Chapter 6
Making It There
Disclaimer- See earlier notes, which ever you want. I still own only my original characters (Laim and Fey Bell, Chris Thomas, the Twins and the Fletcher Girls) although it's too much to hope they would listen to me. I also don't own A Simple Plan (not even the CD!) or the rare Who-Roast-Beast. Life is cruel.
Anywho, on with the story. (To my whole three fans out there! Wo ai ni, mina!)
For anyone that didn't notice, I changed the last chapter and added all the rest, so you might want to make sure you read it all. Thanks for reading!
Kate wasn't popular in school. She never had been, but it wasn't something that nagged at her, it just was. There was no set popularity ladder, for the most part. Some, the exceptional few, caught everyone's eyes. Such children lived for the spotlight, and age was never a concern. Kate wasn't one of the focal points of the school, and this suited her just fine. It made sense, Kate couldn't speak in public and oral presentations where a nightmare.
Kate didn't like the limelight, but sometimes she stepped outside the box she had built for herself. Most other Gryffindors knew her as 'the Chaser' a quiet girl who hung around Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet. Sometimes she liked to make them think otherwise.
Which was why Kate was walking through the Hogwarts Express aisle way with a muggle CD-player about to fall off her travel bags. It hadn't started out that way, of course. Couldn't all embarrassing situations be traced back to a few less and brilliant choices that you never connected?
Back when the Bell family had made their yearly rounds to Diagon Alley for school supplies, Kate had been nostalgic. This being her seventh and final year, she knew she could never again come simply to buy school supplies, unless she chose to continue her education elsewhere, most likely in America. By this time next year her parents would expect her to support herself. So when she had asked to wonder off on her own, without having to listen to Chris speak loudly about how lucky they were he made them come a month in advance (He had only had a week to memorize his book list) and the twins exchange amused glances over his head, her parents had nodded with understanding smiles. Kate had wondered right out of the Leaky Cauldron and into the large muggle store full of music. A sales worker had flashed one of those predatory grins a wolf gives a baby rabbit and Kate found herself outside the store again with a flimsy plastic bag containing 2 CD-cases, a CD-player and batteries looking for all the world like she had gotten caught in a whirlwind. Oddly enough the sales worker hadn't been phased by Kate's wizarding money. Vaguely she remembered hearing from Dean muggles used different money. She had stopped a bemused teen around her own age and with a pleading look whispered,
"How does this work?" The boy laughed and proceeded to explain. Kate had given him a good many disbelieving looks to the young man when he explained what went where and why. Nevertheless, what the boy said proved true, and Kate pranced happy as a clam back into Diagon Alley. Until the inevitable became reality and the CD-player sputtered to a stop as Kate neared her family. Luckily for her, the Bell famliy was rather self-absorbed and Kate stuffed her player to the bottom of her bags. She later found out Dean had owed Chris some money and was trying to avoid paying by participating in some hair-brained plot the twins had thought up. As it was, Dean paid the twins a large portion of his pocket-change and could barely scrape enough knuts together to pay for his school supplies and had to beg more money off Chris to afford new robes.
Once Kate got home, she asked Dean about muggle items, hopping to learn what had happened to her player. it hadn't worked at her house either, and nothing the boy at the mall had told her seemed to be working. Dean had pushed her off the Chris, who was too busy reading his new textbooks to do any more than wave in the vague direction of 'Hogwarts, A History'. Kate had spent a frustrating hour looking thought the introduction (which was 53 1/6 pages long) until she flipped to the back and scanned the index for 'muggle'. She carefully read over the section about muggle objects and how they failed to work in areas like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, which had 'high levels of magical concentration'.
Kate slammed the book shut and walked up behind Dean, who was sitting on the couch waving his wand in the air with practiced ease, softly muttering the incantation to something or another. She dropped the book on his head and walked to her room with a sniff.
In the uproar of laughs that followed, Dean's mind cleared enough to envy his friend Seamus Finngian. Girls didn't abuse him, in fact he seemed quite popular among the opposite sex. What had he done to deserve this?
Kate stamped around in her room. What was she going to do now? 'Stupid Dean! Like he didn't know all that nonsense about muggle stuff. I bet he made me look all through that book for fun! Boys!' Kate paused in her internal rant to see the dog starring at her.
"What? Do *you* have an idea, dog?" Kate sarcastically asked the Animagi. The dog nodded. Kate glanced from the dog to her CD-player, hidden under her bed, back to the dog. Sighing, Kate sat down on the bed and watched the dog transform.
When Snuffles had determined her parents were not going to walk into Kate's room at any moment, he settled down on the end of her bed, his customary place in dog form. Kate scrunched away from the man and he winced. Kate was still very uncomfortable with the idea her dog was really a human, and Snuffles blamed himself. He slid off the bed onto the floor and sat Indian style.
"You said you had an idea, dog-boy?" Snuffles frowned at his nickname but didn't comment, only nodded.
"As you already know, the build-up of magic causes muggle-made objects to malfunction. The more complex the worse the malfunction. I propose you learn to create a magical barrier. Liam and Fey have both taught you how to control your own magical concentration." Kate blinked. What was he talking about?
"Um. What?"
"You know how you can control how powerful a Lumos spell is?" Kate nodded. That was one of the first spells that she had learned, and her father had explained now much she wanted the spell to work changed how well it worked. Eventually she had learned to make the glow resulting from a whispered 'Lumos' to flicker almost out of sight then grow to the intensity of a small sun.
"Yes, I believe."
"So you can control how much magic you use. I'm sure you can already sense places with high levels of magical residue. And maybe even people with magical abilities." Kate blinked again. What was Snuffles getting at? Snuffles noticed Kate's blank look and tried again to tone done the big words.
"You like to be in Diagon Alley, maybe you feel safer, sleep better or are more energetic at Hogwarts?" He prodded. Kate nodded.
"You can sense which of your friends are coming up behind you sometimes?" Snuffles asked more confidently. Kate shook her head. Snuffles narrowed his eyes. 'Perhaps sensing magic and sensing people's magic are different things...'
"Well, as far as Hogwarts, that's your unconscious reaction to places with high magical intensity. Your brain knows on some level more magic had been used around you, and that makes you more comfortable, emotional, whatever. How you could be interested in something so devoid of magic like a muggle music player is beyond me." Kate simply shrugged This was starting to sound like school.
"Is there a point?" The dog-man rolled his eyes.
"Of course. If you can learn to consciously 'feel' or ... 'see' magic, you can probably learn to keep it out of somewhere, namely your player."
"And?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
"It would work." Kate blinked for the third time.
"Oh. Really?" She seemed to have lost all sarcasm and looked almost excited. Snuffles nodded.
"That's what I believe." He sounded suddenly uncertain. Removing magic was unheard of, no one had ever wanted to do something so against the medium in which they lived. Kate mistook his uncertainty for anger, and she realized with a start how rude she had been to her impromptu teacher. She pushed aside any uncomfortable feelings she harbored towards her dog.
"I'm.. sorry, Snuffles. Could you please show me how? I'll behave." Kate paused between fear and enthusiasm. Snuffles laughed.
"Then I'll give it my best shot, master." He jokingly replied. Kate gave him a dirty look.
"You keep that up and I'll make you clean my room. My name is Kate." They both shared a smile. And so the ice was broken and a friendship began.
That night Kate and Snuffles experimented. Through trial and error, Kate discovered using a method her father taught her helped to 'feel' spells. Liam Bell had taught Kate to clear her head before even attempting to change how strong a spell was. You found your magical center, which was easier than it sounded. You closed your eyes and focused on what it felt like to cast a spell, the feeling of magic coming from somewhere near your heart. Right where your physical heart was also your magical center, which might have been why the Egyptians buried people with their hearts intact. Once you found the glowing magic that was purely *yours*, you had a heightened sense of awareness. Kate could feel the wandless magic lingering around Snuffles, which Kate could only assume was his trasfiguration spell. Kate let him borrow her wand (14 1/2 inches, weeping willow and unicorn hair, wispy) and after he cast a Lumos spell with it, Kate could see the spell using a wand was diluted and foggy. It was a confusing process, seeing spells, and it really couldn't be called seeing. Sensing a spell went beyond the five senses Kate was used to. In fact, you didn't need to be have your eyes open to sense a spell, but Kate insisted on it or she would fall asleep.
Kate was able to recognize the room spell across the hall and compared wandless magic, magic using a wand tuned to your magical signature or magic using someone else's wand. Wandless magic and attuned wand magic where both about quite powerful, but wandless magic was harder to control, and depending on your own magic, more powerful. Un-tuned wand magic was a pale and sickly thing and just as uncontrollable as wandless magic.
This was all very well and good, but around three in the morning even Kate wanted to call it a night, and she still couldn't feel any dormant magic (not being used for a spell) and still couldn't sense Snuffle's personal magic. Snuffles was beginning to doubt all three abilities worked together, but maintained this was simply because she was best at sensing new things. Cast spells were always a little different, so Kate had no trouble identifying them. She had been living in the Bell house and around the Forbidden Forest her entire life, so she probably did recognize the magic there, but she was familiar with it, so it wasn't easy to bring to her conscious. The same went for Snuffles, who had been nearby for the past month.
Kate doubted this, but before she could argue properly she was fast asleep. Snuffles was gone the next day, and the next. Kate waited at nigh for him, but days turned into weeks which turned into a month, and the night before her final trip out to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express she stuffed her comatose CD-player into her traveling bag.
Kate found a compartment in the back of the train between two other compartments full to the brim of nervous first years and haughty second years instead of sitting with her best friends Alicia and Angelina. If she was going to try out what Snuffles had suggested she would need lots of quiet and even more time.
'I wish I had practiced more... ah well, too late now...' Kate had almost completely forgotten about her muggle toy over the summer.
Kate glared at the player for a few moments, daring is to mock her foolishness too. The device was keeping to itself, though, so Kate simply glared at it and positioned herself comfortably in one of the Hogwarts Express seats, half-gazing out the window.
After the heat wave had broken with the thunder storm Kate had almost ended up a part of, the weather had taken another dip. After a week of pleasant weather that you wished summer could be all the time, it had been wet, dreary and nippy. Not really cold, but everyone wished for the heat wave to return. The plants had been effected by the strange weather, and the trees rushing by looked worse for the wear, and shrubs and grass alike were on the sickly side. Kate recalled a few Hufflepuff second years whispering something about You-Know-Who being able to control the weather. Kate had almost laughed out loud at that. Still, she was reminded of how much Voldemort was feared. She and her siblings had sat talking about him in the safety of their play room, and it made the Dark Lord seem less real.
Kate had also discussed sensing spells with Chris in the play room. Once, when Chris wasn't tangled in his books for a change, Kate had convinced him to help her. Chris was sure there was a spell for everything and all problems, and he suggested using a Charm of Origin on Kate. Kate had exclaimed she could see almost exactly what she had seen with Snuffles, but she understood more. Chris was entranced and forced Kate to use the same spell on him. He blinked several times and looked around the room. He had a strange expression on his face.
"What is it?" Chris was giddy with joy and his smile showed it.
"It's wonderful... I can see all the magic floating around the room, little particles of magic... it's amazing, Kate." Kate sighed some things would never change. Chris always seemed amazed when he saw magic, couldn't get enough of it, kind of like the muggle-born children Kate knew. Chris sat, dazed for several minutes before hopping up.
"Do you know what this means, Kate? The Charm of Origin, it must be a natural emphasizer of the talents wizards and witches have to tap into their magic! And if this Charm has different effects on us, then we really must have different talents... Not everyone can use the Charm of Origin, you know Kate. It doesn't work for some people... Oh Kate, do you think the person who realized this charm knew about the people's talents or..." Chris went off to study and research and Kate had seen no more than small scraps of him during his pursuit of knowledge.
Kate had know settled into her seat in the train car and turned away from the window, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She wished she had someone to cast the Charm of Origin on her, but Chris was off with his friends, and she hadn't told anyone else about 'sensing' magic.
Through trial and error (emphasis on error) Kate had learned closing her eye and getting comfy helped a lot.. So she leaned against the jiggling wall, closed her eyes, and simply felt. Kate didn't know how Father had taught her siblings how to control spells, but Kate felt inside of herself for the magical center she knew was hers. It helped to remember what it felt like to cast a successful spell, and how the magic poured out of you, more importantly where it poured out from. Mostly it felt like falling asleep. Kate focused on little details in, things she was conscious of, things she could hear, smell or feel. A slow train of thought about her surroundings until stray thoughts about magic floated in. At least that's what she'd done with Snuffles. The first few times they had practiced, Snuffles hadn't used the Charm of Origin, so sometimes it took a few minutes to get to the point where she recognized spells. After having the Charm of Origin used on her, Kate thought she would be able to recognize magically aware thoughts, like when Chris had seen the magic in the air.
Of course, Kate never been quite able to grasp 'magic' thoughts at home, but active spells should be enough like it. Kate tried not to think about all the times Snuffles had had to shake her awake after she had tried to sense magic and fallen asleep. And the downside of using the falling asleep method was the few times she had used it Snuffles had to keep casting spells, and Kate never could catch the first few.
'But', she reminded herself, 'there was no one to cast the Charm of Origin on her', so Kate tried to ignore the more cynical part of her mind that threatened her she couldn't do a hundred little things she didn't even know about right. She gave that voice a firm 'Bugger off.' and drifted.
'Yummy, food cart will be here soon... it's quite warm in here... this place's dusty, it's tickling my nose... the sun outside is sure making it warmer in here... some kids are playing exploding snap over there... those are some really poor wizards over there, one's almost a squib, really...'
Kate almost jolted our of her seat, but instead reached out to the level of awareness that could sense the magical essence of the children to her right and left. Well, technically they were everywhere, but Kate could recognize those closer easier. When Kate reached out she felt her own magic flare up in her chest and could suddenly sense fires that she instinctively knew were the magic of other Hogwarts students.
She had been right in her prediction, the boy (she thought it was a boy by all the loud sounds coming from the car) would never be a strong wizard. However, they were new students, all of them, most likely muggle-born first years with one or two wizarding-born first or second years. All the students had a small glowing ball hanging in the air where their heart was. It shimmered and flickered, like a fire you were about to floo in. All the little fires were simmering and glowing and Kate got the impression she had a texture and feel to them, but Kate didn't get close enough to see. Most of the fires were faint, more like mist than fire, probably untouched magic potential, and Kate identified the fires which were entirely mist as muggle-borns. They had never had a chance to practice any spells. Kate felt her way down the hall to the right, meeting fires of several more students. She could sometimes tell what type of magic a person was strongest in. Sometimes she could tell which students were more powerful. She could see potential in first and second and maybe even third years (she thought, she'd never compared how much magic she knew with Dean, and Chris did not count as a basis of comparison. Kate was surprised she couldn't tell houses apart. She had assumed there was something the sorting hat could see around a person and that was what made it decide which house you were in. Perhaps she had to look closer... Kate brushed one of the glowing fires and was overwhelmed with spells said person knew, even some experiences. But most of all Kate felt the person's thoughts.
She became the person.
Suddenly she *was* Dennis Creevy, clutching a set of inks and eyeing *the* *Harry**Potter* with longing. He was so brave and strong, facing Voldemort. 'Why can't I be like that?' Dennis smiled a little at that thought. No one could ever be quite as silently powerful and Harry, and he didn't really want to try. After all, to have the fate of the whole world on those handsome shoulders...
"Are...are you sure I can't paint you Harry sir?" 'Collin has told me so much about him, and last year I actually got to talk to him, kind of like right now.'
"No, Dennis, I told you before..." The Gryffindor golden boy pulled at his collar and Dennis felt guilty. What was he doing bugging Harry Potter? He had more important things to do, shouldn't be annoyed by the likes of Dennis Creevy. Guilt waged a short and furious war with the Hero-worship. Crying out in pain and terror, guilt was overwhelmed by a fresh wave of worship when Dennis realized Harry was talking to him.
"I-Oh.. all right, but be quick about it, will you? I don't want Malfoy making another insult about my swelled head..."
"Would you like something to eat, little miss?"
"I said, would you like something to ear, miss?"
Suddenly, Kate was somewhere else and someone else. The world popped back into focus and color, and it took Kate a second to sort out everything.
"WHAAH!" Kate tried to jump back and slammed her head on the wall. The tolley witch stepped back, unfrazzled. This obviously wasn't the first time she had woken someone up from a sound sleep.
But that wasn't what had scared Kate. Much like Chris had described, the air was full of little glowing particles. It reminded Kate of light streaming through her bedroom window illuminating dust in the air. It was pretty amazing. Kate didn't really know how she had managed it, but this was really neat. Kate shuddered when she remembered being Dennis Creevy. She had new respect for Harry Potter, putting up with that skunk.
Kate shuddered, but remembered she had a reason, maybe a little sily, to do all this, and got down to it, so she remembered what Snuffles had told her. After all, he'd been right so far. Kate was ashamed of doubting her friends. Sometimes Snuffles seemed a little unbalanced...the way he avoided water as a human and a dog, then had the nerve to say he smelled fine! He could be smelt a mile away and it took forever to get his wet down smell out of things. He had picked up quite a few of a dog's characteristics, and it grossed Kate out.
But Snuffles had been right about a lot of things so far, so she might as well fallow his instructions some more. She tried to remember, after all it had been a month since she had seen or heard from him. But he had said he had some business, and she believed him, a little. The Animagi said malfunction was caused by lots of magic in one place, so if she could just force the magic out...
Kate squinted at the little dots of magic. Whenever they collided they created sparks that reminded Kate of the 'fires'. That must be what was messing up her CD-player.
Kate squinted again and the little dots seemed to quiver, then moved quickly around each other in a wild game of tag. Kate heard a faint high-pitched chatter, like a squirrel on helium. Was the magic... alive? Well, it was getting annoying
/Stop all that hopping!/ Kate called firmly in her mind. And where she was starring, the dots *stopped*.
"Woah, freaky..." Kate said out loud, starring at the frozen dots.
"Ahem, miss?" Kate turned and focused all her attention on the owner of the voice. The dots started drifting out of view, and Kate held onto the part of her mind that could see them until they remained visible and she sighed in relief. The patient witch was eyeing Kate with a mix of amusement and concern. The woman was quite used to strange exclamations from the younger years, but not the old. The girl before her didn't seem all 'there' and the woman pondered how picky Headmaster Dumbledore was about student's sanity. Not that she'd have to deal with the girl, kid was worrying her. The blonde child's eyes slid back into focus and she laughed nervously.
"Heh, sorry about that. Umm, no, I'll be fine, thanks!" She said quickly. The trolley witch fled, grumbling to herself about absent-minded-good-for-nothing children.
Kate ignored her and turned back to her 'work'. The dots were bouncing around again, and they didn't even stop when she glared at them.
"Bugger! What am I going to do now?" Kate muttered to herself. She racked her brain for an idea. Was there a spell she could use? Of course not, that would probably be worse on the muggle object than just being around the dots with their spark. Part of her own magic, her 'fire', how knows what it would do to her little CD-player? Kate snickered. She was really starting to like the thing, even if it was just being stubborn. She hugged someone because no one else talked to them, something like that.
Her and Snuffle's idea seemed hopeless now, but Kate refused to give up. She'd learned so much! ...She wanted to finish what she had started. Kate pulled out the CD-player that had caused all this trouble, that had started everything.
"Why couldn't you just work?" She asked the CD-player sadly. 'This has not been a good day.' Kate looked around. Sound, so soft she hadn't noticed it, had stopped. The Chaser could hear a ringing in her ears like you hear sometimes when its really, really quiet, like there isn't a sound for miles around. Kate looked up from her muggle toy and saw none of the particles around her were moving. 'What?' She thought, startled. Slowly she looked up and around herself. 'What is happening?'
A hole appeared in the dots of magic, and slowly formed into... a face? Yes, it was a face, and it looked a lot like Kate.
"um." Kate said, starring at her reflection. 'What is happening?' Kate remembered when she had first thought the dots had a conscious. Now she was sure.
She waved to her double ganger, and it waved back. Kate remembered hearing about a muggle horror movie, and she wondered if it was like this. She sure had no idea what she was going to do. The face formed into a small figure, which bowed before dispersing. Kate gulped. Why did she get the feeling something important had just happened that was *way* over her head?
The dots went back to moving, and Kate saw there were sparks on her CD-player, and they were creating a sickly light around the muggle device. It really wasn't a light, it was a lack of light, where the dots faded from life. This made Kate really angry. Not only were the dots hurting the CD-player, they were hurting themselves! /Get out of there!/ And the dots obeyed. Slowly they were pushed out of the muggle object by an invisible wall. The dots bounced off. Kate nodded to herself when the wall reached the edge of the CD-player. /That's enough./ Kate didn't know how, but she knew she held the wall at the edge of the player's plastic cell and tied it off there, using the plastic to hold the wall. Nothing had ever come so easy for Kate. Everything else in her life she had had to muddle through and practice. Nothing was ever so easy, so natural that thought became action before she really had the think about it. She knew without worrying they wall would hold. It was a huge power trip.
Luckily Kate's swelled ego didn't ruin her hard work, and the magical barrier held, and the plastic strained for a moment, then it was back to normal. Kate turned next to her first CD. It was of a band called A Simple Plan. She had heard it playing over the intercom at the store and asked about it. When she had seen the three logos she had hesitated because one reminded her of the storm, it was a rain cloud with a large lightening bolt. Kate remembered another significant thing about the lightening bolt and blushed. She really hadn't meant to act like the Creevy boy. She hadn't realized what people would see when they noticed the lightening bolt. Too late now.
Kate could feel the dots becoming insubstantial and fought to keep sensing them. She was getting tried and wouldn't be able sense magic for much longer. She couldn't really explain it, but she knew when she let go of her extra sense, she wouldn't be able to excess it for quite a while, maybe even a week. Kate really wanted to shield at least one of her muggle CD's before school started.
Kate laughed softly to herself. Not ten minutes ago she would have been overjoyed to even sense magic. Five minutes ago she would have been ecstatic to discover something that would help her control the magic. Kate remember something her father had said once.
"What's rich? I heard one of my co-workers say rich is double what you have right now. I disagree, rich for me is ten times what I've got." Why did the old guy have to be right? Sometimes her dad said strange stuff, but one way or another is *was* true.
Kate looked down at the CD and concentrated on the magical particles in it, telling them to /get out/. Much slower than before, the clashing dots and sparks receded. Every centimeter was a struggle, but Kate had almost secured the barrier when she was backhanded with a *Thunk*.
"Wake up stupid Gryffindork! What do you think you're doing, ignoring me?" Came a drawl, nasal voice. Kate was shaken out of her sense, and she could feel the particles and her new-found talent receding. 'Stop!' She called mentally, trying to cement the almost completed border, but she knew it was just a thought. Numbly she stared at the CD, she nothing more than the shiny plastic. Painfully slow, she looked up at the student who had so rudely awakened her. She absolutely refused to rub her cheek, even though it was turning red. It didn't really hurt anyway, whoever had done it must be a toothpick.
Kate looked up and saw a small, sickly and pale blonde looking down on her with distaste. 'Well, I was right. Puberty has not been kind to the kid.' She thought. He was almost gray, like the kid never saw the sun, and his limbs stuck out of his robes at odd angles. His ears were too big, and his eyes, but she supposed he wasn't that bad-looking. At least not in her school, but then again the pickings were pretty slim at her school, Kate always thought. Glancing again Kate realized the boy wasn't all that ugly, her first impression had been clouded by resentment. He held himself arrogantly, like it had been ingrained into him from birth. He was attractive, in a small, almost feminine way. Her first reaction had been to pound the boy senseless, but her family believed in protecting the weak, not imprinting their face into the ground. 'Stupid Mother and her rules.' Now that she had identified the younger Hogwarts student as a weakling, she couldn't hit him, even when you noticed the robes he wore made him a Slytherin. 'Damn, now I can't ask the twins to be mean to him either.' Amy and Lauren never hurt a fellow Slytherin, 'least not in public.
The boy shifted to the other foot, impatient. He was used to people reacting instantly to him, in anger of fear. Kate had done neither, simply stared blankly. Kate tried to contain her anger to words.
"Do I know you?" He looked familiar, she most likely had seen him in the Great Hall. The boy stepped backward in astonishment. All the Gryffindors should have known him.
"m-My name is Draco Malfoy." Draco said that like it should mean something. Not that she heard his name, she realized he one of the boys the younger year girls goggled at. She thought she had even heard his name mentioned by the Gryffindor Three. Kate nodded.
"I'm Kate Bell, from the Gryffindor Quidditch team... Oh! I remember you, Draco Malfoy!" Kate sounded excited. That's where she had seen him! Draco smiled.
"You play on the Slytherin team, right? Do you still use that bush off to the left of the big goals?" She looked interested, Markus had told her all about the Slytherin's cheats forth year when he graduated. Said he wanted to keep his team on their toes. Draco blanched.
"w-What? We don't cheat, it's you bloody Gryffindors that sneak around like the rats you are!" He sounded off-balance in this conversation, something that obviously didn't happen a lot to the blonde seeker. Kate smiled and nodded. Good, now she could enspell all the other watching places Flint had told her about. 'That's for hitting me, creep.' Kate thought softly.
"Why did you hit me?" Kate asked quietly, just noticing the huge thugs peering in the doorway. 'Good. Maybe that will keep the punk from getting the crap beat out of him too much.' Mother always pitied the weak, Dad said she should have been in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff. Kate just wished she wasn't so much like her mother. What father said made more sense.
'Some kids just need a swift kick in the behind to set 'em straight.' But then he said 'And if they're sticking their nose that far in the air, they're trying to pretend they haven't already been kicked.' Forget it, Dad was too soft as well.
But part of her wondered if this pretty-boy hadn't already been kicked. For good or worse, she decided to make an effort to be nicer.
"That's a nice name you have, Draco." Draco looked sunned. Hadn't she just been about to threatened him if he didn't tell her why he had hit her? Girls were crazy, Draco concluded.
"What do you mean?" He asked, avoiding her question.
"Well, it sounds really neat, you know? It's unique. Not like Kate. I know about five other girls named Kate in my Arithmacy class alone. Again, do you think you could tell me why you hit me?" The blonde Chaser bit her tongue to keep from letting her anger get the best of her as she eyes the other blonde. Kate hid the CD and player back in her bag. Slytherins had a tendency to hate muggles, and Kate suspected this one wouldn't be afraid to hit her again, since she hadn't his him back the first time. Besides, he did have to thugs outside.
"Really, do you think you can tell me why you ruined the rest of my day, not to mention the rest of my week?" Kate bit her lip to keep from rubbing her head. She had a massive headache coming on. Somebody was going to pay for this. Now all of her head hurt, even her tongue and lip. The boy tried to look arrogant again.
"You didn't answer me, Gryffindor." The arrogant boy responded. Kate let out a laugh that quickly turned to a growl/cough. This little kid was really bugging her.
"Well that's a really crappy reason." Kate glanced out the window and noticed the Lake was coming into view, the giant squid waving it's tentacles in welcome to the new first years. Finally she could see her friends all fellow Chasers. They almost never talked or visited during summer break.
"Alright!" Kate smiled and again ignored the pale Draco. Instead she focused all her efforts on gathering her bags, suitcases and whatnot into a pile and getting ready to leave. Her final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had begun! The return of the school year destroyed Kate's impending bad mood, and she smiled at the fifth year.
"Nice talking to ya! Perhaps we shall meet again soon, huh?" And then Kate was gone from the train car with a flash of her Gryffindor scarf, which, like the rest of her uniform, she had changed into before beginning her little 'experiment'.
Kate rushed down the hall, intent on being the first out of the train, as it was going to stop in a less than a minute or two.
Passing by a closed door, Kate heard what sounded like her brother Dean laughing. She snickered and wondered who was giving the guy what for. 'Lets find out!' Kate happily thought. It was good to hear laughing again. Kate opened the door.
Dean's best friend Seamus Finnigan was sitting on Dean stomach tickling him mercilessly. Dean was breathless from laughing, his eyes shut and Seamus looked like a cat that got the cream. Kate covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. Seamus noticed her and grinned widely, slightly pink. Dean looked confused that Seamus had stopped the tickle torture and blushed dark red when he saw Kate in the doorway.
"This-this isn't what it looks like! He tricked me, I swear!" Seamus and Kate shared a knowing look and Kate sniffed.
"Right, I can tell I interrupted something... personal, so I just want to warn to to finish up soon, cause we're almost to school! So no more naughtiness!" Kate gave them her best 'cute' smile before darting off. She was followed by Dean's indignant squawk and Seamus's hearty laugh.
Kate was a little disappointed when Angelina and Alicia didn't hear her calling to them. Kate was forced to sit with a bunch of giggling third years, but even that didn't dim her excitement. The sorting and following feast passed in a daze for Kate, and she still hadn't had a chance to speak with her best friends. They had been surrounded by younger years, aside from the Weasley twins, also in their last year, who choose to sit next to their younger brother...Ron? And his friends, somebody Granger and, of course, the famous Harry Potter. Kate didn't need to stare, the poor kid got that enough. Kate wasn't really close so Kate didn't try to drag them into conversation. Like most boys she didn't know very well, they were most likely to give her one word answers, or none at all. Instead she turned to the girl on her right, an chipper second year named Helen. When the food appeared, Helen muttered to herself,
"Where's the rare Who-Roast-Beast?" Kate blinked.
"Um. What?" Kate asked with an air of someone who just had something fly over her head. Helen smiled.
"Oh, nothing." Kate was familiar with that phrase (she used it frequently to her parents) so nodded and made a fake bow. Helen laughed, and they shared a smirk. No one understood sarcasm at this school.
Kate was quite proud of herself later that evening when Dennis and a boy that looked just like him, only taller, rounded on Potter. Kate knew just what the younger was thinking, and she felt a wave of pity rise in her stomach. She was going to do something nice. Stupid and self-sacrificing, but nice. 'Bugger.' Kate waved Dennis and his brother over to talk about Quidditch. Letting their play-by-play of all of "The Great Harry Potter's" tactics wash over her, she mouthed 'Run' in the general direction of the Weasley twins. It took a very long time to convince the Creevy brother's she didn't want to join the 'Harry Potter Fan Club (tm)' after she was sure the Boy-Who-Lived had escaped. She wanted to shoot herself. That most have been one of the stupidest things she'd done in her life. Even Professor Dumbledore had eyed her with one eyebrow raise as he walked by and Kate stared helplessly at him.
Because of this Kate was one of the last people to leave the Great Hall, tromping down candle-lit hallways tiredly. She felt like she had run ten kilometers. Finally making it to the Fat Lady, Kate muttered the password, 'Welcome Back' that she had asked the Granger girl at dinner. With her waving her perfect badge around like that, she had been begging to be someone's authority figure. Kate trudged up to the girl's dorm and glanced at the chart listing chores, bedroom arrangements and years of everyone in the girl's dorm. The Head Girl was in charge of the list, Kate wondered idly if the boys had one like it. Probably not.
Kate gulped and stared at the piece of paper like she'd seen The Dark Lord himself.
"Merlin. I promise never to eat again if I wake up tomorrow morning in the Great Hall, heck I'd take the Infirmary. Just let this be a really bad dream." Kate pinched herself, and when nothing happened she banged her head on the wall in defeat.
This was not going to be her year.
TBC!
A/n- Hey lookie! It's another of those cliff-hanger thingies! (gulps) You...you're not mad, are you? (gets hit by something heavy) Oh. I see. (breaks down in tears and bows) Gomen nasi! I'm sorry this chapter took so long, I've had finals and been sick and sick again, in fact that's how I finally finished this devil. Yeah, believe me I know this took forever, the whole 'sensing' thing was a mother to write, it stumped me for at least a month, so tell me if it's good, and I get to win the bet against my muse. Yes, that's another reason this took so long, I found a muse! He's a dear, and his name's Wufei Chang, but you can call him Wuffles. I always do, which might explain why he wouldn't hel me write this chapter until I cut off his food lines... Naw. Yes, as you can tell I skipped the rest of the summer, it took long enough to write out the first 5 chapters. In case anyone cares, there might be a *little* bit of Dean/Seamus, depending on what you reviewer people say. Every review brightens my day immensely, so please send me your comments, I really need them. Wuffles keeps saying I'm a weakling and I need to use my own brain, not his. Please, send me your comments, ideas, death threats, five-letter responses, I'm desperately in need of attention. I want to know what you think about Dean and Seamus, who Kate's parents are (I dunno, so that one should be interesting), who should be able to 'sense' magic and a more original name than sensing. I think Wufei might be the anti-muse. Love ya!
~Dweia's Double
Making It There
Disclaimer- See earlier notes, which ever you want. I still own only my original characters (Laim and Fey Bell, Chris Thomas, the Twins and the Fletcher Girls) although it's too much to hope they would listen to me. I also don't own A Simple Plan (not even the CD!) or the rare Who-Roast-Beast. Life is cruel.
Anywho, on with the story. (To my whole three fans out there! Wo ai ni, mina!)
For anyone that didn't notice, I changed the last chapter and added all the rest, so you might want to make sure you read it all. Thanks for reading!
Kate wasn't popular in school. She never had been, but it wasn't something that nagged at her, it just was. There was no set popularity ladder, for the most part. Some, the exceptional few, caught everyone's eyes. Such children lived for the spotlight, and age was never a concern. Kate wasn't one of the focal points of the school, and this suited her just fine. It made sense, Kate couldn't speak in public and oral presentations where a nightmare.
Kate didn't like the limelight, but sometimes she stepped outside the box she had built for herself. Most other Gryffindors knew her as 'the Chaser' a quiet girl who hung around Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet. Sometimes she liked to make them think otherwise.
Which was why Kate was walking through the Hogwarts Express aisle way with a muggle CD-player about to fall off her travel bags. It hadn't started out that way, of course. Couldn't all embarrassing situations be traced back to a few less and brilliant choices that you never connected?
Back when the Bell family had made their yearly rounds to Diagon Alley for school supplies, Kate had been nostalgic. This being her seventh and final year, she knew she could never again come simply to buy school supplies, unless she chose to continue her education elsewhere, most likely in America. By this time next year her parents would expect her to support herself. So when she had asked to wonder off on her own, without having to listen to Chris speak loudly about how lucky they were he made them come a month in advance (He had only had a week to memorize his book list) and the twins exchange amused glances over his head, her parents had nodded with understanding smiles. Kate had wondered right out of the Leaky Cauldron and into the large muggle store full of music. A sales worker had flashed one of those predatory grins a wolf gives a baby rabbit and Kate found herself outside the store again with a flimsy plastic bag containing 2 CD-cases, a CD-player and batteries looking for all the world like she had gotten caught in a whirlwind. Oddly enough the sales worker hadn't been phased by Kate's wizarding money. Vaguely she remembered hearing from Dean muggles used different money. She had stopped a bemused teen around her own age and with a pleading look whispered,
"How does this work?" The boy laughed and proceeded to explain. Kate had given him a good many disbelieving looks to the young man when he explained what went where and why. Nevertheless, what the boy said proved true, and Kate pranced happy as a clam back into Diagon Alley. Until the inevitable became reality and the CD-player sputtered to a stop as Kate neared her family. Luckily for her, the Bell famliy was rather self-absorbed and Kate stuffed her player to the bottom of her bags. She later found out Dean had owed Chris some money and was trying to avoid paying by participating in some hair-brained plot the twins had thought up. As it was, Dean paid the twins a large portion of his pocket-change and could barely scrape enough knuts together to pay for his school supplies and had to beg more money off Chris to afford new robes.
Once Kate got home, she asked Dean about muggle items, hopping to learn what had happened to her player. it hadn't worked at her house either, and nothing the boy at the mall had told her seemed to be working. Dean had pushed her off the Chris, who was too busy reading his new textbooks to do any more than wave in the vague direction of 'Hogwarts, A History'. Kate had spent a frustrating hour looking thought the introduction (which was 53 1/6 pages long) until she flipped to the back and scanned the index for 'muggle'. She carefully read over the section about muggle objects and how they failed to work in areas like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, which had 'high levels of magical concentration'.
Kate slammed the book shut and walked up behind Dean, who was sitting on the couch waving his wand in the air with practiced ease, softly muttering the incantation to something or another. She dropped the book on his head and walked to her room with a sniff.
In the uproar of laughs that followed, Dean's mind cleared enough to envy his friend Seamus Finngian. Girls didn't abuse him, in fact he seemed quite popular among the opposite sex. What had he done to deserve this?
Kate stamped around in her room. What was she going to do now? 'Stupid Dean! Like he didn't know all that nonsense about muggle stuff. I bet he made me look all through that book for fun! Boys!' Kate paused in her internal rant to see the dog starring at her.
"What? Do *you* have an idea, dog?" Kate sarcastically asked the Animagi. The dog nodded. Kate glanced from the dog to her CD-player, hidden under her bed, back to the dog. Sighing, Kate sat down on the bed and watched the dog transform.
When Snuffles had determined her parents were not going to walk into Kate's room at any moment, he settled down on the end of her bed, his customary place in dog form. Kate scrunched away from the man and he winced. Kate was still very uncomfortable with the idea her dog was really a human, and Snuffles blamed himself. He slid off the bed onto the floor and sat Indian style.
"You said you had an idea, dog-boy?" Snuffles frowned at his nickname but didn't comment, only nodded.
"As you already know, the build-up of magic causes muggle-made objects to malfunction. The more complex the worse the malfunction. I propose you learn to create a magical barrier. Liam and Fey have both taught you how to control your own magical concentration." Kate blinked. What was he talking about?
"Um. What?"
"You know how you can control how powerful a Lumos spell is?" Kate nodded. That was one of the first spells that she had learned, and her father had explained now much she wanted the spell to work changed how well it worked. Eventually she had learned to make the glow resulting from a whispered 'Lumos' to flicker almost out of sight then grow to the intensity of a small sun.
"Yes, I believe."
"So you can control how much magic you use. I'm sure you can already sense places with high levels of magical residue. And maybe even people with magical abilities." Kate blinked again. What was Snuffles getting at? Snuffles noticed Kate's blank look and tried again to tone done the big words.
"You like to be in Diagon Alley, maybe you feel safer, sleep better or are more energetic at Hogwarts?" He prodded. Kate nodded.
"You can sense which of your friends are coming up behind you sometimes?" Snuffles asked more confidently. Kate shook her head. Snuffles narrowed his eyes. 'Perhaps sensing magic and sensing people's magic are different things...'
"Well, as far as Hogwarts, that's your unconscious reaction to places with high magical intensity. Your brain knows on some level more magic had been used around you, and that makes you more comfortable, emotional, whatever. How you could be interested in something so devoid of magic like a muggle music player is beyond me." Kate simply shrugged This was starting to sound like school.
"Is there a point?" The dog-man rolled his eyes.
"Of course. If you can learn to consciously 'feel' or ... 'see' magic, you can probably learn to keep it out of somewhere, namely your player."
"And?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
"It would work." Kate blinked for the third time.
"Oh. Really?" She seemed to have lost all sarcasm and looked almost excited. Snuffles nodded.
"That's what I believe." He sounded suddenly uncertain. Removing magic was unheard of, no one had ever wanted to do something so against the medium in which they lived. Kate mistook his uncertainty for anger, and she realized with a start how rude she had been to her impromptu teacher. She pushed aside any uncomfortable feelings she harbored towards her dog.
"I'm.. sorry, Snuffles. Could you please show me how? I'll behave." Kate paused between fear and enthusiasm. Snuffles laughed.
"Then I'll give it my best shot, master." He jokingly replied. Kate gave him a dirty look.
"You keep that up and I'll make you clean my room. My name is Kate." They both shared a smile. And so the ice was broken and a friendship began.
That night Kate and Snuffles experimented. Through trial and error, Kate discovered using a method her father taught her helped to 'feel' spells. Liam Bell had taught Kate to clear her head before even attempting to change how strong a spell was. You found your magical center, which was easier than it sounded. You closed your eyes and focused on what it felt like to cast a spell, the feeling of magic coming from somewhere near your heart. Right where your physical heart was also your magical center, which might have been why the Egyptians buried people with their hearts intact. Once you found the glowing magic that was purely *yours*, you had a heightened sense of awareness. Kate could feel the wandless magic lingering around Snuffles, which Kate could only assume was his trasfiguration spell. Kate let him borrow her wand (14 1/2 inches, weeping willow and unicorn hair, wispy) and after he cast a Lumos spell with it, Kate could see the spell using a wand was diluted and foggy. It was a confusing process, seeing spells, and it really couldn't be called seeing. Sensing a spell went beyond the five senses Kate was used to. In fact, you didn't need to be have your eyes open to sense a spell, but Kate insisted on it or she would fall asleep.
Kate was able to recognize the room spell across the hall and compared wandless magic, magic using a wand tuned to your magical signature or magic using someone else's wand. Wandless magic and attuned wand magic where both about quite powerful, but wandless magic was harder to control, and depending on your own magic, more powerful. Un-tuned wand magic was a pale and sickly thing and just as uncontrollable as wandless magic.
This was all very well and good, but around three in the morning even Kate wanted to call it a night, and she still couldn't feel any dormant magic (not being used for a spell) and still couldn't sense Snuffle's personal magic. Snuffles was beginning to doubt all three abilities worked together, but maintained this was simply because she was best at sensing new things. Cast spells were always a little different, so Kate had no trouble identifying them. She had been living in the Bell house and around the Forbidden Forest her entire life, so she probably did recognize the magic there, but she was familiar with it, so it wasn't easy to bring to her conscious. The same went for Snuffles, who had been nearby for the past month.
Kate doubted this, but before she could argue properly she was fast asleep. Snuffles was gone the next day, and the next. Kate waited at nigh for him, but days turned into weeks which turned into a month, and the night before her final trip out to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express she stuffed her comatose CD-player into her traveling bag.
Kate found a compartment in the back of the train between two other compartments full to the brim of nervous first years and haughty second years instead of sitting with her best friends Alicia and Angelina. If she was going to try out what Snuffles had suggested she would need lots of quiet and even more time.
'I wish I had practiced more... ah well, too late now...' Kate had almost completely forgotten about her muggle toy over the summer.
Kate glared at the player for a few moments, daring is to mock her foolishness too. The device was keeping to itself, though, so Kate simply glared at it and positioned herself comfortably in one of the Hogwarts Express seats, half-gazing out the window.
After the heat wave had broken with the thunder storm Kate had almost ended up a part of, the weather had taken another dip. After a week of pleasant weather that you wished summer could be all the time, it had been wet, dreary and nippy. Not really cold, but everyone wished for the heat wave to return. The plants had been effected by the strange weather, and the trees rushing by looked worse for the wear, and shrubs and grass alike were on the sickly side. Kate recalled a few Hufflepuff second years whispering something about You-Know-Who being able to control the weather. Kate had almost laughed out loud at that. Still, she was reminded of how much Voldemort was feared. She and her siblings had sat talking about him in the safety of their play room, and it made the Dark Lord seem less real.
Kate had also discussed sensing spells with Chris in the play room. Once, when Chris wasn't tangled in his books for a change, Kate had convinced him to help her. Chris was sure there was a spell for everything and all problems, and he suggested using a Charm of Origin on Kate. Kate had exclaimed she could see almost exactly what she had seen with Snuffles, but she understood more. Chris was entranced and forced Kate to use the same spell on him. He blinked several times and looked around the room. He had a strange expression on his face.
"What is it?" Chris was giddy with joy and his smile showed it.
"It's wonderful... I can see all the magic floating around the room, little particles of magic... it's amazing, Kate." Kate sighed some things would never change. Chris always seemed amazed when he saw magic, couldn't get enough of it, kind of like the muggle-born children Kate knew. Chris sat, dazed for several minutes before hopping up.
"Do you know what this means, Kate? The Charm of Origin, it must be a natural emphasizer of the talents wizards and witches have to tap into their magic! And if this Charm has different effects on us, then we really must have different talents... Not everyone can use the Charm of Origin, you know Kate. It doesn't work for some people... Oh Kate, do you think the person who realized this charm knew about the people's talents or..." Chris went off to study and research and Kate had seen no more than small scraps of him during his pursuit of knowledge.
Kate had know settled into her seat in the train car and turned away from the window, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She wished she had someone to cast the Charm of Origin on her, but Chris was off with his friends, and she hadn't told anyone else about 'sensing' magic.
Through trial and error (emphasis on error) Kate had learned closing her eye and getting comfy helped a lot.. So she leaned against the jiggling wall, closed her eyes, and simply felt. Kate didn't know how Father had taught her siblings how to control spells, but Kate felt inside of herself for the magical center she knew was hers. It helped to remember what it felt like to cast a successful spell, and how the magic poured out of you, more importantly where it poured out from. Mostly it felt like falling asleep. Kate focused on little details in, things she was conscious of, things she could hear, smell or feel. A slow train of thought about her surroundings until stray thoughts about magic floated in. At least that's what she'd done with Snuffles. The first few times they had practiced, Snuffles hadn't used the Charm of Origin, so sometimes it took a few minutes to get to the point where she recognized spells. After having the Charm of Origin used on her, Kate thought she would be able to recognize magically aware thoughts, like when Chris had seen the magic in the air.
Of course, Kate never been quite able to grasp 'magic' thoughts at home, but active spells should be enough like it. Kate tried not to think about all the times Snuffles had had to shake her awake after she had tried to sense magic and fallen asleep. And the downside of using the falling asleep method was the few times she had used it Snuffles had to keep casting spells, and Kate never could catch the first few.
'But', she reminded herself, 'there was no one to cast the Charm of Origin on her', so Kate tried to ignore the more cynical part of her mind that threatened her she couldn't do a hundred little things she didn't even know about right. She gave that voice a firm 'Bugger off.' and drifted.
'Yummy, food cart will be here soon... it's quite warm in here... this place's dusty, it's tickling my nose... the sun outside is sure making it warmer in here... some kids are playing exploding snap over there... those are some really poor wizards over there, one's almost a squib, really...'
Kate almost jolted our of her seat, but instead reached out to the level of awareness that could sense the magical essence of the children to her right and left. Well, technically they were everywhere, but Kate could recognize those closer easier. When Kate reached out she felt her own magic flare up in her chest and could suddenly sense fires that she instinctively knew were the magic of other Hogwarts students.
She had been right in her prediction, the boy (she thought it was a boy by all the loud sounds coming from the car) would never be a strong wizard. However, they were new students, all of them, most likely muggle-born first years with one or two wizarding-born first or second years. All the students had a small glowing ball hanging in the air where their heart was. It shimmered and flickered, like a fire you were about to floo in. All the little fires were simmering and glowing and Kate got the impression she had a texture and feel to them, but Kate didn't get close enough to see. Most of the fires were faint, more like mist than fire, probably untouched magic potential, and Kate identified the fires which were entirely mist as muggle-borns. They had never had a chance to practice any spells. Kate felt her way down the hall to the right, meeting fires of several more students. She could sometimes tell what type of magic a person was strongest in. Sometimes she could tell which students were more powerful. She could see potential in first and second and maybe even third years (she thought, she'd never compared how much magic she knew with Dean, and Chris did not count as a basis of comparison. Kate was surprised she couldn't tell houses apart. She had assumed there was something the sorting hat could see around a person and that was what made it decide which house you were in. Perhaps she had to look closer... Kate brushed one of the glowing fires and was overwhelmed with spells said person knew, even some experiences. But most of all Kate felt the person's thoughts.
She became the person.
Suddenly she *was* Dennis Creevy, clutching a set of inks and eyeing *the* *Harry**Potter* with longing. He was so brave and strong, facing Voldemort. 'Why can't I be like that?' Dennis smiled a little at that thought. No one could ever be quite as silently powerful and Harry, and he didn't really want to try. After all, to have the fate of the whole world on those handsome shoulders...
"Are...are you sure I can't paint you Harry sir?" 'Collin has told me so much about him, and last year I actually got to talk to him, kind of like right now.'
"No, Dennis, I told you before..." The Gryffindor golden boy pulled at his collar and Dennis felt guilty. What was he doing bugging Harry Potter? He had more important things to do, shouldn't be annoyed by the likes of Dennis Creevy. Guilt waged a short and furious war with the Hero-worship. Crying out in pain and terror, guilt was overwhelmed by a fresh wave of worship when Dennis realized Harry was talking to him.
"I-Oh.. all right, but be quick about it, will you? I don't want Malfoy making another insult about my swelled head..."
"Would you like something to eat, little miss?"
"I said, would you like something to ear, miss?"
Suddenly, Kate was somewhere else and someone else. The world popped back into focus and color, and it took Kate a second to sort out everything.
"WHAAH!" Kate tried to jump back and slammed her head on the wall. The tolley witch stepped back, unfrazzled. This obviously wasn't the first time she had woken someone up from a sound sleep.
But that wasn't what had scared Kate. Much like Chris had described, the air was full of little glowing particles. It reminded Kate of light streaming through her bedroom window illuminating dust in the air. It was pretty amazing. Kate didn't really know how she had managed it, but this was really neat. Kate shuddered when she remembered being Dennis Creevy. She had new respect for Harry Potter, putting up with that skunk.
Kate shuddered, but remembered she had a reason, maybe a little sily, to do all this, and got down to it, so she remembered what Snuffles had told her. After all, he'd been right so far. Kate was ashamed of doubting her friends. Sometimes Snuffles seemed a little unbalanced...the way he avoided water as a human and a dog, then had the nerve to say he smelled fine! He could be smelt a mile away and it took forever to get his wet down smell out of things. He had picked up quite a few of a dog's characteristics, and it grossed Kate out.
But Snuffles had been right about a lot of things so far, so she might as well fallow his instructions some more. She tried to remember, after all it had been a month since she had seen or heard from him. But he had said he had some business, and she believed him, a little. The Animagi said malfunction was caused by lots of magic in one place, so if she could just force the magic out...
Kate squinted at the little dots of magic. Whenever they collided they created sparks that reminded Kate of the 'fires'. That must be what was messing up her CD-player.
Kate squinted again and the little dots seemed to quiver, then moved quickly around each other in a wild game of tag. Kate heard a faint high-pitched chatter, like a squirrel on helium. Was the magic... alive? Well, it was getting annoying
/Stop all that hopping!/ Kate called firmly in her mind. And where she was starring, the dots *stopped*.
"Woah, freaky..." Kate said out loud, starring at the frozen dots.
"Ahem, miss?" Kate turned and focused all her attention on the owner of the voice. The dots started drifting out of view, and Kate held onto the part of her mind that could see them until they remained visible and she sighed in relief. The patient witch was eyeing Kate with a mix of amusement and concern. The woman was quite used to strange exclamations from the younger years, but not the old. The girl before her didn't seem all 'there' and the woman pondered how picky Headmaster Dumbledore was about student's sanity. Not that she'd have to deal with the girl, kid was worrying her. The blonde child's eyes slid back into focus and she laughed nervously.
"Heh, sorry about that. Umm, no, I'll be fine, thanks!" She said quickly. The trolley witch fled, grumbling to herself about absent-minded-good-for-nothing children.
Kate ignored her and turned back to her 'work'. The dots were bouncing around again, and they didn't even stop when she glared at them.
"Bugger! What am I going to do now?" Kate muttered to herself. She racked her brain for an idea. Was there a spell she could use? Of course not, that would probably be worse on the muggle object than just being around the dots with their spark. Part of her own magic, her 'fire', how knows what it would do to her little CD-player? Kate snickered. She was really starting to like the thing, even if it was just being stubborn. She hugged someone because no one else talked to them, something like that.
Her and Snuffle's idea seemed hopeless now, but Kate refused to give up. She'd learned so much! ...She wanted to finish what she had started. Kate pulled out the CD-player that had caused all this trouble, that had started everything.
"Why couldn't you just work?" She asked the CD-player sadly. 'This has not been a good day.' Kate looked around. Sound, so soft she hadn't noticed it, had stopped. The Chaser could hear a ringing in her ears like you hear sometimes when its really, really quiet, like there isn't a sound for miles around. Kate looked up from her muggle toy and saw none of the particles around her were moving. 'What?' She thought, startled. Slowly she looked up and around herself. 'What is happening?'
A hole appeared in the dots of magic, and slowly formed into... a face? Yes, it was a face, and it looked a lot like Kate.
"um." Kate said, starring at her reflection. 'What is happening?' Kate remembered when she had first thought the dots had a conscious. Now she was sure.
She waved to her double ganger, and it waved back. Kate remembered hearing about a muggle horror movie, and she wondered if it was like this. She sure had no idea what she was going to do. The face formed into a small figure, which bowed before dispersing. Kate gulped. Why did she get the feeling something important had just happened that was *way* over her head?
The dots went back to moving, and Kate saw there were sparks on her CD-player, and they were creating a sickly light around the muggle device. It really wasn't a light, it was a lack of light, where the dots faded from life. This made Kate really angry. Not only were the dots hurting the CD-player, they were hurting themselves! /Get out of there!/ And the dots obeyed. Slowly they were pushed out of the muggle object by an invisible wall. The dots bounced off. Kate nodded to herself when the wall reached the edge of the CD-player. /That's enough./ Kate didn't know how, but she knew she held the wall at the edge of the player's plastic cell and tied it off there, using the plastic to hold the wall. Nothing had ever come so easy for Kate. Everything else in her life she had had to muddle through and practice. Nothing was ever so easy, so natural that thought became action before she really had the think about it. She knew without worrying they wall would hold. It was a huge power trip.
Luckily Kate's swelled ego didn't ruin her hard work, and the magical barrier held, and the plastic strained for a moment, then it was back to normal. Kate turned next to her first CD. It was of a band called A Simple Plan. She had heard it playing over the intercom at the store and asked about it. When she had seen the three logos she had hesitated because one reminded her of the storm, it was a rain cloud with a large lightening bolt. Kate remembered another significant thing about the lightening bolt and blushed. She really hadn't meant to act like the Creevy boy. She hadn't realized what people would see when they noticed the lightening bolt. Too late now.
Kate could feel the dots becoming insubstantial and fought to keep sensing them. She was getting tried and wouldn't be able sense magic for much longer. She couldn't really explain it, but she knew when she let go of her extra sense, she wouldn't be able to excess it for quite a while, maybe even a week. Kate really wanted to shield at least one of her muggle CD's before school started.
Kate laughed softly to herself. Not ten minutes ago she would have been overjoyed to even sense magic. Five minutes ago she would have been ecstatic to discover something that would help her control the magic. Kate remember something her father had said once.
"What's rich? I heard one of my co-workers say rich is double what you have right now. I disagree, rich for me is ten times what I've got." Why did the old guy have to be right? Sometimes her dad said strange stuff, but one way or another is *was* true.
Kate looked down at the CD and concentrated on the magical particles in it, telling them to /get out/. Much slower than before, the clashing dots and sparks receded. Every centimeter was a struggle, but Kate had almost secured the barrier when she was backhanded with a *Thunk*.
"Wake up stupid Gryffindork! What do you think you're doing, ignoring me?" Came a drawl, nasal voice. Kate was shaken out of her sense, and she could feel the particles and her new-found talent receding. 'Stop!' She called mentally, trying to cement the almost completed border, but she knew it was just a thought. Numbly she stared at the CD, she nothing more than the shiny plastic. Painfully slow, she looked up at the student who had so rudely awakened her. She absolutely refused to rub her cheek, even though it was turning red. It didn't really hurt anyway, whoever had done it must be a toothpick.
Kate looked up and saw a small, sickly and pale blonde looking down on her with distaste. 'Well, I was right. Puberty has not been kind to the kid.' She thought. He was almost gray, like the kid never saw the sun, and his limbs stuck out of his robes at odd angles. His ears were too big, and his eyes, but she supposed he wasn't that bad-looking. At least not in her school, but then again the pickings were pretty slim at her school, Kate always thought. Glancing again Kate realized the boy wasn't all that ugly, her first impression had been clouded by resentment. He held himself arrogantly, like it had been ingrained into him from birth. He was attractive, in a small, almost feminine way. Her first reaction had been to pound the boy senseless, but her family believed in protecting the weak, not imprinting their face into the ground. 'Stupid Mother and her rules.' Now that she had identified the younger Hogwarts student as a weakling, she couldn't hit him, even when you noticed the robes he wore made him a Slytherin. 'Damn, now I can't ask the twins to be mean to him either.' Amy and Lauren never hurt a fellow Slytherin, 'least not in public.
The boy shifted to the other foot, impatient. He was used to people reacting instantly to him, in anger of fear. Kate had done neither, simply stared blankly. Kate tried to contain her anger to words.
"Do I know you?" He looked familiar, she most likely had seen him in the Great Hall. The boy stepped backward in astonishment. All the Gryffindors should have known him.
"m-My name is Draco Malfoy." Draco said that like it should mean something. Not that she heard his name, she realized he one of the boys the younger year girls goggled at. She thought she had even heard his name mentioned by the Gryffindor Three. Kate nodded.
"I'm Kate Bell, from the Gryffindor Quidditch team... Oh! I remember you, Draco Malfoy!" Kate sounded excited. That's where she had seen him! Draco smiled.
"You play on the Slytherin team, right? Do you still use that bush off to the left of the big goals?" She looked interested, Markus had told her all about the Slytherin's cheats forth year when he graduated. Said he wanted to keep his team on their toes. Draco blanched.
"w-What? We don't cheat, it's you bloody Gryffindors that sneak around like the rats you are!" He sounded off-balance in this conversation, something that obviously didn't happen a lot to the blonde seeker. Kate smiled and nodded. Good, now she could enspell all the other watching places Flint had told her about. 'That's for hitting me, creep.' Kate thought softly.
"Why did you hit me?" Kate asked quietly, just noticing the huge thugs peering in the doorway. 'Good. Maybe that will keep the punk from getting the crap beat out of him too much.' Mother always pitied the weak, Dad said she should have been in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff. Kate just wished she wasn't so much like her mother. What father said made more sense.
'Some kids just need a swift kick in the behind to set 'em straight.' But then he said 'And if they're sticking their nose that far in the air, they're trying to pretend they haven't already been kicked.' Forget it, Dad was too soft as well.
But part of her wondered if this pretty-boy hadn't already been kicked. For good or worse, she decided to make an effort to be nicer.
"That's a nice name you have, Draco." Draco looked sunned. Hadn't she just been about to threatened him if he didn't tell her why he had hit her? Girls were crazy, Draco concluded.
"What do you mean?" He asked, avoiding her question.
"Well, it sounds really neat, you know? It's unique. Not like Kate. I know about five other girls named Kate in my Arithmacy class alone. Again, do you think you could tell me why you hit me?" The blonde Chaser bit her tongue to keep from letting her anger get the best of her as she eyes the other blonde. Kate hid the CD and player back in her bag. Slytherins had a tendency to hate muggles, and Kate suspected this one wouldn't be afraid to hit her again, since she hadn't his him back the first time. Besides, he did have to thugs outside.
"Really, do you think you can tell me why you ruined the rest of my day, not to mention the rest of my week?" Kate bit her lip to keep from rubbing her head. She had a massive headache coming on. Somebody was going to pay for this. Now all of her head hurt, even her tongue and lip. The boy tried to look arrogant again.
"You didn't answer me, Gryffindor." The arrogant boy responded. Kate let out a laugh that quickly turned to a growl/cough. This little kid was really bugging her.
"Well that's a really crappy reason." Kate glanced out the window and noticed the Lake was coming into view, the giant squid waving it's tentacles in welcome to the new first years. Finally she could see her friends all fellow Chasers. They almost never talked or visited during summer break.
"Alright!" Kate smiled and again ignored the pale Draco. Instead she focused all her efforts on gathering her bags, suitcases and whatnot into a pile and getting ready to leave. Her final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had begun! The return of the school year destroyed Kate's impending bad mood, and she smiled at the fifth year.
"Nice talking to ya! Perhaps we shall meet again soon, huh?" And then Kate was gone from the train car with a flash of her Gryffindor scarf, which, like the rest of her uniform, she had changed into before beginning her little 'experiment'.
Kate rushed down the hall, intent on being the first out of the train, as it was going to stop in a less than a minute or two.
Passing by a closed door, Kate heard what sounded like her brother Dean laughing. She snickered and wondered who was giving the guy what for. 'Lets find out!' Kate happily thought. It was good to hear laughing again. Kate opened the door.
Dean's best friend Seamus Finnigan was sitting on Dean stomach tickling him mercilessly. Dean was breathless from laughing, his eyes shut and Seamus looked like a cat that got the cream. Kate covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. Seamus noticed her and grinned widely, slightly pink. Dean looked confused that Seamus had stopped the tickle torture and blushed dark red when he saw Kate in the doorway.
"This-this isn't what it looks like! He tricked me, I swear!" Seamus and Kate shared a knowing look and Kate sniffed.
"Right, I can tell I interrupted something... personal, so I just want to warn to to finish up soon, cause we're almost to school! So no more naughtiness!" Kate gave them her best 'cute' smile before darting off. She was followed by Dean's indignant squawk and Seamus's hearty laugh.
Kate was a little disappointed when Angelina and Alicia didn't hear her calling to them. Kate was forced to sit with a bunch of giggling third years, but even that didn't dim her excitement. The sorting and following feast passed in a daze for Kate, and she still hadn't had a chance to speak with her best friends. They had been surrounded by younger years, aside from the Weasley twins, also in their last year, who choose to sit next to their younger brother...Ron? And his friends, somebody Granger and, of course, the famous Harry Potter. Kate didn't need to stare, the poor kid got that enough. Kate wasn't really close so Kate didn't try to drag them into conversation. Like most boys she didn't know very well, they were most likely to give her one word answers, or none at all. Instead she turned to the girl on her right, an chipper second year named Helen. When the food appeared, Helen muttered to herself,
"Where's the rare Who-Roast-Beast?" Kate blinked.
"Um. What?" Kate asked with an air of someone who just had something fly over her head. Helen smiled.
"Oh, nothing." Kate was familiar with that phrase (she used it frequently to her parents) so nodded and made a fake bow. Helen laughed, and they shared a smirk. No one understood sarcasm at this school.
Kate was quite proud of herself later that evening when Dennis and a boy that looked just like him, only taller, rounded on Potter. Kate knew just what the younger was thinking, and she felt a wave of pity rise in her stomach. She was going to do something nice. Stupid and self-sacrificing, but nice. 'Bugger.' Kate waved Dennis and his brother over to talk about Quidditch. Letting their play-by-play of all of "The Great Harry Potter's" tactics wash over her, she mouthed 'Run' in the general direction of the Weasley twins. It took a very long time to convince the Creevy brother's she didn't want to join the 'Harry Potter Fan Club (tm)' after she was sure the Boy-Who-Lived had escaped. She wanted to shoot herself. That most have been one of the stupidest things she'd done in her life. Even Professor Dumbledore had eyed her with one eyebrow raise as he walked by and Kate stared helplessly at him.
Because of this Kate was one of the last people to leave the Great Hall, tromping down candle-lit hallways tiredly. She felt like she had run ten kilometers. Finally making it to the Fat Lady, Kate muttered the password, 'Welcome Back' that she had asked the Granger girl at dinner. With her waving her perfect badge around like that, she had been begging to be someone's authority figure. Kate trudged up to the girl's dorm and glanced at the chart listing chores, bedroom arrangements and years of everyone in the girl's dorm. The Head Girl was in charge of the list, Kate wondered idly if the boys had one like it. Probably not.
Kate gulped and stared at the piece of paper like she'd seen The Dark Lord himself.
"Merlin. I promise never to eat again if I wake up tomorrow morning in the Great Hall, heck I'd take the Infirmary. Just let this be a really bad dream." Kate pinched herself, and when nothing happened she banged her head on the wall in defeat.
This was not going to be her year.
TBC!
A/n- Hey lookie! It's another of those cliff-hanger thingies! (gulps) You...you're not mad, are you? (gets hit by something heavy) Oh. I see. (breaks down in tears and bows) Gomen nasi! I'm sorry this chapter took so long, I've had finals and been sick and sick again, in fact that's how I finally finished this devil. Yeah, believe me I know this took forever, the whole 'sensing' thing was a mother to write, it stumped me for at least a month, so tell me if it's good, and I get to win the bet against my muse. Yes, that's another reason this took so long, I found a muse! He's a dear, and his name's Wufei Chang, but you can call him Wuffles. I always do, which might explain why he wouldn't hel me write this chapter until I cut off his food lines... Naw. Yes, as you can tell I skipped the rest of the summer, it took long enough to write out the first 5 chapters. In case anyone cares, there might be a *little* bit of Dean/Seamus, depending on what you reviewer people say. Every review brightens my day immensely, so please send me your comments, I really need them. Wuffles keeps saying I'm a weakling and I need to use my own brain, not his. Please, send me your comments, ideas, death threats, five-letter responses, I'm desperately in need of attention. I want to know what you think about Dean and Seamus, who Kate's parents are (I dunno, so that one should be interesting), who should be able to 'sense' magic and a more original name than sensing. I think Wufei might be the anti-muse. Love ya!
~Dweia's Double