Chapter Fifteen
"Katy, this is Ron-don't take anything he says seriously-this is Ginny-same with her-and you know Harry already-he's the one outside with Adrian and Ben."
Hermione smiled sweetly at Ron, who looked somewhat wounded, and Ginny, who merely smiled back.
"Thanks for the introduction, Hermione." Ron muttered, waving his wand and chipping away at the old paint of the door frame.
"Oh, Hermione just has a few issues-denial, for one," Ginny said innocently, "Nice to meet you, Katy. Oy! Charlie, what do you think you're doing with that hair tie?"
"Denial…?" Katy repeated uncertainly. Ron opened his mouth, looking amused, but Hermione silenced him with a look.
"Adrian and Ben are playing catch outside with Harry, if you'd like to join them." Hermione said, above the wooden thunks echoing through the house as Bill worked on repairing some old shelves, sending the nails burrowing into the wood with a wave of his wand.
"Oh-well," Katy's blue-green eyes darted to Bill's work and then back to Hermione. She tucked one foot behind the other ankle shyly, "Would you mind if I watched him work?"
She pointed at Bill.
Hermione looked startled, but smiled.
"Of course not," she said warmly, "Just remember to not take anything they say seriously," she added.
Katy grinned shyly.
"I won't," she promised, tugging at one of her braids, "I get a lot of practice with that. Jack and Yasmine are always saying stupid things-once, Yasmine nearly hit Jack-right here, on the chin-and Dusty and I had to hold them apart before they got in trouble."
Hermione looked wary.
"And do-do they fight a lot, Jack and Yasmine?" she said casually, as Katy sat beside Bill, watching him work intently. She picked up a nail, studied it, and pointed out, "This one's a bit bent in the middle."
Bill looked at it, surprised.
"Thanks," he said with a smile, tossing the nail into the trash bin. "Good catch."
Katy beamed, then looked back at Hermione. Hermione smiled back, then repeated her question.
"Well," Katy began thoughtfully, "It's not that they don't like each other or anything, but they both like to be in charge. That's why they don't get along, really, but it's brilliant when they work together. I mean, you saw what it was like when they fight when you visited us first."
Hermione nodded, and sat down next to Katy.
"You seemed to be a good leader, too."
Katy flushed and looked down bashfully.
"Yes, well, they don't really like paying attention to me, except when I make my voice sound like a grown-up's or whistle or say something that I've heard adults say before," she said, "I mostly just keep them from fighting. I listen, too, when Yasmine complains about Jack-which is a lot."
"What about Dustin?" Hermione said, as Katy began passing Bill nails. "What's he like?"
Katy shrugged.
"Oh, Dustin's really quiet. He likes drawing things," she said, twirling a nail in between her fingers, "He's always using chalk to draw on the floor, since it washes off it you scrub it with a wash rag. That's why we call him Dusty, because if no one's making him wash up- Healer Smitt forgot about that a lot-he's covered in chalk dust. He's friends with Jack."
"So I noticed." Hermione said. Katy perked up as Bill began to sand the shelves, "Jack didn't seem too keen on the idea of coming to live with us."
Katy slid a finger through the dust on the floor, thinking.
"Well," she doodled a smiley face through the dust, "he doesn't want us to be split up."
"Oh?"
"He's been at St. Mungo's since he was three, I think." Katy said, running a hand down the newly-sanded wood, "I don't know. I think he's sort of angry that no one came to claim him, but I don't want him to know that I know. He's very proud, really, but he's very good, too."
She spoke earnestly.
"We're the only family he's got, you see," she said, looking at Hermione with her eyes wide. "I can understand how he feels, though I've been at St. Mungo's since I was born."
Hermione felt her throat constrict, though she nodded and asked with difficulty, "And what about you, Katy? How do you feel about a family?"
Katy nibbled at her thumbnail thoughtfully.
"I don't know," she said at last, "The way Yasmine talks about them, I expect they're quite nice."
She smiled.
"And Yasmine talks a lot about families." She paused, then grinned, "But she's only read about them. I don't expect she's ever actually had one, except for us."
She looked at her dusty finger.
"Sometimes I think that my family ought to have kept me," she confided, leaning in, "I don't think I'd have been too much trouble, but I suppose it's hard to tell when you're a baby. Jackie was hard to get along with, when she first came. And I sometimes get angry-don't tell Yasmine that, though-that they didn't keep me, because I think it's a bit unfair for them to say that someone's going to be too much trouble before they've even spoken a single word with them." She looked at Hermione, "I try not to do that. I suppose you do too, right? You seem like that." She smiled, "You seemed to care about us a lot, you and Harry. You didn't even know us. I like that about you two."
Hermione felt tears building in her eyes, and she looked away.
Katy stopped.
"Am I talking too much?" she said anxiously, handing Hermione a rather patched handkerchief, "Yasmine says that even though I look like the quiet one, I talk too much. Of course, she usually says that after I whistle and stop them fighting-like I did when you first saw us. Though I can't help it. Yasmine does most of the talking back at St. Mungo's, and that leaves a lot of time for thinking, you know. And you listen so well that I feel like I can talk about what I think, instead of just thinking it."
"No, I like listening to you." Hermione said hastily, "You're a very intelligent person."
"Do you think so?" Katy said, "That's nice. Jack's the clever one in our group. I never really thought I was particularly clever."
She paused.
"I like lessons, though. I learned how to read, but not as quickly as Yasmine. Yasmine says she likes to devour books-just like that, with a long `vour' at the end-and she knows all the books in our shelves by heart. There's only about six of them, but they're long. Not very good for Jackie, but Yasmine and I sometimes pretended to read from them to Jackie and made up our own stories."
She looked at the bookshelf Bill was putting back up in the corner of the room. "Yasmine would like this room, probably. She'd say it had an air of mystery about it, or something like that. I think she says things like that right out of books, but she says she makes them up. I don't tell her that I know she gets them from books, though. She likes making things up."
"What sorts of things?" Hermione was utterly fascinated by Katy's unusually perceptive observations, and it seemed Bill was listening intently, too.
"Plays and things. She used to do them a lot more often, when we were littler." Katy said, tugging at a braid again, "Now she just keeps talking about families. She went out to the Children's Ward once-it's on the other end of St. Mungo's-and she saw a lot of families there."
She paused.
"She also found a lot of books. She told us one story about a Muggle named Robin Hood, and a band of robbers who lived in a forest. And another one about a family who got stranded on an island and built this magnificent tree house. I liked that one best. They were very inventive with how they made things. And they didn't even use magic!"
"I have those books," Hermione said eagerly, "they're very famous Muggle books."
"Are you Muggleborn, then?"
Hermione nodded.
"Well, I don't know what I am." Katy said matter-of-factly, "But I'd like to think that I have some Muggle blood in me. Do you think that's strange? Some people don't like Muggleborns much, like You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters. But I think Muggles are actually smart. I like the way they've made things, because magic seems easier. Is that silly of me, do you think?"
Hermione shook her head.
"You're right."
"Oh, I'm glad you think so," Katy said in relief, "Jack thinks that Muggle's aren't very smart, since they haven't found us yet. But I think that's unfair. I found some old Muggle watches in the bin-don't tell Healer Smitt I was going through the bin again; I'll get in trouble-and I took them apart. It was all quite complicated, and it took until Christmas that I got them fixed again."
She smiled suddenly.
"I've been talking for a long time, haven't I?" she said, with a giggle, "Am I getting very boring? Yasmine is sometimes, and I know how to focus elsewhere and still look like I'm listening."
She cocked her head and fixed her eyes on Hermione's.
"But you really were listening, weren't you?" she said, happily, "Yasmine doesn't listen to me very much, even when she's fighting with Jack. Will you let me talk this much when I come live with you?"
"Yes," Hermione said with a smile, "I will."
Katy beamed.
"I like you," she said sincerely, "would you mind if I hugged you? Jack and Dusty hate it."
"Not at all."
Katy threw her arms around Hermione's neck. Hermione wrapped her arms around Katy tightly, pressing her cheek against her soft auburn hair.
"It's funny," Katy mumbled into Hermione's blouse, "normally when I hug someone I want them to let go, but I don't think I want you to."
Hermione felt tears in her eyes again, and she sniffed as quietly as possible.
"I'm not like this at St. Mungo's at all," Katy said, still holding Hermione tightly, "I have to act like Yasmine to get them to stop fighting, mostly, but then when I talk with them alone, I'm like this. I suppose I ought to act more grown-up, but it's hard to act grown-up when you don't feel like one."
Hermione felt a hard lump in her throat.
"I know what you mean," she murmured.
"Yes, I suppose you do." Katy said, "That's why I told everyone I was sorry, after I said that they should grow up. Really, I'm not normally like that," she drew back slightly and looked her anxiously, "I think you know that, don't you?"
Hermione smiled and tapped her on the nose.
"I do now. You're a perfectly sweet person, and you are quite clever, whatever Yasmine tells you."
Katy smiled.
"Thank you," she said happily, "Someday I'm going to invent something that will change the world," she frowned, "I'm just not quite sure how, yet, but that's all right. I'm sure I'll figure it out between now and when I grow up. It'll make things better, somehow."
Hermione smiled.
"I know it will."
Katy looked at her curiously.
"I'm not positive about it, myself, but you seem quite sure," she said, "You always seem very certain of yourself. I wish I was. Yasmine's like you, too, except I know she isn't, because… well, I don't think she'd want me to tell you that, even though I know you wouldn't tease her. So I won't tell, because I think some things just don't need to be said. Don't you think?"
"Yes. I do." Hermione said, nodding. "You know, it takes some people a very long time to figure that out."
"Well, I don't think Jack has figured that out yet. He can be a bit mean sometimes. I don't think he means to, mostly, but it's mean all the same. I do that too, just not as much out loud, but I think it, and that's just as bad, right?"
"Right."
"I read that somewhere." Katy admitted, "But I don't mind that I got it from a book. People who write books have to be rather quick, don't they? Yasmine's smart, so she's going to write a book. I hope it's like the story about Robin Hood and the family in the tree house; those are fun."
She rested her chin on Hermione's shoulder and sighed.
"No wonder Yasmine is so grouchy in the afternoon," she said, "talking is tiring, though I don't mind talking to you. I get grouchy when I'm tired, and so I try not to talk very much in the morning or I might say something to hurt someone's feelings. I suppose this is morning, but I haven't said anything very mean, have I?"
"No, you've said some very good things this morning."
"I thought it was so." Katy said with a yawn, "You know, I was really nervous about coming here, so I didn't sleep much last night. Do you mind if I take a nap?"
Hermione smiled and shook her head.
"Go ahead."
Katy had already dozed off by the time Hermione had finished her sentence. Bill winked at Hermione and chuckled.
"Well, at least now we know she talks," he said, laughing quietly. "She seems to have a liking for mechanics, too, as far as I can tell."
Hermione smiled.
"There's a lot she can teach us, too."
"Even you?" Bill quipped. She grinned and picked the sleeping Katy up.
"Even me."
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