The moment Pansy returned to the Common Room, she found Malfoy playing Wizard Chess with Blaise, humming to himself as he moved his pieces, looking insufferably pleased with the world.
It was a complete one-eighty from the version of Malfoy who had been picking fights with Kate every other day.
She walked over for a look and quickly noticed the board had already tilted heavily to one side — yet strangely, even though Malfoy was clearly on the verge of losing, the smile never left his face.
"Hey," she couldn't help leaning in to whisper to Blaise, "she's like this and you're still playing chess with her — doesn't it give you the creeps?"
Blaise shook his head helplessly, moved a piece, and delivered checkmate in the same motion.
"I'm heading back to do my homework. You two take your time." He rose calmly, ceded his seat to Pansy, and disappeared into the boys' dormitory.
Pansy had barely sat down when she saw that Malfoy showed not a trace of the usual fury that came with losing. She was actually cheerfully tidying up the chess pieces.
"Draco, are you feeling all right?" Pansy was half-convinced her best friend had come down with some kind of hysteria.
Malfoy curled her lips into a smirk, her face — pale to the point of looking unwell — written over with smug satisfaction. "Can't I just be in a good mood?"
You're grinning like a troll that's been lobotomised.
Pansy swallowed that remark with great effort and shut her mouth, deciding to seize the opportunity to absolutely demolish her in a proper game.
Half an hour later.
The defeated king piece toppled to the board with a clatter. Pansy's face had gone red with frustration. She let out a sharp huff. "I'm not playing with you anymore!"
She stormed off to the girls' dormitory, and before she'd even reached her room, she spotted Kate standing along the corridor, apparently waiting for her.
"Kate?"
"You're back," Kate said, straightening up. Her gaze flicked instinctively over Pansy's shoulder. "So... Malfoy didn't say anything to you today, did she?"
Pansy gave her a strange look. "She was in a great mood. Didn't say anything out of the ordinary."
Great mood and still wouldn't let me win once. Some friend.
"Oh. Good, then." Kate murmured under her breath, then smiled and gave Pansy a pat on the shoulder. "It's getting late — go get some sleep."
With that, she turned and went inside.
Why are these two both so weird?
Pansy tilted her head, baffled — then quickly let it go.
Whatever. It was obviously another one of those shady little secrets the two of them shared. One more made no difference.
She, Miss Parkinson, couldn't be bothered keeping track of such trivial gossip.
The days that followed finally settled back into something like calm.
Kate went on being inseparable from Hermione, came back to the dormitory each evening to trade a few barbs with Malfoy, then got back to her spell practice as usual.
Before long, the second weekend since the start of term arrived right on schedule.
After the last lesson of Friday — Potions — Kate hadn't even moved to leave before Snape called her back of his own accord.
She let Hermione go on ahead with Harry and the others to dinner, packed up her books and cauldron, and waited until every other student had filed out of the classroom before walking up to the front.
"Professor, are we going to see the Headmaster together?" she asked with a smile.
Snape paused in the middle of sorting his lesson notes. His cold, expressionless eyes narrowed slightly as they fixed on her. "It seems Dumbledore thinks rather highly of you, permitting you to make such frequent trips to his office."
His gaze was sharp enough to feel like it was boring straight into her skull. Kate suppressed the faint discomfort it caused and met his stare without flinching.
"Professor, it isn't that the Headmaster thinks highly of me — he simply takes pity on me for having no one to rely on, and invites me for a chat from time to time."
"And you expect me to believe that?" Snape lowered his voice to a flat, merciless warning. "Shafiq. Put away your little schemes."
Kate glanced down at her own hand, which had already drifted into her robe pocket. She raised an eyebrow slightly and drew out a sweet.
"I was only thinking — the Headmaster has a sweet tooth, so if I bring him a sweet when I visit, it might put him in a better mood," she said.
Snape studied her with an expression like dark, still water for a long moment, then finally looked away. "He asked me to tell you: go find him first thing tomorrow morning."
"Yes, Professor. Understood." Kate showed not the slightest surprise at his manner. She kept up every courtesy — bowing respectfully before stepping back and leaving the classroom.
She had guessed long ago that Snape would not be joining this investigation into the diary.
As a double agent, he had to maintain his image as a suspected Death Eater before the most critical phase of Dumbledore's plan could be set in motion.
He couldn't afford to openly take part in anything that worked against Voldemort — just as he had not appeared during the Philosopher's Stone incident the previous year.
So Dumbledore had to find another pair of hands.
Just as in the original works, when he had taken Harry along to the cave to search for a Horcrux — Harry had been his assistant then.
Only now, that assistant's role had temporarily been filled by her instead.
Though she did wonder whether Dumbledore having Snape deliver the message was his way of dropping her a subtle hint about Snape's true allegiance.
Hmm... maybe she was reading too much into it.
In Dumbledore's eyes, Harry Potter was the one destined to be Voldemort's foil. She was just a pitiful girl with a modest amount of cunning — nothing more.
Kate had always kept a clear sense of her own place in things. She was the minor character lurking behind Harry and Old Man Dumbledore, growing stronger in the background and lending a hand occasionally.
Nobody was going to get her to march up to Voldemort wand-in-hand for a head-on duel!
Early the next morning, Kate fed Fluffball his birdseed and made her way to the Headmaster's office.
She had already explained to Hermione and the others that her frequent visits here were because Dumbledore's phoenix was in a period of weakness and needed her help caring for it.
Fawkes was indeed in terrible decline — even his ability to fly had begun to fade. All he could do now was perch on his stand and wait for the day of his burning.
Kate offered him some of Fluffball's birdseed, though she could see barely any of it went down.
"You don't look particularly nervous." Dumbledore appeared in the doorway of the office and greeted her in an easy, unhurried tone.
Kate set down the birdseed, composure perfectly in place. "With you here, what is there to be afraid of?"
Dumbledore said nothing. He simply looked at her with a smile for a moment.
Sure enough — under that gaze, full of ancient wisdom, Kate's resolve finally cracked. She admitted guiltily, "All right. I'm actually quite nervous."
"But you know that being nervous serves no purpose," Dumbledore said, walking slowly toward his desk, "because this is something you yourself chose to face." He drew the wooden box from the drawer.
The moment it came into view, Kate noticed vaguely that the markings on its surface looked subtly different from the last time she'd seen it.
She just couldn't put her finger on exactly what had changed.
She forced her attention away from the box, closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and managed — barely — to keep her thoughts steady.
"Right. You're absolutely right. Being nervous is completely useless," she murmured to herself, as though performing some kind of self-hypnosis.
Dumbledore watched her expression with quiet amusement. Only once Kate had finished building herself back up did he beckon her over warmly.
"Before we begin, there's something I need to confirm with you." He said it with a smile, his tone as breezy as if they were about to sit down for breakfast.
The mental defences Kate had worked so hard to construct gave another wobble. She raised her hand with a slight tremor. "You're not... about to ask me whether I've learned Occlumency, are you?"
"It seems we think alike." He gave her a half-joking wink.
Well. If he was asking, he must have noticed something.
Kate swallowed. She had the distinct feeling that all the secrets she'd carefully hidden were laid bare before Dumbledore, transparent as glass.
"I'm not sure how you found out, but... privately, yes, I have been practising Occlumency."
Dumbledore chuckled and gave his eyebrows a good-humoured waggle. "There's actually no need to use Legilimency to test you — and naturally, I have no habit of peering into people's minds uninvited.
"But the thing is, Kate, the vacant look in your eyes whenever you glance at me is rather unmistakably the look of someone actively using Occlumency."
She could maintain a sceptical attitude about the first statement, but the second caught her genuinely off guard.
She had indeed been quietly using Occlumency to shield herself — specifically to stop Old Man Dumbledore from casually rifling through her memories.
Yet it had never occurred to her that the very spell meant to protect her would become the thing that gave her away.
It was a reminder that grinding through practice could raise your level, but real experience in actual situations was what mattered most.
For instance, from the very beginning until now, she had never once noticed that her own expression was betraying her use of Occlumency.
"Professor, I don't distrust you — it's just... just that..." She hunched her shoulders slightly and dropped her head, at a loss for how to explain.
Dumbledore smoothed things over with an easy smile. "There's nothing to apologise for. Didn't you once say yourself that I am the most powerful wizard alive? Instinctively protecting yourself in the presence of someone stronger — that's only natural."
After a long silence, Kate finally lifted her head. "Then, Professor, you're asking me this because..."
"Going forward, I would like to ask you to continue speaking with the diary. If you hadn't already studied Occlumency, I would have had to step in and do it myself."
Kate's mouth twitched. She raised her hand again. "But didn't you say before that I've already been influenced by it..."
"And so — you might try using something else." He chuckled and stroked his snow-white beard.
Something else...
Surely not the thing she was thinking of?
Before Kate could confirm her suspicion, a knock sounded at the door — and then Hagrid walked in, carrying a full suit of armour in his arms.
"Professor, I brought it over!" He set the armour down on the carpet and tugged his cap in greeting to Dumbledore.
Kate's eyes widened. That suit of armour — wasn't it the one she'd sent to the school herself?
"Thank you for your trouble, Hagrid."
Hagrid gave a broad, good-natured laugh, then looked over at Kate with a puzzled expression. "Little Kate, you in trouble again?"
"Uh... no." Kate smiled awkwardly. Why did her turning up here automatically mean she'd done something wrong?
Had she already built herself a reputation as reckless as a Gryffindor?
"All right then, Hagrid," Dumbledore rose from his chair, "let me see you out."
And despite Hagrid's flustered, overwhelmed protests, Dumbledore walked out alongside him all the same.
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