The play lasted well into the evening. All three of them were reluctant to say goodbye to Dark Cloud, but eventually they climbed back through the case and returned to reality.
David came to collect the briefcase shortly after, and then the three of them made their way back to the castle through the Great Hall fireplace.
"A year from now at most, Teacher will have to send Dark Cloud to a dragon sanctuary," Kate said quietly. "This is probably one of the few truly free stretches of its life."
The moment she thought about how she had saved that hatchling with her own hands, Kate's face crumpled involuntarily.
She had visited dragon sanctuaries before. The conditions there were perfectly decent, all things considered — but they were still nothing like this. Nothing like real freedom.
But keeping a dragon privately was illegal. She couldn't ask Teacher to take that risk for her own selfish reasons.
Hermione and Cho Chang were still trying to figure out what to say when the click of heels echoed down from upstairs, followed immediately by Katherine's voice.
"It's eleven o'clock at night, Little Kate. Surely you haven't forgotten the Shafiq family curfew?"
Kate looked up in genuine bewilderment. Since when was there a curfew?
Katherine stood at the top of the grand staircase, one hand resting lightly on her glasses, looking down at the three of them with a faint, composed smile. "Taking guests out with you and not returning until this hour — it seems Mr. Jones has been rather lax in that particular area of your education."
"Professor, that's not how it was —"
Hermione instinctively moved to defend Kate, but Katherine cut her off. "Granger, you must all be hungry after coming home so late. Go to the dining hall and have a proper supper before bed."
Her gaze shifted back to Kate. "Little Kate — come with me for a moment."
"...Yes." Kate lowered her head slightly, fingers curling tight.
She followed Katherine all the way to the study without saying a word, eyes downcast the entire way.
It was only after Katherine had settled herself into the study's main chair that she asked, with a note of genuine curiosity, "Why so quiet?"
"I shouldn't talk back to my elders." Kate's voice was muffled, her gaze still carefully averted.
"So you do think I was in the wrong? Because I invented a Shafiq family curfew out of thin air?"
Kate finally looked up, eyes going wide with surprise. "Auntie, you..."
"You really are a little troublemaker," Katherine said softly, shaking her head.
"I know you went to find Mr. Scamander, and I can more or less piece together what you got up to. But Kate — I need you to understand something. As the future head of this family, you need to learn what it means to be responsible."
Katherine's eyes held a smile, but the words that followed landed with the weight of iron. "What you're responsible for isn't only this family. It's everyone close to you."
Kate's expression flickered, something unsteady passing across her face.
By their usual arrangement, whenever she went into the Muggle world, Jingjing or the old butler was always meant to accompany her. It was a matter of her safety.
But today, because she'd only been going to spend time with the little dragon, she had left Jingjing behind without a second thought — hadn't even told the old butler she was leaving — and gone straight off to Dorset.
And she'd had two girls younger than herself with her, at that.
Which meant that if anything had gone wrong, the damage could have been irreversible.
It wasn't the late hour Katherine minded. It was the safety risk.
"I just heard you say that the dragon you saved has no freedom," Katherine continued. "I imagine you probably feel rather like that dragon yourself, right now."
Dark Cloud was a Norwegian Ridgeback. To protect it and the people around it, it had no freedom.
Kate was the sole heir to the Shafiq family. To protect her and the people around her, she had no freedom either.
An ordinary child, hearing that comparison drawn, might well have felt a flash of resentment — or at the very least had a seed of it planted somewhere.
But Kate turned it over in her mind for a moment — and something clicked sharply into place.
That's completely right, actually!
She was the last of the Shafiq line. The entire family was depending on her!
And her own guiding philosophy had always been survival above all else — don't seek glory or attention, just keep your head down and stay alive.
Yes, she was fairly sure bringing Hermione and Cho Chang to meet Dark Cloud wouldn't have led to any real danger. But from anyone else's perspective, that assurance meant nothing.
Dark Cloud was still a dragon. She was still the Shafiq family's only heir.
Some philosopher had probably said something grand about how freedom was worth sacrificing everything else for — but unfortunately, Kate was an extremely ordinary person. A spectacularly ordinary one, in fact.
Freedom mattered, yes. But freedom without the power to back it up and freedom earned after gaining that power were two completely different things.
Until she was strong enough to protect herself and everyone around her, she was willing to lie low. Giving up a little present comfort for the sake of the future was nothing.
"I understand," she said immediately, nodding, holding Katherine's gaze with complete sincerity. "I won't go wandering off on my own anymore. And if I do need to go somewhere, I'll always have Jingjing with me. You and Grandpa Rand won't have to worry about me again."
This time, it was Katherine who was caught off-guard.
She had expected that even if Kate didn't push back outright, she certainly wouldn't agree this easily. She had prepared quite a speech for the occasion — and now it had nowhere to go. The sensation was, unexpectedly, a little frustrating.
"Auntie, is there anything else?" Kate blinked up at her with large, guileless eyes.
Katherine was quiet for a long moment before she waved her hand, clearly done with the conversation. "Since you know what you need to do — don't disappoint us again."
"Yes! I'll do even better!" Kate broke into a brilliant smile, spun on her heel, and trotted out the door at a cheerful pace.
She'd had a full day of running around, and she was absolutely starving.
Katherine watched her go — practically bouncing down the hall — and pulled off her black-framed glasses with a look of faint disdain, pressing her fingers to her temple.
This child. She never played by the rules, did she?
Thoroughly unendearing.
She slowly opened her eyes. For just a moment, something golden flickered in the amber of her irises — and then it was gone.
Meanwhile, Kate rushed into the dining hall to find her two companions already happily tucking in, all earlier concern for her entirely forgotten.
"Hey! Weren't you at least a little worried about me getting an earful from my auntie?" She scrambled into her seat, grabbed a drumstick, and began gnawing on it while venting her grievances.
Cho Chang calmly dabbed at her mouth. "We were worried, but she's still your auntie — and our professor."
"Exactly," Hermione chimed in. "You can't seriously expect us to barge into the study and square off with a professor."
It was quite clear that, despite only having been their professor for two months, Katherine's authority was still very much intact — more than enough to keep two well-behaved students firmly in their places.
Kate could only stare at them in wordless exasperation. She took a vicious bite of her drumstick and muttered darkly, "Traitors. Both of you."
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