Their first Hogsmeade weekend of the New Year came, for the second year in a row, on the weekend of Valentine's Day. She had resisted all Hermione, Ron and Harry's attempts to set her up with someone in the weeks leading up to the fourteenth of February. She had refused every one of them, maintaining that she did not want the hassle of a boyfriend or the gossiping that inevitably ensued. As the weekend drew closer, the anticipation welled inside of her, as did the angst of having to again lie to her friends.
She had sent a letter earlier in January, offering her condolences. She'd had a response, delivered by a very stately looking eagle owl, in early February. Thankfully, it had arrived on a Sunday when Harry, Ron and Hermione were in the library and she was alone in her dormitory reading. It hadn't contained much. He thanked her for her sympathies and expressed his wish to see her, preferably sooner rather than later.
She was quite glad that it was Valentine's Day, as this gave her to opportunity to disappear and not be missed. Everyone was coupled up as they left the castle, apart from Harry who was meeting Ginny in the village. She waved goodbye to them as they reached the village, lagging back and pretending to look in the window of Honeydukes. She looked at the brightly coloured displays without actually seeing what they were, instead watching the reflection of all the students go by to make sure there were none of her friends to see where she was going. She did know most of the students that milled around, having taught them at DA meetings, but none of them approached her to suggest a drink in the Three Broomsticks or a walk to the Shrieking Shack.
She took her normal route, backtracking to the path leading away from the village and starting to follow it up; her cloak billowing out behind her as she walked thanks to the wind. Halfway up she stopped, instead deciding to try something. Ducking into the trees at the side of the path she took several deep breaths, concentrating very hard and focussing her mind. She willed for it to work, not wanting to have spent months practicing for nothing. When she reappeared however, she was no longer recognisable to anyone, having taken the form of a wolf.
It was a very strange sensation; she was still Kathryn only in a different form. She padded slowly up the track, getting used to her Animagus self; running and, when the chance came, scaring a rabbit that had popped out of its hole to have a look around. He was standing there as she padded round the corner. She stood there for a while, watching him until he finally noticed her. He did not seem at all unsettled by the apparent presence of a wolf, instead checking his watch impatiently. She moved closer so she was actually sitting in front of, and looking up at him.
"What do you want?" he asked, again checking his watch. Deciding to have some fun, she moved closer, stroking her head against his knee. She was surprised as he knelt down to stroke her head, running his hand down her silken, grey coat and tickling behind her ears. She looked him in the eye for a few more seconds and she saw something click into place.
"It can't be." He whispered. She gave a little tug at his cloak and then walked off up the path, pausing at the bend to make sure he followed. With a slight feeling of apprehension, he followed the wolf right round the corner until they were completely out of sight. He looked once more into it's eyes, which were an unusual shade of green, before slowly, right before his eyes, the wolf began to change. He stepped back in shock as, to his astonishment; Kathryn appeared where the wolf had been standing moments before.
"When did you learn to do that?" he asked, not moving as he was still slightly stunned.
"That's the first time I've ever done it." She told him with an excited smile on her face, walking a little bit closer. "I've been practicing for months!" She smiled even wider.
They were stood a foot apart, neither of them seeking out some kind of contact as they usually would have done.
"So," she began, not really sure what to say. "How are you coping?" it seemed the only logical thing to ask at that point. It was as if the death of his wife was hanging in the air between them, like fog that refused to lift.
"I'm doing alright." She took a moment to study him; looking at his expression and his appearance in general.
"Don't lie to me." She could see past the bravado. "I know you now too well to believe that."
"Honestly, I'm not lying." He laughed slightly, trying to shrug off her doubts.
"You're eyes are dark, you haven't been sleeping." She moved closer, daring to touch her hand to his cheek. "You've lost weight too." She moved her hands beneath his cloak to his now thinner waist.
"Seeing as this is a mutual exchange, you haven't been sleeping too well either." He ran his thumb along the dark circle beneath one of her green eyes. "And no, I'm not fine, not at the moment." He finally gave up.
"It's only natural." She comforted him, hugging him tightly.
"It was a shock." His voice sounded numb, as if he was reciting a practiced speech. "I'd just got an owl from her that morning telling me how much she was enjoying her trip and that she missed me." He held onto her, resting his head against the side of hers. She was sure, just for the briefest of moments, that, as he embraced her, she felt something wet run into her hair.
They walked slowly round the hillside for a while, hand in hand; not really talking, and just enjoying being near one another.
"Tell me one thing." She said as they sat, huddled together against the wind, on one of the many large boulders that protruded from the ground. "You didn't do it purposefully to be with me, did you?"
"What do you mean? Do what intentionally?" he sounded almost confused.
"Have her killed." She spoke quickly, as if she just wanted to say it and be done. "I couldn't live with myself if you did."
"I didn't." He said firmly, kissing her on the forehead.
"That's why I haven't been sleeping well." She confessed. "You can't imagine the things that have been running through my head." Her voice was strained now, as if she was trying to stop herself crying from relief.
"So neither of us has had the best start to the year." He laughed slightly; she also joined in, a large weight having lifted from her shoulders.
"True." They sat there for a little while longer, taking in the moment and deciding what to do next.
"So, do we stay here or go back home?" he finally asked, broaching the subject first.
"I suppose."
"Well, I'll just clarify things first." He told her, sounding almost businesslike. "There is no way that you are going to tell me anything, I mean, you've held out until now so I severely doubt you will give in any time soon."
"You're right on that one." She nodded. Inside, her heart was doing somersaults. She couldn't believe that he was actually admitting defeat.
"So, that said, are you prepared to go where this path will ultimately lead?"
"I guess I have to be." She replied, a tone of resolve in her voice. "It's not like I have much of a choice." To own the truth, she didn't really care.
"Well, no." He smirked, making her shiver slightly, but in a good way. If there was one thing he could do well, it was smirk; something that made her heart flutter as it held the promise of much more.
"How did I know that would be your answer?" she paused, trying to work out how she felt and then, giving in to her desires, kissed him. She felt his hands on her face as he kissed her back, moving down to bury beneath the folds of her cloak. Seconds later, they heard voices coming near them; students off for a wander. She cursed under her breath as she recognised one of the voices as Ron's, straightening her top slightly before disapparating with a pop.
Moments after they had disappeared, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny rounded the corner.
"People said they saw her come up this way." Hermione said, looking around for any signs of life. "I'm sure I heard something here just before."
"She's probably off wandering Hermione, you know how she is." Harry reminded her.
"She can't have gone far anyway." Ron added, putting his arm round Hermione's waist.
"Oh alright." Hermione gave in. "I just thought she'd want to hang round with us."
"She doesn't like Valentine's Day anyway, Hermione." Harry said, knowing how his sister detested what she called an 'over-hyped couple fest'. "She probably just wants to be alone, or she's gone back to the castle.
How wrong they were, she was definitely not alone and definitely not in the castle.
"For some reason, I'm starting to like Valentine's Day." She said with a smile as he lay on top of her. He smiled back, kissing her again and rolling off her to lie by her side. His hands stroked lazily down her back, twisting her hair in his fingers.
"Well, the last one wasn't too bad." He pretended to go all pensive.
"This one is quite good too. I mean, I'm not standing outside in the cold anymore!" She giggled, snuggling closer to him as he turned to lie on his back.
"I didn't get you anything." He said, staring up at the hangings.
"Well, then we're even." She didn't really care.
"No, you should at least get something."
"If you say so," she sighed, "I'm not going to complain." She felt him get up from beside her and heard him pad across the room.
"Keep your eyes closed!" he called out to her. She laughed, but did not open them. She heard what sounded like rummaging in a drawer. After a couple of minutes rummaging, he settled back down onto the bed alongside her.
"Sit up." He asked her. She did so, clutching the dark green sheets around her as she levered herself into a sitting position, her eyes still closed. She felt himself manoeuvre himself round so he was sitting cross-legged behind her.
"Can I open them yet?" she asked him.
"Not yet." She felt the touch of cold metal against her collarbone. She lifted her long hair up off the nape of her neck as he fastened the catch.
"Now?" she asked again.
"Go on then." She opened her eyes. Lying around her previously empty neck was a string of rubies, red as blood, set in silver that looked as it had been crafted to look slightly worn. Looking down to her finger, she saw that it almost perfectly matched the ring that he had slipped into her pocket exactly a year ago.
"Beautiful." She said simply, turning to kiss him.
"Would I give you anything else?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her tight. She caught sight of the clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.
"I've got to go." She told him in a disappointed tone. "I've got to get some things before I go back to the castle." She explained.
"Do you have to?" he protested as she stood up and started to get dressed. "Just give me a list and I'll send them to you." He offered.
"Oh yeah, and that's not going to look suspicious at all!" She said sarcastically from the bathroom where she was rearranging her hair. "I'd say come with me," she poked her head out the door, "but I think people will notice us walking arm in arm through Hogsmeade."
"Buy them owl-order." He suggested.
"No, the next Quidditch match is in two weeks anyway. It's Hufflepuff versus Slytherin so I'll see you then."
"That's the same day as the Governors' visit. It'll be hard." He insisted.
"Request to meet the Head Boy's and Girls." She suggested, pulling on her top. "You're a Governor, it can't be that hard. I mean, didn't you do that anyway?"
"True."
"Just invite us to sit with you at the match, I'm sure at least one Governor will take a particular interest in Ron, Hermione and especially Harry and will want to sit with them." She said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"Won't your friends get suspicious?" he asked, a note of concern in his voice. "They were starting to last year."
"They've more or less accepted my 'being polite'." She made quotation marks with her fingers when she spoke about being polite. "Although they think I'm being polite far too often."
"Well, I must confess I never knew the Head Girl was this polite." He laughed, knowing he had touched a nerve when she playfully advanced on him, brandishing her finger.
"This," she pointed at him the way one would tell off a naughty child, "has nothing to do with my being Head Girl, as you know." He laughed even more, catching her fist as she wielded it at him, and pulling her down to kiss him.
"But I am exceedingly pleased at how, erm, polite you are." She couldn't help laughing as he kissed her, undoing all she had done to make herself presentable again.
After again sorting her hair and smoothing out the creases in her clothes, she wrapped her cloak around her shoulders; carefully positioning her scarf to hide the twinkling jewels that now adorned her neck.
"Two weeks then?"
"Two weeks." She nodded, taking time to kiss him goodbye because she didn't really want to go just then, and partially because he was doing his best to stop her from leaving.
She hadn't been altogether truthful when she had said that she needed to go shopping before returning to Hogwarts. It was just that she wanted to test out her new power. She walked quickly back through the castle gates, ducking into the shadows and transforming as soon as she was through. Then she waited, skulking patiently in the shadows until students started to come through the gates in dribs and drabs. She heard them coming before she saw them, her hearing amplified by her choice of transformation. She padded along behind them until they were nearly at the steps leading up to the main entrance.
She dashed forward, nuzzling playfully at Hermione's legs and causing them to stop. Whilst the three of them pondered what on earth a wolf was doing coming right up to them, Kathryn used her jaws to tug on the end of Hermione's long scarf. She tugged some more before running off in the same direction.
"I think it wants us to follow." Ron said, nudging Hermione and urging her to follow too.
"Wands out?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ron waved them at him.
"Do you really need to ask?" They all lit their wands as it was beginning to get dark, and followed the wolf round the side of the castle.
"There's nothing here." Ron complained as they rounded the corner, stamping his feet against the cold.
"Isn't there?" It was Kathryn. They all turned round, expecting her to be behind them. They turned back round to see only the wolf standing in front of them.
"Where did she come from?" Ron jabbered, pointing behind him.
"More importantly, where did she go?" Harry looked carefully at the wolf and then, as if someone had just slapped him across the face, he spotted it.
"She was always here?"
"Huh." Ron was nonplussed.
"Do wolves normally have green eyes, Ron?" Harry pointed at her eyes at which point Kathryn transformed back into her usual self.
"You did it!" Hermione shrieked. "Oh well done!"
"When did you finally get it?" Harry asked, still slightly stunned.
"In Hogsmeade." She told them, a beaming smile on her face. "I was bored so I wandered off to practice." She explained.
"We're definitely going to nail it soon, now that you've done it." Hermione sounded like she wanted to go and practice that very second.
"It's not so bad, you just have to think very hard and clear your mind of everything like you do for Occlumency."
"Well, that will only be the first time won't it? I mean Sirius just does it like that." Ron snapped his fingers to illustrate his point.
"Oh yeah, that first time you just have to crack it and you're away. That's what it was like for me anyway." Kathryn explained. "It's a weird sensation though, it's a bit odd having paws and a tail!" they all laughed, turning round and walking back up to the castle to get out of the cold.
"What about registration?" Hermione asked. "Technically you have to register once you become an Animagus."
"I don't know Hermione," Kathryn said, a mischievous smile playing across her face, "I'd quite like to remain safely anonymous like Sirius."
"But it's against the law!" She said in an undertone.
"Don't you think it's safer if we remain anonymous until Voldemort's gone?" Ron still shuddered when she said the name. "We don't know how many Death Eaters he's got in the Ministry.
"Good point." By now they had reached the portrait hole and were joining all the Gryffindors' who were jostling to get through.
"Oh hang on!" Kathryn said to the three of them before pushing her way into the crowd.
"Move along there; excuse me I'm Head Girl!" She shouted at the younger years, doing a perfect impersonation of Percy Weasley when he had been Head Boy even though she hadn't been at Hogwarts the same time as him.
"See, it's not that hard once you stop pushing each other!" She said to them once they had been calmed down and were climbing through the portrait hole with something that resembled order. Harry, Ron and Hermione laughed as they walked by her.
"If only Fred and George could have seen that!" Ron chuckled as he sprawled himself in one of their favourite chairs by the fire.
"Well, at least one of us has to take some kind of control." Kathryn said, sticking her tongue out at Ron as she walked past the three of them to the stairs leading up to the girls' dormitories. "And I hope you don't plan on sitting there for long!" She called out to him. "I'm bloody starving!"
Walking into her dormitory she pulled off her cloak and replaced it in her wardrobe. The second thing she did was remove the string of rubies and place them with the rest of her jewellery, most of which she had obtained through him, in the top compartment of her chest of drawers before locking it again. Without a second glance, she headed out the door and back down the spiral staircase; pulling on a thick, chocolate brown shrug-type cardigan over her unseasonably short sleeved top.
After dinner, whilst Hermione, Harry and Ron headed off to the Room of Requirement to practice their Animagi transformations, she headed off alone to the common room to try and finish off an essay that she had started on Friday night in an effort to have nothing to do on Sunday night. It turned out to be fairly easy and she was finished in half an hour, even with the distraction of the day's events weighing on her mind. She leaned back in her chair, glad that she would not have any homework to hurriedly finish off the next evening as she had Quidditch practice during the day and then a DA meeting after dinner.
Harry, Ron and Hermione still hadn't reappeared by nine o'clock, Kathryn presumed them to be even more galvanised in their resolve to become Animagi now that she had managed it. She headed up to her dormitory, feeling completely exhausted, to find a rather unexpected surprise on her pillow. Lying in a sliver of moonlight was a bouquet of two dozen perfect red roses; wrapped in black and red tissue and tied with a black ribbon. She blushed even though there was no one in the room and sat on her bed just looking at them or a while; it was the first time anyone had ever sent her roses. She unwrapped them carefully so as not to damage the flowers, then, rearranging the tissue into the shape it had been around the flowers; transfigured it into a black and red glass vase.
Once it was filled with water from the jug on her dresser, she gently placed the roses inside and set the vase on the window ledge in-between hers and Hermione's beds. She of course removed the card that had come with them and locked it away in her trunk, along with the letter he had sent a week or so before and the note that had been enclosed with her black gown the Christmas before. She fell asleep easily that night, curled up again in his shirt; his ring still firmly around her finger.