Kate woke up with a start. Orion, unhappy at being jostled, pawed at her.
She paid him no mind. Kate got out of bed, and paced about in the dark
room. Her pajamas were thinand the stone floor was cold, so she got out her
robe and slippers. Then she began to pace again. The images she had seen
were disturbing. They didn't really seem connected, yet, in another sense,
they were. She quietly opened the doors of the dormitory and headed to the
common room, the cat following her.
She sat on the window-seat, gazing out at the stars, trying to figure out why she had seen what she had. The part with her aunt and the young men was straightforward enough, but the part with herself and Dumbledore puzzled her more than the rest of them combined. The incident had taken place here at Hogwarts, she was certain. But that would have meant that this was where she had been born. She shook her head. Dumbledore would know. He'd know what those dreams meant. But they could wait till tomorrow. She opened the window, and let the early half-summer, half-autumn breeze in. It played with her hair and the song of it gently rocked her to a peaceful sleep. Orion curled up on her lap and they both slept soundly till they were found the next morning by Harry, who had gotten up early for some reason or another.
"Kate! What are you doing in here? Why aren't you in the girls' dormitory?"
"Hmm? Oh, I must have drifted off. What time is it?"
"Almost six."
"Six? Ugh. I'm going back to bed till I have to get up. It's amazing what two hours sleep will do for a person. G'night Harry."
"It's morning."
"I hate mornings," she said cheerfully, and went off humming Kathleen Mavourneen.
"Hey Kate, where did you learn that song?"
"My aunt taught it to me. It's my favorite song."
"Could you sing it?"
"Sure." She sang the song, with a new sweetness to her voice and an odd yearning. Except in her dream, it was the first time she had ever sang it away from the battlefield. This time there were no ghostly soldiers drifting from all parts of the field to listen; Plum Run was not gurgling accompaniment in the distance. When she had finished, Harry looked at her with bright green eyes.
"I get memories of when my parents died in flashes. I…I know that song. Someone sang it to me that night, after… well after. I think it was a ghost. A girl in a white dress. She looked kind of like you, and had that necklace."
"I was born that night, on Samhain. I've always had this pendant, it's in every one of my baby pictures, even from when I was only a few days old." She held up the silver necklace with Celtic circle. It shone bright, even in the half-darkness which precedes dawn. As she held it up, the sun's first light shone over the horizon, and the room seemed on fire in the reflection of the piece of jewelry. The two young people suddenly had enormous shadows, reaching out towards the dawn.
"Whoa, how'd you do that?"
"I didn't. Well, not on purpose. I've never had it out at daybreak before. I'm a bit of a night owl."
"That's odd, isn't it? Were you really born on that Halloween?"
"Just as the clock turned to midnight, that's what I was told."
"When Voldemort killed my parents and I got this," he pulled his hair away from his forehead, revealing a scar shaped like a bolt of lighting. Kate looked at it for a moment.
"That's where the spell bounced off you." It was not a question. He nodded, and she turned, catching the now fully risen sun's rays on her face.
"I had the oddest dreams last night. They were of places, till now, I had never been to, people I had never seen. They made me very uneasy. All jumbled up, like the remote to a TV set had gone haywire. Going from watching one to the next, usually just when things were getting interesting. Almost at the very end, though, I wasn't really watching. It seemed more like I was there. I saw a murder, even though I tried to stop it. There was a flash of green light and a howl of fury. Stumbling through the ruins of a destroyed house, I found a baby still alive, beside a dead mother. I picked the little one up, and held him for the longest time. Then I sang. The first one I sang was the one you had me sing just now. I had dreamed of singing it and so it was there in my head. Did it really happen? Or maybe you just heard the echoes of my dreams." She was wandering in voice, she sounded almost far away.
"I know the song. I know someone sang it to me that night. I would play that voice singing that song over and over in my head when I was lonely. And I was lonely a lot. It was like your voice, only it couldn't have been, cause you had only just been born."
"I…I think we should go back to bed. We've only an hour left for sleep now," Kate ran back to the girls' dormitory, Orion bouncing indignantly over her shoulder. Harry was left in the common room, with new questions, about Kate, about the night his parents died. He didn't get back to sleep that morning. But then, neither did Kate. She lay in her bed awake, Orion curled up on her stomach, kneading the blanket lightly with his claws.
That morning, classes began. Most everything was review for Kate. In Potions class, she met up with the a person from her dream. Professor Snape was the same person as the young man in the dungeon. The greasy-haired boy who had trouble smiling had become a greasy-haired man with a perpetual sneer. As he went over roll, he paused over her name.
"Katherine Rhys?" She raised her hand, and he nodded. But as he turned her sharp ears caught a snippet of a comment, "The little lark has come to roost." She puzzled over that the whole lesson.
Professor Snape did not address her directly the entire class period, though whenever she happened to look up from her notes or cauldron, she found him staring at her intently. However, anything Harry, Ron, or Hermione did was almost universally disapproved of. Harry especially seemed to bear the brunt of it. Kate thought that if Snape would just say something to her, nasty or otherwise, she would feel much better. The almost constant, yet silent observation unnerved her. When class was over, he called her name and asked her to stay behind for a moment.
"Miss Rhys?" he motioned her over to his desk.
"Please call me Kate. My aunt has always been Miss Rhys."
Snape continued as if she hadn't interrupted, "Your aunt is safely to London and afterwards home?"
"Yes, Professor. She was supposed to have stayed the week but the Council could not spare her," she did not bother to hide her scorn of the Council of Sorcery.
"I see. I would have liked to speak to her. I haven't seen her since your mother's funeral…" at the look on Kate's face, he broke off abruptly, " Miss Rhys, I understand you have a medical condition."
Kate was confused for a moment, but when he referred to her 'allergy,' she was back on solid ground, "Oh, my… 'allergy'. I have to take a serum once every two weeks. I usually make up about two month's worth at a time, the stuff keeps for about that long without losing potency. The serum allows me the ability to handle the cold iron."
"You are to take this serum in my class, so that I may be sure the dosage is correct. Madam Pomfrey doesn't know a great deal about the Fey."
Kate nodded, a bit thunderstruck by his manner. He had been so outright mean to her friends, and now he was being, well, nice to her. "I take it by injection, which keeps me from needing it every day, as would be the case if I had to take it internally, sir."
"I know, you may go now, Katherine."
"Oh, just call me Kate!" She laughed, and gathered her books and fled the dungeon room. Harry, Ron and Hermione were waiting outside for her.
"What was that all about?" Ron said.
"I'll tell you later, he was right behind me. Let's go," she said tersely.
Snape was indeed right behind them, "Potter, what are you doing, loitering about in the hall? Ten points from Gryffindor!"
Kate whirled about and gave Snape a stare that would have done the famous Morgana Le Fey proud – one delicate brow arched and blue eyes suddenly blazing with gold, hands on her hips, "I had asked them to wait for me," then she gave him a dazzling smile, " I don't know where anything is."
Snape gave a short sound, almost a laugh. "You look like your aunt when you get angry. Go on, before I take away more points."
The four fled the corridor. It was lunchtime afterwards. As they sat at the Gryffindor table Kate breathed a sigh of relief.
"What an odd man! First he calls me something which I didn't quite catch, then he stares after me during class. And then when he had me stay after, he said that he knew my aunt, and that apparently he had been to my mother's funeral."
"Wouldn't you remember him, then?"
"I can't remember a thing about that day, no matter how hard I try. I've given up trying to understand about that. But let me finish. Professor Snape then tells me that I have to take my cold iron serum after his class so that I don't hurt myself. As if I hadn't been doing this for years! And that scene in the corridor! He seemed outright amused that I got my back up. Like he was testing me or something, and I delivered."
"Who cares? He's a nutcase, everybody hates him. Only the Slytherins pretend not to. The rest of us don't even bother," said Ron.
Hermione said, "We were lucky to get away with as much as we did."
"He had a funny look on his face when he said you looked like your aunt," Harry said.
"That's right! She said that Snape liked her when they were at Hogwarts at the same time. I wonder who the other person she seemed fond of was?"Hermione exclaimed.
"Hope it wasn't anyone like Snape," Kate muttered, then said, a bit louder, " I have a nasty habit of eavesdropping, among other things, and I remember Mom telling Gwen that she was out of her mind, that there was no way they would let HIM (capital letters, mind you) out of Azkaban, even under the custody of the Lady of the Green," Kate twisted her pendant about, letting the light catch it.
"Azkaban? Her other beau was a Death-Eater?"
"I dunno. When I was really little, Aunt Gwen seemed sad about something. After Daddy died, Mom and I moved to Cannon Hill to be with Gwen, because she said it was so very lonely there. Once, after Mom died, she told me that she could hear a voice on the wind, as though the sighs of someone she loved were being carried from across the sea. I thought that she meant my mother, but, why would it be across the sea, then?"
"Well, like as not the fellow is dead if he were in Azkaban what? Fifteen or so years ago? The only person to ever really escape Azkaban, well, without outside help, was Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. Say, Saturday, we ought to head into Hogsmeade. D'you think that we shall bring Kate to visit Snuffles. I'm sure he'd like her," said Ron.
"Sirius? I've heard that name before. Does he have… very pale blue eyes? Kate asked suddenly, remembering her dream.
"I'll tell you later; when there's no one about," Harry hissed at her, then said in a louder voice, "I'll send Hedwig to see if it's all right."
That evening, Harry found Kate reading in the Gryffindor common room. "Come on," he said. He took out his invisibility cloak and threw it over himself and Kate. He consulted a map of Hogwarts and the led her to a small, out of the way room. He shut and locked the door.
"Just in case Filch comes prowling about. Lumos," he said, lighting his wand.
"Why all this secrecy, Harry?"
"Its about Sirius Black. Do you know the story?"
"No, I've never heard it. Tell me."
"He was my dad's greatest friend. Best man at my parents wedding, my godfather. When Voldemort was after my parents, he was to be their Secret Keeper. But, at the last minute, he backed out and had them make a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew do it. No one knew that though. So when Pettigrew betrayed my mum and dad to Voldemort, everyone thought that it was Sirius. Pettigrew was an Animagus, and he faked his own death, to make Sirius look more guilty. Sirius was captured and spent the next twelve years to Azkaban. When he escaped two years back, he came here, to Hogwarts because he had figured out that Pettigrew was alive, and had been living in the form of a rat for twelve years. Everyone thought that Sirius Black was after me, though. Finally everything was figured out. Sirius was innocent, although only a few people know it. He escaped the dementors, with my help, and Hermione's. Pettigrew turned back into a rat and returned to Voldemort. Sirius is still wanted by the Ministry of Magic. And Voldemort has returned, thanks to Wormtail… I mean Pettigrew."
"Wormtail? Of… Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs?" Kate asked.
"How did you know those nicknames?" Harry was surprised.
Kate decided not to say anything more about her dream, so she just said, "My aunt. I'd say she was in Gryffindor at the same time. She gave me a picture, of her with a bunch of other kids," Kate pulled a small booklet of photos from a pocket. There were only a few wizard pictures in it. Harry immediately recognized the one she was talking about. Kate pointed out her aunt to him. "There's Aunt Gwen. She's the one beside the boy with dark hair and light blue eyes. She told me that she had given him the rabbit ears, and made the bubbles come out of them."
"Sirius."
"There's Professor Lupin; and a short little fellow with a pointy nose, is the pretty girl with the red hair your mom?"
"Yeah. And the fellow beside her is my dad. How did you know the nicknames?"
" I asked Gwen about who they were, and all she would say was, ' School fellows of mine. They're all dead now, except for Moony.' And she pointed Lupin out to me."
"I think I have a copy of that photo, and some others with her! Your aunt is the pretty girl with blonde hair and the yellow eyes." Harry said, excited now. Kate nodded.
"Moony and Wormtail are accounted for. Were they all Animagi, to have such nicknames?"
"Yeah. Professor Lupin is a werewolf, so he's Moony. Pettigrew was a rat – Wormtail. My dad was a stag, so he was Prongs. And Sirius is Padfoot."
"He's a black dog."
"How'd you know?"
"His name. Sirius is the dog star."
"Weird! I never thought of that. Hey that's real clever."
"Ok, then, who is Snuffles?" Kate asked.
Harry leaned in close and whispered into her ear, "Snuffles is our code name for Sirius when we're talking around other people. We can't call him by bane because he's a wanted man, and we can't call him Padfoot because certain people know that nickname as well."
"You mean Professor Snape," Kate said.
"Yeah," Harry answered.
"So we're going to see Sirius on Saturday?"
"We are. We need to bring him food, too, though. He'll go out as the dog and eat rats when he gets hungry if we don't."
"That's terrible. Well we can make certain that doesn't happen. I have some non-perishables in the dormitory, Gwen knows I like to be prepared for just about anything. We can pack that and some soda and coffee up for him. And get some hot food from the kitchens. It gets cool up here in the Highlands sooner than it does in Pennsylvania."
"Good idea. He'll really appreciate that. He's a great guy, Kate, you'll like him. I know it."
On their visit to Hogsmeade, Kate found some fascinating places. Having lived within fifty miles Hershey, Kate fell in love with Honeydukes. Zonkos was enough to saitsfy her onery side. At Madam Rosmerta's they had butterbeer. When the others led her up a rather dark pathway, she followed, watchful. She jumped when a cold nose was pressed against her hand.
"Oh, good grief! You could have tokd me you were there. You startled me, you know."
"You've found him! What's up, Snuffles?" Harry laughed. They began to walk up the pathway, which became more and more difficult as they moved along. The dog stuck close to Kate, watching her with luminous blue eyes. When they had reached a crevice in the mountainside, they all squeezed themselves in. At the back of the small cave, an enormous shadow lay, wings folded. Hermione walked over to give a few good bones to it, smiled and called out, "Buckbeak!" She was petting and cooing to a large gray hippogriff.
"He's almost the same color as my Traveller," Kate whispered.
"Traveller?" A deep voice asked. Kate whirled about to see a tall man dressed in tattered robes, with long dark hair. He was an older, more care- worn version of the boy in her dream.
"My horse. Named after Robert E. Lee's horse."
"That would be your aunt's influence, no doubt."
"Yes. I'm Kate."
"How could you be anyone but Kate? You look so much like Gwen it's almost uncanny. Tell me, do her children look like her? You don't have the blonde hair or the cat-gold eyes.
"She doesn't have any children. Unless you count me, and I am second- hand. Aunt Gwen has been both my mom and my dad since I was nine."
"You could have no one better. You really do resemble her more than Anwen."
"So everyone keeps telling me. Oh, I nearly forgot. We brought food and drink. All sorts of good things. Chicken and dumplings from the kitchens, fresh bread or biscuits, your choice. Butter and jam too. Some non-perishables, condensed soup and the like. Oh, and I wrangled some soda pop out of my aunt from her last package. Ummm, what else? Oh yes, some cookies and snack cakes, and a whole bunch of apples from Cannon Hill, my very own orchard. We also brought coffee and sugar. Creamer was too hard to get. Harry said that you'd had to eat rats a while back… You won't ever have to again if I can help it." Kate's eyes shined for a moment, like stars in the dark cave. Sirius looked down at the girl, struck by the kindness shown to him.
"You've great compassion in you, to treat a known murderer such," he said, testing her.
She shook her head, "I reserve my judgement. The good opinions of my friends and the affection of my aunt are testimonials highly in your favor."
"The affection of your aunt?"
"She never believed any of the allegations against you."
"Steadfast Gwen. Stubborn Gwen. I miss that girl!" He smiled as Kate began to lay out a picnic sheet, and spread out food. She knew what she was doing, and didn't bother to ask for help. Here again was the influence of Golden Gwen. Kate handed him a plate full of steaming hot chicken and dumplings, conjuring a tray along with silverware. She poured a cup of coffee and opened a can of soda for him. He ate with relish, he hadn't had anything this good in a long time. Usually the things the other children brought were cold by the time it got to him. And they could usually only get pumpkin juice or butterbeer. He learned one thing about Kate Rhys in the hour that he had known her – she was a resourceful girl, and one who was used to getting her own way about things, no doubt about that.
She opened four more cans of crisply cold soda pop. "We'll need something to drink before the way down," she took a deep draught of cream soda, and picked up a tawny apple. She made a mental note to have Gwen send some of her grandfather's old robes in her next package. Sirius couldn't manage the coming winter without something much warmer then the tattered robes he had, and he couldn't spend the entire time as a dog. Suddenly, she felt very close, so she danced up and headed towards the mouth of the cave.
"I need to go outside. This cave is so… I get terribly claustrophobic, Mr. Black."
"Please, call me Sirius."
Kate grinned and went outside, to get some fresh air. She was feeling terribly closed off in the cave. Ron and Hermione went with her, leaving Harry with his godfather.
"Isn't she something?" he remarked to Sirius.
"She is. There is more than a mere touch of humanity in her. Gwen and Anwen were the best women in the world, but they lacked that odd enthusiasm your Kate has."
"She's not my Kate. And she is such an odd girl, she adores the adventure of Hogwarts, she's never really been around other kids, but you can tell she gets terribly homesick at times. She has a magic way of watching movies, and she was crying over a movie called Gettysburg, late a couple nights ago. I asked her what the matter was and she just said, ' I miss my battlefield!' and cried harder."
"From what I know, her story is just as strange as your own. She was born the night you got that scar," the older man replied, "Funny thing is, she looks more like Gwen than Anwen. Annie, we called her. And Kate's eyes, they're nothing like the Rhys' eyes. They've all got golden eyes. Not brown or green, mind you, but a bright yellow. Never seen a Rhys with blue eyes before," he said thoughtfully.
"They sort of look like yours, only a lot darker," Harry said suddenly.
"Go on, they're waiting on you. I'll come down as far as Hogsmeade with you," Sirius turned into the great black dog. He watched Kate all the way down. She waited for everyone else to head down the path before she did, then followed lightly. The rocky path didn't seem to phase her.
She sat on the window-seat, gazing out at the stars, trying to figure out why she had seen what she had. The part with her aunt and the young men was straightforward enough, but the part with herself and Dumbledore puzzled her more than the rest of them combined. The incident had taken place here at Hogwarts, she was certain. But that would have meant that this was where she had been born. She shook her head. Dumbledore would know. He'd know what those dreams meant. But they could wait till tomorrow. She opened the window, and let the early half-summer, half-autumn breeze in. It played with her hair and the song of it gently rocked her to a peaceful sleep. Orion curled up on her lap and they both slept soundly till they were found the next morning by Harry, who had gotten up early for some reason or another.
"Kate! What are you doing in here? Why aren't you in the girls' dormitory?"
"Hmm? Oh, I must have drifted off. What time is it?"
"Almost six."
"Six? Ugh. I'm going back to bed till I have to get up. It's amazing what two hours sleep will do for a person. G'night Harry."
"It's morning."
"I hate mornings," she said cheerfully, and went off humming Kathleen Mavourneen.
"Hey Kate, where did you learn that song?"
"My aunt taught it to me. It's my favorite song."
"Could you sing it?"
"Sure." She sang the song, with a new sweetness to her voice and an odd yearning. Except in her dream, it was the first time she had ever sang it away from the battlefield. This time there were no ghostly soldiers drifting from all parts of the field to listen; Plum Run was not gurgling accompaniment in the distance. When she had finished, Harry looked at her with bright green eyes.
"I get memories of when my parents died in flashes. I…I know that song. Someone sang it to me that night, after… well after. I think it was a ghost. A girl in a white dress. She looked kind of like you, and had that necklace."
"I was born that night, on Samhain. I've always had this pendant, it's in every one of my baby pictures, even from when I was only a few days old." She held up the silver necklace with Celtic circle. It shone bright, even in the half-darkness which precedes dawn. As she held it up, the sun's first light shone over the horizon, and the room seemed on fire in the reflection of the piece of jewelry. The two young people suddenly had enormous shadows, reaching out towards the dawn.
"Whoa, how'd you do that?"
"I didn't. Well, not on purpose. I've never had it out at daybreak before. I'm a bit of a night owl."
"That's odd, isn't it? Were you really born on that Halloween?"
"Just as the clock turned to midnight, that's what I was told."
"When Voldemort killed my parents and I got this," he pulled his hair away from his forehead, revealing a scar shaped like a bolt of lighting. Kate looked at it for a moment.
"That's where the spell bounced off you." It was not a question. He nodded, and she turned, catching the now fully risen sun's rays on her face.
"I had the oddest dreams last night. They were of places, till now, I had never been to, people I had never seen. They made me very uneasy. All jumbled up, like the remote to a TV set had gone haywire. Going from watching one to the next, usually just when things were getting interesting. Almost at the very end, though, I wasn't really watching. It seemed more like I was there. I saw a murder, even though I tried to stop it. There was a flash of green light and a howl of fury. Stumbling through the ruins of a destroyed house, I found a baby still alive, beside a dead mother. I picked the little one up, and held him for the longest time. Then I sang. The first one I sang was the one you had me sing just now. I had dreamed of singing it and so it was there in my head. Did it really happen? Or maybe you just heard the echoes of my dreams." She was wandering in voice, she sounded almost far away.
"I know the song. I know someone sang it to me that night. I would play that voice singing that song over and over in my head when I was lonely. And I was lonely a lot. It was like your voice, only it couldn't have been, cause you had only just been born."
"I…I think we should go back to bed. We've only an hour left for sleep now," Kate ran back to the girls' dormitory, Orion bouncing indignantly over her shoulder. Harry was left in the common room, with new questions, about Kate, about the night his parents died. He didn't get back to sleep that morning. But then, neither did Kate. She lay in her bed awake, Orion curled up on her stomach, kneading the blanket lightly with his claws.
That morning, classes began. Most everything was review for Kate. In Potions class, she met up with the a person from her dream. Professor Snape was the same person as the young man in the dungeon. The greasy-haired boy who had trouble smiling had become a greasy-haired man with a perpetual sneer. As he went over roll, he paused over her name.
"Katherine Rhys?" She raised her hand, and he nodded. But as he turned her sharp ears caught a snippet of a comment, "The little lark has come to roost." She puzzled over that the whole lesson.
Professor Snape did not address her directly the entire class period, though whenever she happened to look up from her notes or cauldron, she found him staring at her intently. However, anything Harry, Ron, or Hermione did was almost universally disapproved of. Harry especially seemed to bear the brunt of it. Kate thought that if Snape would just say something to her, nasty or otherwise, she would feel much better. The almost constant, yet silent observation unnerved her. When class was over, he called her name and asked her to stay behind for a moment.
"Miss Rhys?" he motioned her over to his desk.
"Please call me Kate. My aunt has always been Miss Rhys."
Snape continued as if she hadn't interrupted, "Your aunt is safely to London and afterwards home?"
"Yes, Professor. She was supposed to have stayed the week but the Council could not spare her," she did not bother to hide her scorn of the Council of Sorcery.
"I see. I would have liked to speak to her. I haven't seen her since your mother's funeral…" at the look on Kate's face, he broke off abruptly, " Miss Rhys, I understand you have a medical condition."
Kate was confused for a moment, but when he referred to her 'allergy,' she was back on solid ground, "Oh, my… 'allergy'. I have to take a serum once every two weeks. I usually make up about two month's worth at a time, the stuff keeps for about that long without losing potency. The serum allows me the ability to handle the cold iron."
"You are to take this serum in my class, so that I may be sure the dosage is correct. Madam Pomfrey doesn't know a great deal about the Fey."
Kate nodded, a bit thunderstruck by his manner. He had been so outright mean to her friends, and now he was being, well, nice to her. "I take it by injection, which keeps me from needing it every day, as would be the case if I had to take it internally, sir."
"I know, you may go now, Katherine."
"Oh, just call me Kate!" She laughed, and gathered her books and fled the dungeon room. Harry, Ron and Hermione were waiting outside for her.
"What was that all about?" Ron said.
"I'll tell you later, he was right behind me. Let's go," she said tersely.
Snape was indeed right behind them, "Potter, what are you doing, loitering about in the hall? Ten points from Gryffindor!"
Kate whirled about and gave Snape a stare that would have done the famous Morgana Le Fey proud – one delicate brow arched and blue eyes suddenly blazing with gold, hands on her hips, "I had asked them to wait for me," then she gave him a dazzling smile, " I don't know where anything is."
Snape gave a short sound, almost a laugh. "You look like your aunt when you get angry. Go on, before I take away more points."
The four fled the corridor. It was lunchtime afterwards. As they sat at the Gryffindor table Kate breathed a sigh of relief.
"What an odd man! First he calls me something which I didn't quite catch, then he stares after me during class. And then when he had me stay after, he said that he knew my aunt, and that apparently he had been to my mother's funeral."
"Wouldn't you remember him, then?"
"I can't remember a thing about that day, no matter how hard I try. I've given up trying to understand about that. But let me finish. Professor Snape then tells me that I have to take my cold iron serum after his class so that I don't hurt myself. As if I hadn't been doing this for years! And that scene in the corridor! He seemed outright amused that I got my back up. Like he was testing me or something, and I delivered."
"Who cares? He's a nutcase, everybody hates him. Only the Slytherins pretend not to. The rest of us don't even bother," said Ron.
Hermione said, "We were lucky to get away with as much as we did."
"He had a funny look on his face when he said you looked like your aunt," Harry said.
"That's right! She said that Snape liked her when they were at Hogwarts at the same time. I wonder who the other person she seemed fond of was?"Hermione exclaimed.
"Hope it wasn't anyone like Snape," Kate muttered, then said, a bit louder, " I have a nasty habit of eavesdropping, among other things, and I remember Mom telling Gwen that she was out of her mind, that there was no way they would let HIM (capital letters, mind you) out of Azkaban, even under the custody of the Lady of the Green," Kate twisted her pendant about, letting the light catch it.
"Azkaban? Her other beau was a Death-Eater?"
"I dunno. When I was really little, Aunt Gwen seemed sad about something. After Daddy died, Mom and I moved to Cannon Hill to be with Gwen, because she said it was so very lonely there. Once, after Mom died, she told me that she could hear a voice on the wind, as though the sighs of someone she loved were being carried from across the sea. I thought that she meant my mother, but, why would it be across the sea, then?"
"Well, like as not the fellow is dead if he were in Azkaban what? Fifteen or so years ago? The only person to ever really escape Azkaban, well, without outside help, was Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. Say, Saturday, we ought to head into Hogsmeade. D'you think that we shall bring Kate to visit Snuffles. I'm sure he'd like her," said Ron.
"Sirius? I've heard that name before. Does he have… very pale blue eyes? Kate asked suddenly, remembering her dream.
"I'll tell you later; when there's no one about," Harry hissed at her, then said in a louder voice, "I'll send Hedwig to see if it's all right."
That evening, Harry found Kate reading in the Gryffindor common room. "Come on," he said. He took out his invisibility cloak and threw it over himself and Kate. He consulted a map of Hogwarts and the led her to a small, out of the way room. He shut and locked the door.
"Just in case Filch comes prowling about. Lumos," he said, lighting his wand.
"Why all this secrecy, Harry?"
"Its about Sirius Black. Do you know the story?"
"No, I've never heard it. Tell me."
"He was my dad's greatest friend. Best man at my parents wedding, my godfather. When Voldemort was after my parents, he was to be their Secret Keeper. But, at the last minute, he backed out and had them make a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew do it. No one knew that though. So when Pettigrew betrayed my mum and dad to Voldemort, everyone thought that it was Sirius. Pettigrew was an Animagus, and he faked his own death, to make Sirius look more guilty. Sirius was captured and spent the next twelve years to Azkaban. When he escaped two years back, he came here, to Hogwarts because he had figured out that Pettigrew was alive, and had been living in the form of a rat for twelve years. Everyone thought that Sirius Black was after me, though. Finally everything was figured out. Sirius was innocent, although only a few people know it. He escaped the dementors, with my help, and Hermione's. Pettigrew turned back into a rat and returned to Voldemort. Sirius is still wanted by the Ministry of Magic. And Voldemort has returned, thanks to Wormtail… I mean Pettigrew."
"Wormtail? Of… Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs?" Kate asked.
"How did you know those nicknames?" Harry was surprised.
Kate decided not to say anything more about her dream, so she just said, "My aunt. I'd say she was in Gryffindor at the same time. She gave me a picture, of her with a bunch of other kids," Kate pulled a small booklet of photos from a pocket. There were only a few wizard pictures in it. Harry immediately recognized the one she was talking about. Kate pointed out her aunt to him. "There's Aunt Gwen. She's the one beside the boy with dark hair and light blue eyes. She told me that she had given him the rabbit ears, and made the bubbles come out of them."
"Sirius."
"There's Professor Lupin; and a short little fellow with a pointy nose, is the pretty girl with the red hair your mom?"
"Yeah. And the fellow beside her is my dad. How did you know the nicknames?"
" I asked Gwen about who they were, and all she would say was, ' School fellows of mine. They're all dead now, except for Moony.' And she pointed Lupin out to me."
"I think I have a copy of that photo, and some others with her! Your aunt is the pretty girl with blonde hair and the yellow eyes." Harry said, excited now. Kate nodded.
"Moony and Wormtail are accounted for. Were they all Animagi, to have such nicknames?"
"Yeah. Professor Lupin is a werewolf, so he's Moony. Pettigrew was a rat – Wormtail. My dad was a stag, so he was Prongs. And Sirius is Padfoot."
"He's a black dog."
"How'd you know?"
"His name. Sirius is the dog star."
"Weird! I never thought of that. Hey that's real clever."
"Ok, then, who is Snuffles?" Kate asked.
Harry leaned in close and whispered into her ear, "Snuffles is our code name for Sirius when we're talking around other people. We can't call him by bane because he's a wanted man, and we can't call him Padfoot because certain people know that nickname as well."
"You mean Professor Snape," Kate said.
"Yeah," Harry answered.
"So we're going to see Sirius on Saturday?"
"We are. We need to bring him food, too, though. He'll go out as the dog and eat rats when he gets hungry if we don't."
"That's terrible. Well we can make certain that doesn't happen. I have some non-perishables in the dormitory, Gwen knows I like to be prepared for just about anything. We can pack that and some soda and coffee up for him. And get some hot food from the kitchens. It gets cool up here in the Highlands sooner than it does in Pennsylvania."
"Good idea. He'll really appreciate that. He's a great guy, Kate, you'll like him. I know it."
On their visit to Hogsmeade, Kate found some fascinating places. Having lived within fifty miles Hershey, Kate fell in love with Honeydukes. Zonkos was enough to saitsfy her onery side. At Madam Rosmerta's they had butterbeer. When the others led her up a rather dark pathway, she followed, watchful. She jumped when a cold nose was pressed against her hand.
"Oh, good grief! You could have tokd me you were there. You startled me, you know."
"You've found him! What's up, Snuffles?" Harry laughed. They began to walk up the pathway, which became more and more difficult as they moved along. The dog stuck close to Kate, watching her with luminous blue eyes. When they had reached a crevice in the mountainside, they all squeezed themselves in. At the back of the small cave, an enormous shadow lay, wings folded. Hermione walked over to give a few good bones to it, smiled and called out, "Buckbeak!" She was petting and cooing to a large gray hippogriff.
"He's almost the same color as my Traveller," Kate whispered.
"Traveller?" A deep voice asked. Kate whirled about to see a tall man dressed in tattered robes, with long dark hair. He was an older, more care- worn version of the boy in her dream.
"My horse. Named after Robert E. Lee's horse."
"That would be your aunt's influence, no doubt."
"Yes. I'm Kate."
"How could you be anyone but Kate? You look so much like Gwen it's almost uncanny. Tell me, do her children look like her? You don't have the blonde hair or the cat-gold eyes.
"She doesn't have any children. Unless you count me, and I am second- hand. Aunt Gwen has been both my mom and my dad since I was nine."
"You could have no one better. You really do resemble her more than Anwen."
"So everyone keeps telling me. Oh, I nearly forgot. We brought food and drink. All sorts of good things. Chicken and dumplings from the kitchens, fresh bread or biscuits, your choice. Butter and jam too. Some non-perishables, condensed soup and the like. Oh, and I wrangled some soda pop out of my aunt from her last package. Ummm, what else? Oh yes, some cookies and snack cakes, and a whole bunch of apples from Cannon Hill, my very own orchard. We also brought coffee and sugar. Creamer was too hard to get. Harry said that you'd had to eat rats a while back… You won't ever have to again if I can help it." Kate's eyes shined for a moment, like stars in the dark cave. Sirius looked down at the girl, struck by the kindness shown to him.
"You've great compassion in you, to treat a known murderer such," he said, testing her.
She shook her head, "I reserve my judgement. The good opinions of my friends and the affection of my aunt are testimonials highly in your favor."
"The affection of your aunt?"
"She never believed any of the allegations against you."
"Steadfast Gwen. Stubborn Gwen. I miss that girl!" He smiled as Kate began to lay out a picnic sheet, and spread out food. She knew what she was doing, and didn't bother to ask for help. Here again was the influence of Golden Gwen. Kate handed him a plate full of steaming hot chicken and dumplings, conjuring a tray along with silverware. She poured a cup of coffee and opened a can of soda for him. He ate with relish, he hadn't had anything this good in a long time. Usually the things the other children brought were cold by the time it got to him. And they could usually only get pumpkin juice or butterbeer. He learned one thing about Kate Rhys in the hour that he had known her – she was a resourceful girl, and one who was used to getting her own way about things, no doubt about that.
She opened four more cans of crisply cold soda pop. "We'll need something to drink before the way down," she took a deep draught of cream soda, and picked up a tawny apple. She made a mental note to have Gwen send some of her grandfather's old robes in her next package. Sirius couldn't manage the coming winter without something much warmer then the tattered robes he had, and he couldn't spend the entire time as a dog. Suddenly, she felt very close, so she danced up and headed towards the mouth of the cave.
"I need to go outside. This cave is so… I get terribly claustrophobic, Mr. Black."
"Please, call me Sirius."
Kate grinned and went outside, to get some fresh air. She was feeling terribly closed off in the cave. Ron and Hermione went with her, leaving Harry with his godfather.
"Isn't she something?" he remarked to Sirius.
"She is. There is more than a mere touch of humanity in her. Gwen and Anwen were the best women in the world, but they lacked that odd enthusiasm your Kate has."
"She's not my Kate. And she is such an odd girl, she adores the adventure of Hogwarts, she's never really been around other kids, but you can tell she gets terribly homesick at times. She has a magic way of watching movies, and she was crying over a movie called Gettysburg, late a couple nights ago. I asked her what the matter was and she just said, ' I miss my battlefield!' and cried harder."
"From what I know, her story is just as strange as your own. She was born the night you got that scar," the older man replied, "Funny thing is, she looks more like Gwen than Anwen. Annie, we called her. And Kate's eyes, they're nothing like the Rhys' eyes. They've all got golden eyes. Not brown or green, mind you, but a bright yellow. Never seen a Rhys with blue eyes before," he said thoughtfully.
"They sort of look like yours, only a lot darker," Harry said suddenly.
"Go on, they're waiting on you. I'll come down as far as Hogsmeade with you," Sirius turned into the great black dog. He watched Kate all the way down. She waited for everyone else to head down the path before she did, then followed lightly. The rocky path didn't seem to phase her.