For the better part of the following two weeks, Kate either stayed home at the manor every day, or — on the occasions when Hermione and Cho Chang managed to drag her out — she made sure to bring two or three house-elves along for the trip.
Her caution level was comparable to that of a certain very prudent hero.
The hottest stretch of summer arrived without fanfare.
"I want watermelon..." Hermione murmured, cola in hand, standing inside the magically cooled sitting room as she gazed out at the blazing summer heat beyond the windows. "A summer without watermelon is an incomplete summer!"
Kate was sitting on the floor with all the grace of a retiree, a bamboo mat spread beneath her, a palm-leaf fan in one hand and a book in the other.
Cho Chang was leaning against Kate's back, dressed in the same loose shirt and shorts as Kate, looking for all the world like she had been thoroughly assimilated.
What had once been a perfectly resplendent sitting room now had the distinct atmosphere of a retirement lounge.
"I think the watermelons in the fruit-and-vegetable greenhouse should be ripe by now," Kate remarked idly. "Someone could go get one."
The comfortable mood in the room immediately changed.
All three of them straightened up at the same time, looked at each other, eyes sparkling with the fire of competition.
"Rock, paper, scissors!"
Three hands shot out simultaneously. Cho Chang threw a fist. Kate and Hermione both showed open palms.
"Yes!" Kate slapped Hermione's hand in delight, then grinned over at Cho Chang. "That means you get to go fetch the watermelon!"
Cho Chang stared mournfully at her own fist, squeezed it tight one last time, then dragged herself to her feet with a dejected sigh and headed downstairs.
In this kind of heat, nobody wanted to go outside. When it became unavoidable, the three of them had developed all manner of ways to decide who got stuck with the task.
Sometimes it was who could recite a passage fastest. Sometimes it was a sprint.
But as the days grew hotter and they grew less inclined to move at all, every competition eventually simplified itself down to rock, paper, scissors.
"This," Kate said sagely, "is the pinnacle of human ingenuity." She shifted to a new position and went back to her book.
Hermione simply sat down beside her, tilted her head to rest on Kate's shoulder, and squinted at the pages for a bit — only to wrinkle her brow almost immediately.
In just a short time, the books Kate was reading had grown far more advanced. Even skimming one or two pages, Hermione could barely follow seven or eight lines in ten.
"Kate," she said, bumping her head gently against Kate's cheek, "why do you like reading so much?"
If she liked it so much, why hadn't she ended up in Ravenclaw?
Kate turned to the next page and replied without looking up, "Who said I like reading? If I could, I'd spend every single day sitting in front of the air conditioning doing absolutely nothing."
"But then why do you still...?" Hermione sat up, puzzled.
"In the wizarding world, strength is what does the talking, most of the time." Kate lowered the book. Her tone was easy; her words were anything but.
"Look at those portraits in the corridors — every one of them is a distinguished ancestor of the Shafiq family. Someday, my portrait will hang there too."
Hermione looked at her, only half understanding. "What does that have to do with liking books?"
Kate gave a quick smile, reached up, and pinched her cheek. "Honestly? Not much. I'm just bored, so I flip through whatever's around."
She didn't expect Hermione to understand, not at this age, what it meant to carry the weight of a family.
When a thousand-year dynasty spanning dozens of generations could only pass its torch to an underage child, that alone said everything — the house was nearing its end. The great tower was tilting, and a single person was left to hold it upright.
There was no need to burden a little girl like Hermione with any of that.
Before long, Cho Chang returned, drenched in sweat, and set a massive watermelon down on the floor. "This is the biggest one in the greenhouse. Who wants first taste?"
"Diffindo." Kate sent a wandless spell at it without a second thought, and the watermelon split clean in two.
She raised an eyebrow with satisfaction. "My wandless magic is getting better."
Hermione gave her a flat look, then stepped forward, picked up two of the halves, and held them out. "Bring some to the butler and the professor."
"Sure." Kate sent a Summoning Charm at the tray on the table. "I'll deliver the watermelon. You two start without me."
Hermione watched her saunter away, then turned back, picked up her half, and took a fierce, enthusiastic bite. "Mmm... it's so sweet!"
"Eat slowly, there's plenty." Cho Chang shook her head with a smile, settled onto the bamboo mat beside her, and picked up the book lying nearby with some curiosity, flipping through a few pages.
"The techniques in here are things many adult wizards struggle to master. I didn't realise Kate's magical ability had already reached this level."
At those words, Hermione's chewing slowed considerably. She looked up with an uncertain expression. "You can read it?"
"Maybe two or three parts in ten," Cho Chang said, leafing through it casually. "My father knows a little wandless magic. I've seen similar books in his study."
Somehow, without knowing exactly why, the watermelon that had tasted so sweet a moment ago suddenly had no flavour at all.
Hermione finished her whole slice in an absent-minded haze, then wiped her mouth with her handkerchief.
"What level do you have to reach before you can start learning wandless magic?" she asked quietly.
Cho Chang thought about it. "At least fifth year standard, I'd say. Though, as you know, even upper years have students who coast through, and those types probably don't have much hope."
Fifth year...
Hermione couldn't help but furrow her little brow.
In recent weeks, she had stopped actively dwelling on the distance between herself and Kate. She no longer spent every day asking Kate to practise spells with her.
Most of the time, the three of them simply had fun together.
That was what Hermione had wanted since coming here — to make Kate's life a little happier, to make sure Kate never felt pressured because of her.
And yet even so, Kate kept finding the gaps to improve herself. She was already fluently using wandless magic like this.
Which meant that even without anyone chasing her from behind, Kate would never stop moving forward.
Hermione found that deeply puzzling.
If Kate's diligence was about wanting to protect Hermione — then what was Kate's own reason for working so hard?
She glanced at the watermelon on the floor, and something suddenly came to her. She snatched up a half and jumped to her feet. "I'm going to bring some to the professor!"
And with that, she was off at a quick trot downstairs.
Cho Chang stared after her, thoroughly bewildered. If she remembered correctly, hadn't Kate just gone to bring watermelon to the professor?
Not long after, Kate returned from her delivery, looked around, and noticed Hermione was gone.
"She said she went to bring watermelon to the professor." Cho Chang looked equally mystified. "She probably wants to talk to the professor about something."
Kate gave a small "oh," then settled back down like a lord of leisure, picked up a wedge of watermelon, and inhaled it in a few rapid bites.
When she was done, she flopped onto her back on the floor with no concern for appearances whatsoever, rubbing her slightly swollen little belly and letting out a satisfied belch.
"We should go for a run after dinner," she murmured. "Otherwise I'll probably put on weight."
Cho Chang found this rather funny. She tugged lightly at Kate's bony wrist. "You're already this thin. A little more food wouldn't hurt."
"Absolutely not..." Full and satisfied, Kate lay on the bamboo mat, her eyelids already beginning to droop. "A child should stick to the ideal weight for each stage of growing up. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise what?" Cho Chang hadn't caught the rest. She leaned down and tilted her ear closer.
She heard Kate, already halfway asleep, mumble in a small drowsy voice: "Otherwise... no girl will ever like me..."
In her past life she had been single for over twenty years. It wasn't entirely unconnected to the fact that she'd always been too thin and too unremarkable.
How sad. A whole lifetime, and she'd never once managed to say more than three sentences to any girl she secretly liked.
Warm breath puffed against the tip of her ear, carrying heat all the way from the tip down to the lobe.
Cho Chang instinctively sat up, pressing her hand to her suddenly burning ear, and glanced around furtively. When she confirmed no one had seen, she let out a small breath of relief.
After quite a long pause, she finally dared to look back at Kate, who had already fallen asleep. Something warm flickered in her bright eyes.
She couldn't quite say what she was so happy about.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the study — Hermione had used the watermelon as her excuse, and was finally gathering her courage to knock.
Katherine was still bent over her desk at that hour, her expression still carrying a trace of tension. At the sound of Hermione's voice, she finally looked up. Without her glasses, her striking, mature features seemed sharper than usual.
"Kate already brought some earlier," she said, leaning back in her chair. She studied the nervous girl standing in front of her with a slight narrowing of her eyes, as though she had noticed something.
Hermione swallowed with difficulty, and instinctively straightened her small shoulders when she felt Katherine's probing gaze.
"Pro — Professor, actually I..."
She hesitated, set the watermelon down on the desk first, then stood up properly. "Professor — if I wanted to learn magic faster, and better — do you have any way to help me do that?"
Katherine raised an eyebrow with considerable interest — that small gesture, it had to be said, was exactly the same as one of Kate's most habitual expressions.
"Oh? As far as I know, your pace of study is already far ahead of the other children."
Harry and Ron, her own age, had still been worrying about their first-year end-of-term exams just a month ago. By that same point, Hermione had already been self-studying third-year material.
"It's not enough!" Hermione clenched her small fists. "If I want to catch up to Kate, it's nowhere near enough!"
She couldn't figure out why Kate kept pushing herself so hard when she clearly didn't enjoy it — but Hermione had once made herself a promise: she would always stand by Kate's side, and do her very best to protect her.
Which meant, right now, she could not let Kate leave her behind.
"Professor, I want Kate to have an easier time of it. I want her to be able to enjoy being with her friends without all that strain — so please, teach me how to help her!"
She bent sharply at the waist, squeezing her eyes shut with the effort of it.
After a long moment, no response came.
Hermione's heart sank. She lifted her head reluctantly — and found that Katherine had somehow appeared right in front of her, at some point during the silence.
"If you want to help her, it will be hard work," Katherine said, arms folded, looking down at her.
"I know," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "I'm prepared for that!"
"What — Hermione is going home with you?"
Kate had barely woken from her nap when Katherine summoned her to the study and hit her with the news without preamble. She was still half-dazed.
"Will her parents agree to that? I mean — have you already found a new place? Somewhere you can both move into?"
In the back of her mind, Kate had always vaguely assumed Katherine had been busy with other things lately and hadn't actually gone house-hunting at all.
Honestly, they were family now. Hermione could just stay at Shafiq Manor — the place was certainly big enough, and there was no shortage of rooms.
But Katherine refused.
"My surname isn't Shafiq. What reason would I have to live here? I'd much rather find a small place of my own and be comfortable."
Katherine propped herself against the desk with one hand, idly fiddling with a map lying on it. "If you miss me one day, you're welcome to come visit."
"Auntie..." Kate started to push back, only for Katherine to cut her off cleanly.
"No need to say more. You and your friends agreed to stay here for a month, yes? There's one week left. Spend it however you like — and after that, I'll take Hermione home with me."
The more Kate listened, the more her head ached. "Is this actually what she wants? And what about her parents..."
"I'll go and visit them this week." Katherine gave her a light wink. "Don't worry. By the time school starts, I'll have your little Hermione back in one piece."
What did she mean, 'your little Hermione'?
The phrase sounded oddly awkward, and yet, somehow, not entirely wrong either.
Kate cleared her throat and decided not to get tangled up in the wording. "What exactly did she say to you? Why are you taking her back with you?"
"Well..." Katherine glanced away, and absently curled a strand of her own hair around her finger. "I'm not going to tell you. And don't think about going to ask her either — this is a secret between her and me."
Well, then.
She had only taken a nap. In the space of that one nap, her childhood friend and her own auntie had apparently developed a secret between them — and neither of them was going to let her in on it.
Kate came out of the study wearing a distinctly sour expression.
When she saw Hermione already waiting for her at the study door, the feeling of mild injustice in her chest only grew.
"If I ask you why, you won't tell me, will you?" she asked, with great patience.
Hermione hesitated, then gave a guilty nod — and quickly grabbed the hem of Kate's sleeve. "Kate, I'm not saying because I made a promise to the professor. But please believe me, alright?"
"I..." Kate got one word out, but when she looked at the anxious little expression on Hermione's face, she swallowed the harder words back down.
Fine. Even between close friends, there was no rule that said you had to know every single one of each other's secrets.
When it came down to it, she was just not quite used to it yet.
Not used to Hermione suddenly being this close with someone else — even if that someone else was her own blood aunt.
Out of habit, she reached up and pinched Hermione's cheek, then let out a quiet sigh. "What else can I do with you?"
"So you're not angry?" Hermione asked, unable to hide her delight despite having her cheek squished.
"What would I be angry about? How could I possibly stay angry at you?"
Kate let go, and looked for a moment longer at the little red mark she'd left on Hermione's cheek. "Did that hurt?"
Hermione shook her head rapidly. "Not at all! As long as it's Kate, you can pinch as much as you want!"
"You..." Kate gave an exasperated laugh, and reached out to take her hand. "Come on, it's time for dinner."
"Okay!"
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