Kate stood rooted to the spot, keeping her mouth firmly shut.
She had done what she came to do. The moment she walked out that door, she could look forward to a pleasant, productive school year — completely free of Voldemort.
She was contentedly waiting for Old Man Dumbledore to let her go, when the very next second, she heard him speak in a slow, measured tone: "Kate, would you be willing to help me unravel the secret of this diary together?"
Kate froze. Her eyes went wide as saucers.
Ask an ordinary second-year student to help you investigate Voldemort's Horcrux? Dumbledore, could you at least follow the script!
"I — I can't!" she blurted, waving her hands and stumbling backwards. "Professor, your magic is extraordinarily powerful, and you know so many great wizards — there is absolutely no reason to go looking for a small, helpless child like me!"
She didn't even wait for Dumbledore's reply. She turned and bolted straight out the door.
Nobody was pushing her into that fire pit!
Even Dumbledore was mildly taken aback by her reaction. He hadn't managed to call her back before Kate had already vanished in a blur, and by then all he could do was shake his head.
He turned slowly back to face the diary on the desk. His gaze drifted downward and came to rest on the black box that had held it.
If his memory served, he had seen this box once before — decades ago, at the home of his old friend Nicolas Flamel — and had heard Flamel explain its use.
He extended one finger. A thin thread of magic seeped from his fingertip and flowed into the box.
The box's unremarkable gold engravings seemed to wake as though from a long sleep, spreading and shifting across the surface before finally settling into a new image.
At the sight of that simple line drawing, Dumbledore couldn't help but furrow his brow ever so slightly.
That old fellow — they had only met once — and yet he had entrusted even something like this to Kate.
No wonder the diary's cover had been so badly damaged.
But almost immediately, a faint smile crossed his weathered face. Then, he placed the diary back into the box.
This little trinket, it turned out, was rather well-suited for temporarily housing a Horcrux.
"Right — I'll have Severus come by as well. We'll need to have a proper discussion about what to do with it."
His quiet murmur was overheard by the portraits on the wall. One of the former headmistresses couldn't resist asking, "That child from the Shafiq family seemed quite badly frightened. Aren't you going to comfort her?"
"Frightened?" Dumbledore gave a soft laugh. "She is not a child who would be frightened by a diary."
Even if Kate didn't yet know what a Horcrux was, she would certainly have sensed how dangerous that diary was. Otherwise, she would never have come to his office so willingly.
A gleam of sharp intelligence passed through Dumbledore's bright blue eyes.
The girl who might one day be his successor was not nearly so simple as she appeared.
Kate ran all the way to the Great Hall. By that hour, most of the students had already finished eating and left, so she grabbed what remained of a sandwich and ate on the move, making her way back toward the Common Room.
She couldn't work out why Dumbledore had suddenly decided to involve her in all this.
By any reasonable logic, an innocent, helpless, pitiable little wizard like herself had already done her part by being the one to report the incident. After handing over the diary, she should have had no further role to play whatsoever.
Even if Dumbledore didn't yet know for certain that the diary was a Horcrux, it was still something connected to Voldemort — he wouldn't treat it carelessly.
So working backwards from that: anyone he pulled into the diary research project must be someone he trusted absolutely.
Snape certainly counted as one.
But as for herself...
Kate hesitated. Was she really someone Dumbledore trusted?
From an outsider's perspective, probably yes — after all, no student had ever been given the standing privilege of coming and going from the Headmaster's office as they pleased.
But at the end of the day, the man was the White Dark Lord. Even as she relied on him, she had always maintained a natural, instinctive wariness.
Trust was a two-way street. If she couldn't bring herself to trust Dumbledore wholeheartedly, she could hardly expect to have earned his complete trust in return.
So... had what just happened actually been a test from Dumbledore?
Because she was the one who'd found the diary, Old Man Dumbledore was testing her reaction — probing just how much she knew about it?
Oh no. She'd made a complete mess of it.
The half-eaten sandwich slipped straight out of her hand and hit the floor.
Kate had absolutely no energy to pick it up. She had just realized that her performance moments ago had been catastrophically bad.
Acting purely on instinct, she'd refused so quickly because she wanted no part of this mess.
But from Dumbledore's perspective — a reaction that strong could only mean she already knew something about the diary, couldn't it?
And following that line of reasoning further: didn't it also mean the story she'd told about how she'd found it might have had some fabricated elements?
Damn.
Dumbledore definitely knew she'd been lying now!
She could get away with telling a few half-truths before — he'd had no evidence to catch her on. But now, with a Horcrux sitting right there on the table, if she kept on ly—
A single bead of sweat rolled silently down Kate's forehead.
She couldn't help tilting her head upward, toward the direction of the Headmaster's office on the floor above. Would it look strange if she went back right now and said she'd changed her mind?
She was trapped either way.
No wonder this was the man who had gone toe-to-toe with Grindelwald. A single sentence and he'd left her completely cornered.
Kate lowered her head with a sigh. Was it really wise to pin all her hopes on the timid image she'd spent so long cultivating?
She hadn't even finished agonizing over it when a voice behind her cut through the air — cool and unhurried: "Shafiq, are you planning to hold a three-minute silence for that sandwich of yours?"
Kate turned around with a miserable expression to find Malfoy and her entourage standing right behind her.
Malfoy, however, took one look at that face like a bitter melon and was actually caught off guard. "What's with you... it's just a sandwich on the floor, it doesn't warrant that much sulking, does it?"
"...Oh." Kate had absolutely no energy for banter right now. She looked completely drained of colour, like someone had wrung the life out of her. She picked up the sandwich, tossed it in the bin, and trudged into the Common Room with her head hanging low.
That utterly lifeless display was enough to make even Malfoy lose her grip on every cutting remark she'd been brewing all morning.
This girl hadn't eaten in the Great Hall at lunch, and now the sandwich she'd been eating had fallen on the floor half-finished.
"She's... not actually going to pass out in class this afternoon just because she's starving, is she?" She turned around and looked to her two followers for input.
Crabbe and Goyle — those two little round lumps — had absolutely no idea what was going on in Malfoy's head, but as fellow devotees of food, they knew all too well how awful it felt to go hungry. They both nodded vigorously at once.
Malfoy furrowed her brow with a look of faint disdain. After a long pause, she said, with a touch of reluctance: "I seem to recall your dormitory has quite a few snacks. Bring some to me this afternoon."
That Shafiq girl hadn't eaten at lunch — for all she knew, she might actually faint during afternoon classes.
She just didn't want Slytherin to embarrass itself. That was all.
"What are you still standing there for? Go get the snacks!"
"Y-yes! Right away!"
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