Ah… the familiar ceiling…
The moment she regained consciousness, Kate realized she was back in the Hospital Wing.
She was probably the most frequent student visitor in the entire school.
Her head was still spinning when Madam Pomfrey walked over, bottle of potion in hand. "Drink this, then rest for one more night. You can be discharged tomorrow morning."
Kate blinked, obediently drained the bottle to the last drop, and lay back down.
After surviving Snape's fortified magic-suppressing potion, any other potion was child's play.
Right — her Mana…
[Current Mana: 54 (Unavailable)]
Huh. Even after that ordeal, her Mana had actually increased by one point. However, because she had used Attribute Points, she wouldn't be able to draw on it for three days.
[The Host has already been lying down for a full day, so only two more days are needed.]
Kate's cheek twitched. That didn't exactly qualify as good news either.
Well, given her current state, quibbling over one day or two wasn't particularly meaningful.
"System, the Extra Quest counts as completed, right? Where's the hatchling?"
[Quest completed. The Norwegian Ridgeback hatchling is currently in the gamekeeper's hut, in Hagrid's care.]
[Notification: Yesterday, the Host collected 1 Joy Point from Hagrid and 1 Worry Point from Hermione. Both have been converted and stored as Emotion Points.]
Well, then…
Setting aside the rather ironic detail of Hagrid's Joy Points, had Hermione been worrying so intensely that it was now generating harvestable Worry Points?
Kate already had a bad feeling about this. When she was discharged, was she truly not going to be swallowed alive by Hermione?
Good grief. What a headache.
"System, open the quest rewards first."
[Extra Quest rewards unlocked. Rewards are as follows:]
[Reward 1: Draconic Protection upgraded to Level 4. Vitality +10.]
[Reward 2: Obtained the Norwegian Ridgeback hatchling's exclusive Level 10 Intimacy.]
[Reward 3: Obtained a random ability of the Norwegian Ridgeback — Dragon Breath (Current Level: 1).]
She could make sense of the first two well enough, but what on earth was Dragon Breath?
[Because the Host successfully saved the hatchling, one random ability of the Norwegian Ridgeback has been granted.]
[Dragon Breath: The foundational ability of all fire-type dragons. Once acquired, the Host may use Mana to generate dragon-fire and expel it from their mouth.]
Breathing fire from her mouth?
Had she actually mutated into something?
Kate instinctively touched her own throat. Fortunately, it still felt human in structure — no obvious differences.
[A fire dragon's breath is a more powerful flame than Incendio. It can be used once per day free of Mana cost, but is fundamentally an extreme drain on Mana. The Host is advised to use it with caution.]
A free daily use, huh? One free pull per day, is that it?
Suppressing the urge to complain with great effort, Kate let out a slow breath.
Though the situation had been perilous, the rewards were at least generous. The Dragon Breath ability alone was a substantial new brick in the defensive wall she was quietly building around herself.
Beyond that, her Vitality had reached 71 points, leaving all her other attributes far behind. As long as she didn't run into an instant-kill attack like Avada Kedavra — the sort that struck the soul directly — that extraordinarily high Vitality should let her tank a hit or two.
The moment her mood eased, drowsiness swept back in. The potion she had just drunk likely had a sedative effect.
Before long, she drifted back into a deep sleep.
Meanwhile, just outside the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore had been about to step in for a visit — only to be intercepted by Madam Pomfrey.
"The patient has taken her medicine and is now asleep. The Headmaster had best come back tomorrow."
The great Dumbledore, having his nose rather unceremoniously put out of joint, could only smile ruefully. He glanced at the curtained bed from a distance, then turned and left.
This was going to be a difficult one to explain to his old friend.
*
On the morning of her discharge, the Gryffindor trio was nowhere to be found. Hagrid hadn't come either.
On the way back to the dormitory, she spotted Pansy with Crabbe and Goyle, but Malfoy was conspicuously absent.
When those particular people all disappeared at once, there was only ever one explanation.
Only then did Kate register what might have happened during her hospitalization. She didn't even bother returning to the dormitory — she headed straight for Professor McGonagall's study on the second floor.
Before she even drew near, she could hear Filch's voice carrying through the door.
"Professor, those three Gryffindor students — and this Slytherin student — were caught wandering the castle last night. I was wondering if you'd given any thought overnight to suitable punishments?"
Professor McGonagall said nothing.
Kate was about to move closer when she saw Mrs. Norris padding toward her with that characteristic saunter of hers.
"Shh." She immediately activated her Animal Affinity ability, signaling the cat to stay quiet, then edged a little closer to the doorway.
After a moment, Professor McGonagall's voice came through. "When I caught them last night, I already deducted fifty points from each of them —"
"But detention is still required, isn't it?" Filch pressed eagerly. "Or perhaps bring them to my office?"
His office ceiling was hung with chains and manacles, polished to a gleam, ready for the day he might be permitted to use them on rule-breaking students.
Professor McGonagall naturally had no intention of allowing that. "Very well. They shall accompany Hagrid on a patrol of the Forbidden Forest."
"The Forbidden Forest — not a bad idea at all. Then tomorrow night at eleven, they'll gather in the Entrance Hall…"
Hearing the conversation inside drawing to a close, Kate crouched down, gave Mrs. Norris — who had been rubbing herself against her ankles — a quick pat, and slipped away.
She walked and puzzled over it the entire way, the whole thing feeling utterly surreal.
Malfoy deliberately trying to snitch on them — fine, that was expected. But why had the three little lions suddenly gone wandering the castle in the middle of the night?
In the original works, it was over a week after the hatchling's birth that they proposed sending it away with Charlie, necessitating a nighttime run to deliver it. But this time, she had already notified Dumbledore and Newt, and the hatchling's future had already been arranged — so what reason did those three have for sneaking out, and how had they managed to get caught by Filch on top of it?
Passing the enormous hourglasses that tracked the House Cup standings, Kate took a proper look. Gryffindor's hourglass was a hundred and fifty points lighter. Slytherin's was down fifty.
However, in the better part of the semester prior, Kate alone had earned Slytherin well over fifty points. So the current House Cup rankings had swung back to Slytherin in first place, with Gryffindor at the bottom.
Every Slytherin student who passed by couldn't help but let out a loud, triumphant whistle.
Kate, for her part, felt absolutely nothing about the House Cup. She had always been something of an outsider in Slytherin, and the points she'd earned in class were nothing more than a byproduct of actually paying attention.
But that raised the immediate question: those idiots had gotten themselves into trouble, and now there wasn't a trace of them to be found. Where exactly had they gone?
Gryffindor had no classes right now. To avoid being pointed at and gossiped about, they would have hidden somewhere others wouldn't think to look.
The library would have plenty of people at this hour, and the Quidditch pitch seemed equally unlikely.
Kate rubbed her head with a pained expression. If she still had Mana, she could at least try a Tracking Spell.
This castle was so enormous that a proper search could take an entire day and still come up empty.
With a sigh, she gave up and made straight for the Great Hall.
Lunch was less than half an hour away. She simply didn't believe those little troublemakers could hold out and skip a meal.
Sure enough — after working through a portion of pudding and a steak at the long table, she spotted the Gryffindor trio weaving their way through the crowd, carefully avoiding everyone's eyes as they approached.
"Ahem!" She gave a sharp cough, stood up, and stepped right into their path. "Why didn't anyone come to collect me?"
Hermione looked up. The moment she saw who it was, she went visibly blank for a second. "Kate? You've already been discharged? I'm so sorry — I actually forgot today was the day…"
She hadn't even finished the sentence before Kate grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her away.
Harry and Ron were left standing there in awkward silence, watching the two of them disappear. They stared at the food on the table for a long, forlorn moment before each grabbing a sandwich and hurrying after them.
The four of them filed one after another to the entrance of the same bathroom where the troll had been wounded. Kate glanced back at the two boys and said coolly, "Wait out here."
Harry and Ron exchanged a helpless look.
Why were they on girls' bathroom door-guard duty again?
If Kate could read their minds right now, she would absolutely have had words with them about it.
As it was, all her exasperation was reserved entirely for Hermione.
"I'd barely been discharged before I heard you lot had broken the rules and gone wandering the castle at night. This morning I couldn't find a single trace of any of you, and I had to come stake out the Great Hall just to catch you."
Kate swore her tone held not the slightest trace of anger — because, when it came down to it, Gryffindor losing points had absolutely no effect on her. From the start, all she wanted was a clear explanation for why they'd snuck out. If anything, she was only a little sharp because she'd been in too much of a hurry.
But the moment those words left her mouth, Hermione launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around her.
And then, from the depths of that embrace, came the unmistakable sound of quiet sobbing.
Kate immediately panicked. She patted Hermione's back with no idea what to do with her hands. "Don't cry — I wasn't even angry at you…"
As soon as those words were out of her mouth, Hermione's crying only got louder.
Loud enough that even the two boys standing guard outside craned their heads in to look — only to each be pelted squarely in the face with a paper ball.
My little childhood friend is crying, and you two are just rubbernecking — what are you staring at?!
Having chased the pair of them back outside, Kate turned her full, helpless attention back to the girl in her arms. She wrapped her arms gently around her. "Hey — hey, stop crying first. Can't we talk this through like sensible people?"
"Before, when I collapsed — that was my fault. I didn't consider my own limits. I… I was wrong, alright?"
The moment she finished speaking, the girl who had been sobbing in her arms abruptly lifted her head. In one swift motion, she had Kate backed against the wall, both palms planted on either side of her.
"So you do know you were wrong? Do you have any idea how terrified I was when I saw you collapse?!"
Being pinned against a wall by someone a full half-head shorter than herself was… a deeply strange sensation.
Kate looked down at Hermione's face — completely dry, not a single tear in sight, staring up at her with absolute seriousness.
She had the distinct, sinking feeling that she had just been played.
____
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