The 5th marauder

New Friends

Three

The confrontation with her mother not only made her arm hurt, but also her heart. Katherine knew that whomever she had just argued with was not her mother. At least, not fully. For all their power and influence, the Kartashov's were plauged with a dark history. The rumors were that someone had made a deal with some form of evil spirit or dark being in exchange for powerful magic somewhere in the ancient line. Katherine wasn't sure if there was anything to back up that theory, but she did know that whatever the cause was, the price was rather heavy. As far back as the history books would go, there were patterns. Twins were alarmingly common, identical ones even more so. And within almost every generation, at least one person would lose themselves to the darkness that ran through their blood. Literally. Katherine's mother and aunt were identical twins, and they had in turn married her father and uncle who were also identical twins. Katherine had somehow ended up with both the parents who were completely insane. 

Katherine frowned and absently ran her fingers over the crevices her mothers nails had made in her forearm. Insane was a generalization. Her father wasn't always an emotionless empty man, and her mother wasn't always such a psychotic wretch. But lately, things had been worse than usual, and she only hoped that they were back to normal when she came home for winter break. She also hoped that the insanity skipped a generation so that she and Aleksandr could have some sense of normalcy in their lives. While she knew that she was in no way as sane as any of the other students at Hogwarts would be ( and probably the teachers too), and that she had probably seen more violence in her 11 years than most adults had ever seen in their lives, Katherine was not eager to drop to her ancestors and parents level yet. Or ever. 

As Katherine made her way through the train, she tried to force the thoughts of her mother out of her mind, and instead tried to find a compartment to sit in. As she was walking to the back of the last car, she found a compartment with only two people in it. Both were boys, her age by the looks of it, and they both had black hair and wide grins. She briefly wondered if they were brothers before deciding against it. She knocked on the door before opening it and stepping inside.

"Sorry to bother you, but would it be alright if I sat with the two of you?" She winced internally as she heard how prominent her accent was. She had been practicing her English, but had originally learned it from an american, so she wasn't even going to attempt a British accent until she was more confident in her abilities.

The two boys looked at each other before shrugging. The one with messier, shorter hair stood up and introduced himself with a grin. "James Potter, nice to meet you"

The other boy dramatically kissed her knuckles with an air of elegance before grinning roughishly at her. "Sirius Black, a pleasure to meet you. By the way, where's your trunk?"

She laughed at him before pulling the trunk out of her pocket. She placed it up on the rack above the seats and waved her wand, restoring it to its prior size. She turned around with a flourish before saying, "It's a pleasure to meet both of you, my name is Katherine Kartashova."

James' eyes widened and Sirius raised his eyebrows and asked, "A Kartashov? What's one of your crowd doing in England?" He sounded curious and though his voice held no malice, it was a bit wary, so she replied truthfully.

"My mother is under the illusion that some of my friends are being bad influences on me, so here response was to send me halfway across the hemisphere."

James let out a low whistle and Sirius raised his eyebrows, "Wow, you Russians don't do things halfway do you?"

Katherine smiled and sat down next to him, "No, not really I suppose, though my family isn't exactly the epitome of normal."