The Perfect Junction

[MessyVictory]

It all started with two blue eyes. The most dazzling eyes ever. Katharine remembered how they looked on that day, looking down upon her. She remembered pleading with those eyes to lie to her. They wouldn't. They couldn't. If those eyes were anything but beautiful, they were honest.

"Katharine," the memory said.

For the first time, that voice penetrated past her ears and through to her heart. She had seen the blue eyes before that day, but from that moment something was different in her. At the time she thought it was the trauma, stress, and weight of death consuming her, but it was something much greater that death being born in Katharine; it was love. Katharine had had relationships before Michael Dubois, but this felt less like a relationship and more like a true companionship filled with understanding, love, compassion, and friendship. However long it took to fully blossom, it was well worth the wait. She was blessed with a better husband than she could ever have imagined.

The memory continued.

"Yes, your hon--Brigitta. Is there some sort of problem?"

The first implications of their relationship, being confronted by none other than the feared and confusion-causing headmistress. Katharine recalled her anxiety during that meeting. The cat--always the d**n cat--attacking her face.

"Michael, did you f*** Katharine?"

Brigitta's voice again. Katharine laughed out loud at the memory. At the time it seemed so ridiculous. Now it made her wonder when her husband's free period was...

"I'm not your mommy, I'm Michael. And noses are not for pulling."

Katharine's first memory of Michael with a baby. She was smiling again. And the baby bit him, she also remembered.

"I don't care if the babies have rabies, or scabies, or if they have their own babies. You could have at least helped me! But what do you do? You stand there and complain when a baby gums your fingers."

Immediately following that was their first kiss. Katharine thought that the relationship was too good to be true. She hadn't done enough good in her life to warrant spending the rest of it with someone as wonderful as Michael.

"Michael...you're the on--...how...If you think that there's...that there's anyone besides you... that I'd do 'favors' for, then you've got a lot of learning to do."

Their first argument, too, was nothing more than a misunderstanding, and was also humorous to remember.

"You're wonderful. I don't deserve you."
"You deserve better."

Probably the first lie Michael ever told her. She couldn't possibly deserve better than him. She hardly even deserved Michael. She still believed she didn't, even after nearly ten years.

"I love you." And then the bathtub broke.

Those words were magical to Katharine. She'd heard them before, but the way Michael had spoken them made her feel as though she was hearing them for the first time, and the sheer euphoria she felt was only matched on the day he proposed, and then again on their wedding day, when the two of them were joined together for life, and those blue eyes were hers for real.

And there the blue eyes were again, looking up at her.

"Mummy, the big bottle of icky green medicine broke. It fell off of the cabinet all by itself. By magic!"

[PsychoHeidi]

From the chair in the corner, Michael gave a rather obnoxious snort, and, lowering the issue of the Daily Prophet he had been reading, peered at his wife and daughter.

"And by magic, I hope you don't mean that you knocked it off the counter yourself," he said.

"No, daddy," she quite levelly replied as she turned to him, her expression the shining image of feigned honesty. "It was magic."

Melanie had been sick for a little over a week with a bug that had kept her bed-ridden and filled her lungs with fluid. She still had the leftovers of a fairly persistent cough, and the medicine Katharine had been giving her had actually supplied her with enough relief to get out of bed and trounce around the hospital wing during the day.

Unfortunately, it looked--and tasted, apparently--retched.

Michael was no idiot. And because he was no idiot, he knew Melanie was not an idiot either.

"Don't lie," he said to her, and she stared at him balefully before looking up toward her mother again.

"It was magic," she insisted. "Or maybe it was pixies. Invisible ones."

[MessyVictory]

"Invisible pixies, huh?" Katharine smiled at her daughter. "IT MUST HAVE BEEN THE ANUS PIXIES."

She stood up from the bed she'd been lounging on. "I don't think the pixies were invisible at all. I see one particular pixie who I think is responsible. And her name is Melanie!"

The little girl squealed and bounced, her brown curls springing wildly. Grinning, Katharine scooped up her daughter and spun her around, all the while they laughed together. The small child's laugh turned into a subtle cough, and Katharine stopped, remembering that Melanie was ill.

"Lucky for you," she said, propping Melanie on her bed, "I've had Professor Derp whip up another batch of the same medicine."

"NO NO NO NO," the little girl shrieked, tears welling up in her eyes. Katharine could sympathize. However well the medicine worked, it tasted like an ogre's ass. Not that she knew what that tasted like...

"I know you don't like it," Katharine said, walking toward the shelf, taking care to step over the smashed bottle and spilled green goo. "That's why I asked Professor Derp to send up a piece of his best chocolate with it."

This partially mollified Melanie, and she agreed to take the awful medicine. Katharine broke off a bit of the chocolate and handed it to her daughter, who gladly partook.

"Now Michael," Katharine said, turning toward her husband in the chair. "It's not syrup, but would you like a piece of chocolate?"

[PsychoHeidi]

Michael took one contemplative look at the proffered chocolate, then shook his head.

"I think I'll have to resist," he said, then patted his belly. "If I'm not careful, I'll eat my own body weight in sweets."

Since becoming a father, the stresses associated with parenthood had caused him to eat more than usual, and he had put on a little weight. Just the other night, he and Katharine had sat down in their sitting room after a particularly hectic day and devoured three and a half bars of Professor Derp's chocolate.

The day after, Michael had been forced to cancel his morning classes because he was too sick to get out of bed.

It only got worse after he learned that Professor Derp had herpes, and honestly he didn't want that man's chocolate anywhere near his daughter.

"I don't think you should let Mel have much either," he whispered. "Don't you remember Professor Derp's... er..." He trailed off, his paranoia squashed by his desire to be polite.

[MessyVictory]

Katharine looked down at the chocolate in her hand and remembered.

"Herp Derp," she said. "I remember now. You don't suppose that would infect the chocolate, do you? Maybe the cooking process kills the bacteria."

Katharine peered over at her daughter, who had swallowed the green medicine and was cramming bits of chocolate into her mouth. Katharine cringed. Could communicable diseases be transferred via cacao?

"I hope you're wrong," she said to Michael. "Although I suppose I am a nurse...huh. Imagine that." She turned once again to Melanie. "How are you feeling?"

"All better. Can I go play with Pregio?" The small child started to stand up.

"Not yet, baby," she said, easing her daughter back into bed. "Just rest for a little while longer. Besides, Pregio is mean; why would you want to play with him?"

Melanie smiled and reached down next to the bed, picking up her Pixie-patterned satchel. She pulled out several doll dresses.

"I dress him in these," she explained, holding up a particularly sparkly pink one. "'Cept he ate the lipstick I was putting on him."

Katharine loved the idea. "When you're all better, you can keep dressing up Pregio. For now just lie down. How about I make Daddy sing to you?"

"Yeah! Yeah!"

[PsychoHeidi]

"All right," he conceded, finding himself smiling as he set the Prophet aside and pushed himself to his feet.

Usually Michael hated it when Katharine volunteered him for things without his permission, but this was a special case.

He seated himself on the side of the bed opposite to where Katharine was standing and gazed down intently at his daughter, as though with each passing second he was absorbing more and more of the excitement in her eyes.

He nearly asked her what she'd like to hear him sing, but in a brief moment of selfishness decided to ride his own desires.

As he opened his mouth, touching the top of her head fondly as he did, the words flowed out in a way that made him feel exceedingly peaceful. He couldn't remember where he had heard the song, but it asked, Isn't she lovely?

And she was.

By this point, Melanie's eyes were drifting shut, sleep beginning to take hold.

Caught in the moment, Michael looked at Katharine, smiling--an indication for her to sing along.

[MessyVictory]

Katharine found herself smiling when Michael started to sing. Not all muggle music was tolerable, but sometimes it just rang true. For muggles, the closest they have to magic is love, no matter what kind. And Katharine had a collection of muggle music that she would play from time to time. Michael must have picked up some of it.

She began to sing along, and Mel smiled with them, humming the tune, eyelids heavy. It was a relatively short song, and yet by the end of the third verse Melanie was out like a light, sleeping peacefully. Katharine kissed her daughter on the head and looked over at her husband.

For the past five years, things had been almost perfect. She'd never dare say such a thing for fear of jinxing it, but she hoped he felt the same way.

There's gotta be a catch, she thought. I really don't deserve this kind of happiness.

Nonetheless, she was happy. There was something in the back of her mind, though. Something she didn't dare let out. A fear. A fear that this was the calm before the storm.