The dream returned for Kate that night. It was the same scene. The before, the during and the after of the ceremony in which the hat spoke to her. She woke at the same time as well. The instant her eyes touched Harry's she burst out of the dream, gasping for reality.

Something had been different. Just what, she was unsure of.

What in the world could be so damn important that her subconscious forced her to relive it over and over again? What was it that happened that night that she was missing, unable to see?

She sank back into the pillows, fuming. That's it, she snarled to herself, I'm done. I no longer care what it was that happened. Who the hell cares? It's over and done with.

And with that, she slowly sank back into sleep. As she was dosing off, her eyelids becoming increasingly heavier, a sudden thought occurred to her.

Hermione wasn't ditsy.

OooooooooO

Madelyn's room was all the way down the hall on the left. It took Kate only a second to dash there, but it seemed longer. She had to stop herself from shouting: "I've figured it out, Maddie! I know what's bothering me!"

She didn't bother knocking, as she was sure Madelyn was still fast asleep. Sure enough the sound of snores tumbled around the silence of the bedroom when Kate entered.

"Mad," Kate hissed, creeping over to her bed and poking her arm. The snores hesitated and quickly resumed as Madelyn went back to sleep. "Madelyn," Kate repeated, poking her hard in the arm.

"What?" Madelyn barked, "and it had better be good."

"I know what's been bothering me about my dream! I know why I can't stop thinking about that night!"

"Oh?" Madelyn asked, unconcerned and uninterested. "Is that so? Well, then, bully for you."

"Madelyn, listen to me!" Kate whined.

Madelyn grumbled loudly but sat up like a good girl and wiped the sleep from her eyes. "You have my undivided attention," she announced.

"In my dream I plop the hat on my head and it starts talking to me," Kate began. "I hadn't even really noticed anything was different until tonight when I had the dream again."

"What was different?"

"Nothing, really, I just thought of something I had never thought of. Usually I can hardly remember what the hate is saying to me, but now I figured out what it was!"

"What?"

"It said that mum was ditsy! Mum is the least ditsiest person I know!"

"The hat is old, Kate," Madelyn reasoned. "It probably got you mixed up with someone else, that's all. Now, go to bed. I have a job interview in the morning-"

"But-"

"Bed! Now! Be gone from my sight!" Madelyn flopped back against her pillows dramatically and rolled over, away from Kate, who sighed heavily and left the room.

She was walking down the hallway when she noticed that a soft glow was coming from the outside of her brother's room. She stopped and knocked on the door.

"Erm, yes? What is it?"

"It's Kate," she replied, and waited.

"Oh, alright, come in."

Kate pushed the door open.

Of her two siblings she was most alike to her brother. The two of them were both quiet and studious, focusing on their school work rather than their pairs. Being left alone without company was always a blessing. They had taken after Hermione the most. Madelyn was definitely channeling her father in that she couldn't sit still, she was loud, popular, outgoing, friendly, gorgeous. She had everything and didn't need books when she had looks, or as she so often stated to her mother. While Kate and Max had been planning Ministry jobs since they were in diapers, Madelyn was always thinking outside the box. She was obsessed with being famous.

"Hey, what's up?" Max asked, hastily shoving something into the drawer of his desk. He gave Kate a nervous smile.

"Nothing," she said, sitting down on his bed, staring subtly at the desk drawer. "I just had that dream again."

"Ah," Max said knowingly. Everyone in the Weasley household was well aware of the dream that regularly plagued Kate's sleep. She had been having the same dream for almost five years now.

"I realized something tonight," she continued, fiddling with a whole in her pajama pants. "The hat said that mum had been ditsy."

"Ditzy?" Max repeated, looking thoughtful. "That's odd."
"Indeed," Kate agreed, staring hard at him. "I think that may have been why I woke up. I'm not sure though. I can never remember it. I always forget by the time I'm fully awake." She shook her head. "It's so frustrating!"

"I can imagine," Max said. Kate turned to him curiously. Usually he wasn't so agreeable and tried to tell her that she was being a bit foolish and should be thinking logically. Kate always had crazy ideas for what her dream meant. Some of them were far-fetched, while others were more logical.

"What's your problem?" Kate snapped. "I usually have to fight with you for an hour before you see my point."

"Nothing's the matter," Max snapped, suddenly becoming more himself. "I was just trying to get you the hell out of my room."

"My, did I touch a nerve, perhaps?" Kate retorted. "I didn't realize you didn't want me in here. I'll just leave you then."

"Good," Max snapped, sitting back in his chair and raising his eyebrows at her. "Leaving?"

"Snob."

"Brat."

"'Night."

"'Night."

Kate slowly closed the door over, leaving it open just as slightly as she had found it. As she peered with interest through the crack she saw Max take a Muggle type writer out of his drawer, slide a fresh piece of paper in it and begin to type.

She shook her head and went back to her room. Probably a report for work, she told herself, climbing back into bed. Why then, had he been so secretive about it?

OooooooooO

"What a freak!" Madelyn exclaimed over breakfast the next morning.

"Keep it down, big mouth," Kate snapped and shook her head. "Don't be so loud!"

"Why was he hiding the type writer?" Madelyn asked thoughtfully. "Must be something he didn't want you to see."

"Oh, it was probably just a letter to You-Know-Who," Kate said.

"Probably," Madelyn agreed. The lines on her forehead cleared and she concentrated on her waffles. "Dad comes back, you know. Today. I think around one."

"Good, mum misses him," Kate said happily. "I can't wait to see what he bought from Bulgaria."

"Hopefully a single, yet dashingly handsome twenty-two year old Seeker his daughter could date for a little bit," Madelyn said sighing dreamily. "Could you imagine if he actually brought home Fletcher Howard? Oh, I'd just about die!"

Fletcher Howard was the newest Seeker for Ireland. He was red haired, green eyed, and, according to Madelyn, " Only the hottest man to roam the Earth!"

Kate shook her head. "What about Louis?"

"Boooring," Madelyn chorused. "I can not stand another minute of that boy! All he does is cling, cling, cling! 'Madelyn, where are you going?' 'Madelyn, why were you kissing Devon?' 'Madelyn where did you disappear to for an hour after the Seventh Year Ball?' I mean, come on! I'm young for cripes sake! Let me live!"

"Oh, my God, what a nightmare!" Kate cried sarcastically. "To think, a young, gorgeous boy had interest in you and you alone and only wanted to spend time with you! Does his mother knows how he acts? We should inform her to what a terror she has raised. Quick, before he sweet talks another girl into his web of patience and unwavering love."

"Look at that mood!" Madelyn snapped. She had been caught off guard by Kate's rare snip of sarcasm. She had always been pretty straight forward in everything she had said. "He's just…." She broke off, shrugging.

"Yeah," Kate said, knowing what her sister said without her having to do so. The front door opened and closed again. "Dad?"

Silence.

"Dad?" Madelyn called.

Nothing.

"Hello?" Kate called, getting up from the table and walking over to the front window. She watched her brother's retreating back walking down the yard. She followed him with her eyes until he turned off down the road. He had something in his hand, something she couldn't make out.

"Where's he going?" Madelyn demanded from behind Kate, causing her to jump and spin around. "Sorry," Madelyn said, not looking at Kate but focusing on Max as he walked down the yard. "Why is he so secretive all of a sudden?"

"I don't know," Kate said, shrugging. "Probably because she broke up with him. He's really bummed about it you know."

"I know," Madelyn said snorting. "Who knew that she would leave him for his best friend? Sucks for him, though. They'll all get over it, though. I'm just glad someone came and took her away from this family."

"Madelyn, she broke up friends!"

"Eh, so what? Did you really like Ronnie?"

"No," Kate grudgingly admitted. "Still."

"So you said he had a type writer up there?" Madelyn asked, edging towards the stairs.

"Yup," Kate said. She turned slowly towards her sister, realizing exactly what she meant. "Oh, Maddie, we couldn't," Kate whispered.

"And why not?" Madelyn reasoned. "What if he was planning on doing something stupid?"

"Like…?" Kate asked, waiting for an answer.

"Like quit his job here to move to America to be closer to that whore-sack. Or maybe he was writing us a suicide note."

"Don't say that," Kate snapped. "And would he really write us a typed suicide note? Dummy."

"He won't even know," Madelyn snapped back. "He never said that you couldn't look at it."

"Yeah, but-"

"You are such a goody-goody Kate! I bet you'll be mummy's favorite baby girl. A perfect, primpt daughter that they didn't get with me. I bet you'll even stay a virgin until you're married, won't you?"

Kate's cheeks flushed bright red as she turned to face her sister.

"I am not a goody-goody," she snarled, her entire body shaking with rage. "You're just a bitch."

"Nice," Madelyn said, impressed. "I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't meant to come off as such a spoiled baby. Please, forgive me? Sister Love?"

"Yeah, alright," Kate conceded, shrugging awkwardly.

"We don't have to look at his type writer-"

"No! I want to," Kate said, dashing past her and heading up the stairs. Madelyn smirked at her sister's retreating back. Both she and Kate knew that she had set everything up entirely. She knew the right buttons to press with Kate, and the fact that she was basically swayed to whatever Hermione and Ron had asked was always a sore spot between the sisters. Madelyn knew that Kate didn't like to talk about it, and the fact that she had brought it up and used it against her stung Kate.

Max's room was always spotless and silent. Even when he was inside it it always reminded Kate of a library. The walls were filled with bookshelves that held hundreds of books. Grecian fairy tails stood next to books about the Second War. Muggle story books stood next to First Year Spell books.

"What a geek," Madelyn said, snorting. She walked over to the desk and looked through it. Kate smiled at her absolute nosiness.

Their fight had been forgotten. Madelyn was like that, and Kate knew it. She had known all along what her sister was doing, just what she would say was always a mystery. Like it or not, one was usually trapped into doing whatever Madelyn wanted simply by her making someone feel incompetent, etc. Kate saw it as the norm, as she was used to it, but for those who were new to it (those same who were not even aware that they had been trapped) saw it as Madelyn being a big bitch, which she could be at times.

"What drawer?" Madelyn called across the room.

"Last," Kate said, nervously staring at her sister open the drawer and pull some papers out. "What is it, Maddie?"

Madelyn was staring at the papers, completely perplexed. She looked up at her sister, her eyes dancing in the light. Her eyes resembled Kate's in many ways. It was a hazel color, a mix between their parents, Kate supposed.

"Maddie?"

Madelyn bent her head down to read. She gasped, though laughing as she did so, looking up at her sister. "It's dirty," she hissed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Here, read it."

"No way," Kate said, staring at the papers in her sister's hand in horror. "You read it, I'm fine." Her cheeks had turned a bright red.

"Alright, I will," Madelyn said, clearing her throat and jerking the paper in front of her. She turned to Kate one last time and opened her mouth and began reading. "'Isabella gasped in pleasure, Nathan moved down her stomach to her-'"

"Stop!" Kate cried. Madelyn read on, nevertheless. "Oh, I can't listen to this, Madelyn! Cut it out."

She dropped those pages and picked up another stack of them and avidly began to read them. She didn't make a sound for a long time. Kate couldn't remember a time in which her sister had been so still and silent.

"Kate, this is really good," Madelyn said, tuning to her sister, wide-eyed. "Mind you, he writes about two muggles, but it's…great."

"Let me see," Kate said, snatching the paper out of her sister's hands. She began to read and saw that what her sister said was true. Max wrote with such a flow that it was almost as though he was standing over her shoulder narrating it himself.

They each took a part in the book and began to read about a young couple, Isabella and Nathan who married young and were working out their lives, adjusting to being married.

The front door opened and shut.

"Shit!" Madelyn hissed, snatching the papers and shoving them back into the desk drawer. Kate hastily neatened them back out, knowing that they had been caught. Max would see that they weren't in the order her had left them in when he left the house. They managed to hop onto his bed just as he opened the bedroom door. He froze when he saw them.

"What're you-" He began, stopping when he realized what they had been doing. He flushed a bright red, but said nothing. "Do you need something?"

"Nope," Madelyn said, getting up. "Just like the quiet of your room. Great place to come and read." Max's gaze flickered to his desk, the drawer not fully closed. His cheeks got redder.

Kate had been prepared for him to hex them both to smithereens, leaving their mother to clean it up again. However, her brother seemed too embarrassed to say anything. He figured if he pretended that he didn't know what they had been doing in his room, that they would do the same for him, or so he had been hoping when he realized that they had been going through his things.

"Well, I have applications to fill out," Madelyn said, clapping her brother on the shoulder as she left. She smirked at him before flouncing down the hallway.

"Max, I'm sorry," Kate apologized.

He didn't respond. Finally he raised his gaze to her.

"Well…what did you think?" he asked. Kate was taken aback. Her brother was a very private person. She had seen him with his shirt off only once, and that was when it was ninety-seven degrees outside and she had been six. She could never remember a time when he had sat down with her and asked her opinion about anything, unless he wanted a debate he could win.

"It was-" Max sucked in his breath and waited nervously. "-brilliant," she finished. "I didn't know you could…write like that! That you had so much creativity inside of you!"

"Really?" Max said excitedly. "Can I tell you something that you have to promise you won't tell Big-Mouth?"

"Of course," Kate said. Unlike most sisters, Kate and Madelyn's sisterly bond only went so far. Madelyn told Kate anything and everything knowing that her secrets would go with Kate to the grave. However, Madelyn couldn't trust herself with a secret. It bubbled inside of her, bounced around her mind, distracting her thoughts. It whispered things to her. 'Tell someone. They won't mind.' Finally, with no free will, she would spill the secret, a feeling of relief not far behind.

Kate did tell her some things, but not crucial things. Madelyn had even asked Kate never to tell her anything she wouldn't want others to know.

"I sold it today," Max said, looking proud of himself. "That's where I was. I Apparated into London and dropped it off at my publisher."

"But, Max…" Kate said, frowning, "what about your job?"

"Well," Max said, "if I can make money being a writer, then I'll quit my job. You don't understand," he snapped, trying to explain. Kate's face had seemed disbelieving and stunned. Where had this passion from her brother arrived? She couldn't remember him ever mentioning how much he loved writing. "I've been writing short stories since I was seven. I love doing it. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do than write stories. See, Muggles think that my just writing about our family, our dull little family, is the most interesting of all! See, Isabella and Nathan seem like normal people in the beginning, but as time goes on, you learn that they're wizards…" He stopped. "What do you think mum and dad are going to say?"

"Well," Kate said, sighing. "Mum is going to tell you not to be so silly, that writing isn't a proper job. And dad is going to tell you that if it makes you happy, then it's what you should be doing."

"That's what I figured," Max said. He turned to Kate. "Thanks for listening."

"Of course," Kate said. "It's all I can do…you know, with the whole…girlfriend thing."

"Yeah, can we not talk about that, please?" Max looked down at his hands. "Sorry I was so abrupt with you earlier this morning, when you came in looking for company. I didn't mean to shove you out like that."

Kate shrugged. "It's ok," she said.

"I was thinking about what you said, though," Max said, leaning back against his desk, "about the hat talking to you. You said it told you-"

"That mum was a bit ditsy and completely stubborn," Kate finished for him. She thought about it. The memory was fuzzy and felt odd to think about, as though she had been witnessing it many times before. She had, but it felt different when she thought back upon it. Something had happened.

"You're right," Max said. "Mum is pretty level-headed."

"Exactly."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Max said shrugging. "Has anything really bothered you because of it? Maybe that it the part of the dream when you dream something that wasn't supposed to be there. Can you remember everything that happened during your Sorting?"

Kate opened her mouth to exclaim, "Of course, silly!" but stopped herself. In fact, it wasn't exactly clear what had happened. She remembered walking up to the stool, her heart pounding furiously in her chest. She remembered sitting down. Then….she remembered the hat talking to her…but-no, that wasn't right. Something about it wasn't right.

"Of course," Kate said, bringing a smile on her face.

"Well-"

"Listen, I'm hungry. I've got to go get ready. Mum is coming to pick me up and bring me to work with her today just after lunch. She's trying to get me in the back of everyone's minds before I get out of school."

"Oh, well, alright. Hey, don't tell her about-"

"I won't," Kate assured him, "but Madelyn will first chance she gets."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Max said, frowning thoughtfully. "I'll just tell mum and dad she was the one who set off the dung bomb in the house last week after their fight. They won't even think about me after that."

Kate wrinkled her nose. The smell had just recently left the house last night after Hermione and furiously zapped at the walls, lemon spray and rainforest mist seeping into the walls. Now the house smelt faintly of disinfectant.

She bid her brother a lovely afternoon and headed to Madelyn's room. She was listening to her Muggle tape player, her head bobbing around to the beat as she painted her nails, lying on her stomach. Her hair was in two high pigtails and she was currently in an oversized, unbuttoned plaid shirt, a grey/green wife beater and tan shorts with white socks on.

"Just so you know, if you tell mum or dad about the thing in Max's room, he's going to tell them that you sent of the dung bomb," Kate said.

Madelyn's mouth dropped open. "What a little brat!"

OoooooooO

The halls of the Ministry were spotless, freshly painted and polished. Kate's heels clicked merrily against the floor as her mother led her down the fifth floor.

"Now, I only have a bit of paperwork to do before I take you on a tour," Hermione informed Kate, leading her over to the seat across from her desk. "I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," Kate said. As if she needed another tour of the Ministry. She had only sat through about a hundred of them. She gave her mother a smile.

She was actually hoping she could slip away from her mother and check out the Room of Records, which contained just about everyone's birth records, school records, job records, etc. It was Kate's favorite room in the entire Ministry. That and the sweet room, just down the hall.

"Ok, Kate, let's get a move on," Hermione said twenty excruciating minutes later. Kate's head snapped up off her shoulder and she turned to her mother blearily. She wiped a line of drool off her face and smoothed down her skirt.

"Awesome, let's go-"

"Mrs. Granger-Weasley, I'm so sorry to burst in like this but Harvey Harding is having another meltdown in the…room. He says he's going to quit!"

"Oh, not again!" Hermione snapped, rushing past Kate. She dashed out of the door, leaving Kate in silence for a moment. She poked her head back in. "I shouldn't be more than ten minutes, wait here!"

With that she rushed from the room, the sound of her heels bouncing off the walls. Kate sighed and heavily slunk into her seat. She wanted to give Hermione a head start before she started off down the same hall. Her father had let them know he wasn't going to be back before nine tonight. Hermione had been disappointed, but also happy that Kate would be more focused on her interviews.

Kate got up and headed down to the Record Room. As always it was silent inside. She crept over to the familiar area of W's and scanned for her family record. Yanking the heavy volume out of the drawer, she stumbled over to a table and sat down.

When she had been younger Max had introduced her to the room. He had taken her there one day when he was forced to entertain her for a couple of minutes while Hermione fixed another mini-disaster in her department.

Kate opened the book and turned to the middle of it. Her grandfather's name was proudly declared across the page: Arthur Weasley, pages 3-7. She flicked through it, the words familiar. She hadn't been here in over a year.

Her grandmother's was the same length as her grandfather's. These records were made after the second War, mostly to catalog those who had survived. Whenever anything changed within the families, a very old, very feeble witch would take the paper and record it into the family log.

Secretly, Kate had always wanted to be her. She knew everything about everyone. Who wouldn't to know that the Parkins's uncle Albie had a child out of wedlock with a twenty-year old waitress at the Hog's Head? That was valuable information right there.

Finally, Kate got to Ronald Weasley's name. She smiled as she flipped the page. Ronald Weasley was born in March of 1989. He was the second youngest of seven. Older brother to Ginny Weasley (d.) and younger to five brothers: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George Weasley. He married Hermione J. Granger (see Granger and Weasley, Hermione) in 1997. They have three children: Max (20) (see Weasley, Max), Madelyn (18) (see Weasley, Madelyn ), and Katharine (16) (see Weasley, Katharine).

She scanned her brother's page. With a sickening sensation she saw that his profession had already changed from "Auror in training" to "Author/Auror in training."

"Lucky no one else comes in here," she muttered to herself, turning the page. She came upon Madelyn's page and glanced at it briefly. Her birth certificate was in the pocket on the side. She flicked to her own page, which she had always gone to right away.

She had always concentrated on her summary, though brief. She loved to read the updates and to see if she could cheat and tease the book. Once, she had succeeded. She had convinced herself that she was going to go home and train to be a professional closet-cleaner. The old witch ambled over, only to see Kate's stunned face. She had swore angrily and glared at Kate before going back to her chair, mumbling about kids these days.

This time she had a few extra minutes to spare and opened the old folder which held her birth certificate. She scanned it and smiled. It was the same one her father had shown her years earlier. She unrolled it, only to have another piece of parchment fall onto her lap. She frowned.

Baby Weasley. Born April 11, 2001. Time of birth: 6:00pm. Weight: 9lbs, 4oz.

Kate frowned. That was her birthday. She scrambled to unroll the birth certificate with her name on it. She scanned it deftly. Finally, she found what she had been looking for, what she had so often missed.

Reinstated: April 12, 2001, by Ronald Weasley.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and frowned.

Why had her birth certificate been reinstated? Why, if the other one was the original, why hadn't she been named? And why weren't her parents names on the original?