I don't own anything you recognize. I'm a hooligan who plays with things that don't belong to me.
Chapter 11
Harry didn't take her to see the mirror again and she didn't go looking for it. Cat assumed he had taken Ron but did not ask what he had seen. The remaining days were pleasant and they lived as if in a little golden bubble, of cocoa by the fire in the common room, or snowball fights in the grounds. At Harry's and later McGonagall's insistence she played carols in the common room. Each one met with raucous applause by the twins. She accepted their praise and the conjured flowers thrown at her with a jaunty bow. McGonagall watched carefully, and was encouraged by the relaxed companionship between Harry and Cat.
But their little bubble was not to last, and as Cat predicted it was burst by a steaming scarlet locomotive, when it pulled into the Christmas card village station. Soon the snow which had resembled delicate icing sugar was now churned to slush by hundreds of shivering and chattering children lugging trunks out onto the platform and rushing to the horseless carriages. Cat awoke that morning to find the common room empty, Harry and Ron gone down to the platform to greet their friends. Tearing down the stairs a smile on her face Cat was greeted by the silence and emptiness of the room. It would not stay empty as term resumed and lessons began, and Harry was quick to greet her, and would chat in their Quidditch sessions, but she missed the time they spent together as friends and not mere acquaintances. She prepared to throw herself back into the search for Flamel with Hermione, but within a few days she abruptly stopped and could not be drawn on the subject. Their companionship in the quest was broken and with its loss so too her escape from the melancholy which threatened her.
A letter from her parents, returned at last from Italy did little to brighten her rapidly tumbling spirits, instead she was struck by another sharp pang as she realised how much she had missed them at Christmas and it would be June before she next saw them. She couldn't find it in her heart to blame her parents who had deserved the trip, nor could she blame Harry or Hermione for not spending time with her, they had their own friends and it would be selfish she thought to try to monopolize their company. Hermione still studied with her in the library and Harry spoke to her more than ever in Quidditch, even if he mainly discussed manoeuvres and seeker techniques if she had to replace him in a game.
The weeks flew past for everyone else but to Cat they seemed to grind along at a snail's pace. Each day a secession of magic she found too easy to find interesting, followed by idle gossipy small talk with Lavender and Parvati at meals. She found it strangely fascinating the way those two could have the same conversation day in day out. The characters in their little soap operas may change but the plot lines stayed resolutely the same. It was so boring. Flying used to take her mind off it the doldrums, but she was only allowed during Quidditch practise and as a reserve other than drills, it was mostly listening to Wood lecture at the team on and on. Repeating again and again the same slightly meaningless spiel he had the first time. Cat desperately sought something to relieve the boredom, other than drifting round the common room exchanging a word or two with the established groups before moving on to someone else. It was a wet Wednesday in early February when McGonagall asked her to stay behind after Transfiguration. It was the last lesson of the day and Cat had nothing to look forward to other than regurgitating their charms textbook as she had realised that was all that was required to get an O in an essay.
"Miss Edward's, do you know why I wanted to speak with you?" McGonagall had walked behind her large mahogany desk and was now fixing the blonde girl in her steely gaze. She racked her brain desperately for some missed piece of homework or library book which she'd failed to return. Hesitantly and without meeting her head of house's eye she shook her head.
"No professor." She said without taking her eyes from the carved lion paws at the base of the desk. She failed to see McGonagall's raised eyebrow at her timidity.
"Miss Edward's." She said more forcefully attempting to catch the eleven year olds eyes. "I have had a wee discussion with Professor Snape about your progress since your report." Cat looked up at her in confusion. "He has said and I quote: 'Miss Edward's is lazy, slapdash in her work and offers the bare minimum in terms of class and home work. She never offers answers to question unless specifically asked.'"
McGonagall removed the pair of wire framed spectacles from her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, a tension headache loomed whenever she had anything to do with the head of Slytherin.
"Catherine. I am spotting a recurring theme in your report. Your essay scores are second in class, you are certainly the fastest to grasp a new spell in class as I have seen and professor Flitwick assures me. Defense against the dark arts is producing a lot of anomalous results this year, but in all practical areas your results are passable at best and are pulling you down from the O's we know you are capable of to E's. Now it is in potions which you're practical work is at its lowest, I've had Neville Longbottom take tutoring from an older student which he appears to be responding well to. However, quite shockingly, Professor Snape has suggested that he would be willing to tutor you one night a week between now and the exams. He initially suggested I have it take the form of a detention but I do not think that will be necessary. Hmm?" Cat hurriedly shook her head. "Excellent you will go to his class room at seven-thirty. Do not be late miss Edward's. You may go."
Cat ate her dinner with mounting dread at the thought of spending more time doing potions with Snape. It wasn't that she was bad at potions, in fact other than Hermione she suspected she understood the theory involved better than anyone else in the class. The problem was she just felt too lethargic in that hot fume filled room. It was just so much easier to cut her ingredients however was easiest and stir the cauldron so the contents didn't stick to the bottom. The instructions, written in Snape's small spidery hand on the board, were so far away from where she sat in the back that it was far too much effort to decipher them for every step. She knew that apart from Neville she had the worst marks for her actual potions. She hadn't in fact brewed a successful one since the first lesson when she had sat at the front and had Snape breathing down her neck the whole time.
At seven twenty she left the common room and went to grab her potion kit. Hermione quickly asked her where she was going as it was only forty minutes till curfew and she took the House cup seriously. Cat told her that she had detention with Snape. Hermione bit her lip and looked worried.
"What is it?"
"Well…Just be careful ok." Hermione looked agitated and covered a large book which Cat recognised as a large treatise on alchemy that she had left on her bed side table over Christmas.
"Why?"
"Look," Hermione whispered glancing around. "You remember when Harry's broom started acting weirdly, in the match against Slytherin? Well it was Snape. He was jinxing it, we think he was trying to kill Harry so just be careful."
Cat couldn't get anything else out of her on the subject and she was running out of time so she left and hurried down the seven flights of stairs to the entrance hall before turning down towards the dungeons.
She checked her watch's glowing hands and cursed seeing it show seven-thirty-two. She quietly knocked on the door and peeped her head round the door. Snape had his back to her and was laying things out on the workbench at the front. "Are you going to stand their gawking Edwards or are you going to come in?" He turned and gave her a cold calculating stare. She hurried to obey and put her bags where he directed. "You've wasted enough time getting here so we shall use this cauldron, please don't waste anymore getting your own out." He implored her with a sarcastic wringing of hands and exasperated expression. "Come here and chop up these poppy heads as I show you." Cat reluctantly stepped to his side and watched his silver knife top and tail the stems with precise quick movements. "Thirteen yellow poppy stems three inches long. Go" Snape ordered pointing to the relevant line of instructions in the potion book. Cat glanced to the top of the page and read the potion heading. 'Chelidonium Miniscula, in small doses a mild sedative, larger dose may cause, vomiting, skin blistering, purple pustules, internal haemorrhaging and or death.'
"Lovely" Cat muttered as she began to cut the stems as he'd instructed. She worked in silence following the instructions as he gave them. She attempted to close herself off in the task and ignore Snape's snide comments on her potion making proficiency or lack of. It was gone nine when Snape ladelled a vial of the bubbling yellow liquid. He held it up to a candle inspecting the clear liquid before placing it in a rack and swiftly vanishing the cauldron's contents.
"Well Edwards now I really do have cause to give you detention." Snape sneered at her. What now? I followed every one of his instructions to the letter. "Clearly you are capable of following basic instructions therefore you have not been working to your potential in class. I must surmise that you are either lazy or lack the respect that I demand for my subject." He cleared away the ingredients as he spoke. "Your disrespect or idleness deserves punishment and correction do they not?" Cat didn't meet his eye or give any acknowledgement. Snape raised his eyebrow at her coolness. "Clearly the problem lies in your attitude; we shall continue your detentions Monday and Friday evenings at seven thirty in here. You are dismissed."
Cat was exhausted. She was almost leaning on Harry as the pair trudged back up the stairs to the seventh floor corridor. "You know how wizards can do magic right?" Cat grabbed at the bannister as they stopped for a quick breather.
"Yeah? That's kind of the point." Harry smirked while rubbing the condensation off his glasses. The pair were practically steaming in their sodden Quidditch robes as they made the long journey back from the Quidditch pitch and a long roundabout route back to Gryffindor tower, as it seemed every staircase in the castle was pointed in the wrong direction.
"You'd think that they could have put a lift in." He laughed at the idea of it. A magical castle with something as mundane as an elevator. "Seriously what if they had a disabled student in a wheel chair? How are you supposed to jump the trick step or go round the spiral stair cases in the towers on a wheel chair?"
She kept on about it all the way to the fat lady. Harry couldn't decide whether she was serious about the disability thing, or if she was just grouchy about two hours of Quidditch practise in the pelting rain followed by a long walk across the grounds and through the castle. What he didn't realise was that it was actually a clever gambit on her part. They'd had some bad news in Quidditch practise from Wood. Snape was refereeing their next match against Hufflepuff and now the pressure was all on Harry to win the match for them before Snape could take it away from them by favouring the badgers. Cat had seen how worried and tired he'd looked and had desperately grasped at a distraction to lighten his spirits. Her hard work at distracting him was wrecked by the walking insensitivity that is Ron Weasley. Ignoring their mud spattered robes, their drenched hair and drooping shoulders, the 'turbulent ginger' as Cat had taken to calling him behind his back, immediately asked how Gryffindor intended to 'crush the puffs?'
Harry immediately slumped and told his two friends about the sinister developments for the next Quidditch match. Cat perched on the sofa next to Hermione and ignored their exclamations and advice.
"Don't play!" Hermione paled. Cat raised an eyebrow, surprised that Hermione bought into this foolishness that Snape was trying to kill Harry. She tuned out of Ron's suggestion to break his leg and focused instead on the Dunkirk action off the board that Hermione's pieces seemed to be attempting faced with the onslaught and seemingly insurmountable positions from Ron's pieces. He was setting it up for a push for checkmate, and Hermione was just manoeuvring trying to avoid losing pieces. But he wasn't ready. His attack wasn't that subtle and clearly he intended to kingside-castle which would leave his queen free to go straight for checkmate. Cat leaned back if Hermione didn't stop it checkmate was three moves away. But that was still two moves to mess with him. Hrmn if she could force the king to move to avoid a check, thus cancelling its ability to castle, the queen couldn't be unleashed and Ron would leave his king exposed on the right of the board while all its defences were too far advanced to support it. She wrote three moves onto a scrap of parchment with the tip of her wand and slipped it into Hermione's hand as she stood up to go have a shower. She heard Hermione's whoop of triumph and Ron's accusations of cheating as she ascended the steps and let a smile split her features. So there Ron Weasley!
She swooped down from the subs bench as fast as she could fly. The wind tearing her blonde hair from its loose knot and sending it streaming with her scarlet robes. She pulled up just before the ground and tackled Harry in a gleeful tug. That was amazing, the fastest catch Hogwarts had ever seen. They had won, Harry had caught the snitch, they had won, he was amazing. As the team jumped and hugged and hoisted him on their shoulders these thoughts span in her head relentlessly filling her and every student with a lion on their chest with euphoria and pride at their association with the small messy haired boy holding the little golden ball aloft. She saw Dumbledore clapping sedately and in a dignified manner, until he caught her eye and winked. McGonagall was doing a far worse job of concealing her excitement clapping enthusiastically and shooting smug glances to Snape on his broom. She didn't see Ron or Neville but then she didn't see much for a few seconds when a blur of brown, careened into her much as she had Harry moments before. "We did it!" Hermione yelled. She surprised Cat with her excitement, the brown haired girl usually seemed uninterested in Quidditch, but then Harry's death-defying stunts had got them all a little bit worked up. Hermione showed this by hugging Cat who was nearest and then as soon as Harry's feet touched the ground again enveloping him in a rib crusher of his own. Ron joined them soon after, blood dripping down his face from a nosebleed. In the excitement she failed to find out who she needed to send the thank you card to for his injury. Harry was swept up and away to the castle in victory with the rest of the team. Cat was about to follow but then remembered the twenty year old Comet broomstick in her hand. Sighing she trudged across the damp grass towards the entrance to the stands broom cupboard. It had rained heavily this morning, and Wood had been worried about Harry's chances of an early snitch capture in such poor conditions. But the mist and drizzle had cleared by lunchtime and now there was barely a cloud in the sky. Cat smiled wryly while contemplating how unusual this weather was for Scotland or Britain at all for that matter. Odds were it would be weeks before they got such good flying weather again. Warm and clear with a few purple streaks on the horizon as the sun began dip towards the purple heather covered mountains. She turned to look at the castle, the hundreds of windows flashed golden in the early evening sun. It's great limestone walls and grey slates contrasting with the dark green and purple of the Scottish mountains behind. As she turned the panorama took in the lake. It was called the black lake, but Cat thought it was stupid as it never actually was black. It was either a steely silver or a dark green. Today instead it flashed golden like the windows behind it. She squinted and decided she must have fallen into one of the Manet paintings her mother loved so much, dark purple sky, orange water and purple mountains. It was all beautiful and all wrong. The forest at least was still green. Too intent on watching a giant flock of birds wheeling and dancing through the air like a shoal of sardines in the sea; she notice Harry's approach until he was right behind her.
"Hey Cat, you ok?" He pulled the door to the shed open, causing her to jump as her hand had been resting on the handle when she'd become entranced with the colours of the sunset.
"Oh yeah…fine thanks. Just admiring the scenery." She laughed nervously. Yeah because normal people stand still thinking that lakes shouldn't be golden and hills shouldn't be purple. "So you're still alive then. No creepy potion masters trying to kill you?"
"Not today, Ron thinks it was over too fast for Snape to make it look like an accident, I agree with Hermione though. She says that Snape wouldn't do anything to me with Dumbledore watching." Harry reached for a set of brushes and broom polish off the shelf above the broom racks and plopped himself down on the bench by the door of the shed. Cat continued to lean on her broom and gaze out into the distance unseeing consumed in her thoughts.
"Or perhaps more likely, he's not trying to kill you and Dumbledore asked him to referee to stop your broom being jinxed again."
"Maybe." Harry said with a noncommittal shrug while buffing his nimbus with a cloth. He loved his broom she knew, but she thought he was perhaps a tad overzealous when it came to its maintenance. After all would it really hurt its performance if there were a few fingerprints on the handle? "Talking of Snape; look who's coming this way." Harry pointed at a bat like figure taking long strides across the lawns. It was clearly Snape despite attempts to disguise his identity with a hooded cloak. "I wonder what he's doing in the forbidden forest." Cat had no answer for him but assumed he was probably going to look for some rare potions ingredient. Before she could even think of attempting to stop him, he'd mounted his Nimbus and was off towards the shadowy trees. What is he doing? It's forbidden that includes the sky above it I bet in McGonagall's eyes. Despite her misgivings Cat grabbed a school broom and gave chase. She focused on the spec of red ahead of her, swooping and darting above the tree tops. Harry begun to circle lower and lower as Cat pulled up to him. He was clearly searching intently for Snape and flapped his hand at her agitatedly to be quiet when she attempted to question him. Suddenly Cat caught the sound of voices. She turned her broom and flew towards a towering beech tree and alighted as quietly as possible in a branch. Harry alighted next to her and peered through the gaps in the leaves. They were both surprised at Snape's choice of company in the small clearing. Snape was stood in the centre of the clearing his hood down now and his black cloak pooling on the ground around him. Another figure picked his way through the dense undergrowth of ivy and ferns in between the tall trees. Professor Quirrell? Cat wondered why Snape was meeting the timid defence teacher in the forest. A glance to Harry's wide eyed stare told her there was more to this.
"… d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus…" Quirrell tripped but righted himself and smiled weakly at the dark figure in the centre.
"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private," said Snape, his voice icy. "Students aren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all." Harry leaned forward and Cat was worried he'd fall off the branch. Quirrell was mumbling something inaudible to the two eavesdroppers. Snape interrupted him. "Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?" Harry gasped quietly and Cat stared first at Harry and then at the two figures in the shade of the trees. Snape and Quirrell are trying to get what ever the Cerberus is guarding and Harry knows. Oh I bet that's what Hermione was researching Flamel for. He must have something to do with this philanthropist's stone thingy.
"B-b-but Severus, I —"
"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell," said Snape, taking a step toward him.
"I-I don't know what you—"
"You know perfectly well what I mean." An owl hooted loudly, and Harry nearly fell out of the tree. Cat grabbed his robe and held him steady. She was terrified of being discovered now. She steadied him in time to hear Snape say, "— your little bit of hocus-pocus. I'm waiting."
"B-but I d-d-don't —"
"Very well," Snape cut in. "We'll have another little chat soon, when you've had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie."
After the two figures had parted taking separate routes back to the castle, Cat turned to Harry who was sitting thinking deeply. "You should have told someone Harry. I'm sorry I didn't believe you about him. Perhaps Snape is actually a villain."
Couple more chapters for first year.
Thanks for the reviews. Moonstone 244 feel free to send me a message with tips for grammar and sentence structure. I could really use the advice not having done a great deal of writing before.