slytherin princess [3]

when harry met catherine

Catherine slowly turned to face Harry. He was positioned at the foot of her bed with his eyes blazing into hers.

"So, what do you want to know?" she asked and leaned back against the door.

Harry looked up at her and let his eyes trail down her body before he answered.

"What will you do when he comes for you?"

"I dunno," Catherine shrugged. "I'll come up with an excuse."

"He can access your mind, you know?"

She nodded, "Snape teaches me Occlumency."

Harry gawked, "Really?"

"Yeah, he has for some time now; all we do is practice nonverbal magic, and he knows I'm not challenged with that."

"Right, so what will you do when Voldemort comes?"

Catherine slowly stood up straight. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair, and then she grasped the ring that she always wore around her neck.

"Honestly," she sighed frustratedly. "I don't know. I wish I knew what to do, but I'm not like you, Harry. You're brave and reckless; sometimes, when we're not being ambushed by Death Eaters, I envy you for that."

Harry looked at her with a certain intensity in his blue eyes. He ran a hand in frustration through his black hair to muss it up even more than it usually was. Catherine always liked how it stuck up in every direction because it was a lot like his personality.

"Catherine, if he comes, I can protect you. I won't let him take you as long as you don't want to be taken," he spoke softly.

She sucked in a deep breath, "What if you can't? I mean, you have to save the world. I do believe that I'm wholly more important than every other person, but you won't. I know you, Harry."

"Well, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

Harry stood up and took both of her hands in his. He then brought her wrist up to his lips and placed a soft kiss on it.

"Do you want to be a Death Eater?"

"No, of course I don't. I would never want to."

He gave her one of his smiles that always melted her cold heart.

"Then, you don't have to be one."

"I wish it was that simply," she laughed humorlessly. "He'll kill my father. And, even though my mother and I's relationship is strained, I don't want her to die either."

"It is simple though, Catherine. There is right and there is wrong, and there is no in between," he replied.

Catherine extracted her hands from him and walked to the otherside of the room. She glared out of the small window with her arms cross over her chest.

"It's about surviving, Harry, and, personally, I want to survive."

"Catherine, you can do the right thing."

She whipped around, "You don't get it, Harry! You just don't understand. None of us Slytherins want to be Death Eaters. Back during fourth year, when Draco figured out his father was a Death Eater for sure, he came to us to beg for our help out of it!"

"Wait," he looked taken aback. "Malfoy is a Death Eater?"

"Harry, for fuck's sake, I didn't say that! I said that none of us want to be, not that he was one."

"But I didn't defeat Voldemort in the graveyard during fourth year. Does that mean that he's one of them now because of me?"

Catherine threw her hands up in exasperation.