Almost

Prologue: February 2019

The fresh air tickled Katherine's cheeks as she let her magic float her down off the ledge and towards the river's edge, much more gently than the near fatal fall she had taken just weeks before. Without turning to face him, she knew Crawley's eyes watched her descent, returning to the firewood he was sorting only when her feet were safely on the ground far below.

In the days following the fight with Iz, there had been very little time for a break. Most nights, they arrived back at the a-frame cabin long after dark and went straight upstairs to collapse asleep. Crawley had finally convinced her to take the weekend off, to just stay in their little Nest. It was an odd feeling to look at this as work, though, when Katherine still saw Crawley's crumpled body under Iz's magic when she closed her eyes. She'd only known the man for three months and had only been able to tolerate him since Christmas, but there's nothing like a dark wizard to move a timeline along.

She tugged Crawley's Illvermorny stocking cap tighter around her ears and took a deep breath, attempting to push the image back down in the gurgling pit of her gut. He's fine, she reminded herself. Everyone's fine.

The rocky ground shifted under her feet as she wandered along the shore. She looked over the stones and bent over to pick one up. Removing her right glove to run her fingers over the surface, she appreciated the satisfying friction against the pad of her thumb of the stone not yet perfectly tamed and smoothed by the water.

Katherine placed the rock back on the ground and pointed her wand at it, letting some of her restless energy grow it into a boulder. Once she knew it was stable, she sat cross legged and stared out over the river passing by.

There hadn't been much solitude lately, much time to process what her life looked like now. In some ways, it was so different—she could see the Weasleys, she could travel, she could breathe a little easier now. The mysterious cursed letters that had plagued MACUSA had stopped appearing since Iz's capture. While the threat was far from gone, it felt less immediate--like they could turn off their fight or flight response and let reason and logic take over the analytical reins.

Or, at least, she should be able to be calmer, to be rational. And she wanted to be. But she couldn't help but feel her magic jumping around in her chest like a guard dog unwilling to relax. There were moments right after the fight when she was perfectly peaceful and sure, when the high of the win was still fresh in her mind. But it had been short lived—the danger still loomed like an ever-present storm, and she wasn't used to being so involved in the dangers of the world. 

She pulled her shrunken backpack out of her pocket and retrieved the red knit blanket her father had given her as an infant. It was a difficult task; whenever she grew the undetectably extended bag back to size, everything toppled around inside. When she pulled out the blanket, she managed to send her headphones, wallet, and a small silver box toppling into the rocks.

Shaking her head, she got up and collected her belongings, throwing them carefully back into the depths of the backpack. She paused, though, as she clasped the box in her hand.

"How did one little ring cause all of this?" she had said to Kingsley Shacklebolt just days before.

"We're lucky," he had answered. "If you weren't you, if you valued power and fame rather than peace and autonomy—well, let's just say the wizarding world would be a very different place."

Katherine was drawn out of the memory quickly by a jolt in her right ring finger and the gentle but growing vibration of the box it held. Like an instinct, she opened the box and saw the tempering glinting in the sunlight. It was shaking, almost imperceivably, against the velvet lining, in time with the gentle shocks now wrapping around her finger.

Even looking at it made the static in her chest slow as if it were bowing and entranced by the twisting band that had been Katherine's constant companion for so long. She thought back to the poem that Lee had told her, that lined the walls of her bedroom upstairs, of a woman that "kept her magic so lively quiet, it purified to control."

No one knew what would happen if she touched the ring again. No one had made direct contact with it since she had taken it off. But as the sound of the river faded away, as her sight blurred everything except the familiar ring, her gut begged her to return it to its rightful place. And, if she had learned anything, it was to trust her gut.

I took it off once, she thought, I can take it off again. Right?

She didn't want to give up her magic or the world she had found. She just wanted something to settle the crackling in her chest, a moment of predictable peace. A switch to turn on and off rather than having to chase an instant of calm.

It might not even work, she thought. But we'll never know unless...

And so, the twisting silver and opaque white stone slid back onto her finger like it had for over two decades. 

Nothing blew up, nothing collapsed, even the boulder underneath her kept its magical size. There was just a sudden, unbelievable quiet as the static stilled. She breathed freely and relaxed her mind, not realizing how much focus it took to constantly be aware and regulating the magic she had met only months ago.

Her pause button—she'd finally found it.