May 4th, 1895 — The Great Hall

When Kaatjie sat down at the Gryffindor table, the people around her went quiet. She couldn't help the feeling that they'd just been talking about her. A tiny frown appeared on her face. "What?" she asked, skipping pleasantries in her immediate discomfort, "Is there something on my face?"

  

Speak of the devil and she would appear, eh? Jimmy hadn’t started the conversation, but someone had brought up Miss Spaans (or not Spaans) and everyone in the vicinity had been keenly listening; even Jimmy’s interest had been piqued, casually.

The others might be trying to cover themselves with straight faces now that the object of their gossip was here, but Jimmy didn’t care enough to let things lie for a firstie’s sake. What was she going to do, sic her Minister uncle on them? Without any due subtlety, then, and a barely-stifled laugh, he muttered – in not a mutter at all – “More like in her blood.”

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Nothing on her face, then, and Fletcher, the fifth year who always sported a mischievous grin and a tendency towards trouble, was the only one who said anything. Kaatjie's tiny frown deepened. "What?" she said, very clearly not quite getting it, and already veering towards frustration that she could not figure it out. She reached one hand up to touch the bottom of her braid, as if that would reveal the answer.

  

"Mr. Fletcher means on account of your uncle being the Minister of Magic," Philippa remarked primly before taking a sip of her tea, not even looking at the first year.

Frankly, Pippa had never once had cause to talk to, about, or near the ill-mannered fifth year, but had long been the sort of girl to stick her nose in others' buisness. Though she did not particularly care for Miss Spaans (too silly, too exhuberant), she did not distinctly dislike her and so saw no reason to keep the first year in the dark—nor to spare her feelings in this particular instance.

The rumour, after all, was certainly circling; Pippa had heard it from her cousin Iris, who allegedly had it from the horse's mouth (the horse being a rather unfortunate-looking solicitor's daughter). Privately, the Gryffindor was glad she could not count the younger girl in her circle of friends: this smelled like a potential scandal, and Philippa Rowle had been raised to avoid scandal like the plague.

"If you had hoped to keep it secret, well, it really isn't anymore."

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“No need to look so down about it, though,” Jimmy prodded, in a friendly tone (though his visible grin might undermine the sincerity, just a bit). “You might even be richer than Miss Rowle here now.”

Mostly he was trying to stir shit at the table, because he didn’t particularly care about money or class or secret relatives, even if he could have used some; rather, Jimmy bet anything that her new toity-hoity peers would be the least pleased about her new connections than anyone.

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Kaatjie had expected to have all summer to plan this reveal, but with the legal situation going on, someone must have been talking about her. She let go of the end of her braid, and busied herself with putting scrambled eggs on her plate, more so she had something distracting to do than for any other reason. "Well, it isn't a secret," Kaatjie said, although it had been, "And I'm not down about it."

(She had no idea about the finances, so was going to leave that one rather alone.)

  

Pippa rolled her eyes at the older boy—it was rude to discuss money. Besides, he was likely wrong. The Dempseys might be wealthy, but they did not feel wealthy to a girl from an old, established, rather purist family, who had limited knowledge of the world outside of her immediate sphere.

"If it isn't a secret, why are you called 'Spaans', then?" she challenged, curious rather than malicious, though as was her wont, vaguely aggressive about it. Iris' classmate had not been altogether certain Miss Spaans wasn't a bastard, but she had not been able to say difinitively that she was, either. "My Papa's name is Rowle, and so mine must be as well. "

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“She has a point there,” Jimmy said, offhand, his attention presently divided between the conversation and stuffing his face with a bread roll in double-time. He’d had quidditch practice earlier, so always felt as though he could eat three meals in one sitting.

He didn’t add anything about last names – not that he advertised it at school, because no one would know the name to begin with (not being one of these Rowle sorts) – but his name was his mother’s, and always had been. He hadn’t a chip on his shoulder about it, but who knew? Maybe he was related to a Minister of Magic too.

He peered at Miss Spaans-or-Dempsey again though, suddenly a little more interested in her lot and her potential-secret-keeping-or-not.

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"Your name's what people put on the paperwork," Kaatjie said, her tone matter-of-fact in the way that this was established lore in her life. Miss Rowle could share a name with her father all she wanted; maybe Kaat didn't have to. And Jimmy Fletcher's mouth full of rolls helped her feel less self-conscious, because he was — well, he was ridiculous. "My Mama wanted it to be Spaans, so it was."

  

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Well that was just ridiculous. There was, in Philippa's admittedly limited knowledge, only one reason that anyone would take their mother's maiden name as their own, and as the Gryffindor opened her mouth to speak again it was, admittedly, with a bit of a glint in her eye.

"Does that mean you're a—" Pippa dropped to a stage whisper "—a bastard?"

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“Manners, Miss Rowle,” Jimmy drawled, in his best bastardised impression of Greta Gillenwater’s prefect tone. Not that he wasn’t interested in whether the Spaans girl was a bastard or not (he would like her better if she was, probably), but haughty second years were equally fair game to heckle, too. “Who raised you?” (Said he, through the full mouth of bread.)

“Anyway,” Jimmy said, swallowing – and possibly moving swiftly on in pity for Miss Spaans, “the real question is who d’ya want to live with, right?” Someone had mentioned something about fighting over where she was going to go, hadn’t they?

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Kaatjie was not a bastard, but this seemed like a tough thing to litigate over breakfast (and very complicated for her.) She gave Miss Rowle a withering look and ate some forkfuls of scrambled eggs before replying to Fletcher. "I'm not sure," Kaatjie admitted, "It might be nice to live with my father, but I also — like living in North Bartonburg."

  

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Pippa missed the withering look directed her way, too busy shooting one of her own at the sixth year. To think Jimmy Fletcher had the gall to chide her for her manners?!

"You would choose a stranger over the family that raised you?" she asked once she had remebered herself. Philippa Rowle was sound in who she was—and who her family was—but even if, in some bizarre hypothetical, a different father came out of the woodwork, she would deny him with all her being, of this she was certain.

  

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Now that was an interesting question – Jimmy ignored Miss Rowle’s murderous look and wondered what could sway someone. The money and the standing, certainly – but probably it depended on how much you liked your existing family, didn’t it? No sense in being loyal to people you loathed... or, on the other hand, to a parent who had left you alone all these years. Hm.

(But maybe it didn’t actually matter, what she wanted? Did Miss Spaans have any sway if the rumours were true, and it was going to court?)

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