Almost

Chapter 51: Brave

Katherine told them all of it, from the day on the rock to what happened after Kevin to telling Ezra. She told them how she'd been sneaking around to keep it hidden. She told them about the nightmares.

"And now, it's done something to my magic," she said finally. "Stopped it from working right."

She paused, unsure how to continue. But a small voice next to her, unsurprisingly, asked the first question.

"What do you mean it isn't working right?"

She turned to Lee, who had both hands resting on the table as he leaned toward her.

"Before, it was just jumpy. Erratic, sometimes, or less responsive. But after I brought back Kevin's memories, it just stopped. Like all of the magic shut off. It does it now, when I'm too overwhelmed or panicked or just feeling too much. It just shorts out for a minute or so and then it comes back, even pricklier. Wearing the tempering would calm it back down a bit, reset it almost, but it's not sustainable. And it really wasn't sustainable to keep trying to hide it.

"I know I should have told you. I know there's a lot of things that... that I should have been more upfront with," she continued, looking at Harry, at her father. "I just thought if I could handle it myself it wasn't that big a deal."

"So, you didn't know about this?" George said, turning to Crawley. "You didn't have a clue that she had that blasted thing back on?"

"What if you would have blown up," Ron said. "Wasn't that the fear? Like the wand or whatever?"

"We spent hours ensuring that it was safe for you to remove it," Lee said. "What were you thinking?"

Katherine looked at her plate, at the piece of cake that she knew she wouldn't touch.

"I wasn't really thinking—"

"Obviously," Grouse said, her arms folded. "Here we are all giving up our time to make sure you're safe, and you're turning off your magic like it's a faucet?"

"I know it was irresponsible—"

"Irresponsible doesn't even begin," Hermione balked. "If we would have known that you were even considering doing something so foolish, we would have taken it—"

"Well, obviously, now there is no option," Quahog said, his knuckles white. "We'll seize it from you if you won't turn it over."

"It's safely out of my possession—"

"Hold on," Harry chimed in, turning to Quahog. "It was forged in London, it will stay with the Ministry. We have the research about it, the only ones with any real expertise—"

"Only because you won't turn it over, Potter," Hollinghunt cut in. "Ever heard of making a copy?"

"I think we can all calm down a bit," Crawley said, holding a hand up to Hollinghunt.

"I don't think you get to be giving any kind of direction here," Ron said, standing from his seat and pointing a finger down the table. "It was all happening right under your nose and you didn't even notice—"

"Ronald," Arthur said to his son. "Sit down, you're making a scene."

"It could have killed her! Is that what happened to your shoulder," he said, turning to Katherine. "You turned your magic off while it was in the middle of healing? Just thought it would hold until morning?"

"I didn't realize it would—"

"Come on," Bill said, taking Victoire's elbow. "This is no example for you—"

"No example?" George said, standing on the other side of the table, inches taller than his oldest brother. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that this is irrational, irresponsible, and childish behavior that I would never tolerate in my children—"