Harry Potter and the Enigma of the Foreign Matrices – Chapter Four – Cruel Words
by Katherine Chan
A/N: Well, the last chapter ended quite well. I'm sure that you all can see where I'm going in the romance department, but let me remind you that all of my stories – bar one – are all about how the main character doesn't get the girl in the end. It's all unrequited love, all pure and utterly unpolluted angst. I haven't actually got the entire story plotted out as to who gets with who or whatever, because I'm just writing the story as I go, the plan being pretty much just the foundations for the story. Perhaps Hermione will 'get with' Katrina, or perhaps it's another character… Note that I will not write yaoi,so for those of you hoping that Harry will fall in love with Ron (and make an even longer love chain) or with Draco (you sick minded brats! He hates Harry!), then shoo!
Chapter Four, unseal!
"… she was just staring at Katrina all during dinner, and when Katrina…"
"… she couldn't even shake hands!"
"… what's wrong with her?"
"… oh yeah, she's a mudblood… that explains things…"
"… Father says that's another reason why we shouldn't let those filthy mudbloods in: they're perverted!"
"But come on, she went out with that Viktor Krum! She's not… you know…"
"You never know… I mean, did you see how she was looking at Katrina?"
The hushed whispers, some deliberately loud enough for Hermione to hear as she passed, but to Harry's surprise, she didn't snap at anyone, she didn't blush. The only hint that she heard them was that she pretended she hadn't, looking straight ahead, eyes not straying to the left or right. Whenever she saw Katrina in the hallways, Katrina would smile and wave, but Hermione would only nod curtly in response.
Harry, Hermione and Ron lingered after the latest DA meeting, Ron wanting to indirectly confront Hermione about the issue of Katrina by asking Hermione out to test her response, and Harry there for emotional support. Or so that was the plan, had Katrina not also hung about. When she made it clear enough that she wished to talk to Hermione, Ron and Harry left the Room of Requirement where they held their DA meetings. They pulled out Extendable Ears, an invention that Ron's older twin brothers, Fred and George had come up with. Plugging one end in their ears, the other end trailed under the door.
"… what's happening, Hermione? You're acting all cold and forbidding, nothing like the Hermione I know-"
"You know nothing about me, Katrina. Nothing." Hermione snapped.
There was a long silence.
"On the contrary, Hermione, I know a lot more about you than you think. It's you who knows nothing about me, and I'm seriously wondering why you used to look at me like… like-"
"I know you were the masked girl."
Another long silence.
"Ah… I suppose that Harry Potter peeked through the curtains around my bed. You three are great friends. Why don't you look at either of them? I'm sure things will be much less complicated for you, I'm sure."
"What would you know about this? And do you think it's easy to transfer your heart from one person to another?" Hermione wept, voice quivering. "Let me go!" It seemed that Katrina had tried to comfort Hermione.
Another long silence, punctuated by Hermione's sobs.
"I know because… You are not the only one to have experienced what it is like to be told that you shouldn't love someone. And I'm not telling you that you can't love girls, that you can't love me. I'm telling you it's better if you didn't…" Footsteps, Katrina was walking to the door.
"Who are you? How come you knew who Harry was in Diagon Alley, but then you acted like you didn't know him here?" The footsteps paused.
"I am Katrina Dolohov, the great maker of Lightning Strikes…" Hermione snorted. "Not that, you… you…" As Hermione searched for the right words, Katrina answered the question Hermione wanted answered. "I pretended because it meant that Harry would never see the connection between my having told him in Diagon Alley that I was from Australia and me transferring here from Australia."
"But why? Why did you have to pretend?"
Katrina sighed. "Because I didn't want anyone to know I was the masked girl, Hermione. Surely you know that."
Hermione made a half-choking half-laughing noise, and she muttered, "Then what are you?" Harry and Ron only picked it up from the excellent reception of the Extendable Ears, and they weren't expecting Katrina to also hear it and even less to answer it.
"I am… a part human with certain genetic variations that… endow me with certain powers that normal people can never possess. Part human in that my father was 'from the stars', or so my witch mother told me… You don't know what it's like to not belong anywhere, Hermione Granger, even though you are a mudblood…"
Harry and Ron yanked the ends of the Extendable Ears as they heard Katrina approaching the door. She left the room and smiled at them as she passed, and the pair hurried back into the Room of Requirement, to see Hermione sobbing amongst the cushions they normally used when practicing Stunning. Consoling people was definitely not one of Harry's or Ron's strong points, and it took almost an hour before they returned to Gryffindor Tower.
The next morning, Hermione opened her copy of the Daily Prophet and stared at the front page for a few minutes before her mind comprehended what she was seeing and she let out a shriek.
Dementors Ally With He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
Yesterday evening, the Dementors of Azkaban abandoned their posts to join He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, along with the then still imprisoned Death Eaters.
The army of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is currently reported to consist of seventy-six Death Eaters, over three hundred Dementors and a variety of other dangerous creatures.
The article went on and on, with photos of all of the Death Eaters and a short bio of each of them, and what to do if they were spotted, and also how to deal with several of the various dangerous magical creatures in Voldemort's army.
Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table, where most of them were looking rather pleased. He saw Katrina had finally been left alone, perhaps because they wondered if she was someone they could trust with the secret that their parents were Death Eaters. None of the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Gryffindor fanboys dared approach the Slytherin table, and Harry realised that everyone in the room was whispering about the newest development, including the professors up at the staff table.
Signs appeared on the noticeboards, forbidding anyone to roam the grounds after dark, not even groups, unless there was a teacher supervising. Hogsmeade trips had all been cancelled, and Quidditch training sessions had to have a teacher supervising at all times.
Professor Nørskï began teaching them all sorts of defensive magic, ranging from raising a protective bubble similar to that which Dumbledore had used in the fiasco only the week before, to a blast of magic to repel attacks and also attack at the same time. Professor Snape taught them how to brew potions that when thrown inside a breakable container, the contents would explode upon impact, the results of which varied from freezing the target to burning them to a crisp. Professor McGonagall instructed them on how to transfigure any object into a working broomstick on which one could escape away on. Professor Flitwick trained them on how to charm a whole group of people into a peaceful slumber.
Weeks passed, with the newspapers reporting various unexplained disappearances, and also the deaths that were marked with the Dark Mark, the calling card of the Death Eaters. Parvati Patil and her twin sister, Padma – who was in Ravenclaw – received owls telling them that their father had been killed; Hannah Abbott broke down in tears one morning with an owl informing her that her uncle and aunt had been found gibbering from the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse… The morning post was dreaded by all except for those in Slytherin, and those who knew that news of any strange deaths in their family would not be reported, them being Muggles.
Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny all expected the attack on Hogwarts to be soon… There was no way that Voldemort couldn't resist the lure of defeating Dumbledore and killing Harry, him being at full strength, fear weakening Hogwarts' students. The school governors had considered sending all the students home, but when the parents argued that it was actually safer within Hogwarts than outside, the topic was dropped immediately.
Katrina no longer smiled nor acknowledged Harry or Hermione in the hallways, instead, she went about as if she could not see them at all. Reports from the fanboys who were trying to focus more on her than to contemplate what horrors awaited them in the daily news informed everyone that she was always on the roof of the North Tower, keeping a constant lookout whenever she could.
Every morning, Harry wondered if Voldemort would attack in an hour, in a few hours, that night, the next morning, the next week… As they trained in magical combat, weeks slipped by so fast and so filled with traumatic notices of deaths in the families, that no-one knew if they wanted to fight when the time came: their families were dropping one by one, and they were sure they would be the last one left…
Harry stared out the window as he waited his team's turn to take on Professor Nørskï, and he watched as brightly coloured birds flew past the window, cheeping happily. "Carefree…" he whispered, then turned when he realised that Professor Nørskï was trying to catch his attention.
"Harry…" Harry stopped, and waved Ron and Hermione away, telling them to keep walking to the Gryffindor Tower.
"Yes?" He enquired, turning, and frowned at the empty hallway.
"Up here." He glanced up, and gazed in awe as Katrina leapt down from the roof and bounced from wall to wall to slow down her momentum until she reached the ground.
"What do you want?" He asked brusquely, not really respecting her as much as he used to, especially after she had called Hermione a mudblood.
"I just want to warn you that Voldemort's going to attack soon… Next week as a matter of fact, Harry Potter." He stared at her use of his surname.
"How do you know that?! Unless you're a Death Eater…" Harry reflexively stepped backwards, wand drawn. "If something looks like a dog, moves like a dog and barks like a dog, it's a dog… And you talk like a Death Eater and you're in Slytherin!"
"No, it's nothing like that." Katrina hurriedly explained, hands held out palms up. "Let's just say that… I know whenever something bad is going to happen… Like an attack. How do you reckon I managed to change into my fighting uniform so quickly last time? I was wearing it underneath my school uniform for the entire day. Trust me on this, please."
"Why are you telling me this? I know he's going to attack soon. It's not like there's anything to be gained by knowing he's attacking next week." Harry looked at her suspiciously.
"Because… I won't be able to help any of you next week, because another one of those assassins is going to attack at the very same time. I have to leave Hogwarts, draw him away. Just be careful on Tuesday."
"Tuesday?! That's in four days!" She did not answer as she walked away, nor did she look back at Harry.
"You're kidding me, aren't you, Harry?"
"No, that's what she told me."
"I don't believe it."
"Yes you can, Ron, you just don't want to. I don't want to either, but we know he's going to attack soon. And if she says she's going to be attacked, then I think we have to believe her. I mean, she was wearing her fighting clothes and mask at the exact times she gets attacked…"
"Just great. Just great. We're being attacked in four days and there's nothing we can do about it. He's coming to kill us all! We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna-"
"SHUT UP, RON! We are not going to die. Why do you think they used up all our classes to teach us how to fight?"
Friday finished, Saturday came and went, Sunday lagged by, Monday crawled by… and Tuesday arrived. All the students were already buzzing about the disappearance of Katrina, and it seemed that she hadn't informed Dumbledore about her plans as all of the teachers were looking frantic, and questioning students if they had seen her. Breakfast finished, the first period crawled past, the second one stumbled into oblivion… the third one finished, and Harry was seriously doubting if Voldemort was actually going to attack.
"I mean, she could have gotten her 'battle readings' mixed up and you know, thought there was going to be an attack here when there wasn't." They debated the issue over lunch, over the next few sessions they shared, and were still talking about it during dinner.
Suddenly, a huge blast was heard from the Entrance Hall, and the occupants of the portraits hanging in the Entrance Hall ran screaming into the Great Hall. "He's here! He's here!" They screamed. All the students began screaming – except the Slytherins, of course – and crowded to the side of the Great Hall opposite the main doors.
Dumbledore whispered something, and a small silver bird flew out a side-door. The doors exploded, and the students began screaming anew. Harry drew his wand, and squared his shoulders. "Get behind the furniture! Don't just stand there in full view!" yelled Professor Nørskï. They scrambled to her order, just as the first red beams of Stunners came shooting through the dust cloud.
A wash of cold swamped them all, and Harry heard screams again, the mist was enveloping him… "NO! EXPECTO PATRONUM!" A silver stag shot out of his wand, just as Dumbledore and Professor Nørskï uttered the same spell, their own Patronuses joining Harry's to chase Voldemort's Dementors back from the door. The chill disappeared, and everyone breathed easier, but tensed up immediately as curse spells were bellowed by various Death Eaters rushing in through the door.
"Genjutsa!" Several of the Death Eaters fell to their knees, wands slipping out of their hands and clattering to the floor as they began to magically hallucinate of an enraged Voldemort out to kill them. "Stupefy!" "Impedimenta!" "Silencio!" Spells were cast left right and centre, and then the side-door the silver bird had flown out of burst open, letting in the now giant Blast-Ended Skrewts, all of whom moved straight to their carers.
Malfoy – Draco Malfoy, that is – began to laugh, coldly, and attacked his fellow classmates, quickly joined by Theodore Nott, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and several other children of Death Eaters. Their own Blast-Ended Skrewts were not very grateful to them, and thus moved to protect Hagrid. Malfoy and his fellow traitorous Slytherins suddenly realised what was happening: the Blast-Ended Skrewts were intent on killing them, they, who had attacked their carers! Screaming, they fought their way to their parents' sides, just as Aurors began attacking from behind. Voldemort appeared in the thick of it all, and flicked his wand. A great line of golden fire stretched out, intent on wrapping around all of them all, to kill and destroy…
At least, it would have had not a masked girl appeared right in front of him and slashed at him with a katana-style sword. The magical rope disappeared as he staggered backwards, black blood dripping from the deep wound stretching from the top of where his right hip was supposed to be and to his left shoulder. One of the Death Eaters turned and raced so quickly at Katrina, it was almost like they were one of those assassins out to get her…
It was. The pair whirled around, flinging energy blasts at each other, sometimes landing other times not, kicking, punching, striking, and slicing at each other, the Death Eater having conjured her own sword. Leaping apart, they gauged each other from a distance, then roared at each other, the gap disappearing as they engaged in battle yet again.
Harry stunned and hexed and cursed and jinxed, knowing there was nothing he could do to help her. Suddenly, he heard a familiar high and cold voice suddenly filled with terror.
"What… WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL US ALL, YOU IDIOT!" Voldemort screamed at the Death Eater, who was forming a giant energy ball. "STOP!"
The Death Eater laughed. "Oh no, I won't, Tom Riddle. You must think me stupid to have joined your ranks just to help your aims… I'm not here to help you, I'm here to help myself!" The Death Eater raised her hands above her head, and was about to throw the energy ball when she screamed, clutching at her upper left arm, where Harry knew the Dark Mark was burned into her flesh.
"You must think me stupid if I don't have anything to stop Death Eaters from betraying me." A deadly silence as everyone watched the Death Eater flail in pain on the floor, as Voldemort activated some kind of death seal. Katrina moved, faster than lightning, and the Death Eaters were forced to concentrate on her as she disappeared from in front of them and appeared right behind them, knocking them out with her bare hands.
Voldemort, seeing this, killed the Death Eater, who collapsed, wisps of grey smoke enveloping her, and then waved his wand. The surviving Death Eaters, both conscious and unconscious, were enveloped in magic, and when the motes of glowing light disappeared, they were nowhere to be seen. Katrina landed and removed her mask, and all of the students gasped as they realised who she was.
"Yeah, me. Little old me." She sauntered over to where one of the unconscious Death Eaters lay and removed the mask. Picking up the Death Eater, she showed everyone the face. "And yet another 'me'." Everyone gaped at the identical face, as Katrina muttered "Clones." She unmasked all of the dead Death Eaters left behind, but only that one looked exactly like her.
Snape approached, flask of Veritaserum in hand. Katrina nodded, and held her hand out for it, then took a small swig. Her eyes blanked out and she swayed a little, but then she regained her balance.
"Can you hear me?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes." Monotonous, nowhere near as melodic as her normal voice was.
"Are you a Death Eater?"
"No."
"Are you Katrina Elena Dolohov?"
"Yes."
"Why does that Death Eater look exactly like you?"
"Because we are both clones of the same person, and the genetic modifications for our outside appearances were not changed."
"Clones? Of who?"
"I don't know."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because none of us know."
The teachers looked at each other.
"If you're clones of the same person, then how come she's the only Death Eater?"
"Because the personality she was given is different to mine, and most of the others."
"Most? Are there anymore of you that are Death Eaters?"
"Not that I know of."
"What kind of magic is it that you use, apart from the one we can use as well?"
"It's a type of power you carry within you… We've just got the genetics to have better skill at using it and more of it as well… Except the thing I use to travel through shadows… That's just one of the powers I was given as a clone."
Harry was personally appalled at the public interrogation. How could Dumbledore ask her personal questions while the entire school was listening on? Including those that had tried to attack their fellow students.
"I think that's enough." Madam Pomfrey sat Katrina down by a wall and began tending to her many wounds as Professor Dumbledore stalked over to where the Slytherins were bound by ropes conjured by some of the senior students. His eyes radiated power, his very stance and poise spoke volumes of the fury and sense of betrayal he was feeling and the Slytherins cowered in fear.
The Aurors flooded in through the door and identified all of the killed Death Eaters and moved to arrest the traitorous Slytherin students. They wavered between whether the students were too young to be arrested, then finally decided that they weren't, considering most of them were of age.
Harry heard Dumbledore telling them that they were all sleeping in the Great Hall tonight, he saw Dumbledore fixing the damage done to the Hall, then conjuring several hundred purple squashy sleeping bags, like he had three years ago.
The fear he should have felt earlier finally flooded through his system, and the same thing happened to most of the students around him. Most of them had been functioning on adrenaline during the battle, and were now feeling the backlash. Crawling into a sleeping bag, Harry quivered in terror, awaiting his turn for a check-over from Madam Pomfrey. It was only hours later that he fell asleep, dreaming of breaking and destroying buildings and killing innocent people, casting the Dark Mark into the sky…
He jerked awake, his scar burning red hot, and he knew that what he had just seen in his dreams was what Voldemort had been doing, had been seeing. Disgust and horror flooded through him, the two emotions causing cold sweat to break out on his skin.
As he scrambled to get out of the stuffy sleeping bag, he realised that there was someone else awake. Katrina was leaning against the wall, sitting on top of her sleeping back, and examining the wounds on her hands. The moonlight shining through the window was too bright for Harry's darkness adjusted eyes, and he couldn't see her hands properly, except at that moment, Katrina dropped her hands to her side.
Harry gasped… tattoos writhing along her hands and arms, shaped like wolves chasing each other in the forests… She glanced up and Harry looked away as she hurriedly slid inside of her sleeping bag to hide her arms. Exhaustion finally settled in, and Harry slipped into his sleeping bag, eyes refusing to stay open, he fell asleep… to dream of snakes swallowing their tails, scorpions stinging themselves and wolves ripping themselves apart, powerful jaws ripping even as they howled in pain…
"She's got tattoos on her arms?"
"I don't know if they're tattoos or something else… I mean, they were wriggling on her arms…"
"And they looked like wolves, did you say?"
"Yes. How many times have I told you? Three, four?"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry Harry, but it's… strange. It didn't look like the Dark Mark, did it?"
"No, it didn't… And anyway, she helped fight against the Death Eaters, so I doubt she could be working for Voldemort."
"Oh, I don't know, Harry. You saw how Macnair was working for the Ministry… It could all have been a ploy!"
"I don't think so, Ron. She just put seven of them into Auror custody; do you think that would be something Voldemort would plan?"
"Well… well… that's exactly the point! She's so powerful that Voldemort doesn't need those Death Eaters! It could all have been an act for her to get into our good books, and then… and then… you know…"
Hermione was looking at Ron as if he was insane, but Harry wasn't so sure. "Don't be ridiculous, Ron. She almost killed Voldemort!"
"A-ha! She almost killed You-Know-Who, not did. It could all just be-"
"An act?" A voice cut in, its owner standing right behind Harry, Hermione and Ron, causing all three of them to freeze as they recognized the voice. Katrina smiled sadly. "If you distrust people so easily, I find it rather hard to believe that you managed to find it in yourselves to trust each other." The cutting remark shot through their terrified minds, and not even Hermione could think fast enough to come up with a riposte, even as Katrina strode away.
"Are you two still arguing?" Ron asked Hermione. She scowled. "That has nothing to do with this. If there were one of us that she would have a real reason to dislike, it would be you, Ron." With that, she flounced off, leaving Harry and Ron behind, staring incredulously.
"Look… look at… is she alright?" Ron spluttered. Harry sighed and dragged Ron to the Gryffindor Tower.
"Ooh, look, it's Potty and the Weasel! I wonder if they're like the Mudblood?" Harry stopped, gritting his teeth and let go of Ron's arm, his right hand plunging into his robe pocket for his wand. Ron did the same, pulling out his own wand. "I know you're there, Malfoy!" A cold laugh. "He knows we're here! Quick, hide, or they'll tie us to chairs and bring out the whips and wax!" The jeering voice rebounded against the corridor, echoing eerily.
"Why is he still here? Wasn't he supposed to have been arrested, along with the other Slytherins who betrayed us?"
"Ooh, ooh! We're supposed to have been arrested, Goyle! Come on Crabbe, let's go show them we're are definitely not 'arrested'." The sound of footfalls, and Harry and Ron whirled around just as the familiar white blonde hair appeared around the corner.
"You want to know why we're here? Well, Father bailed us out. Said we were subject to peer-pressure and that we weren't in our right minds."
"But… wasn't… if he was caught-"
"Did you see my father, Weasel?" Harry and Ron thought back to the fight in the Grand Hall, and realised with a shock that they had not seen anyone that looked remotely like Lucius Malfoy. Draco laughed and strolled off, Crabbe and Goyle chuckling along with him. Harry and Ron thrust their wands back into their pockets and hurried to the Gryffindor Tower, where they told the other Gryffindors of what had just transpired.
"They can't be! That's not justice served!"
"I'll wring that ferret's neck the next time I see him, that little-"
For the rest of the day, Ron continued to make threatening comments, most in relation to violently bludgeoning Malfoy to death with a blunt and rusty knife.
To my reviewers:
What's a 'Mary Sue'? I know I probably sound really, really dumb asking that, but seriously… Never heard that expression before in my life. Oh and yeah, for those of you who read an 'extensive' range of literary types (such as manga), yes, this is a bit too heavily influenced by Naruto… I'm sorry, but currently, Naruto is like a novelty to me.
