Cats are Mysterious Creatures

The sorting was due to start any minute, and the Great Hall was in its usual uproar. It wasn't until Professor McGonagall strode into the hall, a stream of new first year Hogwarts students following in her wake, that the older students began to settle down. Yet the buzz of conversation began again as, at the end of the line of first years, came a student that was definitely not a first year. She was tall, nearly six feet in height. Long red hair flamed down her back, and eyes as green as Harry Potter's stared around the hall.

At the Gryffindor House table, the afore mentioned and newly sixth year Harry was as dumbfounded as his friends to see an obviously sixth or seventh year student enter the hall with the first years. Ron leaned over to his friend, saying, "Bet she's a Scot. Blimey, with hair like that she could be a Weasley, couldn't she!"

Dumbledore stood up form his chair at the high table, raising his hands for silence.

"I know this is against protocols, but before the first years are sorted, I would have one new student, a transfer, to be sorted into her house. Katherine Forrester, please step up to let Professor McGonagall place the sorting hat on your head."

Harry watched raptly as the new girl--Katherine, he corrected himself--stepped to the front of the gathering and let the Professor place the hat on her head. A second went by, two, three, and then--

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table cheered for their newly acquired house-mate, and room was made for her at the long table. It was her luck to be placed right beside Harry, across from Ron and cat-cornered to Hermione. Hermione smiled at Katherine and extended her hand, introducing herself in a whispered tone as not to interrupt the rest of the sorting, which had begun as Katherine had made her way to her new house table.

"Hallo. I'm Hermione Granger. This is Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter." Katherine took each of their hands as it was offered and, to the surprise of all those watching, she did not immediately ask to see Harry's scar. In fact, she seemed not to notice at all who she had just been introduced to. Harry offered his hand to Katherine automatically, staring at her with a confused and almost disbelieving look. She opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was cut off by the end of the sorting and Professor Dumbledore's call for silence as he began to make his beginning of term announcements.

"Here we are for another year. Thanks to the heroic efforts of many selfless people, we have another year of safety from the Dark Lord at Hogwarts. Yet there is still danger to be feared. I would advise students not to venture outside the castle after dark, and into the Dark Forest at all. We have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher," at this, Dumbledore gestured to an old man in gray robes, with long gray hair under a gray pointed hat sitting to his right next to Snape, who for once looked fairly intimidated by a colleague, "Who is an old school chum of my own before he went to work in other Dimensions. He is known by many names, most prevalent among them Gandalf, but I am sure he will inform you by which name he prefers to be addressed. Oh, and Mr. Filch would like me to remember that anyone so rude as to track mud on his floors will be severely punished. Thank you, I think it is now time to eat." With that, Dumbledore clapped his hands, and the food appeared on the tables.

As the dull roar of the students talking and eating began, Harry, Hermione and Ron all looked to Katherine, who had not had a chance to properly introduce herself. She began again, and all three of the others were surprised at the distinctly American dialect that came out of her mouth.

"Hey. I'll try this again--I'm Katherine Forrester. I prefer Cat, but I'll reply to both." Cat looked around, and saw the stares aimed in her direction, from more than just Harry, Hermione and Ron. "What?" she asked.

Hermione recovered her skills of verbalization first.

"We just didn't expect an American, is all. We thought you were Scottish."

"Oh, my family is, way back a bit. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, in the southeastern United States. Daddy took a job over here, and Mama's always wanted to come to England anyway, so them, myself, and my sister all packed up and shipped out."

"Really? Why isn't your sister here? Where did you attend school in America?" Hermione asked Cat, being ever her inquisitive self. Ron looked interested, and Harry was still staring at Cat with a look of disbelief in his eyes. Giving Harry an odd look, Cat answered Hermione's questions.

"My sibling, a younger sister, really doesn't have much magical talent. We went to a regular high school in the US. Magical training was more of an extracurricular activity that took up a lot of time. I've never been to a school especially designed to teach magic before." Cat looked straight at Harry, not seeming put off by his stare at all. "How about you, Harry? How long ya'll been here?"

Hermione and Ron looked at Harry. Ron poked him, saying, "Hey, mate, the lady asked you a question. Don't just sit there!" Harry looked wildly at Ron, and pushed away from the table.

"Got to go. See you later. Nice to meet you--" And he was off at a run out of the Great Hall. Ron looked at Hermione, but she was as confused as he was. Cat just looked at them, only mildly surprised.

"Does he do that often upon meeting new people?" Ron and Hermione shook their heads. Ron looked at Hermione, saying,

"He didn't look good. Reckon we should go after 'im?" Hermione nodded. Cat waved them off.

"Go and look after him. Tell him I'm sorry for whatever happened, if it was something I did." Hermione gave her a grateful look, whereupon she and Ron excused themselves from the dinner table and ran after Harry.

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Harry sat on his bed in Gryffindor Tower, staring at the open photo album in his lap. His mother, father, Sirius and Remus all stared back at him, smiling and waving, but Harry only had eyes for his mother. How could it be? There was a theory that everyone in the world has a double, but Harry had never seen it until now. The timing was wrong for reincarnation, but. . .

If neither of those things was true, how the hell had a woman that looked exactly like his mother just entered Gryffindor?

From the moment that Cat had walked into the Great Hall, Harry had stopped thinking. His mind simply didn't accept the fact that he would be looking at a Lily Potter double for the rest of his last two years at Hogwarts.

His mind had accepted it by now, but his heart still didn't.

'Dammit!' thought Harry, 'How am I supposed to fight Voldemort with a distraction like this in front of me?' Besides this problem, Harry knew that when he had run out of the Great Hall, he had attracted the attention of most of the school.

'Great. Now they'll definitely think I'm nuts, those of them who didn't already.' Harry groaned loudly and fell back onto his pillow.

"Bugger."

It was at that moment that Ron and Hermione walked into the Gryffindor room that Harry shared with Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville. Harry stared at the canopy of his bed, hoping against hope that they would take the hint and go away. He didn't want to talk about his problems right now. Especially not this particular problem. This one he didn't want to ever talk about.

"Look, guys, I'm fine, I just have a lot on my mind, the war against the Evil that's trying to kill me and all, I just need to get some sleep--."

"Oh, Harry, come off it. You know there's more to it than that." Hermione cut Harry off sharply, and then though about what she'd said. "Not that that isn't important, though."

Ron nodded his agreement. "I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Harry, but even I could see that Cat upset you. Why?"

Harry looked closely at both his friends, and saw that until they got some answers, they weren't going to go away. It was annoying, but Harry guessed it was nice that someone cared about him. He handed Hermione his photo album. She looked at the picture. Ron craned his neck to see what she was looking at.

"Oh, Harry, I didn't realize..." Hermione looked up at Harry, seemingly at a loss. Ron wasn't, however.

"Blimey, Harry, your mum looked just like Cat, didn't she? Wow. Amazing semblance, really--" Ron was cut off by Harry's pillow flying at him, thrown by Hermione.

"I can't figure it out. They look just the same, yet I don't have any other family left. At least, I thought I didn't. I've thought about the double theory, the reincarnation theory. . ."

"No, reincarnation happens at the moment of death, as a baby is born at the exact same moment that a person's soul leaves their body upon death. I mean, it works considering the fact that your mum still had unfinished business, but Cat would have had to have been born at just the same moment that your mum died for her to be the reincarnation."

Harry nodded silently. He knew that just as well as Hermione, but he had had to say it anyway. There was one other option, but Harry didn't want to think it. It was too awful, but he had to ask Hermione and Ron what they thought.

"Could it be Voldemort?"

"What, Voldemort here, in the castle? You know it's spelled against that, Harry." Hermione looked consideringly at the ceiling. "But if it's a follower of Voldemort, he could have arranged for her to be placed here."

Ron looked confused. "I've never heard of Voldemort having any American followers, though. Was America even targeted at that time, or was it just England?"

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but this time, Harry did the cutting off.

"No. I don't want to talk about this right now. Classes begin tomorrow, I just want to go to bed and get some sleep. If you two will excuse me--" Harry pushed them off his bed, and shut his drapes. He could almost hear the stunned look that his friends gave the curtain, but they couldn't do much at that point but leave him alone. As Harry heard them walk away, he only had one thought.

'What is this thing going to do to us?'

Harry was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't noticed when he fell asleep in his clothes.

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