Chapter Fifty-Nine: Brain Colanders and Leather

"But why the devil would you tie her up?" Draco asked Smokey. "An officer essential to defense shouldn't ever be-"

"Incapacitated? She's not that essential to the physical defense, actually, and I'm counting on her breaking out of it. Why else did I leave the little boys with Cassie? I just want to give her a good twenty minutes' time to think before she comes back."

"Think? She'll be getting pissed, not thinking!"

"That," the gray-eyed werewolf smiled, "is the idea."

************************************************************

"You're not a's'posed to be out o' y're chair, per'fessor."

"Donaghan, do you know what this word is?" Cass pointed to a pad of paper with a single word scribbled on it.

"Na."

"That is 'bastard,' a seven-letter word beginning with the letter 'b' and it means my g-d brother-in-law."

"Wha' does 'g-d' mean?"

"Goddamn," Theodoric explained. "Mothuh says it about the Juniuh League and the President all the time." He lifted the chrome-plated pistol with the gold inlays in the grips from its' velvet case and began calmly loading it. Cass almost told him to put it down, but when she realized he had opened it properly and had it pointed away from humans she changed her mind. Donaghan, not wanting to disobey, but neither wanting to be left out, fetched the thick leather cowboy belts with the holsters and began unbuckling them. Cass tied her neckscarf and held her arms up, allowing the little Scot to attach her gunbelts. He was very fascinated by cowboy films, and they were almost the only part of her war-gear Donaghan was allowed to touch. For all his youth, he wasn't a bad squire to her crazy knight.

"Not t'be rude, per'fessor, but they don' hang right like Doc Holliday's."

"Doc Holliday was a guy," Theo pointed out, examining the ornate outer buckle. "He's right, though. You're getting a gut, Auntie Cassandra."

"Am not." Cass sighed. "I got what your mom calls a bad case of pregnancy." Since being around the boys, her mild Pittsburgh accent had thickened in response to their Southern and Scottish speech. They stared blankly at her. "Nevermind."

"Y'all gon' have a baby, Aunt?" Theo asked, amazed.

"Yep."

"A laddie?" Donaghan asked hopefully.

"Naw, a girl one."

"I can be her big brother," Theodoric observed. "An' Donnie can marry her, an' then you can 'ave grandchildren."

"Why in the name of humanity would I want…why don't you marry her?"

"I'm going to marry anothuh 'pure-blood' an' raise lib'ral-minded children."

"Are you really?" Cass asked sarcastically. "Has it occurred to you that my daughter's a pure-blood, too?"

"Yeah, but she's like my sistuh, 'cause you're my auntie."

"She's my per'fessor," Donaghan protested.

"But y're a Scot. Auntie Cass is a Yankee –well, sorta. I'm supposed ta' marry a girl from England, since my daddy married an American."

"I don't want to get married ta' anyone," Donaghan announced. "I'm on'y three."

"Well, Ah'm five. When yuh get olduh, things change."

For some reason, this conversation struck Cass as immensely funny.

"When did you get married, per'fessor?" Donaghan inquired.

"I was almost twenty-two."

"See?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea," Cass pointed out.

"How did Uncle John ask yuh?" Theodoric asked, slipping her left pistol into its' holster.

"That's a long story…"

**********************************************************

Mel staggered over to the swirling dish, left out of a cabinet. She hadn't meant to pass out at the Shrieking Shack, but enough firewhiskey to fell a hippogriff sometimes acted fast. Before she could get downstairs, however, a whirling, glowing potion in the dish had distracted her.

"Wha-fuck?"

The Pensieve quickly pulled the false Southerner into its' memories once she touched the shimmering fluid. Mel, having once looked into her father's, glanced to her right and left. Sure enough, there was a dark-haired teenager with a familiar face. She wore some kind of bizarre armor, and evidently had been in battle, as blood ran over the white chestplate from a wound.

"Coach, can I 'ave some aspirin?"

"Not 'til the referee sees this." A solidly built, tough-looking man in a windsuit jacket motioned a man in a striped shirt over. "Lookit that. Cassie's all cut to hell by that foul. Damn regulation pads jes' ain' worth shit fa' girls."

Cass Tyler had been injured in a war?

"S'ar'right, Coach, I'm just-" The tough man loosened the armor and the younger Cass winced. "Aaoooww!"

"I'll take care of it," the referee promised, walking off. Outside the almost-dark room, Mel could hear the man calling something about offensive fouls and penalty shots. The younger Cass managed a weak smile and Coach patted her shoulder.

"It's gon' be okay, Cassie. I reckon we won't get any more crap about 'regulation junior hockey pads' on girl players." The man's scorn was evident in his voice, but he seemed very proud of the little Auror-to-be. It was hockey, not battle, Mel realized. "Foul or not, that was some damn good defense. Worth the scar."

"Goddamn knockers screw up everything," the little Cass growled irritably.

"Well, better you've got 'em than not," Coach observed, going a little redder than usual. "I mean, i'may make hockey pads a bitch, but I'm sure there'll be times when you'll see their usefulness."

"Sure, Coach." Cass didn't sound that sure.

"Well, when you get married, for instance. Can't look good in a wedding gown without…those."

"I don't intend to be married," Cass protested. "Marriage is inefficient, a senseless convention of the bourgeoisie."

"Well, then, where the heck are my new goalies coming from? You gonna have kids, Cassie?"

"Not if I can help it. Children are beastly, annoying things."

"My thoughts precisely sometimes, kid." Coach joined his star goalie on the locker room bench, opening a first-aid kit for her wounds. "So you're going to live alone and keep fifty-hundred cats?"

"I plan to write scandalous novels and take several lovers, like George Sand."

"Erm…okay…"

"And when I'm dead, my money shall be given to endow a new library and several scholarships for the children of impoverished professors."

"An' will you be dying of consumption in a Paris garret?"

"If I can possibly manage it," Cass grinned jokingly before sighing. "I just don't see the point of men."

"Well, they're splendid right wings, but for goalie, you need a girl."

Mel couldn't recall when she had laughed so hard. The most direly enamored person she'd ever known, renouncing men, marriage and family at age thirteen…It was a funny sight. The memories swirled and suddenly she found a much older Cass at a desk, reading aloud from a paperback novel:

"'Passion swirled and engulfed the pair, with waves of need closing over them until the sea of longing crashed against the cliffs of romance in a blinding finish that made both see stars…' honestagawd, per'fessor, who wrote this shit?"

"Some housewife named Ethel or Ermengarde, likely. I'm just the cover illustrator." The professor, who perched cross-legged on his own desk behind a sketchpad, had a familiar voice. Mel found herself instantly enthralled. "Read me the next bit?"

"Okay." Cass reopened the book. "'As Devon collapsed onto Sophia's shivering body, she felt a completeness, a closeness no touch had ever given her.' Well, no shit, Sophie, he just flopped on ya…"

"Do you believe in love?" the professor asked. Cass looked up suddenly.

"What?"

"Love. You sound like you don't believe in it." There was a long silence.

"Alright, maybe I don't. Love is almost as overrated as the orgasm."

"Have you ever had either?

"What are you, the male lead in a porn movie? No, I've never been in love. Okay?"

"Yet you don't believe in it."

"Why the hell should I? My father was mortally in love with my mom, but look what happened there. You fall in love, you get hurt. It's just easier not to care."

"What happened to your mom?"

"She died. What's the deal, anyway?"

"I just hate to see someone like you not believe in love."

Mel knew where she had heard that voice!

"What d'you mean, someone like me? A witch? An Auror? Someone with dark hair? Irish?"

John Tyler set down the sketchpad and closed the distance between himself and his student.

"Someone so inutterably beautiful."

Cassie Alcott smiled cleverly and placed a hand on her professor's shoulder before kissing him gently on the lips. A second later, she looked at him and shrugged.

"See? Nothing. If you don't believe in it, it doesn't exist."

"It doesn't, eh?" John appeared to consider this. "Well…in the interests of proper argument, don't you think we should try that just once more?"

"If you like," Cassie replied airily, leaning close again. John turned his head at the last second, stopping her. "What?"

"Just…try it my way. For epistemology's sake."

"Okay."

"Stand up." Cass disentangled her legs from the desk and stood, clearly expecting her professor to do the same, but instead he raised one of his knees. "Here." Taking her hand, he lowered the female to perch on his knee, then set her hand on his shoulder. "Don' be scared, Cassie." He took her other hand in his and kissed it, then claimed her lips as it became abundantly clear nobody ever had before. A small sound of protest escaped her, but after a few seconds, it became more of a moan –and not in the slightest way protesting. John stopped the kiss only after Cassie's arms had somehow found their way to his shoulders, and he looked at her quizzically. "Still nothing?"

"You cheater. That's lust, not love…"

"Oh, lust?" The werewolf raised an eyebrow. Seconds later, he had swept the girl off her feet and carried her over to his desk. He cleared it with a sweep of his arm and lay Cassie on top of it, kissing her ferociously on lips, neck, and even undoing the collar of the guys' shirt she wore as he sought lower ground to cover. "This is lust, Cassie." Soon she was responding just as ferociously, and what little was left on the desk soon found itself on the floor. All too abruptly, they stopped, and John kissed Cassie's hand again. "I've no use for lust. I want love from you."

"I don't believe in it."

"I do. And I love you, therefore it must exist." One more kiss, and then the professor stood up and headed for the door. "I'm sure you'll come around."

Mel could practically feel the rage emanating from her friend's younger self as the door closed gently. As Cassie Alcott began to curse, she stared in wonderment.

"Damn the man!" A book hit the wall. "Bloody, buggered, goddamn bad dishy werewolves-!" She threw another book. "And their kisses, and drawings and-" She saw the sketchpad. "Oh, bloody hell."

Drawn in various positions on the page, instead of the pre-sketches of a bodice-ripper cover, was herself, arguing with the paperback as she read it aloud. "Aw, hell, have I got it bad…"

It was somewhere about that point that Mel began laughing so hard the Pensieve spat her back out.

************************************************************

"A life without love, that's terrible," Donaghan observed in his Scottish accent.

"Well, fortunately, I've changed my mind since then…"

"You were a stupid teenage git, Auntie."

"Erm…yes…"

"But here's your coat anyway."

"That's better." Cass lifted the long, black garment and swung it on. After adjusting the lapels, she looked to the little boys. "Well?"

"Yeh need somethin'."

"A hat?" Theodoric retrieved a nicely broken-in black Stetson and climbed onto a chair to place it on his professor's head. "Tha's better."

"Na' jes' that…" Donaghan fetched a tartan sash, in an interesting pattern of blue, gold, and white. Was it actually two years since John had worn it with dress robes to the Yule Ball at Hogwarts? The little Scot tied it around her waist above the gunbelt and it gave a very nice, kind of Scottish-cowboy appearance. "I think tha's it." Cass checked the mirror.

"I look like a refugee from a John Wayne movie."

"But nice."

"Well, okay."

"Take some food with you?" Theodoric suggested. He opened the Mickey Mouse lunchbox and retrieved the foil-wrapped burger he had made earlier that evening, slipping it into the coat's pocket.

"Thanks, Theo."

"Where you goin', anyways?" Donaghan inquired.

"Oh, noplace," the professor remarked idly. "Birnam Wood's going to Dunsinane."

**************************************************************