Once the young lady was gone, Kate's whole body went slack, and she flopped straight onto the bed.
At least now she could be sure: the gender-reversing item in Delar's hands had to be one of the six alchemical items her ancestor Ariel had left behind.
Getting it away from her would be extremely difficult, though, unless Kate could come up with a substitute that did the same thing.
The thought gave her a splitting headache.
Alchemy was obscure and maddeningly hard to grasp. After all this time she'd barely made it through the door, and eight or nine out of ten things she crafted came out as junk.
By the time she managed to craft an alchemical item that could switch genders, she'd be waiting till kingdom come.
It would be far more reliable to have someone scour places like Knockturn Alley.
After a round of long sighs, Kate remembered the real business she hadn't finished today.
She'd meant to take advantage of how empty things were today and snatch Peter Pettigrew outright, but a small slip-up had sent everything veering off on a huge detour.
For the time being, the armored warrior was out of the question, and she had no suitable vessel to make another Phantom Clone with.
A clone without a vessel was immune to physical attacks, but in exchange it couldn't touch anything either.
Now that she'd stolen Harry's Marauder's Map, he would certainly discover it was missing once today's match ended.
She could pin all the blame on Sirius, but that would only confirm the rumor that he was somewhere inside the school.
Then the defenses at Hogwarts would tighten again, and making a move would get a lot harder.
Was her only choice to find Peter as fast as possible and settle this in one swift strike?
She pulled the map from inside her robes and unfolded it. Peter's name was bolting along at speed, as if it had realized someone was hunting it.
Judging by its route, it had slunk back into the Gryffindor Common Room, though not to Harry and Ron's dormitory.
The most dangerous place is the safest place.
Sirius did sneak in now and then to look in on Harry in his bedroom, so the Gryffindor Common Room was without a doubt the place where he was most likely to find Peter.
But on the flip side, as long as Peter kept to some corner nobody paid attention to, Sirius's focus would be mostly on his godson, and he'd have a hard time noticing the rat at all.
Kate narrowed her eyes and got to her feet again. After telling Fluffball not to bring anyone else in, she hurried off to the Gryffindor Common Room.
By then the Quidditch match had drawn to a close, and the victorious Gryffindors were heading back to their dormitories in high spirits.
Kate waited alone outside the Common Room entrance for a while before she spotted Hermione coming back with her roommates.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione was delighted to see her and came straight over. "Did you find Scabbers?"
"Not yet," Kate said, shaking her head. "I've searched all around the castle, but I haven't checked your house's Common Room."
Hermione glanced back hesitantly. "You want to come in with me? But my roommates are all there, so that'll be hard."
"Even if you used a Disillusionment Charm to sneak in, once the spell wore off, you'd be found out."
"Mm... that's all right." Kate put on a show of graciousness, pressing her lips into a smile, and reached up to ruffle her hair. "I'm only doing this to help you anyway. If it's not convenient, then let's do it another time."
With that, she turned to leave with a magnanimous air.
"Wait!" Hermione called out at once. She knitted her brows and thought hard for a moment. "Wait here a little while. I'll come get you in a minute!"
She ran off to find her roommates, and the four of them huddled together, murmuring.
Kate had no idea what they were talking about. All she knew was that the other three girls said "Oh" in unison, shot a meaningful look in her direction, and then turned and headed downstairs, apparently not planning to go back to the dormitory at all.
When Hermione came running back, her face flushed pink, Kate asked curiously, "How did you get them to leave?"
"That's..." Hermione faltered, and the color in her cheeks deepened. "Never mind that! Anyway, I've bought you an hour, so we have to make the most of it!"
Kate nodded without thinking much of it. She cast a Disillusionment Charm to hide herself for the moment, then, with exaggerated solemnity, hooked her fingers around Hermione's and whispered in her ear, "Shh. Sneak me in quietly."
In an instant, a blush crept up to the tips of Hermione's ears, bit by bit, red enough to look scorching hot.
Acting as if nothing were wrong, she led her invisible companion back to her dormitory. Hermione hurriedly shut the door, and when she turned around, she found Kate, the spell already dispelled, sitting at her ease at the foot of her bed.
"Didn't you say you wanted to come in and look for Scabbers?" She was getting anxious and hurried over. "Have you found a lead?"
Kate raised an eyebrow, clearly enjoying herself. "Do you know whether Scabbers is male or female?"
"That's..." Hermione hesitated. "Male, I'd think?"
Scabbers had lived more than a decade, and she'd never heard Ron mention him producing so much as a single pup. He couldn't be a female rat.
"Right. And school rules say boys can't enter the girls' dormitory, so all we need to do is check the boys' dormitory to know whether he's here."
In truth, that rule applied only to humans, not to male pets. Otherwise every pet the girls kept would have to be neutered.
But Peter was an Animagus, and he wouldn't deliberately run into the girls' dormitory and risk exposure.
She stood up and circled Hermione once. "Miss Granger, would you care to come with me and check the boys' dormitory?"
"You want to go into the boys' dormitory?" Hermione's first reaction was to refuse. "Absolutely not! How can you just walk in there?"
Kate blinked innocently. "But it's to find Scabbers. If you don't want to come with me, I can go on my own..."
"Absolutely not!" Hermione panicked the moment she heard it and forgot all about the rules. She grabbed Kate to head out together. "It's better if we go together!"
Having long since figured out her temperament, Kate let the corners of her lips curl up a little in smug satisfaction, but she kept her composure and handed her a glass jar.
"If you spot him, use this to catch him so he can't run off again. A frightened rat isn't nearly so easy to catch."
The inner wall of the jar was inlaid with fine golden filigree, so lovely it was hard to look away.
Hermione took it curiously and studied it against the light. "What's inside?"
"A potion that calms animals. It's not poisonous," Kate said, lying through her teeth. "You should bring it, just in case he bites you."
She held out her hand with a beaming smile. "Shall we go together?"
Hermione's eyes curved into crescents. She gently took Kate's hand, and the two of them cast the spell at the same moment, and both of them vanished from sight.
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