A/N: I'm really glad to see everyone likes this so much. It is, after all, rather fun writing it. Here you go.

Chapter Ten: The Purebloods' Punishment

Dinner that evening in the Great Hall was marked only by two really fascinating events. The first was Snape coming in late with remarkably clean and slightly fluffy hair, and a more virulent snarl than his usual. He glared at Cass, who was seated with the Gryffindors in her husband's absence, and the American merely pointed to Hermione as if to say 'She did it!' At that, the professor merely rolled his eyes and sighed, knowing that the werewolf was definitely at the least a bad influence on the student he'd come to like.

A little later, over the crescent roll hotdogs, which noone had ever seen and everyone seemed to like, Dumbledore arose and tapped his fork against his goblet for attention.

"Students, I have an announcement to make." Everyone listened eagerly, especially Harry and Ron. Was it to be the grand punishment they hoped for, the expulsion of the hated Malfoy? Cass and Ginny snorted at the boys' eagerness, but were nonetheless on tenterhooks. Hermione, whose hands still tingled from the shampoo and wickedness, wasn't listening too much.

"Our beloved gamekeeper and Professor, Hagrid, has informed me that he will be called away for a time on personal business." The Slytherins cheered and the Gryffindors groaned, so predictably as to make Cass giggle. "Rather than provide a less enjoyable substitute, it is at the suggestion of our Heads of House that a new class be provided at the Care of Magical Creatures time."

Hermione's head snapped up. A new class? New classes meant new books, new curriculum, new stuff to learn! Harry and Ron cringed as her eyes lit up with unholy fire.

"I feel that education in cultures different from our own is the only path to wizarding tolerance," Dumbledore continued, conspicuously not glaring at the sons and daughters of Death Eaters at the Slytherin table. "It is with this in mind that I am pleased to announce Hogwarts' first American Muggle Studies class!"

Malfoy looked about to shit himself. Ron and Harry noticed his reaction and applauded Dumbledore with the rest of the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, actually standing and whistling as they watched their enemy fume. Dumbledore gently shushed the throng to continue his announcement.

"I am also very pleased to introduce our newest Professor, who will be teaching in Hagrid's place." It suddenly occurred to everyone in Gryffindor who it was. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Professor Cassandra Tyler!"

Nervously, Cass stood up. Malfoy mumbled something that was likely either 'filthy Yank' or 'dirty Mudblood,' at which she suddenly burst into smiles. The Gryffindors exploded into joy and quickly rose to hug and shake hands with their new professor.

But Hermione was again confused. Cass had clearly known what Dumbledore meant to announce, so why hadn't she mentioned it earlier? Also, how was she suddenly able to be a professor, if she was visiting Hogwarts as an academic? It suddenly occurred to Hermione that before this, there was really no good reason for Cass Tyler or her husband to be at Hogwarts.

Except for Snape. Despite the potions master's awful demeanor, Cass seemed sometimes almost to shadow him. Was she a spy sent by Voldemort to guard Severus from working for the Light? No, she was Muggle-born and almost offensively American. There had to be another reason. She might be a co-spy working with Snape, but then why was she making friends with students so eagerly and teaching? Maybe she had some kind of deeper connection. There had to be a more logical motive for her presence.

Hermione looked at the grinning American. Her eyes were sunken slightly and her face was drawn, despite being quite happy. She was also very pale compared to John. To add to the oddness, Cass looked as she was or had been direly ill, and she was seeking a fertility potion, which lent weight to the sickness theory. Or was it something else?

Now that her new professor's hair was out of it's ponytail, Hermione noticed how dark it was. It was also slightly fluffy when it was clean.

Startled, Hermione looked from Cass to Snape.

The resemblance was shocking.

So that was why she hung around the professor so! They were relatives! Cass was clearly too young to be Snape's daughter; a sister perhaps? At the most they were maybe six years apart, despite their looks of not being quite their natural age. Maybe Snape's mother had moved to America and remarried, taking her young daughter, which would explain Severus' going to the Death Eaters. Now that he had returned to the Light and undertaken the difficult office of spy, his dear sister had returned to help her big brother Sevvy out. Hermione sighed from relief at finding the answer.

As Ginny would say, 'How sodding romantic!'

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

Lazily, the American stretched out on one of the tables. Hermione was chopping ginger root for a complicated potion, as Snape scowled over test papers at his desk. Abruptly, Cass sat up and pointed at Hermione.

"Ten points to Gryffindor!"

"What for?" Snape protested, rising to his feet.

"Nothing. I just wanted to piss you off."

"Arrgh!" Snape sat down and returned to snarling and scowling over his test papers. Cass, however, got up and joined Hermione at her table.

"What'cha doin'?"

"Chopping ginger roots."

"Smells lovely. What potion are the roots for?"

"Wolfsbane."

"I felt that you and your husband might be needing some," Snape remarked.

"That's so considerate of you, Sev!" Cass went over and hugged the potions master, which he seemed to resent slightly. "Normally we just chain each other up in some dark, preferably soundproof room, with a padded floor and maybe some soft lighting, a nice bottle of wine poured into dog dishes…full moons are so romantic, aren't they? Sometimes we-"

"Stop!" Snape actually covered his ears in shock.

Cass and Hermione looked at each other and grinned, watching the dread potions master blush, which he really looked cute doing. Severus was earnestly disturbed by the two of them. As he continued to pretend to correct papers, Hermione and Cass chatted and worked together merrily, Cass offering help and Hermione lightly instructing her. American education in potion-brewing was not what it was in Britain, and Cass remarked often that she'd never been good at it. It struck Snape as suspicious that the adult werewolf took orders from and worked with a student so easily. If he didn't know for a fact that she was a grown woman, married, and a rising officer in the American Aurory, he would have sworn the two females were the same age.

Quite abruptly, he noticed they had the same build as well. Cass was slightly more round-faced and Hermione was more feminine in shape, but shoulders, height, even the way they seemed to always be carrying a load of books was a perfect match. When their hair wasn't back in identical sloppy ponytails, it was the same bushy type, and they both had a strange habit of twirling their quill for a second before they wrote something down!

Snape was amazed. They could only be relatives. Why else would they get along so well and so quickly, and why else did they look alike? He had often suspected Hermione was too brilliant to be entirely Muggle-bred, and Muggle-born cousins often displayed the family's first occurence of magic in one generation. What was more, he guessed they either had no idea or were keeping it a mischievous secret. Either one suited the pair of girls.

"Cassandra, are you intending to assist Miss Granger through her entire project as if you were her own personal house-elf?"

"I s'pose so, yeah," was the irreverent reply.

"Well, if you are, would the two of you please gossip about something more interesting?"

"How about books, Professor?" Hermione asked.

"Fine."

"Have you ever read 'Little Women'?" Cass asked.

"Yes, of course. I was nine. Didn't you cry when Beth died?"

"O'course!"

"Have you ever read 'James and The Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl?"

"I loved that! I ate three peaches in a row afterward and made myself horribly sick."

"Merlin's beard, I thought you meant grown-up books!" Snape looked at the two of them in disgust. "Even 'Quidditch Through The Ages' sounds more mature!"

"Oh."

"Have you seen the new sex magic texts Madam Pince had me alphabetize?" Hermione inquired next.

"Which ones?" Cass asked, perking up her ears.

"Well, there was some boring old drivel about contraceptive methods for hippogriffs, seven hundred pages with no pictures, and then there was this perfectly shocking one with a picture on every other page."

"A new one?" Cass was blushing suddenly. Hermione pulled the book out of her satchel.

"Copyright last August, actually. Wonder who wrote it."

"Oh, likely some old hag with a dildo collection the size of Ireland," Cass jested, giggling nervously. Hermione checked the book jacket.

"No, it's a husband-and-wife couple named Cat and Wolfe Allegheny."

Snape suddenly walked over and picked up the book.

"If I may ask, Cassandra, what is your middle name?"

"Antigone. My maiden name's Alcott, too, by the way."

"Cassandra Antigone Tyler. There's your 'Cat,' Hermione." Snape smiled meanly as the American went scarlet and Hermione's eyes went wide. "I believe she and her husband could both be 'Wolfe,' and I know for a fact that John loves to draw and is good at it."

"Cass!" Hermione was genuinely shocked but also amused. The American sighed and glared at Snape.

"How'd you know?"

"The Allegheny is a river in your native town."

"City."

"Whatever. I can do research, too."

"Cass!" Hermione flipped through the scandalous book. "You wrote this?" She turned to a particular page and pointed out a paragraph. "Wouldn't that hurt a lot?"

"That's what the whipped cream's for," Cass explained.

"Oh, I see."

"Alright! That will be enough of this!" Snape took the text away from Hermione and placed it neatly on his desk. Then, abruptly, he glanced at the cover again. "Why in heavens' name are you reading this, Miss Granger?"

"Can't a girl be curious?"

"It's on the bestseller list," Cass pointed out.

"Actually, Professor, I was researching a certain area of human activity to see which ingredient modifications would be necessary to a certain potion."

Normally a sentence like that made professors go 'Oh' and leave Hermione alone. However, Snape was not willing to let it drop.

"And what potion would that be?" He opened the book on the table and began to leaf delicately through it. "Contraceptives already? So much for Gryffindor piety."

"You bastard," Cass retorted indelicately. "She's helping me and if you don't quit being such a flaming son-of-a-bitch Slytherin closet queen with a Gothic fixation and a vial fetish, I'm going to rip your balls off and feed them to Filch's cat!"

For an absurd moment there was a stunned silence.

"PMS potion, sir," Hermione glibly lied.

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

Atop the freezing Astronomy Tower the next evening, Hermione watched the snowy and frozen lake. Severus slunk up behind her and murmured:

"Hello."

"Oh, professor, you startled me!"

"Bit cold up here, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, rather." She pulled her cloak closer about her neck, watching their breath form puffs in the frosty air. "I just wanted to see if my Wolfsbane potion worked."

"Well, as it is Friday night, you may be out after curfew. You are a prefect, after all." Snape pulled out a silver hip flask, drank some of the contents, and absentmindedly offered it to Hermione. With boldness intended to impress him, she accepted, and wound up choking a second later.

"I'm sorry...you don't usually drink Firewhiskey, do you?" Snape apologized, smiling slightly at the face she had made.

"No."

"Any alcohol ever?"

"A bit of champagne once."

"That's almost totally different." He took another sip from the flask and offered it to her again. "This time, try to breathe through your nose as you swallow it." She obeyed and actually smiled afterward. "Better?"

"Much, thank you."

"I had my first cup of this in a chug-a-lot contest in my fourth year." Severus smiled wryly at the memory. "Madam Pomfrey –senior, that is, her daughter's our nurse now- let me vomit up everything I'd ever had to eat, forced half the lake down my throat, and gave me two Muggle aspirin to ward off the hangover. The very next day I taught myself to make my own whiskey."

"You wanted more of it after all that?" Hermione was incredulous.

"Merlin's teeth, no! I wanted revenge on those gits who gave me the stuff." Snape smiled wryly and took another sip. "I made it strong enough to strip chrome and melt hammer-heads."

"Did they like it?"

"Like it? Cissy Armfeldt had to drag Lucius Malfoy away from the windows the next morning. He was still raving drunk and wanted to duel the sun."

"I can't imagine him doing that."

"Oh, believe me, a lot of the old Slytherin families are worse than the royal ones." Severus stretched and sat down on the stone bench overlooking the lake, Hermione joining him. "There are drunks and wife-beaters and Dreamless Sleep addicts –those are usually the wives. I don't blame Cassandra for snapping young Malfoy's leg." He drew in his breath and watched it steam slowly out again. "Why am I telling you this?"

"Because...you don't want me to tell all of Gryffindor Tower you once got drunk?"

"A serviceable reason."

"I suppose I should tell you about the time I brewed an illicit potion in the girls' lavatory and turned myself into a part-feline."

"Actually, that was the subject of one of the funniest staff meetings we've ever had." Hermione looked at Severus in surprise. "The jokes about how you take after Minerva McGonagall were rather enjoyable."

"You joke about your students?"

"Well, not very often, personally, but Albus lets the jokes happen." Severus scratched one of his ears absently. "There have been quite a few hilarious Weasley ones."

"There have been quite a few Weasleys."

"How many Weasleys does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Snape inquired.

"Don't know."

"Just one, but he insists on playing with it for an hour and asks to keep the burned-out one."

"There is the occasional joke about you, you know." Hermione felt she had to admit this.

"I know. Some of them have been quite funny."

"How do you tell Professor Snape from a giant bat?" she asked.

"Bats are upside-down?" he suggested.

"Bats are likeable. That's one of Ron's favorites."

"I think that's a clever one. Have you heard Millicent Bulstrode's limerick about you?"

"Yes." Hermione looked decidedly pissed. "Personally, I was so impressed with the fact that she knows that many words, I didn't bother to be angry."

"If it makes you feel any better, Blaise Zabini and Maria Catesby stuck up for you."

"They did?"

"Not everyone in Slytherin's a total git," Snape pointed out. "There's a great tradition of strong females, if they aren't forced to marry young and produce lots of inbred heirs." Hermione nodded slightly, having heard something similar before. "You know, Miss Granger, I used to wish you'd been a Slytherin. After this afternoon, I'm glad you're in Gryffindor."

"Sir?"

"I found out Marcus Flint has been beating Blaise when she visits him at Hogsmeade." Snape looked tense, almost like an angry parent whose child is being hit. "I found an excuse and banned her from trips for a month, but if you could keep an eye on her in the library, I'd appreciate it."

"Of course, sir."

"She needs a friend who isn't under some boy's thumb as well."

"I don't really plan on dating anyone."

"Really?" Severus looked surprised by this. "But you're so...nevermind. Whatever happened to Viktor Krum?"

"We're friends, actually, sort of bilingual pen pals. He's seeing a girl called Svetlana now."

"The rumor mill had it you two were seriously involved."

"Rita Skeeter is a wretched old cow," Hermione remarked. "Viktor suspected Harry had a crush on me and went to check it out, just to make sure he wouldn't be stalking me or something. He's very much the big brother type."

"I wouldn't say Potter. I'd say Weasley."

"You're mad. We argue for half the time in the day."

"Well there, I may well be mistaken. But if either of your two footmen were to fancy you, my money's on Weasley."

It was heartbreaking to Severus, the way she couldn't see herself as he could. He had finally decided to abandon the last scrap of greasy git reservation with her when she suddenly spoke.

"I can't see anyone fancying me."

"I can."

"You're my professor. Isn't it in the Self-Esteem Rulebook for you to say that?"

"One day you'll meet an intelligent man who knows what a gift your mind is and what a joy your heart could be to him. Then maybe you'll date someone."

Hermione sighed. She was starting to believe she already had met just such an intelligent man.

"Oh, look! There they are!" Severus pointed out the two wolves running across the frosty lawn below. Cass and John were fetching a tennis ball for Flitwick. Hermione couldn't help but smile. Wishing he could show her affection differently, Severus placed a warm hand on her shoulder.

 "I think that is a resounding A+ on your Wolfsbane Potion, Miss Granger."

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

A/N: Well, how's that for a scene with the two of them alone? Reviews?