Slytherin was about to experience an earthquake of magnitude eight.
Kate had already foreseen exactly how long Snape's face was going to stretch — so the moment class ended, she grabbed Hermione and bolted, not daring to look back even once.
The two of them sprinted out of the dungeons at full speed, and Hermione hadn't even managed to catch her breath before they ran headlong into Katherine, who had just stepped out of her classroom.
"Pro— Professor Wynyard," Kate said. The moment she spotted those black-framed glasses, she felt her head double in size.
If Katherine hadn't gone and demonstrated Fiendfyre to their class without a second thought, none of this would have happened.
"Oh, it's little Kate and Miss Granger — what's the rush?" Katherine said, making no effort to hide the favoritism in her voice as she reached up to adjust her glasses.
For some reason, that particular gesture always made Kate think of a certain scheming elementary-school detective whose glasses caught the light at just the right sinister angle.
Hermione was still gasping in great lungfuls of air. "Professor, we were just heading to the library to work on our homework."
They had become the library's most permanent two-person fixture at this point.
"No rush on that — come with me to my office for a moment. There's something I'd like to ask for your help with."
Katherine's glasses caught the light just slightly, making her expression impossible to read.
Kate's whole body went rigid, and she pressed her lips together with quiet unease.
She had already deduced Katherine's true identity — but in all the time since she had transmigrated into this world, since she had taken up residence next door to Hermione's family, this was the first time she had ever come face to face with someone who might actually share her blood. That knowledge made her stiff and awkward around Katherine, unable to fully relax.
Hermione, for her part, had no such reservations. She answered immediately, accepting on behalf of them both.
And so the two of them followed Katherine all the way to her office.
Since Quirrell's old office had been burned out, Katherine had moved into a freshly requisitioned empty room instead.
Unlike the tidy, carefully arranged offices Kate associated with the female professors she knew, Katherine's workspace was absolute chaos — papers and rubbish blanketing every surface, the desk, the floor, everywhere.
She probably hadn't had time to organise it properly since moving in.
Kate noticed a picture frame lying face-down on the desk and found herself lingering on it with quiet curiosity.
"I only have oolong tea, I'm afraid — would you like to try some?" Katherine said warmly, moving to the cabinet and picking up a tin of tea leaves, giving it a little shake in their direction.
"That would be lovely, thank you, Professor," Hermione replied.
The two of them settled onto the office sofa. In no time at all, Katherine reappeared with two cups of green tea, and gave them a playful wink. "Any guesses as to why I called you here?"
Kate shook her head, cradling her teacup with a faint edge of nervousness, letting the warm mist curl against her fingers.
"I know you're both the top students in your year, so I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to take turns serving as my teaching assistant between now and the end of term."
Both Kate and Hermione blinked at that.
It was Hermione who recovered first. "Professor, the end-of-term exams are only a month away..."
"Which is precisely why, over the next month, I'll be writing exam questions and will be rather busy," Katherine said, cutting her off with effortless ease. "All going well, this will also be my last month teaching at Hogwarts, and I'd like it to end on a high note."
"Besides, the teaching assistant role only involves helping me prepare some lesson materials — it won't take much of your time at all. I'd just need each of you to take turns coming to my office once a day for the next month."
Taking turns...
Kate understood perfectly. This woman wanted time alone with her — and was worried Kate would run, so she'd invented this excuse. And to make it airtight, she'd roped Hermione into it as well.
Kate shot a conflicted glance at Hermione, who was still giving the proposal genuine thought beside her. Did this count as accidentally dragging Hermione into her own mess?
"Of course," Katherine said, catching the hesitation on her face without missing a beat, "as compensation for your time, I'm happy to offer some personal guidance on whatever I'm able to teach."
Oh, so we've moved on to bribery, have we?
Kate watched Hermione's eyes light up the instant she heard the words personal guidance, and buried her face in her hands with resigned helplessness.
Her own teammate had defected. What was left to fight with?
She let out a quiet, internal sigh. In the end, all she really had was a slight case of nerves around Katherine — it wasn't the end of the world.
She tightened her grip on Hermione's hand, gave a sincere nod, and said, "Alright. We'll do our best to be good teaching assistants."
"Wonderful." The corner of Katherine's lips curved up. "Then for starters, I'll trouble you to tidy the office a bit — I have something to attend to and need to step out for a moment."
...What?
Kate stared, momentarily stunned. Before she could get a word of protest out, Katherine — as though she had sensed exactly what Kate was thinking — stood up and left, not leaving even a sliver of an opening for her to speak.
"So..." Kate rose slowly, surveying the avalanche of clutter all around her. "We've just been conscripted as cheap labour, haven't we?"
Why does this professor never play by the rules?!
Beside her, Hermione heard the utterly defeated note in Kate's voice and couldn't hold back a laugh. "Honestly, cleaning up with Kate around actually sounds like a perfectly pleasant way to spend the time."
From a scientific standpoint, that was true — cleaning when you were in low spirits really could improve your mood.
But this wasn't their room. And this was the wizarding world — since when did scientific logic apply here?!
Kate sighed with deep resignation, drew her wand, and said flatly, "Let's get this place spotless in ten minutes."
Then, the moment Katherine isn't back yet — we make a run for it.
It had to be said: with magic in their corner, cleaning a reasonably-sized office was almost laughably easy.
In no time at all, the room that had been ankle-deep in chaos was put in perfect order.
Kate was about to drag Hermione toward the door — when she turned and found Hermione standing at the desk, holding the face-down picture frame, peering at the photograph with unconcealed curiosity.
Kate drifted over and looked.
The photograph showed two young women — both with long, dark hair, both strikingly beautiful. One of them was laughing with an unrestrained joy, her grin so wide her eyes were nearly squeezed shut. The other carried herself with a quiet elegance, her faint smile warm and gentle, her eyes seeming to radiate a soft, tender light.
What caught Kate off guard was that these were the same two girls she had seen during her Occlumency practice.
Was this... her mother?
Without thinking, her fingers reached out and traced the gentle face in the photograph. A smile rose unbidden to her lips — and when her gaze drifted upward, she found Hermione staring back at her with an expression full of baffled confusion.
"Kate, you're..." Hermione trailed off, studying Kate's face with open puzzlement.
It was the first time she had ever seen Kate look like that. And at a photograph, of all things.
"Ah — I was just —" Kate snapped back to herself the instant she caught Hermione's bewildered look. She hastily set the frame back down. "There was a smudge on it. I was just wiping it off!"
Since she still hadn't confirmed whether Katherine was her maternal aunt, a clumsy lie was the best she could manage.
Hermione's brow furrowed with visible suspicion.
They had grown up as childhood friends — of course she could see that Kate was flustered. But for the life of her, she couldn't work out why. It was just a photograph of a professor and someone else. What was there to get flustered about?
Her gaze drifted back to the gentle, smiling girl in the picture.
Could it be... that this was Kate's type?
Hermione felt something complicated happen to her mood in an instant.
"Ahem — now that we're done cleaning, we should probably get going," Kate said, with a light, pointed cough, steering the conversation elsewhere. "If Professor Wynyard comes back, who knows what other chores she'll find for us."
With that, she seized Hermione's hand and the two of them slipped out without further delay.
It was some time before Katherine returned to find her office transformed — and her eyes fell immediately on the picture frame, which had been propped upright again on the desk.
"Sister," she said softly, picking up the frame. Her gaze turned gentle. "That child must have seen you already, hasn't she?"
She slipped off her glasses and absently swept her hair back, tilting her head to study the woman in the photograph — her expression distant, as though gazing not at a picture but at someone from a remembered world.
· · · · ·
After saying goodbye to Hermione, Kate returned to the Slytherin Common Room — and immediately felt the oppressive weight of the atmosphere inside.
Yikes... she had come back at the wrong moment.
On instinct she was about to quietly back out and pretend she'd seen nothing — when Snape's voice reached her, low and edged with fury: "Shafiq. Get in here."
Oh no. Caught red-handed.
Kate steeled herself and walked in — and found a dense mass of students standing with their heads bowed in the middle of the Common Room.
In front of them stood Snape, radiating menace. At his side was Malfoy, head equally lowered.
Kate walked over to Snape's side with a carefully neutral expression. "Good afternoon, Head of House."
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you," Snape said, turning to face her, his voice as cold and cutting as a scalpel. "It seems Miss Shafiq has been having quite a pleasant afternoon — out for a leisurely stroll, were we?"
Kate half-expected him to call her a complete imbecile in the next breath. She got in first: "Head of House, I bear responsibility for what happened yesterday as well. Whatever the punishment — I'll accept it."
Might as well skip the part where the old bat works himself up to a tirade.
Snape was visibly derailed. The biting remark already rising to his throat was swallowed back with visible effort.
"...If I ever hear you interrupting a professor again," he said icily, "you will regret it."
Kate felt the weight of his fathomless gaze pressing against her mind — a sensation like fingers trying to work their way in.
This was a technique only a skilled Legilimens could manage: using one's eyes alone to probe another person's thoughts. Most of the time, however, Snape's gaze was simply that sharp — not a deliberate attempt at Legilimency, but wielded as pure intimidation.
Instinctively, Kate let her mind go blank. A small, unbidden smile settled on her lips. "It won't happen again, Professor."
Snape watched her remain completely unaffected and narrowed his eyes with a flicker of something almost like surprise, then turned his attention to the students who hadn't dared to breathe.
"The Prefects will assign rotations. For the next month, each of you will take a turn cleaning the Common Room. And if any of you fail to achieve at least an Acceptable in your Potions end-of-term exam..."
He left it there — but the chill hanging in those unfinished words was enough to make several students visibly shudder.
"As for the two of you —" His gaze moved to Malfoy and Crabbe, and his voice dropped another degree. "Two weeks of detention. Together."
Malfoy's head sank a fraction lower. Crabbe looked as though he was on the verge of actually crying.
Even Kate felt a pang watching Malfoy — but it wasn't yet her place to feel sorry for anyone.
"Miss Shafiq," Snape said, finally turning his full attention back to her, "for privately practising dark magic — I think you'll be continuing your Potions regimen for another two weeks."
Kate went cold all over. She accepted the punishment in a low, subdued voice.
Damn that old bat. He knows detention doesn't faze her, so he goes straight for the thing she hates most.
The next month was critical. She had no idea when Quirrell would recover and be discharged, or when he would return to Hogwarts to make his move on the Philosopher's Stone.
And on top of that, for the next two weeks she'd have to face Katherine up close every single day...
Just thinking about it made her head swim.
She kept her head down until Snape's sweeping robes finally disappeared from the Slytherin Common Room, and then allowed herself one careful, measured breath of relief.
Except — the moment she raised her eyes, she sensed that something in the atmosphere was still very wrong.
Mainly because the little snakes were shooting some very unsettling looks across the room.
Though, to be fair, the object of those murderous glares was Malfoy — who was still standing with her head down in silence.
Understandably. Everyone now knew it was Malfoy who had gone to the Head of House and sold them all out. Of course there were no warm feelings to be had.
That said — with the sole exception of the initial incident, every step of this entire affair had been orchestrated by Kate herself. That included goading Malfoy into going to confess. She had set all of this in motion.
Malfoy's current situation was partly Kate's doing. She knew that.
She still held to the double standard. She always had.
If Malfoy had been a boy, she would have offered two words of consolation and called it done. But Malfoy was a girl — and that made it different.
"Senior," Kate said, homing in precisely on the Prefect in the crowd, "you should be able to start assigning Common Room cleaning shifts now."
With so many students punished, even assigning three people per day would cover a full month's worth of cleaning.
It served its purpose — the attention in the room shifted, at least momentarily, to the logistics of the roster. In the same instant, Kate caught Malfoy's eye and gave a small, deliberate tilt of her head.
Malfoy looked at her for a single moment — then lowered her gaze again and followed Crabbe and Goyle into the boys' dormitory.
Kate stood watching that retreating, solitary figure, rooted to the spot. Something felt deeply, unpleasantly wrong inside her — and for the first time, she found herself questioning whether what she had done was right.
When all was said and done, she was the one who had dragged Malfoy into this. And now Malfoy was the one absorbing the full weight of everyone's blame.
"Kate..." Pansy tugged lightly at the hem of her robes from behind.
Kate had already had a private word with Pansy the night before — one that had nearly reduced the girl to tears on the spot. She had honestly assumed Pansy wouldn't want to come near her for a few days.
"Something the matter?" Kate turned around. The room behind her was still buzzing with noise.
Pansy hesitated, then said carefully: "Did you notice? Draco didn't sleep at all last night."
"...How would I know that?" Kate asked, genuinely puzzled.
She didn't live in Malfoy's dormitory.
Pansy paused, glanced away, muttered "I think you should go check on him" — and vanished into the crowd before Kate could respond.
Go check on Malfoy?
In her dormitory?
Slipping into the boys' dormitory in the middle of the night seemed like precisely the kind of thing that would generate even bigger news.
Kate didn't quite follow Pansy's reasoning. She stood there frowning, turning it over in her mind — and ultimately filed the absurd idea away as unworkable.
____
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