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Throughout the days following, Catina found herself cleaning the house along with the rest of its residents who were not at work. A feather duster in one hand and a cloth in the other, the girl navigated herself around the long, dark corridors that screamed Slytherin. From it's dark green decor to the heads of previous house elves that had once served the Noble family of Black. It was a strange house- peculiar and in more ways than one, out there with its extravagant demeanour and mysterious tone, bestowing pride and money from everything such as the curtains right down to the doorknobs.

The Black family were clearly rich and powerful which explained why they were able to behold a very large, hidden house in the middle of London where nobody, unless fully aware of its existence, could find. It baffled Catina as to how this long-abandoned house became such a safe-house for Dumbledore and his close alliances. Surely, as Catina had heard from rumours which told her that the Black family were followers of Lord Voldemort, this would be far from safe as Voldemort's side would have knowledge of this house, right?

Raising her feather duster, Catina began to swipe away thick layers of dust from that particular corridor which, to her knowledge, was far away from anyone else in the house. Keeping away from everyone seemed to be her mission, it was obvious that more than simply one person in that house were dubious of her and her motives which made no sense to her because there were no motives for Catina to complete as she would rather finish her schooling without any issues but of course, being in the house of Salazar Slytherin, there would be some comeuppances. Even Ginny, whom she had believed she had built some acquaintance with from their sharing of a room, seemed to have reverted to shameless glares and judgemental looks since her friend Hermione Granger had arrived and occupied the third bed in their room.

One of the twins was the worst, however. He did not have a problem voicing his opinions of the girl and her school house which increased Catina's anger towards prejudicing people such as the redheaded boy in her year. There were times where she clenched her fists and gritted her teeth ready to smack him straight in the face but for some reason, she never could bring herself to actually do it. Perhaps it was because that would be feeding to the stereotype? That had to be the answer, surely.

The girl quietly hummed a tune that she did not know the words nor the name of as she cleaned in the solitary corridor, distant talking, clanging and other noises that faded into the background and were concealed by the distance between the girl and the sources.

"What an awful place to be alone in," a voice claimed from behind her, halting her humming and slowing her dusting by a short amount.

"Clearly I am not alone if you are behind me," she replied not removing her eyes from the portraits that she ran the rim of dust off revealing a couple who seemed to be asleep, but nonetheless their faces looked as if they were sucking a sour lollypop.

"How very true indeed," the boy responded, "but I wasn't always here, therefore, you were alone in such a dismal place so my original comment stands." This time, Catina turned her head to see one of the twins, she wasn't so sure which one, leaning against the wall, his legs crossed and his lips curled into a smirk. "You know I am right."

The girl shrugged, "You may be right about me being alone but you are wrong about the place being dismal. It's not that bad, needs a good clean which is what I am trying to do, well, until you so kindly interrupted me."

"How can you think this is 'not that bad'? It's bloody horrible, it literally screams death and you have no problem with it? Are you mental?"

"Probably," Catina snickered and returned to her dusting, this time moving to a different portrait which she stretched up to reach the top in order to wipe the dust but only resulted in a cloud of it tumbling down and covering her from head to toe and causing her to erupt into a shamble of sneezes. The twin stood amused as the curly-haired girl dropped her duster and cloth, cupping her nose and sneezing ten to the dozen into it.

After a few short-lived minutes, the twin actually decided to help the girl, pulling his wand from his back pocket and pointing it towards her "Purgo." He watched as the speckles of dusting slowly floated off of the girl like a group of birds and drifted towards the tip of his wand before disappearing at its point.

Eventually, Catina's sneezes eased and she sent the boy a small smile, "thanks," she replied nodding her head looking down at her rather disgusting, snot-covered, hands. Her nose turned up in disgust and the twin took notice of this. He too was rather repulsed by the outcome of her hands but still helped her by pointing her wand back at her again, he repeated the simple spell 'purgo' and her hands returned back to their clean state.

"Thanks," Catina directed to him again which he brushed off and returned his wand back into his pocket.

"Don't worry about it, kitten," he winked and swaggered off down the corridor, disappearing once he turned down the corridor. Now, Catina would have probably slapped him for calling her 'kitten' but for some reason, she didn't really want to hit the twin that she had no idea whether he was Fred or George. It couldn't have been the one that was spouting his rue opinions off because it seemed illogical that he would aid her in such a situation. If she knew which twin that was, she would have been able to decipher which one had nicknamed her something so cute but rather disturbing.

Sighing she frowned a little and turned back to the portrait where a man sat with his face very close to her. He was a bonkers looking man with grey hair spiked in all different directions, a thin and sharp looking moustache on his top lip with his eyebrows raised. He very much reminded her of one of those hyperbolic enthusiastic men in a storybook, such as the mad hatter in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; definitely not a character she would have expected to be in this house, that's for sure.

"My golly don't you just look jolly!" He exclaimed, his accent very upper-class and rather sardonic. The girl sent him an odd glance as she wiped down his photo frame returning it to its former golden glory. "Are you troubled deary?"

"I'm fine..."

The man guffawed, "Dibby, bibby, wibby someone is telling a fibby!"

"I'm sorry?"

"No need to apologise to me, Missus, you seem troubled and now you have lied to me. I can tell by your nostrils. They are very much flared to their maximum flare-ation."

Catina couldn't help but chuckle at the portrait who had a funny way of conversing with her. The man raised his eyebrows at her, poking his tongue out and crossing his eyes before backing away into the background of the image and lying on his bed, popping a pipe between his lips and puffing smoke from it.

"I see you have met my Uncle Alphard," Catina's head shot behind her to see who was sneaking up on her this time and stood where the twin once did was Sirius. "He's as mad as any one person can get! Lovely man, but totally insane." Catina nodded her head not saying a word. "What's up, Cat?" Asked Sirius noting her glum expression which had returned as soon as he had spoken.

"Nothing, darling," she told him, refusing to look him in the eye.

"I might be devilishly handsome but I was also fortunate to be given intelligence and I for sure can tell that you are far from okay but I won't press on the matter. Just know that I am here if you ever want to talk."

"Why do Slytherin's have such a bad reputation?"

Sirius coughed, "It's a long story, sweetheart."

"I'm not going anywhere for a while."