Hogwarts is burning. She doesn’t know how anyone can see, how anyone can [i]fight[/i] in all the smoke, but the green and red and metallic tang of spellfire is proof enough that the battle still rages. Katie is running along cobbled stones, ducking beneath curses. She has to keep running—if you stop running, you die, and she’s fought too fucking hard to die now—

Everything is fire. She’s burning and all she wants to do is scream, but she is trapped in stillness. Ice, she realizes, but ice doesn’t get inside you like this, she thinks. She doesn’t know. She’s drowning in needles and smoke and there’s death in her veins. She can’t breathe—

Katie woke with a start. Instantly, her hand grasped at her bedside table, fingers clumsy with sleep. The touch of ash beneath her fingertips spread warmth through her body. Her wand was here—the room was empty but for a small kneazle, glowering at her wild thrashing—everything was fine. She slumped back into her pillows. Her lungs burned for air. She couldn’t breathe quite deep enough to ease her wildly beating heart.

The bedside clock informed her that it was quarter past four. Katie groaned. Wand still in hand, she palmed her eyes. The groan became a frustrated shout, and she directed her wand skyward at her light. It exploded in a shower of glass, streaming down onto her bed. Her kneazle snarled, darting beneath the bed. Katie swore, then vanished the mess with a muttered word and a vicious flick of her wand. Muttering darkly beneath her breath, she rolled out of bed to begin the day. No point in trying to get back to sleep; she might as well go for a run.

Maybe it was daft, running herself to exhaustion with practice later that day, but Katie had never been one for good ideas. All she knew was she couldn’t bear to keep still with a dream like that in her head. She’d nearly collapsed in her shower, muscles burning. She wasn’t sure whether the pain was due to her run, or her old injuries. Either way, Katie downed a pain potion, and it took the edge off.

Never one to cook, the blonde swung her grey duffel bag over her shoulder and apparated to the first place that came to mind. The Leaky Cauldron came into view, Diagon Alley awakening all around her. Hitching her bag higher, she set off for the pub. Running a freckled hand through her loose blonde waves, she sidestepped a large wizard bustling towards the Apothecary. It was strange. During the war, the Alley had been half shut down and cold. Now, you could barely tell that the war had touched it. The only evidence was the tea shop where Fortescue’s had once stood.

A wiry old man held the door for her into the Cauldron, and Katie slipped inside with a cheery grin of thanks. The pub was packed. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who abhorred cooking. Approaching the only empty seat at the bar, she dropped her bag and leaned across the counter. Little Hannah Abbott smiled in greeting, bustling over.

“Kates! Got a bit of sun, haven’t you?”

Katie grinned, glancing to the galaxies of freckles on her shoulders and arms. She’d spent the off-season in Spain on holiday and emerged rather bronzed. A summer in the sun had burned thoughts of war and spellfire from her head, and she had half a mind to pack her bags and go back. Would England always taste of war?

“A bit,” she agreed, crossing her ankles as she leaned on her elbows on the bar. “How long you been working here, then?”

“A couple of weeks now,” Hannah remarked, looking fondly at the bar. “I quite like it. Keeps me busy, you know? Anyways, what can I get you?”

Katie could read between the lines. Busy was the only thing she had to keep the dreams at bay. Annoyingly, her leg throbbed, as if it could sense where her thoughts were going. She smiled tightly. She focused intently on relaxing the muscles in her leg. [i]Merlin’s tits, not now.[/i]

“Eggs and toast? Thanks.”

Breakfast was dull. Hannah was busy with the slew of other customers, and Katie kept to herself. There was loads of gossip bandied about, but she could barely focus on it. Fuck, her leg hurt. She needed to drop by St. Mungo’s and get Alicia to write her a script for a better pain potion. This was getting ridiculous. 

Her watch informed her that practice was drawing near. With a sigh, she dropped a galleon and eight sickles on the table. She dropped off the stool a little stiffly, swinging her bag on to her shoulder. 

“Cheers, Hannah, we’ll do tea sometime,” Katie called over her shoulder, raising a scarred hand in a friendly wave. Hannah returned the wave, before returning to her duties. Katie turned around to [s]finally[/s] pay attention to where she was going. It was a little late for that; she’d knocked into somebody annoyingly tall. Graceful as she was on a broom, she was a little less coordinated on solid ground, especially with her leg flaring up. Goddamn Malfoy and his fucking necklace. How that piece of shit had avoided Azkaban was beyond her. Ferrety bastard deserved the Kiss, in her [s]admittedly biased[/s] opinion. 

“Shit fuck, sorry--” she swore without thinking, stumbling back [s]and definitely not wincing at the pain in her leg, no sir[/s]. Her expression went flat as she recognized who exactly she’d bumped into. Brilliant. Flint was rather high on her list of People Katie Bell Would Like to Personally Set on Fire, for reasons such as him breaking her ribs three times while at Hogwarts. Katie had never been a [i]delicate[/i] player, but he’d taken things to extremes not quite meant for school quidditch. How she yearned to make first string and break his ribs in return. “Oh, it’s [i]you[/i]. Fucking perfect.”