PRINCESS ➳ harry potter , draco malfoy (OLD VERSION)

62 || Number 12, Grimmauld Place

Halfway through the second week of her stay at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, Katie had grown quite attached to the place. She and the others had been decontaminating the house, and the rooms that had been polished were actually rather elegant. Katie could tell that Sirius' family home had once been a rich and charming house.

Katie had told Lupin about the supposed Boggart in her wardrobe. When Remus had investigated, it had been discovered that the creature residing in the closet was merely a rat, much to Katie's embarrassment and to Lupin's amusement.

Growing sickened by the rotting smell and musty bed sheets, Katie had decided it was time to cleanse her own room. Luckily, it wasn't a very spacious room, so the task of cleaning it wasn't too time consuming.

Katie threw open the window to allow some air to sweep the room while she worked. It seemed logical to dust the room first, which didn't take long as there were only three surfaces — the black desk, the wardrobe, and the thick headboard of the bed. Sweeping took much longer and a large amount of effort. So much dust had coated the floorboards that Katie was surprised she hadn't sunk into the floor. While there were no spare bed sheets at hand, Katie could clean her current ones. They were still shabby, but at least the smelled better.

Once her wardrobe had been unsoiled and ridden of rats, Katie unloaded her clothes into it. She had been halfway through this chore when their was a gentle tap at her door.

"Come in!"

The door creaked open. Katie strained her neck to see who had come in, finding that it was Tonks. They grinned at each other.

"Tonks! Hey! What's up?"

Despite only knowing one another for two weeks, Katie and Tonks had grown relatively close. Tonks was a mere seven years older than Katie, and while that seemed like quite the gap, excluding Fleur, who Tonks wasn't too fond of, Katie was the closest girl in age with Tonks out of all the other people in the house.

As Katie and Ginny were both young girls, Tonks had taken a liking to the pair. She tried to be around them as much as she could.

"Just thought I'd check in. How's the cleaning—"

There was a loud thud as Tonks stubbed her toe on Katie's trunk. Tonks let out a wail of pain and clutched the end of her foot, hopping on one leg to retain her balance.

"Dammit!" Tonks cried.

Katie giggled. "You good?"

"Fine." Tonks replied in a strained voice. She was still prancing around on one leg.

"How you made it through your Auror training is beyond me." Katie joked.

"Tell me about it. I'm dead clumsy — OUCH! Who put that there?"

Tonks hadn't been paying attention to where she was going and had walked straight into the open door of Katie's wardrobe. Katie doubled over in laughter, falling back on top of her newly fresh bed.

The door opened again and Ginny appeared in the doorway. She chuckled at the sight of Katie rolling around in fits of laughter and Tonks massaging both her head and her foot.

"I thought I heard banging. What did you two do?"

"I walked into some stuff... again..." Tonks admitted, wincing in pain as she rubbed her head.

Ginny rolled her eyes playfully, still smiling broadly. She then turned her attention to Katie, who and regained her composure but was still letting out odd wisps of laughter every few seconds.

"Hermione just got here. She's downstairs." Ginny said.

Katie felt her heart jolt funnily. She had already been in high spirits, thanks to her polished room and Tonks' blunder, but Hermione's arrival somehow made her even happier. She bounced off the bed and went to join Ginny by the door.