This goes for all the chapters and everything hp I write: Harry Potter and other copyrighted stuff isn't mine. All that's mine is the particular arrangement of letters that forms this story.

Enjoy!

            The next time Kate got the chance to really talk to Tom, there were only two weeks remaining of school. Sure, they'd said hi and made small talk, but she hadn't yet pitched her idea, her Great Plan, to him.

            She tried to treat it casually, but it was awfully difficult to act as though she didn't care if he rejected that which she'd put so much work into. It was on her mind almost as much as he was. When that week of N.E.W.T.s came to a close, she felt as happy and unburdened as she had in ages: the tests were done, Tom obviously didn't mind her company, and she actually knew what to do about it all!

            Working it out in her mind was one thing, but eventually other people needed to be convinced. There was her uncle Roderick, for starters. He proved easy to persuade into doing his part; apparently Brazil wasn't a very popular place in the summer. In turn, he pulled the loose strings at the International Magical Affairs Organization (IMAO), getting rooms and transportation. Now, all there was left was for her to make Tom realize how much he wanted to go….

            After weeks of waiting anxiously, the opportunity finally, finally presented itself. Kate felt as though she was no more than a bundle of nerves, somehow making its way across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, at the end of which he sat, alone, poring over an archaic-looking leather-bound book. Every so often he remembered the cold toast in front of him and took a halfhearted bite, eyes never leaving the page.

            "Now or never," she repeated to herself. A deep breath, a big smile, and she was ready to steal his attention. "Hey, Tom!"

            "Morning, Katie," said he, not lifting his head.

            Once again she sat down with him, not formally invited but not somehow rejected, either. The way he called her 'Katie' again, as he (and only he) had begun to do regularly, spurred her on. "What're you reading?"

            "An examination of the possible repercussions of excessive magic on the Muggle world," he replied.

            There was a moment's silence. Just as Kate was beginning to feel that this wasn't going properly, he cleared his throat and closed the book with a heavy thud. She smiled cautiously, he returned with a grin and a nonchalant, "what's on your mind?"

            "I was thinking," she began, watching his face carefully for a sign to back off, "about where you're going after this."

            "I told you," Tom frowned. "I don't know where. I don't exactly have a family to go home to, as I'm sure you already know."

            She sensed his defensiveness before he even spoke. "I know, I know," she said. Her instinct was to reach over and grasp his arm reassuringly, but she stopped herself just in time, leaving her hand conspicuously isolated in the middle of the table. "I wanted to offer you…that is, the Ministry, really…anyway, if you might be interested in going to Brazil…."

            "Why would I want to go to Brazil?"

            "I'll be there," she said before thinking. Good job, Kate, that doesn't sound too obvious. Hey, wanna come go to a foreign country just so we can hang out this summer? "You know, it's not like you'd be alone, already have a friend and stuff." A nervous laugh escaped her.

            Tom tapped his fingers lightly on the giant, oaken table. "That's right. I forgot."

            Kate seized her opportunity. "Yeah, so, like I said, my Uncle Roderick got me a place to stay there, right? He—he can do the same for you, if you want. It's not a big deal, it's not like Brazil is exactly popular in the summer, being so close to the equator and everything." Shut up, Kate, shut up! Stop smiling, dammit!

            "No, I wouldn't guess it is," Tom said calmly, his eyes wandering down to his uneaten toast, then to her hand. She resisted the urge to pull it back, instead, pretended to be inspecting one of her fingernails from afar.

            Okay, get out of this, while you still can. "Well, I just wanted to let you know," she said, rising. "This' the address…I'm catching a Portkey at the time and all, there, so um…yeah." The piece of paper was pulled from her robe, then awkwardly passed from her free hand to the one resting on the table.

            Now he looked at that. She twitched, he met her eyes, and then closed his hand over hers.

             "Thanks," he said, taking the paper.

             "No problem," she replied. It felt so funny when he looked at her like that….

             "You'd better be going."

             "Yeah, I've gotta go, erm, talk to Professor…Tinellus, yes. See you in Transfiguration."

             "Yep. 'Bye."

             "URRRRRGH!" Kate shouted inwardly as she turned away. Even then, she could feel his eyes on her back. Her cheeks burned, she knew they must be bright red—had they looked that way when she was talking to him? Frantically she replayed the conversation over in her mind. Was she too eager? Did she really offend him by offering him somewhere to stay? Maybe he wanted his independence, of course, she could see it now: he was a free spirit, didn't want anyone to tie him down….

            There's one way to know, she eventually reasoned out. He'll either show up or he won't, and then, then you can relax.