Chapter Fifty-Seven: Hermione Returns

At the Hogwarts gate, where all too recently some third-years had discovered a dead body, there was a loud, banging knock. The snow continued to fall, both on the person who had knocked and on everything else. Noone came. She knocked again, and again, shaking snow from the metal gate. Finally, Hagrid, lumbering like an enormous bear, appeared.

"I'm comin', I'm…Hermione?"

As the figure smiled, there was a loud noise in the distance like fireworks.

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"So that's a Chicago typewriter." The grinning, sweaty werewolf looked at the gun in her hand, which smoked nicely at the barrel, with a pleased air. "Always wanted to try one of these."

"And this is the best vegemite sandwich I've ever 'ad," Caiti Pierce observed, gesturing with the edible in question toward the targets her commanding officer had so liberally spiced with lead. "Who sent you the tommy-gun?"

"Katie Scarlett Beauregard Malfoy, with the most poetic note." Cass held up the card and read aloud: "'Dear Cassie, feel free to write your latest book with this, preferably on Moldy-Voldemort's worthless hide.' I love the South."

"Have you eaten?"

"No, why?"

"Well, Dobsy or whatever the sock elf's name is –he made sandwiches. Figured that while you're killing fierce targets you'd need a snack."

"Not vegemite?"

"The rye ones are vegemite, you uncultured Yankee shiela. White is turkey."

"Ah, leftovers."

Even as snow landed on the two Aurors and their sandwiches –and their guns- it was obvious that they were practicing on a Quidditch pitch. It became more obvious when a Bludger hit the snow next to them, splattering both Aussie and American.

"Gaah!"

"Draco, you little punk!" Cass dropped the empty gun into the padded case and grabbed her broom, cussing creatively at the grinning blonde. "I'm going to knock you into next-!"

"No flying for you, Per'fessor. Uncle Severus says."

"Out the left one!" Cass flew sharply upward, above the Slytherin, then turned, preparing for a power dive, when quite abruptly the broom bucked and halted in mid-air. "What the bloody-?"

"No flying," a voice from below announced. Draco snickered and watched with unrestrained glee as his godfather, wand aimed high, levitated the ticked-looking Yank back to earth. "How many times must I lecture you?"

"Try about two more, Per'fessor Snape," Caiti observed, biting into yet another vegemite.

"I don't care if Lucius Malfoy himself flies into this pitch and challenges you to a grudge match, with Voldemort's head as the trophy, I don't want you on a broom!"

"Okay, lay off, Sevvy. I can take a hint." Cass dismounted with a growly, ticked and rather immature expression. "Would it please your royal highness if I continued to practice my shooting?"

"Ears, Cassandra. Little ears, in the process of forming."

"Fuck. May I fence?"

"If your knees are up to it."

"Damn. The one warlike skill I've not got I'm allowed to do." Caiti raised an eyebrow.

"You can't fence?"

"Not worth a damn, I can't." Packing up the guns and heading for the castle, the werewolf spied the frozen lake. "Sevvy, may I-"

"No skating!"

"But, Severus! I promise to be utterly careful! I'm a very good skater, or so I'm told."

"Twenty minutes, and I will be timing you." Severus frowned. "And don't you dare ask me to try it!"

In ten, Cass had retrieved a pair of very unusual ice skates from the Shrieking Shack. They were of the hockey variety, but with a toe stop slightly above where it would be located on a figure skate's blade and a lot of intricate embroidery on the black and white leather that composed the boot. Removing her snowboots, the skates took only a moment to slip on and secure. After a few tentative back-and-forths with the shining blades against the firm ice of the Hogwarts lake, the werewolf took off.

There was only a little grace in her style, and it was perfectly clear why she had excelled in hockey. Speed was not a problem, nor agility in quick turns, but Severus doubted she could have executed any fancy moves. The striped rugby shirt she wore broadened her shoulders slightly and downplayed the increasing femininity of her build even more so that the coats and obscene-phrase t-shirts she had worn commonly –to the end that she looked exactly like one would expect an Auror and ex-hockey player to. The only thing attractive or womanly about her was the long, dark ponytail with grown-out bangs escaping her scrunchie to hang about her ears. Even at her scruffiest, Cassandra had lovely hair.

John slid onto the ice, so calmly and fluidly that Severus barely noticed him until he had reached the center of the frozen lake. His hair was also tied back, lower toward the neck and with a black ribbon that stood out against the burgundy of both hair and sideburns. Severus only realized John had shaved his beard when Cass noticed and staggered vaguely in surprise. He looked younger and more vigorous, as if the quiet, almost poetic reservation had been removed with the razor, and for almost the first time Severus could see how perfectly the pair were matched.

They began to skate together, the warlike slashes against the ice mellowing to glides and scruffy, violent Cassandra becoming for a few moments the ingenuous and enamored newlywed she was. It was as if the war had matured her to Moody's age in months, yet on the ice with John the war ceased to have ever existed.

Severus couldn't watch.

It was as he walked silently back toward the Great Hall that he heard the commotion of a joyous crowd, welcoming someone home. He scarcely heard a word before he knew who it must be.

She.

He broke into a run and the werewolves stopped skating.

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"And the Death Eaters locked me in a dungeon, with a few books on potions and some ingredients and a cauldron…I'm sorry, I had to brew what they told me to!"

"Oh, we understand," a sympathetic-sounding girl assuaged.

"Was it terrible?"

"I was petrified!"

"Hermione –Granger?" Snape caught himself at the last second. The girl raised her head and he recognized the face he so adored.

"Professor Snape!" She ran to him, but not for an embrace. "I had to make these horrible potions for the Dea-"

"Really?"

Some ten or fifteen heads swiveled to the door. There, standing in some wet and snowy socks, with skates over one shoulder, was Cass, grinning insanely.

"Professor Cass!" Hermione cried. "I've just come back –I escaped-!"

"Out the left one!"

Severus stared at his coworker, even as her almost-bare feet smacked the cold stone and left a wet trail of prints toward Hermione. She was still grinning, despite her remark, and spoke in a cheery tone. "How did those Death Eaters treat ya?" Hermione looked nervous at this weird behavior.

"They were…they were kind of mean…"

"My foot they were!" Cass stayed chipper, with wide, staring eyes, even as people began to back away tensely. "What's my middle name?"

Hermione blinked.

"Excuse m-"

"My name, you know it. Come on." Cass's grin began to show falsity and look more like a death's head as Hermione looked blank. "Or perhaps the name of your friend Ron's pet owl? Or the name of your cat?"

"Crookshanks!"

"One point." Cass leaned in closer, to a Hermione who was suddenly her equal in height, with a fading, scary smile. "The deepest, darkest secret I ever told you, 'Mione, what's that?"

Five seconds passed, then ten, and then half and then a whole minute. Cass laughed, a staccato, barking sound, and called gaily:

"Let's see your arm!"

Roughly, the false Hermione's left forearm was seized and exposed. A 'finite incantatem' later, the Dark Mark appeared on a patch of much tanner skin, the color of which spread to cover all of Pansy Parkinson. Dropping the faker's wrist, Cass slowly reached for her gun.

John burst into the hall behind her, holding two flat black objects. He had disarmed her.

"Cassandra, no!"

Severus shouted too late. The werewolf attacked with fists and Parkinson defended with fingernails. It was a catfight of the first degree, with the wet, snowy wolf trying to pound hell and the Death Eater trying to scratch heaven, each out of the other. John dragged Cass off of her prey as Severus immobilized Pansy with a spell, but she kept fighting, tears and obscenities flying and mixing with blood from a cut above her eyebrow.

A false Hermione had been too much. Cass Tyler had finally snapped.