Cloudy, distracted, lost.

I'm never distracted, Katherine reprimanded herself, a little too harshly. She wasn't good enough. If Alexa were to say what she had meant, it would have been that Katherine simply wasn't good enough. Then she told her to get in with Mason. But how the hell was she supposed to do that? Alexa said she didn't care, blackmail or threats could work. She wanted her to be close.

Even if Mason was Undesirable 2, Katherine still thought he was a good guy. He was awkward, and really nice to anyone who was nice to him. It felt wrong to be mean to him, but that was her new job. Mafia. Why did she pick the mafia? Out of everything Katherine could have joined, it was the Hogwarts Mafia. Almost under new leadership, of course.

She pressed her quill too hard into the paper, and tore a hole on the edge of the picture that she was drawing with the quill. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, even with a quill that never ran out of ink. The raven held a rose in it's beak, it was supposed to look delicate, but Katherine was frustrated so she made it look like the raven had snapped the rose, and now the rose was bleeding.

The Ravenclaw threw the quill onto the table in front of her and leaned back, not feeling like she was doing her best. Being her best. She needed to be focused on Mason. Mason Hawkins. That was her target, her current objective. Get close to him, and Chloe. Then drive the wedge.

Mason was feeling a little less stressed today, he had accepted the fact that he was in a competition where his very life could be at risk, and he'd dove into his studies, trying to think of any kind of spell, hex, enchantment, or charm that could help him moving towards the task. He'd been sitting in his room, glad to be rid of Rohan Graham for a few hours, reading. He and Chloe were still up in the air, he wasn't sure if she was still angry with him, or was proud of him.

Sonny put down is book on advanced level hexes and hopped down the stairs. Since it was a Sunday, he was dressed casually, and was headed to the commonroom to get a bit of fresh air into his lungs. He spotted a girl in his year hunched over a piece of parchment, mumbling to herself. He thought a moment, trying to recall the girl's name, then it clicked. "Hey Katherine" He said, walking by, straight towards the window, not caring he wasn't wearing a jumper.

He flung open the window he had almost fallen out of later in the first term and inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. "Beautiful night, isn't it?"

Katherine barely noticed Mason come down the stairs, and that was strange for her, because she noticed everything. Was she losing her touch? There was no way that she was really losing her touch. She noticed everything, didn't she?

Inner monologue aside, she flipped over the parchment hastily and looked up, squaring up so that she was in a proper poise and in a better sitting position for her posture's sake. "Good evening, Mason." She said, her voice steady but her heart pounding. What was she supposed to do? Was this the perfect kind of opportunity that Alexa always talked about?

Or was this something else? Somebody upstairs must have been giving Katherine a chance to redeem herself, at least to prove to herself that she wasn't just some empty shell being pushed around by people with power. She tucked a stray curl behind her ear, not caring that it fell out a moment later. "It is really beautiful," she said with the slightest shiver as the window let a breeze sweep in.

She sighed, why Mason? Out of all the people, out of all the sweet and adorable people, why did he have to be her target? Mason and target didn't fit in the same sentence! "So, you're one of our new resident Champions I hear?" She said with a shy smile, this was going to be bad. "I'm glad that the cup has enough sense to send a Ravenclaw out there on the playing field, the tournament needs people to have their wits about them."

"Woof, yeah, I was a little, well, no I was a lot scared when my name came out of that goblet, but I guess I'm okay with it now. It's weird to think that before I was a champion, no one knew who I was, and now that I am, it's still the same, it's great, it's as if nothing has changed." Except it had, everything had changed, every relationship he had with friends, especially Chloe, and enemies, namely Rohan, was perpetually changed.

"So, how's the start of your second term going?" He was in a lot of Katherine's classes, and they may have worked together on a project once or twice in the past, but he had never really talked with her, he wasn't even sure what he last name was. Pickett? Anyways, he felt that now he had a reason to talk to people, he should.

Katherine's smile grew a little wider, more true, as Mason talked. He was funny, in an unintentional way. "I know who you are, even if we don't talk much. Raven's have to stick together or people will take turns taking us down."

Just like how Alexa wants to do to you, she thought.

"I know how it is though, to feel invisible." She said, her voice a little softer because she, Katherine Faith Beckett, was admitting a weakness. And she didn't do that often, but she felt like it was okay to tell Mason. "Sometimes, it's easier for people to not know who you are, you get by easier, people don't get in your way as often."

She paused as he asked how term was going, oh, how was it going? Dreadful and nauseating - "It's been alright, classes are tougher and I've just been really trying hard to do well in NEWT's. It's bloody difficult sometimes though, even with a memory like mine. Not that it helps when I'm trying to take a test and I have a meltdown bef -" She caught herself, and gave Mason an apologetic smile.

"I apologize, I don't know why but I just feel like it's really easy to talk to you right now." Katherine felt like someone had taken her guard, her emotional and mental armor, and put it through hell and forgotten to return it back to her. There was no filter, nothing holding her back from saying what she felt. And it wasn't necessarily the best place for her to be in.

She reached up to adjust the Iron Man bow in her hair, the familiarity of it calming her. Her dad, an American muggle, had found a way to stay connected with her, even if it was childish. And the bow was one of the few, subtle things that she'd snuck past her grandparents.

"I can't tel you how many swirlies I've avoided by people not knowing who I was when I ran by." Sonny laughed, turning his face to Katherine, his cheeks feeling cold and refreshed. The warm fire in the hearth melted the crisp feeling away. "I hear ya, Storm has really been packing on the important stuff this term, hexes and wand methods and I can't keep up at the rate I'm going." Mason thought about the homework he'd zipped through earlier, and the blank piece of parchment sitting on his desk, waiting for a DADA essay to be written on it.

"No problem." Mase noticed the bright red and yellow bow in Katherine's hair. "Hey, Iron Man!" Mason recognized the emblem now. He pulled on the shoulder of his own shirt. "Green Lantern. Do you like comics? Or are you strictly an Anthony Stark girl?" He was rather excited someone other than him had an interest in muggle comic books anymore.

Iron Man. Bloody hell, the guy knew who Iron Man was and HE WAS WEARING A GREEN LANTERN SHIRT! How could she not know that someone else in her own house, her own year, had an affinity for something that was pretty Muggle based? Her day got significantly better, and her eyes widened in excitement.

"I wouldn't say strictly Stark, but definitely a Marvel girl!"  She grinned, "But I am very loyal to Anthony Stark and his pure genius. If he was a wizard, he would be a Ravenclaw, because he's brilliant! Or Gryffindor, because he's kind of, you know, Gryffindorish."

Katherine could die happy. Actually, she probably would do just that when Alexa found out that she was doing the exact opposite of what she'd been asked to do. "My dad, he's sort of umm, not in the family tree if you know what I mean. I've met him once in my entire life, when I was seven. But he sends me letters, and he started sending me comics whenever he could. I feel closer to him when I read them," she said with a smile. "It's really a Muggle thing, and I'll hex you if you tell any of my dorm mates about this!"

She said the last bit seriously, before smiling again, "Just kidding, I wouldn't do that to you."

He was in nerd love. Mason resisted the urge to throw himself out the window to see if he could fly. A another person who liked comic books! How had this not come up before? Mason hopped a second over to the dorm room steps. "One sec, I have to show you something, I'll be right back down." Mason took the stairs up to the dorm two at a time. Comic books, superheros, marvel, DC, everything about his childhood was bouncing around in his head, excited to finally be released.

Mason grabbed the thick white binder off his desk with Marvel: Volume One scrawled onto the front. He hopped down the stairs. "I've had these in my room for five years and they've never seen the light of day. Sonny flipped open the cover to reveal the first comic book in 100, and there were a few more hundred up in his room, under his bed, on his desk, in his underwear drawer.

"I have the first Avengers comic book ever published, but that's at home, don't want any of my roommates swiping that from me." His parents had spent weeks saving up to buy him the comic book for his birthday, and he was so excited about it when he blew out the candles on his tenth birthday, he wished the Avengers were real.

"I think I'm more of a D.C. guy, but Marvel is still kick-ass."

When Mason ran upstairs, Katherine slipped the parchment she'd been drawing on into a folder and stuffed in haphazardly into her bag. With a grin too big for her face, she realized that she just made a friend. An honest-to-goodness, let's be best friends forever, kind of friend. At least she hoped so. Any thoughts of even possibly making his life miserable were dashed, the ideas shoved deep down and away from her current mindset.

She turned on her heel when Mason bounded back down, a binder in hand, and she could see the word Marvel on the front. Katherine's heart did a little tap dance as he opened it up, just because it was so perfect, and she didn't think things ever got to be this perfect. She wasn't the kind of person who was allowed to be happy, or have moments to herself that she could truly enjoy. People tried to fit her into a mold, and keep her there; they didn't realize that she didn't like the mold.

Playfully, she pushed his shoulder, "DC? Alright, as long as you understand the pure joyfulness of that which is Marvel comics, then I forgive you. Just this once, Hawkins. You hear me?"

Her attention turned to the book, and she flipped through them, pointing to various ones to indicate which ones were her favorites, and which ones she still had yet to read. After all, it wasn't like her father could send every single comic book ever published. He just sent his favorites, and subsequently, they became Katherine's favorites.

All of a sudden, the guilt hit her, hard and strong. She had been planning to tear down Mason piece by piece, Katherine bit her lip to distract herself from apologizing for something Mason didn't even know about. Plus, if she said something out loud, she felt like someone bad would find out that she'd said something. She'd be a snitch. A tattletale. They were bad guys. She wasn't good at being the bad guy. She wanted to be the good guy, like Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

To distract herself, and because she was so overjoyed at the moment, she turned and threw her arms around Mason and hugged him tight. "Thank you for sharing these with me! I'm so excited I'm not the only one who likes them!" He smelled like peppermint, and it was a comforting smell before Katherine realized she was being socially awkward and she pulled herself away moments later.

"If I didn't understand the pure joy that is Spiderman, Ironman, the Incredible Hulk, and Thor, I wouldn't have 7 binders full of them upstairs." Mason smiled as Katherine pointed out the ones she had and the ones she'd yet to read. "You can borrow them if you'd like." Sonny was glad to share his obsession with someone else. He had assimilated Rohan for a few years, but once Han said he didn't like Superman anymore, Mason knew it wasn't going to end well.

"Rohan used to like Superman and the rest of the Justice League, but I don't know, I guess he thought they were too juvenile, but I don't think you can ever grow out of comic books if you really like them." Mason ran a finger down the binding of the crisp, clean snow-white binder, glad he'd spent so much time organizing the comic books, now they were in character sections in chronological order.

He was taken by surprised as Katherine jumped at him and squeezed him in a hug, apparently Superheros are the way to nerd girl's brains. Her hair smelled of Rosewater, and a hint of lavender somewhere in the back. How could such a good smelling girl be so cool?