Chapter 6: The Return of the Dark Lord
20 June 1995
Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry
The last trial of the Tri-Wizard tournament was gargantuan and all who had assisted with previous challenges had been called back to assist with the guarding of the labyrinthine field. Kat had been glad to see Charlie again, and surprised to see his mother as well as Bill, who had been invited to cheer on Harry. The morning of the challenge, she yielded to vanity and took extra care with her appearance, tying a length of crimson silk around her hair before heading to the great hall for breakfast. She was looking forward to catching up with Bill. With work taking them to different sites around the globe the letters they exchanged often had large gaps of time between them. She stopped abruptly at the sight that met her as she ascended the stairs.
Girlish laughter danced off the walls followed by a chorus of male chuckles. Fleur Delacour stood at the center of a small mob with Bill, who was gesticulating elatedly. The younger girl was standing close, brushing against him with small touches of a hand or arm, and eyeing him possessively. Kat had watched the girl use this trick on several young men over the year, and all but a few had positively melted at her attentions, included but not limited to Ron, one of the younger Weasley boys. Bill didn't seem to notice Fleur's attentions, but neither was he making a point to make distance between them.
Taking this as a good sign, Kat continued climbing the stairs. Fleur caught her eye and for an instant the girl's gaze lost its flirtatious luster and turned dark. It was gone in an instant as Fleur reached out and looped Bill's arm in hers, steering him toward the great hall with an offhanded comment about needing to get food before it was all gone.
Kat bristled at the snub as the minx disappeared with Bill through the door and felt anger rise from the base of her spine. Bill was her friend. He was charming, funny, and handsome, but that didn't mean that an impudent girl-child had the right to keep her from him. She took three fast steps in pursuit of them before a hand caught her arm and stopped her.
"I suspect whatever you are considering would be ill advised, Ms. McCullough." Snape held her arm for a moment before releasing it, having succeeded in stopping her.
Fuming, but knowing he was likely correct, Kat turned and followed Snape as he walked away from the entrance and back down the stairs toward the main entrance. Most teachers and students being already seated at their breakfasts, the main entrance to the castle was all but abandoned. Snape stopped and waited as his former student crossed her arms and paced off her frustration.
"I do not need to remind you that murdering students is, regrettably, not allowed." Snape said casually after a moment.
Kat rolled her eyes, "I wasn't going to kill her. I wasn't even going to hurt her…not really."
"And while I'm sure you've the cunning to do so without being caught, it would be unfortunate if your actions resulted in something which might cost something you hold dear. The respect and affection of Mr. Weasley, for example."
"That's not even—that's ridiculous. I mean, what in the name of Merlin's most baggy Y-fronts was that even about?" she fumed, "She's playing him and he's oblivious to the fact that she's trying to wrap her little fingers around him and-"
"And perhaps you should tell him why that idea bothers you so. If he is, as you say, oblivious to her attentions, it stands to reason that he is equally oblivious to the fact that you have feelings for him beyond that of a colleague. A conversation, if I may say, which is long overdue."
The fury left her in a flood and her shoulders drooped. Snape watched the emotions shift in his former pupil and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder briefly.
"I suspect fresh air would be more welcome than a room of rowdy students, especially considering the presence of certain individuals. I have been asked to inspect the southern quarter of the labyrinth in preparation for the task. Your assistance would be welcome."
He turned before she could reply and withdrew his wand, tapping a series of stones on one wall. The stones peeled apart as fluidly as curtains and revealed a neat rack with spare cloaks, broomsticks and other necessities. Kat took one of the proffered brooms and the two of them set off for what had up until very recently, been the Quidditch pitch.
The day passed in a flurry of activity after that, and Kat was far too busy to think about what had happened with Fleur Delacour and Bill. This was largely thanks to Snape, who kept her occupied through most of the morning through the afternoon until the dark cloud over her mood finally began to pass. They inspected the maze, checked the spells in place and only left the pitch when Dumbledore, McGonagall and Moody arrived to place the cup inside.
After a brief lunch, Snape had her sequestered in the potions storage room to put away the supplies which had arrived to replace the ingredients that had been going missing. An inventory of the room followed, and by the time all was said and done it was time to report to their positions on the field for the third task.
The sky above the maze was eerily silent, no doubt a result of one of the many spells surrounding the area; the only exception to the silence was the brief boom of the cannon announcing the beginning of the task. The sound broke through Kat's wandering thoughts and she turned her attention to the maze below. She sat comfortably on her broom, one foot tapping on the footrest and her wand held in one hand, scanning the field for signs of distress. The competitors were told to send up red sparks in such situations, but that was no excuse to be distracted, these trials were not to be taken lightly.
Flashes of light in a nearby corner of the maze caught her attention and she watched the area closely for a moment. The hedge walls moved, a gust of wind blowing hard as the magic stirred the air and earth. Kat tightened her grip on broom and wand as the wind knocked at her. Moments later a flash of red sparks rose from one of moving hedges and Kat cursed and dove toward the maze.
"Lumos."
Branches cracked underfoot as she scanned the area. Then a louder more ominous crack echoed from the ground and Kat took a step back. There was a wand on the ground…now splintered, with a pale silver hair showing from inside. Only one of the competitors had a wand with hair as the core, Fleur.
"Shit." Kat picked up the broken wand and shoved it into a pocket before sweeping the aisle again, trying to find where the girl had disappeared. Far from harmless, if left alone, the hedge could consume the girl. There was a pale swath nearly invisible under one of the hedges. Kat stepped back and wove a spell as quickly as she could and cast it at the wall, which shrieked in protest and began withdrawing. Inch by painful inch Fleur's body was revealed. Pushing aside her animosity, Kat knelt beside her and examined her quickly.
"Rennervate!" Fleur's body, which had been stiff and frozen, slumped as the spell hit her, but she didn't wake as she should have. Kat swore again as she noted the blood coating the side of the girls face. She must have hit her head when she hit the ground after being stunned.
"Oh come on!"
Kat raised her wand and sent up blue sparks, letting the others know that she had responded and had the student in hand, or would, in a moment. Thanking the stars that she'd had the good sense to use her own broom and not one of the school's, she stood, held the broom horizontal to the ground and spelled it to stay there. She tucked her wand into her pocket and then crouched, picking up Fleur's unconscious body and mounting the broom. Kat groaned with the effort as the girl wasn't nearly as light as her delicate frame implied, but with an effort, she was able to kick off the ground and steered them toward the edge of the maze.
She had just passed Fleur off to Madame Pomphrey at the med tent which had been erected outside the stadium when one of the professors came in and informed her that there had been a scuffle and they couldn't locate two of the competitors anywhere in the maze. Which should have been impossible, given all of the precautions being taken both by Dumbledore and the Ministry. She took Fleur's broken wand out of her pocket and passed it to the nurse assisting with the young witch and then followed the professor out of the tent, re-mounted her broom and headed into the maze to search for the missing competitors.
An hour's search ended fruitlessly as she and the others returned to the stands to report to Dumbledore. Kat had just finished giving her report and turned to see if she could find Bill or Charlie in the stands. She found Bill…he was standing with the Beauxbaton students, an arm around Fleur as he helped her to a seat next to her sister. She had started to take a step toward them, now was as good a time as any to talk to Bill, and there wasn't anything they could do until the student's either finished the task or reappeared so—
"Kat, we're doing another sweep of the east end and need a better flyer than Professor—hey, are you okay?"
She turned to face Charlie and nodded, "Yep, just fine. Which end?"
Not buying the forced smile on Kat's face he looked over her shoulder to where she had been looking moments ago and saw Bill now sitting next to Fleur, who was resting her head on his shoulder. "East...I could just ask someone else if you want to…step away."
Kat shook her head and marched back toward the maze. "Nope, that can wait. Let's go."
She had mounted and was in the air before he could argue further, and shook his head at his oblivious brother and mounted his own broom, kicking off fast to try to catch up to Kat, who was now ahead of him by several yards. McGonagall had taken down the silencing spell, so the sounds from the stands carried across the air as well as the sounds coming from the maze. Charlie and Kat were on the other side of the field but still heard clearly the scream which echoed from the stands not long later. They spun around and raced back, stirring dust as they landed in the chaos that had risen there. Cedric, the Hufflepuff boy was on the ground, eyes glazed over with death, and Potter was no-where to be seen. Dumbledore seemed to be comforting the boy's father while Hagrid and several of the professors tried to hold the students at bay.
"The killing curse-" Charlie's voice was hushed behind her. She looked over her shoulder to his pale face, now tinged with green at the sight of the body. Kat reached out and took his hand, offering a steadying presence in the chaos.
On the other side of the crowd, Fleur Delacour buried her face in Bill Weasley's chest, sobbing and wrapping her arms around him. Bill, uncomfortable with crying women at the best of times, put his arms awkwardly around her but his eyes remained fixed on his brother who held Kat's hand tightly. Kat wasn't crying despite the chaos. She looked tense, pulled tight and clearly uncomfortable with the crowd, and seemed to be holding Charlie's hand as tightly as he held hers. Unthinking, Bill's grip tightened and the young woman clinging to him took that as encouragement and squeezed back. He looked down at the top of her head in surprise, as if noticing her for the first time.
Charlie turned his eyes away from the body with great effort and scanned the crowd, Kat's hand in his like an anchor keeping him focused. He caught sight of his brother with the blonde French girl in his arms, watched his arms tighten around her small form, saw the glint hit his eyes as he looked down at her and felt his heart ache at the pain that the sight would cause his friend. Before he could do anything about it though, he felt Kat squeeze his hand and release it.
"C'mon. We can't do anything here. Let's help the professors get the students back to the castle. The sooner we clear the area, the sooner we can put the poor boy to rest."
For a moment he had panicked, thinking that she had seen Bill and Fleur, but no, she hadn't, or if she had, she hadn't allowed it to keep her from acting as she always would. He wondered briefly what his brother was thinking by not snatching this woman up as quickly as possible, and then followed her as she joined in herding the students, many crying, back to the castle.
After the announcement was made that Cedric Diggory had been pronounced dead and that classes would be cancelled for the last week of school, the castle had fallen into mourning. The students of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor remained sequestered in their respective dormitories, leaning on each other as they processed the tragedy. Meanwhile, unable to remain still, Ravenclaw had joined Slytherin house in preparations for the end of the school year and the funeral. Classrooms were cleaned and supplies put up neatly by silent Ravenclaws while somber Slytherin students spelled the banners of the castle to black and arranged rows of chairs in the great hall for the mourners.
The funeral for Cedric Diggory was held in the great hall and was accompanied by the announcement which would shape the lives of every witch and wizard in the world. The Dark Lord was back. Kat attended the funeral, choosing to stand against the wall rather than sit with the students. She felt a chill slide down her spine at the news of the Dark Lord's return, a feeling that sat ill with the coiled knot of discomfort that had formed in her chest at the sight of Bill, now seemingly joined at the hip with Fleur Delacour. She slipped silently out of the hall.
"If you're brewing something to open my idiot brother's eyes, you'll need to make it pretty strong. He's an utter moron."
Charlie was leaning against the doorframe of the potions classroom, having followed Kat from the Great hall. She had taken off her robe and laid it over one of the empty tables and had set up a brewing station at another. The cauldron on it was nearly bubbling and she used a silver knife to finely dice ingredients. She didn't turn to face him, but continued dicing before measuring out the ingredients into the cauldron and stirring three times, counter clockwise.
"They used the last of the Veritaserum on Crouch. It takes a full lunar cycle to brew, so I figured if I got it started now, it should be finished by the time the professors leave for the summer. And with the Dark Lord back, who knows how much it will be needed."
Setting the ladle aside, she carefully measured out a series of ingredients into a mortar of white marble. Charlie watched as she picked up the pestle and began carefully grinding, the muscles of her forearms standing out with each motion. She had rolled the sleeves of her blouse up over her elbows and had a plain hairband keeping her unruly hair out of the way while she worked. Entering the room, he pulled up a stool and perched across from the table where she worked and saw that her eyes were rimmed with red and puffy from crying.
"Kat, you and I, we've become good friends this past year. I hate seeing you hurting."
"I'm fine, Charlie. Really. You don't need to coddle me."
Before he could object or say anything else, she spoke again, removing the pestle and holding the bowl over the cauldron, "Hold your breath."
She took a deep breath, herself and then dumped the contents into the cauldron. Thick smoke rose from the bubbling cauldron that turned first bright red, then violet, then settled into a pale white. Once its color faded, she looked up and nodded that he could go back to breathing normally.
"I've decided to go back into the field. Somewhere hot, I think. I'm sure Gringotts can find me a nice crypt or ruin somewhere that will provide a challenge."
Charlie was quiet for a long moment as she continued bustling about, working on the potion before he finally dared put words to his thoughts. "Sounds like you're running away."
"I'm going back to work. As are you, I imagine."
Dicing, pounding, stirring, silence. Charlie had the good sense and self-preservation to let the silence bide until finally Kat stopped her work and braced her hands on the table and looked up at him.
"I am hurting, Charlie. It does hurt, but I can either stay here and hurt, or I can get the hell over it and do my job."
She looked as determined as anything. Charlie shook his head and moved to lean against the table, before almost setting his elbows into piles of ingredients and sat back instead. "I can respect that, but you should tell him how you feel before you, as you put it, get the hell over it. He may surprise you and get his head out of his arse."
"Or he may break my heart. I saw the way he has started looking at Fleur, I'm not blind. Thanks, but I'd rather face angry Aztec curses."
Charlie held his hands up in surrender. It was abundantly clear that she wouldn't be swayed by any logic of his. So instead of pursuing it, he pushed up his own sleeves and gestured at the table. Grateful, Kat nodded and passed him the ladle and pointed at the pot.
"Thirteen strokes, clockwise."
The two worked in companionable quiet for the next half hour until at last the potion was decanted into a tall, clear bottle and set upon a shelf by the window to mature over the next month. Kat wrote a brief note to Professor Snape to inform him of it and together, she and Charlie packed up the materials and tidied them away.
Gringotts, rarely without a challenge, was able to provide Kat with her choice of locations when she returned to work, and after some consideration, chose the Amazonian rainforest with its promise of dangerous terrain and a series of curse ridden temples. She left with little fuss, and had been gone nearly two months when an unexpected parcel arrived from London.
1 August 1995
An unmapped corner of the Amazon Rainforest
"We need you back in London." There were dark circles under the eyes of the man who looked back at Kat from the other side of the antique hand mirror she now held.
"Remus, you have more than enough members in London who can-"
"Everyone is playing their part, Kat. We need you to play yours."
"The entire point of my being abroad is to be the Order's source on the outside. Professor Snape-" Kat sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"Is doing his part with Hogwarts and cannot be spared from his post."
The sun beat down mercilessly upon the canopy and the shade of the Kapok tree under which Kat rested did very little to alleviate the heat. She sat between two of the tall, wave-like roots , the mirror resting on her knees. Remus Lupin, on the other side of the mirror was hunched over with his collar high to keep off the rain. Lupin was the second who had contacted her from the Order, and she had no doubt that if she refused again, she'd be getting a terse summons from Mad Eye and that she wouldn't be able to ignore.
"I'll ask for a transfer back to England, Remus, but I can't promise that they'll grant it."
"The order will be grateful. Be safe, Kat."
"You too."
The mirror went dark and Kat sighed, leaning her head back against the trunk of the tree and thought about the ramifications of going back to London, and who she would be thrust back into circles with. A mere two days after she sent off the transfer, Gringotts granted her request, and she made her way back to England and to the Order of the Phoenix.