Loser, Loner...Lover?

Kings Cross Station was just as crowded as it was every year. People bustling in and out to catch trains or hail taxis. People were barely looking where they were going which is probably why no one noticed when a solitary girl with a huge trunk and small black owl passed through a wall between platforms 9 and 10.

Kat was greeted on the other side of the wall that not everyone is privileged to see. A large, gleaming scarlet train shined on the platform as children stepped onto it. “It’s so good to finally be able to go home again” thought Kat as she started towards the large engine.
She brushed past many other students on her way across the platform, some still being clung onto by parents. The sight of a small girl giving her mother a warm hug made Kat pause and watch for a moment. The girl was obviously a first year and the parents just didn’t seem to want to let her go. Her mother kissed her daughter on the cheek while the father looked down upon the women with adoration and love in his eyes. “They’re so happy, I bet they all have wonderful lives” Kat thought as she let out a sigh. Finally once the young girl was able to detach herself from her mother she scampered away. Once the girl was gone, Kat boarded the train and searched for an empty compartment.

Striding down the hallway, Kat peered into each room looking for a deserted compartment. Much to her dismay, each one contained other students who were laughing with their friends or sharing stories of their summers with classmates. “There’s got to be an empty compartment here somewhere! I mean there is every year; I’ll probably have to go to the back of the train. No doubt there’ll be one, but that’ll mean closer to the Marauders. I hope they haven’t laid a prank back there, I really don’t want to deal with them so early in the term,” Kat grumbled to herself quietly so others wouldn’t hear her. “Not that they would notice me anyway” she thought bitterly. Giving a huge sigh, Kat dragged her trunk past the filled compartments of happy students towards the back of the train where few were brave enough to enter.

***

“Well boys, we’re finally back at last! This year’s gonna be great; I got so many ideas for pranks to pull this term” exclaimed James as he lounged on the seat in the compartment. His hair all ruffled after spotting a certain redhead in the hallway.

“That’s great Prongs, we need some good ideas, especially after the end of last year” said Sirius. He too was relaxed in a seat, enjoying the company of his friends to notice anything else.

“Why? What happened last year?” asked Peter.

A boy from behind a book spoke up, “you weren’t there Peter. You were still in the hospital wing recovering from when you ate the entire kitchens supply of pudding.” He peered over the top of Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6 to look at the small watery-eyed boy in front of him.

“Oh yeah! I remember that part Moony, but what prank are you talking about?” Peter asked after getting a dreamy look on his face when the word “pudding” was mentioned.

“Oh we just tried to rig paint cans above the Slytherin table before the End-of-Year feast so that they’d be covered in Gryffindor colors for dinner. Unfortunately, before we could finish Peeves appeared and dumped the paint cans on us and left just as McGonagall walked into the hall. Made us clean it up and docked 20 points each! Would’ve come in first for the cup if she hadn’t of seen us,” reminisced James.

“I couldn’t get that paint out of my hair for days,” said Sirius as he flicked a lock of his precious black hair out of his eyes. “But this year we’re going to do better, and I say we extend the prank playing to all the houses not just the Slytherins. No one else would expect it, we’d get better reactions” proposed Sirius.

“Sounds great! But there’s only one person that we’ve pranked outside the Slytherins so far, you know that one Ravenclaw, Something Storr?” quipped James.

“Katharine Storr,” answered Remus; his nose back in his book and a pink ting in his cheeks that weren’t present a moment ago.

“Yeah that’s it!” exclaimed James, “Katharine Storr, we’ve pranked her before. She’s such an easy target, always on her own and somehow gets caught in our traps.”

“Oh is she that shy girl? You know, no friends and always has her nose in a book like Moony?” Sirius asked while glancing at his literate friend. Remus shifted uncomfortably in his seat and kept his eyes on the book in front of him. Sirius went on talking “I don’t like her that much, I mean it’s not like she’s done anything to me, but she’s just weird. All of us have been going to school with her for six years now and I’ve never seen her just hanging out with people or stop studying. She could give Evans a run for her money on who studies the most.”

“Oh yeah, she doesn’t even go outside that much,” added Peter, desperate to be in the conversation, “when I see her in class her skin is extremely pale.”

“See what I mean! She’s weird and just talking about her makes me want to prank her. She’s got to be on the train and let me tell you I feel like have a little fun before the feast” disclosed Sirius, a familiar devious smirk playing across his lips.

***

Kat sat in her compartment all alone reading Guide to Advanced Transfiguration for the last 3 hours. “My God! This train ride seems to get longer and longer every year. How much further is it?” a quick glance at her watch told her the answer, “Okay, only one more hour left and then I can get out of here. I’m surprised I haven’t seen the Marauders yet, especially since I’m in there territory, well I guess I shouldn’t complain and just be happy that there not bothering me.”

“Might as well go get changed,” Kat announced to herself, not at all afraid of speaking out loud when she was alone. On the contrary, she believed it helped keep her sane. What’s crazier: making random comments when you’re alone to yourself or having whole conversations in your head all the time?

Kat rummaged quickly through her trunk and pulled out her uniform. A Prefect badge pinned to the front of her robes gleamed in the light that came through the window. She extracted her skirt, socks, shoes, shirt and blue striped tie from her luggage and held it under her arm. Kat laid her book down on her chair (careful not to lose her place) and opened the door to the compartment. “No one’s in the hall, well, at least not down here. I guess I can leave my stuff” pondered Kat, “at least for a little while”. She quickly shut the door and scurried down the hall, not at all aware that the next compartment over belonged to Hogwarts most infamous troublemakers.

***

“I just can’t wait to see what the Quidditch team’s gonna be like this-Oi! who was that?” asked Sirius when he glanced at the window and happened to see a brunette run by.

“How the bloody hell should I know mate, you’re the one facing the door, what’d they look like?” James replied, a little annoyed that he was asked this question considering he wasn’t even turned towards that direction.

“Some brunette ran by the door. Looked like she was in a hurry, wonder what she was even doing down this far on the train anyway? No one really comes down here but us,” Sirius pondered while still looking at the door as if he expected her to come back and wave at them through the window.

“We could look in her compartment to see who it was. I mean, no one’s really back here so we should be able to find her stuff pretty easily,” Peter added while he looked between the black haired boys.

“You know Wormtail, that’s actually not a bad idea! Good on ya mate,” James said while standing up, his curiosity of the girl getting the better of him. Peter beamed at him. He, Sirius, and Peter moved to leave the compartment when they noticed Remus still had his nose in the book. “You coming Moony?” asked James while pushing his glasses back up his face.

“Oh, yeah, I guess,” Remus replied while marking his place in the book and setting it down on the seat.

The boys only had to move down two more compartments before they noticed that one had been previously used. A book lay on one of the seats, its page marked by the bench; and a black owl sitting in its cage on the luggage rack.

“I think this is where she came from,” spoke James as they entered the compartment. The boys fanned out around the room and while he picked up the book and started to leaf through it as the others looked around.

“Well, whoever she is, she’s got great taste in lingerie,” Sirius said as he pulled a black lace bra and matching panties out of the trunk.

“Sirius! What are you doing?! Don’t go through her personals, we’re here to find out who she is and I doubt her name’s written on her underwear!” scolded Remus. He tried to be as stern as he could, but unfortunately he couldn’t keep his eyes off the mystery girl’s undergarments. After a few more seconds of staring he had to look away before he started to visualize a girl wearing them.

“Relax Moony, I’ll put them back. But hey, you never know, she could have written her name on them. I was just checking,” smirked Sirius as he slipped them back into the trunk. “Oh and just so you know, she’s a C. Don’t think I didn’t see you staring at them longer than necessary,” Sirius teased.

Remus just blushed profusely and had to turn away from his smirking friend. He found the book she was reading extremely interesting at that moment. Sirius just laughed at his friend and continued to rummage the rack.

“Okay guys, we really need to find out this girl’s name and quick before she comes back,” James said, trying to take control of the situation. The others murmured in agreement; it was another minute more before they had any luck.

“It’s Katharine Storr’s compartment,” squeaked Peter as he held up an old homework assignment he found in her book bag from the previous year.

“Storr? Katharine Storr? No that can’t be right, what would she be doing down here?” asked James while he took the parchment from Peter and looked over the signature. Sure enough, the name "Katharine Storr" was written in the top right of the paper next to a big 100 in red ink.

“Probably just looking for some peace and quiet. After all, we did find a half read book on her seat, and it’s too hard to read when there’s a lot of people around which is probably why she came back here,” concluded Remus as he took the paper from James and looked over the assignment. “She got a 100 on this! I worked on this for days and only got a 95, she must really be brilliant,” thought Remus as he returned the paper to the bag.

“No it’s cause she’s weird and has no friends. That’s why she was down here,” Sirius said as he went to relax on one of the seats. “But what I don’t understand is why she has that black lingerie? I would have never guessed in a million years that it belonged to her,” he finished as he closed his eyes, awaiting an answer.

“Well I don’t know, but we’re gonna set a prank in here,” James said while looking around the compartment, “you said you wanted to get her Padfoot, so here’s our chance.”

“Hmm? Oh yeah,” he said as he opened his and looking at his friends, not really sure why the image of Katharine Storr and the lingerie were still in his mind together. “Well I got an idea. I say that when she gets back we should set it up so…”

***

“God that uniform takes forever to get on! I’ve been in that changing room for an hour!” Kat glanced at her watch again, “Okay maybe not an hour, but a half an hour’s pretty bad. These skirts are just so frustrating; they give a whole new meaning to ‘Don’t get your knickers is a twist,’” Kat laughed quietly to herself about her own joke as she passed by the compartments of students.

When she was almost to her room, she caught a glimpse of the Marauders in their own compartment laughing with each other. “Probably laughing about some prank they played on an oblivious student,” she thought with a sigh.

Kat reached her compartment and sat down inside, it was then that she realized that someone had moved her book, it was saved on a different page then she remembered. Flipping through the pages she pondered, “Who could have been in my compartment. Not many people even know I exist, so why would they bother to move my stuff?” The second she thought those words she knew exactly who was here. Before Kat could utter a single word the entire compartment immediately filled with soap bubbles as if someone dumped them there. In less than a minute the room was so full of bubbles that all a person could see was white. Immediately Kat panicked and ran towards the door (at least where she believed the door was). After fumbling with the handle for a minute she flung the door open and all the bubbles spilled out into the hallway around her.

“BLACK” she screamed while wiping bubble out of her eyes. Furiously, she stomped out into the now entirely white hallway and glared (at least as hard as she could while have bits of bubble stuck to her face, clothes, hair, oh hell, everywhere) at the four laughing boys.
By now more students had come into the hall to see what all the laughing was about and after taking one glimpse at Kat, they too burst out laughing.

Trying not to become too embarrassed, Kat pointed her wand at herself and muttered, “Scourgify” and calmly walked over to the guilty boys.

“Why Kat, you shouldn’t have removed the bubbles. I think you look absolutely stunning all in white,” Sirius said once he was able to breathe properly again. Unable to help herself, Kat blushed the tiniest bit at being called stunning by the boy in front of her. Immediately it went away when she told herself it was only a joke and he would never say something like that to her for real.

“Detention! The four of you. Once we get back to the castle report to McGonagall to discuss the arrangements,” she nearly yelled at them. They just stared at her and after realizing she was not going to get a response Kat calmly took a deep breath and stared at the group. “Honestly, picking on a prefect when you know you’ll get into trouble. Who would be dumb enough to do that?” asked Kat trying to calm her temper by becoming a voice of reason.

“Oh we don’t pick on prefects, just you. But you happen to be a prefect and that’s just a spot of bad luck for us,” Sirius said while staring at her intently with those perfect stormy-grey eyes. It was a silent battle between the two, green on grey. The rest of the Marauders looked between the pair intently, waiting to see what would happen.

“Just me? What makes me so special?” Kat asked furrowing her brow, confused as to his answer to her previous question. All the bubbles in the hallway had popped only leaving a slightly damp carpet as an end to the prank. Well a slightly damp carpet, and one confused girl.

“Well I’m not about to tell you that, now am I?” Sirius said calmly, “Come on guys, we’re almost there and we need to change into our robes before the feast.” He started to walk down the hall and motioned for the rest of the Marauders to follow him back to the compartment to change without a backwards glance.

Kat stood there completely dumbfounded as she looked at the receding Marauders. Sirius’s words still hung around her like a broken record ‘We don’t pick on prefects, just you’ playing over and over again. “I honestly don’t know whether to yell or cry right now,” Kat thought as she moved back into her (now empty) compartment. Settling for an unhappy medium Kat let out a frustrated sigh and vowed, “I will find out what Black meant before this year’s over.” Picking up her book, Kat carefully peeled the pages apart and tried to read the words that had not bled together because of the bubbles.