December Twentieth, 2009
Mason & Katherine

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Knowing she wouldn't have time to change on the train ride home, Katherine rose early in the morning to get dressed. She put on a pair of jeans and a blue sweater. Taking her wand and slipping on her white jacket, she slipped out of the dorm room quietly. She didn't know if Mason was up yet, or if he was already outside. Her brown curls were unruly and fell haphazardly.

She ran down the stairs quickly, silently, racing to reach the courtyard. It was still black as night outside, even thought it was almost dawn. The stars were slowly blinking out of existence as the sun got ready to rise. She slipped out into the courtyard, searching for Mason, but not seeing the familiar brunette anywhere.

She walked slowly to one of the corridors that was vacant of the newly fallen snow. Katherine could see her breath in the air as the sky started to turn from black to dark blue, each passing minute bringing a slightly lighter shade as the sun yearned to rise. It was beautiful, perfect; and it saddened the Ravenclaw that this was the first time watching the sunrise since the summer with her grandparents.

She leaned against the opening's wall, her palms on the stone windowsill. As Spring came, Katherine vowed to herself to at least go out to watch the sunrise more often. She was out here solely for the reason to see Mason before they left. She couldn't spend time with him on the train because anyone could see them there, and Katherine was afraid of exactly that someone would be...

Mason had woken up while it was still black out, having gone to sleep early after the Yule Ball last night, the issue with Heinrich and Chloe had left him totally drained, and he didn't want to be late for saying good-bye to Katherine. He dressed silently, avoiding making any noise to wake up Rohan, who would kill him if he saw Mason sneaking out at the crack of dawn. Mason grabbed his sneakers in his hand, not wanting them to squeak as they tread across the polished floors, if he missed this, he and Katherine wouldn't be able to see each other until after break, and who knows what would happen in the meantime?

Mason got outside and finally put on his sneakers. He grabbed a frosted flower from the dirt bed and pulled out his wand and transfigured it into a blue tulip, the frost melting into dew as the flower's petals became more curved and the stem thickened. Sonny decided that one was just right and almost ran across the courtyard. He crouched down behind a pillar and waited, going over everything he'd done the night before.

He'd packed, and he and Katherine had spoken briefly in passing, arranging the meeting now. The light snow had, for the most part, covered up his light foot prints. His breath felt odd, then he realized he'd forgotten to brush his teeth! He smacked the palm of his hand to his forehead and was about to turn around and run back inside to his dorm, when he heard the light tread of Katherine's feet in the snow.

Mase desperately dug through his pockets, looking for something, he came up with mint-scented dental floss. He groaned and pulled out a long strand, curling it up into a ball, and popping it into his mouth, he rolled it around on his tongue, making odd faces. He spat the ball of floss out of his mouth and silently crept up behind Katherine. Sonny slowly wrapped and arm around her waist and put his chin on her shoulder, holding out the flower in front of her.

"A bit of spring to brighten the brightest girl." He snuck a quick kiss on her cheek.

Katherine didn't notice Mason until he wrapped an arm around her waist, she leaned back into his gentle touch and grinned when he kissed her. She'd never done this whole in-love emotional roller coaster thing before, and the flutter in her stomach was surprising. But she took it in stride, as she tried to figure out her new emotions.

"Thank you," she said softly, accepting the dark blue tulip, her favorite. "Where did you find it in all this snow? Or did you defrost it just for me?" She said with a smile, a hand reaching up to ruffle his hair affectionately. She let her hand fall as she turned to face him, twirling the small flower in her hand.

"I could probably get killed if someone saw me with you," she said, reaching up on her tippy-toes to steal her own quick kiss on Mason's cheek. She leaned against his chest, chuckling at the fact that there was a good eight inch height difference between the two of them. She wrapped her arms around him, still holding her tulip in her right hand.

"I miss not talking to you," she sighed into his chest, his wonderful Spider man-insignia sweater adorned chest.

"Defrosted just for the lovely Katherine." Sonny smiled and let Katherine ruffle his hair.

"I could probably get killed if someone saw me with you,"

"Yup, me too, but I could die happy right now." He looked at the sun rising over the white snow-banks, spreading warmth and color over the blank canvas of the grounds. Mase wrapped his arms around her as she clung to him.

"I miss not talking to you,"

"I miss talking to you too, but during break, I'll write you a letter every day if you want, and have an hour deliver it to you at midnight, with a little blue ribbon holding it together." He put his chin lightly on the top his her head, taking everything about her to take with him when they parted. Just the smell of her made his stomach aflutter. "Maybe if we can survive the next term, I can come visit you at your grandparents' house."

Mason knew he'd be thrown out for not being "pure", but he could at least try, Katherine didn't care he was muggleborn, why would her grandparents? "I'll even write a poem for you, if you'd like. 'An Ode to Katherine Beckett'; has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"I like blue ribbons," she said absent minded-ly, storing this memory in the back of her mind so she had something to hold onto when she went home. There wouldn't be someone to hold onto, someone to brighten her day; she'd have to take every memory she had with her when she went home. She'd frame the flower, save the ribbons. She'd do the stupid and nonsense things that people did when they were in love.

She pulled away from the embrace slightly, shivering as she did so. "I don't think that would be a good idea," she said, biting her lip. "I'm not saying that I wouldn't love having you there, it's just that, well, they wouldn't like you. If you think Chloe or Alexa or Rohan might kill us, then my grandparents would definitely kill us."

"I don't think a poem would help, sweetheart." She said sadly. Even if this were to last, she could never tell her grandparents. They'd definitely marry her off to a pureblood then. They already started talking about it. Rumor had it that he was going to be at her house for part of holiday. "Maybe I could visit you. I'll tell them I'm just visiting a friend."

"They probably wouldn't let me." She confessed, mostly to herself as she drew away from Mason completely and leaned against the wall. She buried her face in her hands, not used to feeling so unsure about something. The tulip hung from her fingertips, teetering and threatening to tumble to the snow below. "I'm sorry," she said into her hands, "I just don't know what to do."

"Well, then, it can just be us, in our own little world of letters and words, no grandparents for mafia to chew us out, just us, Marvel heros and a bottle of ink, huh?" Mason understood he wasn't what Katherine's grandparents wanted, and he never could be. He let his arms fall at his sides as Katherine pulled away. "There's no need to be sorry, I should be sorry for bringing it up in the first place."

Mason tread through the snow to Katherine. He didn't touch her, he just hated to see her confused and upset. "You don't want a headache before you get on the train." Mase leaned on the wall neck to her, bending his knees so he was at her height level. The gears in his head started whirring and grinding. He licked his lips, fighting against the cold.

"Amazing and beautiful
not a flower or tree
Much prettier than that
and only I can see"

Mason continued as he gently held Katherine's wrists and pulled her hands away from her face,

"Loving and caring
right down to the core
Filling me with happiness
and so much more"

Sonny pulled his on-the-go poetry notebook from his back pocket and tore off the leather strips that held it closed. He tied the longer one in a bow around Katherine's wrist. He wrapped the other around his finger, so he could tether it to his wrist later.

"Eyes are so stunning
I can't look away
Gorgeous and shining
I'm here to stay"

With the final line, Mason wrapped his gangly arms around Katherine Beckett and kissed the top of her head, the full smell of rose water and lavender flooding his nostrils.

Mason was right. She couldn't get a headache before she got on the train. There would be too many people to see her in such a vulnerable, weak state. She tried to calm herself down, but it wasn't working. The more Katherine thought about calming down, the more worked up she got over it. She listened quietly as Mason started writing a poem, pulling the words out of thin air. She sniffled, partly because the cold was giving her a runny nose, partly because she was trying not to cry.

She didn't resist as he pulled her hands away from her face, she just kept her eyes cast down to the snow, feeling guilty for being self-centered about this... whatever this was. Katherine looked up, unshed tears in the corner of her eyes, making the baby blue's look glossy and bright in the dim, morning light.

She couldn't have been luckier than this. Mason accepted her for who she was. All of her flaws and mistakes, her condition, her obvious lack of experience in the love department. But he was just as awkward as she was, and they were kindred spirits to that effect. After Mason tied off the leather strip on her wrist, she clasped her other hand around it, feeling like she had a piece of Mase that she could carry around with her.

As he wrapped his arms back around her and pulled her in tight, she sighed. "Thank you, so much, that was perfect. Thank you." For some people, Mason might not look like a prince charming, and that's because he wasn't. He was Katherine's knight in shiny armor. Someone who cared for her, and loved superheroes, and recited poems for her.

She felt special. Normally, Katherine didn't feel so special. But right now, in Mason's arms, even in the freezing cold weather, she felt special. Well, she was cold too. But hey, it was December, and it was snowing.

It seemed surreal that the sky was getting brighter so slowly, like the world was slowing down around them so they could steal away a few more precious minutes to themselves. But the world wasn't slowing down, and soon, people would be waking up and getting ready to leave.  The Ravenclaws needed to get back to their respective dorm rooms and back in bed, or pretend they were just waking up or something. Nobody could know that they were out. At the same time. Rohan would be suspicious.

"Mason, we need to go back inside." She said sadly, "If we stay out any longer, we're going to get caught."

Mason wasn’t sure what to call it, if it was love, or something else, he didn’t know, all he knew was that he liked it, and he wanted nothing more than Katherine and the snow around them. He’d always loved snow, and now he had his two favorite things in one place. He didn’t even care that his tongue tasted like minty dental floss or that her hair tickled his nose and made him want to sneeze; but that was the charm of romance wasn’t it? Accepting each other for quirks and fighting past the bad days to get to the good days.

The sun now stared at the two of them, the only thing in the world that knew about them, other than the snow and the stones that surrounded them. The silence wasn’t awkward, it just was, and he let it be that way. Katherine’s voice was edged with melancholy as she spoke into his sweater. “I agree, we’ll get caught, or become popsicles, and not the tasty kind.” He chuckled lightly at his own stupid joke.

Mase wanted something, more than anything right now. He used his index finger and tilted Katherine’s face up towards his. He wanted his good-bye kiss, because weeks without Katherine, witches, wizards, wands, and the craziness of Hogwarts, he didn’t know if he could keep sane before he got back.

His cheeks were red from the cold, and he might have been blushing, his lips were slightly chapped, but he leaned down anyways, wrapping locks of her hair around his fingers slowly and gently.

Katherine allowed herself a half smile at Mason's stupid joke, it wasn't even that funny, but it was Mason. She was obligated to smile for him. A dull ache was slowly taking up residence in the back of Katerine's head from the building stress she felt. She was most certainly associating with Undesirable Number Two, as Alexa called him, and the awkward feeling in her gut made her feel like she was doing the weong thing.

But how could something that felt so right be so wrong? Some stupid school-girl crush, she would be over it in a week. Tops. Or so she told herself. But the more the intense Ravenclaw dwelled on it, the more she found herself hoping that this would last. For almost six years, she'd felt hopelessyly alone the majority of her time. Her only childhood friend was the same man her grandparents thought woukd make a perfect suitor, and that ruined the last shred of childhood she had left to hold onto.

Her heart leapt into her throat as Mason tilted her chin up, and started to close the eight inches of height difference between them. Sure they'd done quick kisses on the cheek and the like, and Katherine wasn't sure she was ready to actually kiss him. On the lips. Like, actually kiss him. They had only been commited to each other for about two weeks now, and Katherine couldn't push her limits anymore.

Panicking at the last second, Katherine diverted and kissed Mason on the cheek, hoping he would understand her hesitation to actually kiss him. Quickly, she pulled out of his grip. "I guess this is goodbye for now," she said quietly, slipping away from his warm embrace and briskly walking back to the castle, a lonely blue tulip hanging from her fingertips.