Cut out all the ropes and let me fall

(ooc: I stuck this here so we wouldn't have to move it. But IC, it's starting in the Great Hall, if that's okay.)

Katherine had not actually been doing well. Sure, she acted pretty okay when she could manage it. But, truly, she could not often manage it. When she walked into the Great Hall for dinner, it was more out of obligation than anything else. Trisha had been pestering her for nearly an hour, trying to convince Kit to go down when the time came. And eventually, she had caved. Her heart wasn't really in it, though, and her appetite was hiding from her.

The two Ravenclaws took their typical seats near the end of the house table, down near the staff's own row of seats. The meal went as most of the recent ones had for the should-have-been sixth year: the students around her argued and laughed and talked about classes, but Katherine kept quiet. Even the topic of the recent Quidditch match was not enough to catch her attention, despite her previous amusement with the sport. She was obviously not interested in playing it, but watching it wasn't so bad. She had gone to the match with her house, but even the announcement that they had won wasn't enough to lift her spirits.

She was bad again, but Kit was mostly just trying to ignore it. The illness hadn't done her in before, so she had been doing her best not to mention it to anyone. Not to let it run her life. But now even the simplest of spells took a large part of her energy, and all of the magic was ridiculous and wrong anyway. Katherine was starting to forget why she was even at Hogwarts at all. With everything going wrong with the Wizarding World, and with the Muggles, she was probably supposed to be angry. But she had spent time with the Muggles while staying in the hospital, and her family's prejudices did not affect her so strongly anymore. But all she felt was tired. Strained, and indeed drained.

So when Trisha tried to get her attention, Katherine merely shrugged at her questions, or "hmm"d in agreement when she might have been better off saying no. It wasn't until the end of their time in the Great Hall that Kit realized how terribly tired she was. Sure, she had felt the desire to sleep beforehand. But now it was worrying in the extreme. She didn't even want to stand up and head back to her bedroom. After all, that meant she had to climb all the way back up to the Ravenclaw Tower. Who had decided she had to live up there, anyway? The Slytherins and Hufflepuffs were lucky to be on the lower floors, she decided testily.

Her housemates stood, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Katherine was pouting at the food she had tried to eat but barely managed to touch. Finally, Trisha turned to look over her shoulder and noticed that the blonde was still sat, her head in her hands. "Kit? Are you okay?" she asked, returning to the girl's side, sinking onto the bench once more though her feet were on the aisle side of the seat this time.

"I'm fine," Katherine mumbled. "Just tired is all."

Trisha frowned, looking up towards the staff table. Surely one of the professors had noticed the change in Tris's friend? She didn't see how they wouldn't have. Then again, the redhead supposed that she probably saw the blonde more often, so the change was probably more apparent. "Okay, well you've been feeling weird for a while now, haven't you? Maybe you should go talk to one of the Healers upstairs."

Kit shook her head slowly, frowning at Trisha's suggestion. "No, it's fine. I mean, I've been through worse, to be sure," she added, attempting a joke. It seemed to fall flat, though, considering the fact that her friend did not laugh. "I'll be up in a bit, okay? I'm going to see if I can manage any more of this," she gestured towards her food.

A lie. Trisha believed it, though - or at least pretended to, considering she hesitated but nodded and pushed off the bench again, rushing to catch up with the other Ravenclaws who had left. Katherine, poor thing that she was, couldn't bring herself to actually reach for her silverware again. Instead, she just sighed and debated over whether or not Trisha was right. Perhaps she wouldn't feel so bad if she went to get a check-up of sorts. They would know, of course, what was wrong. But perhaps it would be helpful, even if only slightly.

Lately, the Hogwarts staff table had been brimming with life. It was a frenzied affair at which laughter could always be heard. Conspicuous, though, was the spare seat in amongst the Healers which was reserved in the hopes that their matron would join them. Victoire Weasley was habitually absentee at dinner, preferring to retire home to her own space or to linger on in the Hospital Wing to take stock of their resources or start brewing headache potions or other mundane dittanies that they went through over the course of the week and needed to replace. It was rather unprecedented to find her there but this evening, Victoire had shown her face.

The ethereal blonde had entered later than the rest of the staff, almost as though dinner was an afterthought. She paused for a moment in the doorway and looked about the room, taking in the atmosphere before making her way to the spare seat at the end of the staff table. She offered those who met her gaze a sweet smile though she noticed with a little bit of muted disappointment that many did not. She ducked her head, sweeping her hand past her ear to lift her hair over her shoulder. She settled to eat with her Healers, though she didn’t include herself much in the conversations that passed.

It rankled with Victoire a bit that she’d managed to make herself so much of an outsider amongst her colleagues. She couldn’t quite put her finger on when it had happened but she now found herself an outsider in more walks of life than not. The last thing she wanted was to be on the periphery. At the end of the table, picking at her salad, she certainly qualified. It reminded her why she often went home to eat. It was to avoid this sort of awkwardness and the feeling that she didn’t have anything in common with her co-workers. She was more than grateful when dinner drew to an end.

Victoire found it quite amusing that she was one of the last lingering on after dinner had more or less ended – as though her private moments were going to be taken in the absence of a place which had been so full of life, vigour and verve. She continued to drink her pumpkin juice and picked at her dessert but she was most active and at her most content once the majority of people had filed away and she could peal oranges and pull apart kiwis and other bits of fruit to make up a sweet salad for herself – out from under the discussion of her ‘friends.’

In the end, when her plate vanished, Victoire was relieved. Her obligation to stay there disappeared with it and she rose from her chair, drifting down the steps onto the main floor of the Great Hall. Her glance over to the Ravenclaw table was incidental and she would have kept going had her eyes not alighted on Kit. She paused, coming to a stop all at once in a way that made her start. She then stepped around the tables towards the front of the room and made her way over to the young Ravenclaw who, once upon a time, she’d begun to consider as a sister. She still did, of course, but it would never be a sealed bond.

“Bonjour little flutterby,” Victoire murmured, bringing her hands to Kit’s shoulders. “How are you?” She asked, sitting down beside the girl, lifting a hand to touch her knuckles to Kit’s cheek. “I’m sorry we’ve not spoken lately. I’d tell you I’ve been busy but in truth I’m not sure what I’ve been busy with.”

Katherine wasn't expecting to see Victoire at dinner, if only because the older blonde was rarely there to be greeted or waved at. To be fair, though, she hadn't exactly been checking throughout the evening. So when Victoire showed up at her side, Kit looked up and blinked in surprise. She felt utterly ridiculous, though, because she actually felt a bit winded as the gasp escaped her. As if it were some big, tiring ordeal.

A shy smile appeared nonetheless when Victoire addressed Kit by the usual endearment she had created for her the previous year. It was strange to think that Kit was still close to the older woman after what Lucas had done and after all of that strife. But Katherine didn't think that she would have ever given up the sister-esque relationship, no matter what Luke had done. Kit was still somewhat standoffish towards him, though she had tried not to be too affronted by his choices. After all, it wasn't like he had really hurt her, so much as hurt Victoire. She supposed it wasn't fair to be so angry with him, but she couldn't help it.

Katherine was trying to find a way to answer Vic's question, but the older blonde continued, and Kit backtracked a bit. "That's okay," she assured her gently, "I've, um, I've had a lot of homework."

Looking down at her practically untouched plate, Kit tried to decide whether or not it was worth keeping her problems to herself anymore. If she mentioned it, the only thing that would come from it was trouble. Her father would be upset because she had to go back to the Muggle hospital if things got worse, Luke and Mes would be too protective, and Kit would have to be pulled back another year. In short, she would probably just go mad.

"I've been... tired," she admitted finally, looking up at Victoire apologetically. Her stomach roiled with guilt, though she wasn't sure if she hadn't misplaced it; surely she should have been upset with herself for not saying anything? Fatigue had been the first sign last time, but that was only doubled by the night terrors. Now that those had started again, things were just getting worse. All she could really hope for now was that the fever wouldn't hit. After that, she had been shuttled off to the hospital and forced to deal with the doctors and with her father refusing to visit.

"I just... I can't sleep, really. It's the same as before," Kit murmured, her shoulders deflating.

Reaching forward, Victoire curled her fingers around a peach sat in amongst the fruit in one of the large bowls. Digging her nails into its waxy skin, she began to pull it away to reveal the sweet, juicy segments underneath. She looked up from her work to pass a smile to Kit, one that empathised with the amount of work the girl was probably having to do. The fickle professors weren’t always fair. Victoire had never been particularly academic and had loathed writing essays – it had been a miracle, really, that she’d qualified as a healer.

The smile fell from Victoire’s face as Kit went on. She paused, with half of the skin of the orange left to flap, the vast majority of the fruit revealed. She swallowed, trying to temper the fear that lurched her flickering heart to a stop. She licked her lips and lifted the orange onto the table, forgetting it momentarily and abandoning her desire for some sugar. She looked at the younger blonde and took a few moments before deciding that she needed to reassure her but she also needed to meet that fear, too. She wouldn’t have been doing her job as a Healer or as an almost-sister to Kit if she didn’t.

“Do you think maybe you’ve just burned yourself out from how hard you’re working?” She suggested gently, reaching to rub her hand across the younger witch’s back. “If you’d like, though, I can have a look and we can see if it’s not just something like flu. How does that sound, my little love? Besides, I have some hot chocolate back in my office and I’d love to share a couple of mugs with you.”

Katherine had never really been the needy sort, looking back on her life. Of this she was certain. But the problem, in the end, became the fact that she could not always manage to remain strong on her own. At some point, she could hold out no longer and nothing else was worth pretending that she could do things alone. When Victoire looked at her, Katherine realized that it was probably one of those moments.

"I- I mean, it could be that," Katherine conceded after a moment of consideration. "I'm getting into the part of the school year that I missed last term, so it's definitely new information that I have to memorize. The first half wasn't so bad, since it was all review, of course. But it really feels like it might be more than that, even if I hope it isn't true."

She considered Victoire's offer for a moment, reluctant to find out what was really the matter with her. What if she was really bad again and had to leave? Her brothers would throw a fit, and father wouldn't visit her because he doesn't like how the place is 'overrun by Muggles.' It was a wonder, Kit thought to herself suddenly, that Victoire had ever considered joining their family at all. None of them were really quite right.

"I guess I should, huh?" she answered finally, her tone betraying her nervousness. "I just want to be able to stay in for the full year this time," she sighed. "I couldn't stand having to take this year all over again."

She just needed to hold out until summer, she decided as she stood to follow Victoire. If she could make it through exams, she could go to hospital during the summer months and not have to miss anything. During summer she rarely saw her father, anyway. Not that she saw him much any other time of the year. But it would feel less like a refusal, somehow, to know that she had chosen to go instead of having been forced. It would feel less like her father was rejecting her for the sake of his own pureblood beliefs.

She followed the older blonde through the halls and into the hospital wing, rather glad that she would be dealing with the matron of the wing instead of a new healer. At least Victoire knew what had happened to her before, had seen it before. It wouldn't be as much of a guessing game this time, Kit hoped. She just didn't understand why it had come back.