The Dark Cloud gathered fast, swallowing the sky and blotting out the sun. Through that heavy black canopy a bolt of red lightning tore across the heavens like a great dragon ripping open the firmament, its roar shaking the clouds.
Rain came down in sheets on a howling wind, drops fat as beans hammering the eaves in a deafening clatter.
The Headmaster's office had fallen utterly silent. Every professor stared in astonishment at Katherine and Hermione, who had burst in without warning.
"Has something happened to Kate?" David was the first to react, rising at once and demanding, "What exactly happened?"
Katherine gave Hermione a light push forward. In the glare of the red lightning beyond the window, the girl's pale little face looked especially stricken.
She looked at the professors before her — above all at the piercing gaze that reached her from Dumbledore, standing farthest away — and felt, for the first time, the weight of real pressure.
"Someone… someone took Kate away!" She swallowed with difficulty and repeated what she had seen, short and quick.
"When she was taken, Kate pretended she didn't know me. That was when I knew she must be in trouble — that she had no choice but to leave Hogsmeade with that person."
The words had barely left her mouth when Dumbledore's face changed. He crossed the room at a speed no man of a hundred years had any right to, turning to Katherine, his aged voice roughened.
"Is it him?"
Katherine nodded, her expression grave. "There's no record of him entering the country, but whoever took Kate — it has to be him."
Who?
Who had taken Kate?
Hermione started to speak, her head full of questions, but before a single one got out, Dumbledore's large hand settled on her left shoulder.
"Come with me." That was all he said. With one hand on her and one on Katherine, he vanished from the room.
Left behind, David looked ready to tear the world apart. Heedless of the colleagues still in the room, he shoved the door open and ran.
A moment later, the professors in the office saw him riding Buckbeak away through the curtain of rain.
Snape said nothing for a long while, then rose, his face cold.
It seemed he would need to prepare a great many potions.
After a wave of dizziness, Hermione finally got her feet under her on solid ground. She shook her head hard and realized she was standing in Hogsmeade village.
The sudden downpour had driven most of the visiting young wizards into the shops. The street, packed shoulder to shoulder not long ago, was empty now.
"Child," said Dumbledore, holding up a large umbrella, his tone gentle only by effort, "tell me — which way did they go?"
Hermione looked around, and her excellent memory soon fixed on the spot where she and Kate had parted.
"They went… they went up toward the mountains!" She pointed at the distant fields, where only ragged patches of snow remained, and shouted it out.
Dumbledore and Katherine exchanged a glance. He handed over the umbrella and vanished alone into rain so thick it swallowed every silhouette.
"Professor!" Hermione called after him, then turned anxiously to Katherine. "What do we do now?"
Katherine's eyes narrowed dangerously. She stared at that far-off summit for a while before drawing her gaze back and saying coldly, "Hold on to me."
They were outside Hogwarts' boundaries here. She could use Apparition.
Hermione seized her arm at once.
The world spun again. Hermione, who had never so much as begun practising human Apparition, fought down the urge to be sick and forced her eyes open in the rain. She could just make out Dumbledore's figure a short distance ahead.
Then that figure disappeared, and Katherine Apparated again. The two of them followed after him, jump by jump.
She lost count of how many times they Apparated. By the time even Hermione was doubled over and close to throwing up, the white figure ahead finally stopped.
She froze. Then something clicked, and heedless of how hollow her body felt, she plunged into the rain and ran toward Dumbledore.
As her blurred field of vision crept forward, they reached at last the very centre of the storm —
On a bare stretch of plain that looked as though fire had swept across it, a small white-haired figure lay quietly.
Dumbledore, soaked through, came to her side, crouched, and gathered her gently into his arms.
"Kate!" The moment she saw her, Hermione ran over like a mad thing, her face streaked with rain or tears — impossible to tell which.
Kate lay in Dumbledore's arms, her small face bloodless, eyes shut tight, brows faintly drawn together, her lips already blue with cold. She was barely conscious at all.
"Kate! Kate!" No matter how Hermione called, there was no answer. She lifted her head in terror. "Professor, take her back, please, quickly!"
Katherine came over with the umbrella too, holding off the wind and rain over them for the moment. "Headmaster, is there another problem?"
"Mm," said Dumbledore, his brows deeply furrowed. "I think one attempt will tell us whether my guess is right."
He laid Kate carefully in Hermione's arms, stood, and raised his wand high. A shaft of white light shot toward the horizon, scattering the massed dark clouds entirely.
But the moment the white light faded, the Dark Cloud gathered again — and the rain came down heavier than before.
So that was it.
Dumbledore's heart sank. He scooped Kate up at once and Apparated back to the Hogwarts Hospital Wing.
"Oh, Merlin's beard, how did she end up like this?" One look at Kate's rain-soaked, ashen little face and Madam Pomfrey had her onto a bed and was examining her.
Dumbledore shook the water off himself and turned to see Katherine and Hermione dropping down from the corridor on a flying carpet made of rain.
He flicked his wand at the pair of them, and every drop of water on them evaporated away.
"Madam Pomfrey is examining her now. Katherine, go and fetch Severus as well."
Now that they had found her, Dumbledore's tone had softened considerably.
Katherine wanted to go in and see her too, but she nodded and hurried downstairs.
"Professor, may I go in and see her? Please." Hermione stood in the doorway, bedraggled, begging him.
Dumbledore composed his face and bent down, speaking softly. "Kate is going to be all right. Madam Pomfrey is still treating her.
Go back and tidy yourself up first. When Kate wakes, I promise you, the first person she sees will be you."
Hermione glanced hesitantly at the closed doors of the Hospital Wing, then managed a nod. Head drooping, she left, looking back every few steps.
Watching the child go, Dumbledore let out a soft sigh and raised his eyes to the fine, unrelenting curtain of rain.
There was no telling how long this storm meant to last.
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