A/N: Ok, hopefully the story line will pick up a bit more from this chapter onwards, as some important events will have to take place in order for this story to work out the way I plan it to. And then I must just warn all Malfoy fans that I've recently started reading OotP, and I will be taking sweet revenge on Malfoy Senior – since his son is such an insufferable git. Oh, and for those of you who will wonder, I am NOT American, nor am I pro-American (or anti-American, for that matter) in any way. It is just an excuse to put a lot of stuff into the story. Please don't forget to review! Your opinions mean the world to me!
A strange hush fell over Hogwarts as the majority of students left for the Christmas holidays. The corridors seemed strangely deserted, and the Great Hall appeared even bigger without the House tables being completely full.
Christmas spirit was thick in the air, however, with the entire school decorated with candles and holly and glowing baubles. Even Peeves took on the spirit of things, wearing a red Christmas hat and pelting unsuspecting students with snowballs.
The Marauders were having the time of their lives. Apart from two first years, a couple of third years and four seventh years, they had the Gryffindor common room to themselves. It was fun and games from the moment they all woke up, till the time they dragged themselves to bed (often upon order of Professor MacGonagall).
Kat, however had made it quite clear that she wished to sleep late every morning – and woe to the person that dared to wake her.
Jess made the mistake of testing Kat upon her threats on the first morning of holidays, bounding in to the girl's room and shouting at Kat to wake up. She found herself flat on her back, every limb quivering like jelly. She couldn't even speak from between jelly-like lips, and hearing became near to impossible with globs of mush where her ears had been.
Fortunately for her, Lily came to check up on the two when neither of them appeared, finding Kat soundly asleep and Jess lying wobbling on the carpet. Even Lily couldn't quite suppress her giggles. Needless to say, no-one dared to wake Kat anytime soon.
Christmas morning dawned bright and clear, and outside Hogwarts the snow lay in a thick white blanket. The students woke to stacks of presents piled at the foot of their beds, and many joyful exclamations could be heard as gift-wrapping was pulled of off presents.
Sirius grinned broadly as he made his way into the girl's dormitory (no slipping stairs could keep him out) watching his girlfriend still sleeping soundly. Lily and Jess had gone down to breakfast with the other Marauders, but Sirius had stayed behind, promising to catch up with them later.
With infinite care, Sirius climbed unto the bed, and placed a light kiss on Kat's cheek. Her wand was against his temple before she even opened her eyes, and her lips were already forming the first syllables of a incantation before she saw who was it was that she was about to curse.
"Merlin's beard, Sirius!" She swore, dropping the wand. "Never do that again! I could have killed you!" She sat up and rubbed her hands across her eyes. With a shock she knew that she had been ready to use the Killing curse on Sirius, and that scared her. Her instincts had taken over so completely, her mind flashing back to her younger days when her father had sneaked up on her every night, forcing her reflexes to become lightning quick. And she remembered the day he had taught her the Unforgivables. She would not think of that, not now.
"How did you get in here, in anyway?" She asked and wrenched her thoughts back to the present.
"That is just one of my many talents, Kitty Kat." He joked and kissed her once more. "Merry Christmas."
Glaring at him, Kat echoed him. "Did you like your present?" She asked, still slightly shaken from shock.
"It's great!" Sirius exclaimed, looking like a little boy. "But I am afraid that I'm not quite sure how half of those things work, you'll have to explain them some time."
"I always knew American's were smarter than you British people." Kat teased, over-looking the fact that she was actually British herself.
Sirius stuck his tongue out at her and held up a small, beautifully wrapped package. "This is for you."
Raising an eyebrow, Kat slowly pulled off the paper to reveal an ornately carved wooden box. Snapping open the lid, she found inside it, nestled in a piece of cream-coloured silk cloth, a delicately wrought silver necklace. A tiny pendant in the form of a cat hung from the chain, it's sapphire eyes gleaming in the morning light.
"Oh Sirius…" She breathed as she lifted it out of the box. "This is beautiful." She fastened it around her neck before throwing her arms around the him, kissing him thoroughly.
"Hmmm, that's the way I like to be thanked." Sirius murmured half-an-hour later, extracting his fingers from Kat's tousled hair. "Feel like getting up and going down to breakfast?" He hopped of off the bed and straightened his robes with a grin. "We are planning to go ice-skating on the lake today."
Nodding, Kat started to pull a pair of robes from her trunk, not noticing the smirk on Sirius's face as he silently watched her. She dug around for a pair of socks, and finding two pairs, chucked one at Sirius without even looking.
"No-one said you could stay, Sirius Black!"
Mumbling something under his breath, Padfoot made his way down to the common room.
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Kat made her way down from the Owlery late that night, having just finished writing her report about Frank Longbottom. It saddened Kat that she had to write anything at all, not even to mentioned that fact that she hated to report on any of her friends. Although she did not know Frank all that well, she liked him and his steady girlfriend, Alice, a lot. They would never join the ranks of Kat and her parents, but she had a job to do, even if she hated it.
She was so deep in thought that she did not even notice the pale hand reaching for her arm until it locked firmly around her wrist and pulled her into an empty class room.
"What…" She started, cutting short her exclamation as she found herself face to face with Lucius Malfoy.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" She asked with a bored expression settling over her features. How easy it had become for her to slip from one personality to the other. The one moment she was the perfect friend and girlfriend, the next, a follower of the Dark Lord, carefully calculating and cold. How she sickened herself. She glanced to her right as the door of the class room suddenly closed, finding none other than Severous Snape leaning against the wall beside them.
"You never told me that you were sworn to the Dark Lord, Katherine." Malfoy spat, his pinched features looking even more ferret-like than normal.
"I do not have to tell you all my doings, Malfoy. I answer to none except our Lord – unlike you." There was a sneer on her features, and her tone was as cold as ice.
Flushing slightly at the insult, Malfoy glanced at his friend and seemed to stiffen his back-bone visibly. "If you are so loyal to him, what are you doing dating one of those Mudblood lovers?"
"You have no finesse, Malfoy, no subtlety." Kat laughed a cold, harsh laugh. "You scheme, but there is no debt to your plans – no ambition. I do not find it strange that the Dark Lord does not wish you to swear yourself to him yet, he has no time for ambitionless fools." She jerked her arm out of his grasp and started making for the door, only to find her way blocked by Snape.
"Oh for the love of Merlin, Snivellous, get out of my way you stupid prat."
Snape opened and closed his mouth in rapid succession, glancing at Malfoy for help.
"How long do you think that you can hide your relationship with Black from the Dark Lord?" Malfoy called out to her, an ugly expression carved on his pale face.
"What makes you think I'm hiding anything from my master, Malfoy? How would you know that all I am doing is not on his order?" He had touched a nerve in Kat, and for a few seconds she struggled to keep her cool. "The last time I checked you were not even allowed into his presence. That must have hurt." She flashed him a triumphant smile, confident that she was now on top of the little game they were playing.
Malfoy glowered in her direction and Snape made a growling sound in his throat.
"It would do well for you to be nice with me, Katherine Hale. One of these days I will be Lord Voldemort's favourite, and then you will be begging me on your knees to forgive you for your hard words." Snape gagged at the feared name, but Kat merely narrowed her eyes.
"You talk of what you do not know, Malfoy, and you are wasting my time." Kat turned back to the door and pushed past Snape, only to feel Malfoy's hand clenching her shoulder firmly. Her wand came into her hand as she whirled around to face him.
"Never touch me again, Malfoy." She hissed, wand level with his chest. "You forgot that I was serving the Dark Lord while you were still being hit around by your father. I know many things you do not." She forced a laugh at the shocked expression on his face. "It would do well for you to leave me alone, Malfoy. Go play with your little friends, you can push them around."
Snape did not dare stand in her way.
****
The holidays flew past, and before anyone could blink, students flooded back to Hogwarts, full of tales of their holidays. Remus (who had been strangely ill) was "released from the Madam Pomfrey" as he put it, and slowly but surely school started to fall back into it's usual rhythm of things.
The perfect opportunity to use his Christmas gifts were handed to Sirius in their second week of school. Snape and Malfoy were insulting everyone in sight, and generally the Marauders took it upon themselves to bring any Slytherin down a few pegs when they got to high above themselves.
Kat, in the mean time, had explained to the Marauders what Sirius's Christmas gift did. (She had ordered a big box full of strange joke items from a big shop in America.)Some things in the big box were recognisable, like a packet of sweets that made the person who ate them blow big, multi-coloured bubbles out of their noses, but others, like the small round patches of black velvet remained unidentified.
The Marauders, Jess and Lily sat in a small group around Kat as she explained the small patches to them one Saturday morning.
"You slap these babies onto someone's back, between the shoulder-blades. They are indistinguishable from normal school robes, and once in place, they yell out insults about the person whose robes they find themselves on." She grinned at the other's appreciative murmurs. "But, the best part of them is, that the wearer cannot hear the insults."
James and Sirius's eyes lit up at this, and it was clear to all that they already knew who the first victim would be. Lily looked at them with interest, clearly wanting to figure out what charm had been used on them.
So, that Monday morning, the Marauders set out on a Malfoy hunt. They found him just before Transfiguration. Sirius winked at James and lengthened his stride as to pass Malfoy, "accidentally" bumping into him and sticking the Invisijibe on to his back.
"Watch where you're going, Black!" Malfoy called with a sneer, not noticing the Invisijibe starting it's insults (I'm so ugly, it's hard to imagine that you could miss me!).
The students in the corridors all looked around in a puzzled manner, some of them starting to chuckles as they noticed that the insults were coming from somewhere around the white-haired Slytherin. (Don't laugh at me! If you're mother had been a piece of rotting meat and your father a fly, you'd also look like a maggot!)
Malfoy, on the other hand, was becoming more and more agitated every minute, clearly not understanding why everyone who wasn't in his House was pointing and laughing at him.
Transfiguration had never quite been so fun. MacGonagall threw a fit, naturally, but most people were laughing too hard to even notice. The Marauders all looked like they'd just won a million Galleons each.
"That's enough!" An exasperated MacGonagall cried as the class burst into another fit of laughter. "Whoever is behind this will get detention for the next month when I lay my hands on them!"
Sirius grinned at Kat and she blew him a kiss in return, glad that she had managed to make a fool out of Malfoy – who had by that time had been informed that something was shouting very rude things about him to the entire class. MacGonagall gave him the rest of the period off to try and figure out what was causing the insults.
He departed to a triumphant shout of "Do you think if I tie a dead mouse on my head my owl would land on my shoulder, since it is so scared of my obvious bad looks?" and another fit of roaring laughter from the Gryffindors.
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