Chapter One
Kate ran her fingers through her thick tangle of dark hair and sighed. Her arms were drooped over her bare knees and her hands clenched a letter tightly. It was from her grandmother. The one the French government had sent six months ago. The one that informed her family that her parents were dead. Her grandmother had kept the letter to herself, locked in her strong box for it contained the gruesome details of her son and daughter-in-law's deaths. Not appropriate for a young lady, she'd explained. Now, going to school, it was in Kate's possession. Another cluster of tears spilled down her cheeks. It seemed to Kate that she was always crying these days. Wiping them away hurriedly, Kate smoothed out the letter for the umpteenth time and flattened it into her shoulder bag. With a sigh, she recognized her surroundings. In the cushy compartment of the Hogwarts Express, rushing to a school; a nice, solid school, her grandmother had reminded during their goodbye in the London train station which basically consisted of Kate pretending to be fascinated in the carpet motif and her grandmother chiding her about upholding their family's reputation. That was all they seemed to care about, the lot of them. Gloomily, Kate fell back into the seat and let herself cry. For all of them.
The trains stopped with a lurch and the smog from the train caught its breath and smothered the train in its own fog. Checking her makeup, Kate rubbed the redness away from her eyes and pulled her shoulder bag out the door after her into the gaggle of kids. After being jostled nearly to death, she climbed down the metal steps. Outside, the wind traced with smog whipped around her as she looked around. Throngs of other students, some older some younger, weaved their ways around her in search of another familiar face. Kate was alone.
"Miss! Kathleen!" a man's voice called from somewhere. "Kate!" Remus Lupin stood amongst the young students, hands cupping his mouth and his prematurely graying hair striking a sudden contrast to his youthful face. He looked thinner than when Kate had last seen him, but his hazel eyes still peered out in stark clarity.
"Remus!" Kate called and waved, finding her way through the crowd to him, unnoticed by other students. When she got closer, the wrinkles and worry on his face became visible. "Oh, Remus…" she reached a hand up to his face. "Are you alright?" His worry made her troubled; he was the rock from her childhood. Worry wasn't something he was supposed to know. He pulled her into his arms by way of assurance.
"I'm fine," he mouthed into her hair and pulled away, putting a few feet of distance between them. They were starting to draw attention. "Really. Now, let's get into the castle. The Headmaster is expecting you in his office." Smiling at her childhood friend, Kate relaxed into his arm draped over her shoulder in brotherly kindness, allowing herself to be propelled into the titanic castle that could swallow them up like grains of sand.
Heavy tapestries covered the stone walls, reflecting Hogwart's renowned reputation of nobility and grandeur. When she was young, Remus was quite a bit older than she, as old as her parents, but that didn't stem their friendship. It was more the older Remus allowing the five-year-old to tag along than anything. Relenting to her complaints, when he came home for the summer from university, they would stroll down to the pond behind his house and skip rocks, zip around on broomsticks. Over the years, he became her mentor, her guide. And now that her parents were dead, she depended on him more than ever. It had been his letters that had revived her at the end of the previous Hogwarts term, and his presence at the summer home, Eden, in France had thawed her and helped her to grieve for her poor parents. They had been murdered by Voldemort while on what Kate had known to be a holiday. It was never proven that they had been murdered, but it was the only option and the truth. Remus was as close to Kate as a brother.
"We're here," he said, stopping at a gargoyle grinning wickedly at them with large stone incisors. "Lemmon Drop." The stone gargoyle jumped to the side, allowing them to pass. Through a dim corridor he led, then into a study lit only by the bright sunlight flowing through the open windows. An old man with masses of snow white hair sat in a high-backed leather armchair, his gray eyes peering through his half mood spectacles in deep concentration. Albus Dumbledore.
"Sir? She's here; safe."
This seemed to wake him from his trance and he blinked at Kate. "Good afternoon, Kathleen. I trust the train ride was comfortable?" He folded his long fingers on the desk and his eyes twinkled. She mumbled a polite answer and glanced up for reassurance at Remus who smiled sagaciously at her. "Good. You will be shown to the Tower soon, but I do trust Severus will want a word." Severus Snape was a dear friend of her mother's, and Kate's godfather. Kate nodded and smiled weakly. She'd only met him once in her life. Perhaps he would have some bit of information from the Order about her family that Dumbledore may be reluctant to tell. He was, after all, her godfather. After the slaughter of her parents, Dumbledore's resistance against Voldemort, The Order of the Phoenix, took key members of her family into hiding. Kate was sent to be protected by Dumbledore at Hogwarts. That was why she was here, at the magic school. To be protected; she was in hiding.
"Marvelous," Kate said dryly and jumped headfirst into what she really wanted Dumbledore to answer. "What classes will I be taking? What House will I be in?" Kate sat up in the smaller high-backed chair and folded her hands seriously.
"Kate," he said with the tone of someone treading on thin ice, "I'm afraid this cannot be done. It is not possible for you to be roaming the castle unguarded or not chaperoned by a teacher. It is not safe. I--we--cannot risk it. You are here to be protected; to be in hiding. I am sorry." Kate had half expected this but the refusal still stung the bruise that had never healed from the death of her parents. Dumbledore was too smart and too shrewd to give her the freedom of a normal person. There were too many opportunities for someone to discover her. The truth of the matter hurt, but there it was.
"I understand," Kate said, keeping her voice level, averting her eyes downward. Without another word, Remus sensed it was high time and helped her from her seat and led her out the door. She didn't catch the glance shared by Remus and Dumbledore as Remus guided her away from her protector.
"I'm truly sorry, Kate," Dumbledore said as they left the room, just loud enough for his words to reach Kate's ears, as if he were apologizing for more than just a few missed classes.
They reached the dungeons, Kate and Remus. Their breath rose in the cold air as they followed the light of a candle burning, reaching out to them from an open doorway in the dusky corridor. In the singly lighted room, Professor Severus Snape was hunched over a desk, scratching ink on the dry, yellowy parchment. Remus cleared his throat loudly, making Snape look up. The first expression on his face was a disliking scowl, but it faded to a kindly smile when he saw Kate. It was awkward on his pallid face. Only a glare flared with loathing between Severus and Remus, and Remus gave Kate's shoulder a pat and turned on heel, leaving them alone to hang about the chilly hall. Kate went quietly into his arms, accepting what little compassion he knew how to give.
"Do you have the letter?" he said, whispering, his voice cracking slightly. Kate nodded solemnly and pulled the crinkled letter out of her bag, handing her most prized possession to a near stranger. Severus ignored the wrinkles; he understood how much it took from this barely more than a little girl, to comprehend such terrible knowledge. Kate watched him read the letter, the tears slowly filling his eyes. He had known her parents better than anyone. She could tell when he finished reading because the back and forth of his eyes in their sockets ceased and became still. After a static moment, he cleared his throat and looked away, pushing the letter back into her hands, crinkling it over again and more deeply than before. "I'll send Remus in. He's just in the corridor. I must join the feast." His voice was little more than a whisper when he left with a swish of his black cloak.
That night, Kate lay in the bed already prepared in the Tower. Through the open door, the breeze danced on her face and the sound of the feast and celebration drifted into her ears. There she was, alone and hidden in the Tower, silently cursing her arrival, while the rest of the school laughed together and celebrated their return to Hogwarts. How ironic.
Kate stood at the window, cold sweat still rolling down her body. She had woken terrified of a dream she couldn't remember and unable to lie back into sleep, she'd gotten up for some air. Chilled night air of late autumn danced around her face at the open window. There was a strange call, something like harp music, echoing up from far below her tower. Leaning out of the window, she saw nothing but the bizarre music built up unease in the pit of her chest until it reached a physical pain in her stomach. A cat meowed, startling Kate so that she slipped off the sill she was perched on. She landed like the cat, too, silently and on all fours. There was a cat, sitting on the floor like a sphinx. Kate wondered how on earth it got into the Tower. The cat had a coat of luminous black fur that moved luxuriously over its muscles and bones like a scrap of silk as it prowled toward the door and looked back at Kate with its sapphire eyes. Again, it meowed. A command.
With a quick look over her shoulder, she felt the uneasy pit of her stomach solidify with a decision. Kate slipped out the door to follow her guide. With bare feet, Kate made no noise creeping down the uncountable stone steps in the dark. The candle in her hand burned silently, sending bobbing shadows against the walls. The cat led her outside, from a side door at the base of the tower, to a gated garden Kate had never noticed, even from the height of the Tower. Kate couldn't believe she'd never seen it before. It was huge; definitely an eyesore put side by side with the tidy plains of grass. A circular gate fissured the wall of whitish stone. A round door with a knob in the center blocked her way. Kate's hand found the warm metal, but it was locked. She tried jarring it, banging it with her shoulder, but it wouldn't open. She stepped back, rubbing at her sore shoulder and blinked. Kate touched the wooden door again. Tingly warmth seeped through her fingers, seeping into her arm. She was stuck to the door like a child with her finger in an electrical outlet. But it wasn't entirely unpleasant. The warmth that emitted from it made her feel safe. Kate's breathing slowed and grew louder.
Suddenly, the ground fell from beneath her and she was standing on the other side of the door. But from this side, there door was invisible. She could see the door she'd come from at the base of the Tower. Everything had the nighttime dream-like quality. The harp song played on. Kate followed the flawlessly cut stones that etched a path through the garden in the teal-dyed grass. The stones themselves were a bluish tint in the light of the crescent moon and indicated a winding path to a temple. Bushes with flowers Kate couldn't examine as closely as she liked in the darkness lined the garden. The Temple was open, its walls nonexistent, beams cut from marble suspending a ceiling a good six feet in the air. Her jaw hanging open, Kate wandered under the Temple roof. The insides of the shafts held shelves. On the shelves, merely slats of wood, books and statuettes of the Greek muses and Hindu gods and goddesses sit untouched by the wind. At the end of the Temple, a copper statue of a woman gleamed, shooting rays of light onto the different brown floor tiles. Then it was gone.
Kate was standing on the outside of the garden, her palm pressed against the solid wood of the door. Sweat was beaded on her upper lip as Kate blinked and stepped away. The black cat meowed from the top of the wall where she was perched and jumped in one fluid movement to the ground where she nuzzled Kate's bare ankles.
"Kali?" The name had come to Kate automatically. Kali meowed her agreement and fled by Kate's side up to her warm bed in the Tower.