We will meet again ~ Fred Weasley

- Peace Doesn't Last Long -

"I stopped trusting happiness a long time ago, because every time my life starts to feel peaceful, everything falls apart right after—as if the universe can't let me keep anything good for long."

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The weeks after the Second Task became some of Katherine's favourite weeks of the entire year.

For the first time since the Tournament had begun, life at Hogwarts stopped feeling like survival and started feeling normal again.

Not perfect.

Never perfect.

But lighter.

The icy fear that had settled over the castle before the Second Task slowly melted away alongside the last patches of snow on the grounds. Students flooded back outside whenever they could, revising beneath trees, gossiping by the lake, or simply enjoying sunlight that no longer felt weak and wintery.

And Katherine found herself split between two different worlds.

Not in a painful way.

In a way that somehow made her feel whole.

"You're cheating."

"I'm winning," Ron corrected immediately.

"That is not the same thing."

"It is if nobody catches you."

Hermione looked up from her Arithmancy notes with visible disappointment.

"I cannot believe I'm friends with either of you."

Katherine snorted into her butterbeer as Ron grinned proudly across the Gryffindor common room table.

Late evening sunlight poured through the windows, casting everything gold and warm while students lounged around finishing homework they'd probably left too late.

Harry sat beside Katherine half-focused on a Defence essay while absentmindedly tapping his quill against the table.

"You've written the same sentence three times," Katherine informed him.

Harry blinked down at the parchment.

"Oh."

Ron looked delighted.

"That's the most effort he's put into homework all year."

Harry kicked him under the table.

"Shut up."

Katherine smiled despite herself.

Moments like this still caught her off guard sometimes.

Sitting with Harry and Ron and Hermione so casually.

Laughing over absolutely nothing.

It still amazed her how easily Harry understood her without words sometimes. Maybe because they had grown up carrying the same grief. The same emptiness where parents should have been.

There were moments Katherine looked at him and remembered they really were all each other had left of James and Lily.

Not just siblings.

Home.

Harry caught her looking at him.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said softly, smiling slightly.

Ron looked between them suspiciously.

"That was weird."

"Mind your business," Katherine replied immediately.