A/N: Thank you for all of the lovely reviews and greetings to the cats. They purred loudly and batted them up into the air. Thumper also ate several. Silly bunny. Also, does anybody know whether Diet Coke is horribly bad for cats? Since Alex got hurt he's been staying close by my side, and while I was downstairs he knocked over and polished off the remains of a canful. He was very hyper for the rest of the evening and visited the litterbox frequently the next morning, but it still seems the little guy has developed a taste for it. Shadoe just likes batting the shiny cans, which I give him when they have been ceremonially emptied, but I worry about Alex. I just caught him with his little head in my glass, lapping at the Coke with his little pink tongue like- well, like a cat version of me. I wonder if I'm setting a bad example.

Here you go.

Chapter Sixty-Four: The Family Business

Jen was smiling.

This in itself was just a little bit of a miracle. She had had the bone in her leg mended, of course, but the tendons still required a day or so to heal, so she was in bed. It hurt a little bit, but only the sort of hurt one can easily ignore, like a sprained ankle when you've had six aspirin. Julie was still totally unconscious, so Jen wasn't entirely sure of what had happened. None of the witnesses were especially viable.

Mitchie had gone insane during the attack. Her wounds were for the most part repaired, so it merely looked as if she had a lot of raw scratches on her face and arm were the mediwizards had removed jagged spikes of glass. They would heal without scars, but the shard in her eye was more complicated, and like Julie a few months ago, she wore a patch over it underneath her glasses. Unfortunately, she was still insane, and Jen was having the strange experience of watching a beloved comrade with a form of battle dementia. Mitchie wasn't so much crazed as merely very cheerful and slightly incoherent, as the impact of what had happened wasn't registering with any magnitude. In her mind Julie's heroic defeat of de Diablo was just about as life-altering as a Quidditch game.

She was also singing a lot. It seemed to make her feel better and always had, so Theodoric had cleverly gone out and acquired a small portable Muggle stereo for Jen, which, as he pointed out, she needed anyway, 'but you might as well have it about for Mitch until things sink in.'

Jen sighed contentedly. He was just so nice! His leg hadn't had half what was wrong with hers with it, and consequently he was up and about 'Auroring,' as Mitchie put it.

The senior officers in the American Aurory, British Auror Office, Auroriè Français and even the German Aurorscheidt were naturally very pleased with the mission's success. Flowers seemed to fill Jen's room, and one vaseful was from the American wizarding President, Alden Feldman. Mitchie wasn't all too incredibly impressed by that until she examined the flowers and realized that saffron roses were not only remarkably good-smelling, but Jen's favorite.

"It's rather reassuring to know that the leader of your native land goes to the trouble of knowing people's favorite flowers," she remarked. "It does, however, beg the question as to just why the conservatives opposed him so. Most of those homophobic old ladies are gardeners."

With the particular form of temporary insanity Mitchie suffered from, Jen noticed, her usual bluntness was magnified fivefold.

"I wonder what's in your room," Jen had said absently a moment later. Mitchie returned with a broad grin on her face and a thin filament protruding from her thumb.

"He sent me the cutest little cactus! I've always rather wanted one...get this out of my thumb for me?"

Jen laughed and pulled the needle out. Mitchie then proceeded to tell her in loving detail exactly why the Spice Girls would have made better leaders of Soviet Russia than Stalin or Gorbachev. Sometimes Jen had been very alarmed by the ridiculous things her werewolf friend wanted to casually discuss, but as the first day of her convalescence became the second, it seemed only as strange as Minister Dumbledore. That led her to wonder just how well he had recovered from defeating Grindelwald in 1945. She also wondered what Mitchie's favorite candy was and asked.

"Chocolate and crisp rice bars, naturally. How 'bout you?"

"I like Pepper Imps and hot cinnamon things, and sometimes Ice Mice."

"I know a Muggle thing you'd like."

And thus Jen had been introduced to Red Hots, Atomic Fire Balls, Cinnamon Altoids, ("Shocked you haven't had these already, Jen. And you call yourself English!") as well as a positively delicious array of dark red cinnamon chewing gums.

"Mmm...I like Big Red a bit more than Dentyne."

"Everybody does. Dentyne's more to clean your teeth. Try some of these." Mitchie popped a chewy red capsule into Jen's mouth.

"Mmm! What are these?"

"Hot Tamales."

"I like 'em," Jen mumbled as she chewed at it. "Nicely gummy in chewing, with a deliciously sweet aftertaste. I'll give it a nine-point-eight."

Mitchie opened a second box.

"This is a newer sort, basically amounts to Ultra Hot Tamales." Each girl took one and they chewed meditatively. "Same traditional shape and consistency, less sweetness, but a lovely degree of improvement over the milder version. I'd say a nine-point-three."

"I'm liking it, but it loses something of the earlier version's charm with the aftertaste. Feels like an eight-point-nine."

It was here that Theodoric lost his composure and cracked up just outside the door.

 "Ah'm sorry, ladies, but y'all sound like the Westminster Kennel Club."

"We do not," Mitchie protested lazily, passing him the box of Ultra Hot Tamales. "We sounded like those pretentious gits on the Food Channel."

"Mmm…these are hot."

"Yes, that's the point of them."

"Hello, Jen," Theodoric greeted, leaning down and kissing her well and properly. It was a little bit of cinnamon overdose for the two of them, and both wound up panting for a second before doing it again with even more passion than before

"Note to self. Cinnamon is an aphrodisiac," Mitchie remarked, earning two raised eyebrows. "Keep away from Chloe at all costs, feed large quantity to Donaghan." Jen actually let out a scandalized little squeak. "Not that he needs it," Mitchie continued, turning off her imaginary taperecorder in mime style.

"She's getting better," Theodoric whispered in Jen's ear reassuringly. "I've brought you a present," he announced, unbuttoning his denim jacket.

Curled up close to his chest behind the worn denim and brass buttons had ridden a little black munchkin cat, whom Theodoric placed gently on the bed. The cat was obviously only an older kitten, about fifteen inches long.. She had startling green eyes and a tail that seemed like the question mark floating above her head if she were drawn in a comic strip. Jen burst into tears of joy and surprise watching the kitten.

"She's about five months old and her humans abandoned the whole litter at a Muggle dump. Jamie thinks she might be part-Kneazle." Theodoric had told Jen about his old friend Jamie Geran, a Squib who had taken up with Muggles and become a shelter veterinarian. "My personal self, I think this kitten needs some love."

"She's beautiful," Jen sighed, wiping off her tears. "What's her name?"

"Doesn't have one yet. You like her?"

"I love her!"  Jen kissed Theodoric and he took a seat on the bed with her. "Will she bite?"

"Naw. She's very tame. Pet her so," Theodoric demonstrated, making the kitten purr. "When she makes that sound you know you're doing it right."

Nervously, Jen reached out to pet the kitten's head. To her surprise, the little cat rubbed against her hand and eventually curled up in her lap, purring.

"I guess we should think of a name for her."

Mitchie drew herself up to her full height, cleared her throat, and recited 'The Naming of Cats' by T.S. Eliot. Jen was startled by this weird theatricality, but Theodoric seemed perfectly used to it. Having finished the poem and petted the kitten on the head, Mitchie walked calmly out of the room, probably in search of more cinnamon candies.

"Don't worry. She's recited that poem for years. It's her favorite."

"What the hell was all that nonsense about 'three different names' about?"

"It's the three ways people are perceived. The world in its entirety just sees you as an attractive young female. Your friends see you as Jen and know something about your personality. And then there's the way that you see yourself. Those are the three different names."

"Oh."

"Eliot loved to be metaphorical. He's one of the expatriates who became an English citizen, probably one of the reasons Mitchie likes him so much."

"Does this cat look like a Cassandra to you?"

"Why Cassandra?"

"The whole thing about 'a cat needs a name that's particular, a name that's peculiar, and more dignified.'"

"Cassandra? Naw. This kitten looks like a Circe or an Antigone. Or how about Andromeda?"

"Or Calliope," Jen suggested michievously.

"That would be cruelty to animals."

"Just joking." Jen thought for a moment. "How about…how about Emerald? Because of her eyes."

"I see." Theodoric looked closely at the kitten and inquired of her, "Do you like the name Emerald, Emmy-cat?"

He was answered with a loud 'purr,' and a startled smile from Jen.

"She already answers to Emmy-cat."

"We'll call her Emerald then and Emmy for short."

"We?"

Theodoric's tone suddenly became serious.

"Jen, darlin', do you suppose you'll ever want to have children?"

"I don't know…I guess."

"Alright, then. Don't you suppose the two of us should practice first by raisin' Emmy-cat?"

"Are you saying you want to have kids with me?" Jen asked, her voice going up an octave in shock.

"I'm saying I want to have kids in general. I'm also saying I like you more than any girl I've known, and not just the friend kind of like, though that's what I felt first. I also think you'll need some help to start, considering you've never had your own cat."

"But the mission's over! I have to go back to Britain soon!"

Theodoric grinned.

"I know. I got my transfer papers this morning."

Jen frowned in absolute disbelief.

"You're going to relocate to another bloody continent for a girl you met maybe three weeks ago?"

"No, it's our one-month anniversary." Theodoric kissed her gently on the forehead. "And I actually applied when I found out Mitchie was going. I want to be near her and my English cousins for awhile. Since I was part of a team that pulled out the biggest thorn in the United States Government's ass, they simply can't refuse me anything."  Jen's face slowly broke into a smile. "You may want to keep that in mind and ask for a new Firebolt XP-600."

"I think a large scratching post would be more appropriate," Jen remarked, gazing at the sleeping kitten on her lap. "I'm glad you're coming. I like you rather a lot, too."

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

"Professor Snape!" the curly-haired man greeted, shaking the stern Severus' hand as he stepped out of the fireplace. "It's an honor to meet you, sir. This must be your lovely wife! Good afternoon, Professor Granger-Snape."

"Who are you?" a decidedly nervous and slightly airsick Hermione inquired.

"My name's David Pike and I'm the first assistant to the President. He's very anxious to meet the two of you."

"Where's my daughter?" Snape asked bluntly.

"She's here at Sarah Goode Memorial Hospital, as are the other memebers of the mission from Britain. I've been advised that her condition is stable." This cheerful bootlicker was clearly tring Severus' patience. "Come with me to the conference room. Mr. President's been expecting you."

"Do you have children?" Severus asked the underling very sternly.

"No, sir, I'm not married."

"Then you don't know. The President can bloody wait until I see my daughters."

"But sir!"

"He's not in a very good mood right now," Hermione explained as Severus left the room. "Tell President Feldman it's broom-lag. He'll understand." She made to follow her husband.

"But this is a matter of national importance!"

Hermione borrowed one of Cass Tyler's favorite expressions at that point.

"As my Severus just told you, nations next to children mean diddly-squat."

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