Chapter Thirty-Six: Sobering Facts

"I'll handle this," Severus announced calmly. Hermione was still reeling in shock from her friend's sudden appearance, so she didn't move to stop him. Quite abruptly, the drunken werewolf found herself lifted up into the air by the scruff of her neck.

"Wha-fuck?"

"Listen to me, you sodden little puppy! I have …had …enough …of …your …drinking!" With every pause, Severus gave Cass a shake. The loose skin at her nape kept the treatment from hurting, but the sensation of being treated like human maracas got her attention somewhat spectacularly. Hermione couldn't even protest, so sudden was her lover's movement and so humorous the dumbstruck look on Cass's face.

Quite blandly ignoring the howls of protest, flailing limbs and barking coughs of his colleague, Severus bodily carried the werewolf into his bathroom. There was a tub roughly the size of that in the Prefects' bathroom, already filled and ready for a decidedly more pleasant purpose than the one at hand. Cass found herself up to the ears in it with a splash. A quick charm from Severus turned the warm, faintly vanilla-scented waters into a frigid miniature of the North Atlantic.

The sound Cass made at that moment was really astonishing. Hermione hadn't even known that her friend's voice went that high.

"S'fuckin' cold!" Cass cried slurredly. "Le'me out o'this!"

"Not until you sober up!" Severus yelled.

Cold water was one thing. Snape shouting –really shouting, was another. Cass began to calm down and look lucid, chattering teeth and all. Once a full minute had passed, Severus pulled her out and tossed a towel in her direction. "Get dry and come back downstairs." He stalked off toward the potions lab in the basement.

Cass immediately began the task of getting the cold water out of her clothes and hair. For a moment, Hermione was torn between following Severus and helping the half-drowned professor with the towel. She struck a compromise by doing neither;

"Here, I'll get some of my clothes for you to change."

Hermione brought back a sweatshirt of hers and some old black jeans with potion-stains. Considering the temperature of the water from which she had just been pulled, a skirt did not sound like a good idea for Cass. As Hermione handed over the clothes, however, the werewolf frowned.

"What are your clothes doing here?"

"When you're drunk I stay here," Hermione explained tersely.

"Oh." Cass frowned apologetically. "I have been overdoing it."

"Overdoing it? I'm surprised your blood's not turned to vinegar! You've gone through more booze than some Muggle bars do in a month in the past three weeks!" Finally Hermione was able to voice her fury and disgust. "Some Auror you are, too pissed to see straight. No wonder the Death Eaters are still about!"

"I'm sorry," Cass said coldly.

"Sorry? Oh, you're sorry now that you've gotten caught and yelled at! You have no idea what we're fighting here, do you, Yank? You're not involved in this!"

"I'm not involved?"

"Hell, no! You haven't watched your best friends almost killed, your parents' house was never destroyed in this! None of your classmates died!"

"I'm not involved?" Cass repeated, genuinely furious. "I didn't fly two thousand miles to help out some family, I came 'cause you needed me!"

"Oh, sure. We need a drunk werewolf!"

"As much as you need a showoffy, bucktoothed little bint who's too busy studying to keep her classmates from trying to kill themselves?" Cass was really roaring now. "Too blind to see the obvious solution in her own native culture? Too House-conscious to watch out for a Slytherin?"

"And you're so nice to the Slytherins! You only care because you are one!"

"Damn right I am! I'm bright enough to see that your Gryffindor piety's as much a charade as Trelawney's curriculum! Who's got clothes at her professor's house?"

"Who's willing to kill a student?"

"Who's ready to brew poisons?"

"Whose father's a Death Eater?"

The words hit Cass like a slap. For a long moment, the two females regarded each other. Hermione realized how much she had hurt her friend and was opening her mouth to apologize when Cass inquired:

"How long have you known?"

Hermione was dumbfounded.

"Known?"

"That I'm Malfoy's…" Cass trailed off. "How'd you find out?"

"I don't know, we just supposed…"

"Supposed?" Cass let out a bitter laugh. "I've known. Ever since the night Draco hauled my drunk ass back to Hogwarts."

"But how did you…?" Cass drew her wand and pointed it at herself.

"Finite Incantatem."

The color charms were dispelled instantly, leaving only the Muggle-dyed ends of Cass's hair dark. Underneath the Follicus Rechromus charm, Cass had white-blond hair every inch as pale and sephulchral as Lucius or Draco's. Hermione had never quite realized how exactly their eyes matched, or how the cruel twist of the lip was the same on both when they were being sarcastic, as Cass was now. "Great resemblance to the family, isn't there?"

"Almost," Severus's voice sounded. "I see you've discovered this for yourself." Cass's cold charade fell from her like a cloak.

"This is one truth I'd rather not have found."

"Then listen to one more." Severus drew a worn leather-bound book from behind his back. "Lucius Malfoy is my first cousin by marriage. He is also my second-cousin twice removed on my mother's side, and further, our great-great grandfathers were twin brothers."

"Inbred much?" Cass asked wryly through her tears.

"Rather. Are you aware of wizarding blood-law?"

"No."

"Three blood ties to any female constitutes kinship. In the event of a parent's death, any kinsman by three ties or more is obligated to name said female combe frere." Hermione translated the words and stood astonished. Cass just looked confused before Severus explained: "It means you don't have to be a Malfoy at all, by blood. For purposes of family, you can be my sister."

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Draco took the news surprisingly well that his godfather was adopting Cass combe frere. Hermione, mistress of tact, was just vague enough about bloodlines and just sincere enough about sentiment and 'kinship in times of war' that the blond boy didn't give it another thought.

"You do know what this means, though, Hermione?" he asked, looking faintly pleased. "I'll be related to two Muggleborn Yankees. Won't my father shit himself?"

'You have no idea,' Hermione thought.

"What sort of gift would you suggest? You've been about Muggle-borns."

"Gift?"

"It's tradition. Whenever your godfather adopts someone else or gets married or has a kid, you send a gift."

"Snape's your godfather?"

"Of course. My godmother's my aunt -Bellatrix Lestrange. Uncle Severus sends rather better gifts."

"I'd imagine."

"So…do you suppose Professor Cass wants a new cauldron?" Draco frowned. "No, she's not really the potions sort. How about a wand holster? She certainly duels enough."

"Do both parties get a gift?"

"Why not? I enjoy shopping."

"You're a guy?"

"I'm a rich little snob. I can buy anything I like and the salespeople treat me like a golden god." Draco made an expansive gesture, at which Hermione snorted.

"Do you like buying shoes?"

"No. My mother picked these out." Draco indicated his worn trainers. "Want to come along? You know what Cass and Uncle Severus each like."

'You would not believe what 'Uncle Severus' likes,' was Hermione's smutty thought.

"I suppose that'll be nice," she replied absently.

"What exactly made you fall in love with him?"

Hermione looked up suddenly, only to see a very Dumbledore-esque look of understanding on Draco's face. "My mother figured it out and told me. I think it's about damn time he found someone."

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"So you know."

"It's rather pointedly obvious." Cass pulled off the Penguins cap that had been hiding her now-light hair. Narcissa, inured as she was, couldn't help but start at the sight of how the American resembled her husband and son. "Did you know?"

"I discovered the incident in Lucius' Pensieve. Your mother looked rather like you, but I didn't make the connection until Severus told me." The aristocratic lady sighed. "I can never apologize enough for you finding out this way."

"How can you stand being married to that…?" Cass, for once, didn't have a profanity bad enough. Narcissa shrugged.

"I assume, perhaps arrogantly, that my presence may stop him from committing further atrocities. I also try to conceal my feelings for Draco's sake."

"So he can have his rapist father around?"

"So he can have two parents. I didn't say my philosophy was sound. It's just that divorce in pureblood families is very cruel to the children."

"It's like that in all families," Cass said coldly.

"Yes. And maybe I am a fool. It's simply easier to stay than go."

"And yet you're here." The two witches were meeting in one of Richmond, Virginia's best Muggle hotels, in Narcissa's suite. Salazar and Katie Scarlett Malfoy were at Disney World with their small son Theodoric, so Narcissa had booked the penthouse while they were away. "Why America?"

"Name a harder place for Death Eaters to attack, or for me to give secrets to the Order from."

"In whose opinion?" Cass inquired sarcastically.

"Dear, Lucius has yet to hear of the telephone, let alone the Internet. The work you and your husband have done is above his head."

"Must be my mother's side." Narcissa laughed.

"I expect so. Lord knows where you get your sarcasm."

"I'm an American. This is considered 'realistic'."

"If it makes you feel any better, there are no others. Lucius has remained…he has not done certain things since his son was born." Narcissa couldn't quite use the word 'faithful' in her husband's case.

"So Draco's the only half-brother I've got?"

"Yes…he is, isn't he? You two get along?"

"So far."

"You don't want to tell him?" Narcissa watched the American and smiled softly. "I don't blame you. He takes some things very well, but this is your secret. You can tell him when you want to, or not at all. It's entirely up to you."

"You seem almost used to this kind of thing."

"Cassandra, my specialty was mediwizardry. I'm in the habit of keeping myself calm so as not to make the ones who are hurting worse. Right now I don't know whether to feel sorry for you in the genes you inherited, or feel proud of you for handling it so well. To discover something like this, at a time like this, is the cruelest thing I can imagine."

"At least I got to be a witch out of it," Cass reasoned.

"Your mother was a Muggle?" Narcissa frowned in disbelief. Cass nodded and the blonde shook her head. "No chance. If she was a Muggle, why on earth did Lucius have to break her wand?"

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A/N: Next chapter will be neat. Sorry for the short one this time. –J. McN.