Full of questions, Kate walked out of the office, mulling over what Dumbledore had said before he left.
Hermione had suddenly realized she liked the same sex, and the shock of it had made her run away.
As for Malfoy—Kate hadn't provoked her at all lately, so the only thing that could have soured her mood was the fact that Kate had been confessed to.
Kate was the one who'd been confessed to, yet Malfoy was the one acting strangely. No matter how dense she might be, Kate could roughly guess what was going on.
In the original works, Malfoy liked women, but this one had even changed genders, so Kate couldn't quite pin down her orientation.
And when she recalled how awkwardly this young lady behaved around her, her confidence in this guess grew a few notches.
Even a little girl's naive, half-understood crush on someone was still a form of affection.
In her view, as long as it didn't hurt the other person or anyone else, any form of affection deserved respect.
It was just that, right now, she had no interest in returning that affection—and who knew, maybe one day Miss Malfoy would come to her senses and stop liking her altogether?
Who could say what the future held?
But Hermione was different. She was unambiguously the female lead in the original works—and a thoroughly straight girl at that.
So from the day they met, Kate had taken it for granted that Hermione was set up to be straight, and every rule of conduct afterward had followed the pattern of treating her as a best friend.
Back when she was still in her withdrawn, self-isolating phase, it had been Hermione who ran to her house every single day without fail, knocking again and again, pulling her out of her loneliness one knock at a time.
So once she had finally worked her way out of the tangled, complicated relationship between her past and present lives, she had come to regard Hermione as the person closest to her.
All these years, it was Hermione who had brought sunlight and warmth back into her world, and Kate in turn indulged all of Hermione's little moods. It went both ways.
So she believed that even if Hermione learned she liked girls, she would at most be surprised for a while before returning to her side as if nothing had happened.
They were the closest of friends—Kate had at least that much confidence.
So going forward, she just had to keep the right distance from Malfoy and smooth Hermione's ruffled feathers, and everything should be fine.
Lost in thought, she found herself near the Gryffindor Common Room on the eighth floor before she knew it.
She glanced over hesitantly. The people coming and going were all little lions, but there was no sign of Hermione.
It was almost curfew—she must have already gone to rest in her dormitory.
Kate pressed her lips together, then quickly headed down the stairs, all the way down to the dungeon and into the Common Room—where she came face to face with Malfoy hunched over a table with her two cronies, doing homework.
Instinctively, her steps paused. Her gaze had barely lingered on Malfoy for a moment when Malfoy, as if sensing it, looked up.
The expression on her face, which had been fairly decent until then, immediately darkened. She gave a soft snort, gathered up her books, and went straight back to her dormitory.
The whole sequence left Kate not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Were little girls nursing secret crushes always this moody and unpredictable?
She figured only Miss Malfoy could make even a secret crush this awkward.
Giving her head a light shake, she turned and went into the girls' dormitory.
The moment she opened the door and stepped in, she saw a little brown-haired girl standing inside, playing with Fluffball.
"Hermione? What are you doing here?" Kate was startled. Her body, which had felt natural enough a moment ago, somehow stiffened; even her feet felt hard to move, and she could only stare blankly at the other girl.
She'd had it all figured out just moments ago, but now, suddenly face to face with her, she discovered that she too could get so nervous her palms sweated.
"You're back!" Hermione turned around and said, rather delighted. "Fluffball seems especially lively lately."
Kate instinctively licked her lips. "Mm... that's because I take it out for morning exercise every day."
A lazy bird that used to do nothing but sleep all day had been trained by her to sprint eight hundred meters.
Hermione couldn't help laughing, and walked over to take her hand. "So you're just back from the Headmaster's? Does his Phoenix need your help exercising too?"
"Mm, not exactly..." Kate's lips twitched awkwardly, and just before Hermione could feel the faint sweat on her palm, she quickly pulled her hand away. "There was just something else I had to deal with."
As she spoke, she walked over to the desk, conjured herself a glass of water, and gulped it down, which finally calmed her a little.
She took a deep breath, deciding it was better to bring it up herself first. "This afternoon—you must have heard, right?"
As she said this, her voice was actually trembling.
Rationally, she could be certain Hermione wouldn't grow distant over something like this, but emotionally, she couldn't help dwelling on that less-than-one-in-ten-thousand possibility.
Since coming to this world, Hermione was the most important person to her, apart from the old butler.
She had been avoiding thinking about this all along, believing she could face other people's eyes calmly.
But when Hermione came to her dormitory of her own accord, she couldn't help feeling a little flustered inside.
The more she cared, the more anxious she felt.
"Mm, I heard," Hermione answered softly, walking up behind her.
Kate took a deep breath and gathered her courage to turn around and look her straight in the eye. "So you came all this way, this late, just to tell me what you think?"
Hermione lowered her eyes, silent for a while, then gave a small nod. "When I first heard, honestly, I didn't know how to face you—that's why I ran away."
To her, Kate truly was someone extraordinary.
The more she cared, the more she fretted over every gain and loss.
She liked Kate, and had once agonized and worried because she didn't know Kate's orientation.
So by rights, when she learned that Kate liked girls, she should have been happy—it meant she had a chance.
But for some reason, in that moment her mind had simply gone blank, immediately followed by images of Kate together with her, and with other girls.
It seemed that apart from being a bit more intimate and natural with her, Kate treated all girls pretty much the same.
And there was even a Malfoy, toward whom Kate's attitude was also a little odd.
Even if Kate liked girls, it didn't mean she would like her, did it?
Whenever she thought of this, Hermione felt as though a hand were mercilessly clenching around her heart.
Just as Kate had said, people harboring secret crushes always fret over gains and losses, always thinking themselves unworthy of the one they like, yet unable to bear seeing that person pestered by others.
This contradictory state of mind left Hermione utterly at a loss.
"After I got back to my dormitory, I hid under the covers by myself and thought about it for ages, and in the end I decided to come find you and talk it through with you..."
Hermione struggled up onto her tiptoes and gently hugged her. "Kate, you're wonderful—truly wonderful."
So wonderful that even though she'd been given a glimpse of hope, she didn't dare put her feelings into words.
If she confessed rashly, they might not even be able to stay friends.
Although she'd been handed several "you're such a nice person" cards in a row, at least it showed that Hermione had no objection to her orientation, right?
Even after coaxing the inexplicably sobbing little girl to sleep, Kate still hadn't figured out the true meaning of tonight's conversation.
If it was only to say all that, there hardly seemed any need for Hermione to make a special trip over.
Glancing back at the brown-haired little lion curled up in a ball on her bed, Kate sighed. She'd just have to make do on the little sofa for the night.
It wasn't that the one-meter-eighty bed couldn't fit two minors—she just didn't want to make Hermione feel awkward.
With a yawn, she crept quietly into the bathroom, and after a quick wash, wrapped herself in a small blanket and lay down to sleep on the sofa.
Early the next morning, she woke Hermione and used the Disillusionment Charm to sneak her all the way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
Staying out overnight was a troublesome business; there was no need for Hermione to earn herself a punishment in an otherwise uneventful second year.
Probably because she hadn't slept well, Kate was still yawning right up until class began.
"I'm sorry, Kate," Hermione apologized in a low voice. "I really didn't mean to just fall asleep over at your place last night..."
Rubbing her face with an effort, Kate shook her head and smiled. "It's fine. I don't have class next period, so I'll just go back and catch up on sleep."
Besides, this period was actually History of Magic—there wasn't much point in listening anyway.
Glancing around, and before class had started, Hermione quickly pulled her over to a seat near the back and whispered, "I'll cover for you—get some sleep during class."
"What?" Kate's eyes went wide with bewilderment.
What on earth could make a good student say something like that?
She'd meant to decline, but History of Magic was simply too soporific. The moment Professor Binns's flat, monotonous tone began, it successfully lulled her straight into sleep.
In the row in front of them, Harry and Ron secretly propped up their books, their eyes drifting backward again and again.
"What's gotten into Hermione?" Harry looked incredulous.
This person, who wasn't busy listening to the lesson and was even covering for Kate in every way—was that really Hermione?
Ron grinned mischievously. "Never mind that—haven't you noticed the two of them have made up again?"
Realization dawned on Harry, though he still asked, a little puzzled, "But yesterday they clearly didn't have any time to talk..."
"That's their little secret, then." Ron raised an eyebrow.
A little secret between the two of them—heh heh heh.
Eyeing his friend's leering smile with distaste, Harry silently scooted his chair a bit farther away.
After class, Kate said goodbye to the three of them and headed back to her dormitory alone to catch up on sleep.
As she passed through the Common Room, she made a point of glancing around. Malfoy wasn't there.
No telling where she'd run off to.
She didn't think much of it and walked straight into the girls' dormitory area, where she came upon two vaguely familiar Slytherin girls discussing something in hushed voices.
"Have you heard that Hogwarts has a Chamber of Secrets?"
"A Chamber of Secrets? What's that?"
"I don't know—but they say there's something terrifying inside!"
Kate stopped in her tracks, turned to look at the two girls still deep in discussion, and narrowed her eyes in some surprise.
It was already this late in the game—how could rumors of the Chamber of Secrets still be leaking out?
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