Chapter Forty-One: Creative Pursuits

"Dare I ask what you are doing?" Severus frowned at the pink-and-blue monstrosity spread over Cass's lap. She had a needle in hand, another three impaled through the sleeve of her t-shirt, a spool of thread on the adjacent table, and a seam-ripper over her ear like a pencil.

"It should be perfectly obvious what I am doing. I am quilting this blanket."

"And which Ministry official is it intended to offend?" Severus continued. "Are you aware that right now the colors are somewhat hideous?"

"Pink and blue are proper colors for a baby."

"A color-blind baby?" Something occurred to the dour man. "Oh…are you…?"

"It's for Jen," Cass explained, licking her finger where she had just poked it. "Maria's little girl."

"Ah."

"I figure, just because the poor kid has a lousy start in life, doesn't mean she can't have an insane fairy godmother."

"Who makes her pink-and-blue quilts?"

"Sevvy, they haven't even given her a teddy bear. The boy baby has all the stuff a kid could want, but little Jen's just being ignored by the present-givers."

"Present-givers?"

"You know, relatives and such. And babies need blankies, otherwise they don't grow properly."

"They don't?"

"No. And they have to have a blankie with silky on the edges." Taking Severus' hand, Cass showed him the taffeta border. "They fall asleep petting it."

"I don't think I had a blanket with that on the edges."

"And look how you turned out."

By then, others had begun to arrive for the staff meeting. Professors Sprout and Hooch admired the blanket and pulled their chairs closer to Cass' so that they might help. By the time Dumbledore and Professor Lupin appeared, almost every female member of the staff had joined in the improptu quilting bee. Professor Trelawney had gone to get her favorite pincushion first.

"I daresay, what brought this on?" Albus inquired.

"It looks like the ladies are getting maternal on us," Lupin agreed. "I wonder which-?"

"It's for Maria Catesby's daughter," Severus explained, frowning. "Cassandra started it."

"It's a pretty quilt," Lupin agreed, "but why is it so big?"

"It was smaller, but they've just added more so they can all work on it at once." Snape did not seem pleased. "I assume today's will be an Amish staff-meeting."

"Well, we can't very well let them outdo us, can we?" Flitwick inquired. "I'll get my knitting needles."

"What?"

"Booties, Severus. Rather like babies' socks," Albus explained. "They're very cute and Filius can teach us all to knit while the ladies sew."

Severus stepped calmly over to the little quilters' circle and addressed Cass:

"Sometimes I don't like you."

Some minutes later, when everyone was either sewing or knitting, Dumbledore addressed the staff:

"I have only one matter of business for you today. As you know, this evening is the Yule Ball, and this year's festivities are to be somewhat more opulent and joyous than in previous years."

"As a personal insult to Moldy-Voldy," Cass added.

"Precisely. There is no better resistance to terror than showing how little it frightens you. Not to be foolhardy, but to continue enjoying festive occasions is the cruelest of all to would-be conquerors."

"And these kids need a party," Remus chipped in. "One night off from the endless fears and tensions of the war effort will do them good."

"Not to mention they've been kinda good lately," Tonks observed. "Noone's turned a single first-year into a newt all month."

"So I can count on you all to chaperone?" Albus asked with a smile. "And yes, Severus, you have to."

"I could say something genuinely mean right now."

"And then I could make a crack about your attitude," Professor McGonagall pointed out.

"Why give her the chance, Sevvy?" Madam Hooch asked.

"Will you all cease calling me 'Sevvy'?"

"Cassandra gets away with it," Flitwick reminded.

"She's my…she doesn't count!"

"Oh…" Trelawney pointed a finger at Severus. "I See that you are concealing something about our Professor Tyler and yourself!"

"Stow it, Sibs," Cass retorted.

"But the facts are somewhat intriguing," Madam Hooch pointed out. "The same dark hair, sharp wit, House, tendency to turn a bit too horizontally on a broom…cousins, perhaps?"

"It's quite simple," John Tyler suddenly spoke up. "Cassie has very little surviving family, as does Severus, but they are, very distantly, related. So they're just doing the honorary-sibling thing."

There was a long silence.

"Well. That would explain the design of that costume you wore last night, Cassandra," Remus observed. "Black and all."

"You knew that was…what can you possibly mean?" Cass tried to look innocent.

"Cassandra, dear, we all know your singing voice," Professor Sinistra said gently. "You were Ravenclaw, weren't you?"

"I'm curious as to who was Gryffindor," Flitwick remarked. "She had great legs."

"And Hufflepuff was quite a dancer," Lupin added. "Were they students or friends of yours?"

"Erm…friends." It wasn't quite a lie. Cass was trying not to strangle on what Ginny would think of Flitwick's compliment.

"The Orb showed that the Slytherin dancer and Professor Snape spent quite an amount of time in the Potions room afterward," Trelawney announced. Cass immediately sprang into action.

"What utter rubbish. Was that the Orb, or you slinking around looking for Severus?" Trelawney's voice grew harder.

"The Sight does not lie."

"I think that your Inner Eye needs drops."

"What an utterly pedantic and unreceptive mind. The skeptic can only fear the future."

"The incompetent can only exploit the superstitious."

"You miserable little wolf!"

"Pathetic dragonfly!"

"Hedonist!"

"Charlatan!"

"Reckless fool!"

"Senseless quack!"

"THE CLOUDS GATHER FOR THE STORM," John announced suddenly, in a voice not his own. Both Trelawney and Tyler were silenced. "THE SCIONS MEET THE SIRE AND RECEIVE WARNING. BEFORE THE RAINS HAVE GONE, ONE OF THE ORDER WILL DISAPPEAR."

"Holy shit," Cass observed. John shook his head hard as if his ears had gotten wet.

"Now that's prophecy," Lupin observed admiringly.

"Pardon?" John looked confusedly at the other professors, oblivious as to what had just happened.

"You did it again, darling," Cass explained lightly.

"Oh." The werewolf looked faintly disappointed to have missed it. "What'd I say now?"

"The usual weather forecast. Oh, and someone will disappear."

"How depressing." John sighed. "Don't I ever do happy ones?" Trelawney looked quite startled, even bested, by all of this.

"You are a Seer?"

"Yep."

"He has been for years," Cass said in a jaded tone. "And he doesn't need costume jewelry, either."

"How long has this been occurring?" Dumbledore asked seriously.

"Since I was a kid," John shrugged. "No big deal."

"So much for skeptic werewolves, eh, Sibyll?" Severus remarked. "Takes the real thing to impress Tyler."

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"Is that a fertility goddess?" Snape asked.

"It's Peter Rabbit, you nit." Hermione adjusted the bow around the stuffed creature's neck.

"Who?"

"The bunny in Beatrix Potter's books. You remember them?"

"Why is he wearing a jacket?" Hermione sighed.

"Because he does, Severus."

"Well, you can't blame me for being mistaken…I mean, rabbits and fertility…"

"What would I be doing with a fertility goddess?"

"I don't know. It just seemed logical…"

"A fertility goddess? In here?"

"Well, a stuffed literary character doesn't make better sense!"

"It's a present-"

"For Maria's baby?"

"However did you guess?"

"Everyone's making or buying baby things for her. The Blodgetts are so partial to the boy that they don't care about the girl, so Hogwarts seems to be making up for it."

"In a massive fairy-godmother campaign, spearheaded by our own mad Yank?"

"However did you guess?"

"I had a neighbor who couldn't have children. She just played aunt to everyone else's."

"Instead of keeping many cats?"

"She did that, too."

Severus sighed thoughtfully.

"Would you like one?"

"I have one."

"What?"

"You've met Crookshanks…"

"Oh, Merlin…I meant a child." Severus swallowed hard. "You had me worried."

"Really…" Hermione considered this a moment. "Surely not now?"

"Well, no…but later, maybe?"

"Like how much later?" Severus gestured absently.

"Oh…when we've been married a couple of years."

"I suppose that could be –what was that?"

"I'm asking."

"What?"

"I'm asking. Don't make me say it out loud." Severus pulled a small box out of his robe pocket and opened it. "After you've graduated, you think?"

"I…" This had genuinely startled Hermione. "What brought this on?"

"Well…" Severus stood up and began to walk around the room. "I thought about how much I like talking with you, just as a friend, and how nice it is to have you nearby. Then I thought about the fact that I love you …you did know I do?" Hermione's eyes just stayed wide. "And it occurred to me, I don't like being alive without you around. So I'm asking, will you be around always? You don't have to answer now, but I did want you to know how I felt."

It was like a peculiar dream. Severus had clearly rehearsed what he was going to say and then promptly forgotten all of it. Hermione got up and went to him, taking his hands in hers.

"I can't make any promises that we'll be the same by then…but barring anything untoward, then I suppose I agree with this idea of yours."

"Nothing could make me stop loving you."

"Getting killed?" Hermione looked away and Severus brought her chin back up with a gentle hand.

"You'll keep me from dying even if I do."

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Blaise had noticed something odd. She had abruptly and quite cleanly ceased to fancy Ron Weasley.

It was most likely her visits to the Burrow that had done it. Once you know what a guy's room looks like, it's hard to maintain a crush. Instead, she had begun looking forward more and more to Professor Lupin and Professor Tonks' classes, and not just because they beat hell out of Professor Binns'. 

Professor Lupin was clearly a case of the Crush That Just Will Not Die; given that she had first noticed men as a gender were dishy in his third-year Defense classes. The little graying places in his hair made him look distinguished in spite of his ragamuffin clothes, and his soft calmness was a welcome change from the teenage guys she dated. He also had the whole werewolf thing going for him –if Professor Cass married one, they must be beyond memorable in bed.

Professor Tonks, on the other hand, seemed like the punk-rock antithesis to dear, calm Lupin. Her hair changed with her mood, as did pretty much the rest of her, and her taste in things like music and clothes was just plain cool. With her 'purebloody-pole-up-arse' upbringing, Blaise longed for wild things. One could not be more wild than an Auror-turned-professor who could change their looks at will, often choosing the most outrageous imaginable. Blaise wondered exactly how creative she was.

Gods, teenage hormones were abominable sometimes! She'd be fancying Trelawney and Flitwick next!

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