Harry Potter and the Enigma of the Foreign Matrices – Chapter Five – Hopes and Dreams

by Katherine Chan

A/N: Let's talk about this story.

Hmm… the falling out between Katrina and Hermione, the fracturing of the Harry-Hermione-Ron trio, and Malfoy and his cronies have been bailed out by Draco's father… Who was strangely absent from the battle that his son was arrested in…?!

Anyway, the reason for the huge gap in updates is that I got grounded in the second week of holidays, so no internet connection and so much surveillance that I haven't had much time to type the story and check it. Also, in the third and last week of holidays, I had to go to this workshop for a week, that is, one 9 hour day, four 10 hour days and two 12 hour days doing physics. Sounds like fun, hey?

Not really, but at least I met this really beautiful girl, made some new friends and whatnot, so yeah, it wasn't an entire waste of time.

The release of this chapter and chapter four is to celebrate my reconnection to the net (back to school, cable).

Let the story begin!

A black hood, face in shadow, and no matter how Harry shines the torch at the person – within the bounds of politeness, of course – he can't make out the face.

The figure shifts, the black skivvy moving with its movements like a second skin. 'I'm sorry…' the figure whispers, and as the face and clothes shift into another's, Harry flinches, the voice is so familiar, but he can't remember exactly who's…

Hermione, this time, head bowed as her eternally wavy hair – unless she uses magic potion – flows over her shoulders and on her torso. A choked sob, pink clad shoulders jerking and shaking as she fights back tears, sadness, something… 'I'm sorry, Harry, I couldn't stop them…!'

Harry stared as Hermione's face changed, the colour of her clothes shifting through the colours of the spectrum and finally settling into a deep indigo.

This has to be a dream, Harry thought. It has to be, because it can't be Polyjuice Potion… It has to be a dream… Let me wake up, let me wake up, let me-

'I'm sorry, Harry, I couldn't stop them… They killed G… Gin… They killed Ginny as well…" He stared at the face of a crying Ron and Harry realised that he seemed to be lying down, or so it seemed judging from how the figure, Hermione and Ron all seemed to be at right angles to him…

Harry grunted as the nerves in his back began registering something cold and hard, something like smoothed marble. What was he doing, lying down on something like that? And what was he doing with a cloth over his entire body? And it was heavy too, like a shroud, a funeral shr-

"Holy shit!" Harry jerked upright into a sitting position, the remnants of the dream falling to pieces around him as the black satin slipped down to pool around his legs. Gasps of horror and the sounds of someone fainting and falling unnoticed to the floor with a slap.

He glanced around wildly, and swung his legs around, off of the blue veined white marble altar. Ron and Hermione stumbled backwards from this 'apparition', and Harry realised with a jolt that they were wearing the same clothes as in the dream; even the bloodstains were the same…

Blood. That meant a fight, some kind of physical altercation… As Harry's mind went into overdrive, he felt someone approaching from behind and he whirled around just as something else clicked into place.

The place was filled with people, like a funeral… He had been dreaming about Ron and Hermione and some person he knew… The dream Ron had said someone had killed Ginny 'too'…

Dumbledore had his wand levelled at Harry, even as Harry stared in horror at the satin-enveloped body lying on an altar next to the one he had been lying on… He stumbled over to the body, and pulled slightly on the cloth.

The satin slithered with a hiss to the ground, but Harry didn't hear it. All he could comprehend was the long bright orange hair, the scrapes and cuts that had been wiped clean of blood… A twinge in his neck, and Harry brought his hand up, only to realise with a shock that there were needles sticking straight through one side of his neck to the other. Fresh blood was oozing out, coating his fingers in the glistening dark substance.

As the blood rushed from his head, he realised that he had died. Only a momentary one, but the shock was enough for him to faint from lack of oxygen to his brain.

"Poppy… would you have any idea why Harry woke up, when we were sure he had definitely died?"

"I'm not sure, Albus… But-" The sound of a bed creaking as someone in the bed next to his rolled over.

"I know why." The fog in Harry's brain began clearing immediately. Her voice! He fought to make a connection between two memories that slipped through his mind's fingers like the proverbial soap.

"You should be resting, Katrina. You weren't supposed to stand at the… at the… service… You've lost too much blo-"

"I know why he's still alive. Those needles…" Katrina grunted and tenderly brought her left hand to a bandaged wound in her right shoulder. "As weapons, they have a low chance of killing, unlike daggers or arrows. Muggles even use them as acupuncture tools… Anyway, there are certain points in the human body that… ugh..."

Katrina swung her legs over the side of her bed, pulling herself into an upright position. "…that when hit in the right combination, only with your bare hands, can force someone into an excruciating pain, so bad that they can't move… And if you puncture that point with a piercing weapon, a person can die."

She sighed. "I remember once… My friend and I, we were fighting against a group of people just like the person who threw those needles… They were probably all trained at the same place… Anyway, one of them threw one at my friend, intending to kill, which punctured here-" She indicated a point near her shoulder, between the collar bone and a rib. "-and missed the pressure point by a centimetre or so… My friend still 'died', but he woke up much like Mr. Potter did here, an hour or so later, alive and kicking."

Harry blinked slowly, as, for what seemed like the hundredth time, he awoke in the Sick Bay from some battle with the forces of Voldemort or Voldemort himself. "He's pretty lucky, you know. People who use those needles as weapons in a planned attack are reasonably confident of their accuracy, considering, as I said before, those don't really have a high chance of killing. And I'm doubting that that man really intended to miss, since he has no reason to feel guilty for killing someone he doesn't know."

"What are you talking about?! Everyone feels guilty for kill- Oh…" Hermione blinked. Voldemort didn't feel guilty about killing people he didn't know, and his men were probably the same.

"Exactly. And when you train to be an assassin, a fighter, anything to do with physically hurting anyone else… The only way you can truly become something like that is if you have the strength to destroy you own heart and kill someone else. That's something you can't get from living in peaceful times, and now, it seems that the situation calls for even students to become cold-blooded killer-"

"No. No student of Hogwarts is a killer, and I am sure that all of us here wish for that to remain so forever."

Katrina snorted, and mimicked Dumbledore. "'No student of Hogwarts is a killer'… Have you forgotten those Death Eaters I killed? Or am I not counted as a student of Hogwarts?" Her callous tone and the sneer in her voice forcibly reminded Harry of Malfoy, but surely… Surely Katrina wasn't… wasn't like that? Right?

Professor Dumbledore blinked slowly. "Under the circumstances, you had no choice but to-"

"'Under the circumstances' my ass, Professor. Unless you're saying that if anything like what just happened a few hours ago were to happen again, and if any of the other students were to 'accidentally' kill someone, they wouldn't be a killer? And those Death Eaters, they weren't the first who have fallen by my hand."

A wave of pain struck, and her frame shuddered as she gritted her teeth, hand clutching at her left side. A trickle of something dark oozed out from the corner of her mouth, something that glistened… Madam Pomphrey rushed to Katrina's side, gently pulling Katrina down into a lying position.

"Tell me where it hurts, dear… Oh!" Harry sat up, unnoticed, and he stared in horror at Katrina's chin, which was dripping in blood which was coming from her mouth. She brought her hands together, and a golden glow bathed her hands as she placed them over the place she had been clutching in pain.

Madam Pomphrey wiped away the blood from Katrina's mouth with a cloth, and brought a cup of water and a bucket for Katrina to rinse her mouth. As Madam Pomphrey and Professor Dumbledore moved over to the side, conversing in hushed, whispers, Harry struggled to hear what they were saying.

"… internal injuries, but nothing like I've seen before. It's like they're magical wounds, but the Death Eater… you said he just struck her with his bare hands! How can that be magical?"

"You saw how she healed herself, Poppy. Whoever she is, there are Death Eaters with powers just like hers… A magic that we've never seen before, and no visible weak point…"

"That's because there isn't a weak point…" Katrina muttered, and Madam Pomphrey and Dumbledore whirled around.

"You should be resting! You need to conserve your energy…"

"There are no weak points to our magic and our way of fighting, Professor. Just a matter of who's got the skill and the power to back them up." She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as another wave of pain washed over her. A minute passed as everyone stared at her prone profile, and then her eyes opened again.

"This Voldemort… I don't know who he is, but I'm not really sure why someone with my magic would join his ranks as Death Eater, as his servant. They'd rather be an ally, an equal not subject to his orders… Or at least that's what I thought was the case… But now…" She closed her eyes again, and decided to place some more of her healing magic onto another internal injury.

"But anyway, if you'll allow me, Professor, I'll send a message to some of my friends, and they can come and help out here. I wasn't expecting something like this to happen, but I guess not all things go to plan…" Professor Dumbledore blinked, and Harry narrowed his eyes. Plan? What plan? What was she talking about…?

"Voldemort seems to be recruiting more and more of these fighters that possess your particular brand of magic. Perhaps it would be wise to ask for assistance from some of your friends." Dumbledore conceded, although Harry wasn't so sure. What if these friends of hers, when they had defeated Voldemort, would they… 'Bossa nova' and so on and so forth? 'Here comes the new boss, same as the old one'?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid, Harry thought, as Madam Pomphrey told him to go back to sleep. An electronic beep, and Harry stared as Katrina began talking in some European sounding language, into a small oddly shaped piece of metal, one side of which was bathing her face in soft light.

She finished, turned it off and slipped it into her pocked. Harry was curious about the strange device. "I… I thought electricity doesn't work here, apart from small basic things like our watches… And that definitely isn't a 'simple electronic device'."

Katrina laughed, but stopped quickly and grimaced, clutching at her side. "Ouch… Let's just say that we've managed to figure out a way of shielding electronic objects from magic, and we discovered that magic doesn't affect electric signals." She grimaced again. "We have to rest now, you especially."

Harry snorted. "Me?! What about you? You're the one who's got internal injuries that even Madam Pomphrey can't heal!"

She smiled. "Yes, but someone put into a temporary death, like you were, must rest for awhile before their body returns to normal… There is no magic that can truly heal you entirely of something like; you'll have to have some extensive rehabilitation too."

"But… Earlier, when I woke up… I was able to move normally… I didn't even realise what was happening until I felt the needles through my neck!"

"That's because the nerves in your body were slightly deadened, and you didn't actually feel the pain… Although now, after Madam Pomphrey's healed all she can, you might have a bit of trouble walking, lifting things… stuff like that…" She stretched, but quickly brought her hands back down, wincing slightly.

"Pity Christina can't do healing … I'm not really crash-hot at healing myself when it's something as bad as this…" She sighed again, and had settled down and was half-asleep when her words sank into Harry's mind.

"Christina? One of your friends is here?" He burst out, not realising Katrina was almost asleep.

"Hmm? Yeah, she's here…" Katrina mumbled sleepily. "She just arrived in Britain for some business matter and-"

"And that has been put on hold, since your safety is of the utmost importance, Ange- Katrina." A gentle voice scolded her, as its owner stepped down from the window sill. "You should have alerted us earlier of the situation; we would have dropped everything to come to your aid. These adversaries are not to be trifled with, and even you require our aid, if you are to remain within the bounds all of us must obey."

Christina, long ruddy brown hair tied back into a ponytail and clad in a smart blue power-suit, shook her head slightly and clucked slightly like a mother hen. Katrina yawned slightly but winced and brought her fingers to rest lightly on her right side. "Dear, dear, me… what'll it take until you learn the lesson, Kat? One of these days, you'll really get yourself killed, and where will that leave you? It'll be like how you were before, Iki-"

"Enough!" snapped Katrina, and Harry was shocked by how Christina became suddenly docile and submissive. "That is in the past, and surely you should know by now how I feel about the situation. That I live solely to protect – that is my purpose in life, and to die for that cause is to-"

"-is to die with honour… yeah, yeah, Katrina. Lie still, won't you, so I can heal that dreadful injury you have there." Another voice, belonging to a man this time, who had appeared suddenly at the foot of Katrina's bed. His short cerulean hair swished in a nonexistent wind as he stepped towards Katrina, arms outstretched with his palms facing downwards. A bright azure glow later and Katrina's face was relaxed and her muscles were no longer tensed. "Thanks mate. Where were you, when I called?"

The man smiled gently, and the trio began babbling in the language Katrina had been using on the communicator. Harry's eyes struggled to stay open, but he found himself thinking about how soft the bed was and how soothing their voices' were and just how warm it was…

"…another strike! Our contacts report that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has assembled an even greater host of Death Eaters!"

"They'll attack in a few minutes… What do we do about the students?!"

"…can't have them getting involved again, can we?"

"You can't stop me from fighting, Professor. You know that this time, there will be more Death Eaters with my brand of magic, and I know that you know that without me, you are dead."

"If we let her fight, then I'm sure Mr. Potter will be wanting to join in, I suppose?"

"That's enough, Severus. The students are an essential part of Hogwarts' defences, they are needed…"

"Capture him!"

"Harry! Wake up, please wake up… you can't die…!"

"We've suffered casualties… Dolohov is in a critical condition with several internal injuries of peculiar origin, Caster has a fractured skull and some broken ribs and… and Harry Potter… he's… he's dead, Professor…"

Harry woke suddenly, instinct commanding him into an upright position, the better to gaze around at the sun-light flooded Hospital Wing. Or at least that's what his mind tried to tell his muscles to do, but all he achieved was a kind of weak pull up for two inches, then he flopped back down onto the bed.

"What the…?" He muttered as he tried to get up again. Several quickly smothered laughs burst out beside him, and Harry, managing to tilt his head slightly saw that Christina, Katrina and the strangely blue-haired man were all fighting to keep straight faces. "Feeling okay there?" Katrina managed to make out, amidst a fit of giggles. "I'm sorry, but we just can't help laughing!" she gasped out.

Harry glared, but for the life of him couldn't sit up. "Stop laughing! It isn't funny when you can't even sit up! I bet I can't even walk!" At that, all three of them shut up and sobered quickly. The man slid off of his chair and stood next to Harry.

"My name's Anthony… I know Katrina said that you'll take awhile before you get back to normal, but I'm of the opinion that a full-body check-up will be more accurate than a single glance. She may have good eyes – that's an understatement, mind you – but there's really nothing like a trained medic-"

"-giving you a full once-over… Yadda yadda yadda, we've heard all of that already, Anthony… You can check him all you want; you won't find anything I haven't already found. I do have both of 'the eyes'."

"Whatever." Anthony held both of his palms out in an elliptical position, the ocean blue glow appearing again as he passed his hands parallel to Harry's form, and Harry stared at the crimson dots that appeared all over his body, shining through his Infirmary-issue gown and varying in brightness. Anthony ummed and ahhed, and Harry could see that Katrina was fighting to stop herself from bursting into laughter.

"Fine, so there's nothing much we can do, I'm sorry, Katrina." Anthony pouted childishly and everyone in the room burst into laughter. Madam Pomphrey swept in to find out what was going on, and she stopped abruptly when she spotted Christina and Anthony.

"Who are you? What are you doing to him?" She had noticed the red dots still glowing on Harry, and her wand was raised, pointing straight at Anthony. Katrina sighed slightly. "They're just my current bodyguard, Madam Pomphrey. Anthony here was just seeing if there was anything he could do to help heal Harry, but as I said earlier, there isn't."

Madam Pomphrey quirked an eyebrow at this then pocketed her wand, though she still glared distrustfully at Christina and Anthony. "Where are the others, Christina? I'm sure that after a night, it still wouldn't be just you two who have arrived." Katrina asked, in English. "Oh, I told them to position themselves around the grounds, both inside and outside. There's a few in Hogsmeade, a few on aerial duty and there's a constant patrol. We're the only ones inside of the buildings, though."

Katrina shifted slightly, testing her wounds, and found them to be satisfactorily healed enough. She pulled herself up into an upright position, then gingerly got to her feet. "What about supplies? How long can they survive out there? England isn't anything like Australia or even China; there aren't plenty of natural resources for them to draw on, you know."

Harry stared as Katrina became a military commander, with Christina being the statistician. "Oh, don't worry about that. Each portion is made of three groups, one being on duty, one on reserve and the other travels to gather information and resources. They rotate on a four-day basis, situation 3."

By now, Katrina and Christina had moved to the window, the better to look out onto the grounds. Anthony had slumped into a chair, perhaps he had been on night duty. "Situation 3, eh? That sounds reasonable… How many of us are there out there?" Christina blinked, closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. "Seventy-two, not including Anthony or me." Katrina gazed out for a moment. "Not including me either, right?" Christina nodded.

"Sounds good."

Harry spent weeks getting hold of his movement faculties, but he missed very little of his schoolwork as most people – that is, everyone except the fifths and the sevenths, since major exams still had to go on – were being trained in self-defence, most of which he already knew, thanks to the Defence Association's meetings.

The Gryffindors, especially Hermione and Ron, visited frequently, and to Harry's surprise, as did Cho Chang. The flowers on the bed-stand next to him were always fresh, the perfume so strong that Christina finally cast a transparent cube of magic around it, to ease their streaming eyes and noses. Katrina was out of the Infirmary two weeks after being admitted, while Harry was finally allowed out in the fourth week.

Ron was still slightly wary about Hermione and her personal choices, but with the return of Harry – who was still walking slightly strangely and required the assistance of two people to ensure he didn't fall – they put aside their worries to aid Harry. Wherever Katrina went, the crowd would part, whispers and badly hidden pointing fingers, all of them discussing the last battle, where she had encountered a certain someone…

"Katrina." The voice was soft, yet still audible through the battle screams, the thud of bodies on stone and the steady drip-drip of blood from open wounds.

She whirled around, eyes open and slightly wild from the battle-lust, but also something else… The voice, it was 'her' voice, thought Katrina. There, standing out from all the other Death Eaters, as everything blurred away, this figure was the focus of her vision.

Has to be a clone, can't really be her… She wouldn't hurt a fly, much less me… right?

RIGHT?

Someone attacked Katrina from behind, but the attack merely bounced off of her armour as she hurtled towards the Death Eater, who was also rushing forward, fists clenched and glowing a dull pink. Just like hers, thought Katrina as her own hands pulsed gold.

Impact!, and the pair whirled around, attacking open-hand style, then both of them spotting an opening… Both of them lunging forward to hit each other on the exact same point.

Blood dripped from under Katrina's mask to the floor and also from the Death Eater's mask, as they stood their transfixed by each other's blow.

"Guess that just goes to show I really did teach you, Bree."

"Yeah… Ikiri-sensei. Same openings, same style, same reactions… But I wonder which of us has the stronger body and armour?"

As she said that, Katrina's armour shattered around Bree's hand, just as Katrina's mask slipped off, lubricated by all the blood. Bree brought her free hand to her head, slipped the hood and mask off, and revealed the scarred face that bore little resemblance to the beautiful countenance she used to have.

"You haven't learnt anything after you left, have you?" Katrina was smiling, strangely but still a smile, even as the blood dribbled down her chin and splattered onto Bree's arm and onto the tiles below.

"What are you talking about?" snarled Bree, as she brought her arm back for another strike.

"You've even forgotten things I taught you over and over again…" Katrina grinned even wider, brought her left hand up and…

Flicked Bree on the forehead with her middle finger, sending Bree smashing into several Death Eaters and into the thick stone wall.

"You forgot that with this style… It's weaker if you spread your energy over a large area, like you did with my armour." Katrina paused and spat out some more blood. "You're as bad as a student at the academy, you know."

As Katrina slumped to her knees, one voice was heard above the battle, soft but still audible. "You'd have killed me much earlier if you didn't love me anymore, Ikiri… sempai."

Harry wondered once again how many identities Katrina possessed, and which one was the true one. Shaking his head slightly, as if to clear his mind, he readied himself for the next group duel. After their impromptu testing of their magic skills, the entire of the school – bar most of the Slytherins since all of them had finally been arrested – had been sorted into various groups, depending on their abilities.

For example, Seamus Finnigan, who was much better at Charms then he was at straight-forward duelling, was placed into the group who's job in a crisis was to charm objects into attacking the 'enemies', and to also ensure that any flying debris and or projectiles hit any of the students or teachers.

Dean Thomas was quite good at Transfiguration, and so the group he was placed into had the task of turning objects into rather nasty looking weapons for the Seamus' group to wield, and to also do the reverse just in case the projectile happened to be travelling along a trajectory that would eventually hit a student or teacher.

Harry and Ron were of course placed into the duellers group. About five from each of these groups, including those skilled in Potions, were grouped together to form a small unit, each unit was then looked after by a student who was skilled in all areas – such as Hermione – and occasionally a teacher.

Katrina, Christina and Anthony made up a group on their own, since the other students would just get in the way. They trained elsewhere, but were currently watching as the various groups tussled, the better to view the various strategies of these groups.

Harry cast a bubble of protection around him, just as over twenty Stunners shot straight at him and disintegrated – several of the groups had banded together and were targeting him, since he was one of the most skilled duellists in the school. Parvati Patil then retaliated for him, as did Justin Finch-Fletchley, several of their opponents falling to their spells.

As their unit worked their way through another opposing group, then another and yet another, Ron was hit by a Stunner and he crumpled to the ground. Harry quickly levitated him as he alerted the others, and they retreated to their 'base', where they dropped Ron off. Of course, they could have just revived him on the field, but it was unlikely that a real Death Eater would just Stun one of them and ignore the openings that revealed themselves.

A few hours later, as they emerged from the Great Hall dishevelled and dirty (their bruises and cuts had already been taken care of by the 'healers' in their group), Katrina, Christina and Anthony appeared in from of Hermione, Harry and Ron. Christina and Anthony engaged Harry and Ron in conversation, drawing them away from Katrina and Hermione, of which the latter was stonily glaring at Katrina.

"Now, now, what's with the long face? If you aren't careful, the wind might blow and-"

"Shut up, or I'll… or I'll-"

Katrina laughed. "Or you'll kill me? I don't think you or any wizard or witch that ever lived could even mark me, let alone land a fatal blow. But seriously, why are you so angry with me? Or is this normal for you?"

Hermione death-stared at Katrina, who only grinned. "You think you're so high and mighty and cool, don't you, Katrina? Or is it Ikiri?"

Katrina's expression didn't change at all; she didn't miss a beat. "Oh, I don't know. It could be Katrina, it could be Ikiri; it all depends on you all, doesn't it? But you haven't answered my question yet, Hermione." Katrina sobered, her expression becoming more serious. "Why do you look at me like that?"

"Because you were just playing with me all that time…! I heard what Bree said, I heard what she said afterwards, when you'd fainted!"

Katrina quirked an eyebrow. "Oh really? But you've been death-staring me for a long time, before my fight with Bree. Spill, Granger."

"Or what? You'll hit me? You don't know how to deal with anything except through violence, do you?" Hermione spat, before she realised that the hall was devoid of everyone except the two of them. Her face paled slightly and her hand drifted to her wand.

Katrina sighed slightly, her temper beginning to fray. "And that just goes to show that you don't know me at all, Hermione. How do you think I got into the broom industry? I could've just gone and robbed the local bank but no, I worked to get money."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"About Bree, about those clones! You didn't have to… kill them."

"Then what do you think I could've done? Knocked them out so that they could get arrested like the other Death Eaters – those that survived that is – and have them break everyone out of Azkaban? Hermione, you haven't begun to grasp the situation at all. There is no prison that can hold people with my brand of magic, and the only way to keep them out of trouble permanently is to kill them. Do you understand me?"

"You didn't have to kill them, though."

This time, Katrina groaned aloud and in perfect drama-queen posture begged the skies for a lightning bolt, please. "Hello? Have you been listening? I told you that no wizard or witch that ever lived could mark me, and I'm just one in many clones. Now tell me how many of them could be killed by a wizard or witch?"

Hermione was silent.

Katrina sighed. "I don't want to kill, and I'm sure none of my friends want to either, bar a few that have been otherwise raised to be bloodthirsty, but I digress, that's not the point." She paused, looking through a window as a bird flew inside and landed on Katrina's shoulder.

To Hermione, Katrina's eyes suddenly turned silver – perhaps it was the sun? – and she listened as Katrina's lips moved. "You must be very lucky," she murmured to the bright blue bird. "Nobody depends on you but yourself, and you can fly away from your predators." Like it was agreeing, the bird chirped and bobbed up and down. "If a wolf tries to eat you, there's no way it can leap as far as you fly, right? Even though I can fly, I can't fly away like you can… I can't leave everything behind and escape. In the end, that wolf is going to kill me…"

Shaking her head as if to stop herself thinking such thoughts, her long ponytail swung around and thwacked lightly on the bird's back, sending it flying away, as free as, well, a bird. Katrina turned back to Hermione, and for a moment, just for a short second, Hermione gazed into one silver-white orb and one blood-red eye, and she watched, shocked as bright blue spilled through them, like ink diffusing into water.

But then she blinked, and Katrina's eyes were bright blue, as they always were, and always had been, said her mind. Always have been blue.

"As I was saying, there's no other way, if I am to make sure that as few casualties occur because of me. To gain something… you must be prepared to lose something else in exchange."

Hermione blinked blankly for a few seconds, until Katrina's words sank in. "What are you talking about, because of you? I mean, I know that these people only seem to be interested in killing you, but why?"

Katrina smiled slightly. "Ah, at last, you're not glaring at me as if I'd killed your entire extended family. But anyway, you must've realised that I know all of these people, and we used to be 'friends' of a sort. Except… that day happened, and well, all those people think I'm encroaching on their territory and that I want to take it away from them, but I don't. All of my friends here that are helping me, they are all outcasts of a kind, but not nearly as much as I am. You wouldn't want to be labelled cursed, would you, and then thrown out of one half of your family just because the other half was killed by some nutcase member of said killed family, would you?"

"Heh?" Hermione blinked. She seemed to be doing that a lot these days.

"Just kidding." Katrina laughed. "These people just want to kill me to 'become the best'. Technically, there are a few out there that just want to beat me, not kill me, but a lot of these people are exceptionally blood-thirsty, and for them to actually realise that they can't enter here without attacking with Voldemort and to actually join his ranks… They're pretty desperate to become the best."

"Uh… so why'd you come here, to Hogwarts? Surely at your previous school, they wouldn't have been able to penetrate the magic there."

"Oh, they were able to, even blew apart most of the castle. The magical defenses there aren't as strong as they are here, but I wasn't exactly expecting them to join Voldemort's ranks. Now," Katrina rolled her shoulders then smiled at Hermione. "Do you still hate me?"

Hermione blinked, then frowned slightly.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. What else have I done?"

"You rejected me."

Katrina looked at Hermione as if she was crazy. "You have to be kidding me, Hermione. Either you're so full of yourself that you can't believe that someone rejected you or you're naïve. Now, which one is it? Don't answer that, it was just a rhetorical question. Hermione, you know that I'm not to be tied down, not even to a 'home'. You know that the kind of people I really make friends with are people just like me, and you should've guessed by now that 'Bree' was just a clone of a certain someone who you should also have guessed I am involved with. Now tell me that you're still hung up about me."

Hermione gaped, then she narrowed her eyes. "If you're involved with someone, then why isn't she here?"

Katrina laughed, the same tinkling sound as always. To Hermione, it seemed to always calm her anger and frustrations, helping her to keep her cool and think properly. "No-one walking this earth can find her, but I promised her I would, and I know where she is, and I know how to get to her. Just very few people would actually take the decision I have made, but very few people are me, you know."

"What are you talking about? You're going to kill yourself?!"

"Oh no, I won't kill myself, that'd just be throwing my life away. No, I'm going to avenge her and my family first, then I'm going live. I'm going to let her go, fall in love again, find a new 'family' of sorts, and in doing so… I can live the life she wanted us to have, just with someone else who's not going to be 'just like her', but 'just like themselves'." Katrina's eyes were slightly unfocussed, but then she looked back at Hermione.

"But not before I take care of all the excess baggage I have right now, and that includes my family and that b$& cousin of mine."

"And how do you think that'll help you find her?! Are you even listening to what you're talking about?" Hermione burst out.

Katrina smiled. "Of course I know what I'm talking about. Have you ever heard the reason why the Buddha couldn't hate anyone? He said 'to hate someone is to hate something inside of them, and they are part of me so that would be like hating myself'. If I live freely, I'll be able to find her… inside of me."

"Live freely? You just said earlier, that you can't 'leave everything behind and escape', that 'in the end, that wolf is going to kill you'. How can you live free if you think that?!"

Katrina's face turned from dreamy into a cold mask, anger apparent in every nuance of her body language. "Do you know what you are doing, Granger? You are so good at destroying hopes and dreams that you don't realise what your words do. You don't realise that you destroy people's sole reason to live, you don't even know that something is wrong. You just think that you've just made everything alright by correcting everyone and everything, but you don't know what it's like to be me." With that, Katrina stalked away, leaving Hermione behind, her eyes wide open in shock.