Hi all!
Alright. JK owns Harry Potter, I own my OCs.
I am actually really excited about this project. It's been taking up a lot of my time but it's worth it.
Anyway I hope you like this story as much as I have liked writing it.
Chapter 1: Sneaking out
It was a loud crashing sound that jolted Kat out of her daze. It had sounded like a bottle hit a wall and shattered somewhere downstairs, probably the drawing-room, but Kat couldn't be sure. It was a relatively common noise in Warner Manor, things breaking, at least late at night. Not that there was anyone but Kat and Neely, the House Elf, to hear them.
Kat sighed softly through her nose and tried to focus on the letter in her hand. Small, rushed letters cluttered the folded page. Kat could practically hear the voice that had written it. There were a few ink drops around the paper as if it had been written in haste. Then there was the smell, the most common smell in the world. Paper and ink. Then something else. Like melted sugar and mint. Even if no one had signed it, Kat would have known who had written that letter even if she was blind and couldn't read it.
A strange, small, and overly excited owl had swooped into Kat's dark, cold bedroom through the open window and dropped the letter off nearly an hour ago. The little ball of feathers sat happily next to Kat for a time, chirping and flapping its wings. She supposed it was waiting for a response to come back. It had finally left 10 minutes ago when it was clear Kat was nowhere near finishing the letter, let alone constructing a response. It wasn't that it was a long letter or a complex one; her mind was just simply elsewhere. She found it hard to focus on anything too long when her parents fought like this. Kat started the letter over again for what felt like the hundredth time.
Darling Kat,
Dad got us tickets to the Quidditch World Cup! Dad said we could invite you and Boston if she wanted to go, that is. I know she doesn't like us much, but we can convince her. As long as Fred keeps his foot out of his mouth. That's likely.
Come home whenever.
Mum is already expecting you and Boston, and you know how much she loves you. Gin is excited to see you too. Bill and Charlie are here as well. I'm sure you'll be happy to see them. It'll be the whole family if you come.
Save us from our Katless summer.
-George.
Kat smiled. George.
Of course, it had been George who wrote the letter. Kat read over the letter, again and again, continually getting caught up on one word. "Home."
George and Fred Weasley, or the Twins as most people called them, had been Kat's best friends since her first day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when they had been 11. Kat had also met a very quiet girl on her first day. Boston had later become closer than a sister to Kat in the years that followed.
Being from a pureblood wizard family, it seemed like everyone expected that she would go to the best school for witchcraft possible. Pureblood wizards were ones whose family were all wizards, an uninterrupted line of magic. There were only around 28 families left that could claim they were utterly pureblood, though it was mostly through incest that they kept hold of that title.
Kat's father had argued that Hogwarts was no longer the best wizarding school, as it was now under Albus Dumbledore's leadership. He had wanted her to go to the Beauxbatons Academy in France instead, though her mother wouldn't allow it, saying that her heart would break at the thought of Kat being in a different country altogether. Kat never wanted to point out that Scotland was technically a foreign country.
Most everyone assumed that she would also follow along with the family and get into Slytherin house, one of the four houses at Hogwarts. Slytherin house was for the cunning and ambitious, though it had gained a reputation for being a home for dark wizards over the years. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw were for the brave, loyal, and witty. Kat had been placed in the Gryffindor house to her parents' mortification, known more for acting without thinking more than anything else. That's where she met Fred, George, and Boston, her three closest and best friends.
Kat thought on the word home again as a string of shouting started anew and wondered how many other houses sounded like this, and no one knew. It was her father's voice that trailed up the stairs, and past the closed door of her room, "...my house, I can do as I please!" Kat was only catching bits and pieces of the argument raging a floor below her. It was getting unbearable in that house, a fight nearly every other day.
They hadn't fought this much in so long. Kat could remember being very little and hiding under her bed, waiting for all the yelling to stop. She didn't hide under her bed anymore.
"...and 13 years ago you promised you were done," her mother's voice, high and shrill, came crashing through Kat's closed door. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Anger and sadness welled inside Kat as she tried to block out the fight. Kat turned her little radio to Wizarding Wireless Network and turned the volume as high as it would go. The Weird Sisters were playing, but soon the Witching Hour would come on, and Kat hated the way the host, Glenda Chittock's voice sounded.
"...need to do this...requested me for this job." Kat's father was drunk most likely. They both were. They only forgot that she could hear them when they were drunk. Most of the time, Kat's parents took to quiet, polite conversation with their daughter, never anything of substance but pleasant enough, she supposed. It always felt distant, though, not like how she talked to her friends, or even how her friends' families spoke to each other. She thought, perhaps only The Malfoys, family from her mother's side, spoke to each other in the same distant way.
Barton and Vega Warner were, to the wizarding world, the perfect married couple. They attended events and galas, as well as made their opinions known about political issues facing the wizarding world. As Barton worked for the Ministry, the British wizarding government, and for the Wizengamot itself, which was the English Wizarding World court, he remained well-versed in all things political. Vega, being a pureblood society woman of House Warner and a member of House Black before her marriage, was well versed in all things social and, in Kat's opinion, boring.
But, anyone who took a look through the dark windows of Warner Manor late at night would see these two well-mannered people nearly coming to drunken blows. To his credit, Barton had never actually hit his wife, and Vega had never laid more than a slap on his arm. Still, the tension was so high that even the House Elf, Neely, would stay far away, in fear of being an accidental target or an intentional one.
Kat looked again at the letter that now sat haplessly on her bed and smiled.
Georgie.
He, of course, was the one who wrote the letter. No doubt Fred helped out, but it was George who was always the one to write to her out of the blue. It's not that Fred didn't care; it's just that he didn't think. George was more aware that she might need a little bit of cheering up every now and again over the summer holiday.
"Neely," Kat called into the air, just to have her House Elf, a shriveled looking creature with big eyes and almost elephant-like ears in the way they were shaped, popped into her room with a static snap.
"What can Neely be doing for Ms. Katherine?" The creature asked.
The House Elf and Kat supposed Neely's whole family had been working for the Warner family for as long as records were kept. Neely herself had been in the Warner's service since Kat was just a little girl, no taller than Neely was now. She wore a stained and horrible looking rag that was tied much like a tunic or perhaps a toga, Kat didn't really know, and it didn't really matter.
Kat asked Neely once if she had any other clothes she wore or if she would like new ones. Neely had instantly burst into tears at this, begging Kat not to free her. After Neely calmed down, she had explained to the very young Kat that if Neely were to get new clothes, it would mean that she was dismissed and would no longer serve the Warner family, a disgrace; Neely said she would not survive. Kat had promised her first friend that she would always be with them, as Kat considered Neely to be family. That had made the House Elf uncomfortable, though Kat couldn't blame the little creature knowing no sane person would choose to be a Warner.
"I was wondering if you could get my luggage together and shrink it to a traveling size for me, and perhaps pop in on Boston and do the same for her, tell her to meet me at the Leaky Cauldron," Kat said.
Neely smiled up at Kat. She supposed the House Elf liked Boston quite a lot, though she was sure they had difficulty communicating. Neely always came back to the manor with tales of how nice Boston was, and Kat couldn't help but agree, knowing that Boston was one of the kindest people she had known, when she set her mind to it, that is. Though, Boston never really put her mind to it, preferring a constant sneer that kept most people away. But not Neely, and certainly not Kat.
"Is Ms needing anything else?" Neely looked quite eager to get away, and Kat understood why. The whole house seemed to be shaking under the weight of the fight being waged downstairs.
"Oh no, that's it," Kat said, smiling at Neely.
"Yes, Ms. Right away, Ms." With that, Neely popped out just as she popped in with a static snap.
Kat went and folded the letter, tucking it in the pocket of her muggle jeans. Her father had raged for days when she came home with them as well as many other types of muggle clothes, but Kat had convinced him not to burn them with a well-timed pout. She had yet to tell him that the muggle clothes were not the only muggle items under his roof, not by a long shot. Most of the clothes Kat wore on a daily basis were from the muggle, or the non-magical world, but Barton paid so little attention to his daughter that it seemed he only noticed the clothes on occasion.
She thought about the word again. Home. Warner Manor was a lot of things Kat supposed, but it never really felt like home. Hogwarts felt like home a lot of the time, even Boston's small flat in muggle London, but no place quite had the same feeling as the Burrow, which was what the Weasley family called their home.
In total, there were nine Weasleys. There was Arthur and Molly, George and Fred's mum and dad. Then there was the oldest, Bill, then Charlie, then Percy, then Kat's boys, then Ron, then finally Ginny coming in at three years younger than Kat herself, and the only girl. Everyone long suspected that Molly had wanted a daughter and just kept trying until she had Ginny, though no one would voice this theory.
The Burrow was an odd-looking house, seeming to always be a bit more of it every time Kat visited. Arthur and Molly built more onto the house when they needed more space, and since their home was always packed to the rafters with children, many of them not their own; it seemed they always needed more room.
Though, the shape wasn't what made the Burrow special. Kat always thought it was the way the house seemed to always be alive with activity, and there was never a dull moment. Even when it was too quiet, the ghoul in the attic would bang on the pipes just to keep the atmosphere alive. It was so different from the Manor, large and empty and quiet and cold. The Manor, at some times, felt more like a tomb.
Kat's pocket-sized luggage appeared on her bed, and she smiled. Throwing on a jacket that was at least two sizes too big for her, she stuffed the tiny trunk into the pocket and grabbed her wand. Technically, Kat couldn't call the black dragon hide jacket hers. It was once Charlie Weasley's, but in her second year at Hogwarts, when she visited the Weasleys over the Christmas holiday, he saw that she was without one on a particularly frigid night. He had draped it over her shoulders and told her to keep it. That was the beginning of Kat's secret love for Charlie. The jacket had practically swallowed her back then, and now four years and two growth spurts later, and it was still massive on her. Her crush on Charlie hadn't grown with her, but she doubted it would ever entirely disappear, especially with his insanely hot job being a dragon trainer in Romania. Kat blushed just thinking about it.
"I will protect this family!" She heard her father yell, and it sounded like something else broke then. Kat didn't hesitate as she swung one leg over the edge of her window and into the chilly night.
Kat carefully crouched on the window sill as she prepared to jump to grab onto a low hanging branch from an oak tree that was probably older than the manor itself. She propelled herself forward and just barely managed to hold onto the branch, bark cutting into the softest part of her palms. Kat hissed at the pain in her hands and looked down to see the ground was farther away than she was expecting, but that wasn't the worst part. Her wand was starting to slip free from the pocket of Charlie's jacket. She tried to twist around to keep the wand in her pocket when her left hand slipped from the branch. With that loss of grip and the momentum she had already gained from twisting, Kat felt her right hand let go of the tree of its own accords, and she was falling.
It was probably close to 7 meters, but Kat would have sworn up and down that she plummeted 100 to her curtain death. With a bone-shaking thud, she hit the damp grass below. Her breath was gone from her for a brief moment but returned before she suffocated. Kat moaned as it seemed her ability to scream had been bounced out of her body. The only saving grace Kat could find was that her wand stayed in her pocket the whole time.
Small victories.
To say the fall hurt would have been an understatement. Kat had landed on her back, her left side taking much of the impact. Her head felt heavy and light all at the same time as she was sure it slammed into the ground as well. She pressed a hand to the back of her head, but it came away clean, so her head wasn't bleeding. Another small victory.
Kat gritted her teeth and promised herself that she was fine and that Fred and George could take a look at the damage later as she had done many times for them. They owed her.
As beaters on the Gryffindor quidditch team, they tended to get hurt more often than not, and it didn't help that they were as reckless, and they were stubborn, refusing to go to the hospital wing and have Poppy, the head medi witch at Hogwarts, look them over. Boston was more skilled at healing spells and potion making, but she was always somehow absent when one of the twins needed healing, forcing Kat to become proficient at healing them herself. She was nowhere close to being as good as a medi witch, but she was good enough to fix Quidditch injuries and most everything else the boys did.
It took more effort than Kat would care to admit to get herself to her feet and past the wards of the manor. It was a nearly a kilometer walk to the nearest road, and she felt every step of it, the reverberations shooting up her spine. Sweat was beading down her back by the time she stopped. Or was that blood? She couldn't tell.
After about 10 minutes of sitting on the curb, trying to get air to stay in her lungs, Kat heard the Knight Bus zooming closer. Kat had to scramble to her feet to avoid having the Knight bus run over her muggle trainer covered toes.
The Knight Bus was a tall purple double-decker bus driven by a blind man and a shrunken head and picked up the stranded witch or wizard.
Kat ached everywhere, but she kept her face neutral as Stan Shunpike, the Knight Bus conductor, stepped out to greet her.
"Evening, Ms. Warner," Stan gave her a smile that set her teeth on edge, but she smiled back at him anyway.
"Hey, Stan, how's it going?" Kat climbed up into the cab of the long, tall, purple bus, taking a seat on one of the empty beds close to the front.
"It's a slow night. Where you off to then?" Stan climbed in after her, and she knew he was paying much closer attention to her arse than anything else.
"Leaky Cauldron."
"Leaky Cauldron Ernie," Stan called to the mostly blind elderly driver with a pension for driving like the world is ending.
The shriveled, dried shrunken head of a Jamaican wizard was hanging from the rearview window, talking with Ernie. When Stan gave Ernie a destination, the head called out, "Take it away, Ern!"
The bus lurched forward with a start, causing all the beds to fly back and bump into each other and the walls of the bus. Kat held onto one of the skinny metal poles that made up a strange semblance of a four-poster bed. It always seemed to Kat that the Knight Bus was initially intended to be an excellent place for the stranded witch or wizard to rest or get to where they were going, but then they realized they only had so many galleons and had to make it work.
"Going to the World Cup?" Stan asked as Ernie took an ugly 90-degree turn that nearly sent Kat into the window.
"Yeah, going with the Weasleys." Kat was barely paying attention to the lanky conductor and had her eyes glued to the street ahead.
"I'll be there too," Stan continued. "Who do you reckon's gonna win?"
Kat shrugged. "I'm not too sure. I don't really follow quidditch, just like going to the games with friends."
It was mostly true. Kat didn't follow quidditch at all, not like Fred and George, and certainly not like their little brother Ron who could tell you the stats of every quidditch team.
Boston enjoyed quidditch as well, and when she thought it was a good game, she would get really into it, but much like Kat, they were just casual watchers, enjoying cheering on their team and watching the match.
Ernie narrowly missed the side of a building. "Well, we could meet up, and I could help explain it to you." Kat clocked that way Stan licked his lips and how his eyes slid to Kat's chest.
"Still a minor, Stan." It wasn't the first time she has had to remind him of that fact.
"Not like that!" He tried to defend.
"Either way, I'm sure you have no interest in talking to me all game. Not to mention, my father wouldn't be pleased if I were to leave the group." Kat had gotten used to using Barton as a way to ward off men who found themselves getting too friendly.
"I didn't realize your dad, ur, Mr. Warner, would be there." Stan stumbled.
It was a horrible little fact that Kat's father was powerful and, therefore, terrifying to anyone with less than three brain cells, that included Stan. Kat thought he was just a wealthy arse because, well, she knew him.
"Oh yeah, he wouldn't miss it." Kat lied.
The bus lurched to a stop, and the shrunken head called out that they had made it to the Leaky Cauldron.
"See you around, Stan," Kat called as she scrambled out of the bus and onto the mostly deserted street in front of the Bar/Inn. The Knight Bus sped away into the darkness the moment both of her feet were on the pavement.
Let me know what you guys think. I haven't decided if I should put this up on AO3 yet or not, but I suppose if people seem to like it here, it couldn't hurt. Shrug.
