A/N: I'm not sure if y'all caught it in last chapter, but my description of Tim and Tom's mothers…that's something Aemos helped me figure out. I mean, I knew they had to have a shop of their own, but what they actually did and were like were a bit beyond me at the time. It was also her idea to have them be from Beauxbatons.
In one of the reviews I got, somebody suggeted I read Riley's 'Pawn to Queen,' which I did and really liked a lot. But then I came across a story by Minerva McTabby called 'PtQ in a Nutshell,' which was a rather wonderful thing, I thought, parodying the story Riley wrote to within an inch of its' life. If anybody has some time on their hands and the inclination to be rather iconoclastic for a few hours, I'd really find a parody of this funny. And there's so bloody much to make fun of, y'know?

Ah, well. It was nice to see somebody understood the 'Nadrak' reference, Nuri.

Here you go.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Christmas Preparations

"OW!"

"Really, Mitch, you'd poke yourself a lot less if you sewed slower and maybe used a thimble," Chloe observed.

"If they made a thimble that fit, I'd maybe wear one." Mitchie eyed her fingertips querulously. Julie looked at her American friend's left hand and stared at the hard nubs that made wearing a thimble near impossible.

"What's wrong with your hand?"

"What d'you mean, wrong? It took me nearly seven years to get 'em good like that!"

"Good?" Chloe asked, looking in shock at the Yank's disfigurement. "What were they like before?"

"You Euros. The British Invasion obviously didn't come from here." Mitchie pulled out her wand and Summoned what looked like what once had been a rather cheap acoustic guitar. It was now a trainwreck of stickers and patches and one old pickup with copper wires coming out the side. "This is what m'calluses are for."

"Oh, you play the guitar?" Julie brightened and looked at it. "Uh, what happened to it?"

"Nothing happened. It was my mother's…she was Muggle-born."

Chloe gently ran a finger down the neck of Mitchie's obviously beloved instrument. There were scribbles all over the lighter patches and most of the stickers were from rock bands Julie recognized.

"Isn't this-?" Chloe looked questioningly at a particularly wild scribble. Mitchie grinned.

"Yep, Donaghan Tremlett of the Weird Sisters. Mom met Dad at a wizarding rock concert." She indicated another, more neat scribble. "Justin Hayward. Their first date was to the Moody Blues concert at Star Lake the next week. And this is D'jhandrien Rhavens, and Eric Woolfson, and over here's Geri Halliwell."

"Your parents were vintage rock junkies?"

"Yep, jus' like me. In fact, one of the things they found funny was that they were named John and Cass, that's how come I was named Michelle and am called Mitchie."

Julie laughed. Chloe didn't.

"I don't get it."

"It's rather an American Muggle in-joke. Y'know, Julie, I'm only six months younger than you, so it's quite likely this isn' my first trip to England after all."

They all laughed at that idea, until Julie suddenly went somber.

"Mitchie, what were you in the hospital for when your parents- you know?"

"Bein' born," the Yank whispered very quietly. "I lived with my dad's brother until I was three before he died, then I guess I just ran out of relatives and wound up in the orphanage." Mitchie picked up the guitar and executed a brief chord progression from 'Anji' by Simon & Garfunkel, then grinned. "It was kind of cool, though, y'know, how my parents met. Dad spent the whole evening following Mom around, trying to figure out how to talk to her without sounding like a stalker, y'know, and then she wound up talking to him before he even realized it. They went on dates to concerts for the next five months, until finally Dad had to cancel 'cause the concert was on the night of a full moon. He still went, though, with some Wolfsbane Potion, just to see Mom, and another werewolf bit her and would have most likely eaten her for a midnight snack had not Dad fought him and saved her life. She woke up the next morning to find him there, guarding her like the loyal wolf 'e was, and he wound up helping her when she started transforming an' all. By the next time the Weird Sisters were in town, Dad got up the nerve to ask her to marry him. They started working as Aurors together a little while after that, and they'd been married about four years 'fore I came along."

Mitchie told the story as if she'd heard it over and over, but never known the two people involved. Chloe thought the story was awfully romantic, as did Julie.

"My muzzer was one of the smartest witches in her class at Beauxbatons, and she came here to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. Dad was a seventh-year, and he asked her to the Christmas ball. They wound up dating into their university years. Mamà says he could barely finish sentences in her presence, seemed almost stupid until she told him she was going home to France and wouldn't see him anymore. Then suddenly he told her how he felt about her and turned out to be one of the most eloquent Englishmen Mamà had ever heard. They eloped 'zat very day to Paris and spent the next seven years traveling around the world before they finally bought a chateau and settled down to have me and my little brother."

"That sounds awfully French of them," the Yank observed. "How 'bout you, Julie, how did your parents meet?"

For a moment Julie pondered this before the thre young Gryffindor witches cracked up totally.

"Dratted if I know, actually, they just seem to have got snoggy somewhere sixteen-odd years ago."

"More than snoggy, Brit, you're sittin' here, aren't you?"

"You know, Mitchie, you're starting to pick up a Scottish brogue. I'd keep those cracks to yourself before I start mentioning 'puppies' to Donaghan."

"Gah, yuck!"

"Well, it's good to know you feel that way. 'Gah, yuck' is pretty much how I feel about reproducing, too." Chloe smiled a bit mischievously. "For now, that is."

"Good lord, I'm surrounded by smutbunnies." Julie gave her friends a fairly well-disturbed look. "Am I the only one not thinking of shagging now?"

"Considering you're the only one treacherous enough to get away with it, yeah."

"And considering we're both with Gryffindors, who –no offense to Aldous- have got to be the most chivalrously unfuckable guys on the damn planet."

"Chloe Madeleine!" Julie exclaimed in surprised horror.

"I don't think 'unfuckable's even a word, Chloe."

"Oh, you're really helping, Mitch, correcting her language here!"

"Is anything wrong?" a voice just outside the door inquired. It opened to reveal none but the Head of Gryffindor House herself.

"Nothing but a dangerously hormonal bunch of foreigners," Julie observed with mock prudery. "We're sewing Christmas presents."

"How very American of you. Mind if I hang around?"

"Come-on-sit-down, per'fessor," Mitchie invited, making a space on the floor between her and Julie. "We were just discussing how our parents met."

"Oh, my parents' story's not very interesting. They met at a dentists' convention."

"In England? Wow!"

Mitchie tended to make too many cracks about the British people-bad teeth stereotype, so she wasn't too surprised when Julie smacked her upside the head. Everyone else thought it funny, though.

"Didn't you know my parents are both dentists, Mitchie? I had the hardest time convincing them to let me shrink my front teeth until Professor Malfoy cursed them to grow to about there long." Hermione showed the Gryffies just how bad the curse had been, causing howls of laughter. "Then Madam Pomfey shrunk 'em back and I just let her go a bit farther."

"So that's why you let me get mine fixed, Mum?"

"Yep. Draco hasn't teased you about it, right?"

As Julie shook her head, Mitchie and Chloe just about swallowed their own tongues.

"Naw, I just mention ferrets and he goes very pliable. It was fortunate Uncle Ron told me about what your old professor did."

"Mad-Eye Moody –well, Barty Crouch, really- sure was a piece of work. Say, did Uncle Ron tell you about the time I got angry in third year and smacked Draco?"

"Yep. I think that sounds like a very cool thing to do."

That was too much. Mitchie burst out laughing, and then so did Chloe. Julie gave them a look.

"Have you both gone completely mad?"

"I thought you said 'e was cute, Julie!"

"Oh, really?" Hermione asked her daughter a bit mischievously. "I thought you had gotten over the Lockhart phase."

"Mum, he's cute. You have to admit that much at least."

"I don't see what she sees in him," Chloe said.

"Well, that's cause you're used to blond hair, Chloe. To those of us with dark hair he's really a box of it."

"You, too?" Hermione asked Mitchie.

"No, I just admire him as a nice little statuesque decoration that walks around. It's only Julie who goes around picking fights to watch him get all scruffly."

"Scruffly?" Julie asked.

"You know, when some of his hair gets out of the ponytail and falls all across his face when he gets ticked off? Scruffly." Mitchie smiled a little salaciously. "I like to do the same thing to Donaghan."

"Now I think it's cute that you're dating him," Chloe said.

"I've got just one thing to agree with that," Julie smiled a very Snapeish grin. "Puppies."

"About that," Professor Granger said, a bit more seriously. "I realize you've probably found out about the anticeptive charm, but I've got to remind you it isn't infallible. It's probably not a good idea to get into that kind of –activity while you're still in school, you know."

"Speaking of, Mum, you've never told me how you met Dad."

"Yeah! Come on Professor!"

"Grace us with the tale."

"Guys, this is not the kind of story you're supposed to like."

"Are you mad? We teenage girls thrive on romantic sentimentality!" The other two gave Mitchie a startled look. "Well, that and old Ewan McGregor flicks."

"Alright, I'll tell you."

The Gryffies pricked up their ears and lay their needles and cloth down.

"Go on, per'fessor," Mitchie begged, anxious to hear the story.

"Okay. Do you guys know the Defense Against the Dark Arts room?" They nodded. "Well, when I was at school, Sev- -Professor Snape taught Potions there. And even though he was probably more of a nettle then than he is in class now, I really liked Potions class more than my other ones. So I asked him if I could do my fifth-year project on it."

"Gaw, Mum, you were my age?" Julie asked in shock.

"Not then! Anyway, I wound up spending a lot of time after school that year in the dungeon studying ingredients and preparing them kind of like an apprentice would. Your father was annoying as hell, of course, but somehow a little less rough and ticky every time I did something right. I finished my project in April and he gave me an 'A', and then for some reason he asked me if I'd like to do another for his class next year. Ron and Harry thought I was mad, but I accepted, and in sixth year I finally made him laugh."

"How?" Chloe asked.

"I made a rather unkind crack about Gryffindors. I'd had a pretty bad row with Ron that day, so it was sort of justified, except your father thought it was the most hilarious thing he had ever heard. I started to like him right about then, and when he kissed me a month later, well…" For a thirty-three-year-old professor, it was remarkable how Julie's mum could look just like a lovesick teenager. "I'm sure you get the idea of how it went."

"Now there's an example of a dish, Mitchie, 'Fessor Snape!"

"Sod off, Chloe! That's my dad for cripes' sake!" Julie protested. Hermione laughed, as did the American.

"I'm sure you're not the only one who thinks so, dear. I've always found him rather nice myself."

"Well, that's profoundly obvious, Mum."

"Is it? Damn, I've been trying to hide that from the Slytherins. Guess the Gryffies still don't miss anything."

"Nope. We know all about the snogging in your office last Saturday." Chloe and Julie gave the Yank a look, as they had not known. "Katie Macmillan says she's traumatized for life."

"We've really got to get in the habit of closing doors."

"Mum, do you think Dad'll like this shirt?" Julie held up a black garment made of patches rather like her own, only instead of different colors she had used textured velvet in different patterns.

"I think that should suit him perfectly. Believe me, I try to get him to wear something besides black occasionally, but Fred and George keep setting me back with their clothes-changing pranks."

"Why don't you put little green snakes on the lapels, then, Jules? It would be a start." Chloe tossed her friend the green embroidery silk.

"What a spiffy idea!" Julie threaded the needle and set to the task of making little Slytherin snakes in a sort of S-shaped pose. "Owch!" She popped her finger in her mouth, having pricked herself.

"Are you three doing all this by hand?"

"Yeah. Neither of us knows any sewing spells." Mitchie showed the professor her guitar-calloused left and rather pricked right hand. "You couldn't maybe teach us a 'thimble' one?"

"Well, no, but 'Stiticus' sews seams, if you were wondering." The girls obediently tried it and found it worked rather well; one traced the end of one's wand where one wanted something sewn and the stitches seemed to go in like ballpoint pen. "Julie already knows how the countercharm works."

Her daughter went suitably red at that.

"Alright, Julie, now what happened?" Mitchie had the 'mischievous Yank' look about her again.

"Well, I accidentally did a wandless spell and mine and Professor Malfoy's clothes fell apart."

That was the end of her two housemates' sanity for the remainder of the evening. Chloe had to be zapped with a hiccup-reversal charm, and Mitchie couldn't even look at Julie without cracking up again. There were a few tasteless inquiries about what Julie had observed during the episode, answered with a suitably joking salacious grin.

"Well, he's built a little nice for a Seeker guy, but all I saw was when he was buttoning his shirt back on."

"What a godawful missed opportunity!"

"Mitchie, did anyone ever tell you to go take a cold shower?"

"Yes, Chloe, actually several people have." The Yank grinned. "Considering I've got a bathtub, though, I'd say Donaghan's up the creek."

"Merlin's nails, Mitch, we've got a professor here!" the French girl protested. "Don't you know the meaning of propriety?"

"Propriety, noun; rightness or correctness, SEE 'Etiquette'!"

"Damn Barbra Streisand movies in the Muggle Studies room. D'you have to commit everything to memory?"

"I heard someone had been breaking in there at night!" Professor Granger said. "Filch's ready to stand guard himself, you know."

"Mum, it's the only place besides the Drama room where electrics work!"

"Speaking of, per'fessor Granger, what's up with that?"

"There's too much magic in the air here, plus there weren't any plugs when the castle was designed, so the only way to have electrical things is with an Arthurian Transformer wired up to a Muggle portable generator."

"By Arthurian, d'you mean King Arthur?"

"Don't be a prat, Yank, she means Tim an' Tom's granddad!"

"Oh. I didn't realize he had invented those."

"Most people wouldn't. So few wizards feel the need for electricity, he doesn't make that much in patent royalties. But at least he's been given a license to experiment with Muggle artifacts, which is what he wanted anyway."

"That's neat, actually. D'you suppose I could get one of those transformers for my amp?"

"Amp?" Mitchie handed Professor Granger her guitar. "Oh, for the electric bit here…what's it called?"

"That's a pickup, see, there's the tone controls and the jack for your patch cord here."

Mitchie turned the instrument over and explained what a pickup did and how her mother had installed the thing. It was becoming more and more obvious that theAmerican felt the lack of parents quite keenly, especially when she was around an orphan who had found hers when she couldn't. Julie and her mother exchanged a look.

"Where are you staying over summer break?" Julie inquired of her friend.

"D'know. Under London Bridge if I've got to, though. Expatriation does sort of free one up, y'know?"

Julie smiled inwardly, knowing what could be done.

*****************************************************************

"Now try to look a little more bored than disgusted…good!" Narcissa Malfoy was in her element, giving Julie what the fifth-year secretly referred to as 'snob lessons.' "Remember never to open your eyes all the way. You've always got to look sort of half-asleep. And now sigh."

Julie sighed apathetically.

"Perfect. It's coming along a lot better now. I'll see you tomorrow at half-past five."

"Farewell, then," Julie yawned with a noble's artistic ennui.

"Good job! See you later!" Narcissa smiled.

Draco moved like a diligent manservant to aid the Dark Lady off her pedestal –literally. When Julie had the in-character nerve to sigh again, however, he resorted to merciless tickling the instant his mum was gone.

"Merlin's ears, but you're annoying when you're all stuck-up!"

"Kindly release me, varlet," Julie commanded lazily, trying to stifle a few giggles.

"Not until you knock off the character!"

"Arright, y'great lump, gerroff a' me!"

He didn't. Julie resorted at that point to the Cobham streetrats' trick for ending a tickle fight, namely kissing her tormentor on the lips. Sure enough, he was soon putty in her hands.

"If you've done?" she asked, brushing a bit of errant blond hair out of his eyes.

"There you are, then. I knew you'd be yourself again." Draco kissed her back after making sure the dungeon classroom door was shut.

"If by myself you mean an uncouth-"

"I mean wonderful. You're the only girl I've kissed who didn't have a permanent expression of boredom ground into her face."

"Now tha's graphic. Y'know you're the only guy I've ever kissed with nicer hands'n mine?"

"I like yours better." Draco traced her asterisk scar. "Are you going t' be this cute forever, Jules?"

"Cute? Me?" she asked in disbelief, twisting and crushing an empty Browning's Best Butterbeer can into a small biscuit.

"Like that!"

"The can? That's not cute, that's just 'sperienced."

"Yeah, but I'd sure as 'ell rather have that kind of experience rather than some Ivy League pureblood chick with braces on her brains."

"You mean you like me because I'm poor, don't you?"

"Nope, you're not poor now nor were you ever, just low on money. I'm the poor one, I'm more pampered than a fat lapdog."

"You a lapdog?" Julie whistled. "Come here, puppy."

"You're also funny and sweet," Draco kissed her, "and entirely wonderful."

"Odd, I was just going to say the same thing of you, Draco."

"Mmm." The patrican professor wrapped his arms around the Dark Lady. "I love you, Julie."

The Gryffindor froze and pulled away as if he'd gone completely mad.

"What?"

"I love you."

Julie realized she was in over her head here. She had never expected him to say that, of all things. So she did the only thing that she could think of.

"You're mad, dear."

And with that, she was gone.

Draco sighed and glanced at the moving Christmas tree in the picture on the calendar. Five days 'til Christmas, and five months 'til America.

He wondered if he could convince her he was serious before they left.

****************************************************

A/N: About the electricity, does that explain things, Ms. Greenleaf?