Author's Note: Thank you Invisi and Gwenlynn for reviewing! An opera would probably be way beyond me, but I could try. I probably won't get there for a very long time, though, thank goodness. Also, shoutouts to falkenfeder94, Eade-Hewitt and Invisi for adding Kurania and the Slytherin Legacy to their alerts/favorites! Sorry once again and a million times over for my slow update rate.

Last Time on KatSL:When it came to climbing back over the rubble they'd passed easily before, though, things became more difficult. Kurania couldn't really place weight on her ankle and she and Teddy waited while Aoife and Hidan cleared up the path. "You almost let it attack Hidan." He accused suddenly. "Shouldn't you be able to control snakes better than that?"

She stared at him, surprised. Had the entire conversation been in Parseltongue, if he still thought that had been the Basilisk's ghost? "It... wasn't much like a snake. He kept going between being sort of aware and then mindlessly attacking. I did ask it to stop..." She mumbled rather pathetically. "But he just... couldn't hear me."

Teddy continued to give her a glare. He only stopped when they started onward, and none of them talked again until they reached the entrance and noticed an ashamed ghost waiting at the bottom. "You're all alright!" Myrtle exclaimed when she noticed, wringing her hands. Despite her happy tone of voice, she looked terribly nervous.

"No thanks to you." Teddy growled.

Myrtle flinched as if Teddy had hit her. "I-I'm sorry..." She whispered.

"Of course you are." He sneered. "You left us to die!"

"We didn't die, though!" Kurania reminded him. She wasn't happy with Myrtle either, but she knew yelling wouldn't help the situation.

"Whatever." Teddy spat, glaring at both girls. He climbed the slide-like end of the pipe and attempted to start climbing up, but couldn't seem to get more than a few feet each time.

"We're not strong enough to climb all the way up." Aoife said, looking terrified. "What do we do? We're going to be stuck down here and that thing is going to come back and we're going to die-" She began to wail.

"It's not coming back." Myrtle muttered.

"-so we're going to be stuck down here and we'll starve to death, or even worse, some teachers will find us and we'll get in trouble and you'll get exorcised and we're all gonna end up in Azkaban!" At that point she ran out of breath and fell to her knees, crushing a small skull as she did so. "Or we're gonna die of disease from exposure to all this grossness!" She added the after thought in a much calmer way.

"Calm down, everything's going to work out." Hidan assured Aoife, putting an arm around her shoulder. "As far as diseases go, maybe we should burn up the skeletons? Fire purifies stuff, right?"

"You can't burn bones!" Teddy scolded him.

"Of course you can, it'd just have to be a really hot fire."

"We don't know the fire spell anyway."

"Kurania and I do!"

"Don't bring me into this." The redhead mumbled.

Teddy had already whipped around to point his wand at her. "You're studying magic outside of classes! That's obviously the act of-"

"Quit arguing!" Aoife snapped. "You're all giving me a headache."

Teddy turned to glare at her."Arguing is much better than your pathetic whining!"

"So are we going to light stuff on fire or what?" Hidan interrupted them.

"No." Teddy, Myrtle, Aoife and Kurania answered simultaneously.

"Then can we please start working out how we're getting out?" The albino asked, frowning at them all. Kurania grimaced, and began casting around for an idea.

"Maybe we can use the fire spell like a rocket!" Hidan suggested excitedly after a moment of silence.

"There's no way that would work!"

"Can we cast a spell to make the rope shrink and pull us up?"

"Do you know a spell like that, Aoife?"

"Well, no, but maybe Myrtle..?"

Everyone looked to Myrtle, who bit her lip and then opened her mouth to speak. Teddy cut her off, though. "She doesn't know anything useful!"

"Why are you being so negative?!"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because we're doomed?"

"Acting angry isn't going to get us out of here! And anyway, you should just be happy that Kurania saved you, even though you're always-"

"Ha! There's no point being grateful, she only did that because she wants to trick us into thinking-"

"If that were true, I would kill you all now." Kurania yawned, sitting down and poking at her ankle to see where it hurt the most. Teddy immediately snapped out his wand and pointed it at her, but with a quick disarming spell Aoife took it from him.

"Give that back!" He snarled.

Aoife put her hands on her hips. "Not until you calm down!"

"How do you expect me to calm down?!"

"Silencio, Silencio, Silencio!" Kurania cast, pointing at Teddy, then Aoife, and finally Hidan, who gave her a sort of 'what was that for?' look. "Fighting really isn't going to help us get out of here... and you were all giving me a headache, too." She grumbled.

"Erm..." Myrtle awkwardly began. "I think I know a spell that could help us out. I never tried it out though, so I'm not really sure I can teach anyone."

And so she explained a spell called Ascendio to them. Basically, it was like the levitation charm they'd learned in class, but with one difference. That charm was meant for directing objects around; Ascendio can only move its user. The direction in which you point your wand after saying the incantation is the direction you fly, as they learned from Hidan's first unsuccessful attempt. His second and third attempts showed them how annoying the rope they'd left could be, which is why when Hidan finally made it to the top on his fourth attempt he signalled the success by raising the rope and clearing the way. Aoife followed him taking two tries, and then Kurania limped over with Myrtle stepping through her foot to keep it numbed to try the spell out herself. The first time, the spell didn't even activate, and the second she barely made it off the ground. On her third attempt, she got high enough to grab the rope and Aoife and Hidan pulled her up the rest of the way. Teddy took a very long time to follow after her, but he did at last make it and the four hurried out of the bathroom.

Although Voldemort's ghost had vanished, the other Samhain visitors had not. The four had to sneak around and avoid the other phantoms in order to get out of the castle. Up until they reached the entrance, things went quite well. There weren't places to hide, and it seemed like far more ghosts were here than anywhere else in the castle. Still, that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the first two ghosts Teddy noticed happened to be his parents, and when he called to them and they turned to stare at him, another ghost's attack hit them and they exploded into mist. Teddy fell to his knees, staring dumbstruck at the place where the ghosts of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin had just stood as the ghost that had caused their disappearance stepped towards him.

Aoife and Hidan yanked him up and ran for it, with Kurania going after as quickly as she could, leaning on the wall occasionally and wincing when her ankle communicated its displeasure. Luckily, the ghosts were all looking at the other three run, and she made it outside without too much trouble.

However, they found another obstacle outside of the doors very soon. It was very lucky that Teddy had spotted Professor Karlin before she noticed any of them, so lucky that, as the four hid waiting for Karlin to go out of sight, Kurania was quite certain something much worse was about to befall them. Nothing did - despite how Kurania's ankle slowed them all down, they easily made it to the forest's edge, at which point Teddy pulled out his map and guided them all to the Slytherin camp.

They left her next to the Greengrass tent, where they'd found her, before continuing on their way to the Gryffindor tents. It was only as they were disappearing from view that Kurania realized they'd lost the invisibility cloak somewhere - in Myrtle's bathroom, maybe? - but she decided not to try calling them back. Ashley stumbled out of the tent suddenly, and stared at Kurania like she was some bizarre creature for a full minute before beginning a loud rant on how everyone had been looking for her, which prompted Roderick to drag the two of them into the tent. Only six people were still in the ballroom, and only two were dancing. Pluto and Elena seemed to have fallen asleep at a table in a corner, and Phillip and Christine were arguing frantically. As Kurania stepped closer, she realized that they were arguing about her.

"- keeping an eye on her!" Christine barked.

"I thought Ashley would!"

"She was drunk!"

"How was I supposed to know tha- Kurania!" Phillip interrupted himself, sounding relieved as he noticed the redhead step towards them.

Christine spun around, stared, and then slapped Kurania hard. "Where have you been?" She hissed furiously. "We've been worried sick! Oh, but you probably didn't care! You're always running off on your own, or dragging me with without asking, and I don't even know why I put up with it!" She spat, turning away and stomping off.

Kurania stared after her, completely taken aback. "I wasn't gone that long..." She mumbled feebly to Phillip as he dragged her across the room to find something to put on her cheek.

"Two hours." He told her. Phillip didn't seem to be angry, though, just worried. "Seriously, where were you? Why are you limping a little? Did you hurt your ankle? Were you attacked?!"

"I, um..." Kurania bit her lip, deliberating. She wasn't sure what she should tell him - her usual opinion of Phillip was that he was very immature and ridiculous, but he wasn't acting that way right now. What should she say? The truth? If he spoke to anyone about it, the woman that had threatened Myrtle could hear about it. She was rather angry with her ghostly friend at the moment, but she didn't want her exorcised. Before she'd even realized, she had began lying. "I went outside for a bit of fresh air and I noticed a sn-" She broke off, remembering that she hadn't told Phillip about her special ability. "Well, I thought I saw a... anyway, I tried to follow it and got a little lost, so I climbed up a tree to look for the camp but I fell out of it and hurt my ankle. I sat around for quite a while before I noticed one of Hagrid's paths and I followed it out of the forest and then once I was out I could see the path to the camp. I couldn't walk very fast though, although it's been feeling better the more I use it." Kurania finished lamely. She was quite angry with herself - why was it so hard to come up with a reasonable story, all of a sudden?

"Is that so?" The dark-haired boy asked, looking disappointed in her. However, he didn't call her out on her lie. "Well, let's get Elena to fix up your ankle."

He allowed her to lean on him a little as they approached the table at which Elena slept. "Hm?" She mumbled as Phillip shook her arm. "Kurania... we were worried about you." The bird girl yawned out as she saw the girl.

"Clearly." Kurania couldn't help but say. Elena shrugged unapologetically, but managed to heal Kurania's ankle and clean her off as well before falling back asleep on the table.

"Dance with me?" Phillip suddenly asked as they were on their way to the exit.

"There isn't any music!" She told him, her eyebrow raised. She really didn't understand the Langely boy sometimes.

"You don't have to have music to dance!" He argued. Seeing that she was still frowning at him, he added, "You're supposed to move around a bit after a healing, to check that everything's right again anyway."

"I'm awful at dancing." Kurania insisted. He took that as a 'yes', however, and took her hand. Kurania felt like an absolute moron when she heard Ashley snicker the first time she stepped on Phillip's foot. In order to make sure that didn't happen again, she concentrated hard on her feet. "Dancing isn't fun at all." She grumbled.

"It'd be more fun if you weren't staring at your feet." Phillip teased her. She glared up at him and then tried to stomp on his foot - he moved it away just in time. "There, that's more like it!" He encouraged, but Kurania took it condescendingly and her eye began to twitch. After five more minutes of 'dancing', she stumbled and knocked Phillip down.

"Are you alright?" Kurania asked anxiously as Phillip began to snort with laughter. She wondered if maybe she'd knocked a few screws loose.

"You really are awful." He said once he'd calmed down. "That was pretty fun though, wasn't it?"

Kurania didn't really think so, but she offered a smile and helped Phillip up. After him goodnight, she left the Greengrass tent and went back to her own. She had hoped to be able to lie down and fall asleep immediately, not thinking or worrying about anything, but her snakes had other ideas.

"You've been to the throne room." Deidei said in awe, causing her to pause while changing.

"She went without us?" Charon hissed indignantly, coming out of a spare pillow.

"If I'd known that was where I was going, I would have taken you all with me." She defended herself.

There was a moment of silence while she finished putting on her nightgown. "Well... what was it like?" Deidei asked eagerly.

Kurania grimaced as she tucked herself into her sleeping bag. "Awful." She answered simply, putting in her earplugs as the serpents complained and closing her eyes tightly. Sleep came easily enough, but it wasn't dreamless like Kurania had hoped. Her first dream was of the Chamber of Secrets, but it was sparkling clean and the statue at the end was missing. For the first minute, it was completely empty, and Kurania was free to look around. Without the dirt and the giant dead body, it held an eerie sort of beauty.

Small snakes began to trickle towards her from all directions, but they weren't looking at her. Kurania's hands were cupped to hold an egg; it was white, and honestly looked to be a chicken egg. Still, Kurania knew, somehow, that it didn't contain a chicken, and that it was the egg the snakes had come to see.

Her next dreams were more like regurtitated memories, bits and pieces of conversations she'd had throughout the day. "Better a pawn than a crystal ball." "It's going to be a fun adventure and we're not going to get in any trouble for it." "Harry Potter." "You dare to command Lord Voldemort?" "- far better name than something so plain as-" "Riddle." "You don't look much like me at all..." "Your mother never told you?" "- so it's not blood loss, I think- " "Shouldn't you be able to control snakes better than that?" "We didn't die, though!" "- fire spell like a rocket!" "Silencio, Silencio, Silencio!" "You're always running off on your own -" "Is that so?" "That was pretty fun though, wasn't it?" "Awful."

The words echoed around her head without images, until a louder voice emerged. "Kurania, you've got to get up. Don't you want to see your fortune? Oh, c'mon... I thought falling asleep with silence was supposed to make a person easier to wake with noise - Did I not get all the earplug out or something? Hey, you're okay, right?"

" 'Mm fine." She mumbled, trying to roll away from the voice.

"Good!" Elena chirped. "I was about to set a hummingbird on you."

"Who let you in the dorm?!" Kurania yelped, sitting up and displacing a couple of snakes that had been resting on her chest. "Oh, wait, not in a dorm... nevermind..."

Elena clucked as Kurania fell back down. "Don't go back to bed! Don't you want to hear how the next year's going to go? I've already looked at your future, nearly died laughing, but I can't tell you about it right now. It'll be more fun to say in front of other people, anyway, and everyone else has to wait until after breakfast so you should have to, too. Ha, that's two too many to's!" She laughed at her own joke. "Still - up, up, up! You have to get UP!"

"Don't wanna-"

"Oppug-"

"I'm up, I'm up!" She cried, and Elena left laughing. Still, Kurania hurried to dress and rush out in case Elena decided to come back and threaten again. Orpheus' face was still covered in scars, and he had even gone to the nurse about it. A fairly popular rumor among Slytherins suggested that Elena added some sort of anti-healing balm to her beloved birds' claws, and Kurania didn't want to see if there was any truth to that.

Breakfast was a little strange. Aoife and Teddy never turned up, although Hidan did. He seemed quite cheerful and entirely recovered from the mayhem of the night before. However, Hidan did not even attempt to sit with Kurania, and rushed out when she began to head towards him. Frustrated, Kurania left by herself and went directly to the Greengrass tent. She was fairly early, and ended up helping Ickle, one of the Reardon houselves, set up tables and chairs. Elena was the next to come in with Pluto at her heels, and she set up a sort of desk next to the racks full of fired clay objects.

She didn't sit until at least ten students were in, all of whom went directly to their project and brought it over for Elena to examine. She opened a book and rifled through it, constantly looking between the clay and the pages as she talked to the students. Kurania made her way over at one point, but Elena waved her off, telling her that her turn would come later.

'Later' turned out to mean 'in twenty minutes'. By that time, there was quite a long line, and Phillip and Lyra were at the head of it. They seemed quite confused when Elena waved Kurania over, but she had her stand behind Phillip and read his future first. Kurania didn't hear a word of the fortune, which made her relax a little. Most people had appeared worried as they walked away from Elena, and if there was any sort of truth in fortune-telling Kurania wasn't sure she wanted people to know what her future held. She had a bit of a bad feeling about it that stemmed from Elena's wakeup visit.

"So, this was a ball originally, right?" Elena asked her surprisingly loudly as Kurania set her clay object on the table. It had been partially smooshed, and had a flat end now riddled in cracks. Her name was on the still-circlular part, with several cracks that somehow resembled arrows pointing in various directions. "Well, the general shape here has a very obvious, entirely unmistakable meaning." She continued to say, grinning at Kurania. "Normally, I'd be worried to see this for an eleven year old, but I'm sure you'll make a wonderful mother!"

Kurania choked, and then turned bright red as she realized several other people had began choking with her. "What?"

"This shape clearly predicts that you are going to have a baby." Elena repeated, her smile widening impossibly. "More likely a girl than a boy, but don't quote me on that part." She said, quieting down now. "Most of these cracks suggest that you're going to find yourself incredibly busy and quite stressed, which isn't too surprising really, and that someone is going to make an attempt on your life - don't fuss about that, though, the sign is very faint so it might not even happen this year and I'll be able to give you more detail next Samhain, alright?" She offered, her smug grin long gone.

"I-I'm not going to have a baby!" Kurania protested when she could finally speak words. "And why would anybody try and kill me? This whole thing is crazy!" She snapped, shaking her hair to make it cover her red face as she stomped away.

"Twenty galleons says I'm spot on!" Elena called after her.

"Forty says you're not!" Kurania retorted without looking back, even though she couldn't really remember what a galleon was.

End Notes: I'm sorry this took me so long, but I've had a lot of projects to work on lately and I have been torn between writing this chapter and planning events up til Yule for Kurania! Some pretty important stuff happened in this chapter, although it might be easy to miss the details. What do you think of Elena's prediction, anyway? Just so you know, it's NOT what it sounds like. And those of you I've already told about it, don't spoil!

Things are probably going to go slowly for a while once again. On the other hand, my next omake chapter is partially finished and that should be a little interesting - there's a Percy Jackson and the Olympians crossover, although like most of my planned little crossovers it's Hidan-centric.

I might be able to write faster if I had some help from readers, you know! Seriously, if there's anything you would like to see, tell me about it! If I were writing for myself and only myself, it wouldn't be online!