A Gaunt Tale

As she picked up a few belongings of hers that had fallen off of her luggage cart, Katalina looked up at the red steam engine train with relish. It hadn't changed a bit since the first day she had seen it, but the foreboding sense it had given her back in her first year was gone, replaced with hope and utter delight.

It was earlier than eleven o' clock and so Katalina was one of the only people on the platform, though she had felt as though she was being watched ever since waking up to find her window open in her inn room at the Leaky Cauldron. She had the same dream for the following nights, all ending with that same word. She could almost understand why the word was riddle; the dream itself was a riddle that she couldn't make any sense of. It could have just been a sort of underlying guilt for leaving her father playing games with her mind while she looked for some more sinister explanation, but she somehow didn't think so.

Her paranoia was getting the better of her; she was almost sure she felt someone standing behind her. She first thought to laugh it off, but she glanced over her shoulder beforehand. At doing so, she spun around and pointed her wand and then, scowling, she shoved it back in her pocket. She turned back around to face the train.

"What do you want?" she snarled, glaring behind her. "I did leave for a reason, you know."

The voice that replied wasn't anywhere near as ferocious; if anything, it was confused.

"Father's been acting quite strange."

"Is that so?" said Katalina airily, looking over as her brother walked next to her. "That was actually the reason I left, to get him off my bloody back. Did you know that?"

"My Lord, is there any chance you could stop being hostile for a moment?" Katalina remained silent. "Good," Alfred snapped. "I know he's been writing letters to Dumbledore about something since before you even left, I heard the house elf mumbling to herself about it. And before I left... don't think I'll be doing it just because he said to," he added, and she wasn't sure if he sounded antagonistic or frenetic about it. "Before I left, he said I should watch out for you." Katalina raised her eyebrows. "I don't know why, like I said, he's been acting strange."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah..." he said slowly, leaning back against his own luggage cart and crossing his arms. "He didn't think I saw it, but I've been keeping my eye on him since I found out about the letter's he's been writing to Dumbledore. I believe he's working on writing a will."

Katalina felt her eyes widen involuntarily, but she regained her composure... on the outside. Inside, her mind was racing now - that was why he was afraid, he was going to... die? But who was going to kill him? Surely it couldn't be Voldemort. With the letters he had been writing to Dumbledore, maybe he had turned into a spy of some sort for Dumbledore and Voldemort found out? No... it was probably more likely that Voldemort forced him to become a double agent and pretend to work for Dumbledore, then Voldemort became paranoid and lost trust in him. Her father wouldn't double-cross Voldemort if his life depended on it, she knew that for a fact.

"So?"

"What d'you mean, 'so'?" asked Alfred, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"I mean, why did you see fit to tell me? You said you weren't going to hold to Dad's word and 'watch out for me' or whatever it was, so there's not really any point, is there?"

"I didn't say I wasn't going to, I said don't expect me to. Anyway," he added quickly, "I figure with everything Father's taught you with all that about Occlumency and Legilimency, you might be able to figure something out."

"I haven't got a clue," she said. It wasn't really a lie; she had quite a few theories already circling around in her mind, but she didn't know how close any of them were to being right. "I'd have to be right there to attempt to employ Legilimency on him, you know, and considering he taught it to me, he'd be able to use Occlumency more than well enough to block me out."

"I don't know that much about it. If you care to remember, I was sorted into the right house when I got to Hogwarts."

"Ah, back to the 'I'm a better pureblood than you' game, are we?" said Katalina brightly, if only to annoy her brother. "Here, I'll help you. I forfeit."

She grabbed her luggage cart and started to walk off, but he caught up with her. She rolled her eyes and stopped a few feet from the entrance to the train.

"So you really don't have any theory as to what could be going on?" he said.

The hostility was gone from his voice again, and this really surprised Katalina. He had been nothing but hostile towards her for the past fifteen years, so this change was a little bit troubling. Of course, she supposed, Alfred was bound to be worried about the situation; he and their father definitely did have a decent father/son relationship. She couldn't forget that - their father only treated her like dirt.

"I have theories," she said, starting walking again. She managed to haul her trunk of supplies up the stairs that lead into the train and continued, "but there's no point in taking them seriously. I'm not psychic."

"Actually," he said, pushing his own Hogwarts trunk onto the train once she was out of the way, "I've heard Father mention that Mum was fairly gifted in Divination, and things like that tend to run in families, so you could be."

She scoffed. "Right, I'm psychic," said Katalina. "I'd lose my bloody 'ead if it weren't attached, but I can see the future. Really funny."

"You're the one who wants to work in the Department of Mysteries if it's still around after the Dark Lord's through with the Ministry," said Alfred. "You need some sort of knowledge of those sorts of things if you're going to work there, you know."

Katalina looked into an empty compartment. Her trunk was heavy and she didn't feel like going much further than a few doors down from the entrance. "First off," she said, opening the door to that compartment, "I need a knowledge of the theory behind it, I don't need to be able to see spectral images in blobs of tea leaves myself. Second," she said, hauling her trunk onto one of the bench seats in the train compartment and turning to face her brother. She pointed at him and continued on, "Lord Voldy-thing isn't going to take over the Ministry for the simple reasons that he's got the dorkiest name I've ever heard, friends that could get him into severe trouble one day, and he looks funny."

She managed to lift her trunk to shove it into the luggage rack above the seats as her brother glared at her, his face starting to turn a bit red. She looked over at him as she finished putting up her trunk and sniggered.

"Oh, I'm sorry, have I hurt your feelings? Shall I get you a band-aid?"

"A- what?"

"Things Muggles use to cover their cuts until they heal. Quite handy when you're in a situation where you can't use magic."

"R - right." She could tell he was trying his best to be nice, for whatever reason, or else he would have said something about how stupid Muggles were. "But anyway, what are your theories on... you know."

"On Dad?" She shrugged and sat down on one of the seats in the compartment, crossing her legs and staring upwards. "The only one that there is a good chance of is that he's going to die sometime in the near future, but I'm sure you could've guessed that from seeing the will."

"Yeah, I did figure that..." he said with a sigh, looking at the floor.

"I also imagine it's got something to do with Voldemort." Katalina noticed the glare she received from her brother for having the nerve to use the 'Dark Lord's' name. "Quit giving me that look!" she snapped, directing her range of sight from the bottom of the luggage rack above her head to her brother. "I'm doing my best to be helpful, thank you. I don't know what it has to do with him," she continued, "but if Dad's suddenly started writing to Dumbledore out of nowhere, he might be looking for help or something."

Alfred looked thoughtful about this. "That seems to make sense, actually," he said. "If Father's gone and gotten himself into a bad situation with the Death Eaters or the Dark Lord, then Dumbledore would be the person to go to for help. Everyone says he's the only person who would even possibly stand a chance against the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord's even said it himself, from what I've heard about the meetings from Malfoy."

She shuddered at the sound of that name; many people shuddered at the sound of Voldemort's name, but just the thought of Lucius Malfoy disturbed her. She did not like him. "He's graduated, hasn't he?"

"Couple years ago, yeah."

"Oh, thank Merlin. I was about to get off the train and leave if you said he was still there."

After a few more minutes of discussion on what their father was hiding, Alfred rushed off to change into his Hogwarts robes, having been forced to arrive early because he had prefect duty. The one thing she hadn't bothered asking him was why their father hadn't come like he did every year. She imagined it probably had to do with her; she was sure that he didn't want to talk to her at this point. She scoffed at this though; what a wonderful father figure he was.

It was another thirty minutes before other students started boarding the train. A few of the first ones to enter slowed down by Katalina's compartment and looked in on her for a moment, probably both surprised to see someone new who wasn't a first year as well as to see someone on the train before them looking as though they had been sitting there for quite a while. One student, a girl with long red hair and bright green eyes that was already changed into her Hogwarts robes slowed down by the door at first, passed the compartment, and then came back only a moment later to open the door, looking vaguely confused.

"K... Katalina Gaunt?" she said uncertainly.

"Hello, Lily," replied Katalina calmly, looking over. She moved her hands out from behind her head and sat up a bit straighter. "Didn't I tell you I'd be back?"

She blinked a few times and looked behind her as the crowds of students started growing louder. After a moment of what appeared to be a bit of self-debating, she came into the compartment and closed the door, and then sat across from Katalina.

"I can't believe -" she started, shaking her head. "How'd you manage to get out of it?"

"Well-"

"Did you run away or something?"

"I did, act-"

"I thought you had to have a parent's permission to attend!"

"Well, see -"

"Your father could pull you out again, couldn't he?"

"If you'd just slow down," said Katalina, laughing. "You're a prefect?" she added, noting the badge Lily was wearing on her robes.

"That's why I'm trying to ask quickly," she said, glancing at the door again. "I'm supposed to be on duty right now to make sure no one's trying to kill anyone else to get compartments. Did you know your brother's Head Boy this year?"

"H- how the bloody - what?" She shook her head. "Dumbledore must be out of his mind."

Lily shrugged. "There are a lot of people who say he is. He's really quite brilliant."

"There's a thin line between genius an insanity. If Dumbledore's going around making aspiring Death Eaters into Head Boys and prefects, then I'd say he's more than a toe over the line."

"Death Eaters...?"

"You've got prefect duty," said Katalina, "you can ask more when you're finished with it."

"Yes, I suppose so..." she said reluctantly. "I get to keep my luggage in the prefects' compartment, at least, so I won't have to lug it in here when I'm through. I'll be back as soon as I can and I want to know what in the world 'Death Eaters' are."

"You don't -?" Katalina started, then thought for a moment - Lily not only didn't live with crazy purebloods who thought Muggles deserved to die, but she was also a Muggleborn. Not many people had the pleasure of knowing as much as Katalina did about the subject. "Never mind, I'll tell you when you get back."

"All right," Lily said, standing and walking towards the door of the compartment. "But you will tell me," she added, opening the door.

Katalina was about to reply, but was interrupted by a voice from outside their compartment that made Lily grimace.

"Evans!" Katalina heard it say fondly, and she recognized the voice immediately as her source of suffering over the past few days. "Hope you've had a good summer?"

"Was nice," she said shortly. "I've got to be off. Prefect duty."

And with that, she disappeared into a crowd, leaving a very disappointed looking boy with messy hair and glasses to stand next to the open door while looking after her as she walked off. Katalina kept deathly silent, silently praying he wouldn't notice her if she didn't make any sound.

Evidently, she had more luck than ever today. Unfortunately, the luck she had wasn't good luck at all, as James spotted her a moment later.

"Ay! Gaunt!" he said, quickly dropping his formal tones and coming into the compartment without bothering to close the door and sitting where Lily had just sat. "How're you this morning? Didn't see you headed out of the Leaky Cauldron this morning with the rest of the Hogwarts crowd."

"I flew here out my window on a magic carpet," she said sarcastically.

"Magic carpet, eh? Got it with you now?"

"Yes. But it'll never leave the ground if you're thinking about pink elephants when you're standing on it."

"I don't ever think about pink elephants. Only purple."

"Doesn't fly for them, either. And I know you know that there's no such thing as magic carpets and you're just keeping this conversation because you have an extremely annoying fascination with getting on my nerves. Evidently," she added with a laugh, "you also seem to have a fascination with Lily Evans that gets on her nerves."

"Don't let her fool you," he said, shaking his head. "She knows she doesn't actually despise me. She's just refusing to go out with me out of habit at this point. It's nothing to do with me as a person."

"No, it's just to do with you as an idiot."

"Hey -!"

"What happened to your friend that was supposed to be staying at the Leaky Cauldron?" She changed the subject rapidly to avoid arguing. "His mum find him?"

"She caught him just now outside the train," he said. "She's telling him off now I believe. He's moving in with me and my parents next summer if he can manage to run away without his mum and dad noticing."

Katalina laughed. "I've only got one psycho pureblood parent and he noticed."

"Yeah, but he's a Gaunt. They're notorious for being extra psychotic. Even more so than the Blacks. Which is really saying something, considering they have a family tree in their house that his mum tends to blast faces off of if they've done something to wrong the family name. The thing about the Gaunt family is that if a family member does something to wrong their family name, then they get their actual face blasted off."

"My face is still in tact."

"I'm just saying. They're extra psychotic."

"All of them, then?"

"Definitely."

"Oh, well, thanks..." she said sarcastically.

"You're quite welcome."

Katalina glared. "I swear, I'm going to knock you over the head with my magic carpet once I do dig it out of my luggage."

"See?" said James matter-of-factly. "You're so deranged you're going to beat me with an imaginary rug that only pretends to fly when you're not thinking of oddly colored animals. If that's not psychotic, I don't know what is."

Katalina shook her head helplessly and put her face in her hands. If she was going to have to endure this all the way to Hogwarts, she might just find a real rug to beat him with. She was sure that the only person she had ever wanted to seriously injure this badly was her brother. She did have some fireworks that she could light and shove down the back of his robes when he wasn't looking.... No, that could result in serious injury. Of course, she wouldn't have minded such a thing at all, if it would keep him out of her hair for a little while.

If he bothered Lily this often, she was surprised that Lily hadn't cracked and hexed his ears off. He took a different approach to bothering her, however, as he did appear to want to seem more mature to her. Lily was lucky not to fall for the act. She had never even met a three-year-old that acted more like a three-year-old than James Potter did.

"Oi, Prongs," said a rather irritable voice from the open door. James looked up. "We're finding my brother."

"Are we?" James asked Sirius, who was looking just as irritable as he sounded. "What for?"

"Because he needs to relearn what happens when he bothers me."

"That sounds interesting," James said, standing up. "I say you should switch his feet around again."

"I'm thinking of just cutting his feet off completely this time."

James shrugged as he reached the door. "That would do the trick. See you 'round, Gaunt," he added as they both left.

A moment later, she heard a surprised-sounding voice echo from up the corridor of the train: "Did you say Gaunt?"

Katalina rolled her eyes - she knew she was probably going to be getting a lot of that this year.