Chapter 12: The Beginning of Something Else
There was a definite post-Hogsmeade gloom in the air as Katherine traipsed down to breakfast on Monday morning. There were no floating pumpkins, enchanted suits of armour, or trick rugs.
Even Peeves seemed to have retreated to some dark corridor to mourn the weekend, no longer able to scream "Trick, or Treat?!" before mercilessly tricking whoever he happened across regardless of their answer.
Katherine knew it wouldn't be long before he resumed pegging chalk, dropping wastepaper baskets on heads, and pulling out rugs, however.
The tenth week of term followed Katherine's trip down with Lily, Monday fittingly ushering in the first day of the new month. It was abruptly November – with uncanny witchery in its changed trees.
She had woken early, to watch the world seemingly exhale, before returning to her four-poster's warm heavy ruby hangings and blankets; the glittering box and delicate tissue paper-wrapped robes on her trunk, and her gleaming mahogany broom handle, catching the candlelight from where it peeked out beneath her bed.
Due to her distractions in the previous two weeks – with Peter and Mary, and then seeking legitimate passage to Hogsmeade the following weekend for robes and her broom – Katherine had let her studies ever so slide.
Behind the frosting windowpanes, she and the girls sheltered in fire-flickering rooms between classes, quietly existing and waiting for evening when they could have scalding showers and curl up in their beds, talking away the lengthening nights.
On Wednesday night, the girls were set to settle into much of the same. For the first time since late August, life was normal.
Lily took a double take at the window, before hopping up from where she and Katherine were writing essays for Potions and running over to poke her head out the window, "Potter! What on earth –"
"Oh – golly! Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more." came Potter's voice, though Katherine couldn't see him.
Black, however, hovered just outside the window frame, one hand on his broom handle and the other wedged under the top of the window.
Lily crossed her arms, her stern expression wavering intermittently as she attempted to glower out at James; his quilt tied around his shoulders like a cloak.
"I would advise you to make your explanation phenomenally good."
"Well, our dear friend, Sirius Black, has turned sixteen today," said Frank, poking his head in through the window to clock Alice, before turning back to Lily with a beaming, expectant grin, "We intend to engage in a night of frivolity down by the groves of thistle."
The girls all looked amongst themselves, to see if anyone else knew what on earth that was supposed to mean.
"We're going to play a night game," clarified James, voice lowering in all seriousness, before he brightened, "And we would like to invite all of you lovely young ladies to join us. Make it a real game; Gryffindor's best."
It made sense that Black was the eldest of them all, thought Katherine, as her eyes drifted over him, and the authority he seemed to have over every room he walked into…
Lily, her arms still crossed resolutely over her chest, gazed out at all the fifth year Gryffindor boys with an expression of the upmost disbelief and derision.
"And you thought we would all just – the lot of you are proper nutters –"
James was so used to being told off in his life that you might as well have told a rock off for being sedimentary.
Lily went on, narrowing her eyes, "– while I would love to analyse you all, I've had no training in child psychiatry. And, Lupin, I thought better of you."
James simply blinked, a smiled into the dormitory – unaffected.
"So," said James, glancing around at the girls on their beds – still in their school jumpers, skirts, and socks, "Who's coming?"
"Well…"
The girls' heads all turned to where Marlene rose up off her bed slowly.
"You can't play with just the five of you…"
James made a grand sweeping gesture with his arm, taking both hands off his broom, "We warmly welcome you, McKinnon."
Marlene slipped on her mary-janes, bent to pull her broomstick out from underneath her bed, and then mounted it – flying out the window.
"Maybe we'll look back and ten years and laugh, Lily, you know…" said Alice, quietly, getting up to follow Marlene, "We'll have plenty of time to be boring adults when we're older."
Lily frowned, eyes flitting around at the girls readying themselves to follow Marlene.
"I don't want you guys getting in trouble…" said Lily, thoughtfully, raising her eyebrows, "So, it's probably better if I'm there to make sure it doesn't get out of hand…"
The matter settled, broomsticks were procured from beneath beds all around the dormitory – despite the fact that they were meant to be stored in the broom shed. Did anyone follow that rule?
"Happy birthday, Black." said Alice, as she passed through the window, and past the boy.
Black gave a nod, turning as Mary too floated out.
Mary gave a genuine grin, "Yeah – happy birthday."
Another nod, and Katherine was nearly in shock from Black's forthcomingness. He was regarded as nearly impossible to get any sort of reaction from whatsoever unless you were one of his mates…
Apprehensively, Katherine mounted her new broomstick for the first time, with pleasing ease, and followed the other's lead, and whispered as she passed the boy, "Happy birthday."
Katherine too received a nod from the boy, just like the others, and she carefully steered her broom away from the window to join the group. At the rough turret shingles she had only ever seen from the ground being close enough to touch, she nearly shook with adrenalin at the ludicrousnessof it all…
Across the circle, she caught Lupin's eye as he straddled his broom in a blue bomber jacket and tight jeans, like some sort of pin-up for teenage-ness.
"I like your jacket." she whispered, as she came to stop beside him.
Her words were ill-fitting to what she truly thought. She thought it was her favourite jacket she'd seen in all her life – and was at the same time tormented that she could never own something so cool…
"Thanks," he smoothed his hair back, and the smile that followed was very sheepish, "It's good to have you girls here. We all might, finally, get a break from all the willy waving that usually takes place between James and Sirius..."
At his humorous look, Katherine couldn't help but laugh. It was at that moment too, that she realised that she had missed Lupin. Over the Halloween weekend, he had taken ill, as he had explained to her happened often, and he had missed Monday's classes, and had essentially made himself part of the furniture over Tuesday and Wednesday's, paling in the background.
"Alright, let's get a move on –" James manoeuvred his broom around the group hovering haphazardly outside the window "– birthday boy takes point."
Under the night sky, all was quiet around Katherine and the others, and she was struck with an oceanic depth of feeling – of eternity – as she gazed up. Somewhere in the back of her throat, it had still been October all week – but the sky could not be denied.
The dark feels different in November.
"So, you and I will be Chasers with Frank, mate,"
James had swooped down, alongside Black where he flew by Katherine, relaying the information solemnly.
"So will Fortescue, MacDonald, and Evans for the girls," said James, before his eyes flitted across the front of Black to Katherine, "Spencer –"
His eyes swept over the length of her broom, and with a nod – of seeming approval, at how she was handling herself so far – he gave a small smile.
"Seeker."
Relief flooded Katherine. Then gratitude, as James had kept her out of the thick of the game on purpose. She was a fairly confident flyer, with all her lessons, but she had never played Quidditch before.
When she pulled level above the others in the position for Seekers once they had reached the pitch, she came face to face with Lupin; his eyes glinting with the excitement of the night.
James let loose a Snitch from his pocket, and then tossed up the Quaffle as centrally as possible for fairness. As she and Lupin pulled up on their brooms, drifting, and trying to catch sight of the zippy gold ball, she watched the scramble below – and all ladylikeness leave Katherine's friends.
Quidditch made people transform. Even her, she came to find – when she was diving and rolling her new broomstick like a madwoman – to get to the Snitch before an equally skilled Lupin.
"Snitch!" cried Lupin, holding his hand aloft, with the fluttering wings flapping through his fingers.
The game – and sledging – halted overhead, and everyone swooped down to the ground.
Katherine panted, her sweat cooling on her neck as she looked up at Lupin, "Why aren't you on the team?"
"It's not for lack of trying on our part." said James, with a look to Lupin as he landed.
Lupin licked his lips, and gave a shrug, "Physical disadvantage."
"Because you're tall?" asked Katherine, dumbfounded.
James clapped a hand on Lupin's shoulder, grinning at Katherine, "Ginormous, really."
Alice and James replaced Katherine and Lupin, and the hilarity of the two groups going head-to-head ensued all over again. 'Fire up, Lily! Yoko Ono – Yoko Ono – look what she did to the Beatles!' cried Marlene, only to be bellowed over by Frank 'This is not the place to be a gentleman, Black – knock her off her broom! Polite society will never know!'.
Black had looked scandalised at the suggestion, shaking his head as he stuck with Katherine and the Quaffle – just flitting alongside, never touching. It was all very skilful. He waited for a pass, and zoomed off after it, intercepting it cleanly and passing it off to Lupin with a back-arching overhead pass.
She wondered if he was going easy on her after finding out about her lessons with James by accident in Hogsmeade…
Lily swooped by Katherine.
"Bloody hell –" Lily caught her breath, furrowing her eyebrows as she smiled, "You're faster than I thought you would be – not many people can keep up with Black."
The well-tacked handle of mahogany seemed to hum in her grip.
"It's the broom," said Katherine, smiling happily and adjusting her grip.
Having stopped flying, the chill in the air prickled Katherine's neck and knees.
"Do you think we'll head in soon, right? It's getting late…"
"What? –"
James turned from where he was cruising around in search of the snitch and keeping an eye on the game.
James held out his arms, "The nights only young!"
The high, thin sliver of moon and the struggling pitch lamps barely glows against the thick blanket of night, indicated otherwise.
"The night is nearly well and truly over, it's –" said Katherine, checking her little wristwatch and squinting in the lack of light, "– eight o'clock. It's practically daybreak."
James' lips quirked, but he schooled it away.
"Born on the corner of Straight and Narrow, were we?" he teased, before inclining his head, and becoming earnest and softer spoken, "You're having fun, Spencer, I know you are. You're just hitting your stride too – don't worry about getting in trouble."
Lily shook her head, "No, she's right, Potter – it is getting late,"
James sighed, making a show of his sagging shoulders and downtrodden expression.
Lily's eyes shone with mirth as she leant by Katherine, and whispered, approvingly, "Don't feel guilty, Jack-the-lad over there needs someone to piss in his chips occasionally."
"What's going on over here?"
Black came away from the hoops, as he waited for the Quaffle to be fetched after a goal.
James gave him a look, "It seems we're about to lose some of our star players."
Black's eyes flashed to Katherine and Lily –
"Well, it's a bit risky being this close to the forest at this time of night, isn't it? Not to mention that if we get caught out past nine…" trailed off Lily, her eyes straying to the thick line of trees, warily.
The dark-haired boys exchanged a glance.
Black was the first to speak, his eyes finding the girls with recharged recklessness, "We don't get caught."
The rich notes of arrogance circled Katherine's ear drum.
"Besides," said James, grinning as he clapped Katherine on the shoulder, "The risk is what makes it fun,"
Katherine and Lily glanced to one another; uncertainty mirrored back to one another.
"Come on, at least finish this game out, and then if you decide you still want to go…" James tipped his head, as if in understanding of the decision.
Katherine looked to Lily and found agreement with the arrangement plain on her face.
The game played on, but Katherine found her eyes increasingly straying to Black after their perfectly polite brush on the pitch…
"Ow!" cried Mary, clutching her cheek, and pausing the play well into the second game of the night.
Peter flew to her side immediately, vacating his goals, "Is it bad?"
He turned back, frowning at his friends.
"No head shots, guys, we agreed – who did it –"
Lily, meanwhile, sent the Quaffle through the vacant goals.
"…That's ten." announced Black, reluctantly.
Mary became, miraculously, better.
Lupin whistled lowly, "He fell for it hook, line, and sinker..."
A gasp and the yell of "Look!" drew everyone's eyes to the chase after the Snitch – Alice's short blonde hair flashing intermittently as she and Potter weaved around the spectator towers at a break-neck pace.
"And we have Fortescue and Potter neck in neck – like the backyard saga of '69 all over again –" proclaimed Black, his wand at his throat and projecting his voice magically "– weaving through the towers… and down… down –"
The pair vanished into the framing around the base of the pitch, but Alice then pulled back up, hovering as she watched below.
Mary gasped, "He can hurt himself doing that! What's he playing at!?"
"That timber framing is really narrow..." said Lily, eyeing the covered section.
The boys seemed to share none of their concern.
"It's James –" said Peter, easily, "He always makes it."
Collectively, they waited, eyes darting around for any hint of where James was in the covered supports of the spectator towers.
It felt like forever until James emerged; the glowing example of triumphant, Snitch held aloft in his hand.
The cheers of his friends guided him into the group, the aura of victory rolling contagiously from his skin. He seemed to live each moment of his life by the skin of teeth. It was some sort of never-ending luck the boy seemed to carry with him.
Frank ruffled James' hair roughly, and said a blokey, "Yeah, Potter!"
James accepted the praise humbly, straightening his glasses, and holding out the Snitch.
"What do you say, Sirius Black? Your turn for some glory?"
The ball glinted in the scarce flickering orange light back glowing the group, but Black just eyed it.
"Actually, I think we should call it a night, I'm getting a bit tired," he said, much to the entire group's undisguised surprise. His eyes turned away, into the distance, "I'll fetch the Quaffle. I think I saw it fall by the broom shed…"
James frowned, but nodded, "Alright, mate, your night and all…"
A WHOOSH of air, and Black lifted up and away and was zooming off into the distance.
"So," said Marlene, nudging James, "Is there a cake or something?"
James was cleaning his glasses on his jumper.
"For what?"
Lily's eyes nearly bugged out of her head, "Black."
The boys all looked to each other, mouths slack. "Ohh…" they all said collectively.
"No… actually we didn't think about that…" said Lupin, blinking, and rubbing the back of his neck.
Marlene's teeth chattered, and she hugged herself, sitting upright on her broom, "Merlin, it's cold."
"We'll back in front of the common room fire soon," said James, cheerily, before his expression turned thoughtful, "We might be able to catch the house elves tidying the common room while everyone's sleeping – they might be able to make a trip to the kitchens for a cake…"
Black was just a dot in the distance behind him, making his way back. But there was another presence with the group of teenagers.
Katherine's stomach plummeted at the cloaked figure – and the grimy skeletal hands – and she was wrenched back in time to the worst night of her life.
"Bloody hell!" a voice exclaimed, "When I get my hands on him when we're through here –"
An audible, sudden chill silenced the man and stalled the skirmish. It wrenched Katherine's eyes open with the peculiarity of it.
Both sides of the fight had stopped. Looking around, she found that all eyes were on her. She realised far too late that they were not staring at her, but at something behind her.
She turned and found a sucking hole of flesh. And then it was on her.
A look of horror passed across James Potter's face before it became blurred with the Dementor's attack. A strangled cry erupted from the fifteen-year-old boy.
It was a horrible sound. A sound that Katherine didn't think he could make. Without thinking, Katherine flew to James' side, unsure if he was able to stay upright on his broom.
His forearm that Katherine gripped was cold and clammy, his shoulders hunched and heaving in exhaustion.
Katherine gulped, pulling him upright and trying to check his eyes to see if he was going to pass out. But when she finally got his head to stop lolling forward, his eyes fixed on a spot behind her head, widening.
Katherine felt the unmistakeable cold creeping over her skin, turning to find a fleshy, sucking hole closing over her face – once again.
James' forearm slipped from her grasp, her barely able to hold onto her own broom. A voice screamed her name, seeming another world away…
Opening her eyes, and seeing the familiar white walls of the hospital wing, was the moment Katherine realised that she had ever been unconscious at all.
"Katherine?" Lily whispered unsurely.
Katherine closed her eyes and gulped, "My head feels big,"
Katherine's hand found her head, searching for lumps or blood.
"Is it big?" asked Katherine, opening her eyes.
Lily smiled, shaking her head, "No, it's head-size."
Katherine cracked a smile and nodded slowly, before finding herself at a loss for what had transpired.
"What happened?" asked Katherine, confused, "I remember the Dementors… and then checking on Potter…"
Her eyes fell on James Potter in the bed across from her, Black balancing his chair back on two legs at his bedside.
"You fell off your broom a minute or so into the attack," said Lily in answer to her original question. Lily frowned and shook her head, "I had gone to get a professor by that point, so I'm not sure about the details…"
Katherine turned back to Lily, frowning.
"How did I get here?" she questioned, looking down at the sheet pulled up to her waist.
Her heart leapt into her throat as her mind galloped –
"Is everyone else okay?"
It was then that the curtain was pulled from around the side of Katherine's bed, McGonagall and Dumbledore standing there, their robes swaying from their halt.
McGonagall advanced to Katherine's bedside.
"Evans said that you were attacked for a few minutes," breathed McGonagall, checking Katherine over, "Horrific creatures…"
Katherine gulped, looking from Black at James' bedside, to Lily, and then back to McGonagall and Dumbledore. Katherine closed her eyes.
"He sent them," she said, opening her eyes, "Didn't he?"
Dumbledore bowed his head, nodding and joining his hands together in front of himself.
McGonagall left the bedside, ushering out Lily and Black, and trying to make James leave too before Madam Pomfrey insisted that he stayed to recover.
"Azkaban has been abandoned by a considerable amount of Dementors," conceded Dumbledore, "The Ministry is already launching an inquiry."
Katherine nodded, toying with the sheet's hem where it rested on her stomach, "Is it to do with the prophecy, sir?"
Dumbledore faltered.
"I was hoping to not burden you with that so soon," he said, nodding minutely, "But, yes, there was a prophecy made about you and Voldemort fifteen years ago. And it is… in play as of the moment."
"What does it say?" asked Katherine.
Dumbledore frowned, steeping his fingertips, "I myself was not present at the time it was made, coincidentally, in the staffroom by the very Professor who would go on teach you all about them this year."
"Professor Brown?"
"Yes, Katherine," said Dumbledore, almost too quiet to hear, his mouth receding even further behind his beard, "And, regretfully, there was a student in the room at the time."
Katherine read between the lines, "And that student reported it to Voldemort?"
"Regrettably his loyalties were not to me, yes." murmured Dumbledore, his eyes on his steeped fingertips.
"So, I could ask Professor Brown –"
"No, Katherine, you couldn't," said Dumbledore, the gentlest of twinkles returning to his pale eyes, "Professor Brown was well and truly beyond. When she came to, she had no recollection whatsoever of sealing yours and Voldemort's fates."
It was as if she had been cast adrift.
"How am I supposed to know what I need to do then?" asked Katherine, indignity churning through her stomach.
"In general, or in regard to Voldemort?"
Katherine felt exasperation swell up inside her, "Voldemort."
"There is a place in the Ministry of Magic, aptly named the Department of Mysteries – it is there that all prophecies are kept, yours included." said Dumbledore, nodding once at her.
"That's good then, on the next Hogsmeade weekend I'll just –"
"I have already taken the liberty of sending an agent to locate it, and another brigade of trusted witches and wizards to keep an eye on it until the right moment for you to hear it," said Dumbledore, "The theories about what happened to you, and your parents, may have been a smidgen off beat with some details, but they are right about one thing,"
Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles.
"Voldemort chose you,"
Katherine closed her eyes, feeling as if she had been shot through.
"Things only have power because we believe they do; our wands, broomsticks, prophecies…" continued Dumbledore, "If he hadn't decided it was you the prophecy was referring to – if he hadn't tried to kill you and murdered your parents in the effort, triggering the events that led you to this moment… the prophecy would just be a mere suggestion for a way life could unfold."
Katherine opened her eyes, "This prophecy, aren't you able to…view it… or something, so that we know what Voldemort knows?"
The shake of Dumbledore's ancient head set something to stone inside Katherine.
"The only people that can hear prophecies are those the prophecy is about." said Dumbledore, not blinking as he regarded her, "And when the time is right, Katherine…"
Dumbledore turned to leave.
"What about in general, sir?" asked Katherine.
Dumbledore paused by her bedside table, his eyes on the window.
"That is an answer you must seek yourself, young friend."
Wryly, she nodded.
"We thought that you were a myth." admitted James from across the room, seeming to check Katherine over for any signs of being mythical.
Katherine felt ill-humoured, "Well, you were myth-taken."
Dumbledore suddenly slammed the window closed and, at James and Katherine's horrified expressions, smiled bashfully.
"There was a beetle," he explained, "Poppy does not play host to insects in here unless they're potion ingredients,"
James and Katherine shared a look, full of questioning about the eccentricity of their Headmaster.
"The Patronus Charm… is a pure, protective magical concentration of happiness and hope,"
When the Fifth Year Gryffindors and Slytherins had walked into Defence Against the Dark Arts on Thursday, the tables and chairs had been stacked at the sides of the room, and Professor Giles had been seated on the edge of his desk, grave-faced.
Their professor paced the room, and the students dotted around it, as he instructed them on the defensive measure.
"The recollection of a single talisman memory is essential in its creation, and it is the only spell effective against Dementors,"
Katherine felt very bare-faced and young in her tight plait, her skin tight and clean from the numerous hot showers she'd had. What she also felt, were the stares of the Slytherins in the direction of the Gryffindors – of her.
The shared experience seemed to have torn down the invisible divide between the Gryffindors that had separated them, boys from girls. Katherine had sat on one of the desks pushed against the wall, and Lupin had sat beside her, wordlessly, with his kind eyes and gentle smile. That had been the innocuous start of it all.
Black had even settled on the wall beside Katherine's desk; arms crossed, his leg bent to lean on the wall – and he was glowering coolly back at the Slytherins.
"The majority of witches and wizards are unable to produce Patronuses, and to do so is generally considered a mark of superior magical ability,"
James glanced back to Black from where he lingered at the front of their group with Marlene, not far away. Never far from each other, truly. The two really were like mirrors.
"No reliable system for predicting the form of an individual's Patronus has ever been found, although the great eighteenth-century researcher of Charms, Professor Catullus Spangle, set forth certain principles that are widely accepted as true,"
Professor Giles made his way back to his desk, his voice still booming around the classroom, even with his back to it.
"The Patronus, asserted Spangle, represents that which is hidden, unknown but necessary within the personality,"
A large tome had laid, open, on their professor's desk all lesson. He lifted it and proceeded to read from it.
"'For it is evident,' he writes, in his masterwork 'Charms of Defence and Deterrence', '… that a human confronted with inhuman evil, such as the Dementor, must draw upon resources he or she may never have needed, and the Patronus is the awakened secret self that lies dormant until needed, but which must now be brought to light...'"
All of the older students of Hogwarts were offered the lesson, it seemed. In the days following the sombre lesson, the hallways were filled with silvery whisps – and some transparent incarnations of all sorts of animals. They broke through the strange lull that had fallen over the castle, in which not much had happened at all.
That was all to change on Monday.
Just shy of the entrance to the Great Hall, Katherine saw a gathering of multi-coloured robes swelling by the statue of the one-eyed witch.
Clusters of badged students paved Katherine's way to her friend. Narcissa Black, Bulstrode, and Pucey were the only green robed students conversing with those not from their house; Narcissa having a pursed-lipped-conversation with the blue-robed Pandora Malfoy – her soon to be sister-in-law.
Perhaps most entertaining of all, was the conversation between Damocles Belby and Alexander Wood that Katherine caught exasperated phrases of as she slipped around them to the statue of the One-Eyed-Witch.
"You really shouldn't encourage my brother into such brutishness –"
"He's a Beater, Belby," said Wood, eyes glinting and lips smiling, "It's part of the job description."
"So is playing by the rules," said Damocles, righting his spectacles, "He's not that bright – he needs structure now so that he doesn't think it's acceptable to thump people when his proposals fall flat at the Ministry."
Lily, however, had two identical heads of blond hair in conversation.
A Prefect meeting, Katherine deduced. She was just about to reach the doors of the Great Hall when Lily came barrelling over.
"Katherine!" said Lily immediately, her eyes wide as she halted at the doors. She hurriedly looped her arm through her friend's, "Let's go to the library! Come on!"
Katherine resisted, her eyes fixed on the Great Hall, "I really wanted a coffee –"
Katherine was cut off by a Hufflepuff howling as they ran past, a gaggle of other Hufflepuffs trailing and laughing.
"What's going on?" asked Katherine, trying to peer into the hall.
Lily mirrored Katherine at every attempt, effectively blocking any view she might get of inside the Great Hall.
"…Alright," said Lily, sighing, "You were bound to find out eventually."
It was when Black finished his usual morning crossword and folded the paper back over that Katherine saw it.
"Hey – that's my name!" said Katherine. She reached for a copy closer to her breakfast, staring at the photograph of her parents holding her as a baby outside of a house, "Why am I in the paper?"
"I didn't get much further ourselves before I came to find you…"
Sound twisted around her ears, and the bench seemed to sink further below her. Katherine was only semi-conscious of her mouth falling open.
KATHERINE SPENCER: SAVIOUR OR SILLY SCHOOL GIRL?
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD HAS RETURNED TO THE WIZARDING WORLD ELEVEN YEARS AFTER HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED MURDERED HER PARENTS; WILLIAM AND FLORENCE SPENCER, AND MARKED HER FOR DEATH ALSO. IT HAS NEVER BEEN REVEALED WHY THE FOUR-YEAR-OLD HAD BEEN TARGETED AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE, BUT MANY ARE UNDER THE BELIEF THAT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE WAS A PART OF A CONSPIRACY TO TRAIN WITCHES AND WIZARDS FROM A YOUNG AGE TO HARNESS IMMENSE MAGICAL SKILL TO TAKE OUT THREATS SUCH AS DARK WIZARDS.
IT IS UNCLEAR WHY SHE HAS RETURNED AT THIS TIME, NOT ATTENDING HER FIRST YEAR AT THE SCHOOL – AS MANY RELIABLE SOURCES HAVE CONFIRMED. BUT IT IS STRONGLY FELT THAT THE MUGGLE ATTACK BY MEANS OF DEMENTORS AND DARK WITCHES AND WIZARDS UNKNOWN ON CLAREMONT SQUARE IN ISLINGTON, LONDON, WAS LINKED TO HER RESURFACING, AND WAS SUSPECTED AS SOMETHING MORE MAGICAL THAN JUST GANG VIOLENCE – ALTHOUGH REFUTED BY MINISTER FOR MAGIC; MILLICENT BAGNOLD.
YET AGAIN, MORE CONJECTURE SURROUNDS WHETHER OR NOT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED HAS CAUGHT MISS SPENCER IN HIS SIGHTS ONCE MORE, AND, PERHAPS MORE WORRYING FOR PARENTS AND CONCERNED MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY, WHETHER HOGWARTS HAS BECOME A TARGET –
"Well it will now that she's said it!" Lily erupted –
– MISS SPENCER DOES NOT SEEM TO BE TOO CONCERNED, SEEN COSYING UP WITH FELLOW FIFTH YEAR GRYFFINDOR, REMUS LUPIN. FELLOW STUDENT, GRISELDA GREENGRASS, HAS GIVEN US THE EXCLUSIVE ON WHAT IT'S LIKE TO WALK THE HALLS WITH MISS SPENCER…
"What a load of rubbish!" said Lily, throwing down the paper.
"The Prophet is about as trustworthy as something that fell of the back of a broomstick, I'm telling you…" said Marlene, glowering over her porridge at the offending paper.
"But how did they know that I lived on Claremont?" asked Katherine, reaching for the paper again.
Lily swatted Katherine's hand.
"You lived on Claremont?" asked James, from the across the table.
"All my life." said Katherine, raising her eyebrows as she continued to eye the paper.
Black leant back aloofly, though there was a twitch of something further in his brow, "We've got better things to do than interview the bird, mate."
"Not just any bird, Moony's girlfriend, apparently." said James, with a salacious pulse of his eyebrows at Katherine.
Black snorted, and said sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, that's likely."
"Come on," Lily urged Katherine, "Let's go to class."
Katherine couldn't meet anyone's eyes as Lily gently guided her away.
On the walk from Breakfast to Transfiguration, students both young and old openly stared at Katherine. She heard her name on the lips of people she couldn't name. Equally good and bad things followed her name. None of them true.
There was a brief reprieve during Transfiguration. McGonagall's pursed lips and stony stare over her spectacles was enough to silence even the most frantic of gossipers.
The walk from Transfiguration to Potions, however, was pantomime. Everyone had time by then to digest the news and fine tune their teasing.
Arriving at Potions, Katherine was greeted warmly by Slughorn.
Greengrass' smile had faltered for the first time all morning. She filtered past in a stream of her fellow Slytherins, all but gaping at Katherine and Slughorn.
Halfway through the lesson when Greengrass lowered the temperature of the room with a spell and shouted "Dementor!", the Potions Professor took fifty points from his own house. He went on to give her a severe dressing down in front of the class on the improperness of her actions in the sort of times the wizarding world were in.
For once, Katherine was happy to let a slight injustice go unchecked, happily taking notes from the board. When Katherine finished her notes, she looked around again, finding that only a few others had finished too. And, feeling a slight pang in her bladder, she raised her hand.
Slughorn looked up from the parchment he was marking, smiling.
"Yes, Katherine?" he acknowledged her, his expression expectant.
Katherine smiled at the kind man. She had admitted to herself that she enjoyed his praise.
"May I please go to the bathroom?" asked Katherine.
Slughorn nodded immediately before checking his fog watch.
"Of course, of course," said Slughorn, "But you might as well take your books with you, class is about to finish."
Katherine nodded as she stood, gathering her things, "Thank you, Professor."
An arm flew up into the air in Katherine's peripheral vision.
"Mister Potter."
"Can I go to the bathroom, Sir?"
Slughorn laughed, "After the bell,"
James sighed.
"You can surely hold on for two minutes, can't you, lad?"
Katherine breezed out of the door, hearing James playfully argue the unfairness of her being allowed to go with only two minutes to go.
Slughorn's argument was simply that she had asked first – and that he could trust her to not blow up the toilets.
After using the bathroom, washing her hands, and spelling her hair to untangle itself, Katherine moved off to Lunch. The bell had gone just as she arrived at the bathroom, and she found the hallways flooded with students heading for the Great Hall.
"Look, it's ickle little, Spencer!" Greengrass' voice announced to her small gaggle of Slytherin pals who had taken to blocking Katherine in from behind.
Katherine pursed her lips, clearing her throat as she looked around the hallway for an out.
"I really must be getting to Lunch, Greengrass." Katherine excused, trying to step away before stepping into Parkinson who blocked her path pointedly.
"So, the chosen one is touched in the head!" Greengrass declared, amused, "You can't have everything, I suppose."
Katherine sighed, holding her books tighter to her chest.
Snape was behind Greengrass, watching the exchange with interest.
"Was locking me in that cupboard with the Devil Snare not enough for you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Greengrass, blankly, before grinning, "You probably imagined it, since you're a certified loon."
"That's enough, Greengrass."
A flurry of kissing noises erupted, and Katherine didn't have to turn around to know who had come to the rescue.
"What a fitting couple!" laughed Greengrass, "The orphan and the half –"
Lupin stepped in front of Katherine, "Come up with a new insult, Greengrass."
Her goons 'ooohed'.
"Why? When it's all so true?" said Greengrass, grinning.
Lupin's lips hardened into a line, "Shall I call for Slughorn?"
Greengrass' face dropped into a scowl, and she turned to parade away. It was as she turned back that Katherine noticed that her cheeks seemed darker – hairier. Greengrass seemed to notice too, lifting her hands for inspection before letting out an almighty screech.
"You – You!" she spluttered, whirling an arm in Lupin's direction.
Lupin simply raised his eyebrows, infuriatingly calm, "Who?"
Greengrass stomped, running off with her fellow Slytherins in her wake. Those who had stopped to laugh watched her go, pointing and talking to one another.
Lupin licked his lips, and projected his voice loud enough that the younger student by them wouldn't be able to ignore it, musing to Katherine.
"Don't you think it's strange she's so furry this time of the month?"
The younger student's eyes lit up, and he turned to whisper to the boy next to him.
Katherine watched Greengrass flee, smiling.
"You'll have to teach me that spell someday."
Lupin smiled to himself, but nudged Katherine's elbow with his own, "We should get some lunch,"
They had only just gotten into the thick of the migrating crowd when he turned to her again.
"I missed breakfast this morning, but I've obviously since heard the, er… news. Sorry you were left out to dry alone."
"You couldn't have known," said Katherine, truthfully, shrugging, and she turned to him anew, "I'm sorry too – that you got dragged across the cover of the Daily Prophet."
Lupin laughed, and the sound lifted Katherine's eyes to his uninhibitedly joyful face.
"The way I see it, you've done me a favour –" Lupin turned to her with an expression of surprised delight, and cheekiness, "Now everyone knows I'm fanciable."
Katherine knocked her shoulder into his arm as they both laughed.
"I didn't think you had any problems in that department," said Katherine, lightly, looking ahead, "Black thought it was quite laughable that you would consider me."
"What?" the word shot from the boy's lips quickly.
Lupin turned, almost fully, to Katherine as they walked on, brow furrowed and bending his neck to meet her eye.
"Sirius said that?" disbelief dripped from each word.
"Not in so many words," said Katherine in concession, before nodding, "But, er, yeah."
Lupin walked quietly beside her from a moment.
"I'm sure he didn't mean it like that he…" Lupin caught himself, glanced to Katherine, eyes nearly imperceptibly wider, "I… er… never mind,"
Lupin faced forward again, tapping her elbow with his own and a quick sideways smile.
"Sorry about him, real bastard."
Katherine nodded, and intended to keep walking on, everything as usual, but Lupin gave her a rather odd look out of the corner of her eye. Not merely once, either, as they traversed the stairs down to the Entrance Hall.
She glanced to him, catching him in the act as he looked at her with knowing eyes.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?" deadpanned Lupin, raising his eyebrows and stuffing his hands into his pockets.
He looked forward again, and then back down to her – quickly.
Katherine pointed to him, "Like that."
Lupin shook his head at her with pleadingly innocent wide eyes, a vacant smile of confusion lifting his lips.
"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not looking at you any differently –"
Katherine's eyes bulged in exasperation, "You're doing it again!"
They slowed by the doors to the Great Hall –
"Oh my god – it's my face, Katherine." said Lupin, laughingly.
Katherine stopped, crossing her arms, and struggling to school her own amusement, "You bastard, Lupin. You're not telling me something!"
"Remus," he said mirthfully in correction, eyes gleaming as he lowered his head by hers, "We're sweethearts, aren't we? That means I'm your bastard,"
Hushed giggles passed behind them, and some third year Gryffindor girls whispered amongst themselves as they pushed through the double doors to the Great Hall.
Turning back, Katherine thought Lupin looked a little pained as his eyes followed the girls and settled on the closed doors.
He looked back to Katherine, and gave a bracing smile, "Well, before our nuptials are prematurely announced, we should probably join our friends."
With that, Lupin pulled the door open, nodding Katherine through.
Black chewed slowly, eyes flickering between them as they approached the table.
"Oi – Spencer –"
The slapping of shoes sounded behind her, and a huffing James slowed his jog to loop his arm through hers, leaning down conspiratorially.
"Have I got the best medicine to distract you from that bit of salacious gossip –" he faced forward, escorting her at a slow walk to her usual place, speaking very importantly all the while, "I have just come from seeing Fabian Prewett, and he has just seen Professor McGonagall – who has named Gryffindor and Hufflepuff as the two sides in the opening Quidditch match of the season,"
James released her arm, and then took her hand to make of show of helping her over the bench.
The others watched on, seemingly amused by the antics.
James peered down at her, with false solemness, "As one of your lessons, I am inviting you to observe the game and partake in an essential school spirit activity."
The first Quidditch match had been pushed out from its usual date after the dementor incident. The third Saturday of November was, for Katherine, excellent timing. The article faded from the forefront of people's minds with the mounting anticipation of the match.
When Katherine and the other girls woke on the particular Saturday, Marlene was already gone – preparing for the match with the rest of the Gryffindor team.
Forgoing breakfast, the girls too needed to the prepare, Katherine discovered. Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Fortunate Son' playing in the background, they all kitted themselves out in their Gryffindor scarves, tied red and gold hair ribbons, and painted red lipstick lines and hearts on their cheeks.
The twangy guitar lick and scorching vocals seemed to follow the girls down to the Pitch. The trailing students around them became a large crowd, bottlenecked at the entrance of pitch. Part of the crowd that shuffled slowly closer to the looming towers and flapping sky-high flags skin, Katherine succumbed to the prickling, hand-shaking anticipation.
She had never seen anything like it. It held all the gravitas of a rock concert and the Football World Cup rolled into one.
"Alice!" Frank Longbottom bobbed over the crowd, waving an arm.
Stumbling with the crowd, the boy managed to slip his way through the cracks of sardine-squashed students.
"Here…" said Alice in greeting, running a finger through the heart on her cheek and using it to paint thin wispy lines across his cheeks, and then one on his forehead too – laughing.
Behind Frank trailed Pettigrew and Lupin – 'Remus', Katherine had to remind herself, as the tall boy closed in with his fluffy hair and tired kindly eyes…
He was wearing the blue jacket again.
The new group passed, jittering, under the arching entrance to the pitch, and began the jog up the considerably emptier stairs. People, of course, were only going one way.
"Katherine – here!" Lily took her hand as they emerged at the top, hair immediately lifting with the wind.
It wasn't cold however, as you could not move an inch without pressing against someone else.
Lily guided Katherine through to the front of the tower. There were no seats, unlike the climbing rows behind, but it was certainly the best view. The group had to split up to wedge themselves into the only remaining gaps, Lily's grip was tight until they had secured theirs.
Mary, Alice, Peter, and Frank took the far corner at the front of box, the boys standing behind the girls and swapping a pair of binoculars back and forth to, seemingly, tune them to some setting…
"Wilson! Come sit – saved you a seat!" – the older boy beside Katherine had turned at the calling of his name, squinted, and then grinned and crossed back to his friend.
"ALRIGHT, FOLKS, WELCOME TO THE FIRST MATCH OF THE YEAR!" came Gideon's magically magnified voice from the commentator tower.
The vibration of his voice carried through the wood of the tower, and up Katherine's legs. She, and everyone else, hung on his every word.
"WE'VE GOT GRYFFINDOR!"
From the changing sheds, scarlet dots began to zoom up into the sky. As Katherine turned for a better look, arms came to rest beside hers, in the space Wilson had vacated.
Lupin offered her a wind-blown smile, before craning his neck to watch the players entering the pitch with everyone else.
"PREWETT –" the Head Boy said the surname he shared with his twin with an arguable amount of extra pride "KING, POTTER, BLACK, SPINNET, BROWN, AND MCKINNON!"
Lily nearly screamed, drumming her hands along the edge of the tower like a run-of-the-mill muggle football fanatic, as she cheered for Marlene.
The seven scarlet dots became flapping robes as the Gryffindor team flew a lap of the Pitch, wind roaring in their wake as they passed overhead, blisteringly quick. It was mere taste of the pace that the game would take.
Katherine was almost dizzy, and in fear that she would get decapitated by a wayward player, as she watched, and all the while nearly thrilled to hysterics with the rest of the crowd throughout the duration of the game.
The culmination of the game was a nail-biting race between the Gryffindor Chasers and the Hufflepuff Seeker. Andrew Spinnet had been fouled, and remained very unconscious, unable to compete for the match-ending Snitch catch.
There was no doubt that Hufflepuff was going to catch the snitch.
Gryffindor, however, were head and shoulders above them in points. Thanks in part to Marlene blocking nearly every single shot Hufflepuff took, and the fact that James and Black were impenetrable when in a play together – their passing too quick to see. They needed another goal to be certain that they would stay ahead, and win the match, regardless of their missing Seeker.
"KING AND POTTER BLAZE A RUN INTO THE HUFFLEPUFF GOAL ZONE – POTTER PASSES TO KING – OH, NO! BLUDGER STRIKE! KING LOSES THE QUAFFLE – BUT WHAT'S THIS? IT'S BLACK! BLACK CATCHES THE QUAFFLE!"
The Gryffindor tower erupted around Katherine, and it was a miracle the floor did not collapse from the jumping. Everyone was out of the seats, and rushing forward, as Black closed in, needing to pass the tower to score.
Clapping and whooping, the tower chanted to his name to a rhythmic clap, "BLACK! – BLACK! – BLACK!"
Katherine found herself shaking her head at the frenzied mob of her fellow students, but also clapping along – too caught up in the moment.
Remus laughed beside her, nudging her elbow as he too clapped along to the beat.
Viciously, the Gryffindor Chaser whipped past. Black, the Quaffle cradled beneath his arm, seemed to flit away or roll out of the way of all the opposition players coming at him – just in the nick of time. Like a missile, he closed the distance to the goal, winding his arm back –
"STEBBINS IS DIVING – HE'S SPOTTED THE SNITCH!"
The DING of the scoreboard clicked over, just as the siren sounded.
"STEBBINS CATCHES THE SNITCH, BUT GRYFFINDOR WINS!"
The end of the match had been blood-thumping and mind-addling. One easily lost their head in the elation of the mass celebration. Even Lily, who had turned to Katherine, gripping her by the forearms and screaming as she jumped up and down.
A return to classes on Monday marked the denouement of the fading excitement from the match. Black and James seemed to still walk through the hallways a little taller, smiling more easily.
Katherine herself had two pressing matters on her hands; her lengthening fringe, which made it nearly impossible to tuck behind her ears – or pin back; and the small question of the prophecy about her.
She was pouring over a new tome she found on prophecies when she was approached by the most least likely of people.
"Katherine,"
Lifting her eyes, Katherine was startled by lime green robes spangled with gold crescent moons. It was such precocious garb that she barely noticed the witch in navy robes next to her Headmaster, or the blond man in grey robes beside her.
"Miss Evans said we could find you here."
"Professor." said Katherine, remembering her manners before faltering when it came to addressing the two new faces.
"Katherine, this is the Minister for Magic; Millicent Bagnold."
Millicent Bagnold was a stately looking witch with rather plain robes for someone in such a prestigious position. Katherine got the sense that she it was a conscious effort to let the world know that she took herself too seriously to care about her appearance.
"And her assistant, a former student of Hogwarts; Mister Abbott."
Abbott seemed familiar. With white-blond hair that might link him to the Malfoys, but with green eyes, instead of the expected pale blue of the house. His smile, too, was a little too honest to be anywhere near politics or bigoted purebloods.
"Pleasure." said Katherine, undecided on whether she meant it yet.
"We're here on business, I'm afraid," said Bagnold, "The incident on the Quidditch Pitch was only witnessed by a handful of underage witches and wizards and I am here to get the whole truth – or as much of it that I can get from a bunch of teenagers – and nip back off to the Ministry before the next –"
Bagnold set her eyes on two figures slipping around a bookshelf.
"Black! Potter! You two will need to answer questions too."
Katherine and James were given the honour of being primary witnesses as they had been the primary victims of the misappropriated creature, as Bagnold had phrased it. Dumbledore often interjected with comments alluding to dark wizards and a burgeoning war, but Bagnold seemed to have a sudden bout of deafness each time.
"You had to carry Miss Spencer, am I correct, Mister Black?" asked Bagnold.
Black; arms crossed, legs crossed, and backside resting royally on the book-laden table, regarded the most powerful witch in wizarding Britain coolly, "Yes."
"And why would you do that?"
Katherine was unsure if she just imagined it, but she thought she felt the ghost of his arms around her at the revelation.
"She was unconscious," said Black as he blinked, regarding Bagnold with a dutiful indifference, "Most people are when they fall fifty feet off their broom."
Bagnold took a deep breath through her nose.
"I'd forgotten what kind of behaviour you foster here, Albus," said Bagnold, waving a strong arm across the library, "Abbott – come – I've gotten all I need to smooth this mess over!"
Abbott had been backed into a bookcase by a simpering Greengrass, pouting about how the wizarding world was no place for a girl of her standing to be left so defenceless.
"Miss Greengrass –"
"Griselda, please." said Greengrass, gazing up through her lashes, her hands clasped behind her back in feigned innocence.
Abbott gulped and smiled diplomatically.
"Griselda," said Abbott, bowing his head, "The Ministry – and Azkaban – are as infallible as Hogwarts,"
He inched around, off the bookcase, and brushed down his robes in an important manner.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find three safer places."
Katherine passed the pair that blurred into brown and white-blond hair, and her next obstacle on her escape from the library were her fellow fifth years; James and Black lounging on a table by the Restricted Section.
"When's the next electrical storm?"
"You're barking up the wrong tree – hassle Professor Brown for that rubbish."
"You're definitely brewing the potion though."
"Yeah…yeah… I've already owled dad for the extra ingredients…"
"Been doing your reciting?"
"I feel like a right prat – mumbling to myself morning and night…"
But by the door she caught one last burst of words, Bagnold and Dumbledore having their heads bowed low; whispering furiously back and forth.
"Eleven years of peace, Albus," said Bagnold, sighing and frowning, "Maybe he simply caught Splattergroit and died in a ditch some place?"
Dumbledore said something, too quiet for Katherine to hear as she passed.
"Aurors? At Hogwarts?" Bagnold laughed rather boisterously for her stately demeanour, "Don't be silly – what purpose would they serve if not to frighten parents and children alike?"
Marlene's words following the Dementor attack came back to her at that moment – "We'll never feel safe again, and so it's bye-bye innocence. It's been nice knowing you, but you're gone now!" – it had been said jokingly, of course, but Katherine had been unable to shake an ominous feeling for some time;
The sense of something coming.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! :)