"I don't know, James! One minute she's fine. Everything was fine. She was — we were .. we were fine. And then the next she's fallen in a heap without any explanation."
Muffled shouting reached her ears, a dull ring blocking her hearing. There was a consistent pound in her head that steadily got heavier with each time that she blinked. And her throat ... she couldn't quite understand why, but there was a stifling something that made it hard to heave air in and out.
The shouting taking place in the room did nothing for the nearly head-splitting ache.
She struggled to slowly force her eyes open, the black replaced with bright light. Groaning slightly, Katie attempted to push herself up to a sitting position as she blinked a few more times.
"Kate!" She was barely able to sit up before a pair of arms wrapped around her, squeezing a little too tight.
A shrill voice cut out. "Mr. Potter! Let Katherine go this instant! She's just woken up," said the voice, who Katie was vaguely beginning to recognize as Madam Pomfrey's.
Before she could even register what was going on, the arms were gone and Madam Pomfrey appeared at her side, holding two different colored vials in her hands. "Wit-Sharpening and Vitamix potions. Drink," she demanded, placing the potions gently into each of her hands as she moved to open another, smaller vial on the stand.
Katie did as instructed, still feeling a slight dizziness despite the effects of the potion immediately taking place. She slowly regained a sharper hold on her senses, just now registering the other people in the room.
James, Remus, Lily, Sirius, Peter... and Professor Dumbledore.
Before she could dwell on that fact however, Madame Pomfrey handed her a dark, red vial, instructing her to drink it.
The bitter liquid smoothly slid down her throat but not before leaving an aftertaste that made her stomach churn. Her hands immediately felt less frail, but even from her limited knowledge, she knew that her body was somehow very, very weak.
"Poppy, I think that will be enough for now," said Professor Dumbledore, nodding politely to the blonde-haired witch. Madame Pomfrey stepped back from the bed, nodding to him.
Katie took note of how eerily quiet the room was, how white the faces of her friends were, and of all, she couldn't miss the grim frown Dumbledore was trying so hard to hide.
"Ms. Hart," Dumbledore said softly. "Can you remember exactly what happened?" He peeked over his half-moon glasses with an expression so unreadable that Katie got an immediate feeling of dread in her stomach.
She inhaled, racking her brain for the details. It didn't take long for every detail to come back to her one by one, so clear, so explicit, it made her flinch. Lily scooted closer to her, clasping her hand for support. She nodded at Katie, urging her on.
Katie nodded back, focusing her attention on Professor Dumbledore once again. "Yes, of course professor." She took a breath. "Remus and I ... we were walking out of Honeyduke's, and - and then ..." She stopped, meeting Remus' eyes from across her cot. The corners of his lips perked up despite the worry lines on his forehead, but he gave her an ever so slight shake of the head.
She nodded at him in understanding. "We ... we talked for a little while. My head - it started to hurt, and so did my stomach. Then I remember," she pauses, scrunching her brows in confusion, "I remember falling, but I blinked and I was somewhere else - in my house." Katie looked around the room, observing the expressions on each of their faces.
The most prevailing emotion on every face was curiosity.
And so she continued on. "The first person I saw was this death eater. I didn't know who he was, but he seemed to know me very well." Images of his cruel face flashed in her mind, as well as his hatred-ridden voice. "I don't know why, but he hated me, for something I'd done, but I don't remember him in the slightest."
"Somehow he's known me for a long time," Katie added, remembering the snark that played at his lips when he spoke to her. You're not pulling that on me again. I've spent the past 16 years wishing I'd just reacted quicker. Maybe if I hadn't failed you'd be dead.
"He began to speak of things I couldn't quite wrap my head around. A curse he'd put on a girl, and this man that seemed to mean an awful lot to him. He was talking to me about a he and a she but I never caught names. I don't know, he was just speaking to me and I had no idea what any of it could've meant." Something felt wrong about that statement. Was he really talking to her?
After all, none of what he said made sense to her.
Something nagged at her brain, remembering her mother's voice, so prominent, and yet, Katherine had never seen her mother. Whenever she had opened her mouth, no sound had come forth, but whenever she spoke - though she couldn't quite remember actually speaking - it was her mother's voice. The concept of it, the contradictions that it implied, seemed so huge that it must've been fraudulent, and yet, she knew it to be true.
A feeling she didn't welcome prickled within her, but she pushed away the possibility that was planting itself into her head.
"I don't remember seeing my mother there, but I could hear her. So clearly, so—" she cut off suddenly, a bone chilling wave of fear washing over her as she remembered her mother's scream that pierced the air so clearly.
"So clearly," she whispered, not quite paying attention to anything in the room anymore, Instead her mind looped the shrill scream that must've come from her mother over and over in her mind, rewinding and replaying without even asking permission. The sound reverberated throughout her entire body, almost rendering her to sobs right then.
Vaguely, the feeling of warm arms tightening around her registered somewhere in her brain, but all she felt was the dread that spiked through her blood as she was forced to relive whatever strange scene her head had shown her.
She steadily tried to compose herself, shutting her eyes tightly and taking as much comfort as she could from the arms around her in order to push her mother's screams from her head.
"After he spoke about this girl and this man that he seemed to be using to try to get under my skin, he—" Katie took in another breath, her jaw going rigid and her fingernails digging unintentionally into whoever's arms were wrapped around her. "That's when I noticed that he wasn't the only one in the room. My father was there. Held captive by another death eater."
"But that's not all I noticed. I realized then that I was in my house. Which is impossible because I was in Hogsmeade and I'd have to go through quite a lot to get past your charms." An awkward chuckle escaped her lips as she met Dumbledore's eyes. She wanted him to tell her that she was right, that it would have been impossible for her to get out of Hogwarts grounds so easily. But all he did was stare sadly at her.
After a few more moments in tense silence, Katie realized that Dumbledore was still waiting for her to finish her recollection of what happened. Begrudgingly, she attempted to continue on, trying hard to stomach the queasiness that she felt.
"Then," Katie cut off, feeling her hands shake so uncontrollably at the memory of her father's screams. This time the memory plunged itself so deeply in her chest, the crevices of her mind and memory, and into her heart that she felt as if she would run out of air. This memory was even worse than her mother's screams because of the images of her father's weakened body slowly crippling until he fell to the floor that paired itself with the sound of his screaming. Vaguely, she felt her trembling hands come up to her head as if clutching at her head would stop the memories from invading her.
"Professor do something!" A voice laced with fear called out.
Someone was taking her arms and restraining them as a hand came up to pry her jaw open. Mixed with the memories of the death eater's face, it felt as if she was being attacked again. A scream was bubbling deep within her when a liquid was suddenly flowing down her throat, effectively cutting off her scream.
Air began to circulate once more in her lungs, but the quivering of her hands were still there. Her mind felt drowsy.
"I've given her a mild drowsiness potion. I can have her take a potion that'll put her in a fitful slumber. Albus, let her recover from the pain, it's obvious she's struggling," Madame Pomfrey said.
In her groggy state, Katie made eye contact with Dumbledore across the room. His stormy blue eyes pierced her with his gaze, both grim and mildly unsure at the same time. "I think we should let Miss Hart decide for herself whether she's up for the task," he replied calmly, his eyes still intensely trained on her.
"Bollocks! She's overwhelmed and obviously not up for it," Sirius' cutting voice grit out. Dumbledore's gaze drifted to him, still holding a serenity that clashed with the outrage that flickered wildly in Sirius' grey orbs.
"Sirius, I'll be okay," Katie called out softly.
Sirius' brows scrunched together. "But, Kate-"
"I'll be okay," she said more firmly, but her voice was still small. Her gaze flicked back to Dumbledore's, who was watching her intently. "Do you want me to continue on, Professor?"
"Whenever you feel steady."
The statement felt inutile; it felt as if her head would never stop throbbing, let alone feel any form of what might be considered steady. But her desire for answers trumped the pain circulating at her temples, so she took a heaving breath, attempting to fill her lungs with as much air as possible, just to be sure that the organ did still indeed work.
"The death eater that held my father hostage, he ..." she trailed softly, letting her eyes flutter closed. With another breath she continued, "He torchured my father. With the Cruciatus Curse. He tortured him till his body went limp. That was when his screams finally stopped." Katherine focused on holding tightly to Lily's soft hands and taking comfort in her familiar breathing in an attempt to distract herself from the harrowing images and sounds that were once more attempting to plague her mind.
"The death eater in front of me threatened me again. Said that I wouldn't be so lucky to have my life spared. I think I said something back, but I didn't hear my voice when I said it. I heard my mother's." She finally let herself acknowledge out loud that her mother probably had more to do with whatever this vision was that she initially wanted to believe. She didn't want to believe it because it would mean something she quite wasn't ready to think possible quite yet.
"Without even thinking, I grabbed the death eater's wand and pointed it at my throat. He didn't waste time with the spell once I gave him the opportunity and the next thing I know, all I could see was green light." Katie was well aware of the impossibility that she was still alive if it was indeed her that was present in the scene. But the other possibility that was nagging at her was a possibility she refused to think about.
She could still feel the area in her throat where the wand dug into her skin, where the curse was cast - the cold, stuffy pang of the bright, green light.
For moments she couldn't feel anything, see anything. All she felt was the coldness that seeped steadily into her veins. All she could see was the look on her father's face - the despair, the fear, the heartbreak. And the face of the man that showed her no mercy. A dark, shrewd grin and eyes with no remorse.
"I see," a voice said quietly, delicately. Katie blinked, suddenly remembering that she was in another place entirely. She suddenly registered the hands on her, the shaking of her limbs, and the wet tears that made their way onto her face.
There was something wrong. She knew there was, even if she didn't want to admit it. So the shaking didn't stop. The tears didn't stop flowing. The scream that'd been building in her chest didn't stop in its attempt to overwhelm her.
She looked up. All she could see was Dumbledore's eyes. Sad, grieving, blue eyes that pierced into her. She knew there was something that he knew that she didn't. Something that he was so desperately trying to communicate with the emotions dancing in his eyes.
"Katherine," he paused. There was a hesitation in his voice that she'd never seen from him before. "What you experienced wasn't a dream."
He was watching her carefully. But she didn't say a word - she didn't think she could even if she wanted to. She knew exactly what the only plausible explanation for this was. Someone had died, and yet somehow she was still here, alive and breathing. But someone had died.
When she stayed silent - the only sound being heard in the room was the slight shake in her arms as it ruffled against the smooth sheets of her hospital cot - he continued on. "What you saw was a vision of sorts. Just as real as you and I. But," he paused again, and she wanted to scream at him to finish his sentence. Because she knew, she knew. And she wished she didn't.
She wanted so desperately for him to just spit it out. If only to stop the ache in her heart that wouldn't go away, or the pulsing in her brain that made her focus uneasy, or the stiffness that pressed at her neck and thighs.
"But the reason you heard your mother was because you were in her body. Katherine, your mother," he paused one final time. She couldn't stop the tears from flowing now, and all she wished for was for his next words to be different than what she believed them to be.
But wishes don't always come true.
"Your mother is dead."
The scream echoed out of her mouth before she could even register.