Chapter Twenty-Seven: Unnatural Blondes

"Malfoy!"

"Hello, Draco. What are you doing here?" Severus asked, a bit more calmly than Hermione's surprised outburst.

"Professor Cass told me to wait near the Whomping Willow for you two and then hand you this note. It isn't in English." Malfoy handed Snape a note. Severus frowned at it for a few seconds and then handed it to Hermione, who smiled.

"It's Wolfish for 'bring him along.'"

"How can you write Wolfish?" Severus and Draco asked together.

"You can't. Cass wrote it in English, backwards, in Greek letters and upside-down. The picture is of us bringing him." She gestured to the three stick figures. "Can't draw worth a damn, can she?"

"Why do I get the impression she'd be a Gryffindor, too?" Malfoy wondered absently. The unlikely trio headed for the now-dormant Willow, as Snape had levitated a stick to hit the secret knot, and made their way to the Shrieking Shack.

It had changed a lot since Hermione's third year, at least on the inside. It still looked –well, rather shacklike on the outside, but now the door had a password to it, an incredibly complex one.

"Would you do the honors?" Snape asked his female student.

"Of course." Hermione took a breath and recited:

"'Wolfy paws and cattish wits
Slytherins are mostly gits
Mrs. Norris eats a mouse
Welcome to the Tylers' house!'"

And the door swung open.

"That was a bit eccentric," Draco observed, a little offended at the second line. "Can't she just have us say 'manticore' or 'Jane Austen' like any normal professor?"

"Whose is 'Jane Austen'?" Hermione asked.

"Weasley. Fancies Muggle books, he does," Severus explained.

"Well, come in already!" Cass called from a room within. She was seated at a computer desk, typing rapidly with two fingers and her thumbs. The room had quite a few other desks in it, none of which matched, and there were cables, wires, and computer parts everywhere, even on several chairs of various kinds. The Shrieking Shack had definitely changed quite a bit since the Yanks moved in.

Instead of the rather old and dusty décor Hermione recalled, the rooms had been neatly painted various fairly ordinary colors, and the mahogany wainscoting was nicely refinished. It looked like the stately place had been restored to all previous glory –except, of course, for the furniture, which was all of that inelegant style beloved by college students and the poor: unmitigated disaster.

"Where on earth did you find this chair, Cassandra?" Severus asked, indicating a stately wingback armchair with dark wooden feet and neon violet upholstery in lush, tasteless velvet. "It's…very unusual."

"I found it at a yard sale back home," Cass explained, patting the monstrosity of decorating lovingly. "It used to have ghastly flowered Seventies fabric on it, but it was all old and torn-up, so I redid it in this. I think the chair was originally 1930s, but some twit redid it once, so it had to be done again."

"Ah. So why velvet?"

"My favorite designer," Cass retorted wryly. "His name is On Sale. And what's more, I like purple"

"I thought it was blue," John said, coming in from the dining room with a rectangular grey box in his arms. "But I'm not exactly known for my color sense. Draco, can you help me with this?"

"Of course, sir." Draco hastened to the werewolf's side.

"Can you get those two cables there hooked up to the back of this while I get the monitor?" John asked, setting the box down on one of the several desks. "Hermione, if you could tell him which goes where?"

"Is that a pucompter?" Draco asked eagerly.

"Computer," Cass, John and Hermione corrected in unison.

"Yes, it is. We're going to commit several felonies today, and then maybe we'll watch a movie." Cass said this as happily as if they were to bake cookies.

"But I thought electricity won't work on the Hogwarts grounds," Draco observed confusedly. John smiled.

"Not in Hogwarts proper, but here's far away enough. All we get's a bit of static from it, and a good antenna clears it up."

"What are the computers for?" Severus asked.

"Well, you remember awhile ago, when Cassie wanted to pick up wizarding stations with a Muggle radio?" John asked, grinning boyishly. "We've figured out how to do it backwards."

"So we're going to broadcast –what?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, we're not broadcasting anything," Cass explained. "Though we certainly could. You know that wizard antennas are pretty much long, thin wands?"

"Yes."

"Did you know that computer commands work a hell of a lot like spells?" John asked, his grin growing broader.

"Really?" Hermione was fascinated.

"All we had to do was reverse the antennas, write a program to operate them like broadcast software, and write commands that work the spells."

"How long did that take?" Severus asked suspiciously. The werewolves frowned.

"Just under a day to build the system," John admitted. "Cassie's still working on all the commands we'll need."

"But you can do magic with computers?" Draco asked.

"You bet your ass, Blondie," Cass replied.

"I see what you meant about felonies," Hermione observed wryly.

"But what, exactly, is the purpose of all of this?" Snape asked. "Apart from rendering Hogwarts totally obsolete, endangering countless lives, and making magic accessible to Muggles, why go to the trouble?"

Draco, it should be remarked, went quite ashen.

"Sevvy, dear, do you know what an amplifier is?" Cass inquired artlessly.

"Makes guitars louder."

"Makes anything louder, or stronger, or greater in magnitude. We've added one into this system." Cass and John looked absolutely serious.

"Meaning?"

"To put it quite bluntly, a six-year-old could use the Killing Curse."

"What?"

"On anybody in Europe or the eastern half of America, no less." John added.

"Are you insane?"

"Possibly. You do, however, realize what this means?" Cass frowned sternly.

"Instant destruction of anyone," Draco said quietly. "You've beaten everybody, haven't you?"

"Well, in theory, at least," John remarked, brightening. "We've only got two commands for it so far, and it's not quite finished being built."

"And it would go a lot faster if I could quit playing solitaire," Cass remarked.

"But you can really work magic with a computer?" Severus asked, looking a little uneasy. Cass smiled and reached for the mouse. A little bit of typing later, Draco found himself being levitated very nicely two feet off the floor.

"Does that satisfy you?" Cass asked.

"Yes," Severus replied in a slightly strangled voice. "Could you put him down?"

"As soon as I write a command for that, sure." Cass immediately resumed her frenetic keybeating and Draco sighed.

"Shall I paint the ceiling while I'm up here?" he inquired sarcastically.

"Thanks, mate," John replied cheerfully, getting him a paint roller and some white paint

in a tray. "Awfully thoughtful of you. It needs it."

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"If I told you I would do anything, leave anyone, take back any mistake I'd made?"

"You couldn't."

"But if I could?"

"Even if you took what you did back, Lucius, it wouldn't matter to me. I'd still remember each and every one." Narcissa gestured to the Pensieve sitting on Lucius' desk. "And no spell of yours can erase my memory now. I would still hate you."

There was a long pause.

"How is that?" the blond man asked, defeatedly.

"You know full well how."

"Are you sleeping with him?"

The smack came, hard, hitting directly beside the black eye Cass had given him in her drunken rage.

"Severus is the brother I never had, Lucius. He and the brother you cast off are the only family I have left besides our son."

"You've spoken to Salazar?"

"Those 'shopping trips' to America? I was at his wedding, Lucius, and I'm godmother to his son, who, incidentally, is partly named after you. Poor kid."

There was another long pause. Lucius had not seen or spoken to his younger brother in nearly four years.

"Then you favor Muggle-borns after all?"

"Lucius, I could care less about wizards' parentage. Remember that girl you and Macnair nearly killed after the ball? I was the one who stunned Macnair and drove her to Poppy's to get patched up. What's more, I gave her a pint of my own blood, as did our son. I only wish he had gotten some of hers."

"She's the professor, you know." Lucius recalled numbly. "The werewolf."

"Yes, Lucius. I knew even before you invited her."

"You would have our son become –one of those?"

"Better half a wolf than half a wizard, which is what you are." Narcissa took off the ring she wore and slapped it down on the desk. "Remember when you gave me that, what you said? 'A life lived in fear is a life half lived.' You fear your master more than you fear getting caught. I'm amazed our son doesn't pity you."

"Our son…" Lucius had a sudden terror. "You wouldn't take Draco away…?"

"Why not, Lucius?" Narcissa said quite airily, tapping the Pensieve with a neatly polished nail so that it rang out a silvery note. "You certainly didn't care about the little half-bloods you sent to Riddle's orphanage without a second thought, did you? At least none of them were yours, or do you really know?"

"I don't."

Narcissa gave Lucius a cold little smirk and tapped the Pensieve with her wand, calling up the memory of his fight in the Three Broomsticks awhile ago.

"You know, there's something I like about that American," she observed calmly. "Draco writes that they get along very well and he enjoys her class. She also seems like a nice sort to me. A bit of a berserker, but she's got more than a right to that in your case." She glanced at his bruised face with an evilly chipper look. She paused the swirling memory on the Yank's face and stared suddenly at the image. Lucius couldn't bear it anymore and left the library, but Narcissa stayed, wondering what was so damned familiar.

She let the memory play forward a bit, until Draco and Cass were both facing Lucius, and she stopped it there. That was it. The eyes. The slightly arrogant arch of the brows and the high cheekbones were the same in both the American and her son, and the eyes of both were that misty blue-gray, cold as an agate depending on their mood. How very remarkable. If that didn't shoot the 'pure-blood' theory in the arse, nothing would. A yank who looked like Draco and therefore Lucius…no wonder he was so infuriated by her mere existance.

Something in that thought hit her the wrong way. Sternly, Narcissa started the memories spinning again. She was looking for one final damning clue -one she wasn't sure she wanted to find.

There was actually one way she would stop hating Lucius. It involved not the taking back of crimes, however, but repairing the damage done and fighting for the right he had long ago betrayed. It was something she would do herself to win back the man she had once, and, in a small way, still loved.

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"Drat it all!" The computer went still and Cass vainly tried a combination of keys over and over, only producing a repetitive humming sound. "God damn this piece of…" The Yank fumbled for a word bad enough and didn't find it."Never mind!"

"What's wrong?" Draco asked. Hermione looked up from the old Compaq she was hooking up.

"Computer's froze again. I might as well be playing Quidditch on a Hoover. Shit." Cass got up from the office chair and stretched her arms. "D'you two want to come get a part with me?"

"Anything beats the ceilings," Draco remarked, putting the roller down. He had stopped levitating quite awhile ago, but he had secretly been enjoying the fun of using Muggle paint. It was even better when he attached a broom handle to the roller and stood on solid floor, but he'd sooner dance naked with Buckbeak than admit it.

"Sounds like fun," Hermione agreed. "What sort of part?"

"Computery-wizardy kind of thing. I know a chick." Cass replied vaguely. "I'll go tell John and Sev where we're going, if you two'd like to get sodas."

"Shall we fly?" Draco asked hopefully. Cass grinned.

"In a manner of speaking." Hermione looked at her quizzically. "Dingo's parked out back."

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