"Apparition?"
A strange look crossed the old butler's face. "When did Miss learn magic that advanced?"
"Never mind when she learned it. How much she's capable of is something only she knows!" Katherine hurried out to cut him off.
"What matters right now is finding her, fast. If that man catches her off guard again, it's over!"
Their enemy was somewhere out there in the dark, and they were the ones standing in the light. With Kate bolting off like this, there was every chance she'd be marked.
"Think. Where does she usually go when she's upset?" Katherine pressed.
The old butler's brows knotted deeply. "When Miss is unhappy, she only ever shuts herself in her room and looks at the stars."
The words had barely left him before he vanished from the spot, only to reappear a moment later a short way off. "No good. I've just been — there's no one in her bedroom!"
"Damn it." Katherine swore, pinching her temples in frustration. "I'll go wake those two girls. They might be able to guess where Kate would go."
The old butler nodded. "I'll search the place where Miss and I used to live. We'll meet back here."
With that, the two of them disappeared together.
Before long Hermione and Cho Chang, who had only just gone to bed, were hauled awake. By the time they had dressed and reached the lawn, the old butler was back.
"Nothing. I've been through every street around it — no sign of Miss!"
He turned to the two girls, the words tumbling out of him. "Miss Granger, Miss Cho Chang, please, think, quickly. When Kate is with you and something upsets her, where does she go?"
Neither of them had worked out yet how a perfectly good birthday night had blown apart so suddenly, but they followed his lead and thought hard.
Hermione considered it for a long while before her brows drew together. "We're only ever at Hogwarts, really. If she's upset, she just goes back to the dormitory and sits by herself."
"Could she have gone back to the school?" Katherine's eyes lit up, then she dismissed it. "No. You can't use Apparition inside Hogwarts. She can't get there for now."
The old butler still wasn't satisfied. "All the same, someone has to look. I'll go now—"
"Wait!" Cho Chang spoke up, glancing at them uncertainly. "Going by what Hermione said, Kate likes to be on her own when she's upset.
"But if she went back to Hogwarts, Headmaster Dumbledore would find out straight away. He's always been fond of her.
"Which means, if she doesn't want to be disturbed, the only place she'd go is somewhere she's already been — somewhere with hardly a soul around."
"That's it." Hermione's head snapped up. "Hogsmeade! It's been pouring there for days. Most wizards have either shut themselves indoors or gone somewhere else until it passes.
"Nobody lives out that way, and it's the middle of the night. There'd be no one there at all!"
Something occurred to Katherine, and her face darkened. "Didn't you two tell me before that Kate collapsed on the snow mountain near Hogsmeade, and that's where she was found?"
The words jolted all of them. The old butler and Katherine each laid a hand on one of the girls' shoulders, and the four of them vanished at once.
And at that very moment, above Hogsmeade village, three hundred metres up on the snow mountain—
No. It could hardly be called a snow mountain any more.
The ground lay stripped bare, while overhead dark clouds massed in a black, oppressive weight and rain came sluicing down over the earth.
A lone figure stood half-swallowed by the gale and the downpour, as helpless as a single small boat on the open sea at midnight.
Kate stood blankly in the rain, her soaked body shivering, as though she had reached some kind of limit.
She no longer wanted to think about what she ought to do next.
She couldn't have anyway.
In all that formless blur of sky and earth, she only wanted somewhere quiet to stay a while.
Perhaps once she had calmed down, she could go back.
Not far off, something came wobbling up out of the sodden ground. The noise made her frown, and only then did she turn around.
Through the sheeting rain, a thing identical to the voodoo dolls from a few days ago was shambling toward her like a walking corpse.
She tilted her head, and then she laughed.
So there had been voodoo dolls lying in wait around here all along, and the avalanche had simply kept them from surfacing.
Until today. Sensing her return, they had clawed their way out of the earth to finish what they had been made for.
Yes. They.
Within moments five or six identical voodoo dolls ringed her, grinding out hoarse, ugly noises as they charged.
Kate shook her head, smiling.
Sorry. Today she was in no mood to play house with these things.
She lifted a finger and pointed, and a bolt of lightning came ripping down out of the dark clouds.
For an instant the whole curtain of rain blazed bright as noon, dazzling enough to hurt.
When the white light faded, all that remained of the voodoo doll before her was a smear of black ash.
After that the sky went on dropping bolt after bolt, splitting the rest of the voodoo dolls apart one by one until there wasn't even ash left.
At last only the sound of the rain remained. Kate shut her eyes in relief, tipped her head back and wiped the water from her face.
Her body was so cold.
Was that the rain, or the Curse inside her at work?
She listened closely to the lovely drumming of the downpour, and her ears, unnaturally sharp just then, twitched.
One of them slipped the net?
She turned, irritated, narrowing her eyes to make out the several figures taking shape in the rain a little way off.
They were—
Her eyes widened by degrees. She moved to run without thinking, but her feet had long since gone numb with cold; the first step buckled under her and she pitched forward into the mud.
"Kate!" Hermione came running, umbrella held out, fear all over her face.
She had barely covered a few steps when Kate, sprawled and bedraggled, shouted, "Don't come near me!"
Her eyes had gone red the instant she recognized them. Fighting down the sting rising in her nose, Kate dragged herself up off the ground.
She gave Hermione one long look, set her teeth, forced back the cold gnawing through her, turned, and stumbled away.
"Kate!"
Cho Chang started forward too. She and Hermione exchanged a single glance, threw down their umbrellas at the same moment, and gave chase after that blurred figure.
The old butler's face tightened and he made to follow, but Katherine stopped him.
"Let them try first," she murmured.
The two girls only picked up speed, and Kate, running blind in her panic, tore through the rain until they closed in on her from front and back and cut off her way.
Kate's face had gone white. She looked at the two girls blocking her path, her lips shaking for a long moment before she got the words out in a shout. "Move! I just want to be left alone!"
"Come back with us first. Please?" Cho Chang took a worried step forward, and watched Kate flinch violently back.
She didn't dare move again, and could only call to her across the pouring rain. "Kate, come back with us. Even shutting yourself alone in your room would be better than standing out here!"
"She's right," Hermione said, no less worried. "The rain's far too heavy here. Your body—"
"There's nothing wrong with my body!" The retort came out of Kate before she could stop it, like a struck nerve.
Every single day, for all these years, a voice had told her she didn't have to train this hard, that resting one day wouldn't hurt. Not once had she let herself slack.
Up and running before it was light, reading and practising magic every waking hour, going without food and sleep to keep at it. In all of Hogwarts there was no one who worked harder than she did.
And what had it got her?
She still couldn't bear the cold. Her Mana still refused to grow on its own. And the old butler, Hermione, all of them treated her like a girl made of glass!
All because of this wretched Curse. However hard she pushed, the Curse simply wiped out whatever she achieved.
Why her?!
"You don't have to worry about me because of some Curse. I know exactly how I am!" Her head dropped, and the words tore out of her, thick with resentment.
Warm tears slid down her face mixed with the rain. She dragged in one great breath after another, struggling to settle everything churning inside her.
It was a while before she registered that she hadn't heard a sound from either of them, and a small, secret guilt welled up in her.
"…Don't worry. I'm not going to fall apart over a Curse." She wiped her face and straightened, feigning calm. "Just let me have some quiet."
The words had scarcely left her when she saw Hermione marching toward her, thunderous.
Alarm shot through Kate. She started to back away, only to find Cho Chang blocking her.
Should she just Apparate out?
The thought had barely surfaced when Hermione caught her by the wrist.
"Don't even think about running!" Hermione's eyes were round, blazing at her. "Pull yourself together!"
Kate faltered, then defended herself. "I'm perfectly clear-headed. You don't need to worry about—"
She never finished. A sharp crack rang out through the rain — the sound of a slap.
Even Cho Chang stared open-mouthed at the scene, never mind Kate, who had been on the receiving end of it.
"Hermione, you—" She pressed a hand to her cheek, dazed, the words barely more than a mumble.
"Are you awake now?"
Hermione seized a fistful of her collar, giving her no room to argue. "What do you think the lot of us came out here in the middle of the night, in this rain, to look for you for?
"What we're worried about is Kate Shafiq. You. The person!
"Worried that something would happen to you, worried about how you're feeling, worried about your health! It has nothing to do with any rotten Curse!
"So if you've got any sense you'll come back with us quietly. Otherwise I'll knock you out and carry you back, because you are not standing out here in the rain a minute longer. Is that clear?!"
And she brandished her small fist at Kate with perfectly straight-faced seriousness.
"I—" Kate's eyes went wide. Her bloodless lips trembled for a while before she managed to force out a single syllable. "All right."
Only then did Hermione's mouth curve in satisfaction. She turned and called back to Cho Chang, "Get over here and give me a hand! Before she runs off again!"
____
________________________________________
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉