Hello !

The chapter comes a bit early because I'm going to London tomorrow and won't be able to publish from here. Also, since my computer is dead, I'm publishing from my mobile so I'm sorry if I left some mistakes, I will fix it as soon as I come back on Thursday !

Hope you'll enjoy it anyway !

8. Blood in the glebe.

Small whispers were rustling around her head, as heavy as a pumpkin.

'Do we wake her up? Tell me, do we wake her up? I'm tired of waiting!'

'Shhh! You will wake her up!'

'I think that's the point here...'

Catching some snatches of the secret conversation, Kate frowned while pulling the covers against her, before blinking her eyes several times and seeing her four friends gathered and bent above her. This vision, not very usual on waking, immediately made her open wide eyes, still heavy with tiredness, a hiccup stuck in her throat. All of them were showing a large smile of satisfaction.

'Happy birthday!'

Their clamour was such that Kate straightened her back, between dread and bliss, without helping herself from having a cheerful smile. Because today, the 8th of March, little Kate was celebrating the beginning of her twelfth year in the world.

Moira, who had literally climbed on the bed in order to be high enough, was the first to hand over a little package:

'Me first!'

'It's for me?' choked Kate, who wasn't expecting such a surprise.

'If you're not happy, I'll be glad to take your place!' mocked Maggie with a sly smile.

Her words were greeted by a unanimous blasé look from her roommates, until Kate decided to unwrap her first gift packed in a rush, in a Daily Prophet's old edition.

'Oh! Drooble's Best Blowing Gums! Thanks, Moira!'

'You're welcome! If you could stick one from time to time in Maggie's hair, you'd do me a favour!'

'Oh, I hope you won't leave them lying around in the room!' panicked Scarlett in a small voice, always that fastidious about their dormitory's state. 'That thing is impossible to unstick!'

'My turn! My turn!'

Suzanna imposed her gift that was actually, just a drawing paper where roughly lined and animated chaps were representing Kate and her friends, training her to spells, always sold out by a huge explosion, making them fly around, and their hair in flames.

'Haha! Thanks Suzanna', chuckled Kate as amused as acrid. 'I will hang it up in my room, at my parents'.'

Then, it was Scarlett's turn, her gift better wrapped than Moira's...

'It's a magical rubber', she explained when Kate questioned her in a look about the slightly soft item, the shape of a broomstick, as big as a finger. 'It can erase ink. It's very useful for homework! It will prevent you from burning your parchment by trying to correct yourself with a spell!'

'Ah, well... thanks!' stammered Kate, who wasn't expecting that last remark, hurtful, once again.

Deep inside and despite their kindness, Kate promised herself that if the last gift had something to do with her incompetence; she would say what she thinks once and for all. Yet, when she received the present from Maggie, so small and insignificant by its size, she didn't expect to receive a gorgeous golden hair slide, its round extremity ending with a tiny Golden Snitch with wings as tiny as a fly's ones.

'It's the same as mine', she pointed out indicating the one that was maintaining her short dark blonde hair and showing off badly arranged curls.

'It's very pretty...!' assured Kate while putting the hair slide on a rebellious, recalcitrant lock. 'Thanks a lot...'

Then, the young girl extricated herself from the sheets and got up from bed, before going away to get dressed. Surprised by her so little cheerful behaviour despite her birthday, her friends consulted, whispering:

'What's happening to her?'

'Do you think our gifts didn't please her?'

'She seems almost sad...'

Since her detention with Wolffhart, Kate's innocent mischievousness had faded away and her Gryffindor mates had noticed it. But that particular day, the little girl seemed much more lost...

After a lonely breakfast, Kate went on the sunny banks of the lake, carrying her drawing kit her mother had offered her for Christmas. Sat on the green grass on the eve of spring, she was drawing the curves of the hills with her pencil and the line of the lake, quivering under the morning breeze. This drawing seemed to be Kate's last option to run away from her obsessive thoughts. Her experience with Wolffhart had wreaked havoc on all the ideas about magic she had. About her own abilities. And her professor's words, who suggested she was a sort of hidden Squib who didn't deserve her place at Hogwarts, were keeping on reverberating in her mind. Wolffhart wasn't completely wrong... How could she naïvely continue her scholarship if she wasn't able to cast a proper spell without having to be threatened or under pressure? This couldn't last seven years...

'Kate?'

Despite the little voice's call, Kate didn't turn. Morgana took place next to her friend, whose face was half snuggled up in her plum scarf. They both stayed quiet for a moment, while Kate was darkening the shadows of the hills on her drawing.

'I was looking for you everywhere...'

'How did you find me?' grumbled Kate.

'That's the point: by looking for you... Something's wrong?'

Her Slytherin friend's accommodating tone pushed her to confidence:

'I hate that day...'

'But... it's your birthday!'

'I don't like my birthday... not anymore.'

Morgana darkened her look under her thin black eyebrows, endowing her with her icy stare.

'Why? Did one of your birthdays go wrong?'

Kate's lines became more intense, harder, more frenetic, as if she was transmitting all her emotions through her pencil.

'One year ago', she articulated with difficulty, 'I spent my birthday in a cellar, in Graveson.'

Morgana nodded, respectful and attentive at her friend's speech.

'I didn't have gifts. I didn't eat that day. No gifts, no candles. On my birthday night... that's when the Death Eaters came into the house...'

'Is that what you told us about at the beginning of the year, during Harry Potter's first lessons?'

Kate slowly nodded, quietly staring into space while remembering this painful episode of her short life.

'On my last birthday, I saw death. And my father was almost killed... After that day, I told myself I should never were born, that 8th of March. That my parents should have fled together without endlessly having to look after a kid. A kid incapable of casting a proper spell... We have been tracked down, hunted like beasts. I hate my birthday. Now, it reminds me that I should never have existed instead of seeing what I saw. When I arrived at Hogwarts, I was so happy. I thought that I could finally learn to protect myself, to protect my parents in turn, as they did for me. I'm embarrassing myself. I'm embarrassing them. I am capable of nothing... Everyone is so nice to me when I don't deserve it...'

'Yes, you do...'

Kate's watery eyes met Morgana's steely ones, impassive.

'You don't realize how much you're helpful, humble... Look, you accepted me as a friend, you're not afraid of me, you don't have prejudices, while everyone only sees the daughter of a condemned to Azkaban Death Eater in me. You're able to put up with Maggie while everyone else think she's a pest. And Moira, you accept her to teach you spells while people make fun of her because of her size. You never made a fool of anyone. You reach out to others and take them as they are. That's rare quality, even rarer than magic in our world. I don't know you as a defeatist or fatalist. Always a fighter.'

Then, she took out of her cape's pocket, a little purple paper butterfly.

'You have to tell yourself that now, your birthday is not anymore the cellar in Graveson where you were locked up; but something you celebrate with your friends now... Don't let your past consume you, the future will always be better...'

The paper butterfly shook its wings to take off and fluttered in the air before landing into Kate's shaking fingers. On the whole contour of its wings, in black calligraphy letters, a single word was repeatedly written: "friendship". Kate's heart swelled with emotion.

'We're here for you, Kate... Happy birthday.'

Moved to tears, the young girl casted herself into Morgana's arms to show her how much this touched her deep inside. A bit surprised at first place, Morgana still shared this hug. She wasn't used to share such proofs of friendship with others; she only had lived in view of being and staying a pure-blood and had never learnt anything else than keeping distance with people.

Morgana gave a hint of a smile while moving away from Kate, who removed with the back of her hand, the tears that were rolling down her cheeks, as much for the sadness of the past than for the happiness of the present.

'Would you like to come with me to the next saturday Quidditch match?' asked the girl with the green tie. 'For us to be in the same terraces...!'

'Even if it's Gryffindor against Slytherin?' said Kate in a hiccup.

'We'll support our teams! That could be fun!'

'Well... I hope you're not as sore-loser as Maggie is!'

Unfortunately for the two teams that were about to face each other, a pouring rain had tumbled down on the castle the day of the match. The cold and violent wind was giving a rough ride to the umbrellas the students had brought with them, hoping to protect themselves from the bad weather. The most cowards would rather be in their warm dormitories, but attends the matches being mandatory; they had to face it, alongside the brave ones. Everyone hoped, however, that it would only be a question of a few minutes. And so, a lot of Gryffindors had their hopes on Ginny Weasley's Seeker skills. Some had even offered her gifts to encourage and motivate her to catch the Snitch faster!

At the Gryffindors' table, the morning of the match, first years were making forecasts:

'With such weather, I don't think our players will succeed in finding their ways', muttered Moira.

'They don't have a lot of experience but that doesn't mean they're blind!' reminded Scarlett.

'But we don't care about that! Slytherin are cowards and bad losers! We are sure to win!'

'I love your arguments, Suzanna!' Moira supported her.

'Morgana told me their Seeker wasn't that bad and they have an excellent formation of Chasers.'

'Sorry to question your words, Kate, but I don't trust Slytherins!' chuckled Suzanna. 'I'd rather think they're useless who will loose anyway! I remind you that on the last match against Ravenclaw, their clumsy Beaters found very funny to confuse their facers heads for Bludgers!'

'And you, Maggie, what do you think?'

Scarlett's interrogation didn't get to the young girl, her gaze fixed on her beans plate. Maggie seemed deep in her thoughts.

'Maggie!'

'Huh? What?'

She suddenly raised wide opened eyes and her friends noticed how pale she was.

'Something's wrong?' Kate cared about, worried and accommodating, while bending towards her.

'No, no! I'm okay!'

'I think Miss Spoiled is afraid to take a beating!' mocked Moira.

'No, no, not at all', she hurried to answer, without even bothering to retort, as she would have usually.

Then, on these half chewed words, she got up from the bench.

'I-I gotta go! I'll meet you later, at the match!'

The four girls didn't react immediately, seeing their friend walking away in tentative steps. Their heads inclined towards the corridor, they gazed-tracked Maggie leaving.

'She didn't even finish her meal!' pointed out Scarlett.

'Perfect, give it to me; I will finish it at her place!' exclaimed Moira, while asking for it with a move of her hand, her too short arm preventing her from reaching it.

'Maggie's really weird these days', sighed Suzanna. 'I preferred her when she was unbearable, she was way funnier...'

In front of her friends' remarks, Kate just stayed quiet, her eyes still fixed on the Great Hall's big doors through which Maggie had left. Her behaviour was very suspicious. There was no doubt she was hiding something from them...

As promised, Morgana and Kate went together to the match. The latter accepted in good heart to join the Slytherins' side, having no really assigned house, as Morgana's presence at the Gryffindors' side would have triggered a real bustle...

'He would have been very mad at me if he had seen me among you', pointed out Morgana, while indicating with her chin Hagrid's impressive silhouette, very visible from their vantage point, carrying a banner in favour of the Gryffindors.

'He doesn't like you?'

'He doesn't like my father, consequently... You know, when my father fought at the battle of Hogwarts, Hagrid hit him and sent him against a wall... That's how they caught him to send him in Azkaban after a month at St Mungo's for care of grievous body harm...'

Kate grimaced, not knowing what to answer to that. The two girls sat next to two Slytherin mates of Morgana; Calypso Curtiss, who was holding a wide dark green umbrella, gleaming with water, granted her with a dark look when Kate settled down next to her, while Juno Nightingal was already spiritedly shaking a little green flag, under the other students' mocking looks. Despite her cheerfulness and her obvious sympathy, Juno had became the scapegoat of her own housemates since the Sorting Hat's repartition and, according to Morgana, the elders had been giving her a hard time until Calypso decided to stay constantly with her to ensure her protection. She told her that, one day, they had put magic glue on her pillow and her hair had had to be cut and re-grown. Juno bent when she saw Morgana and Kate coming:

'Hey! Whisper! It's good to see you with us! Welcome in the Slytherins' terraces!'

'Thanks Nightingal!' Kate smiled from ear to ear.

'It's a shame the weather's so bad!'

'Kate?'

A voice called her from the top of the terraces: she was surprised, when she turned back, to see Terry, bent over the guardrail and already soaked to the bones.

'Terry?! What are you doing here?'

'I have to talk to you for a minute!'

Kate apologized to the young Slytherins and climbed at maximum speed towards Terry. Given his tense face and his awkward grin, he seemed worried.

'What's happening?'

'Maggie... she's disappeared!'

'What?!'

'I'm looking for her everywhere since earlier! At first, I just thought she was afraid of making another bet... but I can't find her! Nobody knows where she is!'

Very annoyed, Kate meditated, scanning the terraces with a look, while the other students were irritated, having to wait for the beginning of the match under the pouring rain.

'I haven't seen her either since earlier...! We separated at breakfast! She was very weird...!'

Terry bit his lips, shaking his head.

'I'm going to keep on looking for her', he decided.

'Maybe she's still in the castle...!'

'I don't hope so... Still. Perhaps we're worrying for nothing!'

Then, he took off as fast as he had appeared, while Kate came back to the Slytherin first years, having to apologize to Lawrence Prince and Amy Rosier in order to pass through as they looked at her with a nasty look. That's when the teams entered the pitch, under the acclamations of the crowd. A powerful clamour rose from the red and gold terraces and was shared between two categories: the unanimous encouragements "Weasley is our queen!" and the ecstatic yells of young girls "Gaaaaaaale, we love you!"

'They're so stupid...' sighed Morgana who almost felt sorry for them, raising one of her dark slender eyebrows above her despaired look.

'They're a bit ridiculous, yes...' admitted Kate, smiling.

'Yet, I think they have good tastes!' intervened Juno. 'Even your Keeper's little brother who is in our class, I find him cute! Actually... it's not difficult to find him cute!'

'Juno, you think everything is cute', reminded Calypso with a deep and monotonous voice, her eyes on her team, in an impeccable, motionless posture.

'That's true! But still! Gale junior is very attractive! Don't you think, Whisper?'

Thinking of Griffin's charming smile, Kate couldn't help herself but suddenly blush.

'Yes, yes, maybe...! And he's very nice!'

'... The Quaffle is launched, here we go!' rang out the commentator's euphoric yell. 'And it's Greengrass who catches it, avoiding her assailants by a hair...!'

'Yay', said Calypso, as indifferent as a proud cat. 'Another match during which we'll have to stand her silly comments...'

Curious, Kate turned towards Morgana, knowing she would have the answer of her question:

'Do you know who the commentator is?'

'Rose Zeller, Hufflepuff, fourth year. She a fanatic of the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team and she comments the matches since last year.'

'That's crazy how much things you know!'

'That's crazy how you know nothing about life at Hogwarts...!'

'... You win a point!'

Then, after ending this short conversation about the commentator who was rhapsodizing about everything and nothing, especially about each lock of hair Gareth Gale shook, Kate took out a pair of Omnioculars of her bag, which provoked her mates' surprise:

'I didn't know you have Omnioculars, Whisper!' marvelled Juno. 'Could you lend them a little to me after?'

'It's Maggie who lent them to me', she grimaced, 'I don't think she would be happy to know that I...'

'Everyone knows that Dawkins is able to check the fingerprints of those who took her Omnioculars', interrupted Morgana, derisive. 'And then burn their underwear...'

'No, no, it's not that!'

The match was up to the students' expectations and worth the wait under the rain a Saturday morning of March. Even if the less fond of Quidditch were already moaning about the duration of the match, that had begun just five minutes ago, because they wanted to go back as soon as possible in the castle and dry around their common room's fireplaces.

'Robin is heading right towards the hoops! Oh, I just can't, what a suspense! She passes to Danielson who shoots and... scores!'

Kate, who was about to applaud, found herself in the middle of the Slytherins' boos and preferred to retract, afraid to face the backlash of the house with the snake. It was certainly very hard to take on the Slytherin colours when you were a Gryffindor by adoption!

But, gradually, the match lost importance to her eyes while the mystery around Maggie's disappearance was still spinning in her mind. Her eyes in the Omnioculars, she explored every terrace, searching for her friend. She started with the Ravenclaws, the least delighted by the match. No trace of Maggie. Then, the Gryffindors. The bunch of her three friends appeared under Hagrid's stature, all busy shouting out in order to encourage their team, without caring about Maggie's absence next to them. After a small moment of deviation contemplating Griffin's little face, sat between Jason Watson, the black boy who was the last with Kate on the day of the repartition, and Evan McAllister, an already tall boy with brown hair, known for his exceptionally green eyes, Kate changed of terrace. The Hufflepuffs' ranks were rather lively, despite the fact that their team wasn't playing today. They always were excellent spectators. Joris Juffbigles was, once again, giving himself over some traffic in the middle of his housemates, some of them supporting the team of the lion, others, the snake's one. Away from his mates, Terry still seemed worried: obviously, he didn't find Maggie yet...

'Oh! But what's happening?!'

Drew away from her searches by the commentator's scream, Kate tacked her Omnioculars and looked at what was happening on the pitch.

'Seems like Ginny Weasley is having trouble! Is the wind too strong?!'

When she finally managed to set the vision of the small advice, Kate saw Ginny's red silhouette manhandled from right to left, while she was clutching on the handle with all her strength to try to keep it straight, her face grimacing. Her lips were moving, pronouncing severe yet panicked words. But in fact, it wasn't so much the wind that was giving her a rough ride; it seemed that her broomstick wasn't responding anymore, as crazy as a mad, badly tamed horse.

'It's not the wind...' breathed Kate.

'What? How could you know?' wondered Morgana, her pale face soaked by the rain, her black hair stuck on her skin.

'Her broomstick is cursed!'

It took one more powerful gust of wind for Ginny to fall off her broomstick, succeeding to catch it with just one hand while it was keeping on flying in no precise direction, alternating peaks of speed and violent brakes.

'Merlin's beard, she really will fall!' kept on yelling the commentator, panicked. 'My poor little heart is weakening! She has to get back on before Harper catches the Snitch! Oh no...! Pills just sent a Bludger towards her! I don't wanna see that, I don't wanna see that!'

Straight after she ended her sentence, the Bludger struck Ginny's head; she let go of her broomstick and fell in free-fall, unconscious. The crowd rose up, unanimous, screaming in panic. Everything happened so fast, under the downpour and the snarling gust of wind that nobody managed to intervene to prevent her from falling...

'Oh my god!' screamed Kate, her hands on her mouth, her heart strongly beating into her chest.

Ginny Weasley was lying on the ground, inert, her Quidditch glasses broken and crooked on her head, and the grass around her turned red. The spectators were pushing each other on the terraces, crying and screaming, while some Slytherin were stupid enough to snigger in spite of the seriousness of the situation. The Gryffindor players abandoned the match for a moment to help their Seeker, no matter if their opponents were taking advantage of it to score. When Mrs Hooch decided to whistle a time-out and ran towards Ginny. The public was holding his breath while some professors were going down. Kate was biting her fingers whereas some Slytherins around her were observing the scene, quiet, sometimes even worried, as it was the case for Juno:

'Is she dead? Oh no! Oh no! Tell me she's not dead! That's horrific!'

Mrs Hooch rose up quickly and moved her arms widely above her head: the match was suspended. Immediately, stretch-bearers came on the pitch and took Ginny Weasley, carrying her with the greatest care, while her teammates, anxious, were following her despite Mrs Hooch's orders. The prefects started to claim for peace into the ranks and organized the exit of the stadium.

'Her broomstick has been cursed!' maintained Kate while they were crossing the park to come back to the castle.

'No, Whisper, it was the wind!' retorted Juno, surprised. 'You saw how strongly it was blowing!'

'No, no, it wasn't the wind, that's impossible!'

'And how do you know that?' asked Morgana, interested.

'She wasn't controlling anything anymore! I saw it with Maggie's Omnioculars! Someone has planned all that! Someone has tried to kill her!'

'The plan was good, maybe it worked', said Calypso in her usual deep, monotonous voice, pragmatic and horribly cynical at the same time.

Kate was keeping turning over what she saw during the match, curled up on the comfortable and quilted sofa of the Gryffindor common room. Maybe the only one who have seen the scene as it really happened. A pouring rain was still crashing on the windows like her thoughts assailing her mind. She wasn't shivering under her wet clothes. The flames in the fireplace seemed to be the only thing giving life to her grey eyes, as sharp as a blade, in which they were reflecting. This silence was too much for her... She had to exude it.

Without taking her eyes off of the fire, she adjusted her tie and rose up, decided not to shut up. She seemed to be setting aside all her elders, anxious because of the drama to which they had assisted, while she left the common room. Her pace was moderate, fast and calm at the same time and her brown curls, still wet, were rebounding on her shoulders at each step. She might be a first year, a houseless, incapable of casting a common spell like everyone, but she had a voice. A voice she was willing to be heard, once and for all. Put the afraid and naïve Kate in a cupboard and already begin to take her responsibilities, down from her twelve years.

A considerable crowd was obstructing the entrance of the infirmary, everyone wanting to know their schoolmate's state; some because of the sincere esteem they had for her, others just to glean the slightest piece of information that could feed the rumours running in the castle between students. Immediately, Kate's self-confidence took a hit, but didn't fall apart. She tried to take advantage of her small size to thread her way between her elders, but she found herself quickly crushed.

'Let me through!' she shouted with all the breath in her lungs.

'You don't have to yell at us!' sharply retorted a Ravenclaw student with a black bun.

'Who do you think you are? Who are you to want to pass through like that!' resumed one of her friends with a difficult character.

'Go back to your dormitory and sleep, loser!' continued one of her neighbours, starting to push her backwards.

Kate didn't want to give up, not in front of such stupid and rude persons, who were seeing in her just a parasite, too young to overshadow them. Her eyes squinted with discontent. In her craziest dreams, Kate always wanted to face her elders, claiming to her identity. But reality seemed a bit more difficult. She tried to resort to a subterfuge:

'You know that there's not only Ginny Weasley in this infirmary! I have to see a friend of mine!'

'Then come back later!' they laughed at her.

Kate felt a boiling rage rising up in her head, so powerful that she wanted to demean those morons in public. But how? The answer appeared to her instantly. Without even taking her wand out of her pocket, she just opened her fingers and focused, whereas her schoolmates had lost interest in her, trying to enter. A smoke of white light emerged in her palm and slipped down to the floor of the corridor. Then, it sneaked as fluid as a snake and climbed up on the leg of the student who had oppressed her, in order to reach his belt before wrapping around it; and, in a skilful sliding, she loosened the buckle.

Under the dazed look of his neighbours, the young man's trousers fell on his shoes, offering to everyone's sight beautiful boxer shorts with Golden Snitches patterns on it. The result was irrevocable: an unanimous giggle took hold of the crowd, while the boy, ashamed as never before, was trying to put his trousers back on, threatening to trip over his compromised balance.

'I-it's you! It's you who did this!' he spitted out to Kate, as red as a peony.

'No, of course not!' she smiled, raising her hands with an innocent look.

'You liar! You'll see what you...'

'Silence!'

The powerful voice that reverberated at the entry of the infirmary silenced the young man's cries of rage as well as the general laughs. Kate tensed up when she recognized the voice of one of her teachers, before catching a glimpse of him between two silhouettes.

'Now, go back to your dormitories', ordered Neville, strict and intimidating, as he wasn't very often seen, usually. 'And in silence!'

While the students scattered around, Kate tried to approach the professor Longbottom, pale and not very in the mood for jokes, given his set expression. Yet, it was the boy in boxer shorts who took the lead:

'Professor!' he began to complain. 'I...'

'Are you deaf, Ackerley?!' settled Neville. 'Go back to your common room, you have nothing to do here! And I take five points to Ravenclaw for exhibitionism!'

Not give up. Not now.

'Professor!' called out Kate while Neville was about to close the door behind him and Ackerley was going back to his classmates after he had thrown an acrimonious look to the young girl.

'Whisper, you are as concerned as the others, so don't make me repeat myself' he sighed, weary and authoritarian at the same time.

'I saw what happened, professor!'

'We all saw what happened... Now, please...'

'Ginny Weasley didn't fall because of the wind! I had Omnioculars! I saw everything! I promise!'

Speechless, Neville observed a moment his young student, who was begging him with a sincere look. He frowned, checked on his right and his left that nobody was looking before allowing her to enter the infirmary with a nimble nod.

The infirmary was a place Kate already had had the occasion to know thanks to many failed spells. Mrs Pomfrey's "Hello! Well, you didn't miss your shot, Miss Whisper!" gradually declined, until they became just sighs that could decently be translated by "You again? Aren't you tired of blowing your face off and testing your pyrotechnic skills? Well, sit down. I'll take care of you as fast as possible and then, you clear off, I don't want to see you anymore in my infirmary!" A translation system Kate had developed after her fifteenth time here.

Large white vaporous curtains were falling along the huge long windows. The smell was strong, but much more pleasant than in Muggle hospitals, noticed Kate. White canvas folding screens were separating the different beds, which weren't all occupied. But when she noticed the few persons, in which was Luna Lovegood who didn't took off her lion head to the great displeasure of Mrs Pomfrey, gathered around a couch, she assumed that Ginny was lying there. However, Neville's hand on her shoulder guided her and he took her aside for a moment.

'Well, I'm listening, Whisper... What did you see?'

'Is... Is she okay?' she squealed, worried.

Looking away, Neville grimaced, giving the impression that his already hanging jaw was falling down, and rubbed his rough cheek.

'Her life isn't in danger... But the Bludger and her fall caused many damages. A few days, maybe weeks, will be needed for her to fully recover...'

'I-I'm sorry... That's horrific!'

In front of Kate's upcoming tears, Neville preferred to push her to explain:

'I don't have much time for you, given the situation. So, be brief...'

Plainly, Kate told him in details what she had assisted to. She didn't forget any precision that was worth to be noticed... Once her story finished, Neville swallowed with stupor.

'If that is the case... if, as you told me, Ginny's... er... I mean, Miss Weasley's broomstick has really been cursed; it takes on quite a different proportion... That's a crime! If someone tried to attack her in that way...'

'As someone had enchanted the pumpkins on Halloween.'

The link Kate made impressed him.

'You think the person responsible for the Halloween incident could be the same at the origin of this accident?' thought Neville with an almost scolding look, crossing his large arms on his chest.

'That could be it, professor! It's the same kind of enchantment!'

'For now, we don't even have proofs to certify that it really was an enchantment against... Miss Weasley!'

'There is one way to be sure: ask her! Ask Ginny Weasley!'

'Miss Whisper, you don't seem to realize very well the situation...' he breathed while pulling a hand, with his fingers joined, out of his pocket. 'Weasley nearly lost her life... She's unconscious and no one knows for how long she'll stay like that!'

'One more reason to find the responsible!'

Kate's artless determination got the better of his attempts of rational explanations.

'Anyway, thank you for trusting me and having the courage to come and tell me everything, in the name of the truth. You would have made an excellent Gryffindor, Miss Whisper...!'

A Gryffindor, she wasn't. Or at least, she was pretending to be... That was what Kate was repeating herself while she was going back to her common room, passing through the passageway behind the Fat Lady's portrait. Avoiding her elders' gazes who were still sharing about the incident, Gareth Gale on the sofa surrounded by a bunch of admiring girls at his feet, telling them his version of the story, Kate regained her dormitory without saying a word. But when she opened the door and found herself in front of Maggie, suddenly reappeared from Merlin knows where, Kate tried to maintain the flood of questions and the flow of rage that were diffusing into her beating veins. The blonde girl turned around and addressed an embarrassed smile to her:

'Hey Kate! I'm kind of having the impression I landed in a world of craziness since earlier! Well, you'll tell me that crazy idiots are common here, at Hogwarts, but it's a whole new level there! Can you explain to me wh...'

'And you?!'

Kate's yell combined itself with the violent door slam, making Sir Sulkington jump, extracted from his sleep, his hair bristling and claws out.

'Can you explain where you were the whole time?!'

Never ever had Kate been so mad in front of Maggie, her face reddened with her evident rage that was brought out in every one of her sharp words. Maggie was so gobsmacked that she couldn't manage to formulate a proper answer:

'I-I... I...'

'What was this behaviour about, this morning?! Dropping us like that, the girls and I, without saying anything? Like that! And Terry, who had looked for you during the whole match! We were crazy worried! And you! You arrive uninvited?! When everything is over?!'

'Hey oh! Calm down, okay? Don't talk to me like th...

'I don't care about how I talk to you!' yelled Kate without abandoning her anger, while approaching Maggie. 'I'm starting to be fed up with this! You hear me?! I'm tired! I'm getting sick of it!'

'I-I believe you, but at least explain me why! There are plenty of reasons why you would be mad at me but...'

'Are you kidding me, Maggie?! Do you think it's normal to disappear and not come to the Quidditch match, where something really freaky is going on?!'

Maggie blemished, shaking, while Sir Sulkington was spitting out towards the two arguing girls, on his mistress' bed.

'Something freaky?'

'Strangely, you never are there when odd things come to happen! First Halloween, now Ginny Weasley...'

That's when she pronounced those words that Kate realized what she was saying. And yet, the truth was guiding her words: while everyone was present during Halloween as much as during Ginny's fall, Maggie had always arranged things so that she wasn't there at the moment of the incident...

'And now, will you explain to me what happened?!' heightened Maggie, while Kate had shut up, taken aback by her reasoning.

'I'm tired... Also tired of your lies, Maggie.'

'What?' she choked, offended.

But she hadn't had time to retort anything, as Kate had already turned her heels to go back to the common room, disgusted to have to spend one more minute alone with her roommate.

This same evening, Kate took her quill and undertook to write a letter to her father. She received his answer, transmitted by Littleclaws, a few days later:

"[...]Normally, I'm not supposed to tell you all the possible combinations of the compass. I consider it's up to you to discover them throughout your experiences at Hogwarts, and I wish you to discover them all. However, I assume that you asking me about that precise combination isn't trivial. And I accept to give you its meaning because I know that's very important for you; especially in your situation. But from the moment you will have this letter, from the moment you will know what this combination means, you have to promise me you will be extremely careful… (although… this combination works also very well to warn you when Filch isn't far, trust me, I speak from experience!). If you set the first arrow on the hand, standing for the person, and the second one on the exclamation mark, that stands for a source of danger, I think it's useless to give you more precisions about what that means…"

A person that could represent a danger; a threat…

The combination that had pointed out Maggie on the night Kate had her detention…