Katherine-Mai sat next to Hermione who had only just arrived, a little later than others but it was okay because they were all still awaiting Professor Lupin to enter the room. The two muggleborns were discussing muggle music. Hermione was a fan of soft folk music, or French opera whilst Katherine liked good old fashioned classic rock. "Well, classic rock and David Bowie, but lets face it, he rocks anyway right?" She shrugged
"My dad likes David Bowie" Hermione mused. "My mum liked opera as well though. I suppose I grew to like it because she played it a lot"
"My dad and older brother like Rock, Sam wasn't as keen, Dean used to sing it to me when I couldn't sleep, or got scared and didn't want to be on my own" Katherine admitted to her friend who smiled a little.
"That's cute" Hermione told her, nudging her shoulder.
"I guess, course Dean would actually kill me if he found out I told people that" Katherine added with a grin of her own. She was about to add another comment when the door of the room blew open with force. But instead of their kind hearted usual defence against dark arts teacher, in walked the stern, frightful and downright mean potions master.
"Turn to page 394" Snape ordered. Katherine raised and eyebrow. This was going to be interesting, by that she meant Snape was going to abuse his chance to cover this class and somebody, possibly Harry, was going to say something that would rile Snape up before the class had actually begun.
"Excuse me, sir. But where's Professor Lupin?" Harry asked. And whomp there it was. It was a harmless question sure, but after three years Katherine would have thought Harry would have figured out that Snape very much hated him, and would take any chance to ridicule him, yet he still spoke without putting his hand up, something that Katherine-Mai had figured was a pet hate of his.
Snape glared at Harry, folding his arms slowly and dramatically "That's really none of your concern now, is it potter?" Snape spoke dryly. "Suffice to say, your Defence against the dark arts teacher find himself incapable of teaching at the present time. Page 394" she spoke again and this time nobody argued as they turned to the correct page.
"Werewolves?" Ron asked in confusion as Snape turned on a slide show, a picture of a horrific beast that Katherine knew all to well appeared.
"But sir, were still covering red caps and hinkypunks. We're not starting on nocturnal beast for weeks!" Hermione explained in confusion.
"Quiet" Snape snapped. "Now which one of you can tell em the difference between an animagus and a werewolf?" Snape asked, Hermione predictably raised her hand in the air, and was equally predictably ignored "Nobody, how... disappointing" Snape drawled and then, much to the surprise of many people the professor included, Katherine-Mai raised her hand. She never participated in his class he knew that, the talking she did in class was more to other people than answering teachers question. "Miss Winchester," her name was spoken almost condescendingly.
"Werewolves become what they are by getting bitten by another werewolf, or if both parents are werewolves chances are the kid will be as well. They're basically normal people most of the time, but on the full moon they become mindless beast, they kill because it's in their nature and because they can't control the blood-lust. Then they wake up the next day, and they seem human again. Most of the time they don't even remember what they've done. Anigami on the other hand become what they are through magic, it takes months to perfect or whatever. They train themselves, then there's a potion or something and then they can shift into an animal, it's usually an animal that represents their personality. Biggest difference is Animagi still have there own mind." Katherine spoke nonchalantly. Everybody looked at her with mixture of raised eyebrows, grins or shocked expression. "What? I can be smart if I try" She snapped at the class.
"Thank you Miss Winchester, although, with your families background I'm hardly surprised you know this" Snape sneered at her. If Katherine was wondering whether or not anybody was aware her family were hunters, Snape had just confirmed that he did. Should this concern her? Possibly. Did it? Not particularly.
"How'd you know that about Werewolves, we haven't learnt about it yet?" Hermione asked.
"Hey, you knew that too" Katherine defended as Snape started his presentation. Katherine drifted out however, thinking about her first lesson on werewolves.
~ 0 ~
Katherine-Mai Winchester climbed up on her older brothers bed. It was lumpy and squeaked with every movement but Katherine had slept on worse so she didn't mind. Dean looked at the eight year old girl who was dressed in one of their dads old shirts, using it as pyjamas. It completely swamped her. "Dee" She spoke the name she occasionally called him, just like Sam used to.
"Yeah Mai-pie?" Dean asked.
"What's your favourite monsters?" Katherine asked her brother who looked at her in surprise as she buried into his side.
"Not exactly bedtime story material Mai" Dean spoke with a sarcastic tone.
"I know Dean" She rolled her eyes "But I still want to know. Sammy's busy with school work and won't talk to me" she sighed. Dean nodded before thinking about her question, he had already come face to face with several monsters in his fourteen years.
"Werewolves" he finally answered.
"Why?" Was the next question that Dean had already seen coming.
"Because there classics. Classic horror film monsters and most of the stuff you know about them is true. There easy to kill as well, silver bullet to the heart and boom. No more werewolf. Only problem is most of the time they're as normal as... well maybe not as normal as us but there like everyday humans. Probably don't even know they spend there nights having chow time on their next door neighbours heart. Makes them a little difficult to track them down" Dean told the girl.
It was no use, Sam and Dean had learnt, hiding the truth from Katherine after she had figured it out. She was too stubborn and too nosey for that. Being upfront with her was the way to go because she had the Winchester temper when being lied to. It was utter betrayal and an eight year old giving you the silent treatment was harder to deal with than it sounds.
"But doesn't that mean their only monsters once a month? Can't they change and be good?" She wondered with child innocence, her eyes wide and innocent.
"They're still killers Mai, if a human killed somebody, you lock them away don't you? Take them away from rest of the people so they can't hurt anybody else. But with werewolves, you can't just lock them in prison because they'll get out and kill again" Dean told her. Katherine nodded, processing the information.
"Dean" she whispered, looking around before reaching up and wrapped her small arms around his neck tightly in a hug "I don't want to be a hunter, I don't want to hurt anybody" she confessed to her big brother near enough breaking his heart.
"Don't worry Mai-pie, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, me and Sammy, we'll look after you"
~ 0 ~
It was raining. In fact that was putting it lightly, it was a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning clashing above as if fighting over which one gets dominance over the sky. Harry Potter walked down into the common room, noticing everybody but one person had gone to bed. Curled up on one of the large arm chairs was Katherine. "Kathy?" Harry called, startling the girl who was writing some on a piece of parchment and a biro pen. "What are you doing up" He wondered as he walked over to her.
"Same question back" She responded with a tired smile as thunder clashed and Harry noticed she flinched.
"Are you okay?" Harry wondered. Katherine went quiet a moment before mumbling something. "What was that?"
"I don't like thunder and lightning okay" Katherine snapped with a slight glare. "I never have it just freaks me out." She sighed a little softer. Harry was surprised. "It's like, the only thing beside losing family, or having hem turn on me or something" She spoke "So I'm writing to Bobby, what's bothering you?" She asked Harry.
"Flying in this tomorrow, Sirius Black killing me, probably some third thing as well" He added on in the end jokingly. Katherine looked at Harry form where he had chosen to sit on the sofa next to her chair. She gave him a small smile before standing up and pulling him to his feet, giving him a tight hug.
"I'm not going to let Sirius Black hurt you" she told him sincerely as he wrapped his arms around her in return. "I would die before I let that happen" Harry believed her as well.
"I don't want you to get hurt either Kathy," Harry spoke as another bang of thunder rung though and he felt her body tense.
"Yeah well, I'll be fine, Fred and George have taught me some pretty cool jinxs" Katherine shrugged as she finally pulled away from their embrace "Plus I'm fairly certain Bobby would be willing to send me a gun to shoot him" She reasoned, making Harry laugh because he didn't doubt that for a moment. "I'll see you in the morning Harry" she smiled sweetly as she gave an awkward wave and ran up the stairs to the girls dormitory, Leaving Harry to grin stupidly to himself.
