I Can See You

The Head Boy

"This is a bad idea!" Kathleen cursed under her breath as they stopped in front of Professor Gibbons' office.

"He'll not smell a rat, I promise!" Natasha hissed back.

The Potions professor greeted the girls warmly as they entered his office. Natasha had convinced him to engage the help of Jed Matthews, and of course, Kathleen and herself to prepare a new batch of potion ingredients.

The blonde immediately frowned as she looked around the room. "Where's Matthews?"

"He needs to perform some Head Boy duties for the headmaster."

"WHAT?" Natasha asked crossly, startling the professor. Then she caught Kathleen's warning glance and forced a stiff smile. "So where do we start?"

*

The girls worked for half an hour, carefully pouring contents of the enormous bottles of Exploding Fluid into smaller containers and labelling them. It was fortunate that Professor Gibbons had long left the room as Natasha kept cursing under her breath every few seconds.

"What have I got myself into?" she mumbled for the umpteenth time. "What a waste of my time!"

"Why don't you take a break? I'll do the rest," Kathleen offered.

"Are you crazy? There're two more cartons to go! Anyway, I got you into this mess. I can't just dump all these on you now."

After a few seconds, she burst out again. "Why can't we do this magically? The manual labelling is so time-consuming!"

Kathleen ignored her and continued her task.

"Do you think we should steal a few bottles for ourselves?" Natasha said suddenly.

"Whatever for?"

"We can poison Black. That'll end all your troubles."

"Don't even think about it."

Natasha was about to protest when there was a soft rap on the door. "It must be some silly students looking for Gibbons. I'll get it." She disappeared for several seconds and reappeared grinning from ear to ear. Jed Matthews was right behind her.

"I was telling Matthews it's so great that he's here. My headache's getting from bad to worse now. I'll go see Madam Pomfrey. You're okay with that, Matthews?" Natasha asked innocently.

"No problem at all," Jed quickly replied.

"Thanks, you're such a dear! Bye Kate! See you later!" she shouted, shutting the door behind her.

Jed wasted no time and turned his attention to the task at hand. "What do we have here?"

Kathleen briefly conveyed the Potions professor's instructions and he got to work immediately. She was mildly impressed with the speed at which he performed his task. That was no surprise, of course. The Head Boy was well known for his efficiency.

"I didn't know Gibbons asked you girls to help out as well."

Kathleen tried to appear nonchalant. "Natasha offered and dragged me along."

He nodded, as he reached out for a new bottle of the blue potion.

"Gibbons said you were not coming."

"I settled my other stuff and bumped into him along the corridors. He told me that you two are here, so I decided to come and do my part."

"I'm sorry Natasha left. Now you have to do more than your fair share of work."

"I'm not sorry," he said softly, eyes carefully fixed on the fluid.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm actually glad that Strauss is not here." He stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. "I've been hoping for a chance to speak to you."

"You could have just walked up to me and done that," she pointed out matter-of-factly.

"I couldn't. Didn't have the chance. It was almost impossible to catch you alone without Strauss or Brutus around you. And recently, there was Black too."

Her stomach churned. "What about Sirius?" she asked. It was painful to even utter his name.

"I saw you with Black a couple of times and thought perhaps...well...you two are together."

"We're not." There was a mixture of bitterness and sadness in her voice. "I don't even know if I'll ever want to speak to him again."

Jed's face lit up. "Really?"

"He was just tutoring me in Transfiguration."

"Was? So he's no longer doing that?"

"I'm terrible at the subject. Figured that there's no point wasting his time teaching me," she lied partially.

"Would you let me teach you?"

Her heart skipped a beat. Natasha was right after all.

"I can coach you on Transfiguration," he pressed on.

"Your schedule must really be quite busy. I shouldn't impose on you."

"No, I want to! I'll just take it as a revision session for myself.

"You don't need a revision, Matthews. You're already top of your year." She was not very keen with the prospect of spending all that time with Jed, however pleasant he was.

"I want to help." He paused for a moment, then added, "that's the only excuse I can think of to see you alone."

Kathleen was beginning to feel bad. "Matthews, you don't -"

"Call me Jed," he cut in. "And may I call you Kate?"

She shrugged.

"So will you let me be your new tutor?"

"Matthews -"

"Jed," he corrected.

"Right, Jed. I'm not terribly keen on having Trans -"

"Why don't we try one session and see how it goes? If you still feel that I'm of no help, we'll drop it?"

She sighed, knowing what her reply would be. She was never good at saying no. "All right. I just hope that you'll not regret this. I can be quite an awful student."

"I'm sure I'll have no regrets." Jed smiled at Kathleen happily.

*

"Katie!"

Kathleen froze.

Sirius jogged up to her. "We need to talk."

"That's not necessary."

"Katie -"

"And please stop calling me Katie."

"I thought you liked it."

She felt a rush of angry tears. "I want to be no part of your games."

Several students passing by were giving them curious looks.

"Can we go somewhere more private?"

"I don't see the need to."

"We need to talk, Kat - Kathleen. At least give me a chance to explain!"

"I have no wish to carry on this conversation. You should look for your Gryffindor flies instead."

He looked stumped. "Flies?"

"Goodbye, Sirius." Kathleen turned her back to him just in time before the flood of tears came tumbling down.

*

"So how did it go?" Natasha leaned over her best friend's desk at Arithmancy. She frowned when she noticed Kathleen's swollen eyes. "Was it that bad?"

"Jed is helping me with Transfiguration."

"Excellent!" Natasha punched her fist into her air. "Cheer up, girl! Things are working beautifully!"

"Yeah," Kathleen muttered gloomily, hoping that was true.

*

"You're grinning like a Cheshire cat," Remus teased as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind his girlfriend's ear.

"I'm in an exceptionally good mood today," she admitted, beaming at him.

"Care to share your good news?"

She eyed him thoughtfully. "All right," she conceded. "I've found Kathleen a wonderful guy."

"What do you mean?"

"She's a nice girl. She deserves someone better than Sirius Black."

"I don't know about that. Sirius is not too bad himself," he said uneasily.

"I'm sure this guy is better. In fact, he's perfect!" She stole a glance at Remus and quickly added. "He's not quite as wonderful as you, of course. He's the second best guy in Hogwarts, after my boyfriend."

"Thanks. I'm eternally grateful for your compliments," he said laughingly. "So who is this guy you're praising to the skies?"

"Jed Matthews. Our Head Boy, no less," she replied, looking extremely pleased with herself.

He frowned thoughtfully. "I didn't know Jed and Kathleen are a pair."

"Not yet," she affirmed. "But I have no doubts that they'll be Hogwarts' latest couple soon."

"Have they even started dating?"

"Sort of. They've been meeting the two past nights for private Transfiguration lessons."

"That's something Sirius used to do."

"Yes, and your friend is out of the picture now," she said hotly. "Matthews is sincere about her."

"He has so many Head Boy duties. How does he squeeze in time every night to teach?"

"Exactly! See what I mean about his sincerity? If you want to do something bad enough, you'll somehow find the time to do it." She flashed a sly smile. "Which reminds me, if the Head Boy can spare time every night, so can you! So..." She snuggled closer. "Do you have enough sincerity to set aside time for your girlfriend every day?"

He had to smile. "Isn't this what I'm doing now?"

"You were too busy to meet for two whole days last month," she reminded him.

He muttered an apology.

"That's okay. I'm over that now." She looked at him playfully. "I'm really looking forward to the visit to Hogsmeade this weekend. Perhaps we should repeat the previous scene in front of Honeydukes again?"

When he squirmed and looked extremely uncomfortable, she narrowed her violet eyes. "Don't tell me you've made plans with those friends of yours. I'm counting on us going together!"

"That's not it. Actually -" He licked his lips. "I don't think I can even be there."

"Why not?"

He mumbled something about having stuff to do.

"What stuff? The professors usually don't give us much homework on a Hogsmeade weekend. Is that your prefect duties again?"

He continued staring into the lake.

"I'll ask Kathleen to tell Jed not to -"

"No, it's not my prefect duties either," he told her quickly, trying to conjure some excuse soon. "I'm - I'm helping Professor McGonagall with some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Something for Gryffindor," he lied, knowing that Natasha would neither know the better, nor be interested in what Gryffindors were up to.

"Does the timing has to clash with the Hogsmeade trip?"

"Sorry. I'll make it up to you, okay?"

"I was really looking forward to spending that time with you," she sulked. "But I guess there's nothing we can do about it."

Remus let out a breath of relief. That was one danger zone avoided. Grimly, he wondered how long could he keep his secret from her.

*

The Marauders were seated in their usual spot in the courtyard again.

"Is that a Snitch you're holding?" Peter stared at James incredulously.

"Yeah," James mumbled, as he continued playing with the Golden Snitch, tossing it lightly into the air and catching it again.

"Why are you holding on to it?" Peter persisted.

"Prongs has been fiddling with the Snitch ever since we lost the match to those snakes. He's now convinced that he'll make a better Seeker than Simon," Sirius offered, with a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes. "But we need good Chasers too, so he can only become a Seeker in his dreams now."

"You guys have plans for the Hogsmeade trip?" James changed the subject abruptly.

Sirius lifted a brow. "Didn't you say you're asking Lily?"

"She...er...she has another...er...appointment."

"Great! So we can hang out together!" Peter cried excitedly, before turning to Remus. "You'll be meeting Natasha Strauss there, Moony?"

"Actually, I don't intend to go," Remus said slowly. "Saturday is...well...I'll not be quite myself..."

The other three widened their eyes in understanding. Saturday was full moon. The pull of the moon was strong in the days leading to each full moon, and Remus would be in no condition to go for the visit a few hours before his next transformation.

"Have you told Natasha that you'll not be there?" James inquired.

"Yes." Reading the minds of his friends, Remus added, "I've not told her about my - well - condition."

There was a pause as none wanted to pursue the subject.

"Hey Padfoot, how come you don't intend to get a date? You have no lack of choices when it comes to that department," James changed the subject for the second time.

The question reminded Remus of what he learnt from Natasha. "I heard something about Kathleen being with Jed Matthews," he told his friends.

Sirius merely shrugged. "You must have heard that from Strauss? She's probably making this up knowing you'll tell me."

"You don't think that's possible?" Remus asked.

"I don't believe what I don't see with my own eyes. No offence, Moony, but I don't trust what that woman says." Sirius' expression suddenly turned dark and sombre. "Not that who Curtis sees matters to me anyway."

***