For several days running, the students discussed the study-tour at every opportunity, and the various professors were pestered with questions about what it would involve.
Except for Snape, of course—not even the Slytherin students dared approach that old bat lightly.
The most popular by far was still Lockhart. Kate reckoned that if the whole Chamber of Secrets business had never happened, this fellow's true colors might genuinely never have been exposed.
Not that it mattered. There was still a contract between them, and she wasn't the one losing out.
No one expected that the first person to go and sign up with Professor McGonagall would be Malfoy—because although the others were interested, for various reasons they were all still in a wait-and-see phase.
"My father says this outing was unanimously approved by the Board of Governors. We'll be crossing four regions of England in twelve days, and there will even be professors leading the group."
Malfoy, back ramrod-straight as always, smugly recounted the firsthand information she'd obtained in the Common Room.
With her endorsement, the other Slytherin students who had been hesitating began, one after another, to go back and write letters asking their parents for permission.
Only once the crowd had dispersed did Kate, who had been waiting off to the side for some time, step forward and call out to her: "Hold on—you're saying your father agreed to the school doing this?"
"Of course," Malfoy said, instinctively lifting her chin. "Shafiq, don't tell me your Butler won't even allow you to go on a study-tour?"
The tone was plainly mocking, and yet it carried a trace of expectation.
Kate lowered her gaze and pondered for a moment, then raised a smile: "Grandpa Rand is my elder, so naturally I'll abide by his opinion."
With that, not waiting for Malfoy to say a word, she turned and went back to the dormitory on her own.
Lucius had actually agreed to let all the students leave the school? Wasn't he supposed to be hoping for something to go wrong at Hogwarts?
Or had Dumbledore used some method to persuade him?
Kate felt a little uncertain. The fact that this fellow wouldn't let Malfoy go home meant there would still be Death Eaters coming to the door.
And now he had so readily agreed to let everyone leave the school—he was bound to be cooking up some new mischief.
Right now she'd thrown the second-year plot into utter disarray: the Chamber of Secrets hadn't been opened, the Basilisk hadn't come out yet, and Harry was still happily enjoying this rare stretch of peace.
All she could do for now was raise her guard.
As for whether she herself would join the study-tour, that still depended on the choices of the few friends around her.
The next day, she sought out the Gryffindor trio.
"My mum only sent a letter last night. She said this is a study-tour organized by the school, so the whole lot of us have got to go!" Ron said gleefully, hands on his hips.
Hermione, by contrast, looked entirely unbothered: "I asked my mum, and she said it's up to how I feel about it—she even mailed the consent form over."
Meaning the choice of whether or not to sign up was in her own hands.
Only Harry shook his head dejectedly: "My aunt and uncle would never agree. I don't even need to send a letter to know that."
So now it was one definitely going, one maybe-or-maybe-not, and one who couldn't go.
Kate raised an eyebrow and tried to encourage him: "Harry, this is the first study-tour Hogwarts has held in a thousand years—it's hugely significant. Why not write home and give it a try?"
"But..."
"There's no harm in trying. And if your relatives don't want you home for Christmas, well, then they'll just have to sign." She blinked, egging him on with all her might.
Catching her drift, Hermione asked tentatively: "So, Kate, that means you're going on the study-tour too?"
"Well, this..." Kate deliberately put on a slightly troubled air. "I already mailed a letter home last night. I don't know whether Grandpa Rand will agree."
"He definitely will! He dotes on you so much!"
Hermione said it with conviction, then took out her own consent form. "In that case, you're all going, so I can't very well not go."
Exchanging a smile with her, Kate went on urging: "Harry, go and give it a try. If everyone goes and you're the only one missing, none of us will have a good time."
"...All right," Harry said. Though the hope was slim, he'd at least rallied his spirits. "I'll go write the letter right away!"
Watching his retreating figure as he trotted off, a flicker of amusement passed through Kate's eyes.
She turned and said: "I've got class this afternoon, so I need to head back to the dormitory first. Don't forget to go sign up with Professor McGonagall early."
"Don't worry," Hermione said, the consent form in hand, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "I really can't wait to see what this study-tour will be like."
Kate smiled but said nothing, and after a few pleasantries she turned and left.
She had meant to go back to the dormitory, but as she passed through the corridor she saw Peeves poking his head out of the wall, holding something that looked rather familiar.
"Peeves! You've been stealing students' things again, haven't you?" She took a step forward, and a streak of blue flame shot out, scorching Peeves until he shrieked and yowled, dropped the thing, and dove back into the wall.
Kate walked over and picked it up, only then realizing it was the necklace of Butterbeer corks strung together that Luna used to wear around her neck.
In the two months since the term began, she had hardly seen Luna at all, but going by the descriptions in the original works in her memory, Luna didn't seem to be having an easy time of it.
Because of that dreamy, batty air about her, she was ostracized by her classmates, and many of her things—books and clothes included—were hidden away by the classmates who thought her odd.
"Oi, Peeves!" she called at the wall. "Come out and tell me where you found this necklace."
His grating laughter rang out from inside the wall: "Hee-hee-hee, you think I'd tell you?"
"It's fine if you don't," Kate threatened calmly. "I can go ask The Bloody Baron to help me look, and if I find out you were behind it..."
Peeves popped straight out of the wall: "Shafiq, you little rascal!"
Kate was utterly unmoved by his trifling insults. Holding up the necklace, she asked: "Tell me, where did you find this? Otherwise you know what I'll do."
"I won't tell, and what can you do to me? Even if you bring help, I'll have long since fled, hahaha..."
His laughter cut off abruptly.
Because countless golden threads suddenly shot out of the wall, binding him fast and dropping him to the ground.
"I forgot to mention—over the summer holiday I blew up Hogwarts's walls a few times," Kate said, walking up to him with a faint smile. "Back then, I buried a little something inside the walls."
During the summer holiday, she had indeed used failed alchemy practice as an excuse to blow up several of Hogwarts's walls, and before Dumbledore came rushing over, she'd slipped the little trinkets she'd forged inside.
They had originally been a just-in-case measure for dealing with the Basilisk that slithered through the pipes; using them on Peeves now was rather overkill.
"I can go find The Bloody Baron right now. Care to guess—in the dozen or so minutes I'm gone, will you manage to struggle free and escape?"
Peeves thrashed desperately for a while, but unfortunately, although as a poltergeist he had no fear of most attacks, an alchemical item was genuinely beyond his comprehension.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn't break free of the golden threads, so all he could do was rage: "Shafiq! For the sake of a few scavenged trinkets, you actually dare treat me like this!"
"What else? It's not as if we were ever on friendly terms." Kate drew her wand with a sweet smile and pointed it at his head. "Now, I'll give you three seconds to think it over."
"Three—" Peeves was still thrashing for his life.
"Two—" The golden threads began to draw tighter and tighter.
"On—!"
"Wait!" Just before Kate's wand could swing down, Peeves hurriedly called a halt. "I'll take you there!"
Kate's wand stopped, very obligingly, at her command. She blinked innocently—surely this fellow didn't think she was actually going to hit him with her wand?
As if. This thing cost over a dozen Galleons!
She withdrew her wand and waved off the golden threads with a lift of her hand. As Peeves made to fly up, she kindly reminded him: "Oh, and—my golden threads are now everywhere throughout the castle, so you'd best not go flitting about all over the place."
Peeves shuddered. He realized this student seemed even more terrifying than she'd been in her first year.
Last year he could still trade pranks with her, but this year it seemed he was only ever the one being toyed with...
Impossible! Absolutely impossible!
He flew hard toward the ceiling, but his head had barely passed through the wall when dozens of densely packed golden threads bound him tight and slammed him heavily to the floor.
"I'd rather neither of us waste the other's time. What do you say?" Kate folded her arms and stared down at him from on high.
Peeves flopped about laboriously on the floorboards for a while before finally giving up the struggle: "I picked it up near the Ravenclaw Common Room!"
"Take me there." Kate loosened part of the golden threads, leaving him only the ability to fly while his hands and feet remained tightly bound.
Peeves was helpless against her and could only resign himself to leading the way.
The Ravenclaw Common Room was on the fifth floor of the spiral staircase on Hogwarts's west side—the very top floor.
It was said that every Ravenclaw student who wished to enter had to answer the question posed by the eagle-shaped bronze knocker outside the Common Room.
Mm, very much in keeping with Ravenclaw's own wish to recruit the cleverest students.
Before being sorted into Slytherin, Kate had wondered whether she might end up in Ravenclaw, but on second thought, her diligent studying was only for the sake of staying alive—which was a little different from loving knowledge from the heart.
Even so, it didn't stop her from crushing the whole crowd of Ravenclaw students to become first in her year.
After all, the drive to stay alive was surely, in the short term, far stronger than the drive of pure love of knowledge.
Peeves led her to the floor below the Ravenclaw Common Room, where, in an abandoned classroom, she found a great many things.
Luna's clothes, Luna's books, and a single carrot earring of hers.
Together with the necklace Kate had in hand, it amounted to nearly all of Luna's belongings.
"Did you steal these out?" She stared at the things strewn across the floor like rubbish, a barely perceptible anger lurking in her voice.
Peeves shook his head hurriedly: "No! I just found these here! A few days ago I even saw Ravenclaw students sneaking over here to dump things!"
So it really was school bullying.
No matter how good a school, things like this would still happen.
Kate narrowed her eyes in displeasure, and just as Peeves trembled, thinking she was about to do something, she crouched down of her own accord and picked up the scattered things one by one.
"Hey, Shafiq, aren't you angry?" he asked hesitantly.
As she gathered them up, Kate cleaned each one with a Scouring Charm, then tossed them to Peeves: "Hold these for me first. We'll deliver them together in a bit."
Before long, the whole floor's worth of things had been tidied up by her.
Peeves watched as she arranged all the clothes, books, and jewelry neatly, gathered them in her arms, and then, towing him along, set off all the way toward the Ravenclaw Common Room.
As it happened, just as they reached the Common Room entrance, a Ravenclaw girl came out and gave a start at the sight of her.
"Hello," Kate said with a polite smile. "Could you please call Luna out for a moment? I found her things and want to give them back to her."
The girl's expression turned somewhat startled. She glanced at the neatly arranged clothes and books in Kate's arms and couldn't help nervously licking her lips.
"Why don't I just take them in for you?" she said, reaching out to take them—only for Kate to dodge aside.
"Sorry, Luna and I are friends. You just need to send her out." The corner of Kate's lips curved into a perfectly measured arc, the sight of which sent a chill through Peeves up in the air.
That was exactly the way this fellow smiled when she was threatening him!
Realizing she wasn't so easy to fob off, the girl could only nod, turn, and go into the Common Room. The several cries of "loony girl" that followed could be heard not just by Kate outside but, presumably, by everyone within as well.
Before long, Luna came running out. The moment she saw it was Kate, a trace of a smile appeared on her still-childish face: "Senior."
"These are yours, aren't they?" Kate handed her the things. "I found them in the abandoned classroom downstairs."
Luna fell silent for a moment, her lively eyes blinking: "Senior, you don't need to be angry."
"I'm not," Kate denied instinctively, but the moment she met those seemingly vacant yet uncommonly clear eyes, she shifted her gaze away with a touch of guilt.
She heard Luna laugh softly. "Senior's expressions are very easy to read."
That one needs no explaining!
Kate coughed lightly, trying to save face: "This time, for your sake, I'll let them off first. But if there's a next time—"
Before she could finish her stern words, Luna's slender finger poked at the corner of her lips.
"I still think Senior would look much prettier smiling." Luna's eyes curved, sparkling with a leaping light.
"You—" Kate's eyes went wide, and she instinctively took a step back. "Do you even know what I'm talking about right now?"
Luna blinked, and reflected in her eyes was Kate's inexplicably reddening face: "I do. Senior is showing concern for me."
Then she shifted the subject. "By the way, will Senior be going on the study-tour?"
Kate was momentarily stunned, not quite keeping up with her rhythm: "I—of course I will!"
"Is that so..." Luna gazed at her thoughtfully for a while. "Then I'll see you on the study-tour."
She turned, about to step into the Common Room, then remembered something and glanced back with a smile: "Thank you for bringing them back."
Tsk.
Forced to watch the whole spectacle, Peeves scrunched his face as though his teeth were set on edge.
This fellow, standing there frozen and motionless—was she really the same little sorceress who had pinned him down without the slightest power to resist?
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