During their flying classes, Katherina only wore equestrian pants. She vehemently refused to mount a broom while wearing a skirt and there was no witch in the entire world who could change her mind about it. The mere idea seemed to spell wardrobe malfunction for her. Pansy came by with a smirk on her face and her broom in her hand.
"Have you bribed the whole school into silence?"
Katherina made up her mind that she would pay her back for the humiliation. It had been about a month until everyone had finally stopped focusing on the rumors. She had been dating Cedric and focusing on studying by day while analyzing financial reports by night. Now, though, Pansy had the audacity to mock her in class. It wasn't enough that she kept following Draco like a puppy, drooling over him every second of the day, which was pathetic and disgusting - she now had the foolishness to pick on her, personally!
"I could afford that, but why waste money on your cheap ass? People eventually smelled the rotting core of your lies."
She raised an eyebrow. "My cheap ass? Excuse you, bitch! I'm from a noble pureblood family and my ancestor was Minister of Magic. What the hell do you know about nobility, you filthy blood traitor?"
"More than you ever will. After all, you had a puppet in your bloodline and you're bragging about it."
Pansy tightened her grip around her broom. "Are you deaf, too? I said Minister, not a puppet."
"Yes, of course - a puppet," Katherina chuckled. "You don't honestly think he was actually in control, do you? Heavens, you're denser than I thought!"
"Who wants to demonstrate the weaving technique?" Madam Hooch interrupted their argument while walking towards the girls. "How about Caesarius and Parkinson?"
"What did I do?" Pansy snapped.
"Gladly," Katherina accepted the challenge with calm. She was boiling inside, though she was not about to let Pansy or Draco see any of it.
The professor tilted her head at Pansy. "Ready? Set..."
Katherina was the first to mount her broom and waited for the start. Pansy followed suit and was a fraction of a second too quick to take off as Madam Hooch blew her whistle. They raced around the training grounds, clashing as if they were on opposite teams in Quidditch, each trying to knock the other off. The yard fell silent as most eyes were on them, several colleagues holding their breaths.
The red-head was contemplating a way to end this. What would be sufficient to distract Pansy, but subtle enough to not get her into detention?
Suddenly, she was in a cloud of green sparks. Katherina squinted her eyes, trying to see anything at all, but when she managed to leave the sparks behind, she was face to face with a gray stone wall. She pulled the broom up and flew so close to the wall that she could feel it merely inches from her knees. With great effort, she managed to do a circular turn and avoid embarrassment and injuries.
Once again pissed off, Katherina chased after Pansy at full speed. The professor was whistling for them to come down, but there was no way she could let her get away. Katherina pushed her closer and closer to the ground, without giving her the chance to land. Pansy looked positively terrified as she anticipated her defeat.
"Come down at once!" Madam Hooch yelled after the girls. "You will get detention if you don't land right now!"
Katherina flew right over Pansy's head before landing gracefully. Scared, Parkinson lost her balance and landed awkwardly, rolling through the grass a few times, accidentally exposing her underwear.
"I apologize, Madam Hooch, I must have gotten carried away," she said without the slightest trace of remorse. The sight of Draco's puppy girl eating dirt was the best payment she could get. The fact that she was in a skirt and physics worked their magic was a very welcomed bonus.
"Miss Parkinson, are you alright?" the professor asked her from afar.
Pansy looked towards the crowd as she pulled her skirt down. Draco didn't come to check on her, he didn't even seem to care! He threw her a harsh, judgemental look before turning his back on her. The girl got up, trying to brush off the grass and dirt off her uniform. "I'm alright, Professor..." she grumbled.
"What you did could have caused Miss Caesarius some serious injuries!" Hooch began lecturing Parkinson.
As that continued, Katherina found Draco's cold, gray eyes on her and so, she walked straight up to him. She pulled out a letter from her robe sealed with red wax.
"Draco, owl this to your father, please."
He looked at her for a long moment, bitter and angry. "What, do I look like your personal courier?"
"Maybe. Since you obviously don't give a shit about me, we're going to be business partners because of your father's convenient rights over my heritage."
"Why should I give a shit when you're dating pretty boy Diggory? Bloody hell, he's a spineless Hufflepuff!"
Katherina flashed him a smirk. "Better spineless than brainless," she concluded while throwing Parkinson a glare. "Remember what I told you... Malfoy."
As she walked away, Draco felt the strangest. He loved to hear his last name out of her mouth and she probably noticed - Katherina just rolled it off her tongue slowly with a little giggle. He kicked the grass and threw his broom on the ground. The flying class was ending anyway, but damn! He didn't want to be around people!
Pansy made her way through the crowd after Madam Hooch had finished lecturing her. She had lost Slytherin ten house points over that spell she cast.
"Draco, I'm sorry-" she began, but he held up one index finger.
"I don't want to hear it."
The girl bit her lip. "I thought I could get her, I thought it'd make you happy if I-!"
"Do I look happy to you?!" he turned to her. "Damn it! You just lost us points over green bloody sparks! Do you have any idea how lame that is? And then you landed on your flat face!"
Malfoy pushed Cabble and Goyle out of the way, only to be greeted by Granger and Wasley, laughing.
"What were you saying about Harry's girlfriend?" Ron mocked him. "At least my sister knows how to fly!"
"Poor Pansy," Hermione chuckled, "Her boyfriend didn't even go check up on her. A real gentleman, you are!"
Malfoy gritted his teeth. "Move out of my way," he hissed.
"No," Ron mocked him with his own reaction from their first flying class during the previous year, but he didn't get the chance to mimic the second half.
"Wrong bloody answer!" Malfoy hit Weasley with the slug-vomiting charm, then pushed Hermione away.
She yelled after him, but Draco wasn't about to deal with any of them. He was mad at Parkinson, he was mad at Caesarius, he was bloody furious at Diggory! He stormed through the halls, no real destination in mind, pushing his way through whoever happened to be in his way. Stopping in front of the Hufflepuff house entrance, close to the kitchens, he realized he couldn't enter without the password, so he decided to wait.
Katherina walked around the training grounds a bit more. She didn't want to meet with Cedric like that. She did enjoy her victory, but after their brief interaction, part of her began embracing the thought that perhaps Draco did care the slightest bit about her, after all. Perhaps he only needed to date a loser and to see her with somebody else for a little while in order to realize that.
She finally acknowledged that she cared about him about one week after their fight over Pansy. It was their most horrible yet, they had called each other terrible names, waking up the entire Slytherin house. They had been two seconds away from dueling. After that, she began going out with Cedric. Katherina thought it would help her get over it; whatever that was, the thing that made her so mad when Draco tried to force her to put it into words... Was it the same for him? Was that why he pushed her away so violently when she tried to open the topic?
His parents wanted them to get married. Did they know about what has happened so far? Their second year had begun so wonderfully, but then Parkinson had to go around spreading rumors about them sleeping together - at twelve years of age? Who the hell thought that would be a real possibility? But of course, he was bloody Malfoy - nobody dared point their finger at him!
Wandering mindlessly, she reached the courtyard. There was nothing unusual for people to step out of her way - in fact, Katherina began expecting them to do it, so much that she didn't even notice one person standing still until she walked right into him. Before she could fight it, she felt a pair of arms wrapping themselves around her and caught a glimpse of a yellow striped tie. Returning the gesture, she recognized the cologne that she had begun associating with her calmest moments lately.
Cedric rubbed her back for a few moments until he felt her breathing becoming more even. "What happened?" he asked in a soft voice and she swore she could hear him smiling.
"...That bitch had the guts to call me a blood traitor!" she mumbled in his sweater, though it was less than half of the truth.
The Hufflepuff didn't agree with her tongue, but he figured there would be little to no use discussing that when she was already this upset.
"Pansy Parkinson?" He had been hearing that name quite often, but he didn't associate it with a face yet.
"And then she threw bloody sparks at my face! I nearly flew into a damn wall!"
Solomon Abbot had been talking to Cedric before the Slytherin stormed right through their little group. She nearly knocked over his sister, Vesuvia, who was now watching the scene along with her brother. The two were unsure about what to do. After Draco humiliated Vesuvia, they had been staying away from Slytherins altogether, but Katherina didn't seem to care about that. She didn't even acknowledge their presence - neither of them entirely sure if they should feel grateful or offended.
"Did Madam Hooch notice it?" he asked as he kept stroking her hair and her back.
Katherina nodded. "Yes, but for what? Parkinson lost us ten points."
"It's alright, you'll get them back," he encouraged her. "At least people saw her behavior. I'm sure Madam Hooch will keep an eye on her from now on - at least for a while."
Katherina looked up at him. "If she keeps provoking me, I don't foresee such a bright future for her! I don't forsee any future at all!"
Cedric was probably the only Hufflepuff who could see her absolutely furious, threatening to ruin somebody's life and find the courage to laugh about it. He pulled her closer. "You're so cute when you're mad!"
"I'm serious," she tried to argue but ended up chuckling as well. "I'm going to end her if she doesn't stop getting on my nerves..."
Solomon had his little sister half a step behind him. "Should we leave you to it...?" he asked as he found his voice again.
Once she realized other people were around, Katherina pushed him away just enough so she could turn around and see their witnesses. "Sorry, I didn't notice you." She saw the girl looking at the ground. "You don't need to leave. I think I interrupted your talk, or whatever it was."
"Nothing we can't talk about later," Solomon answered.
"You don't have to be afraid of me," she tried to say in the calmest voice she could manage. "I've noticed you disappearing whenever I come around. You're friends with Cedric, right?"
Solomon threw Cedric a questioning look, but his friend shrugged. "I didn't tell her anything."
She struggled to put on a smile despite her bad disposition and held out her hand. "He didn't need to say it. We haven't met officially, I'm Katherina Caesarius."
"We know who you are," Vesuvia said from behind her brother.
After an awkward moment of waiting, Solomon shook her hand. "My name is Solomon Abbot, and she's my sister, Vesuvia."
The girl looked from behind her brother. She had long black hair and blue eyes, like her brother. Neither of them was on the taller side, and they were a bit chubby, but not to the point where they'd qualify as fat.
"I've heard about Malfoy." Her words made Vesuvia tense. "You're very pretty. He was a real jerk, probably because you were in public."
Vesuvia looked her up and down. She was still suspicious about the nature of her words, but Katherina seemed sincere. "...Thank you."
Proud to see her embracing the kindness philosophy of their house, Cedric wrapped one arm around her from behind and smiled brightly. "See? I told you every sword has a dull side," he addressed his friends.
"I told you not to say that to people," Katherina laughed softly and pretended to hit his chest. "I prefer them to fear me, it keeps me away from a lot of drama."
"Oh, really?" Cedric mocked her. He caught her hand and kissed it.
"You've got no idea." Katherina was glad to have run into him, after all. Moments like this were the exact reason why she accepted to date him.
That's when a Ravenclaw came running into the courtyard, pale as the moon and out of breath.
"Someone killed Mrs. Norris and wrote in blood on the wall!"
Author's notes:
No, this isn't turning into a Hufflepuff story - no offense to Hufflepuffs, they're awesome in their own way.
I thought of a twist for the Chamber of Secrets plot. It's nothing too major, just enough to get some characters to interact and have them develop in certain situations. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought Draco deserved more screen time. That's all I'm going to say, for now, so please favorite, follow and review, and I shall update very soon if you do.
PS. Once chapter 24 is posted, I will also post the Snape x OC story. One title I'm considering is The Losing Game after one of the songs that inspired it. Losing Soulmates or some variation of that would also be possible. Let me know what you think about that, if you want, Ghostwriter71.
