She had Jingjing take her by Apparition straight to the station, arriving just in time to catch the train before it pulled out.
Plenty of students had gone off on study trips over Christmas, so the carriages felt half deserted this time.
Kate searched for a good while, and only when she found two girls already sprawled asleep in a compartment did she break into a smile.
She stepped in quietly, sat down and propped Hermione's head against the window. She had barely finished stowing her luggage before Hermione slid all the way back down and came to rest comfortably against her shoulder.
Kate: ...
That was rather hard to explain away as an accident, wasn't it?
Never mind. She shook her head, tipped it back against the seat, and closed her eyes too.
That evening, her first dinner back at Hogwarts felt like something out of another lifetime.
What felt far more familiar, though, was Malfoy across the table, cheeks puffed out, glaring at her as though Kate owed her money.
"...Is something wrong?" she asked, at a loss.
Malfoy went on staring at her in a sulk for a good long moment, then started cutting her steak without a word.
With such energy that she might as well have been carving up the Kate sitting opposite her.
"While you were home recovering, did you forget to send out Christmas presents?" Pansy leaned over and whispered in her ear.
It took Kate a blank moment to realise she hadn't prepared a single Christmas gift for anyone she knew.
She had spent the first half of the holiday convalescing and the second half digging into her parents' generation. Who had time left for details like that?
And this girl still remembered.
Kate glanced up at the still-fuming Malfoy and felt nothing but weary.
Such an immature child, still.
Once, she would probably have been in the mood to coax her out of it. But now...
She said nothing more, finished her dinner with her head down, then got up and went straight over to the Gryffindor table.
"Hey, Harry. I hear you got a Firebolt just before the holidays?"
It was the only present she had given anyone over Christmas, even if she had paid for it with Sirius's money.
Harry had been in the middle of a conversation with Ron, but the moment she mentioned the Firebolt he spun round, eyes shining. "That was from you?"
"We spent the entire holiday guessing who sent it!" Ron put in from behind him.
Kate smiled. "I didn't manage to catch your broomstick last time, so I had someone make one to order for me. Looks like you like it."
"But..." Harry stood up, a little awkward. "It's far too expensive. If it's only a Christmas present, I don't think I could ever buy you anything worth as much in return."
"That's all right. Worst case, you can write off my share of presents every Christmas between now and graduation."
Playing the big spender with someone else's money really was a fine thing. In three sentences Kate had Harry thoroughly turned around, and had got herself out of four years of gift-giving in the bargain.
"I honestly can't believe you thought to send Harry a present." Hermione was still muttering about it in disbelief as the two of them walked out of the Great Hall.
Even she hadn't got one!
"Well, you didn't send me anything for my birthday, so shall we call it even?" Kate asked, thoroughly amused.
Oh. There was that, too.
The memory came back to Hermione all at once, and she went red and stammered herself into silence.
Just as they always had, they said goodnight to each other after a short walk to settle their dinner.
"Kate!" Hermione called after her at the last moment. "You - you really are all right now, aren't you?"
Kate knew perfectly well what she was asking. Her eyes curved as she reached out and ruffled Hermione's hair. "Don't worry. I'm completely better."
The Curse in her body still sat there like a splinter, but one day she would strangle it with her own hands.
Back in the Common Room, she found Malfoy sitting in front of a Wizard Chess set, bored out of her mind and apparently waiting for her.
Kate hesitated a moment before going over to sit down. One point of her wand, and the scattered board sorted itself into neat ranks.
"One game?" she asked.
Malfoy gave a small sniff and claimed the black pieces at once. "I'm not going to lose to you."
Fifteen minutes later, black's forces had been routed off the board.
"Checkmate," Kate said calmly, setting the white knight down in front of the black king.
Malfoy stared at the position, unable to believe it had crumbled that fast, then shot to her feet with her face burning and rounded on the little crowd that had gathered to watch.
"What are you all looking at? There's nothing to see!"
When the young mistress threw a tantrum, everyone except Kate naturally gave her a wide berth.
Only when the space around them had emptied did Malfoy sit back down, refusing to accept it. "I don't believe it. Again?"
"However many times we play, it'll end the same way."
Kate caught her by the wrist to stop her resetting the board. "Surprised, are you? Wondering how my chess got so good so quickly?"
Every single time before this, she had gone easy on the young mistress, and every game had ended with Kate losing.
This time was different.
"Listen, Malfoy. I've moved forward," she said, pulling the young mistress a little closer and lowering her voice. "So when are you going to catch up?"
With that she let go of her hand, turned, and went up to the girls' dormitory.
Leaving Malfoy alone where she sat, dazed, for a very long while.
Lessons resumed the next day.
For the first Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the new term, David and Hagrid had put together a row of bonfires with a fair number of salamanders in them.
One detail was worth noting. In everyone else's fire, the salamanders went darting about among the firewood and leaves the students had collected.
Only the nest in front of Kate showed no interest in the wood whatsoever. They kept trying to climb onto her instead.
The trouble was, the pile had males and females alike in it, so there was no chance of her Animal Affinity buff having gone off by mistake.
[Host possesses the Divine Flame, and therefore holds a natural attraction for fire-attribute magical creatures.]
That was the answer the System gave.
Which left Kate, under the eyes of the whole class, speechlessly plucking salamanders off herself over and over again.
A perfectly good Care of Magical Creatures lesson had very nearly turned into her own personal circus act.
Even Hermione just stood there snickering instead of helping. The nerve of her!
She barely made it to the end of the lesson before David showed a belated flicker of mercy and took the salamanders away for her.
"Honestly, Kate," he said, once everyone else had left, holding back a laugh, "that's the first time I've ever seen magical creatures get the better of you."
Kate could only manage a weak laugh.
If little salamanders like these were already daring to crawl all over her, then next year, when the Triwizard Tournament came around and that lot hauled dragons in...
It would cause a major incident, wouldn't it.
She would have to go back and look into whether there was an alchemical item that could suppress that sort of attraction.
"Oh, right," David said, remembering something. "Dumbledore wants you to go and see him after lunch."
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