Summary: It was a broken down old building in an age of space travel and flying cars to every Muggle that saw it. It was nothing special, except to one curious girl with no past or future.
A/N: I discovered as I was writing this chapter that I had previously used plot details from DH, but was completely ignoring the Epilogue J.K. Rowling oh-so-sweetly added. Note the sarcasm with which that last part was said. Due to the fact that the Epilogue was one of the four points at which I hurled DH across my bedroom (The first three being the death of Snape, the death of Remus and Tonks, and the death of Fred, which was also accompanied by much crying and screaming and general threatening of J.K. Rowling's life.), I have decided to completely eliminated the Epilogue from any future consideration in writing this story. Have a happy read!
Katie was up in the astronomy tower one dark night, checking over her star charts with her ghostly professor, when she spotted a moving light far below. It appeared in the forest, drifting in and out of the trees for a few minutes before moving up the steep hills to the castle.
"What is that?" Katie asked, alarmed. Had someone from the Radicals found her? Her professor motioned for her to stay put and flew quickly down to investigate. Moments he reappeared beside Katie and herded her into the castle. The ghosts did not recognize the man coming towards the castle and had absolutely no ability to deter him. He was most certainly a wizard, and a powerful one at that. It was up to Katie to defend the castle against him if he was a dark wizard.
The ghosts, including Katie's professors, vanished silently as the castle doors opened. The young woman shrank back into the shadows as a young man entered the hall. He pushed shut the heavy doors and shook his white-blonde hair to knock out a few stray leaves. He extinguished the light from his wand.
With a silent command, Katie sent a binding spell at the young man. Thick ropes coiled around the boy before he could even realize that she was there. His wand clattered to the floor and rolled away from him.
"Who are you?" Katie demanded, stepping into the light, her wand pointed at his chest.
"Katie? Katie Bell? Is that you?" The man seemed surprised to see her. "You're alive."
Katie's jaw tightened, she didn't recognize this man, but he knew her.
"Bloody Slytherin," Oliver hissed, speaking for the first time.
"You know him?" Katie asked the figurine.
"Who are you talking to?" the blonde asked from the floor. He twisted around, trying to see what the small figure was. A small smile appeared on his lips as he recognized the small figurine.
"You still have that figure Oliver gave you? I would have thought that would quit working after a while," he said, relaxing against the ropes.
"You knew the real Oliver?" Katie asked. She eyed the man speculatively. If he had known about the figure and recognized her, then that would mean . . .
"He worked with Oliver and the others during the Revolution," Tiny Oliver admitted. "His name is Draco Malfoy. He's on our side."
"Never thought I'd see the day Oliver, even his miniature self, would vouch for me in anything positive," the man, Draco, chuckled from the floor. "Would you mind untying me? It's rather uncomfortable down here."
With a flick of her wand, the ropes vanished. The young man picked up his wand and stood. He allowed Katie to examine him for a long moment.
Draco was tall and slender. His blonde hair was bound back in a loose tail, a few tendrils touching his cheeks. The brown suit he wore was old and worn. Despite his haggard appearance, he held himself like one who was very rich.
"How've you been, Katie?" he asked when her gaze returned to his face.
"Okay, I guess," she answered nervously. A strange look crossed Draco's face.
"You don't remember me?" he asked. His grip on his wand tightened.
"I'm afraid not," she admitted. "I don't remember much of anything. The ghosts have been helping me relearn things I supposedly know and occasionally I remember something on my own, but I'm not even sure of who I am."
Draco regarded her with icy blue eyes for several seconds, as if trying to read her mind. Then he nodded and his grip relaxed again.
"I suppose it's only natural," he said finally. "You'd want to block out all of the horrible things that happened." With that he started down the hallway towards the dungeons.
"Wait!" Katie cried. She started after him. He paused long enough for her to catch up.
"Where are you going?" she asked. He kept walking into the darker passages of the dungeons.
"Slytherin dorms," he answered. "I left my stuff there before the last battle at the Ministry and I'm tired. This new-fangled transportation the Muggles have come up with makes getting any sleep impossible, and I'm exhausted."
"Oh." Katie stopped talking. She followed Draco as far as the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms.
"Look, I can help you with some of your spell work," Draco told her when he finally stopped walking. "But right now I'm so tired I can't think straight. That's probably why you managed to get me with your spell. I haven't been caught by that one in years." He ran one hand through his long blonde hair, pulling more strands out of the tail.
Katie blushed. Was he calling her spell weak?
"Don't look so irritated," he said, without really looking at her. "If you really can't remember a whole lot, then there's no reason for you to get upset over weak spells. You just need to get used to magic again."
He opened the passage into the common rooms.
"Good night, Katie, mini Oliver," he called as she stared after him. The entrance shut after him. Katie was left standing out in the dark corridor.
"Weak spells my arse," Oliver grumbled.
"Oh, hush. He's right you know," Katie told him. "It wasn't that good a spell. If he'd been expecting it I'm sure he could have dodged the thing."
Oliver just grumbled some more.
"At least now I have someone to practice flying with," she pointed out. Oliver just wagged his head from side to side in a gesture of defeat. He couldn't argue with that. He wanted Katie to fly so much.
The Next Day
The Great Hall echoed with footsteps as Katie walked down the length of the room towards the front. Off to one side of the dais was an open door from which emanated a warm golden glow. She poked her head inside to find Draco sitting at the table she usually ate breakfast at. He was talking to the Bloody Baron and looking over some papers. The Baron looked rather sad. He just shook his head before vanishing.
"Good morning, Katie," Draco greeted. He stood up. Katie stepped into the room, somewhat awkwardly. Oliver had told her so many awful things about Draco the night before. She wasn't entirely sure if she should trust this blonde stranger.
"I don't bite, contrary to what Oliver told you," Draco told her with a cheeky grin.
"What do you think Oliver told me?" Katie asked, wondering how much of Oliver's stories were true.
"He probably mentioned something about cheating on the Quidditch pitch and being a traitor in between muttering that I'm a sodding git," he guessed as he motioned for Katie to join him at the table.
Katie gave a short laugh.
"I'm right?" Draco's eyebrows raised in surprise. "I know him better than I thought." He shook his head.
For a moment they sat quietly at the table.
"I had been told that everyone died in the Battle for the Ministry," Katie tried finally.
"Really?" Draco looked at her. "Who told you that?"
"The paintings told me the day I arrived. They believe that because I was the first to show up after two hundred years," she admitted.
"I see."
"No," Draco said suddenly, "Not everyone died. I believe that at least ten others survived the battle. They were not among the dead."
"How do you know?" Katie asked curiously.
"Several of the ghosts you may or may not have seen floating about the place are ghosts from the battle," he confided.
"Which ones?" she asked breathlessly.
"I'm not entirely sure how many there are as I have not seen them myself," he answered. "I only know that the Baron has told me there are new ghosts from the Battle. Only one has spoken to him, Su Li. She says that at least ten people completely vanished from the battlefield when all seemed lost. She also made mention that she saw you there."
Katie's eyes widened.
"Me? But that's impossible! I'm not two hundred years old!" She stared at him in disbelief.
"She hinted that you had disappeared from plain sight after being handed something, something you clutched to your chest before vanishing," Draco revealed, his grey eyes sparkling with interest.
"Tell me, other than a name, what you had with you when you came to?"
The young woman shot him a look. "How do you know that I was unconscious as opposed to fully awake?"
Draco leaned back in his chair and regarded her quietly for a long moment.
"I was also found unconscious in the middle of a construction zone," he told her. "The workers assumed I was drunk and moved me to a hospital. Luckily I had landed on a semi-soft surface. When you were transported, you were unconscious and traveling in an upright position as I was. You fell and hit your head, didn't you?"
Blunt force trauma. The doctor's words echoed in her mind. When she'd woken up enough to tell them what she did know, her name, they had said that her memory would probably come back within a year. Six years later she had nothing more than a name and six years of new memories. Sometimes she had those brief flashes of memory, but usually nothing more.
When Katie finally looked up, she found Draco staring intently into her eyes.
"You did," he concluded. "What did you have with you?"
She reached up with trembling fingers to touch the necklace she'd been told had to be pried from her fingers when she was being treated. It had seemed so strange to the medics. The shape was strange and the symbols totally foreign. It seemed to be an old coat of arms. The necklace was a royal blue shield outlined with gold. Two curved bulrushes arched in opposite directions, yet intersecting in two places.
Draco caught the small charm between his fingers and examined it closely. He nodded as if the necklace had just confirmed his suspicions. The necklace fell back against Katie's chest and Draco sat back in chair. He did not explain.
"Su Li died fairly early in the battle, but stayed around the scene for some time to see if anyone would make it out. Comparing her accounts to the public records the Muggles kept of everyone who died, there are at least ten people confirmed surviving the battle," Draco continued. He moved the papers he'd been looking at over to Katie.
"These are the names and pictures of everyone who may have survived the battle according to the Muggles," he told her. "The Muggles kept these lists out for nearly one hundred years in the hopes of catching anyone. Some were actually killed later, but those have been crossed off."
Katie scanned over the lists. They were arranged alphabetically by last name. How the Muggles had discovered the names she did not know, but she did find herself on the first page. She did not recognize the picture, but she knew where it had been taken. It had been taken in London as it had looked two hundred years before. She forced her eyes away and continued looking.
Scanning further, she recognized several more people on the list, including Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, George Weasley, and Oliver Wood. Another Weasley named Charlie had also survived as well as a young woman named Hermione Weasley. Draco was about half way through the list of missing witches and wizards.
"If we survived, then it is possible that the others survived," Katie said softly.
"It's very possible," Draco agreed. "But if any of the others ended up with blows to the head like yours . . . " he trailed off.
Katie gazed down at the lists.
"But how did we get here?" she asked.
"It was a modification of a Port Key spell. Hermione and I were working together to find something that might save our kind if the battle went sour," he explained. "We were never able to properly test it out, we just had to cast the spell and hope everything worked out in our favour. From what I have seen, everything worked out well."
"Other than the fact that most of the people you and I used to know are dead?" she snapped, suddenly very upset.
"Katie, I'm sorry," he apologized.
"Don't worry about it," she said, abruptly standing up. For some reason, seeing all those faces she was supposed to recognize upset her. Without looking at her new companion again, Katie left the Great Hall.