Disclaimer: None of this is mine but Kat.
Authors Note: alright, I apologize, but I have had the worst time updating! Check my profile, I've added three stories in one shot! I apologize again for being so late, and in return, this is two chapters in one section! Now, when you read this, you might be inclined to forgive me, but . . . Wait till the end. Heh. Review, or I'll leave it like this!
Chapter IV
His song is the culmination of every villain song ever written. It is nearly impossible to make a bad version of the song, as the music speaks for itself. When played by someone who knows exactly what she is doing, and how to do it . . .
When the last note cut off, quite a few people had to shake their heads to clear them of the music. "'Macavity'," Rois breathed, breaking the awe-filled silence that followed. "From "CATS"."
"It works better with a bigger ensemble," Kat whispered.
"So you'll help me?"
"Gladly. Oh, glory, this will be fun! If they can learn fast enough, we might just be able to surprise the rest of the school," Kat smiled as she put the silver trumpet away. A few people had chosen better-looking gold instruments that didn't sound half as good as Kat's slightly battered silver trumpet. Rois and Kat had stayed nearly half an hour past the original practice, playing and talking. The Ravenclaw girl didn't care at all that Kat was a Muggle, nor that she had spent time among the Death Eaters. All she cared about was that she seemed to be a nice person who could play considerably better than 'nice'.
Rois had left for her common room about three minutes ago, and Professor Crowe had made an impassioned plea to Kat. She knew the basics, but one of the few things she knew only the very basics of conduction and the trumpet (convenient, eh?). So Kat would be helping her teach the newest after-class activity. Fortunately, there was someone in every section who'd had at least basic training on their chosen instrument already, so they made section leaders who might also be able to help. At least, until the rest of the section caught up with them.
One person who'd surprised everyone by coming was Neville. He'd hesitatingly tried out each of the instruments, and shocked poor Kat when a sweet tone flew out of an oboe! The incredibly high, difficult instrument was a challenge for most people, but Neville didn't seem to be having any trouble with it. Besides his usual inevitable mishaps.
Kat fell asleep happy that night, unshielded and defenseless against the nightmares she had worked so hard to prevent. They were the same as always; chained to a chair and under and intense interrogation light, hot and bright. Nagini slithered around her feet, and although Kat was no parseltongue, she knew the snake wouldn't attack her without provocation. All she ever saw of her tormenter was one pale, bony hand.
After waking, as usual, in a cold sweat, Kat did not sleep until dawn.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, looking skewed at Kat. Nearly a month had passed since the impromptu first band meeting. "You look as if you didn't sleep at all last night."
Kat shook her head as she finished pulling on her robes. "Just a nightmare. Nothing more."
"Speaking of nightmares, can you wait?!" Hermione squealed. "We've been studying them for the longest time, I can't wait to see one!"
Kat replied as they made their way towards the Great Hall. "Aye. But didn't Hagrid say that none o' us would be able ta get very close? Because of their - how did he put it?"
"Aura," Hermione said absentmindedly. "They give off the feeling of being absolutely terrified, especially when forced to make an appearance in this world."
"I never got that," Kat complained. "The whole 'world' idea. Shouldn't there be a class on the subject or something?"
Letting out an annoyed breath, Hermione answered. "There are different planes of existence, many of them working in and around our own. The world the Nightmares work in is call the 'dream realm', but as no Nightmare has ever taken a human with them into the dream realms, no one knows what it's like."
Windbreath concentrated, panting. She had all but exhausted herself, to no avail. There didn't seem to be a Nightmare for miles, physically and metaphysically. Then there was a glimmer, and all of a sudden a frantic neigh signaled that the Nightmare had been brought into this world.
"How is she controlling her?" Hermione asked Hagrid. The class was some twenty meters away, Hagrid and Windbreath a bit closer. The Nightmare looked like a gigantic black mare, whose only giving feature was that she was see-though, and one could see the shadow of stars reflected in her coat.
"'er name," he replied. "If yeh cin git a Nightmares name, yeh can control 'em. Or yeh can connect ta 'em, an' they might protect yeh from other Nightmares."
Much of the class had moved farther away from the writhing Nightmare, who didn't seem to want to appear for them. Let me go, you bloody gryphon! I have troubles enough without being forced to spontaneously switch worlds! Only Kat, Windbreath and Hagrid heard the Nightmares annoyed challenge in their heads. Even though most of the class had more than doubled it's distance from the creature, Kat took a few steps closer. She felt the fear rolling off the creature, but it didn't effect her any more than it effected the Nightmare.
"Calm down - we're not going to hurt ye. We just wanted to see ye," Kat said, and the Nightmare whipped her head in the Muggle's direction. If Nightmares could be astounded, this one was. Her fire-red eyes said it all.
Your name, Muggle-who-runs-with-wizards?
Kat blinked. That ran along the lines of what Windbreath had first said to her. "Kat, Lady . . ."
Kitten, Muggle-girl, you have lived enough to earn even a Nightmare's respect, the Nightmare trotted up to Kat as Windbreath, Hagrid, and the class stared in amazement. If you vow to use it properly, I shall grant you my name. Call on me when you wish.
"I vow," Kat murmured, and reached up to touch the Nightmares' muzzle. Her hand fell through the ethereal creature.
B'cat'd'goth'et-chi, Kitten. Call me whenever you wish. Now, gryphon, if I made take my leave, there are bad dreams to be sown in this area. Many people would be very mad at me if I failed in that, and that alone is my nightmare. So, if I could go?
~Of - of course, B'cat'd'goth'et-chi. Good luck,~ Windbreath wished her on her way, and the Nightmare galloped towards the students, vanishing before any of them could even scream.
"Neville!" Kat yelled, as the violently purple potion splashed all over the table. As usual, Neville's failures were far more impressive than his successes. Letting off a noxious gas, the purple liquid was quickly going from liquid to gas, a state in which it would probably be poisonous. Kat scooted her chair away, and Neville screeched as some of the liquid hit him. He tore part of his robe away when the changing liquid began to eat through his robe, and he and Kat backed away from the table as the cloud of gas began to spread.
Snape yelled a few spells through the air, but they passed through the cloud without having any effect on it. He, too, we beginning to back away from the purple could when Seamus, trying to get away, knocked his bright blue potion into the cloud. That bit of the cloud dissipated, and the class began to throw their confondulus potions at the malignant cloud. It slowly vanished, letting the class breathe.
"Well," Snape hissed. "That is a new low for you, Longbottom. I think that I will not risk such a repetition. You don't mind failing that particular assignment. Twenty points from Gryffindor."
Neville hung his head.
When Potions was over, Kat stalked up to Neville with a furious look on her face.
"Are you going to yell at me too?" Neville asked dejectedly.
"Aye, but nae fer the reason ye seem ta think," her anger translated into her accent, making her almost incomprehensible. Her next statement didn't help things. "Why didnae ye stand up ta that git? Glory, Neville, ye donnae have ta let 'im walk all over ye! Ye seem ta be the only one who hasnae gotten the idea that Snape ain't god in those dungeons! Ye're drivin' me crazy, the way ye handle yerself when he's around!"
Neville was so surprised that he stopped on the steps and stared, unbelieving at Kat. "You're n-not going to yell at me for destroying your math b-book? Or - or practically k-killing the class? Or losing t-twenty points for Gryffindor?"
"No," Kat looked at him like he'd grown another head. "Ye made a mistake. So what? Ye shouldnae have ta pay fer that - at least, not ta the extent Snape is askin' ye ta!" she smiled. "Besides, why should I be mad at ye for gettin' rid o' me textbook? I hate geometry. But think about it. If Harry - "
"Oh, don't compare m-me to Harry Potter," Neville groaned.
"Why not? If Harry Potter, whom Snape hates, can stand up ta him, why not ye? Besides, ye won't get anything worse than detention. Wouldn't it be worth it?"
Kat walked the rest of the way up the stairs, and Neville stood halfway up the steps, watching her go. He couldn't believe she'd said that, couldn't believe that anyone cared about anything he did besides loose points for Gryffindor. And yet -
Why not?
"No, no, no, stop stop STOP!!" Kat yelled, standing in front of the congregation of month-old band students. "It's NOT THAT HARD!! Ye stop playing when I wave me hands like this!!!" As with most bands, a concept that the students seemed to be having trouble facing was that their conductor had not only control over when and how they played, but when the stopped playing. It was October 15, and the class was working on a simple version of 'This is Halloween', from "The Nightmare Before Christmas", to play for their first concert on Halloween night, right before supper. "Okay," she breathed. "Rois, play that phrase starting halfway through measure 16. On me count - "
Kat dropped her hands, and the alto sax followed her though the phrase. "Thank ye. Saxes, think you can manage that? Okay, all of ye - no, just the saxophones - play that same section Rois just played."
"Where are we?"
"Halfway through measure sixteen," Kat growled.
When she had run through the phrase with the saxes a few times, Kat threw up her hands. "Practice that, please? We have to get on with rehearsal. Everyone, start back at the beginning."
They didn't get very far before Kat waved them silent again. "Neville, Colin, sit up straight. I've heard ye both on your oboes, I know ye can hit that note. Go on, play it - the end of measure forty-seven."
Neville and Colin Creevy nervously reached, wavering around before they hit the note she wanted. "Better. Try the whole phrase, start two measures earlier." Kat listened to the small oboe section, and nodded. "Alright. Everyone, start at measure forty-five."
She clapped her hands when they finished playing for the last time. "Much better! Saxes, practice that phrase! Clarinets, if you squeak on that F one more time, heads will roll. See ye Thursday."
Neville walked up to her after class. He had a nervous expression on his face, but it was also steeled. "Y-you're almost as b-bad as Snape, you know?"
Kat blinked a few times, then smiled wryly. "I know. I understand Snape, if ye can understand that. He loves his subject, and he feels that everyone should love it, too. That's how I've always felt about music. I can't sing, I sound like a congested raven, but I can make this piece of metal - and with out a good person behind it, that's all it is - sing for me. I want others to do that, too. However, I won't do anything worse than tell someone that I can't help them until and unless they help themselves. Practice, practice, practice!" she ran a phrase that sounded like what she'd said through her trumpet before putting it away. "And by the way - ye and Colin are progressing very well, for people who'd never picked up an oboe a month ago. Glory, the only oboes I've worked with sounded as good as ye, and most o' them had been playing for years!"
"We have a hard taskmaster," Neville commented sarcastically as they made their way back up to the Gryffindor tower.
"If you think I'm hard, you should hear some of the teachers I've had! Truffle dog," she said to the Fat Lady, and the portrait hole swung open. "If I could, I'd use a few choice spells on Hagrid for giving me extra homework because the Nightmare gave me her name."
Kat ran down to her dormitory to pick up The Monster Book of Monsters, and had no trouble controlling it. She hadn't understood why no one had originally been able to get their books open. Bringing it and a roll of parchment back to the common room, she sat next to the fire using the book as a desk so she could sit in one of the armchairs.
She was halfway through her second essay on Nightmares when Neville sat down in the armchair next to hers - the one that was always vacant. "Hagrid r-really gave you extra work b-because the Nightmare t-told you her name?"
"Aye," Kat cocked her head at him. "Need some help?"
"Yes," he moaned. "I don't understand - what exactly do the stallions do, why don't they give out nightmares too?"
Kat sighed, and tried explaining what she knew. What she'd felt, when B'cat'd'goth'et-chi had given her name. Once you had mind-bonded with a Nightmare, writing an essay or three wasn't difficult. However, explaining everything to someone else was a challenge, and to Neville, well . . .
It was past midnight when Kat and Neville finally dragged themselves away from the fire, both satisfied that they had done what they'd gone there to do.
Chapter V
Kat waited nervously next to the massive gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's lair. She wished for a moment that she had her trumpet with her; at least then she'd be able to channel her nerves into something useful. However, the Muggle girl was dressed in her Hogwarts best - one does not meet an Administrator of the Ministry of Magic in regular school robes.
And one does not get interrogated by an Administrator in ones school robes, either, she thought darkly. More than halfway through October, this was the first time that the Ministry had called on her. She had given Remus and Sirius accounts of what had happened before she left, but she knew she'd missed some things, or there's be things that were important that hadn't occurred to her, because she hadn't even taken a class on military strategy, much less the strategy a wizard would use in such a war!
The gargoyle sprang aside, and a familiar face smiled at her from the other side. "Remus!" she exclaimed, her face instantly copying his wide grin. She hugged him "What're ye doin' here? I thought ye an' - Snuffles - were back at your place!"
Remus chuckled, looking down at the girl who'd practically become his daughter. She wasn't much shorter than he was. "Well, the Ministry has finally acknowledged our groups activities."
"Meanin' ye have legal sanction."
"Yes. Basically."
"And Snuffles?"
"Let's just say he still quite resembles a Grim."
Kat shook her head. "Ye know, I'd really like to get me hands on Pettigrew - filthy little rat. He chose the right animal for an Animagus. All the Death Eaters practically worship Voldemort, but Pettigrew disgusts me."
"You've seen him?" Remus asked excitedly.
"Aye. And that silver hand 'o his. Now, am I to get interrogated, or did I just get called here so someone could tell me you were visiting? If so, why am I wearing me formal robes?"
Remus rolled his eyes as the gargoyle leaped shut behind Kat. "Well, I wouldn't call it interrogation, but a Ministry Administrator is here to ask you a few questions," he answered as they climbed the spiral staircase. He shot her a wry glance, "So you didn't get decked out for nothing."
Kat returned the scathing look with one of her own. "Oh, goody."
The werewolf and the Muggle entered Dumbledore's study laughing.
"Miss Doves. Doves!" Snape snapped, and Kat bit her lip.
"Professor?"
"As I said, if you intend to learn the theory, though obviously not the practice, of Potions, staying alert in class would be a great boon!"
"Yes, Professor," Kat bit back a retort that would earn her nothing in Snape's sight. She longed to deride the arrogant teacher, and reveal more about his past as a Death Eater than he would probably like. However, Snape was one of the most powerful teachers and dangerous enemies one could make at Hogwarts. The only more dangerous enemy one could make was Dumbledore himself.
If I could focus on the class while visions of an intense interrogation by an Administrator danced in my head, I would! I just don't know what it was, but images of his really angry face keep popping up in my head at inconvenient moments. Dammit, if it weren't for Remus, I'd probably still be in there. Note to self: thank Dumbledore profusely for inviting Remus. Profusely and often, Kat rubbed her temples. All she wanted to do right now was escape into the room set aside for band and wail away on her trumpet - Maybe perfect that one line in measure -
"MISS DOVES!!" Snape's irrate voice filled the dungeon and next to her, Neville jumped. "If you're ill, see Madam Pomfrey. If not, I would enjoy it if you would answer the question I just put to you." Snape's voice was filled with a kind of cold, restrained loathing.
Kat groaned inwardly. The last thing she wanted to do was see Madam Pomfrey, but staying in Potions was going to snap what little nerves she had left. Finally, while Snape stood there tapping his foot, and the class around her become more and more anxious, she did something no Gryffindor had ever done.
She stood up, collected her books, and walked out of class.
Snape's eyes widened just a fraction, but then they moved just enough for him to glare at her retreating figure. Neville gulped; he hated to think what kind of detention this was going to earn her. And how many points she'd just lost for Gryffindor.
However, Snape surprised the entire class by staring speculatively for a few moments, then continuing on with the lesson as if the Muggle had never been part of his class. Malfoy stared, astonished, waiting for Snape to crack the whip on the Gryffindors and take away thirty or forty points. But Snape just continued teaching, and the Slytherins were left wondering if their Head of House had lost his nerve.
Kitten?
"Why do you always call me that?" Kat asked the Nightmare rhetorically. "My name is Kat."
You're not old enough to be a Cat yet; therefore you are a Kitten.
"Logic to the highest degree. I like it."
She surveyed her dreamworld - she was sleeping in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, but her mind was in her dreamworld, and she controlled what happened here. At least, she could with B'cat'd'goth'et-chi's help. B'cat'd'goth'et-chi was a huge ebony mare in his 'place', she looked and felt as real as any horse in the physical world. But her eyes shone with red fire, and her mindvoice was full of phantoms.
The Nightmare studied the young Muggle for a moment. Something is troubling you. Deeply.
Kat sighed. "Aye. I suppose. Although I didn't really call ye to become a shrink - "
A shrink? What in the dream realms is a shrink? The title doesn't make any sense - is it some Hindu creature? A smallish demon, perhaps?
Kat laughed. "No, it's a psychiatrist."
This I have heard of.
"But not the derogatory term 'shrink'? Oh, boy."
B'cat'd'goth'et-chi moved her head to look back at the Muggle on her sable back. Now, I have a question to put to you - wizards can visit each other, and Muggles, in dreams. They can actually interact with each other while they sleep - it's a tiring thing, just like being awake, but it is possible.
"And you're telling me this why?"
Well, for one, it would help you correct that mistake you made in your third essay on my kind.
"Oops."
Also. Your dreamgate is closed, which is rare in one so young - and no one holds the key.
Kat patted the Nightmare's neck. "Which means . . .?"
That no one can get into your dreams. Why not? Is there no one close enough to you to open those gates?
Sighing, Kat replied "No. Perhaps only the gryphon, Windbreath."
And gryphons, her mindvoice became derogatory, can't dream-travel the way Nightmares can, or even the simple way wizards can.
"Does it really matter?"
Only in that without a herd, you can't be happy. Humans are social creatures, just like Nightmares, horses, and - Lady of the Dream Realm help me - gryphons. You need a herd to be happy.
Kat's laugh could have put Snape's hair on end. "No one will ever accept me, B'cat'd'goth'et-chi. I can't be a Muggle anymore; me friends and family think I'm dead. I can't be a wizard, I haven't got any magic. So what's left for me, eh?"
The Nightmare trotted back towards the entrance of Kat's dreamworld, and Kat felt her physical self begin to wake up. Ask the gryphon. If there's anything gryphons are decent at, it's Empathy and Divination. Of a sorts. You might be better off finding a centaur, she chuckled, a light tinkling in Kat's mind overlaid by the impression of thunder.
"Ye need to get this thing with gryphons out o' your system, Nightmare. Wish me luck!"
All I can.
Kat's hands shook on her trumpet; she steadied them unconsciously. Professor Crowe - Ravynn - stood before the band, baton raised. She glanced around at the hodge-podge collection of witches- and wizards-in-training who'd volunteered for this band; all had instruments raised to their lips and were awaiting her signal to begin. Ravynn gave them a count of four, on the fourth beat they breathed, and on the first -
It wasn't Mozart, or even Andrew Llyod Webber, but it was very good for a group of people who'd never even thought about music until a few weeks ago. With the typical Hogwarts Halloween feast about to begin, "This is Halloween" set the mood for the evening.
When the music died, the clapping could have raised the enchanted roof off the ceiling.
"That was sooo good, I cannot believe we pulled it off!" Rois's voice jumped an octave when she squeaked "it off!", and Kat rubbed her ear.
"Ouch. I know, we've been playing for a few months and -"
"Oh, don't say anything else, or you'll jinx every other concert we ever perform!" Rois demanded.
"I can't jinx, I'm not a witch; remember?" Kat glared "menacingly" at Rois as they made their way back towards the Great Hall.
Rois made an exasperated noise and slapped the air in front of Kat's face. "I meant in the superstitious sense! Bother," she muttered as they entered. "Now you have to go sit with the Gryffindors, don't you?"
"So sit across from me! Besides, I think I'm going to sit near a certain oboe who doesn't seem to have any good friends. None willing to share a holiday with him, anyway."
"Neville?! Alright," Rois backed off at the look on Kat's face. "You'd better hope he doesn't spill anything on you. Or something equally interesting."
"Oh, come on! I sit next to him in Potions, he can't get much worse than that," Kat pointed out. Rois nodded, grimacing. "You have a point. Did anyone ever tell you -" they squeezed between the two tables, and Kat plopped down nonchalantly next to Neville while Rois sat behind her. "What he did in third year? With the boggart?"
"No-o," Kat said slowly. "What boggart? Neville, what did you do to a boggart?" she asked, turning suddenly towards him. Neville started for a moment before realizing that she was talking to him.
"I-I t-t-turned it into - "
"Professor Snape," Rois finished with a giggle. "Oh, I wish I'd seen that!"
Kat shot a glance at Rois, Neville, and Rois again. "What is so funny about a boggart-Snape?"
"We-we had t-to make the boggart less frightening," Neville answered. "And s-so Professor Lupin -"
"Remus? Remus was the DADA teacher here two years ago?!"
"Yes . . . How do you know him?" Rois inquired slowly.
Kat looked stricken, as if she'd said something she wasn't supposed to. In fact, she had. "I just - I just know him, alright? I really can't tell ye any more," Kat's voice pleaded as she finished.
Rois gave her a funny look, while Neville shut up and watched.
"It has something to do with why you're here, doesn't it? That's why you can't tell," Rois deduced.
Kat winced.
"Yes, yes, it does, and I'm sorry. Just go on," begged Kat.
Rois wasn't about to let this train jump the track quite so soon. "Kat, Lupin's a werewolf. Did he go Dark on us or something? Is he a Death Eater?"
"NO!!!" Kat denied violently. "How could ye even think that?! After ye had him for a teacher, for an entire year -" Kat shook her head vehemently. "Either ye didn't know him at all, or you're prejudiced against him 'cause he's a werewolf." Kat gave Rois a cold stare. "Which is it?"
Rois was staring, astounded, at the abrupt transformation that had taken place in Kat. She gulped, a little frightened. Only the fact that Kat couldn't really hurt her kept her from being too scared to answer. As it was, she was afraid to answer -
And afraid not to.
"Alright!" she admitted, throwing up her hands in a sign of defeat. "So I'm a little scared of werewolves. Get me off the hook here! He becomes a vicious beast once a month, I've a right to be frightened."
Kat glowered. "Maybe. But ye haven't a right to judge him by what he is, and for your knowledge, he's put his neck on the line more times than I can count for our side. So leave off your foolish prejudices. I want to hear exactly what Neville did to this Snape-boggart."
Neville started at suddenly being included in the conversation again, and Halloween night proceeded from thereon without a hitch.
"I am telling ye, Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater!!" Kat shouted. "Pettigrew is alive, working as Voldemort's right hand -" the Administrator flinched. "-and Sirius Black is as innocent as Harry Potter!"
"Then why," the Administrator growled, as he had the last half-dozen times she'd told him all that, "is his son Draco still going to Hogwarts, smack-dab in the centre of our side?"
"I don't know," Kat answered wearily.
"And why did Ministry agents find Pettigrews finger at the scene of the crime, fifteen years ago?"
"I told ye," Kat's anger at the idiot (in her mind) who was interrogating her returned tenfold. "Pettigrew cut his own finger off!! If ye aren't going to believe me, why are ye asking me any of this?! At least if I got captured by the Dark Side again, they'd BELIEVE me when I told them things!!!"
"Oh?"
Kat glared at him, and continued, her voice as cold and sharp as ice. "Look, as far as interrogations go, this is pathetic compared to what I'd get if I got captured again. Voldemort" the Administrator flinched again. "and his Death Eaters are much more imaginative. I am not speculating. I know. This is a fact. So believe me, give me a Verita Sereum, or toss me back into the Muggle world with a watchdog. Then maybe you'll get some ideas on how to properly torture your captives for information. If your 'watchdog' survives the experience. This is the truth. Ye have two choices: live with it, or die. You're welcome to throw me to the streets and see what eats me up. Maybe then you'll learn." Kat took a deep breath, and stood up. "Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater. Pettigrew is alive, and committed the crime Sirius Black was sentenced for. Sirius Black is innocent. Now, if ye chose not to believe that, woe betide the wizard who comes across Wormtail in his human form. Wands are good for magic - they don't help if ye have a snapped neck."
Kathryn walked out, only allowing her anger into her physical demeanor when she'd left the room. She stormed past Dumbledore and out of his office, down the spiral stairs, and out the gargoyle. She managed to keep up her impression of contained rage until she reached a door she'd never seen before, which lead into a classroom so thick with dust it appeared not to have been used since Riddle's time.
Then she broke down in tears.
She didn't bawl, or cry out, or sob noisily in anguish, no, Kat was a silent crier. Her shoulders shook with despair and weariness as she sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees and curling up in a fetal position. She moaned, when she got enough air back into her lungs to moan, moaned helpless half-sentences that reflected her shattered mental state.
"I can't . . . they won't . . . I'll . . . no, God no . . . I can't . . . they won't believe me . . . what'm I . . . I can't . . ."
She buried her head, tears pouring down her cheeks and getting in her hair. When she couldn't think enough to moan coherently, she wailed.