Sky full of stars {Harry Potter Fanfiction}

9. Merry Christmas to all

I pulled Katherine aside after the teachers sent us off to the common rooms, and we were finally alone. She looked down at my grip on her arm, and up to my face looking worried.

"What is it? You never touch me."

"What?" I was puzzled. "You don't like being touched, you've made that clear since the day we met, Kat."

Hurt brushed across her face for a second. "What is it, Lyra?"

"I saw you. I saw what you did."

Katherine's face was a blank canvas. "Saw what?"

"You killed the troll with your hands."

Katherine carried on walking, brushing my hand off her arm. She wouldn't look at me. "What with my bare hands? You think a lot of me, Lyra. But I'm not Wonder Woman."

"For God's sake!" I hissed, I was losing my patience, which was usually endless. "You're like me, aren't you? That's why your eyes are so dark. Its why you wouldn't stop staring at me the first night here. You know what I can do."

Katherine stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly, mechanically. "My Aunt told me there was another girl with a power opposite to mine.... Listen, I don't have as much control over it like you do. I have to work hard to make sure—make sure I don't hurt anybody."

Everything suddenly fit into place, of why Katherine was reluctant to be friends, of why she never touched anybody. I held out my hand to her. "You don't need to be afraid, Kat. I know you won't hurt me."

She took my hand, a smile curling on the edge of her lips, ignoring me using a nickname for the second time in the last couple of minutes. "Maybe you can heal me instead."

**

Having been sworn to secrecy by Katherine to not talk or ask about her powers, it was almost as if Halloween hadn't happened. Almost. One good thing to come from the troll attack was that the six of us were firm best friends, a proper gang like I'd always wanted to have.

Over the next month we had lots of fun together—helping each other in class, chatting and teasing each other on the weekends on the bank of the lake, playing catch and hide and seek. We even had an adventure at Harry's first Quidditch match.

Harry's broom had been jinxed by Professor Snape, and Hermione set fire to his robes to save Harry's life (I fainted when Harry almost died and missed the whole thing) and we'd discovered that Fluffy (ironic name for a three headed dog) was guarding something a person named Flamel knew about.

Christmas was fast approaching, and with all our brain power and library time we'd yet to find anything about him.

Maybe Hagrid was wrong, Cassie looked extremely bored in the library, doodles covering her notebook. Maybe it's not Flamel we're looking for.

"It has to be, Cass." Katherine pointed out as she flipped through another answer-less text book. "Did you see Hagrid's face? He knew he said something he shouldn't have."

Our fruitless research was interrupted by Sasha who burst into the library with a snow-coated bobble hat and red cheeks. It'd started snowing the week before, which had plunged the school into a snowball war. Sasha even got into trouble for bewitching snowballs with Fred and George to hit Quirrell in the back of the head.

"Hello little sister," Sasha was always in a good mood when it was snowing. "Hello little sister's friends. Where's the rest of the gang?"

"In Transfiguration, our Herbology lesson was cancelled cause of the weather," I pointed at the snow flurry outside. "What's up?"