Coming out of the Headmaster's office, Kate felt a little dazed.
She had just openly discussed the respective ideologies of two generations of Dark Lords with Dumbledore — and somehow hadn't been ganked for it.
She glanced back at the office door, now shut once more, and instinctively touched her own neck. Good. Her head was still safely attached.
It had been a bit of a gamble, but she'd managed to talk Old Man Dumbledore into agreeing to let her join the diary research group. Something to celebrate, at least.
She let out a slow breath, then made her way lazily down the stairs. She'd barely slept two hours last night, and then spent the whole morning on that mental marathon — she absolutely had to catch up on sleep.
By evening, a freshly awoken Kate timed her arrival perfectly for dinner in the Great Hall, just in time to overhear Harry quietly complaining at the Gryffindor table about Lockhart making him serve detention that night.
It seemed the letter she hadn't written yesterday would have to be left to him to handle instead.
She picked at her dinner without much appetite. Then she noticed Hermione slip away from the Great Hall alone, and stood up to follow.
They kept a careful distance — not too close, not too far. Hermione never once looked back, and Kate never closed the gap.
It wasn't until they'd both climbed to the eighth floor and Hermione was nearly at the Gryffindor Common Room entrance that Kate finally couldn't hold herself back any longer. She darted forward and grabbed her by the wrist.
"You obviously noticed me following you this whole time — couldn't you have turned around even once?"
She was clutching Hermione's thin wrist, and somehow she was the one who felt wronged.
Hermione turned around. Her fair little face was flushed with a hint of indignant colour. "Well, I went out of my way to apologise to you yesterday, so why did you run off?"
Kate was momentarily speechless.
She could hardly say it was because that sudden kiss had completely flustered her, could she? Even if she wasn't used to the boundary-free affection of straight girls, Hermione was different — and besides, the girl wasn't even twelve yet.
An absolute little kid. If she actually said that out loud, she'd be the creepy auntie of the century.
"I..." Her well-rested brain spun at full speed, and then something clicked. Her eyes lit up. "Because I thought we needed a better place to make up properly."
With that, she grabbed Hermione's hand and broke into a jog, the two of them rushing all the way back to the eighth floor — to the stretch of corridor opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls.
Kate caught her breath, then turned to Hermione. "Wait here two minutes. It won't take long."
She focused her mind, silently thinking, I need a place to make up, and paced back and forth past the bare stretch of wall three times — then a door appeared.
"Come on!"
Her face broke into a delighted smile as she pulled Hermione through the door. "See, this is where I wanted to properly apologise to you—"
Her voice cut off.
Kate stood there with her mouth open, staring blankly at a room overflowing with roses in full, riotous bloom. Her brain stalled completely.
This was... a place for apologies?
"How is there somewhere this beautiful here!"
Hermione's eyes went wide with delight. She crouched down on the grassy floor and reached for a fallen bloom — but her finger caught on one of the thorns. She released it with a wince, brow furrowed in pain.
"What happened?" Kate saw it immediately and rushed over. She examined the finger closely — a bead of red was welling up on Hermione's slender index finger — and without thinking, she lowered her head and brought it to her lips.
The moment her finger made contact with the soft warmth of Kate's lips, then the wet heat that followed, Hermione froze, staring at her with delicate eyelashes trembling.
When Kate finally let go and lifted her head, Hermione jolted back to reality and snatched her hand back at once, her eyes darting guiltily to anywhere else in the room.
"Should be fine now," Kate said, completely oblivious, with a reassuring tone. "Next time you pick up a rose, be careful — plenty of pretty flowers have thorns, you know."
Hermione's heart was hammering so hard she couldn't focus on a single word of that. She just turned her face away and murmured a few vague sounds of agreement.
"So... let's make up." Kate bent down with a grin, meeting Hermione's eyes at eye level.
The Room of Requirement had gone a little overboard with the décor, but there weren't many little girls who could resist a setting this extravagant.
Hermione didn't answer. She was still looking down at her finger — the puncture from the thorn had stopped bleeding, but a faint redness remained, vivid against her pale skin.
Though what she was really thinking about wasn't the injury at all, but rather...
"This is for you." A rose in magnificent full bloom was held out before her.
Hermione looked up in a slight daze — and met Kate's warm, smiling eyes.
"I just used a spell to strip off all the thorns. You can hold it now without getting hurt."
Kate held out the rose with quiet sincerity, those dark eyes of hers glimmering with unmistakable, hopeful expectancy — the kind of look that was impossible to refuse.
"...Thank you." Hermione took the rose, a jumble of feelings rising in her chest that she couldn't quite name.
But Kate was never one to let a moment turn awkward. She pressed on cheerfully: "I know I shouldn't have given you the silent treatment over the Professor Lockhart thing. That was my fault — which means you shouldn't have been the one apologising."
Besides, she'd already gotten what she wanted — Dumbledore's agreement to let her join the group. There was no reason to keep the cold war going any longer.
She looked at Hermione with heartfelt hope. "Let's agree not to fight anymore, alright? Whatever happens — no matter whose fault it is — we won't let it come between us."
Hermione's lashes fluttered. Her gaze drifted from the rose to Kate's face — and at the sight of that familiar, gentle smile, the anxious, flustered tangle in her heart slowly unravelled.
It was strange. Just seeing Kate smile like that made her feel completely at ease.
"Alright," Hermione said softly. She bent her head, resting it lightly against Kate's shoulder, and whispered her reply. "We'll never fight again."
Kate draped her arm over Hermione's narrow back, and finally let herself breathe.
Well. One major crisis resolved.
The two of them lingered in the Room of Requirement for a little while before Kate walked Hermione back to the Common Room entrance and headed off on her own.
Hermione stood and watched her go. She kept watching until Kate's figure had long since disappeared around the corner — then, clutching that single rose, she walked straight back to the dormitory with a smile she couldn't quite suppress.
The moment she stepped through the door, her roommate Parvati Patil spotted the rose immediately and let out a dramatic exclamation. "Everyone come look — Hermione got a flower!"
The other girls, who had all been sprawled on their beds, popped their heads up one by one and immediately launched into a flurry of excited chatter.
"Which boy gave you flowers? That's so romantic!"
"Who would have thought the first one in our dorm to get flowers would be Hermione — and we don't even know who it's from..."
Amid the chorus of gossip, a faint blush crept across Hermione's cheeks. She carefully placed the rose in the vase on her desk, then turned around and gave her roommates a mischievous wink.
"Don't bother guessing — I'm not telling you anyway."
A chorus of groans filled the dormitory.
The sound of gossip-hunger going entirely unsatisfied.
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