What was he thinking ? I was just looking for a friend. Not for anything that the kiss had stood for.
He had chased me down the beach, but in the end, had not been able to keep up with me, and did not even try to come upstairs. I was grateful for that. I was not even sure I would know how to interact with him.
The next day, I was afraid he would come back. But he never did. Part of me was really sad, because I almost had a friend, but then I didn't. I also felt like it meant he only valued me as a girlfriend. I wanted friendship, and that wasn't good enough. I tried not to dwell on thoughts of Adam. He was not my main problem here, and he would be fine.
Every morning when I woke up, I sat up in bed and stared out the window. From my room on the top floor, I could see out over the beach and the cliffs. I wondered where, out there, were my friends. Were they doing okay? What dangers were they facing today? I hoped they were making more progress than we had before. I wished I had given them more potions, and that I had shared more about how to cook out there. I wondered how long this war would go on.
Now that I was not traveling with them, I wondered where my father was. I would rather be with him than here. I had safety here and I knew Adam had been right, they did care about me, but I longed for my family. So I thought I would bring it up with Bill and Fleur.
"Do you think I could try and find my father?" I asked, as we sat in front of the fire that night. Luna was reading some magazine in an armchair across the room but I felt comfortable asking in front of her.
They were both quiet for a few second. "Your father was pretty high up in the Ministry, wasn't he?" Bill asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, he was Head of the Department of Magical Transportation," I said. "He's in hiding. Has anyone you're in contact with heard from him?"
"Why is he in hiding?" Fleur asked.
"My stepmum's a Muggle." I didn't think of Vera or her girls very often. But I hoped they were safe. I would not mind even seeing her and my stepsisters right now. "She is hiding with her daughters somewhere in France."
"Interesting marriage," she commented.
"And he's not in France?" Bill asked.
"Not that I know of," I said. "We saw him at Christmas, by accident."
"By accident...?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"This might be saying too much, but on Christmas Eve, we were all very cold and Hermione was ill, so we decided to spend some time at my family's cottage down on the southern coast. Y'know, to get inside for a bit and maybe warm up in a hot shower. Well, he had wards up and knew we were there, so he visited and we spent Christmas together."
"And he let you leave?"
I shook my head. "No," I said. I felt awful about having to give my father a sleeping potion in order to escape, but at the time it was the only solution. "We gave him a sleeping potion in his wine and waited for him to fall asleep before we left."
Saying it out loud, it sounded like the worst possible thing anyone could do to their father, so I cringed. It was just how we survived. I hadn't hurt him, at least not physically.
"But you haven't seen him or heard from him since Christmas?"
I shook my head. "No, I haven't really had any way to contact him."
"Well," Bill said, "I haven't heard of him from anyone I've spoken with."
"Is there any way we can try?"
There was a pause. Bill and Fleur exchanged a glance, and from what I could tell, it wasn't good. "The thing is, Kat," he said. "You're a pretty big target for You-Know-Who. If we go out there and put the word out that we're looking for your dad, we're putting you in danger. You-know-Who finds out that you're separated from Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and he's going to come straight after you. Then he'll torture you to get any information he can, and you'll be killed."
It made sense , rationally. But I didn't really like it. I also did not want to be tortured or killed, especially if it made thing harder for my friends. I just wanted them to hurry up and win this thing already.
"But as soon as this is all over," Bill said, "I will help you find your father. And anyone else in your family."
"Just my brother," I said. "But he's safe. Last I heard about him, he was working as an Auror, guarding Gringotts. He's pure blood, he should be safe, especially since Dad's not around, right?"
"I'm sure he's fine."
I nodded. It was nice to know that one of us was okay. Between Bill, Fleur, and I, there was not much left to say. We sat in the living room, in near silence, save for Luna's humming and the crackle of the fire, for a long time that night.
~.~
A few days later, I was in my room getting ready for bed. Well, I was really just laying in bed, in my jeans, staring at my pajamas without wanting to get into them. My hair was dirty, and I could use a shower, but I decided to wait until morning. It was the epitome of a lazy day.
There was a quick knock on my door, and then Fleur came in.
"There's going to be a battle, at Hogwarts," she said. "They're calling for reinforcements. Bill and I are going to fight. You're welcome to join us or stay here, it doesn't matter to us-"
"I'll go," I said, immediately getting up.
"We have a portkey leaving in five minutes, grab what you need and come downstairs." And she was gone just as quickly as she had come. I wondered how she still managed to look so calm about this, as soon as she left, I felt crazed.
There were a few things I needed, but mostly I just went in circles around my room. Wand? Yes, I needed my wand. I grabbed a sweatshirt and put it on, since it was night time and I did not know how long we would be out. How long would the battle last? How many people would die? I was worried about dueling someone. Did I bring my potions?
I looked to the journal that was in the open drawer of my bedside table. I rushed to it, knowing I did not have much time. "Alohamora," I said, and left it unlocked. If, for any reason, I did not come back from this battle, I wanted the story to be known. I wanted people to know the truth about the journey that the four of us took. I didn't want Rita Skeeter's story to be the one everyone heard. So I left my journal unlocked in hopes that it would fall into the right hands.
Then, I slipped on my shoes and ran downstairs. I was the last one out of the house, and felt a brief pang of guilt, but then I carried on. It was not that big of a deal. I grabbed a hold of the Portkey, which was a large, tarnished silver serving spoon.
And then a minute later, we landed on a floor. My head was spinning, trying to grasp that we were no longer at Shell Cottage, dealing with the headache that the Portkey gave me, and attempting to figure out where we were. It was dark, dusty, and dirty. There seemed to be people all around me, but Bill gave me a hand up.
It took me a minute to place where we were, but eventually I figured it out. We were in the Hog's Head, in Hogsmeade.
"Quiet! Keep movin', you lot," a gruff voice said. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from of where the flow of traffic was going, so mostly I followed Fleur. I held my wand in my right hand, my grip around it so tight that my knuckles were turning white.
"Behind that picture, there's a passage to Hogwarts," she said quietly to me. "It goes to the Room of Requirement."
I had only heard of the Room of Requirement once I had become friends with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but I had never been there. It seemed almost a little exciting, and for a few seconds I forgot about how scared I was.
Eventually, it was our turn to go through the passage. It was dark and cold, light flickering from candles that were placed every few feet along the walls. I wondered what we would see when we got to the other side. Was the battle already waging? Would we go to fight immediately? I had never been the greatest at dueling...
After a few minutes of walking, I could see light. It only got brighter as we got closer, and I could hear people's nervous chatter.
"How exciting!" Luna said, from behind me. I was the only one that heard her, so I just looked at her and nodded. We were very nearly in the Room of Requirement, and I could see it was set up so that three of the Houses were represented: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and my own Hufflepuffs. There seemed to be about forty people already in the large room.
I looked around for familiar faces. Molly Weasley was there, and I quickly looked away from her, not wanting to get into things with her again. Remus Lupin, Neville Longbottom, the Patil twins even stood in one corner. And then I heard a voice and immediately it drew all my attention. Harry. Harry was here, standing on what seemed to be an ever so slightly raised platform... I couldn't hear quite what he was saying over the chatter of the crowd.
"Kat!"
I turned around, and Adam was standing there. I hugged him, tightly. "I'm so sorry," I said in his ear.
"No, no, please, Kat... don't be sorry, it was all my fault," he said. "I was dumb. I wanted to come back, to offer you my apology, but they wouldn't let me so I thought I'd just give you some space..."
"Don't worry, please, let's just put it behind us," I said. I didn't want to have any misplaced enemies. Adam was a great friend. We had a long history, but he had been good to me. Now was not the time to be holding a grudge.
"Of course," he said. I looked around the room. People that had just gotten there were standing around, waiting. Some people looked like they had been here for ages; there were even hammocks and places to sit. People that had been here for awhile seemed to be sitting.
"Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?" I heard Ginny's voice say. She was talking loudly so that Harry, who was in the center of the room, could hear her.
"Ooh, yes, I would like to," Luna said from the other side of me. She walked towards Harry.
"How do we get out of here?" Harry asked, looking to Neville. He was right, I had yet to see a door out.
"The cupboard over there," Neville said, knocking his head to the left. They slipped out quietly, and I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one staring. But I was the one that was so hyperaware of every move Harry had made. I was just so happy that he was okay.
He had not even looked at me. I wonder if he knew I was there. Would he speak to me when he came back? Would he be angry that I came to fight?
It did not matter now, not really. I was here and that was not going to change. So I took a deep breath and waited to be told what to do.
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long! I've gone back to college, where I have far less time for the fun stuff like writing. Hopefully it will take less time to get the next chapter out! Thanks to potter-reading-coastie for betaing this. Please, let me know what you think! Oh, and read on to enjoy the much-awaited return of EATC!
EatC Episode VI: The Return Of The Coastie
It has been a long year since we last saw our intrepid hero, Emily, her crazed partner, Coastie, and their fun-loving, chainsaw wielding, psychotic side-kick, Edward. Since then, Emily has gone to a most feared place. A most feared and dreaded place. A most feared, dreaded, and colorful place. Emily has gone to college. What will she learn there? More magic? More Magic and English? More underwater basket weaving? In a world, at the end of the Earth, in space, in a land, in time, in a land before time, one writer, half woman, half animal, half man, half robot, and half baked, will face the forces of Lord Voldermort, the Neo-Grammar Nazis, the devil, and Richard Belzer. She has one solution, one desire, and one chance to fight back, overcome the odds, defy logic, and battle monotony, in order to fall in love and save her family, her planet, her neighbor, Twilight Sparkle, her dog, your dog, and thirty three hamsters. In a race against deadlines, in this wacky new adventure. Coming soon this fall, this winter, this Christmas, this Fourth of July, this Hannukah, this weekend, next year. The written epic of the year, the millennium, the decade, next week, and last Thursday. Emily in the Return of the Transforming Alien Space Pirates Bridesmaid Avengers Hangover. Part Forty Two: The Reunion. Rated R for retarded.