Chapter Sixty-Two: One Night Before the Storm

"There's spare clothes in the back," Cass told Draco, hopping into the front seat and pulling her black hat back on. As he jumped over the seat to change, she started the engine and headed for the road. "Alright, tell me that bit again. Where the hell have they got her?"

"Godric's Hollow. There's a house near the Potters' that looks ruined but isn't."

"Why do people always assume that's the last place we'll look?"

"Because it usually is, and there's so much residual magic there it makes anything hard to trace."

"The word 'usual' doesn't apply to you an' me, Draco."

"No, I guess it doesn't." The blonde climbed back over the seat a few minutes later and looked quizzically at the stereo buttons. "Can we put something on? I'm nervous as hell."

"My thoughts exactly."

Draco had been on enough rides in Dingo to know where the CDs and bizarre homemade tapes were kept. "Something relaxing?"

"Anger's fuel, little bro."

"Good point." As Draco slid the burned CD-R marked 'Fury Music' into the deck, Cass realized her slip. Fortunately, Draco seemed to have missed the inappropriate term of endearment, or perhaps considered it honorary. The first song began: 'Higher Ground' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "You burned this one?"

"John did."

"Oh." Draco looked at the list, typed inside the slim CD case. "Can't say it looks like his."

"I'd imagine Mel helped a bit…'Teachers, keep on teachin'…'

"'Preachers, keep on preachin,'"

"'World, keep on turnin…'" Draco grinned. "I can see how you messed with Aunt Bellatrix."

"Rock an' roll doth feed the soul."

There was a sound like artificial thunder and some crashing organ.

"'Hi. We're your weather girls…'"

"What the fuck?" Cass inquired in shock. She and Draco listened for a few seconds, during which the infectious disco beat and absurd lyrics became clear. "'It's Raining Men'? Of all fucked-up songs…"

"He's your husband."

"This is supposed to feed the fury within?"

"What next? The Spice Girls?"

"Draco, don't tempt the fates…"

"'When you're feeling sad and low, we will take you where you gotta go…'"

"Holy crap."

"I can't believe I'm reproducing with this person." In spite of her sarcastic comment, Cass was going furiously red. Draco gave her an accusing glance.

"Whose CD was this from?"

"Err…mine."

"Then the rumors are true!"

"What rumors?"

"That the deep dark secret Pansy didn't know when she was pretending to be Hermione…you were into roller disco as a kid!"

"Who on earth would start such an absurd rumor?"

"Luna Lovegood. She found this Web site…"

"Utter rot. Why, there's no way imaginable…" Cass looked at Draco's knowing grin and sighed. "Alright, we all had youthful follies. Look at Severus."

"From fifth grade to graduation?"

"Draco, I was young and…" Cass went a little redder, but smiled. "I was also really good."

"At roller disco?"

"Yes. It's one of the skills you don't learn at Auror academy."

"Professor Cass, I can see why that's such a deep, dark secret."

"Why?"

"Because it doesn't fit you at all. You're the wild, scary American, sent to reprogram the children of Death Eaters –not the secret Spice Girl freak who's into roller disco." A mischievous look cracking across her face, Cass looked over her half-brother.

"Want to try it sometime?"

"Sure! Mom loves disco, and I…" It was now Draco's turn to go red. "I sorta think it's fun to dance to."

"Wait'll you try it with quads on."

"Quads?"

"Roller skates, two in front, two in back."

"Don't you wear rollerblades?"

"Those're unsuited for dancing. Peasant skates."

"When this is all over, we're going to have some fun times."

"Totally."

"Wait'll you see Uncle Severus on skates."

"What?!"

"Just joking. I'm sure he'd learn roller disco for your sake, Sis."

Cass caught his term of endearment and felt it far more keenly than he had hers.

"Are you cold with the top down? It is January, after all."

"The heater's going. Only thing is the wind messing up my hair."

"Always the glamour boy."

"How the heck is your hat staying on?"

"It's charmed to…and it's also John's." Cass removed the offending black object and set it in the back over her shoulder.

"Because you look like a cowboy from hell."

"Shut up…you look like you've been raiding Procol Harum's clothes pile."

"Who?"

"Oh, never mind. You look like a classic rock refugee." Draco looked critically at the white Renaissance-cut shirt with the laces and pointed collar and the black leather vest that matched the pants he had worn to go take Crabbe down in.

"I think I look pretty damn good, considering these're your husband's clothes."

"Don't be too sure of that."

"Good god!" Draco looked at the very sexy vest and shirt, frowning. "You have transvestite issues."

"Hey, pair that with a skirt and it's incredibly feminine."

"When do you wear a skirt?"

"Never in public, Draco dear." Cass's grin was arch. "That shirt is also incredibly comfy for, -erm…sleeping in."

"Well, when it comes to perversion, you wrote the book."

"Co-wrote. And there's nothing wrong with wearing guys' shirts to bed, long as you wash 'em afterwards."

"You did, right?"

"Nope. Robby did. The house-elf who crochets doilies on order."

"Are we going to kill my father?" Draco asked suddenly, as if the question had been on his mind, and it couldn't stay in any longer. Cass looked earnestly at him, holding the wheel tightly, and shook her head.

"S'not my place, even if my job does allow it."

"Am I, then?"

"Draco, that's up to you. If he attacks, I'll defend, but I don't want that …man dead by my hand."

"You don't want guilt?"

"I don't want to tell your mom it was me. That, and death by my hand is too good for his sort, in some ways. I want him to live a long, long time, and see all the ill he wrought turn to good."

"Can it?" Draco looked at his own hands, and Cass thought of the little feeling, sort of like bubbles, that hit her when John or Severus spoke, or when she sang. It occurred to her that the feeling also happened sometimes when Draco talked, or when they sang along with the stereo together.

"I think it can."

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"What is…?"

"A baby girl," Lucius said in a hushed voice, holding the squalling little creature up in the sheet as if she might at any moment sprout wings and flutter off. "Should she be this…?"

"Small? I think so." Narcissa added another painkiller spell to the nearly palpable force field of various enchantments on the unfortunate young mother. Unfortunately, this one woke her up a little.

"Owwww…"

There was a sound of rushing feathers and strange, unearthly song. As the red bird landed near the girl's shoulder, Narcissa felt a strange tug at her heart.

"Fawkes?" Hermione asked drowsily. As the bird crooned its' healing song, both mother and baby fell asleep within seconds, leaving only the Malfoys to watch the magical creature in their midst.

"Dumbledore's phoenix." It was a mark of his corruption that Lucius actually seemed afraid of the bird. Narcissa reached out her hands, dropping the wand wordlessly, and he, still staring at the now gently crying bird, handed the child over. "What do you-?"

"Fawkes, look." Narcissa held the baby near the phoenix's beaky face. "It's a girl." The handsome red bird bent his graceful neck and touched the little palm with his beak in a strange, but universal gesture of benediction. A little tear touched the baby's hand after rolling down its creator's beak, and Narcissa felt the tiny baby shrug in her wrappings. She made a little sound in her sleep, but did not wake. "Thank you, Fawkes."

"What did he mean by…?"

"I don't think we need to know." Narcissa held the tiny infant close and motioned to the now-dwindling pile of washed linens. "Find me something softer to wrap her in." Obediently, Lucius brought a soft sheet, folded quadruple, and with the practiced hand of a mother, Narcissa transferred the little one without waking her. "Take care of the cord, would you?" Going a bit ashen, Lucius used the most painless severing charm he knew on the tiny, round stomach. He hadn't had occasion for it, outside of strings and tangles shoelaces, since Draco's pet Crup. As an afterthought, he cleaned the little creature off, letting the moist coat of hair sticking to her head become a nimbus of baby fluffiness.

The baby's hair, he realized, was jet black. Looking closer, Lucius noticed something else.

"Narcissa…look."

Following the trembling hand of her husband to the little, peaceful face, Narcissa smiled ruefully.

"Poor baby." The blond woman kissed Severus' daughter on her tiny forehead. Even twenty minutes from birth, the little girl's face showed the definite beginnings of a Snape nose. "Of all the features, you had to inherit that." As if displeased by this prediction, the baby snorted a little and opened newborn-blue eyes for just a moment, frowning. "Gods, you look like your daddy's girl. Lucius, would you-?"

Almost smiling, Lucius pointed his wand at the child's arm. He had used the same spell on Draco nearly nineteen years before.

"Ocularus revelatio… Brown."

"Can you be a bit more specific?"

"Like her…mother's."

"Oh!" Narcissa kissed the little one again. "Well, that more than makes up for it. You won't be a conventional beauty, dear, but beauty you definitely will be. Your poor daddy in thirteen years' time."

"Narcissa…" Lucius watched his wife cuddle the infant, even as she ignored him, not wanting to hear the child's condemnation to be the heir of Voldemort. "I…I'm going to take her to Severus."

"You liar." It was spoken in a quiet voice.

"No, truly. He…he loves the girl, and their daughter will be precious to him as well." With an almost shaking hand, Lucius brushed the little Snape's hair out of her sleeping eyes. "You can take care of her while her mama gets better, with Severus, and then you can be Aunt Cissie while I earn back the right to call you my wife. Severus and…Hermione will love her and raise her to be very powerful, and Draco and …Cassandra will be her first teachers to avoid the Dark."

"You can call Cassandra by name now, I notice," Narcissa observed, calmly but distrustingly preparing a bottle of infant formula for the sleeping baby held in her left arm's crook. "And where will you be?"

"In Azkaban, or a Ministry reparations office. Let me try to earn you back."

"You can't undo the past."

"But I can try to atone for it. Please, just look at me, Narcissa. I love you. I always have. If the death eaters are the other side from you, I don't want to be on theirs."

"You're already my enemy."

"Narcissa, I would march into hell barefoot if it meant I could hold you again. What will it take to show you that…"

The idea struck Lucius as he noticed his wand on the floor. Silently, he picked it up. Narcissa, fearing that he was using some ruse before trying a spell on the infant, did not turn, but stiffened. A split second later, she heard a mumbled Unforgivable, but felt none of the Cruciatus' pain. The strangled cry behind her was heartrending, but she hardened her soul in case it was another of Lucius' tricks. She heard the tray of medical implements clatter to the ground, then a sickening spurting sound. Finally, she turned, only to gasp in surprise.

"Every Death Eater on earth felt that," Lucius explained, showing his curse-blackened, stabbed forearm. Blood and what looked like venom or ink flowed from what had been the Dark Mark. Setting the little Snape baby down in a laundry basket of sheets, Narcissa knelt by her husband, finally eye to eye, and began to wrap a torn sheet around the wound. A single tear of hers, more incredulous than fearful, touched it, but Lucius did not wince. "I love you," he stated, lifting her chin with his free hand to look into her eyes. "More than life, more than freedom. More than my home, more than my country, more than my name. Life for life -"

"Love for love," Narcissa spoke with him, the long-estranged pair repeating what had been shockingly passionate wedding vows almost twenty-five years ago. "Giving, without measure. My life is you own as your love is mine. I ask no more, you give no less. Until time starts over and history is erased, until the hereafter becomes the past, forever, I am yours."

For one moment, for two hearts, Tom Riddle had never shown his sorry face in their lives.

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"Tomorrow, here, here, and here." Ginny pointed to a tactical drawing of Voldemort's most recent lair. "Lieutenant Pierce, how long will the wards and locking devices take?"

"Ten minutes tops with the cracksmen, eight with me." The door of the war room opened and Ginny's mother entered quietly.

"Quartermaster Weasley, how ready are the medical officers and provisions?"

"Five of St. Mungo's best and six from the German Aurorscheidt, three Swiss. The house-elves are making up plenty of field dressings and such, and I've seen to it that there are water bottles and chocolate chip cookies in everyone's knapsack."

"Er…thank you." The newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Weasley seriously doubted chocolate chip cookies were proper battle provisions, but decided quite wisely not to interfere. "Captain Lupin, how are our centaur friends?"

"Preparing, just as we are now."

"Good. Moody, are the Ministry Aurors here?"

"Present and accounted for."

"Lieutenant Watling, how goes the artillery?"

"The Machine is gearing up even as we speak. Without Colonel Tyler or Lance Corporal Malfoy, it goes slowly, but we should be ready when the signal comes."

"Corporal Thomas, how do the electronics stand?"

"The walkie-talkies are fine, but the long-distance radioes have a lot of magical static." Dean frowned. "Could we make do with speaking shells?"

"No magic in our communications. Cellular telephones?"

"No tower near the battlefield. Undependable."

"There are satellite telephones available," Lt. Watling pointed out.

"Good. Watling, Tonks, get to London and get us enough for every officer above private. Gringotts vault number four hundred twenty, password is the ranking Lance Corporal's mother's middle name spelled backwards." That was why it was so vitally important that Tonks went. Narcissa was her aunt, after all, and Ginny didn't quite know herself what the hell Narcissa Malfoy's middle name was. The funds-appropriation systems Bill had set up were just charmingly confusing enough to be safe. "Has anyone seen Prof- Captain Snape?"

"He's in his rooms," Harry explained.

"Leave him there. In fact, make sure he does not get out. The enemy could hurt anyone with a Dark Mark who's within a quarter mile. It's not safe for him to go along. Has there been any word from the AWOL officers?"

"We found a few co-conspirators," the Southern-inflected voice of Katie Scarlett Malfoy announced, bringing her son and Donaghan forward.

"Alright boys, spill it," Ginny commanded. "Where the hell are they?" Donaghan frowned chastisingly.

"You're not a's'posed to say tha' i' front o' us. We're little."

"Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, Auntie Cassandra lit out of here around seven o'clock yesterday." Theodoric frowned. "I admit that Mr. McPhersen here and I did have a hand in helping her to do so."

"Did she say where she was going?" Ginny asked, a little more kindly.

"She said Birnam Wood was goin' to Dunsinane. Tha's in Scotland," Donaghan explained, "near my grandda's castle."

"It's also Shakespeare," Salazar Malfoy observed. "From 'Macbeth.' What was that hostage's first name –the one Severus was working with?"

"Hermione, why?"

"Also Shakespeare. From 'The Winter's Tale.'" The pureblood British turned Southern aristocrat frowned thoughtfully. "Considering it is winter, is it possible she and my nephew've gone to rescue her?"

"But the Birnam Wood-?"

"Cassie's American and Draco's British," Katie Scarlett clarified. "The forces that marched through Birnam Wood in that play included English foreigners who came to assist the Scottish cause."

"Not to mention Birnam Wood is one of the chief places for dragon sightings, historically."

"Okay," Ginny frowned. "Exactly how did all this Shakespeare stuff get into it?"

"It's Cassie, for chrissakes," Ringo Tyler grinned. "She loves freaky clues like this."

"As does Draco," Salazar added, smiling. "Those two could write mysteries." Ginny was beginning to look really desperate.

"Say they have, then. Any ideas how we can reach them before tomorrow? We need that Machine on-line!"

The Tyler brothers shrugged. Everyone but the Southerners looked blank. It was Little Theodoric who finally spoke up:

"Call her cell-phone?"

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