"Hermione" Katherine called "Have you seen my perfume?" She wondered, walking into the girls room, towel wrapped around her body from the shower she had just had. "The vanilla one?" she wondered.
"Yeah, its on your top shelf" Hermione replied as she pulled a brush through her hair "Would you braid my hair for me?" Hermione wondered "A French plait?" She added.
"Sure thing" Katherine shrugged as she sat down behind Hermione on the girls bed and started brushing her hair after spraying some perfume onto her wrist and onto her clothes, not too much, just enough for people close to her to smell it. The two girls, both becoming more feminine over the past few weeks, put on some mascara but nothing more than that. "Ready?" she asked and the two walked down to the common room, joining the boys before walking to the great hall.
"So what do you think Lupins lessons will be like?" Ron wondered
"I think he'll be good" Harry replied with the two girls nodding in agreement. "I don't want to be late" he added as he took a final bite out of some toast and with his friends following, walked to the defence against the dark arts classroom. Katherine was happy to see that all picture of Gildroy Lockhart form the previous year had been removed.
It wouldn't have mattered either way, because they were soon escorted to the teacher lounge, a room barely any student had been in. The third years were cautious of the rattling cupboard in the corner of the room. "intriguing yes? Would any of you like to make a guess as to what's in there?" Professor Lupin asked the class, it was Seamus who answered
"That's a boggart that is" He replied.
"Correct Mr Finnegan, can anybody tell me what a boggart looks like?" The professor asked.
"Nobody knows" Hermione said, seemingly appearing out of thin air, however Katherine knew she was just arriving from her last lesson. "Bogart's are shape shifter's they take the shape of whatever a particular person fears the most, that's what make sit so-" Hermione was cut of with a nod
"Terrifying yes. Luckily a very simple charm exist to help deal with these creatures, lets practise it now, repeat after me. Riddikulus" he said and the class repeated, with a few snide remarks form Draco Malfoy of course.
The highlight of the class for Katherine-Mai was when Neville stepped forward, revealing Professor Snape to be his biggest fear, that itself wasn't too amusing to Katherine, she thought it appalling a teacher would cause so much fear in a student, what was funny however was seeing the boggart Snape dressed up in Neville's grandmother clothes big eagle hat and all. Next was Ron and his fear of spiders, before putting them on roller skates, then Pravati Patil and her fear of snakes. Person after person went until it was Katherine's go. She stepped forward. "Anyone curious to see if she has a fear at all?" Ron murmured to Harry, getting nudged in the ribs by Hermione.
The boggart changed almost instantly when Katherine walked in front of it. It changed into two people, one very tall with tan skin and jaw length hair, deep brown eyes and a sneer on his lips. The other slightly shorter but still over six foot, paler skin and green eyes that Katherine also had. His face was one of anger. "You freak" Boggart Dean sneered at her "Your nothing but a disappointment Katherine-Mai." he told her, his voice so cruel but still Deans voice.
"You think you're still our sister? You're no better than the things we hunt. You're better off dead, I wish you were dead" Boggart Sam snapped at her. "You should have died in that fire Katherine" he told her
"Our lives would have been better, now look at you, performing magic? Like its normal? What the heck is normal about that you freak. What makes you better than the creatures we kill" Dean said. The class was watching with wide eyes now, confused at the tone of the conversation. But most eyes were on Katherine who was so pale, hand shaking and tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry" she said "I'm sorry, Sammy, Dean, I'm so sorry, please" she begged with the fake selves, no longer being able to distinguish them from the real and fake selves.
"Nothing Dean, nothing makes her better than any other monster. Because that's what you are now Katherine-Mai. Just another disgusting, hell ridden monster. That's why you have to go" he smirked holding up a gun and pointing at her, a few of the people familiar with the muggle contraption gasped, and people physically winced at Katherine's scream of no until Lupin stepped in front of her, his boggart turning into an orb of sorts, yelling the curse so the orb burst like a balloon before going back into the closet.
"Class dismissed" he called and people left quite quickly, other than Katherine, Hermione, Ron and Harry. Hermione walked over to Katherine and pulled the girl into a hug, Kathy's arms staying by her side as she just sobbed endlessly onto Hermione's shoulder whilst the two boys watched. "Katherine" Lupin said softly, the girl looked up, hiccupping slightly as she wiped her eyes. "Here" she said, handing her some chocolate. "I'm sorry" he told her "I should have realised that some people's fears would be more potent than other's I myself didn't learn that until OWL year" he admitted "it was now a third year subject because the spell work was easy, but the mental and emotional strain varied with each student. Miss Granger, can you please escort Miss Winchester to madam pomfrey" he asked the girl. "You two should get to you next class" he added to Ron and Harry.
"Hey, it'll be okay Kathy, it wasn't real. Your brothers wouldn't really think that" Hermione whispered to the girl. "Your okay now, your safe" she said. It was odd, she thought, facing people like Voldemort, things like werewolves and creature in the forest and Katherine had no problem, she laughed in the face of danger, literally on occasion, but being faced with her brothers, the mere idea of them hating her, and she was a different person, she looked like a broken little girl and it broke Hermione's heart.
Madam Pomfrey, ever the worried mother over all the students, immediately made a drink of hot chocolate and a Perk-Me-Up potion. "You'll be okay dear" the matron said "Miss Granger, you get to your class, here a note explaining your tardiness" she added "Miss Winchester, I'm dismissing you from your classes for the rest of the day" She added. "Go get some rest" she added with a stern look.
But Katherine could sleep. She changed into different clothes, folding her school uniform up and putting it away for the next day, slipping on some black skinny jeans and a black shirt with the white words 'killing it' across the chest area, but pulling on a Gryffindor varsity jacket she had purchased the year before, doing it up and covering the words in the process.
One thing about Hogwarts is that their was no secrets, not really. Within the hour, near enough the entire school knew about what happened in that DADA class, about how Katherine-Mai Winchester broke down in front of a class due to a simple boggart. As she walked through the halls of Hogwarts a few people sniggered at her. Surprisingly it was Draco Malfoy that got them to shut up and leave her alone, a small nod of the head told her they were even now, she helped him, he helped her. They could go back to hating each other again. Katherine walked over to Fred and George who were sat in the quidditch bleachers, she took a seat and pulled her knees up to her chest "Hi guys" she said.
"Hey Kathy" the replied in unison "You okay?" Fred asked and she nodded.
"Well we don't believe you, but we'll pretend to" George said, handing her a bottle of butterbeer. "Want to fly?" He asked
"I don't have a broomstick" She shrugged
"You can use one of the school ones, there awful, but still" Fred said
"Well since you sell it so well" Katherine laughed, the three went and grabbed there broomsticks soon up in the air and flying across the sky, each with a bat and just trying to hit one another right a bludger, it was quite fun.
~ 0 ~
Of course Katherine decided to act as if that lesson never happened from the very next day, ignoring any sympathetic looks and choosing to act as her usual self. After a week people stopped trying to bring it up and conversation had switched to other topics of gossip since.
Once of Katherine's highlights was when receiving mail form Bobby, since it was her only contact with the world outside of Hogwarts, and on the morning of November the 29th was one of the days she got a piece of mail.
Mai,
You doing alright? No funny business? Your friend Harry still alive? Everything here is doing good, been a bit quite to be quite honest, it's bothering me. Something's coming, something big and you best be ready for it, cuz no doubt any crap that hit's the fan here will travel onto your world. Anyway, got to keep this brief since Rufus needs help getting bail again.
You still coming over for Christmas, might have to leave for a couple days, your choice if you want to come.
Bobby
It was brief, to the point and very Bobby. She smiled at the letter. "What are you all doing for Christmas?" Katherine wondered in reflection to reading the mail.
"I should be going back home" Hermione answered
"Staying here" Harry and Ron both replied.
"Okay, come on, even I don't talk with my mouth full Ron, and I'm not exactly a good example of manners am I?" Katherine said to the ginger.
"Your manners are pretty good actually" Hermione told her
"Why thank you" Katherine grinned
"You're welcome" Hermione replied. "You ready for the hogsmeade trip this weekend?" She asked and two out of the three she asked nodded
Hermione and Katherine decided that hogsmeade trip was the perfect time to go shopping for everybody's Christmas presents. Leaving Ron to trail behind them at a snails pace "I just want to go to honey dukes" Ron said
"And we will" was the reply.
"Boys" Katherine said, rolling her eye with a scoff. "Come on, lets get Harry something"
