Kate had thought that a comfortable, carefree school life was about to begin.
But she hadn't expected that, with Lockhart's early departure this year, the Defense Against the Dark Arts post would fall vacant once again.
So when she once more saw Katherine make her grand entrance in the classroom, she was practically dumbfounded.
But apart from her, the other students were clearly quite enthusiastic about Katherine's limited-time comeback.
After all, who could blame them, when Lockhart had been such a hopeless excuse for a professor?
So even if Katherine had that little flaw of playing favorites, to students who had suffered so much, it seemed perfectly harmless.
"Five points to Slytherin! All right, class dismissed!"
After awarding Kate the last of the points she'd earned that lesson, Katherine cheerfully wrapped up her first class back at the school.
As the object of that favoritism, Kate wanted nothing more than to make a quick escape—but the moment class ended, Katherine called her name and told her to stay behind.
Once everyone had left, Kate awkwardly stepped forward, glancing deliberately around first. "Auntie…"
"So you still remember I'm your aunt," Katherine said, arms folded, smiling with an unfriendly edge in her voice. "And here I thought that after the better part of a year apart, you'd forgotten all about me."
Words that plaintive really shouldn't be delivered in a tone that murderous.
Kate scratched her cheek. "So you've come back to teach again."
"That's right—to clean up a certain someone's mess," Katherine said airily, lightly flicking at her nails.
Anyone else overhearing would surely have assumed this "certain someone" meant Lockhart.
But only Kate knew that Lockhart's Memory Charm had been cast by her own hand—otherwise there was no way he'd have ended up sent straight to St. Mungo's for treatment.
It was to fill the vacancy that Dumbledore had invited Katherine back once more.
So Katherine had returned to teach at Hogwarts precisely to clean up Kate's mess.
Kate shrank her head guiltily. The last time Katherine had come, it had also been because Kate had set Quirrell on fire.
Surely by next year, Lupin wouldn't end up leaving because she'd exposed his werewolf identity ahead of time too—only for Katherine to be dragged in to help all over again?
Just picturing that scene, Kate felt certain she'd be nagged to death by her.
"What are you daydreaming about, you little brat!" Seeing her drift off mid-conversation, Katherine unceremoniously gave her a flick to the forehead.
A red mark sprang up on her forehead in an instant, and Kate clutched it in pain. "Auntie, you—!"
"What about me?" Katherine tilted her chin up, wearing a "what are you going to do about it" expression.
Kate held it in and held it in, finally swallowing the words she'd wanted to say, and put on an apologetic smile. "No, it's nothing."
"That's more like it," Katherine said with a proud smile, then turned and headed out the door. "Come on, help me tidy up my office."
Great—now she'd truly been reduced to manual labor.
Kate had no choice but to jog along resignedly after her.
Aside from Katherine's return, everything else was calm and uneventful—just some trivial, everyday matters.
Once again she became the person who earned Slytherin the most points each week, letting the Snake House pull ahead of the other houses in points within a short time.
This made the other houses look at her strangely for a while, and some even suspected there was some illicit relationship between the two of them.
There was a relationship, all right—but it was a family one, and had nothing whatsoever to do with anything illicit.
As repayment for the daily points, Kate had to go clean Katherine's office every evening after dinner.
And in the process she could wheedle a little private tutoring out of her.
"The Patronus Charm?" Katherine asked oddly. "What made you suddenly want to learn this?"
Kate answered with a perfectly straight face. "Because I've already mastered most of the basic spells, so now I'd like to learn something more advanced."
If anyone else had said something like that, they'd be asking for a beating—but coming from Kate, it somehow didn't feel out of place at all.
Knowing full well just how hard her niece worked, Katherine, though surprised, didn't doubt these words of hers in the slightest.
"You've got a good eye," she said, seating herself leisurely on the desk, hands propped behind her, gazing at Kate with a beaming smile. "You've picked a spell that's plenty difficult."
The Patronus Charm was an ancient magic. Unlike other spells that relied purely on Mana and technique, what it required was the summoning of a person's most positive emotions.
For this reason, it was often regarded as a symbol of a wizard's strength.
Kate studied her expression and asked probingly, "Auntie, don't tell me you haven't learned this spell either?"
"Hmm?" Katherine narrowed her eyes slightly, her already sharp and striking face now practically radiating bloodlust. "You doubt me?"
Who would dare answer that?
Kate certainly didn't.
Katherine gave a soft snort, picked up her wand with her fingers, and traced a gentle circle. "Expecto Patronum."
A silvery substance gushed forth and swiftly gathered into a dazzling little animal that went racing through the air.
Kate squinted, and only then made out the animal's shape—it seemed to be a… little kitty?
"That's a leopard cat!" As if seeing right through her thoughts, Katherine corrected her crossly.
Oh—it seemed plenty of people had made that mistake before.
"A leopard cat is still a cat, isn't it…" she muttered under her breath, then was silenced by Katherine's dangerous glare.
"You've read widely, so you should already know how the Patronus Charm is cast. When reciting the incantation, all your thoughts must be focused on recalling your happiest memory."
Katherine directed the little leopard cat to stop at Kate's feet, and gave a slight lift of her head. "Now it's practice time. I suggest you first decide—what is your happiest memory?"
Her happiest memory.
Honestly, for the life of her, Kate really couldn't come up with any particularly happy memory of her own just then.
Ever since she'd transmigrated into this body, she had lived every day in anxious unease. Later, though she'd finally emerged from that state of mind, the shadows still lingered.
Apart from those two holidays she'd spent together with Hermione, Cho Chang, and the others, in her memory there really didn't seem to be any particularly happy times.
Then she'd try recalling that one day the three of them had spent together with Dark Cloud.
Kate closed her eyes, straining to draw her thoughts toward the scene of that day, and then recited the incantation. "Expecto Patronum!"
A tiny wisp of silvery vapor spurted from the wand, then quickly vanished.
She blinked—she'd already foreseen this result.
"Tell me how it felt," Katherine said, in no hurry to have her keep practicing, but asking instead. "What did you think of?"
"During the summer holiday, I was hanging out with Hermione and Cho Chang," Kate answered honestly. "I think that memory is already a happy one."
Katherine raised an eyebrow and curved her lips rather gossipily. "Besides that, do you have any other memories you could call up?"
"There's also the time they threw me a birthday." At this point Kate paused, looking at her calmly. "And then… that seems to be about it."
The room fell silent all at once.
After quite a while, Katherine, frowning, got down from the desk, bent forward slightly, and brought herself level with Kate's gaze.
"What about further back? Wasn't there any happy moment worth remembering at all?"
"The first time Grandpa Rand cooked for me, he burnt the steak." As Kate said this, she couldn't help the corners of her mouth lifting.
But soon, those memories she kept searching through arrived at the days of her childhood, shut alone in a room, and the image of fewer and fewer people at that long table.
She dropped her eyes at once, avoiding Katherine's gaze, and gave a low cough. "Let me try again."
This time, she recalled every happy thing she could think of, then recited the incantation once more.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Silvery-white vapor successfully gushed out from the tip of her wand, filling more than half the room to the brim.
Katherine noticed that her Patronus leopard cat had shifted from its originally relaxed manner into a tense, defensive stance.
This meant it had sensed that something powerful enough to make it perceive danger was about to appear.
The same sense of crisis abruptly welled up in Katherine's heart. She lifted her eyes to the vast silver mist filling the entire room, her heart pounding wildly for reasons she couldn't explain.
What on earth was that thing?
Generally speaking, a wizard's Patronus was some small or medium-sized animal; only a very rare few wizards had Patronuses that were magical creatures like a Phoenix, a dragon, or Thestrals.
And Kate's ball of silver mist—perhaps because she was still unpracticed with the spell—gave no indication whatsoever of what it was.
But judging from the sheer size of the silver mist she'd released, whatever it formed into surely wouldn't be an ordinary animal.
Katherine had a feeling that even this formless patch of silver mist was more powerful than most fully-formed, corporeal Patronuses.
Unlike her astonishment in that moment, Kate, maintaining the Patronus Charm, could clearly feel her Mana draining at a markedly faster rate.
Still, given her current Mana reserves, this non-corporeal Patronus Charm could hold up for at least several hours.
She took a deep breath and slowly ceased casting the spell. Before she'd realized it, her forehead was already beaded with sweat.
It really was an advanced spell—even with her current learning ability and Mana reserves, she still couldn't fully master it.
"How do you feel now?" Katherine's wording had grown a touch more restrained.
Kate thought about it. "Everything else is fine, but this happy memory—I don't think it's quite enough. Looks like I'll need to create a lot more of them going forward."
Maybe once she started dating in her fourth year, recalling happy memories would come more easily.
"Happiness has to come from the heart, you little brat." Katherine gave a low laugh and lightly patted her head.
"All right, today's lesson ends here—now clean up properly for me!"
Kate was rendered speechless. With a wave of her wand, she watched all sorts of things go flying about the office—but soon the whole place was restored to tidy cleanliness.
"If there's nothing else, I'll head back and keep practicing." She yawned, waved a careless hand, and walked straight out.
Katherine watched her retreating figure with a frown and cursed under her breath, "What a little brat."
Didn't even say a single word of thanks—really not cute at all.
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