Chapter Nineteen: The Armpit Vampire Kitten of Death

"And the six uses for a newspaper are?" Cass asked, quizzing the class as they rode the bus to the next part of their field trip. Several students raised their hands and she called on Ron. "Mr. Weasley."

"Reading, making piñatas, paper hats, improptu umbrellas, blocking drafts, and lining a hamster cage."

"Correct. Now, why are you all wearing bustiers?"

The students looked down and discovered, much to some of their surprise, that they were all indeed wearing bustiers. Many also had fishnets, high heels, and the like, and Neville had a brilliant pink feather boa. Hermione's outfit had a tastefully Nicole Kidman-esque peignoir in black, which matched the faintly absurd getup John had decided to transfigure Snape's clothes into. The shock was total, especially as Crabbe and Goyle discovered they had fabulously realistic fake breasts. By the time Malfoy had time to mumble something rather derogatory about man-tits, the bus was in a state of advancing furor.

Hermione looked out her window and noticed something awful, something that sent chills up her spine and terror into her heart, something genuinely appalling that made her again give second thoughts to the meaning of Cass's drag habit.

It was old.

It was seedy.

It was the best independently owned art house in London.

The Altagracia.

Once it had been an ordinary, thriving movie theater; about the time talkies were the latest fad. It had declined in later years but become gloried yet again during the nineteen-seventies, especially when an enterprising projectionist had brought an American take on Richard O'Brien's opus to Dennon Street nightlife. At present, there was a backup of dragsters waiting in the ticket line, and not the Jeff Gordon kind. Hermione was appalled, but she raised her hand.

"Yes, Hermione?" Cass asked politely, as if she and her husband hadn't personally redressed an entire busful of students in electric drag.

"Are we going to see 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'?" she asked.

"I bet you're the brightest in your class, aren't you?" Cass grinned. "Ladies and gentlemen and undecided, off the bus!"

Confusedly, the students disembarked. As a very attractive drag-Snape passed the female werewolf, he whispered something in her ear:

"I am not pleased with you."

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"What is that noissse, Luciuss?" the serpentine semi-human Dark wizard asked.

"I don't know, my Lord. I will attend to it." Lucius went to the front door and opened it, only to discover a tiny striped kitten making a chirping noise. He thought for a moment and then carried it back to his master by the scruff of the neck.

"What iss thisss?"

"It is a kitten, sir."

"What doess it do?"

"Well, er- it walks about and makes that squeaking sound..."

"It iss annoying. I want it killed."

Lucius obediently turned on his heel and went from the room, the tiny kitten squeaking in terror. He passed the big wolfhound he was taking care of for his friend Severus and had an idea.

"Here, Wolfe." He dropped the kitten in front of the huge, powerful animal. "Consider it a gift."

The wolfhound picked up the kitten and padded away. Lucius smiled gently at the idea of being kind to his friend's pet and turned around.

Narcissa was standing behind him with a gaze of absolute hatred. The Death Eater's face fell.

"I fed it to Wolfe. It was a treat for him."

"You murdered an innocent kitten."

"It was too small to live without it's mother anyway! The Dark Lord ordered it killed!" Lucius protested as his wife turned away. "Narcissa!"

"You could have tried," she accused coldly.

Lucius realized in that moment he was losing her. He went outside in search of Wolfe, trying to spare the kitten and redeem himself, but it was useless. He had taken yet another life at Voldemort's command, and for almost the first time he regretted it.

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Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was confused. His Uncle Vernon was the Muggliest Muggle in the world, and his rallying cry was 'to be normal.' Now here were scandalously dressed, even more scandalously behaving Muggles, all happily rejoicing at the idea of being downright strange. Something in the way he had been brought up was not correct. In the blue satin bustier, however, Ginny looked painfully sexy, and Harry had to struggle to think of Dudley, Uncle Vernon, Quidditch, anything, to make it possible to get out of there without embarrassment.

Ginny Weasley, the tragic heroine of the Tom Riddle diary scandal, was amazed. No wonder her dad thought Muggles were fascinating! They seemed so stiff and sedate at Harrod's, and then here they flaunted wild outbursts of hetero-, homo- and just plain odd sexuality. The lesbian scene with Magenta and Columbia seemed to over-fascinate her brother Ron, and Harry looked damn good in his bustier. It was green and matched his eyes nicely. Damn 'no shagging on field trips' rule!

Severus Snape, the Greasy Git and Bat King of Slytherin, was rather more than Not Pleased by now. Cassandra had splintered school rules into tiny bits, and Dumbledore was likely to have his neck for it.

And then something genuinely horrible happened. Two transvestites, one with a long, striped sex-kitten tail and one with a very familiar beard, threw some toast at the screen.

Snape was certain he would never sleep again.

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The next evening after the field trip, dancing lessons began.

"Alright, now put your right hand on my shoulder...good. Now just follow me."

"I know how to do this part, Severus," Hermione said softly. "And shouldn't we wait until the Tylers get here?"

"I wanted to get in at least one dance with you alone." Deftly, the normally snarky professor spun his secret darling around as they danced. The music was slow enough to be romantic, but fast enough to be intriguing, and it had a kind of classical bent despite the clear presence of electric guitars. It was painfully obvious Cass had selected it, as Severus preferred wizarding composers almost by default. "By the way, darling?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about taking off house points the other day. I had been watching you work rather intently and I had to explain doing that somehow."

"That's alright. Professor McGonagall gave me twice that amount for correct homework. And I don't mind you watching me intently."

"I would assume," Severus remarked dryly.

"You're the teacher. I'm supposed to be watching you."

"Yes, but do you have to smile that way?"

"What way?" Hermione asked with an innocently content look.

"You're doing it now." Severus kissed her. "I like it, but I really do wonder what you're thinking when you look at me that way."

"Besides wondering about you in a bustier? I know what you look like in one now."

"Did you have a hand in that debacle?" Severus asked.

"Lord, no. I didn't enjoy that getup they had me in at all."

"I did."

"Is that why you were watching me intently?"

"Eak!"

"What the bloody -?" Severus asked, looking at his feet. The little striped kitten looked up at him. "Oh, holy shit! Minerva's gone and reproduced!"

"It's a kitten." Hermione pointed out, picking it up and petting it. "Hello."

"It's a girl kitten," John Tyler announced proudly. "Lucius Malfoy fed her to me."

The oddity of that statement was pointed.

"Fed her to you?" Hermione asked almost angrily, even as the kitten began to purr. "Were you a wolf?"

"Yep," John said, scratching the kitten's ears. "I didn't eat her, though."

"Obviously," Severus remarked sarcastically. "Why did you bring it here?"

"Her, not it," Hermione chastised. "What's the kitten's name?"

"I've been calling her Shannon. It means 'little wise one.' She looked sort of wise."

"Are you going to keep her?"

"I don't know. Higgins might not like a cat." Professor Henry Higgins was John's parents' dog, a sizeable collie with unnatural intelligence. To him, a little cat might be construed as lunch. "And she's awful small. I think she still needs a mama cat, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, to feed her?" Hermione smiled. "There's something called kitty milk replacement you can use. I bet Filch might have a bit."

"Let's go ask him. I'll go with you in case he gets nasty."

Hermione looked at the small kitten, who was purring and licking oddly at her shirt.

"We'd better not take her. Mrs. Norris might get nasty too."

And so Severus was left, sitting on the sofa, with a very tiny striped kitten licking and sucking at the arm of his robes. Hermione explained it as something little cats did when they had been weaned too early and needed affection from humans.

The dancing lessons would have to wait.

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It was an easy thing to do, when you knew what you were doing, and Maria intended to know how. With a pass to the restricted section from Professor Tyler, (who would write one for just about anyone that asked if they were a girl,) she had gotten nearly every erotic manual available to the wizarding world and started taking notes. She was learning how to seduce any man on earth, but she had a specific one in mind.

There was only one man she had ever known, besides stern Professor Snape and kind Headmaster Dumbledore, who had ever treated her nicely, as a person and not as a kind of sex object. She loved him already, but how on earth could a student convince a teacher of that?

Moreover, she knew she would be married to Milton the day after she graduated, to start work on producing a Blodgett heir. The Catesbys were an old family, but to guarantee their survival, they had let their oldest son a generation ago marry a Blodgett. It was now Maria's fate to repay the debt. The most she could hope for was a brief affair before a life of nothingness. Even that was better than living as her poor mother had.

Too bad when Slytherins fell for Gryffindors.

A/N: This chapter is for Altagracia and my littlest kitten, Shannon Michelle who is named after my editor and actually enjoys licking at my shirt, for which talent my brother's friends have dubbed her the Dread Armpit Vampire Kitten of Death.