The old butler had travelled through the night to get there.
By the time he arrived, Kate still had not woken.
When Dumbledore led him to the Hospital Wing, avoiding everyone along the way, even the thick darkness could not hide the sight of the old man, past seventy, bent and weeping.
Not even in the war years, standing on the battlefield, had he ever seen his old friend look like this.
"She's doing better now. I think another few days and she should wake up," he said quietly.
There was nothing left of the butler's usual impeccable bearing. He had come in such haste that one of the buttons on his coat was fastened in the wrong hole.
He wiped his blurred eyes without a sound and reached out to take Kate's hand. "I'm taking the young lady home."
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened. "Rand, you can't make this decision for Kate."
"Hogwarts is no longer safe. I am taking the young lady somewhere that is. If she chooses to come back once she's awake, I will respect her wishes."
The old butler cut him off, brooking no argument. His aged eyes were suddenly as keen as a hawk's, meeting Dumbledore's stare head-on. "Albus. I would rather you didn't refuse me."
Faced with the demand of a friend from those long-ago years, Dumbledore was silent for a while before he turned slowly away, his voice low. "Very well. The official account will be that Kate has fallen suddenly ill and must go home to recover."
The old butler did not answer. He knew that at a time like this there always had to be an official story to serve as cover. Just now he cared about nothing but his young lady.
Lifting Kate with great care, he thought of something else. "Please look after the things she cares about. Don't let her come back and find them gone."
With that he strode out, carrying her.
The rain was still falling, with no sign of stopping.
Dumbledore followed him the whole way, holding an umbrella over them, and escorted them beyond the bounds of Hogwarts castle.
"Rand," he said suddenly, "about the last generation. You'll tell her, won't you?"
The old butler's steps faltered. His face was hidden in the darkness, impossible to read; only his slightly trembling voice carried through the curtain of rain, and it sounded desolate:
"After Christmas, it will be the young lady's fifteenth birthday."
They had agreed on it long ago: once she turned fifteen, they would tell her everything.
Who could have guessed that a week before Christmas, something like this would happen?
He drew out the Portkey with a bitter smile and vanished on the spot.
Dumbledore stood in the rain a moment longer, then let out a long, slow sigh.
Measured purely on her own merits, in any respect at all, Kate was already very nearly perfect. It was only a pity that she had a grandfather like that one.
It was snowing.
Flake after flake drifted down out of the sky onto the earth, falling faster and faster, spreading wider and wider.
Far off on the mountain peak, a roar was already building, like some great beast waking.
And underfoot, the cracks were splitting finer and denser by the second.
Oh no — avalanche!
Kate jolted awake, her pupils blowing wide from the images in the dream, and only as the starry-sky ceiling swam into focus above her did her mind gradually settle back into place.
This was… her bedroom?
She was back at the manor?
She tried to sit up without thinking, but the slightest movement sent what felt like a thousand needles driving into her brain, an agony beyond bearing.
What on earth had happened?
"System, what's wrong with my body?" she asked weakly.
[The Host forcibly raised her Mana output to use the Chongli Divine Fire, causing her physical and Spirit functions to decline without limit.]
[Host has currently been unconscious for: 3 days.]
[Remaining recovery time: 7 days.]
Kate blinked, and the memories from before she blacked out began to surface.
Right — to stop the avalanche she had thrown every buff she had into it, forced the Chongli Divine Fire to burn far past its normal duration, and melted and boiled away every scrap of snow on that whole plateau.
"So everyone's all right?"
[Just before losing consciousness, the Host cast a Weather Charm. Hogwarts and the Hogsmeade region have currently seen five continuous days of torrential rain; rainfall is projected to end within ten days.]
Er… she'd better not have stopped an avalanche only to cause a flood.
She struggled to sit up, but the moment her movements grew even slightly larger, it wasn't only her head that felt pierced through with needles — her whole body was limp and aching and useless.
She lay back down, resigned, and stared at the starry-sky ceiling, digging through her memory for a long while. All she could dredge up was the image of herself collapsing in the rain.
"System, I think I'm done for."
Since she was back at Shafiq Manor, that meant the old butler already knew the state she was in.
Most people away from home report the good news and swallow the bad. She had been reporting good news for two and a half years — and the first time something went wrong, it went spectacularly wrong.
She could picture exactly how the old butler had looked, tears streaming down his face, when he found her unconscious.
She was still picturing it when the bedroom door opened and Jingjing, the house-elf, came in carrying a tray of food. The moment it saw her eyes open, it got so excited it nearly flung the whole tray away.
"Little Master! You're awake! Oh, wonderful! Little Master is awake!"
Watching Jingjing dance about in delight, Kate could only cut it short. "Don't get carried away just yet. Go and fetch Grandpa Rand for me."
Jingjing froze mid-caper and blinked its enormous eyes at her, looking troubled. "Mister Butler has gone to collect some people."
"Collect people?" Kate frowned, then gave in. "All right — help me sit up, then. I'll eat something first."
"Yes!"
At last, with the little elf's help, Kate — temporarily paralysed invalid — managed to get herself upright on the bed, though it left her drenched in sweat from the pain along the way.
Just as she was about to ask Jingjing to feed her a little thin porridge, footsteps sounded at the door again.
Grandpa Rand, back already?
She lifted her head, pleased and surprised — and the bedroom door swung open to let in a brown-haired figure who came running across the room and flung herself into Kate's arms.
Kate blinked. Her sluggish nerves took a moment to catch up before they finally delivered the pain to her brain.
"Ssss — ow, ow, ow!" The only part of her still working properly, her mouth, produced a stream of broken noises.
Only then did Hermione scramble up out of her arms in a panic, and one look at Kate's face showed her the pain had transcended mere expression.
"S-sorry, Kate!" She shifted hastily back, hands and feet at a total loss for where to go.
It was only then that Kate saw clearly that the old butler and Cho Chang had come in behind her.
She worked through the pain bit by bit, enduring it a long moment before she could speak. "What… what are you two doing here?"
"School's out for the Christmas holidays, so we all came along," Cho Chang said, her eyes curving. "We only managed it by telling our families it was a study trip. Luna's just a second-year, so she couldn't come."
Oh. She hadn't asked about Luna.
Kate went quietly red and tried to reach for the bowl of porridge on the little bed-table in front of her.
"Let me!" Hermione volunteered at once, picking up the porcelain bowl, spooning up a mouthful, blowing on it gently, and holding it out.
Kate leaned back on instinct in a tactical retreat, forgetting even to cry out at the pain, and stared at her in some embarrassment before managing a strained twitch of a smile.
In front of this many people, surely that wasn't quite… appropriate?
She wasn't sure herself what she was so wary of. It was only that, thinking back on all those tangled feelings from a while ago, she suddenly had no idea what to do with Hermione feeding her.
"Perhaps we should let Mister Butler examine Kate first," Cho Chang offered, seeing how awkward the air between the two of them had turned, and stepping in to break it up.
Rand had not said a word this whole time, but anyone could tell that, as the elder here, seeing Kate awake had left him both overjoyed and worried.
Hermione set the bowl down, deflated, and rose reluctantly to her feet. "Then I'll go put my things in the guest room. I'll come back in a bit."
"Mm." Now that the distance between them had been restored, Kate let out a genuine smile of relief.
Once the two girls had gone, led away by Jingjing, and only she and the old butler were left in the room, Kate spoke. "Grandpa Rand, about what happened—"
"No need to explain." The old butler came a few steps closer and pressed her gently back down. "I know the details. When you're well, I'll tell you everything."
She gave the faintest of nods, and with his help lay back again, watching as he ran a spell over her to check her body.
Before long, the tension in his face eased a little. "You've improved a great deal. For the rest of the holiday you'll need complete rest. We have your two friends to thank as well — they're both very willing to help look after you."
He was a man, after all, and there were a great many things it would not be proper for him to handle. Having Hermione and Cho Chang assist was far more convenient.
Kate smiled wryly. In her current state, where a single movement drove pain into her bones, she would probably be relying on the pair of them for the entire holiday.
"All right. Thank you for everything, Grandpa Rand." She obediently let her eyes curve — just as her stomach chose that moment to growl.
The old butler smiled. "Hunger is a good sign. It means your body needs fuel. You've started to mend."
With that he walked briskly to the door, and when he pulled it open, there stood Cho Chang, who had evidently been waiting for some time.
Kate looked over, startled. "Cho?"
"Leave the feeding to me." Cho Chang winked at her, perfectly at ease, and came in to pick up the bowl herself.
Out of the corner of her eye Kate saw the old butler leave, and only then did she force herself a little more upright. "Why you? Where's Hermione?"
"She was a bit tired." Cho Chang blew on the porridge in the spoon and held it out, beaming.
Kate hesitated, then opened her mouth and swallowed it down.
As the warm food slid all the way down her throat, her whole body seemed to thaw.
Her appetite thoroughly awake, she took several mouthfuls in a row before she relaxed enough to say, "Thank you."
Cho Chang's hand paused, and she gave her a look loaded with meaning. "Even if you thank me, you still can't eat too much."
"I know!" Kate broke into a grin, and went on drinking her porridge while they traded jokes.
And outside her bedroom door, a brown-haired figure stood still in the shadows for a long, long while before finally walking away.
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