The Slytherin Common Room.
"So... what exactly is going on here?"
Kate sat wooden-faced in one of the broad, brocade-upholstered armchairs, surrounded on all sides by a crowd of little snakes.
The first-years coming to ask her for lessons was one thing — but why were there second- and third-years, and even students from the upper years, mixed in with the crowd?
Pansy was visibly uncomfortable herself. When she'd quietly tallied up the names of students who wanted to learn Fiendfyre, the list had been nowhere near this long.
But with upperclassmen in the mix, she could hardly turn anyone away.
"I'd guess word spread that you can cast Fiendfyre, so everyone wants to learn from you," she said with a helpless shrug, doing her best to smooth things over on the crowd's behalf.
Kate heard that, and what little smile she'd been maintaining on her face teetered on the verge of collapse.
She hadn't actually cast Fiendfyre in class. Someone must have spotted her and Hermione practicing on the lawn that afternoon, and from there it had spread like wildfire — one person told ten, ten told a hundred.
Apparently she had underestimated just how hungry Slytherin was for powerful magic.
Protego was impressive enough, but it wasn't exactly an advanced-tier spell — plenty of upper-year students already knew it, so it had never caused this kind of stir.
Fiendfyre was different. Katherine's in-class demonstration had made it absolutely clear to everyone just what caliber of high-level spell it was.
And then Kate had gone and practiced it openly on the lawn in broad daylight. Of course the little snakes, with their insatiable hunger for power, had come knocking.
Right now, Kate had a headache.
Fiendfyre was not an ordinary spell. It was a high-level incantation classified as dark magic, and the vast majority of adult wizards could not fully control it.
In the original story, Crabbe had tried to use Fiendfyre to incinerate the Golden Trio — only to lose control of the flames, burn down the entire Room of Requirement, and accidentally destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes in the process.
In other words, this was a wide-range, self-targeting AOE spell capable of destroying Horcruxes, with tracking properties to boot. Its destructive power was almost without equal among known spells.
If she taught a bunch of little snakes how to cast Fiendfyre...
The thought made her shudder.
But flatly refusing them on the spot would tank the reputation she'd so carefully rebuilt within Slytherin. That reputation might not do much for her practically, but at least it meant she could walk back into the Common Room each evening without being met with looks of pure dread — and that was worth something for her mental health.
So why, exactly, had she dragged Hermione out to the lawn to practice Fiendfyre where anyone could see?
And why had Pansy been bold enough to quietly poll everyone who wanted to learn, and then just — ambush Kate with the whole group?
And why did these little snakes think they could simply mob together, use their numbers as leverage, and pressure her into teaching them?
Had they already forgotten that they'd been giving her the cold shoulder not so long ago?
Kate looked at Pansy beside her. She wanted to snap at her — but decided it wasn't worth the energy.
Being pinned under this many eager, burning stares was its own kind of miserable. Better to find a way out of this situation first, and deal with Pansy privately afterward.
"You all really want to learn Fiendfyre that badly?" she said, tilting her chin up in a passable imitation of Malfoy's most imperious manner.
No one answered in words. But the expectation blazing in their eyes said everything.
Kate let out a quiet, measured laugh. "As everyone knows, the barrier to learning Fiendfyre is not especially high. The hard part is controlling it once you've cast it."
That was, at its core, the reason so many wizards throughout history had used Fiendfyre to devastating effect — only to lose control of the flames and be consumed by their own spell.
Without mastering the key to controlling Fiendfyre, no matter how low the barrier to learning was, very few people would ever dare use it freely.
Unless, of course, you were someone like Crabbe — whose brain appeared to be running on a faulty circuit.
"As for the method of control — at its most fundamental, it comes down to two things: total Mana and concentration. When casting Fiendfyre, the caster must achieve absolute, complete focus," she said. She swept her gaze across the assembled young wizards, and let a faint, condescending smile cross her face. "Frankly speaking, setting aside the issue of insufficient Mana — every single one of you also falls far, far short when it comes to concentration."
That borderline provocative statement immediately stirred up a wave of indignation among the little snakes.
The room erupted into noise.
Kate raised an eyebrow without so much as flinching. "I have ten feathers here. Anyone who wants to prove me wrong — challenge me to a Levitation Charm contest. If anything demonstrates concentration, it's that."
Nicely done. She had smoothly pivoted the conversation to the exact spell she excelled at most.
When it came to understanding and mastery of Wingardium Leviosa, even Dumbledore probably couldn't match her. Not that Dumbledore couldn't if he chose to — he simply had no reason to grind away at a Levitation Charm for its own sake.
But the young wizards standing in front of her...
Kate was certain: when it came to this one spell, every student in the Snake House put together was no match for her.
Just as she'd predicted — the little snakes all exchanged uncertain glances, and not one of them stepped forward to accept the challenge.
She waited patiently for a moment, and was just about to rise and close the subject, when the corner of her eye caught a tall figure stepping forward.
It was Leif Wilson — the same one who had dueled her before.
"I'll go," he said, his expression entirely serious as he studied the ten feathers on the floor. "How does this work?"
"Simple," Kate said, her eyebrow arching slightly. "Use the Levitation Charm to lift them one by one in sequence, layering each cast — you cannot levitate them all at once."
Levitating them all at once was a difficulty of one to ten. Stacking the charms one on top of another was an exponential difficulty curve.
It was roughly equivalent to maintaining ten separate spells simultaneously — the only difference being that all ten happened to be the same spell.
The person who had likely mastered that kind of split-focus magic best, Kate reckoned, was someone like Molly Weasley — a busy housewife running ten household charms at once. The level of Mana precision required for domestic spells was no simpler than a straightforward Levitation Charm.
"Fine. I'll try," Leif muttered, and aimed his wand at the first feather, casting the Levitation Charm.
The feather drifted into the air without any difficulty.
Then the second. Then the third. Then the fourth.
Everyone could see that Leif's face had already begun to flush a deep, blotchy red. His eyes were locked onto the fifth feather, and no matter how he moved his wand, it would not rise.
"You used too much Mana on the earlier ones," Kate commented, her tone entirely composed. "The Levitation Charm doesn't just test concentration — it tests how well you understand your own Mana."
"Only someone who knows themselves completely can channel every last drop of their Mana into each individual spell without waste.
"The same is true in combat. A wizard needs to survey their surroundings, maintain defensive spells like Protego, and simultaneously draw on their Mana to attack or counter incoming spells from any direction.
"Among all the students at Hogwarts, the number who can genuinely do all of that at once probably wouldn't fill one hand."
Leif's face went crimson with effort. He managed to coax the fifth feather into a wobbly, trembling float — but the moment he did, the others he'd been holding aloft came crashing down, marking his failure.
Kate had half-expected him to kick up a fuss. Instead, he simply stared at the fallen feathers in silence, lost in thought.
After a long pause, he bowed his head. "I lost. Until I've mastered this skill, I won't come back asking to learn Fiendfyre."
With that, he turned and pushed his way through the crowd, walking back to the dormitory alone with his head down.
The room fell completely silent.
The little snakes all looked at each other. Then a voice rose from somewhere in the middle of the crowd: "Does that mean — if we can layer all ten feathers into the air, we'd earn the right to learn Fiendfyre?"
Kate rested her head lazily against one hand. "The Levitation Charm is just the entry-level exercise. There's still a very long road between that and fully mastering Fiendfyre."
She wasn't stringing them along.
The most terrifying thing about Fiendfyre was precisely that it made no distinction between friend and foe. It ran wild if you lost control. That made Mana management and absolute concentration the most critical thresholds of all.
Even she had only reached rank four of Fiendfyre after pushing her Levitation Charm to rank nine — and at rank four, she could only just barely exercise preliminary control over the spell. She was still a universe away from Katherine's level, where she could sculpt living creatures out of the flames at will.
Of course, part of that gap was simply because Kate hadn't been practicing Fiendfyre consistently. Now that she had Dragon Breath — which was objectively more powerful — she had little reason to grind away at Fiendfyre specifically.
She raised her wand and, with an air of casual ease, lifted all ten feathers from the floor one by one using layered Levitation Charms, sending them swirling and dancing through the air above her.
The effortless elegance of it made Leif's earlier strained performance look almost theatrical by comparison.
For most adult wizards, a Mana pool hovering somewhere in the low thirties meant they had no choice but to ration every drop with meticulous care — it was the only way to get the most out of what they had.
Kate, on the other hand, had a vast reservoir of Mana — and still chose to use it with that same surgical precision.
It was like wielding a machine gun and choosing to use it to paint a portrait of the Mona Lisa. Absurd by any reasonable standard.
She wasn't quite at that level of refinement yet, admittedly — more like using a machine gun to produce a primary-school-level drawing. But still.
The young wizards in front of her? They were probably at the stage where even holding a paintbrush and drawing a straight line was a challenge.
She let the feathers drift gently back to the floor, then swept her gaze across the room. "I've laid out both thresholds for Fiendfyre as clearly as I can. Does anyone still want me to teach them?"
The room went quiet for a moment. Then a short, round figure pushed his way to the front of the crowd. "Me! I want to learn!"
Ah. Crabbe. The one running on a faulty circuit.
Kate glanced past him at Malfoy, whose expression had shifted sharply the moment Crabbe stepped forward. She smiled pleasantly. "So — does Young Master Malfoy want to learn as well?"
"I..." Malfoy's instinct was to deny it immediately. She wasn't stupid — she could hear perfectly well that Kate's tone carried a note of displeasure.
But her lackey had already stepped up. Backing down now would humiliate both of them.
She hesitated, then bit down and asked through gritted teeth: "You're refusing to teach us?"
This was pure highway robbery logic. They'd assembled here without so much as asking her permission in the first place.
Kate had gone to considerable effort to spell out exactly how dangerous Fiendfyre was and talk the crowd down — and somehow Malfoy was still charging forward with her head down.
Apparently she really wouldn't learn without a proper lesson.
Kate let out a soft laugh. "Fine, then. Student Crabbe — by all means, give it a go first."
Crabbe grinned and immediately leveled his wand at her. He bellowed out the incantation for Fiendfyre — and a surge of flame erupted from the tip of his wand, roaring straight toward Kate.
"Stop — Crabbe, stop!" Malfoy's face went white. She lunged forward to pull him back.
But she was too late. The blazing fire was already surging directly at Kate's face.
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