Kate had seen her mother before — this life's mother, that is. There were no photographs to rely on, but when she had first transmigrated into this world, her mother had still been very much alive.
The woman smiling so gently in that recovered memory was an almost perfect match for the face Kate carried in her heart.
And the girl standing at her mother's side back then — the one who shared seven or eight points of resemblance with Kate herself, with a face that could only have been in her early teens — that was unmistakably Katherine Wynyard.
Could she be her mother's younger sister?
But the old butler had never mentioned anything of the sort. And in all the time since she had transmigrated into this world, Katherine had never once appeared in her life — until now.
The Occlumency simulation had just failed. Her head was throbbing, swollen with pain, and the harder she tried to chase the memory, the worse the ache became.
She forced herself to sit with the discomfort for a while longer, turning it over in her mind — and then gave up. There was nothing more to be wrung from it tonight. She let her thoughts go blank, lay down, and fell into a deep, heavy sleep.
The System's alarm dragged her out of it the next morning, and she still felt foggy — head thick, limbs slow.
It wasn't until she had washed up, dressed, and walked into the Great Hall that it happened: the moment she stepped through the doors, her gaze landed directly on Katherine, who had just taken her seat at the staff table.
The fog cleared in an instant.
Kate dropped her eyes immediately, not entirely sure why she felt so guilty, and walked briskly to her seat. She'd barely shoveled down two mouthfuls of breakfast when Pansy leaned over and murmured a quiet warning.
"Kate, Professor Wynyard has been staring at you this whole time. Did you forget to turn in your homework or something?"
No. It was something approximately eighteen thousand times more terrifying than homework.
She forced the corners of her mouth into something resembling a smile, inhaled the rest of her food at a frankly alarming pace, and bowed her head to make her escape.
Pansy caught her arm.
"Don't forget," she said kindly, "second period today is Defence Against the Dark Arts. If you really do have missing homework, you've still got two hours."
Thank you. It really isn't about the homework.
Kate nodded with an awkward expression and fled the Great Hall.
Left behind, Malfoy stared at the empty seat beside her and rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
Surely she hadn't crushed Kate's spirit so thoroughly last night that the girl couldn't even look her in the eye over breakfast?
Malfoy — who had spent the better part of the year treating the act of tormenting Kate as a leisure activity — found herself, for the first time, at a loss for words to describe what she was feeling.
·····
Meanwhile, Kate had rushed out of the castle and was breathing deeply on the lawn, gulping in fresh morning air — when it suddenly occurred to her that her frantic escape had been entirely unnecessary.
If Katherine really was her mother's younger sister, then she ought to be calling the woman Auntie.
Which meant Katherine might be the only blood relative she had in this entire world.
Given that — what on earth had she been running from?
Kate genuinely didn't know what had come over her. Probably the lingering aftereffects of last night's failed Occlumency exercise, she decided. Her brain had clearly short-circuited.
She gave the side of her own head a few brisk, exasperated taps — the same remedy she used to apply back home whenever the television signal cut out mid-show.
One tap. Never failed.
She had barely gotten through two taps, feeling nothing particularly different herself, when a voice rang out from behind her.
"Kate! What are you doing?"
She turned around blankly — and found Cho Chang jogging toward her, face creased with worry, who immediately grabbed her by the hand.
"Even if you're stressed, you can't hurt yourself like that."
Kate blinked. It took her a long, genuinely bewildered moment to parse what Cho had just implied — and then she couldn't help laughing.
"I'm not — no, no, it's nothing like that."
She reached up and gave the top of her own head a gentle demonstrative knock.
"This," she said, "is how you boost the signal."
Cho stared at her in utter bafflement, then mimicked the motion, pressing her own hand to her head and tapping.
"This... is this some kind of ancient magical ritual? I don't feel anything happening."
"You probably didn't put your heart into it," Kate said, with the most straight-faced authority she could muster. "Magic only works if you feel it."
She gave her own head two more solemn taps by way of demonstration.
"See? My whole mind feels clearer already. Like a window just opened."
Cho tried it again. Still nothing.
She was turning toward Kate with a look of genuine confusion — and found Kate with both hands pressed over her mouth, shoulders shaking, clearly fighting for her life.
"You tricked me!"
Cho figured it out in an instant. She didn't even stop to pick up the broomstick she'd dropped — she lunged straight at Kate.
Kate sprinted across the lawn laughing, looping wide circles around the grass, until several rounds later an indignant Cho finally caught her and delivered a round of retaliatory taps to the top of her head.
"Ow, ow —"
Kate curled her hands over her freshly-tapped skull, swaying dramatically, and sank into a crouch.
"My head... I think I'm going dizzy..."
Cho's expression shifted at once. She watched Kate topple sideways onto the lawn and rushed over to help her up.
"Was I too rough? Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?"
She tried to lift Kate — but even with all her Quidditch training, hauling a person her own age off the ground was a different matter entirely.
"What do I do — should I run and find a professor? Stay here, I'll be right back —"
She scrambled to her feet and was about to dash toward the castle when a hand closed around her wrist — the hand of someone who was supposed to be unconscious — and pulled, dragging her straight down onto the lawn beside Kate.
"I blacked out for a second. I'm fine now," Kate said, heroically suppressing the laughter in her voice and maintaining her performance.
That finally did it. Cho sat bolt upright, furious.
"Kate!"
"I'm sorry, I really am." Kate sat up quickly, and this time her expression was actually genuine. "I was just in a bad mood earlier. I wanted to make you laugh."
Cho's eyes went wide, a flicker of irritation still written across her face.
"You were in a bad mood, and your response was to mess with me?"
Kate blinked. That was... a fair point. Cho had come over out of genuine concern, and Kate had repaid her with a string of pranks.
She gave a sincere nod. "You're right."
Then — before Cho could say anything else — Kate reached out, took Cho's hand, and gently rested her own chin in the center of that palm.
"Do whatever you like to get even. As long as it makes you feel better."
The soft warmth of Kate's chin settled into her palm — and whatever was left of Cho's indignation evaporated completely.
She yanked her hand away on reflex — and the motion was fast enough that Kate pitched forward, face-first, straight into the lawn.
"Ow —"
So this is the price of getting on a girl's bad side.
Kate lay there with her chin pressed into the grass, thinking that with a kind of resigned regret.
"Oh — I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to!" Cho flushed and immediately reached down to help her up.
And found that Kate's chin had gone visibly red from the impact — and that her eyes had gone slightly watery with the pain.
Cho hurried to brush the blades of grass off Kate's chin with her fingertips.
"Are you alright? Should we go to the Hospital Wing?"
"I'm... fine." Kate maintained a shaky approximation of a smile.
This was entirely her own fault. She had no one to blame but herself for goofing off when she had nothing better to do.
Once the last grass clipping had been brushed away, Kate looked up at Cho with a perfectly solemn expression and took her hand.
"So — you're not angry anymore, right?"
Cho's gaze slid away sideways. She muttered, very quietly, "I wasn't angry to begin with..."
Right. Not angry. That's why she'd planted Kate's chin in the dirt.
If she had actually been angry, Kate would have ended up six feet under.
Kate decided to take the words at face value. The important thing was that Cho had forgiven her.
She flopped back onto the lawn, arms wide, and looked up at the clear blue sky.
"I can't believe I never noticed before — the sky over Hogwarts really is something else."
The past eight or nine months, she'd been so consumed with leveling herself up and pushing the plot forward that she'd barely glanced upward.
Cho lay down beside her, extending one arm toward the sky as if she could reach it.
"By the way," Kate said, "what brings you out here?"
Cho turned her head and looked at her, affecting a mysterious air.
"Have you ever seen Hogwarts at four in the morning?"
"...Pardon?"
Are you a Kobe Bryant fan too, by any chance?
Kate stared at her for a blank second — and then heard Cho dissolve into barely-suppressed giggling. Kate blinked.
"Senior Cho," she said, tone mild, "has anyone ever told you that you have a slightly rebellious streak?"
Tricked once, and immediately required to trick back. Not a single loss to be suffered.
"You started it," Cho finally laughed outright. "Now we're even."
She cleared her throat, reining in the laughter.
"I was heading to the players' locker room to pick up my broom polish before breakfast — I'm planning on doing a maintenance session in my dormitory today."
And instead she'd stumbled straight into the person delivering it.
Kate propped herself up on one elbow and glanced at the broomstick lying in the grass.
"That model — is that a Cleansweep Seven?"
"That's right. Most of our team flies them." Cho nodded.
But that model was already a year or two old at this point, wasn't it?
Compared to Harry's Nimbus 2000, the Cleansweep Seven was starting to feel a bit dated in terms of handling and performance.
Kate rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She'd been hearing recently that the Nimbus 2001 was almost ready for release. She'd look into getting one for Cho as a gift sometime.
As for her own riding ability — she could barely manage Hogwarts' most basic training brooms without looking like a disaster. No sense wasting a good broomstick on herself.
She brushed the grass from her robes and stood up, squinting at the angle of the sun.
"I've got class soon. I should head in."
"Wait — Kate." Cho called after her. "The letter I sent you — the one with my Christmas gift. Did you ever read it?"
She meant the letter that had come tucked in with the holiday present.
"Ah, that..." Kate scratched the back of her head.
She hadn't had a chance to read it on Christmas Day itself, but she'd gotten to it afterward. The letter had mentioned something about whether Kate might want to come and visit over the summer holidays.
Grandpa Rand had said it before — guests were welcome at the manor, as long as she didn't give away the address.
"When summer comes and you're ready, just write to me," Kate said, a bright smile breaking across her face. In the morning light, it was practically radiant. "I'll be waiting."
Cho was left staring, momentarily unable to look away.
By the time she'd recovered, Kate was already a retreating figure in the distance, muttering something to herself about being late as she sprinted toward the castle.
Cho laughed quietly, shook her head, and looked up at the sky.
The sky really does look a bit nicer today.
·····
Kate made it to the classroom at a dead sprint.
By the time she arrived, still catching her breath, the room was already packed wall to wall with students — and Katherine, who had an almost supernatural habit of arriving at the exact last second, was already standing composed at the lectern.
Oh no. Was she late?
She looked toward Katherine with a slightly guilty expression and hovered in the doorway.
"Come in and sit down," Katherine said, smiling warmly at her. "There's a seat next to Miss Granger."
Kate nodded and hurried over.
The moment she sat, Katherine materialized at her desk — Kate had no idea when she'd moved — and looked down at her with a cheerful expression.
"What kept you so long today?"
"Um..." Kate glanced uncertainly at Hermione beside her. "I got... a bit too absorbed in my practice. Lost track of time."
Katherine glanced knowingly at the single blade of grass still clinging to Kate's shoulder, and her smile widened.
"Fair enough — very honest of you. Five points to Slytherin!"
What?
Kate looked up with an expression of complete bewilderment. She had nearly been late, and she was getting points?
Was this a plotline exclusive to Snape and a gender-swapped Harry? Because it clearly wasn't supposed to happen to her.
"Kate!" Katherine called her name suddenly.
She startled so hard she nearly left her seat.
"No need to panic. Today we're covering what to do if you encounter an Acromantula. I'd like you to answer the question — and demonstrate the appropriate spell while you're at it."
Kate exhaled. Acromantulas — now that she knew inside and out. The very first magical creature she had studied under Newt had been that family of spiders.
"Acromantulas live deep in dense forest. Their most dangerous qualities aren't just their chelicerae and venom — it's the fact that they're colony creatures.
"If you encounter one Acromantula, there are almost certainly more hiding around you — above you, below you, in places you can't see. So if you ever find yourself face to face with one, my recommendation is to use fire to create a barrier and buy time to escape."
As she spoke, she tore a blank page from her notebook, dropped it on the floor, pointed her wand, and cast Incendio.
The paper ignited instantly and crumbled to ash.
She'd used Incendio rather than Fiendfyre deliberately — Fiendfyre fell squarely within dark magic, and asking a group of first-years to cast it would be asking for catastrophe.
She looked up at Katherine.
"Is that enough, Professor?"
"Burning a piece of paper? Enough for that. Not nearly enough for an actual Acromantula." Katherine delivered the critique with perfect gravity.
Well, obviously — she could hardly encourage a bunch of children to go toe-to-toe with a giant spider colony. The whole point was to survive long enough to run.
Besides, except for a certain breed of little Gryffindor lion, who in their right mind would wander into the Forbidden Forest uninvited? Even Malfoy was terrified of the place — let alone anyone else.
"The reasoning is sound, though. Five more points to Slytherin," Katherine added cheerfully.
Kate glanced back — and was met with a wall of glares from the Gryffindor side of the room.
She chose to ignore them and returned to her seat, watching with a complicated expression as Katherine proceeded to actually explain, step by step, how to cast Fiendfyre.
Professor, that is Fiendfyre. It is dark magic.
Is it really appropriate to be teaching this in a Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom?
...Or is the lesson here that the only thing that can stop me is me?
Kate wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, turned her head — and found herself looking directly into Hermione's sharp, searching gaze.
"Were you actually practicing somewhere just now?" Hermione asked, the suspicion in her voice plain as day.
Kate's expression twitched. Something in her gut told her — instinctively, clearly — that she should not mention her run-in with Cho Chang.
"Yes," she said, with absolute conviction. "I really was practicing."
She watched Hermione's expression shift from overcast to clear.
Phew. Crisis averted.
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