The test paper Kate had handed in was a perfect score.
That wasn't to say she had already reached the level required to ace the most difficult N.E.W.T. exams.
It was simply that she had drilled through most of the questions on the paper once or twice before, which was why she was able to produce such results on this occasion.
Over the past century, spanning the entire wizarding world, the number of wizards who had achieved perfect marks across all N.E.W.T. subjects could be counted on one hand.
This was only a single-subject paper for Defence Against the Dark Arts, and it didn't even include the practical component — and yet Kate had sat down and produced a perfect score right in front of her.
Combined with Kate's current age, if word of this got out, there was no telling what kind of storm it might stir up.
That was precisely why Katherine had no choice but to take the paper the moment it was handed to her and burn it on the spot, ensuring that score would never reach a third pair of eyes.
So that was the real reason she had called Kate sly.
Her intention had been to probe the depth of Kate's knowledge — and to wage a little psychological warfare, to see what kind of mental fortitude this child possessed.
The result was that Kate had, unsurprisingly, seen through her intent — and then, very surprisingly, gone ahead and filled in a perfect paper and handed it over anyway.
No more pretending. Cards on the table, and the problem thrown right back at her.
Katherine liked to test people, did she? Fine. Let her be tested too. Given a perfect-score paper like this, what exactly would she do?
And the result was that Katherine had been forced to burn the paper and act as though nothing had happened, sending Kate back with a wave of her hand.
From a single test paper, Katherine understood exactly what kind of knowledge was stored inside that little head of Kate's — and Kate, in turn, had made clear to herself exactly where Katherine stood.
Kate hadn't said a word on the surface, but Katherine could see it plainly: the moment she had voluntarily set the parchment alight, the wariness in the child's eyes had faded considerably.
So even in a situation where she herself held all the initiative, she had somehow let Kate steer the entire thing?
That child wasn't even afraid she might be a bad person. If Katherine were to leak the story of the perfect-score paper, the one left exposed would still be Kate herself.
She was clearly a little snake — so why did she act as recklessly as a certain little lion?
Katherine gazed at the woman in the portrait frame, her eyes flickering faintly, her fingers tapping the desk without her noticing.
Or perhaps... the child had already been certain she wouldn't breathe a word of what happened today?
"Strike only after careful deliberation," she murmured — a line of classical Chinese that came out with less-than-perfect pronunciation, her expression distant and almost dazed as she said it.
If that was truly the case, then this child's way of doing things was far too similar to her mother's.
Katherine adjusted her glasses, set the portrait frame back in the drawer, and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment.
In the interest of fairness, she would have to put together a test paper for Miss Granger tomorrow as well. Hmm... she'd give her a second-year paper to warm up with.
...
When Kate returned to the Slytherin Common Room, she happened to catch sight of Malfoy and Crabbe finishing their detention and coming back.
Having been put through the wringer by the old bat for an entire night, Malfoy's entire aura had sunk to something terrifying in its bleakness.
Nobody wanted to go near her. Even Pansy and Blaise were held back by their respective dormitory companions, who silently signalled them to keep their distance.
Understandably so. She had been punished for being an informant, and given the weight of the Malfoy family name, the fact that the other Slytherin students hadn't thrown it in her face was already more than could be expected.
If it had been Kate in that position, it probably would have meant another round of cold-shoulder treatment.
Malfoy was well aware of how the rest of the house was looking at her now. She didn't linger in the Common Room — she and Crabbe and Goyle hurried off to the dormitory without a word.
"I win." Kate quickly finished a game of Wizard Chess with Blaise, then, seeing how low Malfoy's spirits were, made to go after her.
"Shafiq," Blaise quickly got to his feet, shaking his head at her, "there's no point going after her now. She won't let you near her at a time like this."
Kate blinked, then a faint smile crossed her face. "What are you talking about? Malfoy and I have never gotten along — the whole school knows that."
With that, she got up and walked straight into the girls' dormitory.
Blaise watched her retreating figure in silence, then glanced back at Pansy — whose eyes were equally full of helpless worry — and gave a quiet shake of his head.
The whole of Slytherin knew that Malfoy and Shafiq didn't get along. In fact, they might as well be called sworn rivals.
Because every time the two of them appeared in the same frame, it was either Malfoy bullying or mocking Shafiq, or Shafiq striking back.
The one and only time the two of them had sat down for a calm, civil conversation was during a Wizard Chess match — and Malfoy had annihilated Shafiq without leaving so much as a piece standing, every single time.
More often, even when they kept up the appearance of peaceful coexistence on the surface, the friction between them was plain enough that nobody would ever mistake them for friends.
And now the two of them had been punished at the same time — one forced to drink a potion, the other sent to detention.
In everyone's eyes, the relationship between these two had surely deteriorated to its absolute worst.
Even Pansy and Blaise, who were on decent terms with both of them, now felt that the rift between the two had grown so wide it was nearly past the point of no return.
Meanwhile, at that very moment, Malfoy had only just made it back to her private dormitory, where she had curtly sent her two lackeys off to rest.
The instant the door shut behind her, she flung herself face-down onto the bed and burst into tears — alternating between sobs and sniffles as she wiped her nose on the pillow.
"Damn you, Kate — I swear one day I'm going to kill you!"
It had become something of a daily ritual. Whenever she felt wronged, she would reflexively curse Kate's name — but it was always the same words going around in the same circle.
Anyone else would have been sick of hearing it long ago, yet she herself never tired of it.
As though cursing Kate were as essential a part of her daily routine as eating and sleeping.
Her naturally pale little face was now streaked all over with tear tracks. Malfoy swore she had never been treated this way in her entire life.
Chopping potion ingredients in the office for hours on end, and getting scolded by the Head of House who had watched her grow up from childhood.
And the worst part was that she had gone to confess of her own accord — so when the scolding came, she couldn't even bring herself to invoke her father's name.
If it weren't for Kate, would she ever have been reduced to this kind of misery?
Just as Malfoy was working herself up to use the pillow in her arms as a Kate-substitute for a thorough pounding, the door she had already latched shut suddenly swung open.
She startled, then went to the door with her tear-stained little face and peered out — left, right, left again — and after confirming there was nobody outside, shut it again with a puzzled frown.
Must not have been properly closed before.
"Damn you, Kate!" she shouted again at full volume, and unleashed a fresh barrage on the pillow in front of her.
The force was enough to send the notebook sitting on her desk toppling to the floor.
Malfoy turned her head and stared at the fallen notebook for a good long moment, as though genuinely puzzled as to how it had managed to fall.
The air went completely still — as though someone had deliberately held their breath.
After a long pause, she finally huffed herself upright, picked the notebook up, then flopped back onto the bed and resumed rolling around while clutching her pillow.
She rolled the entire expanse of the large bed into a crumpled mess before finally sitting up with the look of someone who hadn't quite had enough — her pretty golden hair dishevelled into a bird's nest, the tear tracks on her face rubbed dry.
"Hmph. Damn you, Kate."
Like a closing line, she delivered the words, then got up and walked into the bathroom.
As the sound of running water started up, the door that should have been shut swung open again by a crack — then quietly, slowly, closed once more.
As though nothing had ever happened.
At that very same moment, Kate — who had snuck back to her own dormitory with great stealthy effort — finally dispelled her Disillusionment Charm and let out a relieved exhale.
Half her Mana had been sealed, and if Malfoy hadn't finally remembered to go take a shower, she might have genuinely pulled off a spontaneous vanishing act right in front of the other girl.
She had only gone to check on Malfoy in the first place because of the expression on her face earlier — just wanted to see how the other girl was holding up.
She hadn't expected to walk in and find her using a pillow as Kate's stand-in for a thorough beating.
Well... that was certainly spirited.
If Malfoy had actually caught her sneaking into the boys' dormitory, given Malfoy's personality, it would have been strange if she hadn't screamed the whole school awake.
Kate sat down on her bed with a touch of resignation, glanced at her own pillow on the headboard, and gave it an experimental light thump.
It was like punching cotton. Completely unsatisfying.
Hm?
A peculiar thought flickered through her mind. Kate looked down at her own small frame with a slightly odd expression.
Had Malfoy been wanting to beat her up for a while now?
Judging by the berserker performance she'd just witnessed, those fists might have been light and airy — but for someone of Kate's own thoroughly underwhelming physical capabilities, they would probably still be no walk in the park.
Tomorrow, she had better keep well clear of Malfoy. She wouldn't want to accidentally end up shaped like a pillow.
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