A/N: I really love all the reviews I've been getting. Reviews are nice. Here you go.

Chapter Seventeen: Student-Teacher Relationships

"I loathe my life."

"Well, that's no reason to go leaping off a tower," Professor Weasley pointed out. "For one thing, it would be an awful thing to do to your family and friends, and for another, it's really a stereotype. Why don't you poison yourself next time?"

"Oh, that reverse-psychology bull is really going to work on me, Gryffie-boy," Maria hissed. "Will you put me down?"

"Gryffie-boy. That's nice," Bill replied just as sarcastically. "Why don't I carry you to Professor Snape's? I'm sure he'll know what to do with you."

"Why don't you do that?" Maria leaned her head on her professor's shoulder, feeling sleepy and really wanting to cry more than anything. "I don't care."

Bill sensed a note of despair in her voice and began to carry her, but not toward the dungeons. He had once caught his own sister wanting to kill herself after Voldemort had risen again, and he knew something of what to do. Head of House for Slytherin or not, Snape was not the one to take a suicidal female to.

"I remember I jumped off the Tower once," Bill remarked.

"Reverse-psychology, idle threats, and lying anecdotes. What's next?"

"Oh, I wasn't trying to kill myself," Bill explained. "I had my new broom in my hands and I wanted to test the braking charm. You leap off the Tower and count until the broom catches you."

"And if it doesn't?" Maria asked coldly.

"That's why you bring either a good friend or a fat mattress." Bill joked, not laughing or even smiling as he opened the door to his chambers by kicking it. "Speaking of." He put the girl down on a fat leather couch and pulled a red-and-gold Weasley afghan over her. "You take sugar in your coffee?"

"Whiskey, actually." Maria resented his seemingly forced kindness.

"Will Irish do?" Bill asked, unstoppering a decanter as if that was how he prepared his as well. Maria's eyes widened as he fixed two spiked cups expertly. "Nibby should be up in a bit with sandwiches. Do you like chipped ham?"

"I love it," Maria replied without thinking. "I mean, we had it in Professor Tyler's class and it was okay."

"She's a mad one, isn't she?" Bill asked rhetorically. "Never play poker with Americans. She and her husband rooked me into chaperoning that field trip tomorrow. You going?"

"Yeah."

"My dad has a weird thing for Muggle stuff, guess it rubbed off on me." Bill picked up a metal Slinky that had been resting on his coffee table and began to play with it, sitting lazily in a chair. "Funny stuff they make."

"What's it for?" Maria asked, sitting up and sipping her coffee. Gods, he made it strong, and not just in the sense of too many beans.

"Don't know. I just like to play with it." Bill handed or one end and showed her how waves would travel down the spring and back. "Do you play Quidditch?"

"No."

"Pity. You have nice hands for it." He reached out and took her hand in his. "See, the long fingers are good for catching and you have a nice, soft palm. Some Seekers make the mistake of letting their hands callous. You can break the wings if your hands are too hard."

Maria let out a little cry. Professor Weasley had been stroking her hand very gently and it was frightening her. Any second now he would spring and then it would hurt so much…

Bill released her hand and took another sip of his coffee, eyebrow raised.

"You okay?"

She didn't look at him.

"Who was he?"

Maria didn't answer and Bill went to the door and got the sandwiches from Nibby, giving the elf a ball of a certain kind of yarn he was short of to finish a pair of socks. Bill picked up a sandwich from the tray and bit into it, walking around the back of the couch to his own chair.

"Look, Miss Catesby, I have a sister and a very intelligent mum, so you might as well tell me who the bastard was."

"Which one?" Maria asked.

"The one who-" Bill clarified before realizing what she meant. "Godric's bones. Are you –er, in an um -family way? Is that why you jumped?"

For all of his rock-star accoutrements, Maria realized, her professor was still an innocent, chivalrous Gryffindor in many ways.

"No, sir. I've escaped that so far."

"I'll kill those sons-of-bitches for doing this to you," Bill swore quietly.

"Professor, you've only known my name at the most three months. We aren't even friends," Maria pointed out defeatedly. For the first time a man was standing up for her and she just wanted him to stop.

"Noone who would do this to a woman deserves to live."

Bill's jaw was set and his eyes were like bits of green ice. Maria felt the sting of tears and bit her lip to stop them from falling.

"Why do I want to kiss you now?" she asked.

"You don't need me that way, not now," Bill said gently, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "All you need is gentleness and a friend or two and you'll be alright. My sister and her friends will be on the trip tomorrow, too. I'll make sure nobody hurts you then."

Maria knew Ginny and Hermione as acquaintances and she managed a smile. She stayed in her professor's living room for quite awhile, talking about classes, nibbling sandwiches, and taking turns reading aloud to each other from a new book Professor Weasley had found in a Muggle shop. It was comforting, but Maria couldn't help feeling something more for him. Was she so far gone that simple tenderness could win her heart totally?

Or worse, she thought direly, but with a little smile, was she really falling in love with someone?

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"Oh, great," Ron observed sarcastically. "Professor Tyler's got the Greasy Git along. Bill, too."

"Speaking of, Ron, he's hot. I think I'd fancy screwing him once or twice."

Hermione had yet to recover from her little trip with Cass. Her inner monologue was shot.

"Tell me you meant –no! Neither one of them is good!" Ron looked genuinely squicked. "Eeew."

"What's wrong, brother dear?" Ginny asked demurely, appearing in her newly transfigured Muggle clothes. "Somebody mention Tampax again?"

"Hermione said she'd fancy a go with either Bill or Snape!"

"Right on, sister! If he weren't related, I'd be checking him out myself."

"Eeeeew! Ginny!"

"And Severus?" Hermione asked, wanting her friend's opinion. Ginny's startled face and Ron's eyebrows raising physically off his head let her know she'd screwed up.

"You call him Severus?" Ron asked, agog.

"I like it, such a sibilant name, Severus," Cass agreed, showing up with what looked suspiciously like a screwdriver in her hand. The fact that she had something of a lisp rather marred the effect. "Pity I'm off the market. Sweet lord, you've got it, too!"  Cass began inspecting Ron's posterior. "Damn."

"How many brothers have you got, Ginny?" Hannah Abbott asked.

"Six."

"Oooh! Plenty to go around! A veritable man buffet!" Cass took another sip of the orange drink and Hermione really began to think it was a screwdriver. What would Dumbledore think? "'Mione, duck, I need a word." Cass motioned her friend away. "So, how do you like it?"

"Drinking in public before a school event! Cass!"

"It's orange juice and Mountain Dew. How do you wake up after a roadcones night?"

 "Jeez. I thought that was a screwdriver."

"Get you mind out of the gutter, girl. How do you like it?"

"Like what? Your shirt?"

Cass was wearing a peculiar garment that looked like a refugee from Sir Elton John's closet.

"Isn't it nice? No, I meant Sevvy. Look."

Snape was dressed up in the suit Cass had borrowed for her male alter ego. In glittery pinstripes and a fedora, with his long hair tied in a ponytail at the back, Snape looked decidedly dishier than in black billowy robes. His expression however, was rather Less Than Pleased.

"What was that, your project for the morning? Make him look like a refugee from 'guys and Dolls'?"

"You don't like it?"

"I love it. I just wish the other girls would quit getting those looks of 'take me now, sexy Slytherin!'"

Cass glanced at her students, who were indeed looking rather like they had just heard Ewan McGregor sing.

"Holy shit," she observed bluntly. "Those upstart nymphomaniacs. Imagine, the nerve of them, noticing someone's hot!"

"Are you being sarcastic, Yank?"

"Is George Michael gay?"

"I don't know. What does that have to with it?"

"Satan with chips, Hermione! Don't you know anything?"

"I know a certain Yank who's going to be fetching a squeaky toy tomorrow."

"Is that the only derogatory term you've got for me, 'Yank'? Pathetic."

"Are we fighting?"

"I think so." Cass looked around and a second later both of them cracked up.

"What were we fighting about again?" Hermione asked.

"The hotness of Sevvy, I think."

"No, because that's a solid fact." Hermione grinned and blushed a little bit. "Am I a stupid git to be liking him?"

"Liking him? No. Loving him? No. Boinking him on camera and selling tapes to a witches' porn company? Perhaps."

"Now whose mind's in the gutter, Cass?"

"Oh! Speaking of gutters!" Cass raised her voice and addressed the students. "The shiny fast things with people inside are called cars. Don't step off the curb or they'll squish you flat, got it?"

"I think they know what cars are," Hermione pointed out.

"I'm just talking to Malfoy's gay love slaves –I mean bodyguards –I mean, Crabbe and Goyle." Cass watched as the entire fifth and sixth year classes of Slytherins went either ashen or scarlet, depending on who they were. "Oopsies, did I leave the Sonorus charm on? Shit."

Ron was laughing so hard Ginny feared he would soil himself, and Harry was no better. Snape was glowering more and more by the second, and she had to shut the Gryffie boys up somehow, so she did the one and only thing she could think of.

Harry's eyes went wide and Ron averted his with a squeak of shock. Seamus and Dean burst into applause and Neville cried out 'Encore!' as she pulled her top back down.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor, Miss Weasley," Snape announced in a voice that made half of the total females present's knees to water, "for indecent exposure on school grounds."

"One hundred and fifty points to Gryffindor, Miss Weasley," Cass announced, raising an eyebrow at Snape, "for cunning use of wits."

Neville couldn't stand it and burst out laughing.

"Two hundred points from Gryffindor for insolence, Mr. Longbottom!"

"Seven hundred for great timing, Neville!"

"Eight hundred points to Slytherin for appropriate clothes, Mr. Malfoy," Snape purred, almost grinning at Cass meanly.

"One million points from Slytherin for…well, you just plain piss me off. Nevermind."

Everybody laughed, except Snape, Hermione, Bill and Maria. Snape was too busy being a greasy git, Bill and Maria were too busy sending furtive looks at each other, and Hermione was too busy noticing them.

"Is this field trip going to be fun or what?"

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"Is Severus here?" Narcissa asked Dumbledore.

"No, dear, I'm afraid he's gone on a field trip today. Is something wrong?"

"I…I've forgotten something," Narcissa gasped. "It must have been terribly important, or why would I have forgotten it?"

"Are those the same clothes you were wearing when you last recall?" John Tyler asked, looking a little serious.

"Yes, they are."

"Good. Spread your legs."

"What?" Narcissa complied and he took something from her garter, nodding politely. Dumbledore was amused but also slightly disturbed. "What in hell is that?" Narcissa asked.

"My wife's microcassette recorder. It's finished, but I daresay whatever happened is on tape."

"Don't Muggle objects stop working in magical places?" Narcissa asked.

"At a place like Hogwarts, yes. At your home, I doubt it. The worst I've ever gotten there is a touch of spell-static, and a good stereo clears that up."

Dumbledore was impressed.

"Shall we go to the Shrieking Shack, John?" he asked. "I've never heard a Muggle stereo before."

"What's a Muggle stereo doing in the Shrieking Shack?" Narcissa asked.

"My Cassie and I are staying there," John explained. "I had a man from the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office help me electrify the place. As soon as we get enough folding chairs, Cass is going to start showing movies to her class in there."

"How clever," Narcissa observed airily. "What are movies?"

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He thought he had grown inured to cruelty. The fact was, one never did.

The Filius Replicatus spell was one of the cruelest things wizards had ever come up with. It basically took the spirit, powers and knowledge of someone and copied that into another soul. The book Lucius was reading said that Roman emperors employed it sometimes to guarantee their sons would fulfill their wishes when they were dead. Lucius knew it was one of the darkest things anyone could have done to them. It meant a life of almost schizophrenic existence, for when the donor wizard died or if they were dead at the time of the spell, they would be somewhat reincarnated in the victim's body.

And he would have to do this to one of his son's classmates.

Wait!

Why on earth would the Dark Lord want a Muggle-born to be his heir? And the granger girl was too old, she might resist the spell or worse, turn it back on them. If her sense of what she felt was right remained and Lord Voldemort was killed, she would have all of his powers and her own mind. It would mean death for the Death Eaters.

Something in the plan was flawed.

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A/N: And there you are! Reviews?