The next morning.
Having enjoyed a rare lie-in, Kate stepped out of her room feeling refreshed and clear-headed. She greeted the portraits of her ancestors hanging along the corridor one by one, then made her way to the dining room.
"Good morning, Grandpa Rand. What's for break—"
Her words cut off the moment she saw the slender figure seated at the table.
Katherine was dressed in a casual workwear shirt, those same chunky black-framed glasses perched on her face as always. She was sitting at the table, smiling at Kate.
"Good morning, Little Kate~"
That lilting, upward curl at the end of her words made Kate go rigid all over. She forced a stiff smile at Katherine. "Good morning, Professor Wynyard."
She'd completely forgotten — Katherine was supposed to be staying at the manor starting today.
"I've already voluntarily resigned from Hogwarts. You don't need to call me Professor anymore." Katherine curved her lips, watching her with an air of quiet amusement.
Kate walked over stiffly and sat down. "Then... should I call you Miss Wynyard?"
"Just call me Auntie," Katherine said offhandedly, as though the title were the most inconsequential thing in the world.
But for Kate, hearing those words first thing in the morning was nothing short of an earthquake registering eight on the Richter scale.
She shot to her feet so fast that her chair toppled over behind her with a loud crash.
Katherine looked up, wearing an expression that hovered somewhere between a smile and not quite. "Didn't you already suspect as much? Why the shock?"
"...Suspecting it, and hearing it from your own mouth — those are two entirely different things." Kate was silent for a moment before she slowly spoke.
She had always assumed she had no blood relatives left in this world. Even the old butler she called Grandpa shared no blood with her whatsoever.
In this world, magical bonds between blood relatives defied imagination.
The magical protection of "love" that had sheltered Harry came from his mother Lily — no matter how much he hated it, he was required to spend part of each year at his aunt's home, simply because they shared blood.
Even Voldemort's resurrection had required his father's bones!
And now it turned out that Kate Shafiq — the last known heir of the Shafiq line, as all the wizarding world believed — still had one blood relative living in this world.
Katherine held her gaze for a long moment before the smile on her face softened slightly. "Sit down and eat first."
"...Yes." Kate gave a stiff reply and sat back down, her expression as still and deep as standing water, though her mouth kept steadily working through the meal.
Breakfast passed in a weighted silence. Katherine dabbed her mouth with a napkin and was just about to rise when Kate stood up right alongside her.
The urgency in her movement made it look as though she was afraid Katherine might have second thoughts and bolt at any moment.
"Auntie," Kate said, her eyes fixed on her without wavering. "Don't you have anything you want to say to me?"
The reminder seemed to jog something in Katherine. She glanced up, and a bright smile broke across her face. "Come on — follow me somewhere."
The two of them walked out beyond the grounds of the manor. Katherine extended her hand. "Hold on tight."
Kate hesitated, then gripped her hand firmly. The scene before her eyes shifted in an instant.
By the time the lurching stopped, Kate fought back a wave of dizziness and raised her head — only to find they were standing in a derelict courtyard.
The building before them had fallen into complete disrepair. Even the sign had tumbled down. The yard was choked with weeds, and piles of broken bricks and crumbling roof tiles were heaped against the walls.
"This place is..."
"This is the orphanage where my sister and I grew up," Katherine said quietly.
Kate paused, then stepped forward and looked the building over carefully. The courtyard had clearly been abandoned for many years — not a single trace of its former self remained.
"My mother grew up here," she murmured, casting her mind back and trying to piece together every memory she had of her birth mother.
All she could recall was the profile of a woman — indistinct, impossible to see clearly — but even from just the outline, it was obvious she had been a great beauty.
"Our father was a wizard, our mother was an ordinary person. For a time, they were very happy together."
"But in 1945 — the very year we were born — a disaster struck here. We lost our parents and ended up as orphans in this place, together."
"Later, we both went to Hogwarts. My sister met the man she loved, and not long after they graduated, they were married."
"I set off to travel the world, to keep studying, and didn't come back to England for over a decade. What finally brought me back was the news of her death."
"Her funeral was simple. I arranged it alone. After that, I left England again, and it was a long, long time before I could bring myself to return."
Katherine condensed the first half of both their lives into a handful of sentences, her voice as calm and even as if she were recounting a stranger's story.
But Kate could hear the warmth hidden beneath that composed surface.
She nudged a small pebble away with the tip of her shoe and stood with her head bowed, unsure what to ask. There was too much she wanted to know — so much that when the words reached her lips, she couldn't decide which question to ask first.
After a long silence, she asked softly, "What kind of person was my mother?"
"Before she became your mother, she was just a little girl, same as any other." Katherine gave a slight shrug. "She was a brilliant witch. Her talent for magic was so far beyond mine it wasn't even a contest."
"But after graduation, she stayed behind for that man — and left me to go off and fulfill our promise of traveling the world alone."
There was a rare note of desolation in Katherine's voice, as though she still held a grudge against her older sister for breaking that promise.
But Kate knew that wasn't really what she minded.
"I think she must have had regrets too, about not going with you," Kate said softly. "I can say for certain — during all those years you were apart, she missed you."
A scorching summer breeze drifted past. Katherine looked at this small girl who barely reached her shoulder, her expression going momentarily blank.
"Heh." A soft laugh escaped her lips.
A hand descended on Kate's head and ruffled it vigorously. The mood Kate had so carefully cultivated shattered on the spot. She pulled away, a flash of annoyance crossing her face. "Wh— what are you doing!"
"Nothing at all," Katherine said, lifting an eyebrow with a self-satisfied air. "I just think that expression suits you much better."
Kate's face stiffened. Then she ducked her head and worked at smoothing her hair back into order.
"She and I were real sisters — blood is thicker than water. Of course we thought of each other even when we were apart. Did you really think I needed a little thing like you to console me?"
Katherine strolled over with a grin and caught Kate's hand. "If we don't head back now, Rand's going to think I've run off with you."
With that, she produced a Portkey and whisked them both back to the manor.
Kate, still not quite recovered, was plunged headlong into another bout of the world spinning sideways, and very nearly lost her breakfast the moment her feet touched the lawn.
Katherine stood beside her, watching her struggle with undisguised amusement — which very nearly drove Kate to the point of clawing at her.
By the time she'd finally gotten her bearings back, Kate began to notice something didn't quite add up.
Her mother Grace and Katherine were biological sisters, and both were born in 1945.
Which meant Katherine was already forty-six years old.
Even Molly Weasley was a mother of several children by that age...
Wizards did have a theoretical lifespan of around a hundred and fifty years, but Katherine's appearance — so perfectly preserved she looked barely twenty-something — was frankly a little excessive.
Noticing the shift in Kate's expression, Katherine narrowed her eyes and rapped her lightly on the head. "What uncharitable thoughts are you having?"
"Ow!" Kate clutched her head in protest. "I was just doing the math on your age!"
"Don't go around guessing your elders' ages," Katherine said, folding her arms with a small, disdainful sniff.
The tilt of her chin, the cat-like little expression on her face — it was identical to Kate's.
"All right," Kate pressed on, probing further. "You've been traveling for so many years — did you never meet anyone you fancied? Or have you already gotten married?"
At that, Katherine's brow furrowed with a trace of displeasure. "I've always been single. I won't be giving you an uncle anytime soon."
Seriously?
By rights, with her glasses off, this aunt of hers was a stunning, mature beauty. Given the way Westerners tended to be rather bold in matters of the heart, surely she couldn't have lacked for admirers?
Not that Kate had any intention of nagging a senior family member about settling down — she just needed to get a general sense of the situation surrounding her only living blood relative.
"By the way," Katherine said, adjusting her glasses thoughtfully, "I hear you're quite popular at school. Has no one ever come courting?"
Kate blinked, then gestured helplessly at her own height. "I'm. Thirteen."
Romance at her age would be a bit premature, wouldn't it!
"Oh, what a shame," Katherine said with a perfectly breezy shrug. "Your mother was already going steady with someone at your age. You're not quite living up to the family legacy."
Kate: ...
So apparently she was falling short of past generations.
"I..." She sputtered for a long moment, then threw up her hands in exasperation. "Auntie, I'm going to have a couple of friends over in a few days. Please don't embarrass me in front of them."
Katherine gave her a knowing look. "The Granger girl from Gryffindor and Cho Chang from Ravenclaw, I take it."
"How did you know?" Kate's eyes went wide. For a split second she was almost convinced this woman had been secretly keeping tabs on her every move.
"Just a guess," Katherine said serenely. Then she clapped a hand on Kate's shoulder with an air of weighty sincerity. "Youth really does make people hot-headed."
The layered meaning in those words gave Kate pause.
Even Auntie thought it wasn't a great idea to have invited two girls at the same time?
But she'd already promised both Hermione and Cho Chang...
Kate's eyes lit up. She could just invite them at different times! The summer holiday was long enough — having each of them stay for a month apiece would be no problem at all!
"I'm rather fond of both those girls. Have them come together — it'll give me a chance to personally tutor all three of you at once."
Katherine tossed the words out lightly, and they landed squarely on top of Kate's bright little fantasy, crushing it to dust.
"Auntie, Professor — can we negotiate?"
"No."
"That's so unfair..."
Two people separated by more than thirty years of age — one chasing, one fleeing — zigzagged across the lawn, Kate's wailing audible from quite a distance away.
Up in the castle, the old butler stood at the window watching the two of them, a warm smile on his face as he stroked his salt-and-pepper beard with quiet contentment.
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉