Chapter 13: Visitors to Hogwarts
Friday morning began with a break in the December snow and the roar of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Katherine, along with the rest of the Defence Against the Dark Arts class, jumped, and turned as the door to the classroom was slammed closed with a sternum rattling BANG.
Giles, however, had silently retreated to the edge of his desk with a benign expression mounting on his stony features.
"Class," began Giles, lifting one hand from the edge of his desk to gesture to the imposing figure at the back of the aisle, "This is Alastor Moody; the Head of the Auror Department at the Ministry of Magic."
Alastor Moody had a scarred, twisted face and a thick thatch of hair that he constantly had to push out of his eyes. He strode with the grace of a retired lion, his otherwise proud gate addled with what Katherine assumed to be injuries concealed from view by his grey robes.
The Professor and the Auror shared brisk and tense greeting at the front of the classroom. Neither shook hands.
"I didn't expect to see you back here, Giles," said Moody. He pushed back his grey travelling robe to reveal a silver hip flask which he worked at unfastening from his belt as he spoke, "Word has it that you chose a different career path."
"Word from your new deputy, I take it?" asked Giles, leaning back more leisurely on his desk, "Couldn't he make it today?"
Moody swallowed his gulp from his flask and regarded Giles over the top of it.
"Addressing the break in at the Ministry,"
Something unsaid hung in the air after Moody's words.
"Dumbledore asked you back?" asked Moody, after the odd air.
Giles' lips momentarily tightened, and he gave a curt nod.
"Well, then," said Moody, reattaching his silver flask to his belt, "That's enough chit chat,"
Moody turned his dark, keen eyes on the class, his voice coming out like a growl, "I'm here because Dumbledore's asked me to give you lot a bit of a reality check due to recent events…"
Before he could go on, Katherine saw a hand shoot up in her peripheral vision.
"Is this about the Dementors, Mister Moody?"
Katherine gripped her quill to stop herself from dropping it.
Moody regarded Frank almost warmly, "It's about who sent them, laddie."
"The Ministry?" asked Greengrass from the back of the class, her fruity voice unmistakeable.
Katherine resisted the pull at the back of her eyes – the temptation to roll them. Glancing at her friends either side of her, Katherine found that Marlene didn't have the same self-restraint.
"You lot can be a right load of trouble for us sometimes, but no," said Moody with a brief twist of his lips that Katherine interpreted as a smile, "The Dementors only work for the Ministry because they are offered a steady supply of humans to feed on in Azkaban,"
Katherine felt her face drain in memory of the creature.
"If someone came along with a better offer, they would have no qualms about abandoning their posts,"
Moody eyed Katherine briefly, his eyebrows, like a two side-by-side torn blanket stitches, knitting together.
"And some have,"
A quick turn of Katherine's head found a pale James; for once, not fidgeting, but not looking at anything at all.
Moody had paused for effect, giving Katherine a moment to rub out the goose bumps dotting her forearms, and to cover her marbling skin with her robe sleeves.
"Now, you've been learning about little beasties and shield charms, I take it?" continued Moody, "Well, I'm telling you now that shield charms don't hold up against Dementors or the killing curse,"
Katherine heard the flinches and jumps.
"There are some people who wouldn't like me to name names and point fingers on the off chance that it might scare you lot or breach a few laws," said Moody, tittering with his lips to mock what Katherine assumed were his superiors at the Ministry.
He sobered, scanning the rows of fifth year Gryffindors and Slytherins sternly.
"But there are witches and wizards out there that mean you harm,"
Moody broke his scanning and began pacing.
"Just last week, Evan Rosier – a known Death Eater – died during an arrest," said Moody, his grin twisting into a scowl as he rubbed what was left of his nose, "Took a piece of my nose with him too, the bold blighter…"
The boys on the desk behind them weren't shocked; snickering and murmuring to one another.
"Wasn't he your cousin?"
"Married in," said Black, a tone of resignation ringing with the word, "If he was an actual Black he wouldn't have gotten caught – let alone killed."
At the whispers and sharp intakes of breaths from their other classmates Moody flicked his wand at the blackboard; a crude chalk impression appearing at the front of the class.
"That's right, Death Eaters; cloaked, masked, and downright nasty cowards. They're all wands-blazing when they've got you outnumbered six-to-one, but as soon as their master shows up you should see them squirm,"
Giles stepped forward from his place beside the board, his arms crossed as he peered at the drawing with something close to a smile. With a quick lick at his lips, he settled back into place beside the board, leaning on his desk and crossing his ankles.
"There are murmurs in the streets, and corners of pubs, of another war – the likes of which we haven't seen since Grindelwald. This is something the Auror Department are working to prevent one cloaked coward at a time," said Moody, righting his robes from where they caught on his hip flask, "No one wants to see a loony in power…"
The grizzled Auror shook his head at his own words.
"The takeaway message from my visit today is that; even though we're looking out for you, you need to keep your wits about you,"
Moody clapped his hands together, the room jumping as a whole at the sudden noise, but Moody just smiled innocuously.
"Any questions?"
"If there's going to be a war, will you be lowering the program requirements and taking on more Aurors?" asked James.
"To join the Auror Training Program, you need a minimum five N.E.W.T's and you will need to pass a series of aptitude and character tests."
"Outstanding's?" cringed Frank.
"Exceeds Expectations and no lower."
"That's barking!"
"It's barking mad that you would want to risk your neck for people you don't know."
The sniff that followed the words reeked of Slytherin gentry.
It was bait that James could not leave hanging on the hook, "We get it, you're a Slytherin – we know where you stand without your contribution."
"Today, we extended the offer to join our ranks to a few seventh years once they've graduated and are qualified – something for you all to think about with your own career counselling sessions coming up," said Moody, pointing emphatically, "But not lightly."
"Being an Auror is all glamour and safe raids on wrongly accused people anyway."
"Glamour?" erupted James from behind Katherine, "Look at the poor sod and his hacked off honker!"
"Please," said Gina Bulstrode, the female Slytherin prefect in their year and the owner of the earlier distinguishing sniff, "I bet the Healers could have fixed it in a flash – he probably just left it like that to scare us."
Moody watched the back and forth between James and Bulstrode before his eyes caught on something at the back of the classroom.
For the first time that day, Katherine thought that Moody seemed surprised, but then his grizzled face split with a grin.
"Hawthorne, what happened to our last recruit?"
Hawthorne was perched on an empty desk near the door (that Katherine hadn't heard open again after Moody). The man was young, with wavy golden hair, and his lips had twitched at Moody's words. His eyes lifted at a leisurely pace, blinking amusedly.
"He died."
"That's right, he died," said Moody, winning back a majority of eyes. "Benjy Fenwick was given a mission that should take five or six days, and he came back in five or six pieces…"
Hawthorne stepped forward, "Alastor, if I may?"
"If you must…it's all lost on them anyway…" grumbled Moody, stepping back.
Hawthorne stepped into Moody's place; commanding despite his half-tucked and half-unbuttoned shirt. Katherine thought that he might have just hopped off a broom.
"The times we're in… the battle we're on the brink of… it's not like the muggle wars where they go charging across clearly drawn lines: right and wrong, good and evil –" said Hawthorne, breaking off and rubbing his jaw, "War isn't waged on one field, for one day, and then you all go home and have tea once the sun goes down,"
Hawthorne's lips flicked up like the wisps of blond hair above his ears.
"And if you think you're exempt just because you're underage – think again," said Hawthorne, taking his hands out of his pockets and pointing at a spot on the floor, "Division across all of the wizarding world begins here – now,"
He paused, licking his smiling lips as he looked down at his shoes. Katherine could see a twinkle of laughter in the corners of his eyes that didn't make it to his lips.
"I know, I know," said Hawthorne, amused, holding up a pacifying hand, "It all seems a bit dramatic, but I'll spare you any further spiel in place of some perspective,"
Hawthorne clapped his hands crisply together.
"Everybody stand,"
Groans filled the room.
Hawthorne grinned, waving his wand to push the vacated desks to the sides of the room while making mustering gestures.
"Come on, come on, a bit of exercise will do you good,"
It quickly became clear that the Deputy Head Auror wasn't afraid of mixing the houses like Moody. Hawthorne hooked a hand around Marlene's elbow to separate her from Katherine and Lily – "Alright, you over there…and you here…"
When there were seven a side, and the remaining unsorted group of students got slimmer, Hawthorne's eyes finally fell on Katherine.
She instantly roasted through at the man's piercing gaze.
After a beat of a moment, he cleared his throat and nodded pointedly to the side he had just directed Lily to by the windows.
Katherine stepped up into the space Lily had left between herself and James. Alice was on the other side of Lily. Frank was next to James, the two laughing together.
The five were the only Gryffindors getting their backs chilled by the leeching frost on the windows.
"Take a good look,"
The Gryffindors stared across at their housemates they had been separated from, both groups edged in green.
"Both sides have casualties in wars,"
Katherine thought that Remus and Black looked strange without the gradient of James between them.
"Your friends –"
A waft of peppermint wrapped around her nostrils, and the whisper of 'Spit out that bloody gum, Potter' from Lily, alerted Katherine that it came from her Captain beside her –
"– Their friends,"
Greengrass' widow's peak was a sharp as her stare that Katherine found herself under, not softened by Marlene's chestnut curls the Slytherin was battling to keep her nose out of.
Snape flicked his wand to flatten Marlene's curls for Greengrass to see over, Bulstrode and Flint sniggering and whispering behind their hands.
Black caught it out of the corner of his eye, Remus catching his friend's wand arm that was seeking out Snape. But Remus couldn't soften Black's jaw – pulsing and sharp enough to cut glass.
Katherine made out something about Black 'vanishing all the bones' in Snape's body before Giles stepped forward with a warning shake of his head, falling into place at the end of Katherine's line to keep an eye on the clashing group.
"Half," said Hawthorne crisply, suddenly.
The blond stopped between the groups, his eyes lifting from the floorboards but his hands remaining tucked in his pockets. His eyes roamed along each half.
"Half of you won't live much further beyond your Hogwarts years."
"Which half?" asked Greengrass, taking stock of the calibre of each side, as if to discern if one was more skilled than the other.
Hawthorne paused, and smiled, raising his eyebrows, "That's for all of you to decide,"
Greengrass made an unpleasant face at the words.
"I know better than to think I can resolve hundreds of years of rivalry with a few words," said Hawthorne, scanning the lines sternly, "But you lot are one insult away from starting a war,"
Hawthorne tilted his head with a crinkle of his eyes.
"This will be the cost."
The bell punctuated Hawthorne's words, and the scramble for bags and the door was accompanied by the parting growl of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" from Moody.
"He's brilliant, isn't he?" said James as he and the rest of the Gryffindors moved past Katherine to the door, "Moody…"
"I've overheard conversations about him," said Black, flicking his hair back from his face, "He's about to be gently guided into early retirement if he can't prove that he knows the difference between a handshake and an attempted murder."
"Guys – look – it's storming!" Peter piped up, pointing out the window.
Black gave an uncharacteristic grin, "James?"
James nodded, adjusting his glasses.
"It's ready."
"You lot really shouldn't –"
"It's an extra safety precaution, Moony."
"Look, we'll be careful," said James, slinging an arm around Remus' shoulders and waving at Katherine with a smile as they moved past completely, "I wouldn't jeopardise my flying ability this close to the next match if I wasn't confident."
Skirting around Hawthorne's silvery dragon, Katherine let the warm breath of the Patronus' fire tickle her into the hallway, making for the ground floor where her friends and lunch awaited her.
December had come and brought with it sleet, snow, and the freezing over of the Black Lake. Katherine had not felt her fingers completely since mid-November.
It was not unusual to see steam pouring out of ears as Katherine walked the hallways, it being a side effect of the Pepperup Potion Madam Pomfrey spent her days brewing and distributing. The matron's voice was often heard berating whoever would listen about staying indoors and wearing layers. There was a special level of shrillness reserved for Quidditch Captains and Quidditch players who came in both sick and injured.
At lunch that day, in the second week on December, McGonagall was roaming Gryffindor table – taking down names for who would be staying at Christmas.
It was while absentmindedly watching the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, that owls dropped identical green envelopes in front of Katherine and Lily.
"The Christmas party?"
"Yes," said Lily, pushing away a green-tinged piece of parchment, "It happens annually."
Marlene picked up the parchment, gold detailing glinting in the morning light, "But I swear you've only just had the first supper of term…"
"Well, it was delayed beyond the usual date," said Lily, shrugging, "But you can't delay Christmas."
The gold on the parchment lost the morning light, a shadow moving between it and the window. A shadow belonging to a conical-hat-wearing, booted witch with a severe black bun.
"Evans, McKinnon," said McGonagall, peering at a scroll over her spectacles with a quill poised in her right hand, "Staying over Christmas?"
"No, Professor." Lily and Marlene chorused.
"And Katherine…"
Katherine caught the moment her friends averted their eyes from her.
"I'll be staying, Professor."
McGonagall trailed off and away down the table, taking names for other Gryffindors staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas period.
Lily looked ready to pop open, sitting up in her seat only to slump again like a lacklustre jack-in-the-box.
"I can always –"
"No," said Katherine with a smile, knowing what Lily was about to offer, "Lily, really, it's alright – you need to see your family,"
Lily nodded with a sad smile, her eyes on her juice and her mind undoubtedly on the parents Katherine had seen a photograph of on her friend's bedside table.
"It's okay – promise." said Katherine, eyeing her friends sternly with a smile.
Before they could manage any more sympathetic looks, McGonagall stopped across the table.
"Potter…Black… you'll be staying too, I presume..."
"Actually," said Black, dryly, "I'll be returning home this year."
James blinked in surprise, his porridge falling off his spoon and back into his bowl.
Lily shoved the green invitation into her pocket, Katherine still leaving hers unopened beside her plate of fruit.
"It's a good thing the party is before the train leaves." said Lily.
Marlene nodded, "So, are you going to ask Bertram, Lily?"
The laughter across the table whittled down.
Lily took to gnawing on her bottom lip as she snuck another glance at the Ravenclaw table, rising up to see over stuck-up jet-black locks belonging to a bespectacled Gryffindor Chaser; suddenly fascinated with breakfast meats.
It was while she searched for the Ravenclaw Quidditch player that Alice stood up, mumbling her leave.
Sighing, Lily sat back down in her seat, "Do you think he'd say yes?"
The girls jumped and found Sirius Black snorting at his friend who had been distracted from his plate at last.
"I'm not going to that Christmas party, mate, Slughorn might think I want to do something with my life." said Black to James, before leaning backwards precariously on the bench to reply to Remus who was sat on the other side of James.
James gave a half-smile, rolling his eyes before returning them to his plate where his eyebrows descended upon them in a thought-heavy frown.
"You won't know unless you ask him, Lily," said Katherine, smiling to bolster her friend, "What's the worst that could happen?"
Lily had raised a hand to cover her lips delicately, "I've got to ask him out…"
James pushed up on his elbows with a roguish grin, "If you wanted to be asked out, Evans –"
"Lily," said a new voice, cutting James off.
Katherine turned, the Ravenclaw Chaser they had been talking about standing by her bag and smiling at Lily.
"I ran into Alice on my way out – she said you wanted to speak to me?" explained Bertram.
"So, you came all the way over here?" asked James from across the table, blinking with an arrogance that rivalled Black's.
The change even alerted his aforementioned best friend who looked up from his own green-tinged parchment, his face lined in surprise.
Bertram's smile tightened and his eyes flashed at James before he turned to Lily anew; perfectly gallant.
"I'm sorry, Lily, are you otherwise engaged at the moment?" asked Bertram, his voice prim and knowing as he cast his eyes pointedly at James and back.
"No, not at all," Lily stood, Katherine able to hear her friend's breathlessness, "I'm heading to Charms…"
"I have Potions…" trailed off Bertram, shuffling his feet and rubbing along his nose as he thought of the trek that awaited him. and his debate whether Lily was worth it was plain on his arguably handsome face…
Lily pinked.
"Oh, I – I can walk with you then?" she offered, gently pushing her hair over her shoulders.
Bertram grinned quickly, clasping his hands together, "Excellent."
Lily struggled with her bag as she stepped over the bench and made to join Bertram between the tables, him humming and looking around absently.
Conversation started up again only once the pair, a large height disparity apparent between them, slowly but surely disappeared from view – and the Great Hall.
"What a wanker."
"He's got a fat head, don't you reckon?"
"I could make it fatter…"
"Isn't that hex illegal, Sirius?"
"What's life without a little risk?" declared James, hands flat on the table and smiling.
Black's eyes glinted and the corners of his lips slipped upward, his nose swinging around as he regarded his best friend with a certain fondness.
"Life not spent in Azkaban, James," said Remus, flicking through the paper before sighing and handing it off to Black, "Crossword."
"Jolly good,"
Black sat up straighter as he wet the tip of his quill in his crystal ink pot.
Katherine had admired it from the first day she saw it catch the light in Charms, and scatter it into countless colours over her desk.
"I won't do it just yet, though," said Black, grasping at the tail of their conversation as he inked in letters with ever-surprising care, "He might say no."
"You've got self-restraint – lovely," said Remus, shutting one eye and peering into the bottom an empty cup of coffee, "I was beginning to worry."
"As if he'd say no to Evans," said James, mussing his hair and squirming on the bench as he attempted something akin to indifference, "What with her flaming locks of auburn hair…and eyes of emerald bloody green…"
"I'd say no to her." said Black, without looking up from his crossword.
"But you're a bloody nun – you stupid bastard," snorted James, sighing and pushing around his crusts on his plate, "You could have any girl you wanted."
"There are bigger things to worry about than my love life," said Black, flourishing his copy of the Daily Prophet, "Look."
Witches and wizards scrambled around a podium within the photograph's frame, the border mocking them, 'Bagnold Too Old? Ministry Complacent With Security' circled the moving scene.
"Looks like it was something from the Department of Mysteries…" said Remus, his intelligent eyes roaming the lines of print and in between.
Dread trickled down Katherine's spine and a certain knowing crushed down upon her shoulders at Remus' quiet but striking words.
Her conversation over hospital sheets with Dumbledore rang through the halls of her mind again.
"Some Unspeakable probably misappropriated a half-strung experiment and didn't want to fess up…" laughed Frank, "Dad says it happens all the time – their lot wanting to blame the Ministry whenever it suits them while constantly trying to become independent of them... absolute poppycock."
Katherine had finished her lunch and excused herself to the bathroom before the beginning of the next class. She used the toilet, washed her hands, and then splashed her face. She was staring her reflection down as she mustered up some positive self-talk.
She was safe at Hogwarts.
…From Voldemort at least.
The ringing of the bell urged her to hurry along, as Divination was eight flights up – to get there on time, you really had to leave before the bell…
It was in her rush, that she almost missed the blurs of four sets of robes down a less-frequented hallway, and that one of them was on the ground. Her wand found her hand without another thought, and she was careening down the hallway as fast as her feet could take her.
She could distinguish Snape as one of the three towering over the floor-bound-figure immediately, his weedy stature unmistakeable.
Greengrass, perhaps, Katherine knew was there on instinct instead of visual confirmation. Flint at her side was a given.
The floor-bound-figure was dragging themselves backwards with eyeing the three Slytherin's with fear, and as Katherine got closer – she uncovered the identity of their victim. Chubby wrists strained against the stone floor as they peeked out from red-lined robes.
A cold prickled Katherine's skin as she remembered being in a similar position to Peter Pettigrew.
Her shoe caught on the uneven pavers and gravity pulled her to the ground. A pulsing, hot pain in her tailbone made her gasp. But with the man still advancing, she used her hands to propel herself backwards, hoping… just hoping –
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The hallway was absent of a blond man leaping away from her, and Katherine realised that – caught up in the memory – she had been the one to use the spell this time around.
Instead of a Death Eater seizing and dropping, Flint hit the floor beside Peter.
"Leave him alone." said Katherine, stepping between Peter and the remaining two Slytherin's.
Snape seemed pacified by Katherine's presence, his eyes flickering behind her for any sign of red hair – of that, Katherine was sure.
"I don't think you're in any kind of position to order us around," said Greengrass, holding her wand to Katherine instead, "It's three on two."
"It's more like three on one, Pettigrew's useless." said Snape, his wand remaining at Peter as he gave a condescending tilt of his head in observation.
The second bell to signify that class would now be in session brought an end to the mounting tension in the out-of-the-way corridor.
All wands dropped from the air in an undeniable stalemate. It would only be a matter of time until they would be discovered and disciplined.
"Remember what Moody said, Spencer," said Greengrass as she helped Flint to her feet, all but sneering, "Shield charms won't stop an unforgiveable."
Katherine frowned, holding a hand out to Peter.
"I hope you're picking your half carefully, Greengrass." said Katherine, huffing with effort when the boy finally put a shaking hand in her own.
Greengrass laughed and she, Flint, and Snape rounded on Katherine and Peter to pass them.
"From where I'm standing –" said Greengrass, her eyes sliding to Peter and then back to Katherine "– the grass on my side is, indeed, greener."
Katherine let out a huff of air as the three Slytherin's marched from sight, joining the trickles of students streaming along the main hallway.
"Thanks," mumbled Peter, brushing down his rumpled robes and pulling his tie the right way around, "I was fearing for the safety of my pants back there."
For a moment, Katherine wondered where the rest of the fifth year Gryffindor boys were – their absence surely resulting in Peter's unfortunate accosting.
"It's alright, Peter," said Katherine with a smile she couldn't keep her pity out of.
Peter was an easy and often target of Slytherin's, but Katherine had always been beaten to his defence by James and Black.
"Heading to Divination?" asked Katherine, realising that she had never really spoken all that much to the boy before, and being struck down by listlessness
"Yeah…"
"Late… late…" sang Professor Brown when Katherine and Peter finally made it to Divination, sighing and twirling around the tables to the front of the classroom, "Why is nobody ready…"
All the round tables were indeed already occupied by Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, leaving only two free by the door.
Katherine spared a look at Peter, finding him rubbing his cheek and eyeing all their fellow paired students.
They would have to pair together.
Sitting daintily on the wooden chair, Katherine pulled out her guide on palmistry as Professor Brown's curly writing on the board instructed.
"Those sitting on the left can read first…" announced Professor Brown, drifting around to sit upon her chair at the front of the class.
Katherine took a moment to orientate herself to the room, and discovered that she was seated on the left. She took Peter's outstretched and twitching right hand.
Before the incense could draw a lull over the room, the door burst open, and a stream of fresh air stiffened everyone's spines.
Being closest to the door, Katherine only had to turn her head the slightest amount as she righted her skirt to discover that the sudden entrance had been of James and Black.
James laughed and pushed Black with a roughness that would probably send Katherine to the Hospital Wing, "You're barking!"
"Please be seated…" sighed Professor Brown, "And join the rest of the class in today's activity…"
The only remaining table was nudging at the back of Katherine's elbow.
Taking Peter's hand anew – having dropped it at the opening of the door – Katherine compared the lines on his hand to the guide in her text.
"You have a rectangular palm with short fingers so…. that's a fire hand…a sign of extreme impatience…being prone to burnout and incomplete undertakings…and being able to turn emotions on a dime…"
Katherine frowned, tracing and increasingly sticky line at the top of his palm.
"Your heart line is branched downwards…that represents unhappiness or poor quality in relationships…"
The fact that Peter's friends were listening in was made apparent by snorts at her back – that Katherine chose to ignore.
"Your head line has crosses all along it…they signify vital and crucial decisions made in your life that can have a direct impact on your fate…"
Peter blanched, leaning over and assessing his hand in tandem with Katherine.
"You have an absent life line… which indicates a nervous individual…"
Katherine let go of Peter's wrist, her hand having not been able to completely close around it, and offered up her own – far slender in comparison. It if were anyone else, she may be self-conscious about her new flying-earnt-callouses.
"Your turn." said Katherine, flicking her plait onto her back and leaning forward eagerly.
The gentle pull on her plait from behind barely distracted her, but Katherine noted in the recesses of her thoughts that it was more tender than usual. She fought a shiver of pleasure.
Peter held her wrist gingerly as he craned his neck to look at his textbook, his eyes flickering back to her hand with a frown.
"You've got a, er…water hand, I guess…" said Peter, shrugging, "It means you're sensitive and caring…and stuff…and have problems coping with stress…"
Katherine glanced surreptitiously at her own book, checking his accuracy.
"Your heart line is sort of broken…which means that you're often stressed and have suffered emotional trauma."
Katherine, yet again, checked the guide herself, and found that he was correct.
"Your head line has heaps of branches which….um…signifies events yet to come that will take you off your path –"
"Air hand?" snorted James, letting go of Black's wrist as he contemplated his book, "More like air-head."
"Oi!" said Black, grinning and shoving James' own hand into his bespectacled face, "You've got one too, you numpty!"
"I'm more of an Earth hand," said James waving the book around in proof before reading from it, "Practical, hard-working…dependable and stable in relationships…"
"As well as quick-tempered, stubborn, and lacking in patience," said Black, reading from his own book before his lips slipped up and apart, "I suppose your fingers are smaller than mine…"
"Let's do you then, you lousy sod," grumbled James, his smile detracting from any attempt he may have made at actual disgruntlement, "Restless, easily bored…yeah, it's all there, mate."
"Don't forget good intuitive capabilities, excellent communication skills, and attentiveness to details."
The bell rang, and Katherine and Peter split for their friends.
"Greengrass is in with the Death Eaters."
Lily ducked her head, looking around as she pulled Katherine to the side of the hallway beneath the Divination stairs.
"Christ, Katherine…" Lily pulled Katherine into an alcove occupied by a statue of a former Headmaster, "I leave you alone for ten minutes…"
Katherine almost smiled, but was overtaken with purpose to explain herself, "She, Flint, and Snape were jinxing Peter in one of the second floor corridors –"
"Are you sure it was Severus?"
Lily's creasing eyes and lip gnawing gave Katherine pause.
"I spoke to him, Lily," said Katherine, as gently as possible, before clearing it up, "Well… he spoke to me."
"What did he have to say?"
"Pretty much that Peter was useless –"
"– Well, he's not wrong –"
"But that's not it –" continued Katherine, "Greengrass and I exchanged…er…words about what was said in Defence,"
Lily frowned.
"She basically said that I was on the losing side – meaning that she'd picked a side – the Death Eater side –"
"Isn't there somewhere you girls should be at quarter past one on a Friday?"
The two girls whipped around to find a tartan-clad witch gazing over her spectacles.
"Somewhere with plants and questionable odours?" continued McGonagall, lifting a round arched eyebrow.
"Yes, Professor, we're just going now." said Lily, hooking her arms through her friend's and pulling her down the hall with a bowed head.
"So where were you going with the whole Greengrass and Death Eaters thing?" whispered Lily as they loped across the lower east floor courtyard to the Greenhouses.
"Oh, yeah," said Katherine, picking back up, "She'd be bound to be meeting up with them on Hogsmeade weekends to get her next idea on where to lock me and what with, so I thought that you could help me sneak down and we can follow her."
"It wouldn't be safe."
"I'm not really safe here either if you consider the past attacks." said Katherine, leaning against the outside wall of the greenhouse as they came to a stop.
Lily sighed, and turned to Katherine with a twisted expression.
"If it's true about Greengrass–" said Lily "– they know you're here, and it's the best time to send one of them to do you in."
Katherine sighed, squinting into the cool white winter light, "Not to mention the fact that my parents are dead and there's no one to sign my permission form..."
"Cheerful, aren't you?" said Marlene lightly, slowing to a stop beside Katherine.
"The greenhouses have been declared unsafe for habitation after an explosion of dung and snargaluff pods, I'm afraid," said Professor Sprout, emerging from the aforementioned Greenhouses and pulling a cloth from around the lower half of her face.
"This time it wasn't me." said Black to his friends, as the boys stepped forward next to the girls.
"We'll be having today's class in the castle, but I'll need a volunteer to help me wrangle the screechsnap into a hessian sack to bring up," said Professor Sprout, gazing around, "Any takers?"
Apprehensive faces were made all around.
"Evans, McKinnon, MacDonald – and… Fortescue – excellent."
The girls hadn't volunteered.
Without her friends, Katherine lingered behind Debbie and Sue on the walk up to the classroom. The boys were whispering intently about something a few paces behind her, and she didn't want to interrupt.
She picked a chilly wooden chair, in the second row from the back, and sat, pulling out her notebook and quill.
"Is it alright if I sit here?"
Remus lingered by the empty aisle chair beside Katherine's, without his friends behind him, but with an earnest expression of polite inquiry.
Katherine slowly nodded, "Sure."
Black, James, and Peter all ran in a moment later. They pushed each other into a seating order and plopped eagerly down in the seats behind Katherine and Remus.
"Discretion never has been your forte." remarked Black, seemingly carrying on a previous conversation.
Peter nodded, clapping his hands down against the desk, "Remember when he burnt his name into the Quidditch Pitch in third year?"
"Astonishingly enough, his penmanship was so terrible that he got away with it." said Remus from beside Katherine, turning his head back to his friends, then offering her an incredulous smile at the antics as he faced forward again.
"Who did they blame for it again?" asked James.
"Jane… something or other…" said Peter, unconcerned.
Lily, Marlene, Mary, and Alice all trailed in behind Professor Sprout at that moment, hessian sacks held out in front them as they struggled with their weight of the contained screechsnaps. The bags looks as if they were being punched from the inside out as the plants fought to escape.
Remus watched with lazy interest, along with the rest of the class as they were brought in.
Katherine had to lean forward, unable to see over the shoulders of the tall boy – something she was unused to.
The girls took their seats, dazedly, in front of Katherine and Remus, and kept glancing back all lesson. If Remus noticed their confusion at the new seating arrangement, he didn't show it.
Between listening to the lesson and over-hearing comments from Sirius and James, Herbology flew by, and it was time to move off to the common room before dinner.
"Girls – help me take them back down, please! You'll have earnt Gryffindor over fifty points by the end of this!" Professor Sprout called, stopping four out of five of the Gryffindor girls as they packed up their things.
Lily spared Katherine an apologetic glance, for being left alone, and slung her bag over her shoulders, trailing up to the front of the room with the others.
Remus packed his things away neatly, and looked as if he were going to say something to Katherine, when James called him – "Moony – come here!"
With a tight smile in farewell, Remus went to his friends as they milled out of the door and into the hallway.
Katherine maintained a distance of a handful of paces between her and her fellow fifth year Gryffindors on the walk back up to the tower. But their laughter and general clowning behaviour still reached her ears and reminded her of the fact that her friends were not with her. Their noise reached an all-time high after James was asked to Hogsmeade by a third year.
"Sorry, I'm going stag." James had said, letting the girl down with a pat on the back and a lop-sided smile.
It seemed, to Black and Peter, to be the height of hilarity once the girl was out of ear shot.
"It's brilliant, honestly," said Black, as he and James took up residency at the chess set by the window back in Gryffindor Tower, "You, then me – I dead-set thought that you were going to give me away in Divination –"
"Sirius Black?"
Katherine looked up from her homework.
Black blinked, and then swung around to look at Jeffrey Alderidge where he fiddled nervously with something in his hands.
"Just Sirius will do." said Black, regarding the younger Gryffindor with a furrow of his brow.
Jeffrey nodded quickly and held out his hand, "Er… I was told to deliver this to you, so…here you go."
Black slowly accepted what looked every bit of a letter, bound in a satin green ribbon.
The boys' conversation had stalled, and they all looked between Black and the letter.
"Thank you, Jeffrey." said Black, waving a hand in dismissal as he frowned down at the rolled-up parchment.
Katherine watched quietly as Black stowed the letter away into his robe pocket.
While waiting for Lily to return, Katherine finished her palmistry diagram – complete with analysis of all her mounts – and lazily attempted her Patronus.
Through dishearteningly weak silvery wisps, Katherine saw Black lose at chess to James three times and, something that made her wonder about the contents of his letter, all four legs of his chair remained firmly on the floor.
"Sirius, you're awfully quiet." observed James, eyeing his friend from across the table.
Katherine shamelessly eavesdropped on her fellow Gryffindors, glad that someone was going to probe him about the mysterious letter.
"It's nothing," said Black, toying with his queen piece as he contemplated his next move.
Remus looked over the top of his book he'd been reading on the couch.
Peter too paid undivided attention.
Black took a deep breath in through his nose.
"It's nothing." said Black, again, sharply,
He abandoned his chess pieces and stood abruptly before stalking out of the common room.
Black missed dinner, and Katherine only saw him again up in the Astronomy Tower later that night.
The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had received the notice of a class being that night at dinner, as the night was not only incredibly crisp, but also clear. There had been a run of cloudy, or raining, nights – making it nearly impossible to have held the class properly for weeks.
A poke distracted Katherine, as she sat with her legs poking out of the gaps in the balustrade; marking off significant astronomical changes on her star chart.
"What are you doing?" whispered Katherine, as she shuffled over to accommodate Remus' legs beside her own in her chosen stone gap.
The class of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were fanned out over the top of the Astronomy Tower; some people laying with their star charts draped over their faces, others eating sweets; giggles and snores melding together.
Remus' friends fell into the category of those eating sweets; staring out at the Forbidden Forest as their star charts lay forgotten beside them a few metres to Katherine's left.
Lily sat on Katherine's other side, half-asleep, but at least trying to stay awake.
Marlene had abandoned telescopes and the night sky altogether in favour of a pair of binoculars she set on the Forest to see if she could prove to her cousin, Marcus, that Acromantula's did live in there; standing behind Katherine, bent over the balustrade.
Remus laughed lightly, knocking his shoulder in her own, "Just checking that you're awake."
"Very funny," said Katherine playfully, blinking slowly and finding herself warming to levels of conversation from his warmth-radiating side, "Found Mars yet?"
"No," Remus shrugged, "But I wrote down that it was that one to the left of Scorpius and dusted my hands with my star chart."
"You can help me, then."
Remus peered at her star chart, nodding until he reached her most recent addition, "The half-moon is tonight, and it's not waning – it's waxing."
"Nice broom – the nimbus, huh?" James squatted down slowly, rubbing his clicking knees and letting out a puff of breath when his backside found a resting place beside Remus.
They hadn't had a chance to discuss the performance of the broom in the night match on Black's birthday, given all that had happened.
"It'll be good to see how it changes things at our lessons," said James, eyes set on the darkened Quidditch Pitch, "You could probably out strap me and Sirius on our 1500's with a little more practise."
"Sirius and I." said Katherine in correction, marking in Venus on her star chart.
"Katherine!" whispered Lily, looking through Marlene's binoculars instead of her telescope, "You need to see this!"
Katherine accepted the cool metal thrusted upon her hands, and hesitantly peered through the glass.
A cascade of, what had always seemed to Katherine, silk-spun platinum, glittered under the starlight. Despite the caress of the icy breeze against her own cheeks and tousled hair, Katherine noted that the silky-haired night stroller didn't have to fix hers once, like always.
A fact unable to be ignored was that Narcissa Black wasn't alone; her robed-arm looped through another's, and her cheek resting delicately against a square-cut shoulder where a sharp jaw descended into Katherine's magnified view to drop a sweet kiss on her star-spangled hair.
Lucius Malfoy may have been in his dormitory, on patrol, or the library, but Katherine knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't with Narcissa.
Gideon Prewett was.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! :)