Chapter Sixty-Five: A Dark and Rainy Night

Few places in the world are as dreary as institutions built by the government. In many cases they are merely brick boxes for shoving people and files in, but occasionally a tourism-minded mayor or planning committee does engage an architect worth his salt to make the civic edifice something a bit better than an eyesore. Naturally, said edifice is never quite as large or up-to-date in seventy years as it was in the era of its' construction, and all the grandiose architecture in the world is merely a bit of frosting on a fallen cake, a little polish on a shoe with no proper sole.

Such a place was Broughton Orphanage.

It had large marble steps, massive carved-wood-and-inlaid-iron double doors, and white columns that reminded people quite a bit of the American's White House –or would have if there weren't usually seven or eight children climbing them by day. In the present age, the massive doors had proved too heavy for their hinges, and until such time as the civic committee's paid handyman could get to repairing them, were bolted shut with a detour sign advising anyone with business to go 'round to the back. The handyman was, naturally, a shiftless son of a 'prominent family' –that is to say, a family who wrote fat checks, and at present it looked as if the doors would never be opened.

Of course, the doors weren't quite as heavy for the hinges as everyone supposed. The fact was that seventy-three and one-quarter years of little kids hopping nimbly up to perch on the big bar handles, hang on tight, and let two or three friends swing the door for a ride, had simply worn the original 1924 hinges out.

Architects really should take little kids' creativity into consideration more often.

The same, of course, could be said of the doorknobs on more or less every portal in the place. If there weren't two or three loops of string tied tight around the base, testament to loose teeth and impatience, the knobs were likely as not to drop off in the hand if turned too sharply. Children love to tie doorknobs together and prevent adults getting out.

The windows either stuck shut or dropped open with a healthy sneeze.

The oldest bedsteads in the place, iron or steel jobs left over from the dissolution of Bedlam Asylum in 1923, were the most comfortable. The 1942 replacements had been made during wartime shortages and tended to collapse if you got on from the wrong side or had a reasonably strong attack of the vapors. The 1965 models were little better, though those had nicely oiled castors perfect for bed racing down the halls. In any case, the beds had been jumped on since the mid twenties or earlier and were either lumpy as cobble roads or squashed flat.

The big carved marble fireplace, intended by the architect to be surrounded with sleepy tykes of an evening, listening to the orphanage director read aloud a bedtime story, (preferably something moral, dull, Dickens or all three,) had been screened off as a fire hazard since the neighborhood chimney sweep retired. There were often gory tales told by night of a child stuck up the chimney, always by older kids to younger. The memorable event of a pigeon skeleton dropping onto the hearth had caused no less than twelve six-year-olds to go into hysterics. That had been in 1952.

The second toilet on the left in the boys' lavatory didn't work, hadn't since before the war, and likely never would again. Naturally, every important visitor was directed to precisely that biffy to answer nature's call and receive the horrid shock of 'a Broughton shoeshine' upon flushing. A bit of graffiti on the wall immortalized the event of a certain Prime Minister having been given said treatment in 1940 and quite patriotically listed every word the great man had used on the occasion. Not even that had been enough to get the civic committee around to ringing a plumber up.

There was a loose floorboard in the third girls' dormitory under which, it was rumored, more than seventeen hundred salacious novels had been concealed and shared since Broughton's opening. In truth, it was closer to one thousand, nine hundred.

In the kitchen there was a meat grinder, immortalized in schoolboy song as where so-and-so went after he did you-know-what to the hall Matron x many years ago. In truth, the thing didn't work.

The second upstairs telephone worked, but only after one dialed, hit the cabinet twice in a specific place with the receiver, thumped it up top, and swore three times.

There was a basement closet reputed to be haunted. It was, though only by an ongoing club of girls who had met since 1926 to discuss aforementioned salacious novels. Old members left at eighteen or earlier and were replaced with new thirteen-year-olds, thus keeping one real tradition perfectly intact.

One glorious Guy Fawkes Day in the late forties, a boy whose name has been lost to history sent a lit firework down the rain gutter and blew an impressive hole in the drainpipe leading to a rain barrel. By some odd quirk of ballistic physics, his hole was perfectly situated so that every visitor who tried to ring the back doorbell while it rained got a big splash in the face if they were above five foot. The orphans referred to this as one's 'Broughton baptism.'

In 1971, a girl distraught over the breakup of the Beatles attempted to kill herself by jumping out of the girls' dorm window. Fortunately for posterity, it overlooked the back recess grounds, and she sustained only a sprained ankle by landing in a dumpster full of footballs. An older, male orphan who bore a fairly striking resemblance to Ringo Starr rescued her, and their children never lived in an orphanage.

The big dictionary had letters F though I printed upside down. Apparently a misprinted one had proved cheaper.

The games cabinet only unlocked if someone said the word 'ssssnake' while turning the knob. Athletes under ten believed it had been enchanted by a sort of football fairy who required a password to guarantee victory against Dinsford and Aberley orphanage teams. Athletes over ten did it anyway for good luck.

The pencil sharpener in the tiny office went backwards instead of forwards. No one had ever explained that one, though an aged secretary told the tale that a boy named Tom had repaired it for her once and it had gone counter-clockwise ever since. Perhaps Tom had been left-handed.

One window in the second boys' dorm had a dark red stain on it that looked vaguely like a thumbprint. It wouldn't come off for elbow grease, new-fangled cleanser, or anything, so most boys assumed it was simply a flaw in the glass and used 'the spot window' as a landmark in directing friends to meeting places.

There were a disproportionate number of orphans with unusually antique or foreign names, like Benedick, Romeo and Viola. The cause of this was the system for naming abandoned infants who turned up on the doorstep all too frequently. In the tiny office was a fat, leather book, with 'Collected Works of William Shakespeare' in almost illegibly faded gold letters on its' spine. This was opened at utter random in the event of a new baby, and whoever had found the child would select his or her name from the page. At the time of our story, there were six Richards, two Romeos, one Hamlet, a baby Desdemona, a Beatrice, and a Mutius Andronicus. If there were too many of one name, ten being the quota, the discoverer was permitted to use a name from a classic book, thus explaining Atticus, Holden, Scarlett and Winston. Last names were less systematically bestowed. The orphanage's register's six latest entries were as follows:
Green, Leonato. (Eyes.)
Starcatcher, Julia. (Cuts on palm.)
Quartertil, Rosaline. (Time of discovery.)
Black, Portia. (Hair.)
Beckham, Desdemona. (Looks like the footballer.)
Merridew, John or Jack. (Parents killed in fire.)

One can imagine the lives of the orphans who grew up in such a place. A moniker that could not be somehow explained by the Name System was cause to be teased, out of jealousy from those who knew nothing about their origins. Shortage and scrounging was a way of life that made cleverness and cunning the choicest of virtues, and loyalty was valued far above honesty.

In short, it was the ideal place to bring up a Dark Lord's heir when the spell went wrong.

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"Shouldn't we get out of here?" Draco asked nervously. "I mean, the Death Eaters could be anywhere, and Hermione's not exactly the picture of health right now…"

"Draco, there has got to be one of the soppiest, mushiest reunion scenes in the history of Great Britain going on just above our heads, starring two of the most terminally bookwormish people on earth today. I'm not interrupting that. Think of posterity, lad!"

"What has posterity got to do with-"

"In all of the all-star-cast war movies made about us in years to come, the next ten minutes or so are going to be the Academy bid for those actors unfortunate enough to be cast as Sevvy and 'Mione."

"You're ridiculous."

"Who'd you like to play you, dear?" John inquired. He was making a sandwich for Hermione, being the most oddly sensible of the strange party. "Out of Muggle and wizarding actresses?"

"Hmm. That's a toughie." Cass cracked open a Coke and handed another to Draco. "Considering I'm likely to be characterized as the gun-toting, slightly psycho American chick with the big rack and even bigger case of the grr-arrghs, I'd say Angelina Jolie. After 'Tomb Raider' she's already got the 'Action League Now' bit down…or perhaps Kate Beckinsale. Now for Draco…hmmm. Can't think of anyone besides Orlando Bloom sans the elfy ears."

"Severus?"

"Do I even have to answer? The Metatron and Sheriff of Nottingham." Draco looked a little clueless, but the Yank continued. "If we wanted it to be a musical, though, perhaps Mandy Moore for Hermione and Justin Timberlake for Draco."

"That's not funny!"

"Oh, yes it is. Fancy the lyrics. It'd be like 'Man of La Mancha' meets 'Rent.'"

"Or more 'Into the Woods.'" John smirked. "We can give whole new meaning to those wolf costumes."

"Smutty creature. No wonder I love you so." Cass kissed her husband lightly, taking the sandwich on its' plate to go deliver.

"Forget any movies about you two," Draco criticized. "Anyone cast would wind up married by the end of shooting."

"Good thing for the costumer," Cass retorted, taking off her belt and tossing it to John. "Dammit, I will not wear those tacky sacklike pants…"

"You can borrow mine."

"I already am, darling. At this rate, I'll fit into Hagrid's jeans by June." Going up the stairs and to the door, Cass knocked before entering –just in case. "Food for the prisoner."

"Come in!" Severus called. Hermione, despite looking pale and a little on the just-broke-out-of-Azkaban side, smiled at her eccentric friend.

"Good to see you, Cass."

"Good to see you, pal." The Yank set the sandwich before her friend. "Nibble time. It's peanut butter and banana, not hamburger-with-fire-sauce." Severus, John and Cass had split Theodoric's rather superlative cuisine in the car. "You don't look so good, mate. Did they not feed you?"

"I don't remember…anything…" Hermione sighed confusedly and looked down, catching something odd out the corner of her eye and her old smile flickered back. "Speak for yourself, Professor Tyler. Getting a gut there?"

"I'm not getting a gut. I'm knocked up, f'rchrissakes." Tyler's pleased grin and Granger's surprised smile were just enough to sprout a smile on the reputed Slytherin bat king.

"Oh, Cass! When are you due?"

"Mid-June. Not nearly time enough. Oh, and Sevvy told me what sort of baby to expect, so you're getting a little girl niece to read books to." The werewolf perched on the bed beside Hermione and kissed her soundly on the cheek, without any warning. "S' good to have you back, pal. I can't imagine doin' this without you around to keep me from screwing it up somehow." Severus let out a barely audible sigh and Cass smirked at him, her arm around the newly recovered hostage. "What? You'll get to read books and be Uncle Sevvy, too."

"Uncle Sevvy?" A short, barking cough interrupted Hermione's laugh. Cass raised an eyebrow, checked her friend's pulse, and cast an intricate spell with a lot of 's' and 'r' sounds in it. Hermione's color went from 'wan and ashes' to almost a glow of health, the gauntness in her cheeks faded, and the scar on her wrist went from angry red to half-healed pink.

"Ta-da!"

"What was that?" Severus asked, amazed at the transformation. "Hermione, are you alright?"

"Yes…I feel a lot better." Smirking and pleased with herself, Cass made a florid bow.

"Spell courtesy of the Impossibly Fabulous Mel Watling. Its something pureblooded witches cast on themselves before balls and things; sort of an all-over tune-up. Scars, blemishes and-" the werewolf indicated her own gut, "-stretch marks fade, plus you get this nice, happy an' healthy look. Considering how many of them were consumptive anorexics, it's a wonder more people don't know it."

"I knew of it," Severus explained, a bit testily. "The questions of why and appropriateness come to mind."

"Because, if anything would help get my ol' pal here out of bed, it would be a new spell to go research the daylights out of at the library." Cass indicated Hermione's indeed smiling countenance; pretending obliviousness to the fact that Hermione was merely trying not to laugh. "See? Enraptured. I wonder if you could manage to get that same happy look, Sevvy."

"I think I could have a go," the formerly dour professor observed, leaning close. "I've missed you so, dearest." As her best friends made up for lost time, Cass tactfully went to go start the car.

"See y'all in ten," she whispered.

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