To Love and Quidditch

Chapter 3 - No problems at all...

Cat came home at five thirty on Wednesday evening with a dull lump of anxiety in her stomach. Somehow she had managed through two more days since the fiasco during the duel training, but she had no idea how. Tonight she would have to speak to Dorcas again, and the witch was bound to ask how the practice was going. Truth to be told, Cat had not been able to find the will to practice the Patronus Charm since Monday afternoon and she felt ashamed to have been neglecting her training so seriously. It was not like her, she chastised her self. She had not yet came across a charm she wasn't able to master, and, as she had told Lily a little more than a week before when they had been recalling all the happy memories from Hogwarts; "At least I'll have a mean Patronus if I ever have to go up against a Dementor." They had been sitting at Florean Forescue's in Diagon Alley, a sunny Friday afternoon, enjoying themselves. The same evening when she had come home, Mad-Eye Moody had been there, and she had got the news that her father was dead, killed on duty by a Death Eater.

"Kitty, is that you?"

Cat winced a bit at the sound of her mother's voice from the living room. She had never liked that particular nickname, but Marsha Davis seemed to consider it fitting for her only daughter.

"Yes mum, I'm home."

"Come in here, dear, I have something to show you!"

Cat put her jacket on its hanger below the hat rack and braced herself mentally for a new encounter with her mother. Marsha had been upset again this morning, not wanting to let Cat leave for work and claiming that it was bad enough with one Auror in the family. When she entered the living room, however, she calmed down a little. Marsha was sitting in the sofa and the low table in front of her was full of old papers and photographs.

"I'm cleaning out some old things," explained the small woman with a vacant smile and put some pieces of parchment into an empty shoebox on the floor under the table. "I found these pictures, come and see!"

Marsha held out a couple of photographs and Cat stepped closer to take them. The pictures were really old, that much was true. The one in the top of the heap showed her thirteen-year-old self grinning broadly at the photographer, and holding a brand new broomstick. Cat remembered the occasion very well, she had just been accepted as a Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and her father had bought her the broom as a reward. It had been a Nimbus one thousand five hundred, the best model on the market, and she still loved that broom. The next picture showed the entire Gryffindor team of 1974, herself, James, Sirius and Laura, together with the fourth-year Keeper Jonathan Torres and the two older Chasers. It was taken just before her first match and Cat could see how nervous she looked in the picture. They had won, she remembered, and the next photograph in the heap showed the team again, grinning and waving happily. Laura held the Golden Snitch proudly in a firm grip as Jonathan and Sirius lifted her up in he air. All of the photographs were wizard pictures, and the motives moved around in their frames. In the bottom of the heap, however, was an even older picture of the non-magical kind, taken in the back garden of the Davis' house. Cat couldn't have been older than seven, a chubby rosy-cheeked child with plain brown hair kept back from her face with a couple of brightly coloured hair clasps. Her father sat hunched beside her, dressed in a muggle shirt and trousers, and not a single stroke of grey was visible in his dark hair and beard. Father and daughter were frozen in the picture, none of them watching the photographer who must have been Marsha. They were studying a broomstick of an earlier model than Cat's Nimbus, Roman's old Cleansweeper, the broom she had learnt to fly on. Cat saw the small hand of her younger self gripping around the handle, and her father's bigger hand beside it looked huge in comparison.

"You're growing up so fast."

Cat almost jumped out of her skin. She had been lost in her memories and not noticed Marsha rising from her seat and walking up to stand next to her daughter. The older woman pointed at the picture.

"That was the first day of Roman's vacation that year. Do you remember me taking the picture?"

Cat shook her head. She remembered the day, how she had been delighted to hear her father speak about wind and speed and explain the rules of Quidditch, but she couldn't recall any camera.

"No, I don't remember."

Marsha laughed softly and took the picture from her daughter's hand.

"I wouldn't think so. You were both so lost on that broom that I doubt even an explosion would have caught your attention. I think I still have the negatives somewhere. What do you say, should we make a wizard picture from it?"

Cat had not let her eyes leave the photograph. Her father looked so young. Roman couldn't yet have been thirty-five when it was taken, and watching him in the picture, Cat could very well understand why he had been so admired by Britain's wizard community. Even without his trademark black robes, Roman Davis radiated an aura of confidence, his dark eyes burning with a warm fire below bushy eyebrows. Usually, a person of that size got either very kind or very mean, and Roman had been kind, always with some caring words or good advice at hand when you needed it. The Daily Prophet had been writing about the funeral, a stupid, emotional article, and it had ended with the words; "The wizarding world has lost its greatest hero." Well, the world might have lost a hero, but Cat had lost much more than that.

"So, what do you think, Kitty dear?"

Cat was waken from her thoughts by her mother and tried to recall what the question had been.

"I... I don't know."

"Oh, don't worry. Why don't we wait for your father to come home and hear what he thinks? I'm sure he'd love to have this magicified."

And there they went again. Cat suppressed a sigh. Thirteen days had passed since Roman's death, and Marsha's mind still refused to acknowledge the fact. She kept talking and acting like nothing had happened and it tore at Cat's heart to see her mother like this. Marsha Davis had always been so present and always ready to adjust to changes.

It was twenty-three years since the small muggle social worker had met the large Auror, and their story had filled the papers at that time. Their love had been like something out of a fairy tale, even though nasty voices had been raised in some companies. It was not proper for a pureblood wizard from an old and respected family like the Davis' to marry a muggle woman. The couple in question couldn't care less. They had had a happy marriage and raised their daughter to believe in herself rather than what other people thought about her. Still, Cat remembered the Slytherin whispers of "Half-blood Auror brat". It had hurt a lot in the beginning before she had learnt to turn her tormentors own words against them.

Marsha's absentminded voice brought Cat back to reality.

"Are you hungry, dear? I really hope you're eating properly when you're at work.

Remember what your father use to say; an Auror has to be alert all the time, and you can't be alert if you don't eat."

"I'm eating, Mum. Don't worry." It was at least partly true, though if not for Sirius Cat doubted she would have eaten much the last week. He kept taking her to lunch, filling her plate and jokingly threaten to do the cooking himself unless she ate what was served.

"I was just going to fix something for myself. Do you want anything, dear? You look a bit pale, are you sure you're not overdoing it at the headquarters?"

"I'll just have a sandwich or something. I have to go to a meeting tonight."

"Those meetings never stop, do they? I hardly see you at all these days. You come home and then you leave again almost instantly. You know, I'm not complaining, Kitty dear, but I actually get a little lonely now and then, especially with your father always at work. I wonder when he's going to come home this time."

"It might be a while, they're in the middle of a big operation right now." Cat hurried to change the topic. "By the way, I spoke to Julie Lupin this afternoon. She asked me if she could come over and see you tonight. I said it was alright." That was also a modified truth. Sure, Cat had been speaking to Remus' mother, but it was Cat herself who had asked Julie to come and keep Marsha company. Mrs Lupin had of course been happy to comply; the two women had been close friends for as long as Cat and Remus had. Just as Cat had expected Marsha immediately turned her attention to the good news.

"I'll have to make something nice for tea then. What do you think about apple cake, Kitty? Oh, I hope there is still some cinnamon left..."

She floated away in direction of the kitchen. Her mother always seemed to float these days, thought Cat. It was like the small woman had lost her connection to the ground where she had always before stood with her feet firmly fixed.

Cat slipped quietly away to her bedroom, grateful for some moment of peace before she had to go out and face the world again. Just as she was leaving the living room, she looked back on the sofa table and the heaps of pictures. Without really knowing why, she went back and picked up the muggle photograph of herself and Roman that she had been studying before, and carefully put it in her pocket. Marsha wasn't going to miss the picture, if she would even remember looking at it.

* * *

For many years the Hogsmeade building known as the Shrieking Shack had served as a secret hiding place. The person for whom it was originally meant was now sitting at a long table in a room on the ground floor that had once served as a dining room. Not many of the other people around the table knew how familiar Remus Lupin and his friends actually were with the house that was now the secret meeting place for the Order of the Phoenix. Though the rooms on the bottom floor were in a fairly good shape, despite many years' dust, the bedrooms upstairs were torn into pieces by the monthly fury of werewolf transformations. Since the Shack was no longer needed for its original purpose, Albus Dumbledore had decided to put it to use as headquarters of the Order instead.

Cat sat near the far end of the table, between Sirius and Remus. Lily and James had seated themselves on the other side together with Peter Pettigrew. They were the youngest members of the Order, no one of them yet twenty years old. The more experienced members were an odd assortment of wizards and witches. Alastor Moody, Dorcas Meadows and the Longbottoms were all there, as was Rae McKinnon's older cousin Marlene. The Prewett brothers were chatting happily with Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle entertained a small audience with a far-fetched story about some mountain trolls while Emmeline Vance glared at him from the opposite side of the table.

For an outsider, the meeting might seem like a bunch of friends gathering to enjoy themselves together, but to Cat, the room held a sinister feeling. She had never been talented in the art of Divination or foretelling, but for some reason she had always been sensitive to the dark shadows that now seemed to wrap around the world. Now, as she sat watching the company in silence, she tried to reach out to the darkness with her mind and maybe manage to discern some kind of pattern in it to help her figure out what was to be expected in the next stage of the war. For a moment she regretted that she had never decided to take Divination at Hogwarts. She was convinced that, with proper training, her strange talent might be of great help to the Order. However, that's nothing I can't take care of myself, she thought. Leave Divination to Laura.

Suddenly, Cat was aware of someone watching her, and she quickly left her attempts to look behind the shadows. Even though she wasn't really afraid of her gift, she had no wish of sharing it with others until she knew more. She was sure that she had become more sensitive in the last few years, and she had no doubt that it was because of Lord Voldemort's rising.

Carefully glancing around the table, she finally found the eyes that had been locked on her, a pair of bright curious eyes over half-moon spectacles. Albus Dumbledore sat at the end of the table, watching her with interest. Cat wasn't entirely sure she liked the attention and the way her old Headmaster seemed to be able to read her thoughts like an open book. She tore away from his gaze and turned her attention to Diggle instead.

After what felt like an eternity, the door to the dining room opened and Hogwart's gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid entered, bowing deeply so that he wouldn't hit his head on the upper doorframe. Dumbedore looked up and smiled.

"Ah, Hagrid. Excellent, now we can begin."

"Sorry fer bein' late, Professor," said Hagrid, taking place on a stool that creaked menacing under his great weight. The huge man had a way of making any space he occupied seem very crowded at once, but not in a bad way. Hagrid's presence brought comfort to the meetings.

All the members of the Order were now looking expectantly at Dumbledore, anxious for the meeting to begin. As far as the most of them knew, there was nothing special to discuss this evening, still everyone had been called, including the six youths at the end of the table who were still only junior members of the Order of the Phoenix.

"Welcome everyone," said Dumbledore lightly and was greeted in turn by kind murmurs from around the table. "I am happy to see that so many of you have been able to come tonight, despite the short notice."

"No trouble," said Gideon Prewett and his brother Fabian nodded in agreement.

"I am glad to inform you that the so-called 'Newcastle affair' is wrapping up quite nicely. I spoke to Bartemius Crouch only yesterday, and he assured me that the ones responsible for the attacks on muggleborn wizards and witches will be convicted shortly. The hearings and trials are to be held during the next few weeks."

"What about Malfoy?" asked Marlene McKinnon.

"As we all know, Adrian Malfoy is presently held at Azkaban in waiting for the Ministry hearing."

"I'd be overjoyed to see his precious son join him," muttered Cat and got agreeing murmurs from more than one of the persons around the table, especially those who had went to Hogwarts recently and knew Lucius Malfoy well.

"Whoa... wait a moment," said Benjy Fenwick, who was quite close in age to Cat and her friends. "I haven't really been able to keep check on all the turns in the mess. Why don't you take it from the beginning? I know that the attacks started two months ago, and that we got the scums who did it, but that's about all."

"And that's also about all you needed to know, Fenwick," growled Moody. "It's been a delicate operation from beginning to end."

"Okay, don't tell the stupid Hufflepuff," said Benjy good-naturedly. "But if it's over now, what's the point of keeping it secret any longer?"

"Mr Fenwick is right, Alastor," said Dumbledore with a smile. "I think it is time for everyone to get a proper account of the events that led up to this meeting. Dorcas, would you?"

Dorcas Meadowes cleared her throat and rose from her place next to Frank Longbottom where they had been studying a roll of parchment and whispered together in quite voices. The stern witch eyed the assembled group and started talking.

"I'm sure you all know the background. Two months ago there was an increase in Death Eater activity in the Newcastle area. Wizard families with Muggle connections were attacked, some of the most frightening incidents yet."

The people around the table all nodded in agreement. Several wizards and witches had been killed in the attacks, including the two small daughters of a witch who had married a muggle. It had been all over the news and caused a lot of worry, not at least among muggleborns and their families and friends.

"Since the affair was so serious, we decided to keep the involvement of the Order as secret as possible. Roman was in charge of the Auror investigation, and those of us working on the case were mostly Aurors."

The mentioning of Roman Davis left a silence that almost seemed corporal. Cat saw Sirius close his eyes and sigh beside her. James on the other side of the table looked like he would have preferred to be somewhere else. Dorcas cleared her throat again and continued telling about the horrible 'affair' and how the Aurors had exposed the group of prominent Death Eaters who had been behind the attack.

Cat had been sitting silent through the whole story. She knew more about the 'Newcastle affair' than she would have liked, and so did James and Sirius. They had all been a part of the Auror team who had gone to capture the responsible Death Eaters, and Voldemort's followers had not given in without a fight. Sirius had been sporting a nasty bruise on his cheek for a week afterwards, while Cat herself had sustained a severely sprained ankle that still gave her trouble occasionally, not to mention all the various curses and jinxes they had been exposed to. They had all silently thanked the good powers for Dorcas Meadows' excellent duelling training.

The leader of the Death Eaters had been a surprise to Wizard Britain, if not to the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Cat's father had confronted him and managed to capture him alive, after a long and perilous duel, and when the white plain mask had come off, it had revealed the famous Adrian Malfoy, master to Malfoy Manor and the patriarch of one of Britain's oldest and noblest Wizard families.

Dorcas had now finished her story and sat back in her chair.

"Thank you, Dorcas," said Dumbledore with a smile and peered around the table over his half-moon spectacles.

"We know that Adrian Malfoy is important to the Death Eaters. They will want to liberate him, which makes it very important that we keep the location and time of this hearing secret, not to mention the way he will be transported."

Moody nodded in agreement and looked around the table, his eye spinning.

"The Aurors will go. Since everyone at the Ministry doesn't know about the Order, it would seem suspicious if anyone else came to get him. Originally, Dorcas, the Longbottoms and myself were going to get Malfoy together with Roman, but now..."

Moody stopped abruptly, but once again, everyone in the room were already painfully aware of the empty place where Roman Davis always had used to sit during meetings. No one had dared to occupy the chair, it seemed that by doing so they would reduce the memory of the large Auror to exactly that. Just a memory. Moody cleared his throat and continued.

"Now, to be on the safe side we'll need some reinforcements, so I want Potter, Black and Davis to prepare themselves for a trip to Azkaban. Clear?"

Cat had waited for almost exactly those words since the conversation had turned to Malfoy senior, but to actually hear them made violent fear blossom up inside her. Azkaban... there were going to be Dementors.

"Do you really think we will need seven of us just to escort Malfoy?" asked James and got a glare from Moody in return.

"We'd better be prepared for the worst, unless you can tell us what Lord Voldemort is planning, Potter?" growled the Auror. James went silent and Lily squeezed his hand.

"We need Adrian Malfoy's testimony desperately," said Frank Longbottom quietly. "We can't afford to let him get away."

"All information is to be kept strictly secret until after the mission is over," said Moody. "Everyone in the guard is to meet me next Tuesday at the Headquarters and go over the details. Clear?"

The Auror trainees at the end of the table nodded, Cat noticed that Sirius and James looked slightly more serious than usual and wondered fleetingly if a trip to Azkaban might be the right cure for their constant pranks. Dumbledore's voice brought her back to the present.

"Many of you are wondering why I have asked everyone to come this evening."

The ever-curious Benjy nodded frantically.

"The world is changing, we can see it all around. This 'Newscastle affair', I fear, is only the first breezes of a storm that will soon be upon us. I must ask you all to remain alert and vigilant." Dumbledore winked at Moody who grunted in agreement.

"We are all doing out part, but even more important than fighting back Lord Voldemort himself, is to fight back the poison he is planting in people's minds. We simply cannot let this persecution of muggleborns and muggles continue. If we do not stop it now, it will be the downfall of the Wizarding world as we know it. Remember, my friends, we are as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided. It has been said before and it should be said again."

"I look around this table, and I see hope. I see great wizards and witches who are ready to sacrifice a lot for what world they believe in." Dumbledore's eyes went to the end of the table and the junior Order-members. "I see a light future, even though it might seem dark sometimes. In many ways, we, the Order of the Phoenix, is the only thing that stands between Voldemort and his schemes, but we shall not let that discourage us. I believe in you, my friends, and I believe that we will be able to stop the darkness from spreading over our world."

And that's it, thought Cat to herself. That's why we're here. Because Dumbledore believes in us. He believes in the people we are, not who we're expected to be. He believes in Cat Davis, not 'the Auror's daughter'. He believes in Sirius Black, not 'that Black boy'. He believes in Remus Lupin, not 'the werewolf'. He believes in Lily Evans, not 'the muggleborn'. He believes in us and in return we're willing to give everything for him. Just like Dad did.

The meeting ended, but the members of the Order stayed for a while, talking and telling stories about the past week's adventures. Cat tried to keep away from the others, not in the mood for talking to anyone, and desperately trying to avoid Dorcas Meadows. It was a great relief when Lily finally came up to her in the corner where she had been standing and declared that she was going home.

"I really need to get some sleep, can you believe I almost fell asleep at my desk this afternoon," said the red-haired girl. "The editor-in-chief was really nasty about it. I swear he'll never let me write any articles on my own."

Lily kept chattering as she ushered Cat towards the door, and Cat was quite content only to listen to her friend. She was quite tired herself and longed to go home to her bed. The girls waved goodbye to the 'Marauders' who were involved in a discussion with Benjy Fenwick and the Prewett brothers, and Cat thought that she could finally breath out when the familiar voice of Dorcas Meadows stopped her on her feet. The greying witch came up to them, and Cat did her best to imitate Lily's honest smile. She already knew what Dorcas would ask.

"Davis, how are your Patronus? Are you going to have any problems?"

Cat braced herself mentally and told her instructor a downright lie.

"No, no problems. I'll be fine."

After all, she thought to herself, she would have enough time to master the Patronus Charm before the journey to Azkaban. There wouldn't be any problems.