Chapter 20: Mary, Mary…


Ever since Katherine received the charmed crystal ball, which stood pride of place behind the photograph of her father on her nightstand, she'd experienced deep sleeps each night – and discovered a new feature; that it gave off a light mist of jasmine scent every few hours.

Katherine had always loved the smell. The blue trunk of hers Giles had fetched from Claremont Square contained a perfume bottle and shampoo laced with it.

The thoughtfulness of the gift further unravelled had left Katherine doubting it's innocence. Who would go to so much trouble? Who would have been watching her so closely?

She had taken it to Giles, who, in his shock, immediately gave away that it had indeed not been a gift from him.

Giles had placed the crystal ball down on his desk, his hands either side of it as he bent to peer into it at eye level, "You should have brought this to me immediately."

"Alice checked it." said Katherine, shrugging.

Giles returned to full height, and gave Katherine a look, before beginning to circle his wand at the crystal ball, murmuring, "Forgive me for not trusting the dark magic detection abilities of a fifteen-year-old witch…"

All the while, Katherine watched curiously as it glowed white under his wand a few times.

"Are you able to tell who it came from?" she asked, leaning back against a desk.

"Magical signatures aren't always so obvious in light magic – which it seems very much to be…" he said faintly, eyebrows lifted as he continued to observe it, even lifting the base and checking beneath, "The fact that it's an enchanted, already magical, object, makes it harder. It was not crafted completely from scratch."

Katherine nodded, and then hesitated a moment before confessing her next words, "It makes me sleep, I think. I haven't had a single nightmare since I got it."

Giles' eyes shot up to her from his observation of the ball.

"Well, you wouldn't. These kind of things are quite common things parents charm for their children, actually, for that purpose," he said, dropping his wand.

Giles picked up the ball, on its stand, and rounded his desk slowly.

"You… had nightmares?"

Katherine gave a short nod, eyes falling away from his – to the floor.

Giles' leather shoes stopped before her.

"It seems the person that sent it –" he said, extending the ball out to her, "– knows you rather well, Miss Spencer."

Katherine carefully accepted it, careful not to drop it, "Lily thinks it's a boy."

Giles leant back against his desk, crossing his ankles.

"It's likely to be," he said, all too lightly.

Katherine's eyes lifted in alarm – that he would not refute the claim as silly.

Giles' lips slightly tugged, and he raised his eyebrows, "Was that not the answer you wanted?"

Katherine sighed, and frowned at the crystal ball as she thought.

"Well, it only means I'm clueless as to who gave it. It wasn't Remus – and it wasn't James…" she trailed off, knowing from their reactions in potions.

"You came to me speaking about Regulus Black not too long ago,"

Katherine's eyes lifted again to Giles.

He blinked in thought, tipping his head as he continued, "Despite their faults, the members of that family could charm a saint out of it's halo, if they wanted,"

Giles nodded to the ball –

"Something like this would not be beyond the young Black's capabilities."

Her worries assuaged by Giles, Katherine had returned it to her nightstand, and enjoyed the sleeping aid. Occasionally she would let her eyes drift over Regulus Black at meals, or in the hallways, but he gave no sign of interest in her. She had severe doubts of Giles' hypothesis…

One morning in late February, Katherine was, oddly, woken from her slumber.

Belle had jumped onto her chest, green eyes staring imperiously down at her. Turning and fluffing her tail, she made the leap across to Mary's bed with a high noise of effort.

It was then that Katherine saw that it was empty.

It was early, the purple star-spangled limbo between morning and night cast over the dormitory. Too early to be up and about…

Katherine's eyes drifted over the opened gift box by the girl's bed, and the mass of tissue paper still spilling out of it. The letter that accompanied it was still there, open on Mary's desk – 'A gift to lift your spirits, from your admirer'.

Inside had been a simple dainty silver chain with a small ruby pendant glittering, set into the centre. It shone like a waterfall of silver in the candlelight, slipping over Mary's fingers. The girls had all sat, entranced by it, observing it alongside Mary.

Lily blinked, smiling faintly as she watched Marlene clasp the silver around Mary's neck, "Who knew Peter had such great taste."

"Black probably picked it," said Marlene, rearranging the clasp at the back of Mary's neck, muttering 'tricky goblin thing' under her breath, before falling back onto the bed with the others to observe it around their friend's slender neck, "It looks like something his mother would wear, don't you think?"

Alice blinked with a wry expression flitting across her face, "I try not to think about Walburga Black, thank you very much."

"Is she really Longbottom's godmother?" Marlene had asked, newly curious, the necklace forgotten.

Mary had been so smitten with the gift, that she even worn the necklace to sleep.

Belle stared across at Katherine and let out a long MEOW before pouncing onto the ground and to the door. Katherine trusted her feline, but still felt silly when she pulled on her cloak, grabbed Lily's, and shook her red-headed friend awake.

"Lily,"

Freckled eyelids fluttered but didn't open.

"Lily!"

Her red hair was a blurred blaze as she snapped up at the waist, "What's wrong?"

Katherine hesitated, gnawing on her bottom lip, "It's Mary, she's gone."

The two girls; in slippers, pyjamas, and cloaks, careened down the stairs to the common room and through the tunnel to the portrait.

It was as it opened that the two girls smacked into hard chests.

Katherine rubbed her nose as she separated it from Sirius Black's chin as James and Lily rubbed their foreheads. Peter peeked out from behind his two friends, bleary-eyed.

Wide-eyed, the groups looked at each other.

James cleared his throat, and righted his glasses, "If you don't ask, we won't ask."

Lily nodded, linked her arm through Katherine's, and the groups moved around one another.

Katherine couldn't help but notice that Peter had a lump under his jumper as they passed each other, the tails of a white sheet sticking out of them hem.

"Nice jammies, Evans." were James' parting words as the portrait closed behind the girls.

Lily pulled her cloak tighter around herself with one arm and pulled Katherine along with the other.

Belle leading ahead of them, the two girls found one of Mary's hair rollers two flights down, then another, and another…

Belle dashed nimbly down the steps, tail high and fluffed – until the reached the final set of marble steps to the entrance hall.

As white as the steps – as a ghost – they finally sighted Mary; floating on her back in her cotton nightgown.

Katherine was struck with the unsettling urge to spew.

It was a frightful, horror-movie esq, sight.

With only a moment's hesitation, they set out to charge the rest of the distance between them and the dangling nightgown.

"Mary!" shouted Lily.

She was still moving, as if someone was levitating her. But no one could be seen around them.

Katherine scurried along out to the courtyard with Lily, too shouting, "Mary – wake up!"

Down the lawns they went, Lily firing off spells at a slumbering Mary –

"Finite! – Petrificus Totalus! – Immobulus!"

None of them worked.

With burning lungs and with their hair sticking to their foreheads and cheeks, the two girls finally stumbled onto the steep soil and boulder-edged shore of the Black Lake. A metre below the edge, the water lapped with a hollow glug against the rocks.

Mary still slumbered deeply on her back in the air. She had stopped moving, at least. An uneasiness at the sight of her stopped over the expanse of the impenetrable black surface of the Lake, was hard to shake.

"Accio!" tried Lily.

Mary was only swayed by a light breeze, her nightgown fluttering, and remained unmoved by Lily's magic.

"… You don't think she'll fall, do you?" Katherine finally asked.

Lily went ashen, "She can't swim…"

Katherine slipped her feet out of her slippers and reached for the fastenings of her cloak.

"Katherine –" Lily stopped her with a hand on hers, "It's negative four. The water in this temperature will make you hypothermic, your muscles will cease up and you'll drown,"

Lily glanced over her shoulder.

"I'll go find a teacher –"

It was too late.

Mary had woken, letting out a bloodcurdling scream – and then was plummeting through the air to the water below – fast.

With a large SPLASH! the screaming stopped abruptly as Mary slipped beneath the surface for but a moment. Then began the fervent splashing as she fought to stay above the water –

"HE – LLLP!" the word became a glugged cry through a mouth of water.

Katherine's heart jumped into her throat, and her legs jumped into action once more.

"Katherine!" Lily's cry followed Katherine over the edge of the stone.

The wind whistled past Katherine's ears as she dove in like she was taught at 's. The Black Lake, however, was no heated school pool.

Katherine's body bloomed with pins and needles. She spat out a piece of thin peeling ice that had slipped through her lips as she resurfaced. The lake had only broken it's iced top a few days previous, and chunks of ice were still bobbing around the surface.

Katherine put her limbs to work, treading water, as she kicked backwards, yelling to Lily –

"Summon us back once I get to her! –" Katherine broke off as her mouth dipped below the water "– It should work now that the effects of whatever was on her are no longer working!"

Lily's face was gripped with horror, as she hugged her arms to her chest up on the boulder, watching on fretfully.

Katherine turned, doing a desperate version of freestyle out to where Mary had fallen. A creeping cold leeched up from below, and Katherine's mind began conjuring up monsters from the depths, unbidden.

She urged her burning limbs on, whimpering internally in fear – and fighting over her wandering mind. The splashing had stopped, and Katherine knew she had to look under.

With one last glance back at Lily, Katherine took a deep steeling breath, and plunged her head down into the dark cold.

Her eyes refused to open right away, on instinct. After several blurry seconds of blinking, and battling her swirling hair from around her face, Katherine saw a blur of white sinking down and down

Knowing she would lose sight of Mary if she resurfaced for another breath, Katherine fought from opening her lips – as her body desperately wanted her to – to take a breath. With a swelling, burning sensation in her chest – almost too much to bear – she kicked hard as she swam down.

Only the smallest of bubbles beaded from Mary's parted lips when Katherine reached her. A looped arm around her back, and Katherine immediately began kicking for the surface, certain her eyes would pop out of her skull if she didn't take a breath the very next second.

The noises Katherine began to make were foreign even to her. A whining sort of bubbling noise in the back of her throat that she felt through her whole body, as she willed herself on.

Bursting through the surface brought a rush of air, and cold, over her head. They bobbed with the force of Katherine's kicking that had propelled them up before going under again, with Mary's added weight fully strapped to Katherine.

Prying Mary's arm from around her shoulders, Katherine tried to float them instead, all the while shaking Mary – to rouse her, "Mary! Mary come on!"

Katherine used one hand to grip Mary's chin, the flesh heavy and uncompliant, to try and shake out any water from her mouth –

GLUG! Almost against her will, it seemed, Mary spat up in the water. Her eyes shot open, as she gasped. And then her hands clawed into Katherine's shoulders

"KATHERINE!" screamed Lily –

Panic panged through Katherine's skull as Mary pushed her under. A knee to Katherine's cheek shocked her into taking an unwanted mouthful of water. Lungs spasming, Katherine slipped down ever lower.

Mary, clinging to her, lost her life-preserver, and too went under. Bubbles cloaked Mary's face in a rush to the near surface as her scream was muffle by the water. She relinquished her grip, splashing wildly back to the surface above.

Katherine too battled to the surface, at a distance to her struggling friend this time – feeling very guilty as she treaded water easily and Mary flailed – as if hoping to eject herself from the water.

"I can't help you if you push me down – pfffshtt –" called Katherine, over the sloshing of water, needing to spray water out of her mouth, "Relax against me – and I'll – pfffttt – float you backwards!"

Her eyes seemed to hold a smidgeon less terror, and Katherine experimentally floated closer, up behind Mary. Back at her muggle school, they had practiced helping save someone as part of their swimming curriculum, and Katherine put it to use then, looping one around Mary and floating them back with froggy legs.

"Just a bit closer!" Lily yelled, hands around her mouth, "Then I should be able to do the charm!"

The words sprung hope inside Katherine, but it had to fight against Katherine's sinking limbs – heavier and heavier in the water.

After her head had stayed dry for a few solid minutes as Katherine manoeuvred them backwards easily, Mary had relaxed. Kick after kick, they edged closer to the Lake's edge.

Mary's words came hesitantly, "I'm sorry I pushed you under – I just couldn't control it –"

"It's normal – when people are drowning – you know," panted Katherine, her breath coming out in a cloud, "I sort of expected it…"

Katherine, though, had hoped it wouldn't. She could not shake the image in her mind, of a similarity of her friend to that of a rat scurrying up a drainpipe…

Katherine had – ever since losing her aunt and uncle and finding out about someone trying to do her in too – entertained the concept of her own dying. She had thought it might even be a relief. She had not anticipated her body's fervent disagreement when her head was shoved underwater, and she too became the rat.

People really would do anything to survive.

Mary glanced around, over Katherine's head, "We're nearly there…"

Katherine nodded stiffly, water lapping up unpleasantly behind her ears, "Yeah, nearly there…"

She, however, knew they were in trouble at the noticing of one innocuous little sensation.

Katherine couldn't feel the cold anymore.

Mary wriggled a little in her grasp, finding more water beneath her back and Katherine's front than usual, "What's –"

Together, they dipped lower in the water, faces just staying above.

"I… I can't move my legs – they're too heavy…" said Katherine, closing her lips to avoid taking on any water, bobbing them back up – but not really feeling Mary against her, despite knowing she was there.

"Try – please try, Katherine..." Mary whimpered, beginning to too kick her legs,

Katherine turned, lifting a heavy, numb arm – waving, "Lily –!"

Lily lifted her wand, "I can only summon one at a time!"

Katherine knew she had the better odds of staying afloat on her lonesome –

"Mary then!" she shouted back, turning her and Mary around, so Lily would be able to aim for her better.

Mary rose from the water as if on a fishhook, water draining from her nightgown and splashing down on Katherine's head like rain. Through the air, Mary's path arched at the beguiling of Lily's wand work; her limbs flailing for non-existent purchase.

Katherine didn't see Mary reach the shore of the lake.

Her heavy limbs finally opposed her instructions to tread water completely, and her head slipped uncontrollably under the water. She strived to move – to float – but there was nothing left inside of her.

It was only as the water settled above her, that Katherine saw it broken again. A torpedo of bubbles trickled away, and a blaze of red hair flared through the water – Lily; her wand between her teeth, breast-stroking down.

Lily's outstretched arm blurred and doubled in front of Katherine's gaze, and she could only make sense of one thing as she was tugged back upwards –

Her hand was warm.


"Miss Evans, Miss Spencer," McGonagall's voice had reached a new peak of shrillness, "I must say,"

Katherine's eyes focused on the moving photographs on her Head of House's desk. All of them depicted gold and scarlet robes, flapping in the wind.

"I have never seen such reckless behaviour on the grounds of Hogwarts,"

Katherine's cloak and pyjamas were now bone dry, and were cold and light against her skin. Still, she felt the lake on her. An odd calmness threaded through her exhausted muscles, as they finally got rest in the chair, despite the dressing down she and Lily had been receiving.

"Or bravery,"

Katherine face broke from its nipping numbness and her eyes lifted to the exasperated, yet proud, Deputy Headmistress.

"As you very well may have saved Miss MacDonald's life, I cannot punish you."

A weight lifted from Katherine's chest.

"Thank you, Professor." said Lily, breathless.

"Mister Mulciber has been expelled as a result of Professor Giles being able to trace the trail of magic from the cursed necklace. Given the nature of these kinds of cursed objects, it still could have been much worse," said McGonagall, pointedly, "The wrappings have been removed from your dormitory, after everything you have shared with me here, is there anything else you think may be important?"

Katherine shook her head, seeing Lily do the same beside her.

McGonagall nodded, her lips still having not relaxed from their purse on the lawns, "If you find yourselves troubled by anything that you witnessed this morning, do not hesitate to visit me here in my office."

Katherine found her voice to chorus a response with Lily, "Yes, Professor."

"We will endeavour to keep this confidential, for Miss MacDonald's sake. I suggest you go about your day as if nothing is wrong. Your dormmates have been instructed to do the same,"

McGonagall took in a deep breath through her nose.

"That will be all,"

Katherine and Lily stood, their heads low under the weight of their morning.

A click of the Scottish lady's tongue followed Katherine and Lily out of the room.

Through the open door came a flash of green, Katherine glanced back to see McGonagall's face in the fireplace, "Rory, I'm afraid I have an update for you…"

"Come on, Katherine, we'll miss breakfast." Lily's words were soft. So was her arm that linked with Katherine's.

Together they returned to their dormitory, they silently dressed for the day, and together made the journey through the quiet hallways to the Great Hall.

The double doors all but vibrated open, and the entire school's voices spilled into the Entrance Hall, all but knocking Katherine and Lily on their backsides.

Everyone knew there had been some kind of incident – and that Mulciber had been expelled over it. That much could be deduced from the frantic whispering.

Katherine and Lily quickly made their way down Gryffindor table to find an empty place to sit.

"I thought I heard moaning and groaning from the grounds last night," said a strawberry-locked third year girl, eyes wide, "I didn't realise that it might have been someone in trouble…"

Frank shook his head as he finished chewing his eggs, "No, those were from the ghosts that haunt the shrieking shack."

"How do you know?" asked the young Gryffindor girl, reverently.

Frank gestured in the vague direction of Gryffindor Tower from the Great Hall, "From the boys' dormitory we have a clear view down to Hogsmeade."

Alice gasped, leaning closer.

"You saw the ghosts?"

James lifted his head from his porridge, bleary eyed yet suspicious behind his glasses, "What did they look like?"

"White, flapping about in the wind," Frank shrugged, shoving another fork-load of eggs into his mouth, "Standard stuff."

James nodded thoughtfully and returned to the hushed conversation happening between his own friends.

"You made the beds?" he said to Peter, head low.

Peter shook his head rapidly, eyes wide but half-closed, "I thought you made the beds?"

Black pulled his nose out of his coffee cup and put it down with a CLANK.

"I made the beds."

James and Peter turned to their friend.

"You made the beds?" asked James, his eyebrows just about hitting his hairline.

Black lifted his cup to his lips once more, haughty even given the hour of the day, "With a spell."

James regarded his proclaimed best mate with a large degree of mistrust.

"You didn't short sheet us, did you?"

Black blinked slowly, raising his eyebrows, "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

Without the conversation of the table proving much distraction anymore, Katherine found herself neck deep in her thoughts.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" came Lily's voice, a blessedly quiet sound against the roar of the hall.

Katherine hesitated before answering, "Do you think the same person who locked me in the cupboard – and the tunnel – attacked Mary?"

"Not sure. But it's most likely a Slytherin," said Lily, frowning, "Almost half their table was empty at dinner on the night you were attacked because of a burst pipe in the dungeons."

"What if it's your mate, Snape?" asked Marlene, eyes boring into Lily with false calm, "What then?"

Lily sighed, "I know you don't like him, Marlene… but he wouldn't have done this."

"To you, right?" said Marlene, "What about to Mary?"

Lily was quick to clarify, pointing, "That was Mulciber."

"Snape was right there with them in the days leading up to it, calling her a mud –" Marlene broke off at Lily's tight jaw, sighing. "I'm sorry, Lily, but he's not as good as you think he is."

Lily frowned, poking her porridge around and shaking her head, "You guys don't know him like I do…"

"What did Professor McGonagall say to you two anyway?" asked Marlene, not giving any indication she heard Lily's words on Snape.

Lily sighed, looking very heavy-eyed and pale from their early morning, "To carry on with our day as usual. To not give any sign that anything is amiss – for Mary's sake – so the whole school doesn't know about it by lunch."

"Hogsmeade then?" huffed Marlene, shaking her head, "Feels bloody stupid going though…"

"I should have checked it…" said Alice, breathily, staring aimlessly out the stained-glass window across from them.

Marlene shook her head, "We all thought it was from –" the girls' eyes all lifted to Pettigrew, then away again when he turned to glance in their direction.

"We better get a move on then…" said Lily with a glance at Katherine as she rose from the bench.

Marlene sighed, too standing, as she threw a glance to Katherine, "It feels rotten having to leave you behind after everything this morning."

Katherine gave a weak smile, shrugging.

Lily waved one last time as the three girls turned to leave, "I'll get you a sickly amount of sweets."

Katherine waved in farewell as her friends left for Hogsmeade, before redirecting her attention to her plate, and finishing her breakfast. It took longer than usual to gulp down the porridge, but after the hall was almost empty, Katherine too left and began walking aimlessly. The common room or dormitory didn't feel very appealing.

Evacuated en masse for the first Hogsmeade trip of March, Katherine had free reign to pace the Castle. She didn't realise right away that her feet were carrying her in the direction of her thought, to the Hospital Wing. To Mary.

She did not realise, however, that she was not alone early enough to avoid slapping chests with someone in the intersection of two hallways.

Remus Lupin lifted a hand to his surprisingly solid chest, "Going somewhere in a hurry?"

"I was… going to visit Mary…" said Katherine, feeling oddly private about it all of a sudden.

"Madam Pomfrey said I could lie down in the hospital wing, I'll walk with you," said Remus, gently nudging her into a walk beside him with his cloaked elbow, "We'd be safer together."

Katherine looked around, but fell into step with him, "You think we could be attacked?"

Remus frowned lightly, watching ahead, "Everything is different after this morning."

He had been visiting Madame Pomfrey for an invigorating draught when Giles and McGonagall had brought the girls up to the hospital wing. A Slytherin, of all people, had happened to look out of their common room under the lake and see the whole thing – alerting a teacher.

Katherine was assessed as fine after a warming charm. Mary, however, was being held to detect any adverse effects from the cursed necklace.

Katherine did her best to keep her curiosity out of her voice, "So…something like this hasn't happened at Hogwarts before?"

Remus shook his head, "It's supposed to be the safest place in the world…maybe there really is a war coming after all…"

"The last time was with Grindelwald in the forties, right?" asked Katherine, having done her reading since arriving at the school.

"He started an uprising in the twenties," said Remus, frowning, "He…he preyed on the oppression people felt under the statute of secrecy. He pretended that he didn't hate muggles but that they were 'the other', different. There was supremacy in being a witch or wizard. He said that we had to take care of the muggles because they weren't capable of doing so, they were baser creatures,"

Remus turned to Katherine with a smile.

"All untrue, of course," He sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets as they continued to stroll, "But the prejudice had been around since the witch trials, and it isn't that hard to tap into. It all leeched over into the persecution of muggleborns, Salazar Slytherin thinking they stole magic to infiltrate us and ruin us from the inside…"

He removed one hand from his pocket, blinking and waving it around as he went on.

"You-Know-Who, however, obviously isn't very keen on muggles and will use any means necessary to assume absolute power of the wizarding community and mobilize it against them. He isn't averse to recruiting half-bloods, giants, dementors, werewolves, vampires… so long as it gets done."

Katherine frowned as they walked, taking in all the new information. She found her eyes back on Remus; walking beside her, looking as if he might start whistling.

Feeling her eyes, Remus glanced sideways at her, "What is it?"

Katherine just smiled, sincerely.

"You should teach History of Magic."

Remus laughed deeply, cheeks pink, and just smiled back at her.

"What?" said Katherine.

Remus gently shook his head, "Nothing."

Katherine's eyes slipped over him like a worn in glove. She had done it surreptitiously many times during classes. He usually had a look of surprised optimism about him, but he had taken on the distinct look of someone who had been blasted square in the face by an arctic gale.

"Are you not well again?"

His lips smiled, but his eyes didn't dance; fixating instead on his cuffs that he compulsively straightened, "Being a Prefect with friends that aren't exactly the rule-abiding sort can do wonders for the depletion of an already weak constitution."

Katherine nodded, and in brief reprieve from their conversation, they walked, watching ahead without truly seeing. Katherine's mind turned back to the welcoming feast, all those months ago…

"Lupin?"

His eyes raised to her with a distinct guardedness, "Yes?"

"Being Prefect - I think it fits you better than it would Frank." said Katherine, remembering his own doubts he voiced at the table about his appointment to the position – from before she even knew him.

His cheeks pulled up, along with his ears, in genuine, though terribly bashful, grin.

Katherine met his eyes on a whim in their moment of amusement. In an instant, there was an inexplicable rush of unity between them. When she looked away, she felt his eyes on her still.

Remus opened his mouth, his eyes glinting, but then they flickered down and crinkled. He lifted a large hand to the hair hanging by her cheek and gently pulled.

Katherine looked down to his hand, a beetle fluttering on his palm. He moved across the hallway and gently set it down on the section of balustrade open to the elements.

"You're not fond of flattening them with books like your friends?" asked Katherine, observing his movements.

Remus smiled as he watched the beetle flutter in the wind, "I make it a point to not harm living creatures,"

The two slowed, the doors of the Hospital Wing looming.

"Katherine?"

Katherine glanced up, "Yes?"

"If you're ever truly allowed down to Hogsmeade –" Remus broke off, pointedly glancing down to her with a gleam to his eyes, before glancing forward again as they continued to walk, "Will you come with me?"

Hands in his pockets, he turned to her, the lightest of smiles playing on his lips and a questioning glint in his eyes –

"Just us." he clarified, tilting his head toward her.

Katherine's heart beat like a hammer in her chest. The remnants of the morning's adrenalin still thrummed through her. At the thought of the morning she had... it all felt very frivolous. Yet, wasn't it all the more reason to enjoy something like that?

Finally, she found her voice, and gave a pleased little, "Yeah.

"Yeah?" he repeated, eyebrows rocketing up –

"Mister Lupin?"

The pair jumped at the intrusion of the matron.

Madam Pomfrey turned to Katherine, "Miss Spencer?"

"I think I'm ready to lay down for a bit, Madam Pomfrey." said Remus, stepping forward.

Madam Pomfrey's frown lessened.

"Yes, yes, of course," she said, holding out a hand. Remus stepped into her hold, letting her steer him by the shoulder. "This way, my boy."

There was a loud CRASH, and then Peter Pettigrew sped out of the wing.

Remus stopped, undisguised confusion plastered across his face, "Pete?"

"Gotta go – sorry!" spluttered Pettigrew, wide watery blue eyes flashing around before he swirled out of the room in a blur of robes.

Madame Pomfrey shook her head primly, tisking.

Remus cast one last curious glance at where his friend disappeared, before he too vanished behind a privacy screen.

Pomfrey turned once he was on his way into one of the beds, her stern gaze on the only person loitering outside where her patients were resting, "And you, Miss Spencer?"

Katherine felt small, "I just came to visit Mary."

Madam Pomfrey's lips parted, and with a breath, she bowed her head.

"Very well," The words were soft.

Like a gatekeeper, Madam Pomfrey stepped aside and waved Katherine in the direction of a sectioned off bed.

"Be brief, she's just taken a sleeping potion."

Mary faced away from the window, eyes on a chocolate wrapper she was flattening out.

Katherine cleared her throat before she announced herself, "Mary?"

Mary's eyes shot up, her face like the moon with her hair pulled back in a plait.

"Katherine?" Mary sat up, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see how you were feeling…" said Katherine, locking her hands together and averting her eyes to the chair beside the bed, "So, how are you feeling?"

"Like I took a walk off the astronomy tower,"

Katherine was startled by the humour and looked up to find Mary smiling kindly at her. Mary laid herself back down, grumbling a little in pain.

"You didn't have to jump in after me, Lily could have summoned me. You could have died – hypothermia, they told me..." she said, looking newly concerned.

Katherine's mind went blank.

"Well, what if Lily couldn't do it – in the shock of the moment? I just…it was the right thing to do," Katherine managed, shrugging. "I would hope that, were it me, someone would do the same."

Mary's eyes began to flutter, "Thank you, Katherine."

Katherine sat and waited until Mary's breathing evened out before she left and continued her pacing around the castle.

Mary had come back from the scare about her father to her old self. Would she still be same again after this?...

Katherine didn't spend long on her own, as the torches lining the hallways had been lit, having to head down to dinner where her the girls greeted her once more.

Lily was in mid-retelling of their day when Rita Skeeter hobbled in; bandages wrapped around every inch of available skin, a neck brace flattening her bleach ringlets, and casts on both arms and one leg. But she was smiling as she was aided onto the bench at the Slytherin table.

"What happened to her?" asked Katherine, her awe stealing most of her voice's volume.

Lily still heard her.

"That happened just as we were walking up to the castle actually," she said, raising her eyebrows before frowning, "She had fallen – from her broom, I think – from one of the high windows on the east side of the castle."

"She was probably peeking in through the Ravenclaw dormitories," said Marlene from next to Lily, snorting, "Nosier than Bertha Jorkins, that girl… and a bigger gossip…"

Alice frowned down the table, "It's strange that Lupin isn't here yet... he didn't come down with the rest of us..."

"Probably with the rest of the hex-happy-brigade," said Lily, flinging her hair back over her shoulders, "Just this afternoon I had to report them to Slughorn because they pulled their wands on Avery and Severus –"

"Snape probably drew first." muttered Marlene.

Lily went on, unhearing.


Author's Note: You may notice that this story has been now marked complete – and at the end of this chapter, that it quite obviously isn't. This, however, will be the last chapter of Katherine Spencer and the Original Prophecy that will be posted on .

A number of factors ultimately led to this decision of discontinuing with this site; the tedious upload process, the lengths you have to take to correct typos when you inevitably notice them when re-reading a chapter, and the general unreliability of this site remaining up in the future.

It's not all grim news. This story, as well as any future stories I write, will be found on Archive of Our Own. I am on there as 'UrGurl99', and will probably have Chapter 21 up on there within the next week.

As I got my start on this site, this decision was really tough to make. Some of my favourite fanfiction works from the last fifteen years are on this site. I have had some of the most lovely, supportive comments – that I often go back and look at when I need inspiration – but I have also had some of the rudest.

I will keep my stories up on here, and my profile, for people who may want to come back to this story one day and may wonder where it went.

All my love, and thank you for reading,

Ur Gurl :)