ZIVA
The woman gave them a polite but slightly fixed smile, her eyes darting from one to the other of them, clearly confused. Tony was stunned and Gibbs looked like he was about to have a heart attack, so Ziva stepped forward.
"Ziva David. NCIS."
"Hello. Um." She shook Ziva's hand briefly. "I'm Caitlin Gibbs."
That was an odd coincidence, admittedly, but still not a good reason for the strangled noises from her colleagues. Though Gibbs had also called her Kate...
"Kate?"
Her forehead creased. "No, just Caitlin. No one calls me Kate."
"And you are...?"
"I'm a teacher here." Caitlin looked at her as if that was a stupid question. Given the cluster of children surrounding them, maybe it was.
She sounded more or less English, which made sense after what Gibbs had told them in the tunnel, but to Ziva's well trained ears there was the trace of an American accent in her voice.
"What's NCIS?" She seemed suspicious. Ziva couldn't blame her. Three people appearing in the middle of a school was probably no less strange to her than finding the door and the tunnel had been to them.
"Naval Criminal Investigative Service."
Ziva had long since grown accustomed to no one recognising the acronym, but she was also used to people reacting to the explanation with fear and mistrust. Just occasionally a sailor in a tight spot who was in need of an advocate would be relieved to see them, but usually the most positive reaction they got was indifference.
She had never experienced this reaction. Caitlin's eyes had lit up.
"Naval? You're with the navy? The American navy, obviously. You're muggles, aren't you? Wonderful!"
Not another peculiar idiom. She sighed. "I do not know what a muggle is, but we are federal agents."
Caitlin laughed. "Muggles are non magic people. I teach muggle studies. Minerva suggested we might try to forge some links with muggle government agencies who could be trusted not to overreact. I never thought she would get permission to do it! You're here for my class?"
Ziva just stared. Caitlin obviously thought she'd explained everything, but if anything it had just made it all seem even stranger. She looked at Tony, who pulled his best 'How the heck should I know?' expression, then at Gibbs, who was still looking like he'd been hit by a freight train. No help there.
"I... I do not really... That is, I did not know..." She really didn't have a clue what to say. Perhaps this woman was mentally unstable. Or perhaps they all were. Or perhaps this was a dream from which she would wake up at any moment. If she was lucky.
Caitlin looked a little perplexed by their reactions. "Maybe I should go and find Professor McGonagall. Who asked you to come here? Was it the headmistress?"
"Dumbledore."
It was the first word Gibbs had said since he'd called this woman Kate, and his voice still had the same strained, breathy quality. The woman turned to him, and Ziva would've sworn that Gibbs actually paled slightly under her gaze. Caitlin frowned a little, though the expression was sad rather than angry.
"You knew Dumbledore?"
There was a pause. "Knew?"
Caitlin put a hand to her mouth as realisation dawned. "Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought... I didn't realise. He was killed."
