I need a mother
Author: Leta McGotor
Disclaimer: I owe nothing but Cassy. The other belongs to JKR.
Chapter 13
„Dad,... Dad!" A scream sounded through the whole house. "Dad, have you seen my books?" It was Cassy standing at the top of the stairs in their house with an angry expression. "I know you have hidden them. Give them to me."
Her father was all but happy at hearing his daughter screaming again. Always she was looking for things: Her shoes, her dresses, her combs and now it were her books. Again always she belived her father had hidden her things, which almost always was the truth. It had become his hobby to annoy his daughter. When Aunt Ethel came for a visit one week ago she only sighed and let the two quarrelsome ones alone.
Now it was the evening of the 31st of August and the next day Cassy would see Hogwarts for the first time as her school. She was so excited that she had packed her trunk at the beginning of summer only to realize that she needed some things and packed it out again. The next day her trunk was ready to take away and in the evening she rummaged in it again. Severus had given up to tell her that she didn't need to pack her things that early but Cassy ignored his advices, she more and more got her own head. In fact, if it was possible, she had waited at plattform 9 ¾ the whole summer but for her luck – and for the nerves of her father – was that never one of her ideas she really thought about.
Unbearable she was in the time when her father was away with his new wife, Minerva McGonagll. They had married in the first week of summer holidays on the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts. Cassy always had to laugh at the thought of it. Her father was not himself the time before it. He forgot some of his classes, that all had wondered if he was really ill, he stared at Minerva with open mouth while the students whispered behind his back and forgot what he wanted to say and stopped more than one time to think what he had said in the last five minutes. That all increased when the day of their wedding came nearer and one day, when he had stared after Minerva again, he had run against the huge double doors in Hogwarts that all students had laughed for hours.
Minerva was not the same as well. She noted nothing in her classes because she looked with dreamy eyes out of the window. One time, when a student had asked her a question, she had told him to 'ask somebody else' because she 'couldn't know all'. The student had looked at her in shock but then turned around to ask others after her animagus form and wondered why she had forgotten that it was a cat. In that time the students had so much freetime they had not in years while Minerva told her students that they had no homework for once, Severus forgot to mention the topic at all.
Cassy liked it to remember the day of the wedding. She never had seen her father that happy. You really could feel his happyness, he smiled and grinned the whole day and was kind and friendly to all and everybody. Cassy had helped Minerva with her dress, she thought was so beautiful, that she wondered until today, why her father hadn't broken down out of pure shock. The dress was white with very light green. Little flowers were embroidered all over the dress and matched perfectly with the uncountable pearls in her long black hair. Cassy believed that Minerva's outfit was one of the highlights of the whole day until her father had kissed her. She had never seen a kiss, which lasted that long and – to her own surprise – some of the other guests seemed to have the same opinion for she heard many 'Oh's, 'Ah's and some 'wonderful's.
It was to Severus and Minerva's benefit that they hadn't told Cassy where they wanted to go. The girl was grumpy the whole two weeks and her poor aunt got no rest for Cassy asked her without a break where her 'parents' had gone to. Cassy used to refer her father and Minerva as her parents because for her, nobody could be a better mother than Minerva.
It was Minerva, too, who hurried up the steps to Cassy when she screamed for her dad because of her books. Cassy had grown up in the last years and was not a little girl anymore but a young lady, who demanded her rights, only her parents had to remember her on her duties in the household.
"Have you seen my books?" Cassy asked with an innocent smile when she saw Minerva hurrying up to her with a stern expression on her face.
"No, but don't scream like that, your father is sleeping. I'll help you to find them." Cassy raised an eyebrow like she had seen it Minerva doing.
"He is sleeping? Dad? What has he done tonight?" Cassy watched as Minerva blushed and pushed her into the next room.
"He… he has hidden your books… yes." Minerva answered hastily, still with a shade of red in her face. Cassy smiled her innocent smile again.
"I knew it." Cassy said with triumpf witten across her face. Minerva never knew if she was believing her. Later they found the books all over the whole house for Cassy – and her parents as well, not that they would say it – had read them everywhere they could stand or sit. And there were a lot of possebilities.
It was late the same evening when Severus dared it to come out of the bedroom. When he saw someone sitting on the sofa in the living room he jawned widely.
"Cassy?" He asked in a sleepy voice.
"Is tucked in" Minerv answered without looking up.
"Good. I can't wait for the moment when she is in her dormitory although the Slytherin common room is quite near." He muttered and let himself fall on the sofa beside his wife.
"Slytherin common room? I would rather think that she is not a born Slyth…"
"Of course, she is. What else? You only need to watch her and you see that she is a born Slytherin, like her father." Minerva raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
"I don't think so. She is rather a Gryffindor than a Slytherin."
"Never."
"Pardon? Do you want to say that your house is better than mine?"
"I don't want to say it, it is law that Slytherin is better than Gryffindor." Minerva snorted.
"Better? In your dreams, Severus, in your dreams. I hope the shock is not that bad, when she will be sorted into my house. See it positive. Then she is really in the best house then." Now it was Severus' turn to snort.
"Never is…" but what he wanted to say nobody should hear. Minerva kissed him soundly on the lips and pulled him towards her. Severus wrapped his arms around her and let his tongue wander around her lips, begging for entrance. Minerva opened her mouth to taste his mouth as well. Neither of them heard the giggle from the stairs as two eyes glowed in the darkness before vanishing with their owner.
A/N: I have reached my limit for words and stop right here for I don't want to cross my invisible line. You have to understand it. – No, was a joke, really. (smile)
Severus sat at the Head table in the Great Hall and looked more grumpy than ever when Minerva sat next next to him with a broad smile on her face.
"Oh, Severus, don't look as if the world is coming to an end. In don't know where is your problem. We have the same opinion. Cassy will be sorted into the best house of the school and, what shall I say, she is." Her smile broadened. Severus looked to Cassy. She was sitting at the Gryffindor table and winked at him before turning to one of her new friends. Severus swallowed. He was unbelievingly proud of his daughter – not that he would admit it in front of Minerva – that she was sorted in one of the best houses of the school. He sighed and when Minerva looked at him with her raised eyebrow he answered, suppressing a light smile.
"What shall I say? At least she is in the second best house."
"You old grumpy…" Minerva began with a smile playing around her lips. Like little children.
Okay, that is the end, really this time, I swear. Thank you to all who have read and reviewed this story. I hope you enjoyed it reading as well as I writing it.
A really big thank-you to all my reviewers: schokoking, Crookykanks, p0l, Shadowside, Kyer, Charli Fenwick, Morgana-Alex, ladymcgonagall, SexyIsSnape126, blackthornroses, EverTheDreamer, Amanda, kt, Minerva the 'Angel' and Annie Mears.
An especially really big thank-you to: sinnasmurfen, Emily, DamesFan and Crazy-Physco
And to Lady Henrietta: I should write this chapter especially for you because you have reviewed really all of my chapters without a break. Really, really thank you for that and I hope you could enjoy it.