Chapter Sixty-Six: Irritated or Totally Enraged?
"Mewww rrrrrr (lick, lick,) rrrrrrr rrrrrr..."
            -Pyewacket McNeville

"Uh, Jen?"

"Yeah, Mitch?" The dark-haired girl was happily eating dinner, which included a bowl of soup.

"Is Emmy supposed to be eating that?"

The black kitten was indeed chowing down, eating from the same dish as her keeper. Emmy raised her head, nose covered in soup, and inquired:

"Mrrow?"

"Why not?" Jen observed, scratching behind Emmy's ears. "She seems happy. Yes, aren't you a happy cat? Listen to her purr!"

"Yes. Cats do purr," Mitchie agreed absently. She walked over to the window of Jen's room and looked out a bit disconsolately.

"What's wrong, Yank?" Jen asked, realizing her friend was on the brink of tears. Maybe the shock was finally breaking. Battle dementia sometimes ended that way, according to the doctors.

"Nothing," Mitchie answered evasively.

"Bullshit," Jen remarked bluntly. "What is it, Mitch?"

"Donaghan asked me to marry him," she admitted, tears running down her cheeks.

Jen had completely expected the opposite.

"Oh."

"It's not that I don't want to, Jen! I -I love him."

"Wow." Jen was totally gobsmacked by this. "Uh, so... did you say yes or what?"

"I haven't given him an answer yet, there's no real hurry," Mitchie explained, still sniffling. "I just...there's some things that are hard when you haven't got parents."

"What d'you mean?" Jen asked. "No parents is good! You can marry Donaghan if you want to now, there's noone to say you have to choose someone else!"

"Jen, from your point of view, parents are bad things. I never got to try 'em, though."

"What about Julie's folks? Aren't you their foster kid?"

"I was also a foster kid to those whackos in Pittsburgh. It's not the same. The Snapes are sure better, though."

"At least they treat you like their own daughter."

"And not like their own collie."

"Huh?"

"It's a kind of dog."

"I know. Did they seriously treat you like that?"

"They put a collar on me and gave me my own doghouse."

"Those yankee bastards."

"Funny, that's just what Theo said." Mitchie considered this a moment. "Jen, dear! You fancy him, don't you?"

"Yeah," Jen mumbled, unwilling even to attempt denial. "You didn't by any chance plan to set him and I up, did you?"

"Why, Jennifer, whatever would give you that idea?" Mitchie grinned broadly and cracked her thumbs before scratching at the band of her eyepatch a little roguishly. "It's in my blood, Jens, just natural matchmaking."

"Must you look so disturbingly like your mother all the time?" Professor Snape inquired, stepping through the doorway where he had been listening. "Can I borrow your Yank for a moment, Jennifer?"

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"I don't think that would really be appropriate," Ron stammered.

"Nonsense. The nation is waiting on tenterhooks for an interview with the young heroines from England. And who better to interview them than my granddaughter?" The news mogul tapped the grinning blond girl at his side on the shoulder.

"Mr. Conlan, I can assure you, none of them are really in any state to be interviewed. Julie's injured and busy with her parents, Chloe's getting her broken arm repaired, Donaghan's been hiding from the reporters in closets lately, Jen's trying to learn how to speak Kittenish, and Mitchie's sort of insane right at the moment,"

"Mitchie?" the girl inquired.

"Short for Michelle," Ron responded automatically. "Really, if you could just come by another time-"

"Mitchie Tyler?" the young reporter shrieked. "I know her from school! We're like, the bestest friends! Can you just tell her Sweets Conlan is here? I just know she'll be really pleased!"

It was an excuse to leave, if nothing else, so Ron bowed out of the green room as respectfully as he could. Judy was just outside, trying not to behead herself giggling.

"Oh, what?" he inquired just a bit acidly.

"That's Spot and Sweets Conlan in there?"

"And I thought Rita Skeeter was a mess!" Ron sighed and shook his head like a wet dog before pausing sharply. "Spot?"

"Spot the third, I believe," Judy replied calmly. "His own grandfather was a Brooklyn newsboy in the 1890s, became a reporter and they've worked their way up since."

"Spot?"

"They're Americans, dear. It's no weirder than 'Mad-Eye' sounds."

"At least Moody had a reason to be called that," Ron retorted before starting again. "He didn't-"

"Not that I know of, no."

"That girl reporter's accent's going to drive Severus insane."

"Brooklynish?"

"God, that's its' own language?" Ron asked in horror. Judy cracked up.

"It's no stranger than Mitchie's Pittsburghese or Theodoric's Southern, or your own little dialect, for that matter."

"What dialect?"

"You fairly have 'Birmingham' written on your forehead, love."

"I'm not from Birmingham. I'm from-"

"Ottery St. Catchpole? A suburb wizarding village near Birmingham."

"You showoff Muggle, what's Hermione been teaching you?"

"Lots of things. Your sister's also been acquainting me with Weasley history."

"She didn't-?"

"Whatever do slugs taste of, anyway?"

Ron glared at his fiancee for a moment, mumbling something about defenestrating Ginny when he got home. Then a brilliant idea struck him like a lorry on Abbey Road and he kissed Judy.

"Damn," she observed a few seconds later. "Got to have Chloe find me some escargot."

"How 'bout we just find a broom closet?"

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"My mother did that?" Mitchie asked, smiling through tears.

"Yes, and what's worse, your father was in on it. I could expect Cass to be a bone-and-blood matchmaker hell-bent on seeing me attached, but John really knew how to operate. We never did figure out whose idea it was."

"I don't look very much like my mom, though, do I?"

"Admittedly, you have your father's hair, his nose, his coloring, and even those teeth and the werewolf star. But the build, your expessions, and a lot of your mannerisms are exactly Cass."

"When you and Julie first walked into the Great Hall together, you should have seen Severus jump," Hermione smiled.

"My mother wrote about you both a lot...Uncle Paul gave me her journal."

"Don't you refer to her as 'Mum,' Mitchie?" Snape asked suddenly.

"I...no, I guess I don't. I never knew her."

"Do you know how a Pensieve works?"

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"He knows?"

"I'm fairly certain."

"Mum already suspected. I bet they know."

"Julie, we have to stop this. Your parents know, you're still sixteen, and I don't think-"

Another racking cough from his secret love silenced him.

"Draco, calm down. I won't die, it's only a little cough."

"I don't want to tie you down, Julie."

"You aren't."

"Yes, I am. I can't offer you youth or innocence."

"I don't want them."

"Noone does until they're gone, Julie."

"I've heard that."

"I'm thirty-four."

"I know that."

"I was seventeen when you were born, Julie."

"Am I flinching or counting on my fingers?"

"No. You should be."

"But I'm not."

"Why aren't you?"

"Because the age gap isn't the important thing. I worry more about you being one of those rich kids I used to hate. I also don't want Mum and Dad to resent you for liking me since they've only had me a while."

"I don't want to hurt Severus. He's like a father to me now."

"And my mum?"

"She's become a friend. I don't have many anymore."

"Why don't we just stay as we are for a little while longer?" Julie suddenly sounded pleading instead of calm and rational as she had been a second ago. "It's just been so good, what if we convince them that it's alright?"

"I won't lie to Severus."

"I don't want you to. I don't want to hide from my dad either."

Draco leaned back in his chair with a sigh of defeat.

"How could they ever agree to our relationship?"

"How could anyone have ever agreed to theirs when it started?"

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Cassandra Tyler was a little shorter than her daughter and had far darker hair. She did, however, possess the same mischievous smile and sense of humor, as well as the characteristic bluntness that disarmed so many a foe into giggling. She also seemed about the same age as Mitchie, despite looking as if she had been through a profound and severe long illness.

"See, the thing is," Cass had explained years ago to Hermione, "I'm not as old chronologically as I am legally."

"Me neither. I added around fourteen months with a Time-Turner."

"I had one as well...in years I should be a couple months younger than you."

Mitchie had not known her mother's secret.

"But...but you're an Auror! You're-"

"Married? Yes, Father threw a fit when I said I wanted to marry John."

"Did you have to elope?" sixteen-year-old Ginny Weasley asked.

"No. John dressed up in a Muggle suit and tie and very eloquently asked him for my hand. I felt it was a little antifeministic of him, but Father appreciated it. Then John went into Father's study and either argued, debated or just talked him into giving us his blessing. I was amazed, to say the very least."

"So'm I. He never seems to talk at all," Ginny agreed.

Mitchie watched in astonishment as her mother socialized with the Gryffindor girls of a generation ago. A few memories later, she watched her mother lead Professor Snape to Hermione and then hug her father as the other couple was reunited. Sixteen years later, of course, Mitchie knew the reason why Hermione looked so ill, but back then they hadn't, and her father's swiftness in bringing her a glass of milk and some light munchies was commendable. She realized that the looks of recognition she got from Professor Snape when she did something without being asked, taking care of some little, not very important detail, were because that had been her father's specialty.

Her parents embraced, and her father gently ran a hand over her mother's slightly rounded stomach. It was at that moment that Mitchie realized she had been present herself in a sort of way before. Professor Snape tapped her lightly on the shoulder and brought her back out of the Pensieve, back to the present.

"Michelle, we were wondering..." Hermione began.

"We would like to adopt you legally," Severus finished.

Mitchie thought for a moment.

"Yes, I think Mom and Dad would have liked that," she agreed.

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Tuesday morning was bright and cool and clear, a Southern winter day. Theodoric had woke early and dressed in his usual exact manner, according to a somewhat severe custom he had adopted when he was quite young. No matter what he wore, whether it was a t-shirt and Muggle jeans or elegant dress robes, Theo made sure his clothing was flawlessly clean, ironed as appropriate, and suitably arranged. It was something he had learned in his Southern upbringing.

The Malfoys were an old, pureblooded family, but not quite as opposed to Muggle-borns as Lucius and his father had made out. Lucius' brother Salazar had held the unthinkable belief that Muggles were fascinating. He and his best friend Arthur often managed to get on Lucius' bad side, and Salazar eventually went to visit America to avoid being forced to join the Death Eaters. He landed in Richmond, Virginia, where he eventually bought an old Muggle plantation house.

On his first night ashore he went to the theatre and saw a fairly awful production of 'Fiddler On The Roof.' It was easily the worst theatrical travesty since John Wilkes Booth last played Ford's Theatre, but Salazar went to every performance. The actress playing Tzeitel had stolen his heart. He managed to court Katie Scarlett Beauregard, but Salazar didn't have the nerve to tell her he was a wizard. Judging by her father and mother, who were proud Virginian Muggles with an original oil portrait of Robert E. Lee over the mantlepiece, she would be frightened of something that strange.

By either some miraculous chance or the bridesmaids' hairdryer blowing the fuses out on the Salazar Malfoys' wedding night, there was a power outage. Salazar knew he couldn't keep his secret any longer now that they were man and wife. Just as he was about to dispell the darkness, a soft glow grew from the tip of Katie's wand.

"Sal, there's something Ah think y' should know about me," she began nervously. Salazar performed a Lumos charm of his own and kissed his bride.

As lucky as they had been to find one another, Katie and Salazar were childless for several years. In the meantime, Salazar had reconciled with his brother's wife, and she and Katie wrote voluminous letters comparing notes about Malfoy men. Narcissa visited with her son Draco when he was fifteen, just in time for the birth of Katie and Salazar's only child. Theodoric's aunt Narcissa became his godmother, his Muggle uncle Robert his godfather, and according to a tradition in Katie's family, Draco was declared his godbrother. It was merely another charming Southern custom designed to ensure closeness between cousins, and it worked well. Draco wrote letters to his little cousin, and the first thing Theodoric ever wrote was a scribbly childish reply. As the war with Voldemort escalated in England, the knowledge of his sweet, half Muggle-born cousin had helped Draco to break from his father's will.

Theodoric idly thought about the future as he dressed. He genuinely hoped he would have a life with Jen always by his side. In fact, tomorrow he was taking her to visit his parents.

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Julie and Mitchie were going to be sisters. Julie's collarbone was well enough for her to be out of traction and in a sling. As far as the doctors could tell, Mitchie didn't seem especially mad to them, at least no more than Julie assured them was usual. They were two teenage girls, three with Jen, and four once Chloe showed up with the thorn soda. Five, if one didn't mind Emmy's slight felinity. So they were celebrating, as was the wont of their kind.

Somewhere between pleasantly caffienated and hyper-as-a-house-elf, Mitchie got up to answer the door.

"Speak thy name, else we shall all call thee Termagant!" she warned, brandishing a near-empty bottle and swinging the door open. On the threshold was a pretty blond with a flawless suntan, her hair tied back in a sporty ponytail, and a 'Monongahela Monsters' Quidditch T-shirt.

"Mitchie!" Sweets Conlan cried ecstatically.

The werewolf responded with a Scottish word Julie had only heard Donaghan use twice. It was not a translation of 'hello' or even 'God, not you,' but rather something very nasty involving Acromantulas and bestiality. Chloe went scarlet, Jen raised her eyebrows and applauded, while Julie just looked at the oblivious newcomer in horror.

"It's me!"

"I know," Mitchie answered despondently.

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