Chapter 21

Nearly two weeks had passed, but to Katherine it could have been a lifetime. Although many thoughts weighed heavily on her mind, for the first time in ages she felt remarkably free and high spirited. Maybe it was because she hadn't thought of Lucius in days. Lucius, who had been a constant daily presence in her mind even after years apart, had slowly drifted away until it seemed that he had never existed at all. And of course, there was now someone else who played heavily in her thoughts...
"Severus?" Katherine asked, throwing down the book she had been reading with a dramatic flourish. "Is something the matter?"
Severus looked up from across the room, where he was in the middle of grading an intimidating looking pile of student essays.
"No." He said slowly. "Why would you think that?"
"No reason." Katherine said in teasing tone. "It's only that you've been staring at me the entire night."
Severus pressed his lips into a firm line, but his neck and cheeks turned a noticeable shade of red.
"It's only that..." Severus began, suddenly looking oddly pleased with himself.
"I'm so beautiful that you can't help yourself?" Katherine offered with a flirtatious laugh.
"No, you have something on your face." Severus snorted.
"I do not!" Katherine said in a shrill voice, getting up out of her chair to check in the nearby mirror anyway. "Merlin, you are just awful!"
Severus didn't respond, but put down his quill and looked over at Katherine with a thoughtful expression on his face. Katherine watched him with interest, her eyes focusing in on his slightly pink lips in particular. Even though the kiss they had shared in the hospital wing hadn't even come close to being repeated, it seemed that their relationship was now moving away from begrudging friendship to something else all together. Something else where there was certainly kissing involved...
"Have you ever been to a Quidditch match before?" Severus asked, rasing his eyebrows at her.
"No." Katherine said, sitting down in the chair next to Severus, purposefully turning her body so their knees would be forced to touch. "They didn't have a real Quidditch team at Beauxbatons, and I never had a chance to go a professional match. Why?"
"Slytherin is playing Hufflepuff Saturday afternoon. It's no contest really, not with that poor excuse for seeker they have. But being that I'm head of house, I do have to go."
"Oh." Katherine said, a very confused look spreading across her face as Severus returned to his papers without another word.
Finally when the silence became to much for her she cleared her throat, and Severus looked back up at her, a sly smile forming on the edge of his lips.
"Do you want me to go with you then?" Katherine asked in a very confused voice.
"Well, if you insist, alright." Severus said, smirking at her.
"Severus! Is that anyway to ask someone out on a date?"
"Who said I was asking?"
Severus suppressed a small laugh, and rose from his chair, shuffling his papers together as he went. Katherine shook her head at him in disbelief, but at the same time she couldn't help but smile.
"But if you want, I'd like for you to come." He said in sincere tone.
"You have a very strange way of doing things, do you know that?" Katherine remarked, stretching her arms above her head and yawning.
Severus merely smirked, and pushed open the door to the bedroom.
"Hey!" Katherine cried. "It's my turn to sleep in the bed."
"You had it last night, so don't even start." Severus said, curling his lip at her.
"No I...alright, maybe I did. But it would be really nice of you if you let me have it anyway."
Katherine batted her eyelashes, and gave the slightest hint of a pout.
"I don't like you that much." Severus said flatly, but it looked as if he was having a very hard time controlling his facial expression.
With a loud bang of the door he disappeared into the bedroom, but Katherine was very sure that she could hear the faintest sound of laughter from within.
"What a bloody bastard..." Katherine said in amusement, bringing her hand up to her mouth, relishing the smile that clung to fiercely to her lips.

----

Saturday dawned a cold and rainy day, but thankfully by the time the first of the fans began to fill the stands the rain had died down to a damp drizzle. As Severus and Katherine walked out together toward the misty field, he tried to explain some of the finer points of Quidditch. Katherine merely nodded, and chewed happily on a roll she had swiped from the great hall.
"It doesn't sound too complicated, some of the children I knew growing up used to play." Katherine said as they reached the stands.
The stairs leading up their seats were slick with small puddles of rainwater, and Katherine could not help blushing when Severus placed an arm tightly around her waist to keep her from slipping.
"You never played yourself then?" Severus asked as they used their wands to dry their seats.
"No, I never exactly took to flying." Katherine spread out her skirts as she sat down, admiring their fine green color.
She had charmed them to match the color of the Slytherin flag, and even though she had worried if might be a bit much, Severus had looked impressed.
"Do you enjoy flying?" Katherine asked as the students filled in the seats around them.
Severus made a face as if he was just tasted something very bitter and unpleasant, and then shook his head.
"Oh..." Katherine had the vague feeling that she had wandered upon a touchy subject. "Well, I think its more dangerous than anything. No one travels by broomstick anymore besides."
"I didn't say that I couldn't." Severus snapped. Katherine folded her hands tightly in her lap, feeling immediately sorry that she had even mentioned it. She was about to turn to say something, when a deafening roar grabbed her attention. The spectators from all houses had thrown themselves into a frantic cheer as the players from both teams flew out onto the field, circling it a few times for good measure.
Katherine watched in amazement as the game began scant minutes later, and the players zoomed by on their broomsticks hitting quaffles at dizzying speeds. Glancing over to her right, she noticed that Severus seemed to be engulfed as well, his lips pressed tightly together as he watched in fierce concentration. Katherine found herself cheering wildly whenever Slytherin made a goal, which was not as often as she would have thought. Even though Hufflepuff's team was admittedly the worst in years, they were putting up quite a fight.
It was only about an hour later that Katherine decided that she in fact, really did not like quidditch as much as she thought she would. Once the novelty of the mid-air acrobatics wore off, and half the moves were happening to fast for Katherine to see very well anyway, she noted that the game was probably not for her. Severus still seemed engrossed, even after it became clear that Slytherin would win unless Hufflepuff's seeker managed to find the snitch quickly. This might have been of interest to Katherine, but she couldn't quite remember which one the seeker was. They all seemed to be flying and diving around so fast! It had started to rain again besides, and Katherine now felt more wet and cold then enthralled. Fighting a wave of shivers, she sunk down deeper into her cloak, and tired to keep her teeth from chattering.
She was pleasantly surprised when Severus reached over and placed his own scarf around her neck, in Slytherin gray and green of course. A sudden flood of nice dry warmth surrounded her, and she looked over at Severus gratefully.
"It's charmed." He said quietly, drawing his eyes away from the game for a moment.
"Thank you." Katherine whispered, shuffling closer to Severus on the bench.
She noticed with satisfaction that after that, Severus seemed to be watching her much more than he was watching the match.
Slytherin won of course, prompting more than a few boos from the stands. Severus ignored them with quiet dignity, but Katherine guessed it was because she was here. She knew very well that normally he would have been making nasty comments and staring daggers at them.
"Good game." Professor Sprout said very dryly as she met up with Katherine and Severus on the field.
"It was a noble if not bumbling effort." Severus said, looking past Professor Sprout to a group of sixth years that were making their way down from the stands.
Hermione Granger was among them, and the young girl quickly ducked into the crowd as soon as she noticed she was being watched.
"Do you think she told anyone?" Katherine asked once they were out of earshot of the crowd.
"She knows about what I do for Dumbledore." Severus said, his voice sounding very tight. "Let us hope she wouldn't be foolish enough to tell the wrong people."
Katherine struggled to walk through the thick mud full of footprints of all sizes. She couldn't help but smile at the small ones that had been left by the first years. She could barely remember being that young!
"What are thinking about?" Severus asked, cursing under his breath as he nearly fell into a growing puddle.
"Do you ever feel old Severus?" Katherine nearly laughed, because imagining Severus as a child was nearly impossible.
He was so serious and studious, he didn't even like to laugh in front her. Very un-childlike indeed.
"Perhaps." Severus said, cleaning the mud off his shoes as they reached the entrance to the dungeons. "Why?"
"You should have fun more often, you deserve it." Katherine said very slowly, as if a thought was just occurring to her.
"What do you mean?" Severus gave her a questioning look.
"We should go into town tonight."
"But why?" Severus asked, as if she just suggest that they take a ride naked on a pair of their broomstick's through a snow storm.
"Just to have fun." Katherine cried. "You know f-u-n, fun."
Severus gave a dubious look, but then eventually nodded.
"I don't see what is so fun about subjecting ourselves to the company of drunkard townspeople and our more morally questionable staff members, but I suppose..."
"Good." Katherine said firmly. "Tonight then."
She took off Severus' scarf and handed it back to him, purposefully making sure their hands touched as she did so.
"I want to go and see how Poppy is handling that boy from the Hufflepuff team. I've never seen anyone fly off a broomstick like that before, and the way he hit the ground! It really was something else."
"You make it sound like an accomplishment." Severus said dryly as she walked away.
"You're just jealous that its not you in a hospital bed I'm fussing over." Katherine teased.
"I've had enough of the hospital wing for one lifetime, thank you very much." Severus said, but he doubted that Katherine even heard him.
She was already halfway down the hall, mumbling to herself about how exactly to treat a concussion and multiple fractures. Severus clung to the scarf she had handed him, feeling the warmth that surrounded his cold hands. He suddenly wished very much that he could have been the scarf, wrapped around Katherine in a warm embrace.