Where Your Loyalties Lie

Chapter Thirteen: Petrified

As the days progressed, the weather continued to grow nicer and nicer. One evening after dinner, the weather was perfect outside. Draco and I, however, were in the common room working on our homework.

"Come on, Katie! Let's take a break and go outside!" Draco suggested, standing up from his spot on the couch.

"No, Draco. We have to finish our homework," I told him, pulling him back down. He grumbled something incomprehensible and went back to his homework.

After another ten minutes, I finished my essay for transfiguration and set it aside. "Now can we go outside?" Draco asked again.

"No! I still have my charms essay and my potions essay to write. You should be working on your own essay too. Plus, the sun will be going down soon. We shouldn't be out on the grounds after sunset."

"I'm sure your grades will be alright if you don't turn in a couple essays. Now come on, let's go!" He stood up again and began pulling on my arm, causing me to spill ink on my parchment.

"That's it!" I yelled. "You can go do what you want. I'm going to go find someplace quiet to finish my homework." I gathered my stuff and exited out of the common room. I headed to the library in hopes of finding Hermione. When I arrived, I was able to find her right away. Unfortunately, Ron was also with her. I didn't want to have to deal with him, so I turned around and left the library again. There was another place I could go to work on homework.

When I made it to the door, I knocked twice and then let myself in. "Hi Father!" I greeted as I entered his office.

"Good evening, Katie. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I was just looking for a good place to do my homework without distractions. Draco kept badgering me to go outside, but I wanted to finish my homework, so here I am," I explained.

"Very well, take a seat."

I obliged and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk as him. I took out my homework and began to work on my charms essay. After about fifteen minutes of working in silence, I decided to start a conversation.

"So where do you live during the summer?" I asked. "If I'm going to spend half of the summer with you, I should probably have a good idea of where I am to be living."

He looked up from his paperwork. "I was under the impression that you came in here in order to work on your homework free of distractions," he said.

"Well yeah, but I can talk and work at the same time. It's just that Draco was trying to stop me from working. So are you going to answer my question or not?"

He sighed and marked the paper he was currently grading with a 'T'. "I live in a muggle neighborhood called Spinner's End. It was my parents' house, and I inherited it after their deaths. It's where I grew up."

"So if you lived in a muggle neighborhood, were your parents-"

"My mother was a witch, but my father was a muggle."

I measured my parchment. I had six inches left to write for my charms essay. "What were their names?" I asked, looking up at Father again.

He grimaced, which told me that he probably didn't have the best relationship with his parents. "Eileen and Tobias."

Hesitantly, I pushed farther. "What were they like?" He pushed too hard on his quill and ripped the top of the assignment that he was grading. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I was just curious. I mean, they were my grandparents, after all, even if I never knew them."

We continued our work in silence for a while. I finished my charms essay and moved on to my third and final essay of the night: potions. "So what is Spinner's End like? Are there any kids my age that live there?"