That night, Kate barely slept at all, spending nearly every waking hour practicing Occlumency.
She'd originally turned to it simply to calm her mind — but after a full night of practice, she unexpectedly leveled it up to Rank 6. A pleasant surprise, as far as surprises went.
Not that it helped much. The moment she stopped practicing and her thoughts drifted back to Hermione's kiss, her heart gave another treacherous little lurch.
She dozed for two hours in the dormitory, then dragged herself to the Great Hall with a spectacular pair of dark circles under her eyes.
She hadn't even made it through the doors when she spotted Hermione coming down the corridor from the opposite direction, arms full of books.
Kate's heart seized. She immediately wrenched her gaze away, marched briskly toward the Slytherin table, and buried herself in breakfast as though she hadn't seen a thing.
The two boys walking beside Hermione stared at Kate's retreating back in bewilderment. Ron, never one to resist a bit of gossip, asked, "Didn't you apologize to Kate yesterday? She didn't accept it?"
Hermione shook her head with a troubled expression. "I don't know. Her reaction last night was strange — she seemed like she still hadn't forgiven me."
The words were barely out of her mouth before Malfoy sauntered over, wearing a satisfied smirk. "Of course she hasn't forgiven you, Granger. You and Shafiq were never the same kind of people."
"What's that supposed to mean, Malfoy!" Harry stepped forward at once. "What's between us and Kate is none of your business — stay out of it!"
Malfoy's expression flickered. She reflexively balled her hand into a fist — then forced herself to release it, her smirk turning sharp and contemptuous.
"Maybe I am an outsider. But soon enough — so will you be."
With that, she lifted her chin and swept into the Great Hall, taking a seat directly across from Kate.
"Ignore him, Hermione," Harry murmured quietly. "That prat has always been at odds with Kate — he has no idea how close the two of you actually are."
Hermione managed a thin smile. But her gaze drifted involuntarily toward the Slytherin table.
At that very moment, Kate was absent-mindedly spreading jam on her bread.
As a girl who liked girls, she had always kept a certain distance from most other girls in her previous life.
Even so, there had been the occasional ambush from straight friends she was relatively close to — a sudden pinch on the backside, or a kiss out of nowhere.
She understood it was just their way of expressing affection. But she'd never been able to get used to it, and gradually, she'd drifted away from female peers her own age.
Her friendship with Hermione had been close, but it had always stayed within the comfortable bounds of hand-holding and hugging — the kind of ordinary warmth she could handle. Hermione had always known where to draw the line, and besides, the unspoken customs of the Western world meant she'd never done anything overly forward.
That had made Kate feel safe. At ease.
But yesterday's kiss had come out of nowhere like a sledgehammer, leaving her thoroughly rattled.
If even Hermione was capable of that kind of "overstepping" — then maybe Kate's own psychological defences were set too high?
Pushing her food around without tasting it, Kate had not yet noticed something about herself: when someone else's physical affection made her uncomfortable, her instinct was to pull away. But when it was Hermione's physical affection, her instinct was to turn the question around on herself and wonder if she was simply being too uptight.
Either way, right now, she just had the nagging feeling that in famously open-minded Britain, her own conservative attitude stuck out like a neon sign reading: Nothing to see here.
Maybe… if she just got used to all the cuddly, clingy things girls did with each other, she could desensitize herself over time?
But how exactly would she go about that?
Walk around hugging and kissing Hermione and every other girl every single day?
The mental image made Kate shudder.
Too much. Absolutely cannot.
Slow and steady. One small step at a time.
She'd just finished her bread and was reaching for some milk when she caught sight of Snape's enormous robes sweeping toward her — the kind of robes that seemed to carry their own personal wind machine.
"Shafiq," he said, rapping her table sharply. "Come with me. Now."
Kate set down her milk cup at once and stood up. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Malfoy's face — a moment ago animated with conversation — go suddenly tense.
What was there to be tense about? She wasn't even nervous.
"Yes, Professor," she answered composedly, and followed Snape out of the Great Hall at a brisk pace, arriving shortly at the entrance to the Headmaster's office on the eighth floor.
Hm. Right on schedule, more or less.
She put on a suitably lost and uncertain expression, clasping her hands together with careful meekness. "Professor, has something happened?"
"You'll find out when you get up there." Snape gave her nothing, spoke the password, and sent her up the revolving staircase.
Kate rode up alone. The moment the staircase carried her out of sight, she dropped the anxious act, straightened her collar, and raised her hand to knock — only for the wooden door to swing open on its own.
A wizened, decrepit bird came fluttering toward her on trembling wings and flung itself into her arms. Every last one of its feathers looked about ready to fall off.
"Fawkes?" Kate caught it, turning it over in her hands with wide eyes. "What happened to you?"
A beat later, comprehension dawned. She murmured to herself, "Oh, right — phoenixes have their Burning Day. You must be just about due."
As she said it, her eyes lit up. She carefully plucked a few of the tail feathers that were already half-loose and about to fall out anyway.
Excellent wand-making material, these were. And since they were going to fall out regardless, keeping them as a little collection seemed perfectly reasonable.
One hand clutching the tail feathers, the other cradling Fawkes, she walked into the office — and immediately spotted Dumbledore sitting behind his desk, waiting for her.
"Professor," she said cheerfully, holding up the feathers. "Fawkes has already agreed to give me these — you don't have any objections, I hope?"
Dumbledore glanced at the bedraggled phoenix that was still stubbornly refusing to leave Kate's arms. "Of course not, if he is willing."
"Thank you, Professor." Kate tucked the tail feathers happily into her pouch, then — with some effort — settled Fawkes onto his perch and took a seat.
"You wanted to see me?" she asked, feigning complete ignorance with an expression of open curiosity.
Dumbledore's gaze passed through his half-moon spectacles and settled on her, long and steady. "Kate — how have things been lately?"
"Not bad!"
She answered without thinking — then, as if remembering something, her eyes shifted with a flicker of guilt. "Well… I did accidentally end up in detention with Professor Lockhart for a night."
Dumbledore's mouth curved slightly. "I heard it was you who talked back to a teacher in class. When Severus first mentioned it, I confess I could hardly believe it was something you would do."
So it was Snape who had told Old Man Dumbledore. That particular chain of information had been well within Kate's calculations. She forced a wan smile. "I'm sorry, Professor. It won't happen again."
"I suspect there may be rather more to discuss than that," Dumbledore said, his gaze holding hers with quiet intent. "These past few days — it seems you also had a quarrel with a close friend?"
Kate shot to her feet, eyes going wide, as if she genuinely hadn't expected him to know about something so personal.
"Professor, I'm not angry at Hermione anymore," she said, bowing her head. Her fingers wove together of their own accord, fidgeting in her lap.
A moment passed. When Dumbledore still said nothing, she added quietly, "And the Quidditch pitch — that wasn't intentional either…"
Well, that was practically a confession. She hadn't even been asked.
A glimmer of amusement passed through Dumbledore's eyes. He patted her hand gently, gesturing for her to sit back down. "I have no intention of scolding you, my dear."
"Then why…"
Kate's voice faltered. She watched Dumbledore draw the box out from a drawer, and instinctively leaned back in her seat.
"Is — is there something wrong with that diary?" Her voice dropped noticeably, as though she were afraid of the thing inside the box.
Noting her reaction, Dumbledore set the box back a little further from her and said in a mild tone, "I have spent the past few days examining it, and I believe I have determined precisely what it is."
Kate's expression shifted. She leaned forward slightly.
"However," Dumbledore said — and it was clear he had no intention of telling her the diary was a Horcrux just yet — "I need to know how long you have been in contact with it."
Kate blinked with an air of vague puzzlement. Then something seemed to click, and she leaned back in alarm. "Don't tell me… it can actually influence a person's mind?"
She stood up immediately, backing several steps away, then asked with exaggerated caution, "Professor — from this far away, I should be safe, shouldn't I?"
"Mm. You should be fine."
Dumbledore simply spread his hands — and then vanished from his chair, reappearing directly in front of her in an instant. "There is no need to be alarmed. Simply tell me every question you asked it, and everything it said in return."
Kate moistened her lips, dropped her gaze, and appeared to think carefully. "I asked it its name. It said it was called Tom Riddle."
"Yes, I know that much. What came after?" Dumbledore asked, his voice still gentle.
"And then…" Kate raised her eyes. Her dark gaze met his, clear and unguarded. "I told it that my name was Gellert Grindelwald."
Dumbledore's tranquil eyes trembled — just for an instant. The warm, grandfatherly air that surrounded him fractured without warning, replaced by something razor-sharp and terribly precise. It only lasted a few seconds. But it was enough to send a shiver down Kate's spine.
"My dear," he said, raising a hand and resting it gently on top of her head. "Why would you write that name?"
Kate could almost feel it — that if she said one wrong word, this White Dark Lord would have her dealt with in a heartbeat.
Of course, that was surely just her imagination.
She drew a slow breath. "Because I wanted to understand his view of darkness. And using the name of the Dark Lord who once shook all of Europe seemed like the best way to draw out a genuine answer."
Dumbledore's hand paused in its gentle motion. "And what did you learn?"
"It said that Grindelwald was nothing but a failure. That after pouring everything he had into trying to change the wizarding world, he was still crushed in the end. Pathetic overreach, it called it."
The moment she finished speaking, she could clearly feel Dumbledore's hand trembling.
The greatest white wizard of the age. Trembling.
"…Professor?" she ventured, uncertain.
She watched Dumbledore slowly turn away. And for just a fleeting moment, his silhouette seemed somehow smaller — as though some invisible weight had bowed his shoulders.
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