AN: Hello everyone! Welcome to the story that has taken over my brain and will not let me go. It has been a while since I posted fic on this website... This is a Harry Potter OC fic that has been on my mind for a while. Please note! While there is no graphic mention or description of in story rape/non-con in this fic, a past rape/non-con incident is discussed heavily and will be mentioned several times as it has major bearing on the plot and the characterization of a few of the ocs.

I do not own anything you recognize, that belongs to JKR. I'm just fiddling around with it for fun.

This story is not finished, I just completed chapter four, but I will keep truckin along as long as the inspiration holds me. I plan to update once a month.

Special thanks to Kaelma for being an awesome alpha/beta! Anyway, please enjoy this teaser of what is to come!

Saturday, July 10th, 1993, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

The young woman stood outside wrought iron gates staring up the path that led over beautiful green grounds to a primarily gothic style castle.

'God, that's pretentious.'

She was begrudgingly impressed but there was also a sort of hysteria over the sheer ridiculousness of it. Granted, America had Ilvermorny, but she'd not been sent to Ilvermorny thereby skipping the strange experience of being educated in a castle.

Ilvermorny was probably just as pretentious.

She'd been waiting 10 minutes and was contemplating pulling the rope beside the gate again, when a tall, severe looking woman in traditional robes appeared in her line of vision. The new woman approached the gate at a steady pace and once she was within a few feet of it called out in a strong, Scottish accent, "Ms. Fawley, is it?"

Cateline Fawley adjusted her stance, moving her briefcase from one hand to the other as she replied, "Yes, ma'am. Cateline Fawley, here to see Headmaster Dumbledore."

"Well, Ms. Fawley, I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress." The professor tapped the gate with her wand and ushered Cate through. "I'll be escorting you to the headmaster's office."

Cate followed her guide up to the castle, eyes still critically observing the details around her. As they walked, the professor kept a careful eye on her as well. Cate wondered briefly what the other woman saw. Her accent was obviously American, she was on the shorter side of average height for a woman, athletically built with strong thighs and wiry muscles. Her jaw was strong and square, and her eyes were a dark navy blue. Cate wondered if this professor would recognize those eyes…

Focusing her thoughts back on her surroundings, she brushed her mid-length brown hair back from her forehead and tried not to be horrified that a school for children had moving staircases.

Maybe she should have gone for plan B and tried to find a job in the British ministry instead.

When they reached a statue of a griffin, Professor McGonagall gave a ridiculous sort of password (what were cockroach clusters? Cate had no desire to find out) and ushered Cate up the set of stairs that was revealed.

Dumbledore was somehow exactly like his picture on that chocolate frog card she'd seen a million times. The sheer intensity of his aura however, nothing could have prepared her for that.

He had a phoenix in his office, and so many books and instruments and portraits, portraits everywhere. She took it all in and then met the old man's twinkling blue eyes. She didn't even flinch when she felt his mind brush up against her occlumency shields. Cate smiled calmly even though behind her shields she was seething at the audacity of the man. "Headmaster Dumbledore, thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

"Ms. Fawley." He said, eyes still twinkling. "Please have a seat, it is a pleasure. I've read your books, very impressive. Lemon drop? I must say, I did not realize there were any Fawleys living in America."

Cate sat, demurred at the compliment to her past work, declined the candy, and then nodded tightly at the probe into her family. She'd expected this. Counted on it even.

"My mother was Isolde Fawley. She went into hiding in America after the murder of my grandparents during the last war."

At the mention of her mother's name, Albus Dumbledore's head snapped up and his blue eyes were no longer twinkling. So, the old man did know something about what had happened to her mother after the night her grandparents were murdered. Funny how he'd not bothered to do anything about it. As his serious gaze roamed over Cate's face, taking in the dark brown hair so different from her mother's blonde, her dark blue eyes several shades darker than the light blue her mother inherited from her Bonaccord family, and her strong square jaw, Cate knew he was seeing someone else in her features.

She'd never seen pictures of the man responsible for her existence, but she had looked into mirrors all her life identifying all of the features that she did not inherit from her mother, or her grandparents. All of the features that mark her as his. She wondered what it must be like for someone who has known the monster that is her biological father to see those features reflected on her face.

"And your father?" Dumbledore questioned gravely. It was not really a question though. She could tell by looking at him that he already knew the answer.

"I believe you know who," Cate said, voice low and accusing. "Don't you." The old man's eyes were blue steel, boring into her as he nodded. "But, Headmaster," Here she met his gaze, eyes hard, "I don't think abducting a woman and imprisoning her while raping her repeatedly until she becomes pregnant makes someone a father, do you?"

There was a flicker in Dumbledore's eyes and he looked impossibly old in that moment before he said softly, "No, Ms. Fawley, I do not."

The silence dragged, him staring at her obviously trying to figure her out, her waiting for him to continue. Finally, Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"Ms. Fawley, why are you here? Why did you ask to meet with me?"

She placed her briefcase on her lap, opened it, fished out an old, worn, well-read journal. "Because Tom Riddle is not dead, not fully. He's going to return, and I think he's going to do it soon." She slid her mother's journal across the desk into the hands of a man she did not fully trust. "I'm here to help stop him when he returns. I need you to help me do that."