Chapter Forty-Five | Secondborn

It was with hellfire and birdsong that Dumbledore and Catherine set foot in Grimmauld place. A sharp clap, the crackle and hiss of embers burning themselves to naught but ash, less than motes of vibrant light cut out of existence by their own resplendence. They landed softly in comparison to the bursting, beautiful magic of their choice of travel, feet barely scraping the floor when a set of curtains flew open, screams lashing at their ears and strung through with maniacy, a bigotry only tempered by the madness that ebbed from every word.

A startled shout and the sound of something being knocked over echoed from further into the house, Catherine taking the moment to detach herself from Dumbledore and walk over to the portrait, lips curled in derision. Her fingers loosened on her hammer, letting it be claimed by the mist.

Hedwig, silently, settled on her shoulder, chittering and butting her head against the side of Catherine's. She found herself blinking in confusion for a moment, having forgotten in all the rush that she'd asked for her oldest friend.

"Hello girl," she whispered softly, barely legible over the increasing din. "A moment, please."

Wailing her hatred, a thousand slurs and curses slung from Walburga's gouache lips, Catherine simply stared her down, ignoring the muttered "What's going on Albus?" from behind her.

"Quiet."

The portrait's face twisted into an even more hideous mask, spittle flying and the few trinkets painted into the scene rattling as she bashed her fists against a tabletop.

"I said quiet," she commanded, fingers curling around the flush edges of the frame and pulling at the magic that bound it.

Something changed, and Walburga realized in an instant that the charms that kept threats to her imitation of a life at bay were being tugged beneath Catherine's grasp.

"How-?" she rasped, real true fear in the things eyes, expertly crafted and injected with just a portion of her essence. Not her soul, but a reflection of such.

Catherine could feel it at her fingertips, coiled and slick with something foul. "I have had a very trying day, and I'm not above slaughter, even if you don't bleed enough for my tastes," she hissed, too low to be heard by any but the two of them. "Sirius!" she called.

"Catherine? What the hell are you wearing? Albus, why are you two here?"

"How opposed would you be to me tearing down your mother's portrait?"

"What?"

"I can leave an empty frame. As a reminder, if you'd like."

"What?"

Albus cleared his throat, and Catherine glanced over her shoulder. "What."

"Just take care of the portrait, please. I believe you would do us all some good. Am I correct, Sirius?"

"Uh-" He blanked out, stuttering uselessly, and Catherine noticed that the man looked like he had just crawled out of bed, or taken a very, very long nap. His hair was tousled, clothes wrinkled, and she could faintly smell tea from the kitchen. "I've always hated my mother, have at it."

The grin that split her face was bloodthirsty. "Gladly."

With that, Walburga resumed her screeching, cracks rippling across the paint as Catherine pulled. She sank her claws into the magic that bound it, ripping and tearing at its threads, all the while baring her teeth in fierce enjoyment to finally get to kill something that she hated.

If Fudge wasn't on the table, then this sheaf of shit-stained canvas was certainly the next best thing.

After a few seconds of wailing, reaching higher and higher, something finally snapped and the canvas practically melted, the paint pouring down its face and over the lip of the frame to puddle along the mouldings and floorboards.

Satisfied, Catherine smacked her hands together, cleaning off any imaginary filth before she whirled around and remembered why they were there.

"We're fucked, aren't we?"

"What the hell is going on?" Sirius shouted, looking as if he was about to stamp his feet. "She has school, Albus! And why does she have that ridiculous hat on? Catherine, why are you wearing leather? And why are you two in my home?" He raised his hand, breathing slowly. "Not that it's not good to see you, of course. I've missed you something terrible, Cat, but… why?"

"It's a long story, Sirius. Would you mind if we sat down?"

Dumbledore's tone brokered no argument, taut with the undeniable sense of displacement that the two now bore like the sharp sting of a brand.

"Sure, yes, just give me-" A puff of air left Sirius. "This is dire, isn't it?"

"Quite."

"Well, excuse the mess. I wasn't expecting any company and the place is, well… not exceedingly easy to look after. Black magic, you know."

Taking her hat off and leaving the ruins of Walburga behind her, Catherine followed, casting an imperious glare at the house elf heads dotting the walls as they entered into the kitchen.

The place didn't look terribly different from when she'd seen it over Christmas, but things were a bit dire then too.

"So…" came the breathy question of Sirius, his brow furrowed and hands flattened on the tabletop, a cup of steaming tea next to him. "What's going on?"

"That is… immensely complicated, I'm afraid. Catherine, I know you've told your story far more often in the last few weeks than comfortable, but I feel news like that is something better heard from those directly affected than an outsider."

"Not really an outsider," she groused, chewing on her lip. "But yeah, I get it."

Now, the tension was all but palpable, Sirius crumpled with a worry that, if he were to shift into that shaggy black dog that lay deep beneath his skin, his tail would be between his legs and eyes cast to the ground.

Better to just get it over with.

"Long story short, a few months ago I went to bed and woke up somewhere else. It's another world, it's… a nightmare, and I'm doing my best to survive it while we try to figure out how to defeat Voldemort." Her hand raised to tug at the stiff leather of her armour. "Got this from the other place. Yharnam, it's called."

"That's…"

"Unbelievable. Yeah, I know. There was an issue, back at Hogwarts."

Albus raised an eyebrow. "And how did that come about exactly?"

"Might have splashed her with my blood? I didn't really think about it at the time, I was just… furious that she would do something like that to the other students. I threatened her and, well, that was the consequence."

"I'm not exactly filling in the blanks here," Sirius interrupted, hand pointed vaguely at the two of them. "Was there an incident? And did you say you splashed someone with your blood? Wait, wait-" his hand raised further, pressing against his forehead. "Was this whatsername? Umbridge?"

"Shit. How do I even…"

Sighing deeply, Catherine dug her fingernails into the meat of her thigh and began to talk.

-::-

Two hours later and the trio were in the sitting room, Sirius flipping between rage and depression, hands twitchy with some old spectre of Azkaban after their long talk of a gothic cityscape filled to the brim with beasts and creeping godlings.

After everything they'd already been through, Albus only had it in him to express his usual concern, interjecting at some points of the conversation to try and lessen the blow to Sirius as Catherine wove a tale of horror unimaginable. As if that could help, even with the secrets she was keeping from the both of them - from everyone - what had already happened so far was apocalyptic in its intensity.

Her mind, even now, months beyond the happenings beneath the lake, rattled like an empty jar. It felt like it was full of bugs, angry, scurrying things with pincers made of crystal and far too many eyes to count. They spoke in tongues, whispered poison in her ear and sang of the Blood, the Truth, and all to come.

Which was why she was stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the screams that only she could hear, a ghost standing overhead, all bulbous and wrapped in pink felt. Umbridge targeted all her fury at the girl who turned her into a beast far too awful for words to describe.

Not that she hadn't been already, only that in her final moments her outsides matched her insides. Vile, repugnant, hateful witch that she was.

So Catherine cast a lazy glance her way, taking some sick enjoyment out of how Gascoigne shimmered into the air next to her, not as the man he used to be but the wolfish demon he had turned into.

It seemed the ghosts in her head had some measure of control over themselves, grating laughter ripping out of him as Umbridge disappeared without so much as a pop.

"Thanks," she said, too low to be heard.

He simply inclined his head, harsh words ripping out of him, not in intention, but because his mouth - more a cavern filled with crooked teeth - was not meant for speech. "Think nothing of it."

And then he was gone, and only the faint noise of Amelia's obsessive praise remained, either too quiet for her to pay it any real mind or she had somehow unlocked the secret to keeping any and all worship from tainting her ears.

Better derision than mindless servitude from a woman dead at her hands.

"We're telling the Order?" Sirius broached, lips stiff and his jaw hardly moving as he asked the question.

"I believe that to be necessary, yes."

He nodded slowly. Very slowly, hair falling away from where it had been tucked behind his ears, scraping along his cheek. "I'm sorry, Cat."

"It's not your fault."

"Doesn't mean I can't be sorry."

"True," she acquiesced. "Afraid I've heard that enough lately. Thanks, though. I think."

Throwing his head back, Sirius whistled an erratic tune, hands perched on the armrests of his seat and looking all but he was fit for execution. The only thing the scene needed was a little brass cap studded with wires to be strapped atop his head and a leather clasp cinched below his chin for it to be perfect.

"And Voldemort?"

He did not ask of Yharnam, nor did Dumbledore bring it back up. Perhaps they both realized that this was a road only Catherine could travel, no guides to light her path nor scouts to whisper to her the pitfalls that waited in the dark.

How strange it was, for the topic of a megalomaniacal cult leader with a penchant for genocide to be a safer question.

"I've some ideas of where his horcruxes are being kept. He would have chosen objects important to him, and kept them some place both safe, and of great impact on his life."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"I may or may not have poached memories from those willing, and unwilling-" Sirius scoffed, lazily waving a hand. "One of which young Tom-"

"A half-blood!" He roared, interrupting Albus. "You hear that mum? You- oh, forgot. Thanks for that one," Sirius tacked on, pointing a shaky finger at Catherine. "Best gift I've ever had."

"...anyways. Young Tom stole from a woman both Hufflepuff's Cup, and a locket that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin."

"And he stuck his soul in them? Gods above, of all the things- how did you come by this information again?"

"Memories, either stolen or coaxed."

"You stole memories. You." Every word Sirius spoke was incredulous. "The world's gone mad, hasn't it?"

With a heavy sigh, Albus nodded contritely. "Not one of my proudest moments, I assure you, though this particular one came into my possession quite willingly. A house elf that once belonged to the woman, framed for the crime of her murder. I spoke with her, and she gave me that memory."

"And the unwilling ones?"

"You remember Horace Slughorn, yes?"

Catherine sat back and watched the conversation as Sirius' eyes lit up. "He's still around? Yeah, always used to let me, James, and Remus run off if he caught us mucking about."

"Well, he took coaxing, ethically dubious coaxing, to give me an untampered memory of a much too young Tom Riddle asking him whether seven horcruxes would be more stable than say, three, or four."

Face screwed up in disgust, Sirius balked at the very concept. "One or two is bad enough. Merlin, even the books you'll find in the library here tell you not to do that."

"Albus, you wouldn't have done something like that before all this started happening," Catherine stated, eyeing the man.

"No," he all but whispered, nudging his glasses a little further up his nose. "No, I wouldn't have. But… needs must, unfortunately. I said I would do all I could to aid you, my dear, but please don't blame yourself for my actions. I like to imagine myself a kind man, but these hands… these hands," he uttered, holding the pale, wrinkled things up to the light. "They have seen much suffering. Dealt it, I confess. It seemed the most reasonable action at the time, and I knew Horace could never be convinced to part with such secrets unless under extreme duress."

"How long ago?"

"A short few days after I learned of your circumstances."

Another whistle from Sirius, low and playful, and Catherine knew it was both an attempt at easing the tension, and an expression of severe confusion. "Well this is… something else. Not how I expected my day to go at all. So, two ancient relics and… where do you think they're hidden exactly?"

"The home of his mother, for one, and I believe in the hands of one of his lieutenants for another. Lucius had the diary that Catherine here destroyed, therefore-"

"Bellatrix."

"Precisely."

Fingers scratching at the upholstery, Sirius pursed his lips, some semblance of life returning to him now that he'd been given a slice of knowledge to work with that was even slightly familiar. "LeStrange Manor, Black Manor, or Gringotts. Black Manor wouldn't make sense, so it has to be the other two."

"Then those will be where we search."

"We?" Sirius asked.

"If you would like that. We're already wanted by the Ministry I predict, after Cornelius' attempt to drag the both of us to Azkaban. Let him wonder, I say." Smiling, Dumbledore very suddenly looked wicked, but in an almost childlike way, as if he'd been caught stealing candy from a shop and reveled in the act. "Albus Dumbledore, Catherine Potter, and Sirius Black. Ha! Think of the reaction! That'd surely run him ragged."

That garnered a laugh from Catherine, nostrils flaring with a sharp snort, one corner of her mouth tugged upwards. "World really has gone mad, eh?"

Sirius nodded his agreement, looking at Dumbledore with wild eyes, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, but Catherine did note that he'd been wearing that expression on and off since they'd arrived. She wondered if that was what she looked like those first few weeks after stumbling unwillingly through the streets of Yharnam.

But the way Albus' shoulders raised, how his back straightened infinitesimally, it all spoke of a long-lost confidence - or freedom, she realized - that he had willingly shackled himself to the expectations set by the society he, in many ways, had led.

He wouldn't have asked for it this way, she knew. Not with his reputation crumbling around him all for the sake of driving a fool's ego, convinced as Fudge was that they were some sort of shadowy cabal, ever-eager to lay their hands on his position as Minister. Was it all Lucius and his ilk that made Cornelius this way, or had he always been so thick as to deny the evidence before him?

Not that Catherine didn't understand how he had come to that conclusion. She was cut with madness, even before Yharnam, not that there was any chance she could have walked away from a decade of neglect and verbal abuse without being in some part behind her peers.

Socially, she would admit, never quite knowing the words to say, or the things to do to convey the care and honest thankfulness she felt for those closest to her.

Violent, in her twitchy and learned reactions to all things dangerous. To flee or fight, more often fight, uncaring for so long of whether she lived or died.

It wasn't that she was always suicidal. Not explicitly. It was simply a thought, just over there, sitting quietly at the back of her head and only so often raising its hand as if to remind her of its presence. But placing herself in harm's way? Why, that wasn't any trouble at all. If she lived, she lived. If she died, she died. At least she'd go out doing something worthwhile.

What it boiled down to, she would say, was that she didn't much care for life.

So it was no small wonder that after years of rumours pouring out the castle doors to find their way to Fudge's desk, picked apart and paraphrased by the simpering oligarchs that whispered in his ear, that he would look at Catherine as someone worth being sanctioned. A girl born of the fight, born of fame and stature and all the bright, shiny lights and adoring eyes that came with it. Some petty young thing that had gotten it into her mind to reach beyond her station and when denied, resort to drawing so many pools of blood to take what she felt was hers.

She'd heard the Dursley's going on about one celebrity or another, addled by drink or drug and locked up for a weekend to think on what they'd done, only to come back and raise the stakes.

In some way she felt a kinship with them, raised up on a pillar and put on display for the world to see. Offered everything they could ask for, except for the chance to be seen as who they are, away from prying eyes and never given the chance to live life as any other. Free of the expectations, the judgement, the poison pens that inked their every step with the scrutinizing gaze of a critic.

Thus she was thrown into this world without so much as a 'how do you do?' and summarily thrust into a limelight that she never realized had shone upon her from the moment her parents died.

What would they think of her now, when the news broke? Monster killer, murderer, mad-woman.

Perhaps those adventure books written about her held some small kernel of truth. No dragons were slain at her hand, no, instead creatures far worse and beyond the imagining of those cheap pulp writers who had taken her name and repurposed it into shameless profit.

Snapping fingers stole her away from her thoughts, and Catherine blinked to see Sirius' hand a few inches from her nose, poised to snap once more. "You alright there?"

"I should be asking you that."

He barked out a laugh, incredulous. "We live in a world of magic, Cat. Keeps you open to all sorts of possibilities." A weary sigh followed his brief flicker of joviality, hand returning to its rest to pinch at the fabric of his seat. "But, no. Can't say I'm alright with any of this but we don't really have a choice in the matter, do we?"

She gave him a curious look and he tapped the side of his head. "Unlawfully imprisoned for over a decade while caped demons tried to steal away every good thing that ever happened to me. I know a few things about cruel and unusual situations."

Catherine never thought of it that way.

Huh.

If anyone could empathize, it was the shadow of a man sitting before her.

Sometimes she could catch flashes of who he used to be. When he spoke of school, her parents, or sat with Remus and didn't grieve over the good old days when war was something that the adults should worry over.

Not that war ever cared much for the safety of children. Just ask Neville Longbottom.

"I should burn the place down."

"What? Azkaban?"

"It's not right." Her teeth ground together, eyes narrowing. "They'll call me a monster. Dumbledore, a power hungry maniac, and they subject people to Dementors? Even murderers are undeserving of that. I've felt them, not like you - I can't imagine what kind of torture it was like to be stuck in that place - but even those little moments…"

Catherine tugged at the lapel of her jacket, unsettled by how clean it was. "It was horrible. I don't even know what they'd do to me now, after what I've seen."

Would they make her relive those hours cradled in the flesh of a dead god? How her mind shattered and leaked from her ears to puddle on the ground with the rest of the filth?

"It should be wiped from the earth. Every stone, every inch of steel destroyed."

"A problem for another time," Albus said, his voice gentle and all previous fervor lost. "And a problem that I confess, I never paid much heed to, until the both of you mentioned it."

"It's easy for cruel things to become the norm," she murmured, remembering how terrifyingly accepting Eileen was to learn of the reaping of Emilie's family. How the only comfort spoken to her by Gehrman was to run off and slaughter as she saw fit, until it all came together. Alfred, rejoicing and professing his love of a martyr branded onto the tapestry of history for his grand accomplishment of religious genocide. How Melodie spoke of the wrongs committed against her, of what had been stolen under the watchful eye of her creator.

None of them saw any wrong, implicitly, in what had happened, beyond the simple fact of death and misery. 'Yes,' they would say, 'those are not good things, of course they're not.' But would they ever question the circumstances behind it?

No. Catherine doubted them even capable.

Melodie, perhaps, but she had only just begun to think of, or question her place in this great and terrible world. It was no wonder that her mind was still pliable, open to the possibility of anything.

"Far too easy. Yet we fight against it all the same, and it takes you, the next generation, to remedy the wrongs of those who came before. To look at it with fresh eyes and be the first to say, 'No more.'" Albus smiled, almost repentant. "Or to knock us over the head. Some old dogs can learn new tricks, you know."

"So what is this now, a rebellion?"

"In a way, yes. Life has dealt you an awful hand, and the ones who were able to prevent such a thing - myself included - sat in our towers and did nothing but watch. I tried in some small part, but it's only recently that I've been able to recognize that my efforts were far too little, and far too late."

"Don't blame yourself-"

"No. I should." He held her gaze unapologetically, stern in his demeanor. "For what happened to you. For what happened to Sirius, and an innumerable amount of victims that I have yet to learn the name of. Tom was my responsibility to put down, yet I failed. I had the opportunity to prevent the spread of pureblood dogma, but instead I searched for the best in people, hoping against all hope that if offered mercy they would learn what it is to be kind. Tell me, Catherine, do you think Lucius - if not punished for his actions - would ever yearn to right the wrongs he has committed?"

"No."

"So it comes to us, now, to fight in a war that I should have prevented. That myself and all others in power knew to be coming, because even though we cut that tree down and salted the trunk, its roots still remain, sunk deep into the fabric of our society and entirely unwilling to be routed out, not without tearing great, gaping holes that must be patched clean with something new. Something better."

"And it all starts with LeStrange," she breathed. "We're starting the war."

"The war was already there, resting dormant, but yes. We're to be the ones who re-light the embers and set it ablaze."

Catherine, with an iron heart, returned his look, all cold and furious. "I won't let them live. Anyone we fight, you know how I won't be able to."

"And a terror you'll be. I only pray that once the dust has settled you have a world to return to, one that will come to understand the choices you were forced to make just as I did on the shores of France."

All she could do was offer him a thin smile, more of a grimace, and hide away the thoughts that rose from their sleep to quail against her mind. There would be no happy world for her to return to, not for her. The only thing she could hope for would be to set the building blocks for Hermione, and those like her, to live happy lives away from the bigotry that held their society in its unfeeling grip.

"Been a while since I've fought," Sirius spoke up. "I'm rusty."

"Catherine and I have been practicing. Sparring, you could say." Dumbledore offered Catherine a grin of his own. "You should see her. It's both impressive and terrifying to watch her fight. We'll take you along the next time we do."

"There's some heavily warded rooms in the house, you won't need to stray far."

"I have to disagree. I don't hold back when I fight Catherine."

"You don't?" she blurted, eyes widening.

"No, far from it. If I didn't fight to the fullest of my ability I'm afraid I'd be walking away from our little skirmishes with one too many broken bones."

"Oh."

And wasn't that a thought. Inexperienced as she was, she still put Dumbledore - Albus Dumbledore - on edge.

"We should call a meeting soon, let everyone know what's going on."

"Thank you for reminding me." He stood, brushing imaginary dust off his robes. "I think it'd be best if we all got some rest, we've got a long week ahead of us. And Catherine? Sleep if you must, we'll be waiting to greet you once you return."

So they left the room. Sirius to the libraries to guzzle tea and pore over the old tomes, Dumbledore to sleep in one of the rooms above, and Catherine to lurk in her own, deciding to take the fire poker resting against the nearby wall and drive it through her own skull, if only to keep herself awake that much longer.