Hello again! See? Next chapter is all up and running already! I apologize for the rather vague way I finished last chapter, but hopefully this one fixes up all that stuff for you! Chapter titles are starting to get difficult to think up so I think I'll just leave them at numbers...anyone got a problem with that? No? Okay, good! Numbers it is then! Sooooo...here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Kat's first week of O.W.L.'s went decently she supposed. She had remembered the theory behind switching spells for Transfiguration and was pretty sure that she had aced the Charms exam. Color-changing spells and Windgardium Leviosa were easy for her. The Defense Against the Dark Arts exam she was less sure of. Without Professor Clark there, she did better than she had expected, but her shield charm left much to be desired, but she did alright against the boggart (thanks to Remus).
After the exam, however, there was another incident with Snape and the Marauders. In hindsight, Kat knew that she probably should have seen it coming, and should have done something to stop it. After all, Snape never really did anything to bother her. James just hated him because he was friends with Lily and she was pretty sure that Sirius hated him because James hated him. In the end, Snape ended up suspended upside-down, Lily screamed at James, and everyone pretty much got mad at everyone else.
None of her friends had commented on her new relationship with Remus, probably because none of them knew. They weren't very open with it, and never really did anything. Sometimes, after everyone else had gone to bed after the exams, they would sit in front of the common room fire together and just talk. Remus told her how he'd been bitten and Kat told him about how she had first ended up in her parents' basement. They grew closer throughout the week and by the end of it, Kat felt as if she knew practically everything about Remus. He never thought that he was going to be able to come to Hogwarts (just like her), truly loved reading his books (just like her, after all, without them she would have failed every class this year. Studying the books in the basement had at least given her some ground to stand on at school), and was always uncertain about what he thought of as his "shaky relationship" with everyone at the school.
"I mean, what happens if they all find out I'm a werewolf? What happens if I bite someone?"
Kat had no answer for him, not really. The more she thought about Remus and the others running around on the grounds during his transformations, she always thought about how she liked to sleep outside. The last full moon she had forgotten about, what would happen if she did it again?
Another reason she supposed that James and Sirius hadn't figured anything out was because, on top of all of their exams, McGonagall was still making them serve their detentions from fighting. So after hours of exams, James would stomp off to clean the trophy room while Sirius helped Professor McGonagall sort through the proper matches to start next year's first years on turning into needles.
"It's really not bad, working with McGonagall. I think she likes me," Sirius said one evening at dinner. James and Peter snorted into their Shepard's pie. "Not like that you idiots! I mean, besides from not being allowed to talk or anything, she has me doing some pretty easy stuff."
"Lucky," whined James. "I hope I get to work with her next week. I never knew how dirty a trophy room could get. I mean, honestly, do you know how many times I've cleaned all those mangy old Special Services to the School awards? What do I care about some tosser named Tom Riddle?"
By the time Saturday rolled around, Kat was quite ready for the weekend. They all had plans to go swimming in the lake to relax and cool off. She was a little nervous because the bathing suit she was borrowing from Eileen was a little revealing, and the boys had never seen her in anything except her Hogwarts uniform and Mrs. Potter's old clothes.
"You do look zo skinny!" Khristine exclaimed when she waltzed into the dorm when Kat was trying it on.
Kat felt her face grow hot. "I don't look ridiculous, do I?" She said, turning nervously to Eileen. Eileen was significantly taller than she was and had larger breasts. Kat thought that the blue swimsuit fit her nicely despite all of this.
"Don't worry, you look fine," Eileen had assured her.
So on Saturday morning, Kat hastily braided her hair down her back, tucking in a few loose pieces and slipped her uniform on over her borrowed swimsuit. It felt strange. She met the boys at breakfast and slid onto the bench between Pete and Remus. Both were looking rather ridiculous in their bright colored swim trunks. Pete had on a bright orange pair while Remus was sporting a neon green one.
"Wow. Erm, nice trunks?" Kat laughed as she sat down.
Pete's ears turned a bit red. "We're borrowing them from James," he explained. As if summoned on cue, James came striding in to the Great Hall, followed by Sirius, wearing blue and white swim trunks and carrying a large rubber inner tube in one hand. Sirius had a pair of muted green swim trunks and was carrying bundle of towels and what looked like a large raft.
"Where did you get all of this stuff?" Kat asked in wonder.
"Don't worry about it," James said with mock seriousness.
It was already warm outside when they reached the lake and a few other students had gotten the same idea and were already splashing around in the lake. James was the first to discard his shirt and dove into the lake, carrying his inner tube with him. Peter, rather uncomfortably, removed his shirt and was quick to join him in the water.
"Ah! It's cold!" He screamed after he surfaced from his dive.
Sirius laughed and deposited his bundle. He slowly pealed his shirt off and deposited it on the towels. Kat tried not to notice, but she did see several other girls staring as Sirius picked up his blow-up raft and sashayed into the water.
"After you?" Remus said, gesturing toward the water.
Kat shook her head. "I'll be in in a minute." Remus shrugged and went to join his buddies in the water. Kat noticed that he kept his shirt on. Probably to hide all his scars.
She took a deep breath to calm down her thumping heart. She had no idea why she was so nervous about being in a bathing suit in front of the boys. They would probably make fun of her regardless of what she was wearing. With that thought in her mind, she quickly stripped out of her robes and rushed to the lake. She hit the water with a great WHOOSH and immediately screamed. Pete was right, the water was cold!
James laughed. "This is the first time you've been in the lake, right? We forgot to tell you how cold it is!" His teeth were chattering a little bit as he paddled along in his floatie.
"You look good in a bathing suit," someone whispered in her ear. She jumped as Sirius gave her a wicked grin and paddled away. Kat flushed scarlet. Crap.
Inevitably, a splash war erupted, during which everyone got water up their nose and Sirius' raft got punctured. Slightly exhausted, Kat commandeered James' rubber inner tube and lay back gazing at the sky. Even though the water was cold, Kat thought it felt wonderful. Her head was clear for the first time all week as all the stress from exams vanished. James popped up out of the water next to her at one point and started to tow her around the shallows of the lake. She enjoyed the soothing motion of the water and let him take her.
"Gotta give you the tour," he said. Kat just nodded sleepily and let him carry on. After a few minutes though, James got bored and swam back to where the rest of the guys were, so Kat floated around on her own for a while. By the time she got around to getting back, the four of them were in the midst of an epic battle of chicken. Peter was perched on James' shoulders and Remus was residing on Sirius' shoulders.
"Get 'im, Moony! Kill him!" Sirius shouted as Remus lunged for Peter.
"You can take him Petey!" James shouted in encouragement, just before his head was forced underwater. Remus and Sirius both gave a yell and together they managed to topple her brother and Peter.
"Alright Moony!" Sirius sang after he had unceremoniously dumped Remus off of his shoulders. He gave him a massive high five and Kat cheered.
"Hey, that's not nice," James sulked.
"Don't worry about it," Kat laughed.
"Is anyone else starving?" Pete said after he had cleared the water from his ears.
"I could eat a whole hippogriff!" James and Sirius said at the same time. The both double over with laughter and the others joined in.
"Let's get some lunch, then!" Kat said, flipping herself out of the inner tube and taking it with her to shore. Goose prickles appeared on her skin as soon as she stepped out of the water and she was shivering by the time she reached the mound of towels. She carefully removed Sirius' shirt and draped a towel across her shoulders. She closed her eyes and smiled. The towel was just the right amount of fluff and tough, taking the cold of the lake right out of her and making her feel nice and cozy.
Several loud thuds told her that the boys had gotten out of the water so she opened her eyes and stepped out of their way. It turned out that Sirius had only brought four towels so James and Remus were arguing about who would get the last towel.
"I'm so cold, man!" James was saying. "Let's just share it, damn it!" Sirius laughed but Kat said, "Here, Remus, take mine." She unwrapped herself from the towel and threw it at him. He caught it in the air and smiled at her gratefully before wrapping himself in it. James whooped and began drying himself off with the last towel.
Shivering slightly, Kat dug around in her clothes for her wand and dried herself off with it. She then slipped back into her skirt and blouse, turned around and got ready to wait for the boys to finish with their drying. But when she turned around, they were all staring at her.
"What?" she asked.
There was an awkward pause. "I had no idea that my sister had such a rocking body!" James finally said. "And that she's smart enough to magic herself dry while the rest of us are standing here like idiots, freezing!"
Kat blinked. 'Rocking body?' What did that even mean? "Er, sorry." She said, whipping out her wand and waving it so that the others dried off. They soon had their shirts back on again and all their things gathered.
"Let's drop this off in the common room before we go to lunch, huh?" Sirius said, leading them up the lawn to the castle.
"Sure mate," James said, draping an arm around Kat's shoulders. "What a wonderful way to spend the morning. It almost makes me forget that we still have exams next week and I have to be cleaning the Owlrey with Sirius after dinner tonight!"
"Don't remind me," Sirius said darkly.
They continued to moan and groan for the majority of the trip up to the common room and Kat gradually drifted back to where Remus was trailing behind the group. She smiled at him and tried taking his hand, but he looked away and started walking faster, catching up with Peter. Kat frowned, stung by his refusal. Had she done something wrong? They climbed the staircases and passed a portrait whose owner appeared to be having a party. A lady in Baroque dress, a Roman soldier, and a Scottish clansman were all positively howling at a joke a rather drunk little witch had told while two wizards were playing keep away with a leprechaun's cap.
Kat smiled a little when she passed them, but was still confused about Remus. Hadn't they decided that they were going to try a relationship with each other? Or had they…? Kat wasn't really sure since they had never really said anything about it. She just assumed that they had come to a sort of unspoken agreement about it, but maybe Remus thought differently.
"Flibbity gibbet!" She heard Sirius say to the Fat Lady ("Oh, yes, please enter m'dear."). She hadn't realized that they were at the common room yet. She crawled in after James and winced as her hip popped.
"What the bloody hell was that?" James exclaimed once they were both safely on the other side.
"Oh, just my hip," Kat said, massaging it. "It does that sometimes." James wrinkled his nose.
"Meet you back down here before we leave for lunch?" Sirius asked her from the second step of the staircase. Kat nodded and the rest of the boys followed him up, Remus didn't even glance back.
Kat sat down in one of the armchairs hard, taking the second year who was sitting on the armrest completely by surprise. He slid off with a slight squeak. Kat didn't even bother apologizing. She was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with Remus. She hadn't gotten far in her thoughts before Sirius, James, and Peter came down. The three of them looked hungry and they kept glancing back up the stairs with growing irritation. When Kat heard Peter's stomach growl she told the boys to go ahead down to the Great Hall. "I'll wait for Remus; you guys go get some food." They left in a hurry without needing anymore encouragement.
Kat was waiting for another ten minutes and her stomach started grumbling too before Remus came down again. From the look on his face when he saw her, she knew that he had been hoping that she had gone down to lunch with the rest of the guys.
"What's up?" Kat asked, scowling a little.
Remus swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He shook his head and started heading for the portrait hole.
"Hey," she said, stepping into his path. "I asked you what was up. Are you okay? I thought you might want to hold hands or eat lunch with me or something since we're, you know, dating?" She looked plaintively into his face but she couldn't figure out what he was thinking. It was as if a wall had been put up in place of his usual openness. "Did I do something?"
Remus sighed. "Kat, this isn't going to work. I don't think our friends could handle it."
"What are you talking about? Of course they could, they're our friends. They'd have to deal with it."
Remus shook his head. "But that's not really what I'm trying to say…" He took a deep breath and started again, staring at the floor. "Kat…you're too good for me. You shouldn't be even thinking about going out with someone like me. I'm damaged goods and I'll probably just end up hurting you in the end, either emotionally or actual, literal physically. It's not going to be good and we need to end this now before it goes any further."
Kat felt like she had gotten the wind knocked out of her. "What do you mean?" She asked quietly. At this point, she didn't care if there were still people in the common room. To her, it was just her and Remus.
"You need someone who can be better for you," was all he said.
"'Better for me'? Remus, we're in school we aren't supposed to be worrying about stuff like that right now. We're supposed to be having fun and doing what we want. You don't have to worry about any future stuff or anything at all!"
Remus looked up. "I do," he said softly. "I always have to. You might not have run screaming once you found out what I am, but that doesn't mean that you won't later down the road. I don't think I could take it if that happened, so I'm cutting it off now before anything more happens."
They were both silent for a long time. Kat's mind was in a whirlwind. Here she'd been for the past week, after a crazy weird weekend, finally happy with her decision and convinced that she had made the right one, and Remus was flinging it in her face. It had only been a week, but it still hurt.
"I understand if you don't want anything to do with me for a while. For the sake of the guys I hope you'll find it in you to act normal like nothing ever happened. But if you can't, I'll stay out of your way until you can sort through everything that happened." With that Remus straightened his shoulders and went out through the portrait hole.
Kat stood rooted to the spot with her mind reeling, feeling the tears that were welling up in her eyes. Did that really just happen? Did he seriously do that only because he was a werewolf? How could he be so stupid? Determined not to cry in front of people, Kat swept up the stairs to her dorm room and threw herself on her bed and stared at the ceiling of her canopy. Thankfully, she had the room all to herself so when she really started crying no one was there to see.
For the first time she had been ready to commit herself to a relationship that was more than just friends, and he had thrown it back in her face. Beneath all her anger and hurt she could see why he had done it, but she didn't want to allow the justification to sink in. Remus, of all people! He had always been the kindest to her, and now he was being so kind he was cruel! She had completely lost her appetite and let the waves of misery crash over her. Serves me right for thinking that any boy would want something to do with me, she thought to herself as the first tear rolled down her cheek.
After a few minutes of crying, she felt better. She even felt a little abashed. They hadn't even made anything official nor done anything that could be considered "dating" so why was she so upset? None of her friends had noticed anything except…except the girls. They would want to know why she was so upset and what had happened with her and Remus. Kat wiped away the tears and stood up, resolutely smoothing her skirt and putting a smile on her face. If he wanted her to act like nothing had happened, then fine, she would act like nothing in the world was wrong. On the inside she would still be hurt and upset, but on the outside she would still appear to be the same, usual sunshine Kat. With that thought grasped firmly in her mind so she wouldn't think about anything else, Kat marched herself out of the dorm room and off to the Great Hall for lunch, completely forgetting to change out of her bathing suit.
Sorry everyone, but it is going somewhere! So don't panic...too much I guess. Or panic if you want to...but please review, even if it is just to rant at me about how upset you are! :)