Chapter 10
The next few days continued the same as the rest. Catherine would sleep, or be resting the entire day, and Charlie rarely left her side. By Friday, Cate's condition was much better.
Both Catherine and Charlie were lying, curled up, hands entwined on Cate's bed, fast asleep, midday Friday. Downstairs in the sitting room, the fire flared and Ginny stepped out.
"Hello?" She called, however, it was not loud enough to wake either of the house's occupants. Ginny figured that Cate was just asleep in her room, and Charlie was out, so she headed up the stairs. She knocked on the door as she entered.
"Cate? Are you..." The teen stopped mid-sentence when she saw Catherine and her older brother lying in the same bed, arms around each other. Ginny walked over to the bed, droppign the pile of Cate's homework on the table and pocked Charlie's shoulder, hard.
"What the bloody hell?" He mumbled, roller over, which wakened Catherine. "Gin, what are you doing here?"
"I came to give Cate her homework." She replied, "The better question is, what are you two doing in the same bed?" Cate and Charlie looked at each other, their cheeks flushing slightly.
"Well...uh..." Charlie began, "We are together. But the important thing is that we're not sleeping together."
"It sure looks like you are." Gin raised an eyebrow.
"Gin! You know what I mean!"
"What is that?" The younger girl enjoyed teasing her brother. Charlie groaned angrily.
"What I mean is that we're not having sex! We're simply sleeping in the same bed." Ginny smirked.
"That's sweet. I promise I won't tell anyone." The teen then pranced out of the room. Cate and Charlie then heard her floo back to McGonagall's office.
"Well that was interesting." Catherine commented.
"Yeah." The young man replied, "I never realized how risky this was either."
"What'd'you mean?"
"Anyone could have walked in on the two of us sleeping and suspected other things. If mom had seen this, we would have been woken up to shrieks and then gotten a rather long lecture."
"I suppose Severus' reaction would be quite similar." Charlie laughed as Cate snuggled back up against him. "I'm going to try to get some more sleep." She whispered.
"Good idea." The young man was very glad to see that Catherine was nearly back to her normal body temperature, and her skin was also normal. He sighed happily before drifting off to sleep too.
Throughout the next two days, Catherine managed to find time to complete her homework assignments while still getting better. And still, Charlie rarely left her side.
On Sunday evening, a warning knock come on the front door just as the couple was cleaning up dinner. The knocker entered the house.
"Hello?" Lupin called out, removing his cloak.
"We're in the kitchen." Charlie called back. Reamus made his way in to them.
"Good evening." He greeted, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"Hi." Both Charlie Cate replied, finished the cleaned and also taking a seat.
"Catherine," The older man started, "I just wanted to speak with you before you go back to school." She nodded, "After the dementors, you in particular must be very, very careful of your actions. Also, you'll want to stay out of the cold as much as possible and have at least one glass of a warm liquid a day for the next weeks. It will help with your healing."
"Sounds good."
"How's your arm?"
"Pretty good." She lifted it onto the table, "It hasn't hurt since the attack."
"That's good." A beeping sound then echoed throughout the room, Cate looked down at her watch and stopped it.
"That would be my cue to leave." The yong woman stood up, hugged Charlie, said good bye to Reamus, and then flooed back to Hogwarts.
