continue," said Lily, turning to Katherine with a firm smile, "I'm meeting Bertram in the library and I'll check out the books you need for today's transfiguration assignment."
Katherine wondered if being emotionally wounded had clouded her logic, as she should have thought of asking her friends in the first place. A small, dark cave in the recesses of her mind, however, harboured the pre-Hogwarts Katherine that was accustomed to walking herself into school each new term – the Katherine that was accustomed to walking herself home from Football camp every summer, and had never had her hand held through any particularly difficult moment of her life.
Katherine's smile was pained with the sincerity she tried to convey, "Thank you, Lily."
Lily just beamed back, squeezed Katherine's arm and met Bertram across the hall with a wave of farewell.
Katherine didn't want to take her new friends for granted, so she went immediately to Great Hall in search of Marlene, finding her among the lunch foods and a gloomy self-imposed perimeter from the other Gryffindors.
"Now, don't tell me you're having boy trouble too." said Katherine, sitting down and tilting her head with a smile of comradery.
Marlene only served to pucker her lips and push around her sandwich crusts, her chin falling onto her hand.
"Come on, when did this start?" pressed Katherine, smiling and letting her own chin fall onto her palm in mirror of Marlene, "Who's the prick I have to hex?"
Marlene's lips twitched and her arm fell down beside her plate, her truffle gaze amused when it peeked up at Katherine.
"Please don't say it's Sirius – I just saw him send Crump to the Hospital Wing with his head actually up –"
"Okay, okay," laughed Marlene, holding up a hand and smiling, "It's not Sirius."
Katherine blew air out of her nose as she stifled her laughter, "Thank goodness."
Marlene's eyes lowered once more, creasing, "I can't really tell you what it is without putting you in a hard place..."
Katherine smiled wryly as she thought on all the physical hard places she had been trapped in during the first months of the school term.
"I'm no stranger to them," said Katherine, "Come on, try me."
Marlene shook her head and eyed Katherine with a smile, "I'm really glad you're here this year, Katherine –"
"Marley, Care of Magical Creatures is about to start –"
Marcus McKinnon had stopped himself, waving at Katherine from where his yellow-lined robes swished by Marlene's red ones.
"Hullo, Katherine."
Pushing away her frustration at the boy's timing, Katherine managed a smile for him.
"Hi, Marcus," greeted Katherine, standing, "How about we all walk together?"
"Sure," said Marcus, rocking on his heels and looking around, "Lily joining us or sucking face with Aubrey?"
Marlene's fist shot to his chest, "Marcus."
"Friend of your brother or not - I've never liked him, he's so…" trailed off Marcus, rubbing his chest and frowning at his lexical gap.
"Charming?" supplied Marlene drily, beginning to walk.
"Phony," said Marcus, with a twist of his lips at Marlene's former substitution, "Mark my words, Lily will see past his hair and smile and it'll be over before you can say 'Snitch'."
"Do you have to be so…so…Marcus about it?" erupted Marlene, waving her arms wildly before storming off through the Entrance Hall and into the courtyard.
"I know her well enough to know that's my que to leave her alone this lesson," said Marcus as he and Katherine strolled behind a stomping Marlene over the lawns to Kettleburn's pen by Hagrid's hut, "Best to avoid her until Christmas dinner if I want to keep myself intact."
Marcus didn't stay long, spotting Lily speeding over the lawns and muttering something about not being caught consorting with anything remotely near the source of Marlene's foul mood before settling with a group of his fellow Hufflepuffs.
"Dropped your books off at the Tower!" beamed Lily, flicking her hair off of her face, "Took a while, Bertram refused to step inside… Quidditch rivalries…"
"If you don't like it, maybe you should drop him."
Katherine glanced up to see that Marlene had returned in Marcus' absence.
Lily shrugged, "There's more to life than Quidditch."
Katherine and Marlene shared a weighted glance.
The class unfolded in a polarising fashion – much like most of Katherine's day – due to the creature's preferences; the boys having to sit back on the lawns as Unicorns preferred females and might feel threatened by the boy's presence. Professor Kettleburn promised to bring in foals, more trusting in having had less time to build up prejudice against gender, for the boys in the next lesson.
Katherine felt as if she glowed with righteous dejection with each stroke of the Unicorn's shimmering ivory pelt, not all that interested in boys anymore herself and was already crafting a glowing testimonial essay on Unicorns to pen that evening.
Boys, however, were inescapable at Hogwarts, whether she was interested in them or not.
Bertram Aubrey walked Lily to most classes (unless they were out of his way) and was there at the end with a smile and the offer to carry her bag. Katherine had thought it gallant at first, entertaining delusions that perhaps she and Lily could one day walk with both Bertram and Gideon in coupled bliss, but felt – after Hogsmeade – that she understood Marlene's sudden increase in personal flying practise.
So she joined her friend and team mate, shivering through rain, snow, and wind – in the morning, at lunch, and before dinner on evenings when Quidditch practise wasn't already scheduled.
Katherine was so over tired that she even let her feet carry her to the library after dinner Tuesday evening out of unbroken habit, and found it barren of what had been the permanent fixture of the Head Boy – up until the Hogsmeade weekend, Katherine assumed. It was like Gideon to try and be a gentleman and stay out of her way.
There was no use in them both avoiding the library, so Katherine reclaimed her settee by the east windows for homework in the evenings with Lily.
She had never been in better physical or mental shape.
It was on Thursday afternoon, the day before the Christmas Party, when Katherine and Marlene decided to test their pull-ups over the Black Lake before Katherine headed to the library to meet Lily – the consequences providing a strong deterrent for making even the most marginal error.
It was while heading back to the castle that four black dots grew larger and larger, finally coming into focus in a messy scene of pelted snowballs and Katherine and Marlene's fellow fifth year Gryffindors.
Peter paused mid-throw to wave up at Katherine – which she returned with a smile – and he was pelted with snowballs from all directions in his lapse of attention. It was as he and James rolled around in a mock wrestle in the snow that Katherine met the exasperated but amused eyes of Remus Lupin; his gloved hand raising in a warm wave.
Even from her and Marlene's distance, Katherine felt his deep, intelligent green eyes go through her and thought she might have been struck by lightning with the shock of an idea.
Any forethought vanished from her mind. She just knew that she had to do it, and she had to do it then. She didn't give herself any other choice.
So she and Marlene put their brooms in the shed by the Quidditch Pitch, parted ways with the promise of sitting together at dinner, and Katherine hastened through the knee deep snow to the lawns.
The four were loping through the courtyard and into the Entrance Hall with the time putting her broom back had costed her. James and Sirius spearheaded the quartet, colluding quietly with one another. Peter and Remus were behind.
Katherine endeavoured to not trip over her feverish feet.
"Remus?" squeaked Katherine, her voice a lot higher than intended.
James and Sirius had continued on, unperturbed. In the wake of their robes was a kindly smiling Remus adjusting his Prefect badge absentmindedly.
"Yes, Katherine?" inquired Remus.
Peter hesitated, visibly torn between scurrying after James and Sirius and waiting with Remus. But, James and Sirius had stopped short at their lack of a procession, looking back expectantly at their friend.
"I was wondering if I might be able to have a word," said Katherine, her eyes flickering to the others before back to him, "Alone."
Sirius snorted. Katherine's eyes flashed to him to find his arms crossed and his eyes on the stained glass windows.
"No can do, Spencer," James grinned, pulling Remus' arm, "We've have pressing matters to tend to."
"Guys," said Remus, pulling his arm free from James' grip before waving them on, "Go on – I'll catch up."
"But –" Peter tried to argue, his mouth dropped open to reveal his two large front teeth.
Remus fixed them with a stern look, "I'll catch up."
James sighed deeply before turning and nodding at his friends.
Sirius' arms dropped from across his chest. He tucked his hands into his pockets instead, turning and leading the way out of the hallway.
Katherine watched the three retreat – Peter tripping over the threshold – with an empty chest.
"Sorry about them."
Remus' apology drew her eyes back to him.
Katherine blinked, gulped, and mustered a smile for the boy.
"Oh, no, it's alright." said Katherine lightly, swatting the air before knitting her hands together in front of herself.
Remus nodded, smiling before he cleared his throat and began shifting between his feet.
"So," said Remus, "What can I help you with?"
Even though she had rehearsed the words, they were pushed from her mind by the sound of his voice.
Her mouth fell open but nothing came out. She had the strange sense that she might like to cry.
"Iwaswonderingifyou'dliketogotoSlughorn'sChristmaspartywithme?"
Remus blinked, "Sorry?"
Katherine looked up at the ceiling for strength, blew out a breath, and dove back into Remus Lupin's teddy-bear-eyes.
"It's just– …Slughorn's Christmas Party,"
"I...I was wondering – don't feel obligated to agree out of pity – but, er… I wanted to know if you'd like to go," she continued, smiling meekly and quickly, "With…with me."
Katherine was sure that she went cross-eyed while waiting for his reaction. She wanted to watch his face, but at the same time she wanted to never meet his eyes again. Her whole body felt hot and she was already planning to visit the bathroom after she escaped.
"Oh, er," managed Remus, seemingly just as eloquent as Katherine as he rubbed his chin, "Um…"
"Oh, don't worry about it!" said Katherine, her face numb even when she tried to offer him a smile, "I'm terribly sorry for asking."
Katherine went to step around him, hit her hip on the One-Eyed-Witch statue, and tried to continue on as if none of it had ever happened.
"No!"
Remus stepped after her.
"Wait – hold on."
"Sorry." apologised Katherine, turning and tucking her hair behind both of her ears.
"Stop saying that." Remus gently admonished her, laughing lightly as he swayed and gingerly tapped her wrist.
Katherine flashed red-hot at his kind-heartedness.
"Sorry."
"I was just surprised, is all," said Remus, clearing his throat, "I didn't expect you to ask me…well, that."
"Oh, yeah," accepted Katherine, her neck propelling her head up and down so feverently that she was sure it would snap, "Completely understand how it may have come as a shock –"
"Stop backpedalling," Remus halted her with closed eyes and a slow, warm smile, "I'm trying to say yes."
Katherine thought that she might pop open in relief.
"Really?" asked Katherine, thinking she'd misheard.
Remus continued to smile at her, "Really."
"Thank you." whispered Katherine with wide eyes that she fixed on the statue she had hit her hip on.
"Just, er," Remus' voice was suddenly high again, "Why me?"
Katherine lifted her eyes and lost any composure she had regained.
"Oh, well – it's just," Katherine tried and failed, sighing, "You were the only person I thought to ask really."
Remus nodded slowly, a smile spreading across the lower half of his face at the same pace. Something was swinging back and forth in his mind behind his eyes, but Katherine couldn't discern it.
"I'll meet you in the common room at six o'clock on the night." said Remus firmly, smiling.
He turned to go, undoubtedly wanting to catch his friends as he promised he would.
"Remus?" Katherine stalled him.
Remus turned his head over his shoulder, only his profile visible to Katherine.
"Yes?"
"Thank you– again."
Remus smiled one last time before ambling out of sight, out into the hallway.
At dinner the candles over the four tables at dinner seemed brighter than they had in days.
She only saw Remus once more that day, having a midnight Astronomy class as the night was not only incredibly crisp, but also clear. A poke had alerted Katherine to his presence as she sat with her legs poking out of the gaps in the balustrade; marking off significant astronomical changes on her star chart.
"What are you doing?" whispered Katherine, as she shuffled over to accommodate Remus' legs beside her own in her chosen stone gap.
The class of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were fanned out over the top of the Astronomy Tower; some people laying with their star charts draped over their faces, others eating sweets; giggles and snores melding together.
Remus' friends fell into the category of those eating sweets; staring out at the Forbidden Forest as their star charts lay forgotten beside them a few metres to Katherine's left. Lily sat on Katherine's other side, half-asleep, but at least trying to stay awake. Marlene had abandoned telescopes and the night sky altogether in favour of a pair of binoculars she set on the Forest to see if she could prove to Marcus that Acromantula's did live in there; standing behind Katherine, bent over the balustrade.
Remus laughed lightly, knocking his shoulder in her own, "Just checking that you're awake."
"Very funny," said Katherine playfully, blinking slowly and finding herself warming to levels of conversation from his warmth-radiating side, "Found Mars yet?"
"No," Remus shrugged, "But I wrote down that it was that one to the left of Scorpius and dusted my hands with my star chart."
"Other things to do?" asked Katherine, distractedly marking the phase of the moon.
Remus hummed, Katherine able to see his sky-bound gaze in her periphery, "Other things to think about."
"You can help me, then."
Remus peered at her star chart, nodding until he reached her most recent addition, "The half-moon is tonight, and it's not waning – it's waxing,"
His eyes returned to the sky.
"The next full moon is on Christmas."
He watched Katherine shiver, and fought the automatic twitch at his shoulder blades to shrug off his robe and offer it to her, knowing it would earn him a few very confused looks – most of all from the girl herself.
She was star-pale on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, celestial, and dotted with marks from the sun.
He was still growing reaccustomed to her mousier blonde shade of hair, having thought the platinum colour suited her just as fine and would have complemented the midnight sky, and his own hair, all the better. But he couldn't find that he cared what colour her hair was, so long as it was hers. He could craft thousands of flowery phrases – never to be said aloud, of course – no matter what the hue.
He had thought her a very respectable pure-blooded young lady, as her surname suggested of her, when she wore an assorted range of pastel robes with Agatha Tatting's signature embroidery in the first weeks of the school term. Muggle miniskirts, jeans, and dresses, however, began to trickle into her wardrobe, seemingly out of nowhere, and much to his notice.
The past Hogsmeade weekend, he thought she looked particularly enchanting despite the absence of magic garb, both delicate and commanding in what seemed to be her favourite suede coat. He had never seen her smile with such unrestrained delight – with such sincerity – as when she was being assaulted with missives of ice.
Something about the clouds and her had mixed, and he knew that it was impossible to look at her and not adore her.
He'd resigned himself to a celibate existence, from a very young age, but then she emerged from behind Lily after the welcoming feast – like the sun after the dreary eclipse that had been his life before her.
He'd seen a hummingbird once in his life, and he couldn't stop his heart from doing its best impression every time he saw her.
"Nice broom – the Nimbus, huh?"
James squatted down slowly, rubbing his clicking knees and letting out a puff of breath when his backside found a resting place beside Remus.
"How did you get it?" asked Lily from Katherine's other side, frowning as she scribbled in the phase of the moon, "I didn't see it come by post."
Katherine had told her friends about her botched interaction with Gideon, but, for all they knew, it had taken place in the castle. Her morning of passage sneaking, broom buying, and snow throwing, was a secret to all but those who were there.
"A few… friends helped me out." said Katherine, hesitating with the term.
James nodded once, a curve in his lips, and Remus knocked her knee with his own.
Katherine's chest cavity seemed to increase ten-fold to account for her swelling heart, glad that she hadn't been presumptuous.
"It'll be good to see how it changes things at practises," said James, eyes set on the darkened Quidditch Pitch, "You could probably out strap me and Sirius on our 1500's."
"Sirius and I." said Katherine in correction, marking in Venus on her star chart.
"Ah, yes," said Professor Sinistra, waving across the night sky, "Sirius is even hotter than the sun, did you know?"
"That's a new one." muttered the boy who shared the star's name, shaking his hair back from his face and contemplating the forest with faintest twitch of amusement in his brow.
"No, I didn't know," said Katherine, leaning into Remus and whispering, "But I dare say Dorcas Meadowes does."
The Ravenclaw was gnawing away on her bottom lip and gripping her creaking star chart with hands of iron. Her fringe was a black curtain her mooning eyes peeked out from behind, watching Sirius where he leant back on his hands and threw his head back with a bark of laughter at something Peter had said.
"Sirius knows she wants to ask him to the Christmas Party," said Remus with a sideways glance, his fluffy hair tickling her cheek, "He'll use you as a human shield if you let him, so don't get between him and any girls in the next couple of days."
Sirius wasn't classically handsome like Gideon or Bertram, although he shared in some features of the stereotype. He was, instead and more aptly, darkly handsome, Katherine thought as she surreptitiously watched the boy.
There was a wildness entombed in his aristocratic features, a wildness that resented its imprisonment in such limiting scapes of skin –
"Katherine!" whispered Marlene, looking through binoculars instead of her telescope, "You need to see this!"
Katherine accepted the cool metal thrusted upon her hands, and hesitantly peered through the glass, her skin plummeting to match the temperature of the binoculars.
A cascade of, what had always seemed to Katherine, silk-spun platinum, glittered under the starlight and against the back of willowy robes. Despite the caress of the icy breeze against her own cheeks and tousled hair, Katherine noted that the silky-haired night stroller didn't have to fix hers once, like always.
A fact unable to be ignored was that Narcissa Black wasn't alone; her robed-arm looped through another's, and her cheek resting delicately against a square-cut shoulder where a sharp jaw descended into Katherine's magnified view to drop a sweet kiss on her star-spangled hair.
Lucius Malfoy may have been in his dormitory, on patrol, or the library, but Katherine knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't with Narcissa.
Gideon Prewett was.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! :)