62

It appears that we have strayed from the general timeline of events." The questioning transferred back to a slightly younger woman with greying brown hair. "After the trip to Dubai, when was the next time you and Mr Malfoy encountered each other?"

"Valentines Day." She replied.

"And what did you do?"

"We apparated to his Manor and you can imagine the rest." She responded dryly.

"And after?" Kathryn's feet were starting to go numb after having spent so long standing.

"He gave me a ring, well, he slipped it into my pocket." She told the courtroom. "It was one I had seen him wear before but just resized to fit my finger." She looked down at the stone upon her right hand. "This one in fact." She pulled it off and held it up.

"What did you think of the gesture?" she asked curiously.

"I don't really remember," Kathryn shrugged, slipping the ring back onto her finger, "I suppose I thought it a kind gesture, although one that made sure that I was discretely marked as his. To be fair, I didn't think much of it, the next time I saw him was at the final for the inter-house Quidditch cup."

"And what did you do then?"

"He made a bet with me, one hundred galleons on Slytherin to win." She explained.

"But that was not the only thing he wagered, was it?" she asked probingly.

"He also promised me that, if Slytherin won, he would leave me alone. He was trying to see if I would go as far as to lose the match if it meant I could be free."

"And did you lose the match?"

"No." She replied shortly. "I would never miss the opportunity to beat Slytherin at Quidditch and I was certainly not going to give him the satisfaction of such control over me. And I also didn't want to have to pay him a hundred galleons if I let Slytherin win, it was quite a no win situation."

"So you mean to say that you would not lose a simple game of Quidditch to keep yourself safe?"

"If I had decided to lose the match, how was I to explain that to my team?" she asked. "Besides, losing might have spared me the father but I would have incurred an endless tirade of insults and humiliation from his son instead, as well as the whole of Slytherin." Kathryn could tell that she, and the rest of the Wizengamot could not believe this. "What was I supposed to do?" she asked them incredulously. "Drop the Quaffle? Shoot through my own goal hoops? I was well renowned for taking great pleasure in wiping the pitch with Malfoy's face. I suppose it was a metaphor for not being able to hex him every time I saw him."

"So you did not like Draco Malfoy at all?"

"We hate each other; present tense. Although I suspect that he now hates me with considerably more venom than I do him. I would have taken sex with the father over five minutes in the same room with the son any day." She could tell that this statement shocked people but, to own the truth, she didn't really care.

"Interesting." She mused. "I understand that there was an incident near the end of term involving Draco Malfoy?"

"Yes, he was a sore loser and nearly killed me."

"I understand that it was a close escape."

"Well, I think that saying he nearly killed me summed that up." She shot back dryly. "If had it not been for the intervention of Mr Malfoy, I would have certainly died. It was a complex curse with a complex counter curse."

"And how did you feel when you found out that Mr Malfoy was the person that had prevented your death?" she asked curiously, remembering what she had seen in the memory the day before.

"It was interesting to know what he had done." She decided that she might as well properly explain how she had felt. "I knew that he could have very easily left me to die. I knew that it would have been easy to do, but he didn't. I can't remember much, I was fairly out of it, but I remember the way he held me. It was like he actually cared about me."

"Anything more?"

"He made his son apologise and then he came and talked to me." She told the witch. "He came and talked to me because he had been worried about me. I asked him why he didn't leave me for dead and he implied that he did not want that."

"How did that make you feel?"

"It was quite strange, I didn't know what to feel." She explained. "So I ran away."

"Ah yes, that was carefully covered up."

"Well, the Order did know well not to let something like that slip. I can imagine that Voldemort would have had a field day with that scrap of information." She replied dryly. The witch nodded and passed the line of questioning on to a man with curly, but nevertheless greying, black hair and a quizzical brow.

"So why did you do it if you knew that it would cause such uproar?" his tone was that of a disapproving mother.

"Because I wanted some time alone." She explained. "I hadn't had a proper moment alone since it had happened. I had been by myself at points, but I was never in a place where no one could bother me. It is a sad by-product of who my brother and I are; we have spent the last few years under almost constant guard save the time we were in Hogwarts. We have been watched by the Order our entire lives."

"So you felt trapped?"

"No," she retorted, "I just wanted to get away for a while. Except, once I was gone, whispers of my disappearance reached certain ears and someone found me in Paris."

"And what did you do?"

"We had dinner," she shrugged, "we talked, I spent the night with him and then came home the next morning."

"In your memories," he consulted his notes, "you showed us a piece of parchment that he left on the pillow next to yours. What was the significance of the number written on it?"

"The number was how many days remained until the one year 'anniversary'." She used her fingers to indicate inverted commas when she said 'anniversary'. "And also to remind me how many days there were left for me to find another way to disappear."

"And you understood that from a number?" he did not seem to believe this.

"You make the mistake of assuming that this was like any normal relationship." She shot back. "Firstly it was not a relationship; it was more of an unspoken understanding. Secondly, he could not just say things to me in public; every comment was veiled and I had to get used to reading him by his actions and looks. It's become a skill of mine."

"That is also known as Legilimency, Miss Potter." The wizard reminded her.

"I have not mastered that yet." She replied curtly.

"You do however appear to be a very skilled Occlumens," he shot back, "having concealed your affair," Kathryn did not allow him to finish his sentence.

"I have already made it clear that this was not a willing relationship," she shot back viciously, "and therefore cannot be termed an affair as that implies that it was a mutual decision."

"Fine, you must be a skilled Occlumens having concealed what was happening for so long."

"I did what had to be done." Kathryn replied vaguely.

"Very well," he shuffled the notes before him, "you mentioned that things changed when you visited Malfoy Manor next. Would you care to elaborate?"

"Actually," Fudge cut in before Kathryn could open her mouth, "I think this might be a good time to adjourn for the day, we will need to consider what we have heard before continuing tomorrow." The rest of the Wizengamot nodded in agreement and they rose and left the courtroom. Kathryn remained where she was until most of the crowds had gone. Lucius was still chained to the chair, his guards waiting until the courtroom emptied before escorting him out. Once it was apparent that she was going nowhere, they released the bonds that held Lucius in the chair and allowed her to walk beside him at they left the courtroom.

"You did well." He said quietly to her as they walked. "You made sure that they did not push you around."

"I'm sorry for some of the things I said," she apologised, "but I had no choice."

"It's alright." He reassured her, wrapping an arm about her waist. "You were brave to even say it."

"They don't understand what it takes to be able to admit that something like that happened after you've spent so long trying to shut it out."

"You've just shut out what happened?"

"No," she shook her head, "I don't mean that. I've accepted what happened and moved on. You would have broken me if I had bottled everything up inside me."

"So that was where I went wrong." He mused with a smirk, walking slowly to annoy his guards.

"Oh please," she drawled, "you would rather have me as I am then as a broken shell of a person."

"Indeed, you are far more interesting as you are."

"You can't deny that you enjoy my company," she said, cocking an eyebrow at him, "a lot more stimulating than some of the airheads that you could have had."

"Excuse me?"

"I saw them on the Society pages of the Prophet after your wife died," she smirked, "they were all over you. Everyone was speculating as to whom you would have on your arm next."

"But you knew that they meant nothing to me."

"Oh yes, but it was funny to read all the same, knowing what I did." They were walking up the stairs now, heading towards the elevators on the ninth level.

"So what would you rather be doing, if this had never happened?" he asked in a whisper as they stepped into the golden elevator that would take them back to the atrium.

"Well," she whispered back as the elevator rattled up, "right now, I would be lying in bed," she told him, "I wouldn't have gotten up, not for anything or anyone." She leant against him and took his hand. "I would have gone for a late afternoon walk in the gardens with you, we would have had dinner by the lake and you can imagine it from then on."

"Sounds perfect." The grille rattled open to reveal the packed atrium. As flashbulbs went off in their eyes, he wrapped an arm protectively around her as they pushed through the crowd, their ears ringing with the cries form the reporters.

"I can't get you home." She managed to whisper desperately, the Aurors trying to discretely pull them apart. "They won't let me."

"Don't worry, it's only until tomorrow." He managed to murmur back. The noise in the hall stopped, however, when about six owls swooped down into the hall bearing a very large package. The crowd around them cleared as people realised that the owls were aiming for her and Kathryn was very surprised then the package landed gently in her arms. Looking down at what she was now holding, she found a bouquet of no less than four dozen red roses interspersed with about two dozen that were so dark they looked almost black. Stopping dead in her tracks, and paying no mind to the people looking at her, she turned to Lucius.

"You enjoy getting yourself into trouble, don't you?" she said in an undertone.

"I'm allowed to buy you flowers." He shrugged

"So this is what you were doing this morning." She realised. "I should have known you were up to something." The Aurors had stopped trying to separate them and merely looked on as they talked.

"I am always up to something. How did you know I was gone?"

"I notice when there's no one next to me." She shrugged. "I didn't get you anything." She added quietly, feeling quite guilty.

"What you are doing is gift enough." He shook his head. "I could not ask a more difficult thing of you, when you could so easily walk away."

"I do not think that it would be that easy for me to walk away." She murmured back. "Besides, even if I could, I wouldn't."

"I know."

"Thank you," she smiled at him, gazing at the flowers in her arms, "you know you're the only person that sends me roses."

"I should hope so." He said with a small laugh.

"So I guess that I'll see you tomorrow."

"It seems so."

"Cufflinks." She reminded him, holding out her palm. Nodding, he slipped the cufflinks out of his shirt and handed them to her.

"Anything more?" he asked dryly.

"Your cloak." She told him without hesitation. "It's a nice one and I don't want it ruined." He placed it into her outstretched arm.

"Anything more?" he sighed.

"One more thing." She replied with a mischievous smile.

"And that would be?"

"This." Stepping forwards she kissed him keenly, not caring for the people watching and not pulling away for some time. "See you tomorrow." She murmured as she pulled away. He got one last fleeting glimpse of her before she was obscured by the crowd of journalists who rushed after her, leaving the Aurors free to escort him away.

Kathryn pushed through the crowds, half blinded by the flashbulbs going off in her face, and trying her best to ignore what people were shouting at her.

"Why has he sent you flowers?" one called above the din.

"Why do you refuse to talk to the press?"

"I wonder why?" she murmured dryly to herself as she quickened her pace. She spotted Harry, Ron and Hermione watching from the far side of the room, and she hoped that they understood that she would speak to them later.