Kat had stopped dead, literally, no, she wasn't dead, but her heart had stopped and she wasn't breathing. She looked at Severus as he saw her, smiled, and said "Welcome back, Kat!" He was obviously glad to see her back. She just took a deep breath, averted her eyes, moved forward again, gave the password to the common room, and walked strait into the GCR, across the room, and up to the girl's dorms, where she climbed into her four poster bed and drew the curtains around, planning on a good sulk.

She never saw the crushed, concerned look on Severus' face. It wasn't until two hours later that she had moved at all, and hat was just to reach out of the curtains and grab the first object on her bureau she could find, a quill, and to take out her wand, to transfigure the quill into a razor blade. No, she wasn't trying to kill herself, but she just felt so numb. She needed to feel… something, she needed to know she was really alive, so she cut.

She cut herself, shallow, bleedy slices on her legs, a place she could easily cover up, no one ever had to know but her, she just had to feel something, she needed the pain. She didn't come out of the dorm room until the next day, when classes would start up again, good, she needed a distraction. So she got out of bed, went and took a shower, not caring that she was letting blood flow to the drains, did a spell to close her cuts so no one would notice, got the rest of the way ready, ignored everyone and went to her first class without even looking at food, apparently starving herself was on the agenda too.

Severus had watched Kat walk past him.. And felt his heart drop to the floor. He had seen her, greeted her… she had ignored him as if she had no clue who he was, he had seen the look of determination on her face, there were two possibilities here, something was wrong so she was avoiding him, or she didn't want them to be together anymore so she was avoiding him… there was no way around the fact that she had clearly avoided him.

So now he was wondering what was wrong, because he didn't even want to think about the other option. After thinking on it late into the night, while he probably should have been sleeping, he decided he would ask her about what had happened over the holidays, since there were too many options for what could have happened available to him, and he didn't want to assume wrong.

So the next day, when she wasn't in the great hall for breakfast, he was a little disappointed, he had really missed her for those two weeks, now she was avoiding him, and everyone else it seemed, he really wanted to find out now. Luckily, she was in potions… in the front of the class… next to a Gryffindor he didn't know, he had never seen Kat with this girl before, and they weren't talking.

Avoiding Severus and Jules was getting harder, Severus seemed to be purposefully stalking her, and she shared a dorm with Jules. Kat had been back from home a week and a half now and had not talked to anyone, not showing up for breakfast or lunch, seen studying in the library. That very sight had almost given a poor fifth year a heart attack, Kat was never seen studying, let alone in the library, unless it was one of her tutoring sessions with Severus, and she had stopped with those since getting back from the holidays.

Meanwhile, while Kat was in the library, Severus was meeting with Juliet to try and figure out a way to get Kat to tell them what was wrong.

"Has she even talked to you?" That was Jules, she and Severus were sitting in the room of requirement while they talked.

Severus just shook his head and said "The only time she's even shown her face around me is across the room in classes and across the great hall during meals."

Juliet sighed "She's never in the common room anymore, she hides behind the curtains of her four poster, she sits alone purposely at meals, I think I even saw her studying in the library the other day," her voice was quizzical and slightly miserable as she spoke. She looked like she wasn't getting much sleep, and her grades had been dropping, Jules was going into a depression because of Kat's behavior.

"We need to do something about this" Severus said determinedly.

"What, like, confront her and don't let her leave until she tells us?" Jules asked, since they had tried just about everything else.

"Exactly" Came the simple reply.

They could see her, Kat was outside, it was now the beginning of February, they had decided to give her more time to tell them herself before they actually confronted her. Well, her birthday was approaching, it was now or never. So it was with similar feelings of impending doom that Severus and Juliet crossed the grounds to go talk to Kat.

As they approached her she looked up, as if she sensed their presence. She didn't say anything, just jumped down from the tree, she should have expected this sooner or later, but she just wanted to forget all about everything. "Hey Kat.." "Hi" first Severus greeted her, then Juliet, she didn't say anything to them, just waited for the inevitable.

"We need to talk" Juliet informed her best friend.

"No, you want me to talk, there's a difference" Kat replied coldly, her voice hoarse from disuse.

"No, we want you to share with us what's wrong and then help you feel better" Severus corrected good naturedly.

"I don't want to talk about it" Again, a cold, simple reply from Kat.

"Please Kat, just tell us, we miss you, we want to help you" Juliet's voice was pleading.

Kat simply looked at each of them in turn, then started walking toward the castle without a word. She wasn't going to say it out loud, it would completely finalize it, she wanted to act like it had never happened, but couldn't yet, so she wanted to make a new life, be a new person so she could forget what she saw. Severus and Juliet chased after her, Severus got to her first and simply grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.

"Please Kat, you're killing me here, tell me what's wrong.." This time it was Severus' voice that was pleading.

Kat looked as if she were about to cry.