Chapter 1

It was a dark, dead summer night. The humidity was high and no wind blew. The stillness of the air could carry the smallest sound forever. In fact, it seemed as if Kate could still hear her parents screaming. Those dreadful few minutes ago when they came, came for no reason and killed them all. They were about to run, all their relations were killed and they knew something was happening. They didn't make it. Kate had done what they had told her, she had run to the forest trying to get away but her parent's screams of rage and terror had stopped her. Now there was nothing but silence, bone crushing silence. It seemed even the crickets knew their song could have no use now. Kate stood there, half turned around towards her house. She wanted to run back but knew she shouldn't, it would only make things worse, and what if they killed her as well? Who were they? Why were they here? Why did they have to ruin her life?

Kate collapsed on the ground and began to cry. She didn't care if she was heard, if she was found, suddenly she didn't care what happened to her. A five year old shouldn't have to handle this, this was too much, she just wanted her life back, her parents, her happiness. She started at a touch on her shoulder. She looked up to see a man she didn't know, he was an older man in ragged clothes and a stern face. She might have been more frightened of him if those deep amber eyes didn't hold so much sympathy and sorrow. It might have been a smarter idea to have backed away from him and run, but she hurt too much, her sorrow was overwhelming and his eyes were enough to set her off. She fell into his arms and cried again. He comforted her, wrapping his arms around her and muttering soft "shh's" into her hair.

When she had finally calmed down some he gently pushed her back to arms length and looked at her with his soft, comforting eyes. He spoke in a voice that had a little rasp to it, as if he hadn't used it in a while, but still it held so much sympathy in it that one had to trust it. "I want you to remember this night. Never forget it, and never forget what I say to you now." His voice took on more urgency and she was immediately captivated by that voice. "Mutants are hunted down by both sides, neither the Ministry nor the Dark Lord has anything to offer to mutants. A mutant mustn't hide their power but develop it so that they can understand and control it. You must remember most though, a mutant can trust no one, not even a fellow mutant. Remember this, remember all I said." A pleading look came to his eyes, "Live for me and learn, and never forget what I said tonight. You've done no wrong."

The next thing she knew she was transported to a muggle orphanage and put there under a different name. Her first name was changed from Katelin to Kathrin and everyone in the orphanage called her Kat. She supposed it could be worse, at least she had somewhat of her old name. Kat knew the dangers of letting muggle people know about her being a witch, so she kept quiet. She also knew when she was being saved, so she never tried to contact the wizarding world. When her letter from Hogwarts found her, she was ecstatic, but played the dumbfounded muggle the entire time. She acted very well, for ever since that night she had been more mature for her age. She never quite knew if that was good or bad.



Kat's eyes shot open and she took a quick deep breath of fresh morning air into her lungs. After a few slower breaths of air she was able to calm herself enough relax some from her unease. The words of her dream came back to haunt her mind once again. ~Never forget what I say to you.~ How could she? She had never forgotten that night, couldn't if she wanted to, and had a replay of what happened constantly in her dreams. Three times a week was more than enough to have to remember. Sometimes she'd have them more sometimes less, though the latter was very rare indeed. For the past two weeks though her dreams every night were a loud and vivid memory of that night to every detail. Could she get no peace?

Obviously not, because the more vivid her dreams were, the more she felt as if she was actually there. On these nights she would wake in a sweat and be gasping for breath and have tears running down her cheeks. This night was no different. Kat was always up before the others. She needed no alarm clock, her dreams did a fine job of that. Getting up, Kat went to take a quick shower, get dressed, and go down to the common room before the break of dawn.

The Gryffindor common room is usually a very loud and crowded place. But when one is up before everyone else is, it's quite peaceful. Kat loved the silence, she loved being able to go and sit by the fire in the mornings and reflect on anything on her mind. This also gave ample time to regain her composure after nights of dreaming such as last night. Now that she thought about it, that dream was the most vivid she'd had in a while. It was as if she could feel the summer heat and smell the blooming flowers and hears crunch of her own foot steps with precision.

Kat shook her head to clear it. This was her time to pull herself together, not reminisce. She looked around the room just to give her eyes something to do. At the far side of the room, on a table in a corner was a package of chocolate hidden under some trash. If there was one thing in the world Kat liked most, it was chocolate. It wasn't hers, she shouldn't try to get it, but she could use a piece of chocolate right now. Kat stared at the piece longingly, her conscience the only thing keeping her rooted to her seat. The wads of paper that were covering the chocolate shuffled some and startled Kat. She took a breath to calm herself, it was probably just Trevor. Neville was constantly loosing him, of coarse, if she were Neville's pet of and kind she'd want to run away too. Kat frowned, if Trevor was over there he would ruin the perfectly good chocolate because he was trying to eat something he shouldn't. The papers rustled again, she should save that piece, it was only right that if that chocolate was eaten, to be eaten by someone who'd appreciate it. Some papers began to fall off into the floor, the stupid toad, he was making a mess. Trevor didn't need to eat that, she wanted the chocolate!

Right when she thought that the package of chocolate lifted into the air and shot straight towards her. Kat gasped and it stopped right in front of her face before it fell into her lap. She looked down at the perfectly clean and precise wrapping of the chocolate. It didn't look as if anything had been done to it. She looked back over at the table. The trash was thrown about to give a clear view that nothing was over there. What just happened?

Kat began to recount what just happened. Maybe someone else did it, as a joke. No, nobody was up, and even the twins like to sleep this early in the morning. Besides that, if she thought about it, the more she ended up wanting to chocolate, the more the papers rustled. Could she have… Maybe it was possible that… Did she just manage wandless magic over a package of chocolate? She looked down at the package in her lap. She could always test that theory out.

Looking back over at the table she spotted at a paper wad on the table. She held up her hand and called out "~Accio!~". Nothing happened. Maybe it was a joke, just a prank. No, she was just doing this wrong. She hadn't called out a spell before. She glared at the paper wad, mentally telling it to come to her. After a while the paper wad started shivering. ~Come on… Come on…~It rolled a little but wasn't going anywhere much. ~Come here!~ Suddenly the paper wad shot into the air and took the same route as the chocolate. It stopped in front of her face and dropped into her lap on top of the chocolate.

Wandless magic and spelless magic, she knew they were possible, but most witches and wizards never are able to do that after using a wand. Also, they aren't able to do it as well as she just did. A haunting thought came started drifting back to her mind but she pushed it back down. She looked at her watch and saw that the Great Hall should be serving breakfast by now. Pocketing the chocolate, Kat left the common room in hopes of bacon and choose to ignore the paper wad from her lap rolling across the floor.



Kat chose to tell no one of what happened that morning. A thousand theories were running through her mind as to why that happened. The one she liked the most was that she didn't know she loved chocolate so much. Lame, but it was better then the one thought nagging at the back of her mind, she refused to believe it, or even think about it. So, she tried not to think about it and focus on her classes.

All of her classes were uneventful and normal until she got to potions. This was when her intense focus of class ended up being a bad thing. She usually tried not to think about the nasty comments Snape threw at people, but today she heard every word. Today, he was in a particularly bad mood as well. Neville was his victim as usual. The poor kid was too afraid to do any kind of potion without having a breakdown over it. Snape was being incredibly unfair and Kat began to fume and try her best to keep her mouth shut. By the looks of it, Harry Potter was doing the same.

Kat pushed a stray lock of her jet-black hair behind her ear and tried to get back to concentrating of her potion. Snape began prowling around again, scolding people for no reason and still picking on poor Neville. He chose another victim, it was all so unfair. Kat couldn't help but look up and shoot icy glares at him with her bright blue eyes. He didn't notice much, far to interested in scolding people for no reason. Why? Why would he be doing this? He turned his back to her and started walking down the isles, still spiting poison at people. Kat glared at him, the only thought in her mind was wondering why he always did this.

"These foolish students." Snape said. It sounded like he was talking to himself, but it was rather loud. "They cower at a look I give them, how pathetic. I'd like to see them try to face the Dark Lord tonight, they'd end up dieing from fear."

Kat was stunned. He said that out loud. She heard him say it. Why would he just do that? He just gave away everything! Kat looked around but everyone seemed to be still fuming and working on their potions. What was going on? How could everyone stay so calm?

Snape spun around to look at her. "Ah, another lost dunderhead. If she could only put in more effort she'd make a decent potion." He said. Except, he didn't say. He never even opened his mouth! Everyone else acted as if nothing happened.

"Jennings, why aren't you working on your potion? Or are you as lost as Longbottom?" this time his mouth moved when he spoke and she felt the reverberation of his growl in her ears. That's when she realized that she hadn't been hearing him speak - she'd been hearing his thoughts.

Oh, no. What was happening to her? This day was getting stranger by the minute. Why could she hear his thoughts and no one else's? Maybe it was just him. Or maybe it was because she wanted to hear his thoughts. Her mind was in a whirl, she couldn't think, she didn't know what was going on or happening to her. Suddenly there were more than just her thoughts in her head. She could hear other people's thoughts, not just Snape's, but the entire class. They were all talking - no, thinking at once inside he mind. She could hear them, no one else but her, all of their voices ringing in her ears only. She couldn't handle this.

Kat covered her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise. It didn't help, only made the thoughts louder, more pronounce in her ears. They were driving her insane, she couldn't handle this. She had to make them stop, had to. Kat resorted to screaming out, calling to everyone to make them shut up, something to make them stop. The thoughts were practically screaming in her head now. Tears began to leak out of her eyes and her world spun around along with the chaos she heard. Soon her senses began to leave her and her world went black. The sound also diminished with it, leaving Kat to gratefully fall into the quiet abyss.



Kat awoke a while later in the hospital wing. She tried to gather her thoughts. Her mind was scattered and sluggish and she was having trouble forming a thought. A question soon formed its way into her tired mind. What just happened? Kat began to recount her day. The chocolate, that was a big thing, she never did figure that out, did she? Breakfast and classes seemed all the same as usual, she tried to remember details but her mind was worn out. Then came potions, yes something happened in potions.

It all came back to her like a slap in the face. She remembered everything as her mind was suddenly jarred awake. She remembered hearing Snape when no one else did, how he talked about You-Know-Who, and how he hadn't said a thing. She remembered realizing that she had read his mind and how suddenly everyone's thoughts were in her head. She remembered how much it hurt and how loud it was and how it only got worse. Then… she must have passed out afterwards and was carried here.

This lead to another problem, what was she going to tell Madam Pomfrey, or her classmates, or even Snape if he asked. She couldn't just tell them all that she could read minds. As far as she knew, no one in history could ever read minds. She wanted to ask Professor Binns, but that would be too much of a risk. That went back to the problem at hand. Should she tell someone? Maybe she should go to Dumbledore with this problem. Then again, he might just take it straight to the Ministry. That would be very bad.

Kat couldn't really put a reason to it, but ever since she was a child she had never liked the Ministry. She just didn't feel like she could trust them. Those haunting words came to her mind again. ~You can trust no one.~ No, that was wrong. "A mutant can trust no one." That's what he said. She had just referred to herself as a mutant. She couldn't be… But, what if she was? It would make sense why he would tell her all that that night. It might also explain the chocolate and the Snape incidences. What does it mean if she's a mutant?

No, she knew exactly what that meant. That meant she would have to deal with it and learn to use her powers and control them. That she couldn't just hide them, control was hiding, but in a more effective way. Most of all, she could tell no one. This still lead back to the old problem: What was she going to tell everybody?

A door opened and startled Kat out of her thoughts. She glanced up to see a very stern faced Snape walking through the infirmary. Kat sank back down into the bed and feigned sleep so that she wouldn't have to talk to anyone, especially him. Soon enough, Madam Pomfrey came in to meet Snape in the middle of the room. Kat was careful to keep her breathing steady, she didn't want to be found awake, she didn't want them to talk to her. She didn't think she could handle the questions right now more than she could answer them, especially to Snape.

"I've checked her over but I can't find anything wrong with her. What happened in the classroom?" said a concerned Madam Pomfrey.

To Kat's embarrassment, she heard the story of what happened told in detail, it was far worse than Kat thought to begin with. She was surprised though that Snape had remembered so much of what happened, but she supposed Madam Pomfrey would want all the information she could get to find out what happened. Kat listened as the two formed many different thoughts on what happened. A few good and more reasonable discussions came into theory and Kat decided to choose one of those to tell as a real story.

Pomfrey came over to Kat to check on her again. She laid a hand on Kat's head to check for her temperature, just in case. Kat chose to pretend to wake up then, already decided on her cover story. Pomfrey began asking her questions, but more on her health and if anything hurt or if she had a headache. More to the matter at hand instead of what happened. Kat had to admit she liked the fact that Pomfrey doesn't overwhelm students with questions, it sure made her feel more secure. Of coarse, she wasn't the only person in the room.

"Would you mind telling us what happened Miss Jennings?" said Snape's smooth voice. It wasn't mean or scolding, more like unemotional. She guessed that caring wasn't one of the things taught to Death Eaters. Kat scolded herself for that thought. If she thought like that constantly then she might let it slip, and she couldn't let anyone, especially Snape, know what happened in the classroom today.

Pomfrey shot a glare at Snape but Kat felt like she just needed to get this over with as soon as possible. "I had a nightmare last night and when I woke up I couldn't get back to sleep. I was really tired during the day and the last thing I can remember is drifting off in to sleep in class." It wasn't hard to look scared that Snape might be mad at her for that. But at the moment, anything seemed better than the truth.

Pomfrey though, seemed to be satisfied with the statement and gave her some anti-dreaming sleeping potion. Snape seemed mildly irritated but decided not to comment at the moment, most likely because Pomfrey would approve if he did. As far as they were concerned, she had fell asleep during class and sleepwalked her nightmare. Pomfrey said that Kat could either stay here or go back to her room, whichever setting felt comfortable. She also insisted that Kat come back for more of the potion if she needed it.

Soon Kat was back up in her room sitting on the edge of her bed trying to collect her thoughts. It was early in the evening but Kat still felt exhausted. She wanted to sleep but her mind was swimming. She looked at the empty beds around her. All her friends knew she had nightmares, they were worried about her when she first came here. They tried to wake her up every time it got really bad. But that dreams never stopped and eventually they started sleeping through the noise. Sometimes they felt bad about that, so Kat insisted it wasn't that bad of a dream and she must not have made too much noise.

They were caring friends, but they wouldn't believe the nightmare story she told Pomfrey, they knew better. Or maybe they would. They kept saying if she didn't get enough sleep she would fall asleep in class one day. She'd just tell them that she had woken up extra early this morning and then she dozed off in Snape's class. None of them would want to recount what happened if she said she couldn't remember everything. But she was going to have to play dumb with the insults she knew were going to be thrown by the Slytherins. She hated having to let them win.

Kat looked back over at the potion on her nightstand. Maybe she could use a night with no dreams to disturb her, after today a good night sleep was what she needed. So Kat drank the potion and felt sleep come quickly with how tired she already was adding to the effects. For the first time in many weeks Kat slept through the night peacefully and with no dreams.



The next day was relatively uneventful. Kat was careful to keep her thoughts under control and just tried to concentrate on her work. Her story seemed to be believed by everybody but Snape, but he didn't mention it to her. All of her other teachers seemed to take sympathy on her and tried not to say anything too scolding to her. Possibly because they thought her dreams had to do with some horrible life of hers, which could be both right and wrong really. The Slytherins weren't as bad as her thought they would be, they seemed to have other things on their minds, or at least better subjects to torture. By the time lunch rolled around, Kat was in a better mood than she thought she would be.

"Did you get most of what was going on in Transfiguration today?" Sara asked. Sara was one of Kat's best friends. Still, Kat had to admit, the girl was the basis of the dumb blonde jokes. "I heard Ron saying he was having trouble keeping up too." She continued.

Everyone around her rolled their eyes and Sara chose not to notice. She had had a crush on Ron since the beginning of this year. Though she would never admit it, it was quite obvious.

"I'll let you copy my notes later." Kat said. She had taken pretty good notes today since was trying to keep her mind preoccupied by paying REALLY close attention to the teacher.

"Thanks Kat!" Sara said with a big smile. Kat smiled back, that was the thing about Sara, her smiles were contagious. Sara went back to talking a mile a minute. Really all a person had to do was nod to keep up a conversation her.

Kat turned back to her lunch and concentrated on eating trying to ignore the little voice in the back her of head nagging at her to stop avoiding what was happening to her. Suddenly the Great Hall got a lot louder than usual, to the point it was giving Kat a headache. She heard Christy, another one of her friends that was usually very quiet, trying to talk over Sara. Kat looked over at Christy, her mouth wasn't moving but Kat could still hear her talking. It was happening again. Kat's stomach lurched, with how many people were in the Great Hall, she didn't know how much she could handle, and the voices around her were only getting louder. It was all becoming a jumble now. She couldn't make out individual voices anymore and the world began spin.

She tried to keep calm; she couldn't have another incident like the one in Snape's room. The thoughts were beginning to overwhelm her though, it was like a crushing weight on her mind. Maybe she could concentrate them away, but that wasn't happening anytime soon. She tried deciphering the voices, maybe if she could understand what was being said she could handle it. There were far too many for her to understand anything though. Every time she thought she recognized a voice another would blend with it and she was completely lost again.

Then she heard that voice, one she'd heard before, and not just vocally. It was Snape. It must have been because she had read his mind before and was familiar with it. Or maybe because his voice was always associated with that power to call everyone to attention. For whatever reason it was, she was able to concentrate on his voice/thoughts and ignore the rest as they swam through her mind. Kat tried to stay calm and keep her breathing level until the other voices subsided. Slowly she was regaining control of her own mind. In the meantime, she heard Snape's thoughts.

For a man who doesn't talk much and keeps to himself, one would suppose he would have a lot of thoughts on his mind. This was true, but it was odd how he dealt with them. Snape was constantly analyzing things. He would run over things in his mind until the perfect formula presented itself. He would pick out suspicious people and watch them for every movement, then try to decipher what they meant. He would form perfect plans for what he wants to do during his days and nights while not teaching. Occasionally a worried thought would worm its way into his mind, only to be pushed away again. Kat ended up finding all about Snape being a spy and how hard it was for him. This was almost too much. Snape having to work with Voldemort? Kat shivered.

That simple movement caught Snape's roaming eye and shifted his thoughts to her. He seemed to know when someone was lying, having been around it all his life. He knew Kat had made up that story and knew something more was going on than just bad dreams and dozing in class. Why would she tell something that would obviously get her in trouble? It was obvious a lie was worth facing more than the truth. His thoughts rolled through her mind as she realized just how right he was about that statement. She was running from her problems because she was too afraid to face them. The little voice in the back of her mind mentally smacked her on the back of the head, what it had been ranting about all the time was what she finally admitted to herself.

Just then she realized she could once again hear her own thoughts and that the voices she heard were those that were actually talking and reverberating in her ears. She quickly cut off the link to Snape's mind and scolded herself for feeling somewhat disappointed about it. After all, she really didn't need the read his thoughts, most of them were disturbing anyways. Kat still heard Sara chattering away and forced herself back to the conversation at hand. Christy, who hardly missed anything, asked Kat if anything was wrong. Kat didn't know exactly what she had done but Christy seemed very concerned. Kat just shrugged it off and blamed it on a headache. This sent Sara off into some full fledged rambling that jumped from topic to topic as fast as she could think them. Kat tried her best to pay attention, but it was extremely hard since her mind kept wanting to wander. What Kat needed was time to think, and this definitely wasn't the place for it.



Privacy is what she needs, now where to get it? The common room was always crowded, her room wasn't safe considering she shared it with other roommates, by a close call she found out that Mourning Myrtle's bathroom was being occupied by Hermione (for some reason), and an empty classroom would be easily walked in on. There was no place to go! Then it hit her. The Forbidden Forest. Not the most pleasant of ideas but it was sure to be safe and private, for more than one reason. No one much wanted to visit the forest before, especially at night because of all the dangers. With all that was going on now it was off limits to everyone and those caught would suffer some mighty consequences. So, the forest would be completely safe, that is, if she didn't get caught.

Sneaking out of the common room was the easy part; sneaking out of the castle was more complicated. Miss Norris was on the prowl along with a very grumpy Filch, this lead to many close calls. Kat managed to slip by all the teachers and perfects still out after hours without incident. Making it to the hallway in front of the Great Hall meant she was almost home free. Then she bumped into Peeves.

He was flying around cackling near the ceiling as Kat rounded the corner. She jumped back quickly and slowly peeked around the wall again, hoping he hadn't seen her. Luckily, he hadn't. In fact he was far to busy creating mischief to notice her. He was pouring bucket after bucket of some kind of gunk onto the floor in front of the Great Hall. Upon impact to the tile it blended in to the color and looked as if nothing was ever there. Kat made a mental note to not be the first one to breakfast in the morning. Keeping to the edges of the hallway she managed to get past Peeves fairly easy as he went to collect more gunk.

When she reached the door, she looked behind her one last time to make sure no one was there and then quietly slipped out. The cool night air blew across her face and tousled her silky hair. Kat looked up to see brightly glowing stars in the almost clear black velvet sky. It was really a very nice night with a warm breeze, but that didn't stop the hairs on the back of Kats neck from rising. She needed to be able to get to the woods without being seen from the castle. This meant moving with the shadows and staying as far away from Hagrid's hut as possible. She knew exactly what part of the woods she wanted to go to since she pre planed the area. So, keeping to the edge of the castle wall as long as possible she worked her way around until she was in view of her destination.

Taking advantage of a small cloud that blocked the half moon's light, she raced through the shadows across the grounds. Her nerves were wrung tight and she kept sending back glances at the school and jumped at the slightest sound, even if that sound was her own self snapping a twig. What would she do if she got caught wandering around after hours, heading for the Forbidden Forest? She didn't know what kind of story she'd make up but she had a feeling it wouldn't be just Snape that didn't believe it. The closer she got to the forest the more she thought of how many house points could be taken off. Another step and she imagined how many detentions she could get. Another and she pictured herself cleaning trophies without magic for the rest of her life. That got her having second thoughts. Maybe she shouldn't be doing this; maybe she shouldn't be going to the forest. It is forbidden after all and all the warnings that had been told to them weren't said for no reason. Then where else could she go? Nowhere.

That thought brought her to the edge of the woods, no turning back now. Taking a deep breath she pushed away the thought of being expelled and stepped into the woods. No turning back now.