Chapter
III: Don't judge a book...
"Right, class, if you'd like to stand beside
your desks and we'll begin." Some of the class groaned - they were the
Slytherins. Double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs didn't bear thinking about.
Professor Sprout paired the class up as they prepared to clip the Kippelweed, a
rare plant which if tickled could excrete a dangerous serum, which would
paralyze you. In extreme cases, the Kippelweed could come to life and strangle
a captor or attacker. "Crabbe, you with Bulstrode, that's it, Hallis and
Stevens, Snape and Potter..." Kaitlyn gulped. Snape? Severus Snape, the
hook nosed idiot she insulted at lunchtime? Snape grudgingly shuffled over and
stood next to Kaitlyn. They took out their wands and began to clip the Kippelweed.
"Clicenta," Severus whispered, and the
dead brown leaves dropped to the floor. Kaitlyn
did the same to trim her side...she didn't see the Hufflepuff over her shoulder
fire the tickling charm at her Kippelweed, although luckily for them both,
Severus did. The plant ripped some of its roots from the soil and began to wave
violently in all directions, trying to whack Kaitlyn or Severus around the
head. Kaitlyn screamed and ducked as a vine flew towards her shoulder. Severus
yelled something, pulled her out of the way and performed the counter curse.
Once the Kippelweed was back to normal, Professor Sprout came over and
immediately began to issue punishments.
"Macmillan, what a disgrace! 50 points from
Hufflepuff and a detention with me!" She turned towards Kaitlyn and
Severus, nursing minor wounds, and addressed them. "Get yourselves to the
infirmary, you two, we want to make sure you've got no Kippelweed serum in you.
Go on, off you go. Oh, and Mr. Snape...20 points to Slytherin for an excellent
counter curse." Kaitlyn turned, and with Severus just behind her walked
out of the greenhouse.
"You didn't have to do that, you know,"
she said. He walked a little quicker so as to be alongside her and, gripping
his left wrist where he had sustained a hit, looked at the black haired girl
next to him.
"Yes I did." She stopped.
"Why did you do it?" he shrugged, and
said
"You're in Slytherin, there has to be
something bad in you. You're not all Potter, you're something else, and that
needs saving."
"Smart talk for a first year," a third
voice said. The two span around, mere steps from the infirmary, and saw
Professor Mori, head of Slytherin house. "Don't get too fond of her, Mr.
Snape...though she may be a Slytherin she's also a student who needs to get on
with her work. Now go to the infirmary, both of you, I think there's some
Kippelweed serum in those wounds." The two nodded and walked off.
"How did he know we were attacked by the
Kippelweed?"
"Dunno. It's weird though..."
Dinner
was roast potatoes and mixed vegetables for Kaitlyn. There had been a minor
uproar when the kitchens found out they had to cater for another vegetarian. It
wasn't that they didn't like work; it was that house elves were strictly
omnivores and condemned anyone who did not eat meat. Most of the following days
at Hogwarts up to Halloween went past quite normally. Kaitlyn found herself
becoming best friends with Lily, Sirius and Remus. But the big surprise was
Severus Snape, who seemed to have appointed himself her bodyguard. She liked
him, really... underneath his drawling mouth and sloppy nose, he was quite
sweet. Quite sweet. Not very. Quite. It was all around the school now that a
Slytherin, by some miracle, was best friends with Gryffindors. Kaitlyn didn't
get the best reactions from her fellow Slytherins too often. But something was
about to change that.
"Welcome
to your first flying lesson. As you may know, at Hogwarts we have inter-house
Quidditch championships. Don't get too excited about this - you have to be a
second year to get into teams normally, but occasionally, very, very
occasionally, we get the odd exception. Now stand next to a broom, put your
hand over it, and call 'Up'" The class did so. Only four jumped up -
Kaitlyn's, James', Sirius', and Severus' brooms. "Well done, you four. Now
once everyone else has finished you can mount your brooms and have a fly
around. No higher than that oak tree!" Kaitlyn mounted her broom and
kicked off from the floor. Instantly she was flying upwards, the wind blowing
in her hair. Have you ever felt what it's like to fly? It's the most amazing
sensation. You can feel yourself moving against the air and into it, you can
feel every air particle that pushes it's way past you, and you can feel the
wind. Oh yes, you can feel the wind. A sudden scream from below awoke Kaitlyn
to her senses. She looked down and saw a podgy Slytherin girl dangling by two
fingers from a broom. Kaitlyn dived and made sure the girl was steady, then she
made sure her own legs were wrapped round her broom and lifted the squirming girl
back onto her broom. Kaitlyn directed her back down to the ground, smiled and
flew back up, doing two or three loop-the-loops in some form of unselfish
victory. The whistle was blown and Kaitlyn flew back to the ground. "As
you can see, class, flying is a dangerous sport. Were it not for Miss Potter
here, Miss Bulstrode would not have made it through the year. Fifty points to
Slytherin," Madam Marsh added as an after thought. Kaitlyn smiled, as
dozens of Slytherins she had never even talked to came up and slapped her on
the back in congratulations. Maybe being in Slytherin did have its rewards.
After
many days of lessons, they get kind of routine, Kaitlyn thought, as she lay on
her bed humming to herself. She shared her room with three other Slytherin girls
- Emily Bulstrode, the girl she had saved from the broomstick fall, Luna
Rodgers, a small girl with a large temper, and Anita Lankin, a girl obsessed
with Lucius Malfoy, who seemed to follow him everywhere. Kaitlyn had even
caught her signing her name as "Anita Malfoy" on every piece of
parchment to hand. Turning over, Kaitlyn began to remember what Dumbledore had
said about the Halloween feast when her owl Zos flew in. She shared Zos with
James, and they used her often. Zos was short for Zosteria, a surname of the
Greek goddess Athena. Greek mythology had always been a favourite pastime of
her mother's to reasearch. A faint throb in her chest as Kaitlyn wished she had
been put in Gryffindor, or even Ravenclaw so she could be on good terms with
her mother and father once more. Zos dropped the letter on Kaitlyn's lap as she
sat up and held out an owl treat. Zos guzzled the treat down and perched on the
end of Kaitlyn's bed. She smiled as she saw the letter was from Sirius &
James.
Kaitlyn;
Have
thought of a brilliant way to get at Snape, but will need your help. We need
you to sneak into Snape's room and charm his robes so they look bright pink to
everyone except him. The charm is roseartis profundis,
make sure you pronounce it correctly, or it might turn you pink, and however
amusing that would be, we want Snape to be the one targeted. Do it now,
everyone's asleep. Use you invisibility cloak, but make sure you're quiet, too.
James & Sirius
Kaitlyn grinned, jumped out of bed and rifled
through her trunk for her invisibility cloak. She felt the shimmering material
graze her hands and pulled it out, swirling it around her body and tying it so
it wouldn't fall. She picked up her wand, memorized the incarnation and slipped
out of the dormitary, creeping across the common room to the stairs that led to
the "First Year Boys Room".
Kaitlyn,
dressed in her normal Hogwarts robes, picked up her wand and headed down to the
Great Hall with Anita and Luna - Emily had gone on before them. Kaitlyn noted,
as she entered the Great Hall, that Severus was not there yet. She made a
slight detour and dropped a note on Sirius' plate, winked and walked over to
her usual seat at the Slytherin table across the hall. She had tucked into her
breakfast when she heard the hall burst with laughter. She looked up and saw
Severus Snape, the scowling, greasy haired brat, who had saved her from the
Kippelweed, in shocking pink robes making his way over to James and Sirius. He
had a look on his face that could kill - not that his looks couldn't kill
anyway - and Kaitlyn stood up to watch. He drew out his wand, pointed it at
Sirius, and began to mutter an incarnation. Seeing what was happening, Kaitlyn
threw out her hands and yelled,
"Protectoni Mortificus!", creating a
green and silver shield around Sirius and James. Severus jumped back, and
looked to see who every single head in the hall was staring at. It was Kaitlyn
- and she wasn't holding a wand...Professor Dumbledore jumped up, abruptly.
"James, Sirius, Severus, Kaitlyn, my office,
NOW." No one had ever seen Dumbledore angry. Dumbledore just didn't get
angry, and here he was, yelling at four first years. Kaitlyn dropped her
hands, released the shield, and pulled the hood of her cloak up in an attempt
to hide her face from the prying eyes of the other students.
The
four walked into Dumbledore's office. He was already sitting at his desk,
rubbing his temples. Once he heard the door close he began to speak, but he did
not look up from his parchment he was reading.
"Miss Potter, please explain to me what you
did just then." Kaitlyn, shaking and on the edge of tears, muttered a
reply.
"I...used my powers." The other three
were staring at her now.
"What powers would those be, Miss
Potter?" Dumbledore looked up as she whispered.
"Elemental and magid." He stared, as did
the other three. James suddenly interrupted.
"How did you know?"
"More importantly, what element are you?"
asked Severus. Kaitlyn looked at each of them.
"I've known since I found out I was going to
Hogwarts - James, remember when the kitchen blew up? And set on fire with green
flames?" He nodded. "That was me. And as for what element I
am..." she took a deep breath. "As far as I can tell, I'm
Darkness." Dumbledore jumped out of his seat, the other three students
gaped, and Kaitlyn looked at the floor. Dumbledore walked around the desk and
over to Kaitlyn. She looked up at him, and her hood fell back, revealing that
her eyes had turned from their usual mellow grey to a bright violet.
"Miss Potter, there are only three elementals
every century. Until now we have thought that the magids had been wiped out...I
would like permission to trace your family tree, and, of course, your parents
will be contacted about this incident." Kaitlyn paniked.
"No, no, don't tell mum and dad, they'll kill
me! You don't know what having a light magic family means to them! If they find
out that their daughter's not only in Slytherin, she's also Darkness, then
they'll die of shame!" James stepped towards them.
"She's right, everything dad stands for is
light, if he or his family had anything to do with dark magic..." he
trailed off.
"Okay, Miss Potter." began Dumbledore.
"We will keep this little secret to ourselves. But the school will have to
know you are a magid. That, as you can imagine, was obvious." She nodded.
"As for you, Mister Snape, Mister Potter and Mister Black...I don't want
to see anything like this happen again." The four students went out of the
room, and as soon as the door was shut, Kaitlyn bolted down the stairs and ran
from there to the Slytherin common room. She wasn't seen in lessons for the
rest of the day.
