Three is a Magic Number

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Neat writing filled the page of the card in Casi’s hands. She was in the Three Broomsticks, at a small table near the fire.

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My dearest daughter,
Today is your seventeenth birthday. Hopefully, some of my mistakes have taught you. This necklace was a dear possession of mine and I wish for you to have it. Since I am writing, not saying these words to you, I am dead and have failed. Your mother, as you call her, is not your mother. This woman is actually your stepmother, your real mother having died the day you were born. I hope that you are up to this, young one. I recognize in you my strength. Your uncle Severus Snape teaches potions at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in which you are no doubt in attendance. In order to protect you, he has consented to assume the guise of your second cousin, my cousin. My brother is a good man. I digress. Listen to me. You must not allow any danger to come to Hogwarts, love. You are a descendant of the two proudest houses in Hogwarts: Gryffindor and Slytherin both. The rift between Slytherin and Gryffindor was, in fact, a woman. She had two children, one by Gryffindor and one by Slytherin. Wizarding luck being what it is, your mother was of the Gryffindor line, and I of the Slytherin. These two lines joined makes a potent warrior of you. It fell to me when I was seventeen to protect Hogwarts, and I failed in allowing the Death Eaters to take my brother. You will see what the threat to your generation is. Be brave, my dragon, but do not forget to use the cunning as well. All my love and hopes are for you, Dearest.
Your Father,
Procyon Snape

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The necklace was a crystal dragon with silver beads wherever a star would be in the constellation Draco. It felt a bit weighty, but Casi felt she’d get used to it in time. ~Maybe I will go to the ball. No. I definitely will go to the ball.~ She made her way not to the robe shop, which had a good-sized crowd in it, but to a small fabric store she knew of, near the outskirts of the village.

“Hello, my dear. How may I help you?” The shopkeeper was a lovely woman of about forty, still laughing with the girlish glee of one in high school, but preserved enough to know when to be serious.
“I’m just looking at the moment, but the minute I need help, I’ll let you know.”
“Very well.” Casi walked toward the cheap stuffs first, because she had once made a beautiful dress out of little more than dyed muslin. There was nothing there that particularly caught her eye, but- there! Among the expensive silks was a silver gossamer that would do nicely with the cloth she had in her trunk back at the school. She pulled the bolt from the wall and went up to the counter.
“Four yards, please.”
“Are you sure you’ll only take four?” The shopkeeper said, measuring it out.
“It’s only to be a cover for a dress. I have the fabric already at the castle. This gossamer is just what I’m looking for.”
“It’s not exactly gossamer, Love.” She cut the fabric very carefully.
“Really? What is it?”
“Demiguise hair interwoven with gold silk, shot through with silver threads.”
“Translation: Expensive.”
“Precisely. I did weave this myself.”
“How much do I owe you? It is very beautiful.”
“Twenty galleons.” Casi whistled and counted out a good deal of what she was carrying with her. “That’s what I said when I priced it out.”
“Thank you, it’s perfect for what I need.”
“Do come and show me this dress it’s going on.”
“Oh, of course. Have a nice day!”
“You too, love.” Casi swept out, and the shopkeeper added “Now that is the oddest girl I’ve ever seen. Goes clear past the silk to a bolt that’s been unnoticed since I put it out four years ago.”

The dress turned out nicely. It was black silk, very simple, but with an ‘Irish colleen’ feel to it, probably helped by the fact that though the sleeves ended at the elbow, the fabric continued on past her fingertips under her arm. It laced in the front with silver laces, showing enough, but still not quite enough, of her chest. The shell itself made the dress shine, giving the impression of perhaps a black pearl, but with a gold and silver sheen to it. The shopkeeper had loved it, praising Casi mightily for her workmanship, and had asked if she would be so kind as to help with some alterations on a dress of hers. Casi was only too glad, and was able to finish the work in little less than an hour.

The days passed quickly, and Harry had become quite the popular person to have around. IF you were a girl. “Finally,” said Lavender Brown at one point, “a boy who understands, not to mention who’ll listen!” By the end of November, even the Slytherin girls were talking with him, griping with him, or just plain enjoying his company. This was how Casi found him on the evening of the twenty-third. He was sitting next to a rather distraught Pansy Parkinson, and one hand was on her shoulder. “Well, Pansy, what else could have happened, he is a spoiled brat, after all.”
“But two days before Christmas!” She buried her head in his shoulder.
“Oh, Pansy. . . did you and Draco-” she was cut off by a rather loud sob. “-break up? I’m so sorry.” Casi said.
“It’s not bad enough he doesn’t pay attention to me since Halloween, but this- this is an-” she looked up and saw who was addressing her. Her voice got deadly. “You. You’re the cause of all this!”
“What?”
“He said that- he said that he loved you!”
“He what! That arrogant, two-timing, no-good, ill-begotten son of a reptile, he said WHAT?”She nearly splintered one end of the Slytherin table bringing her fist down. ~Hey! Watch how you’re talking about my love interest. ~
~>Oh, shut up, Harry!<~
“He said that he loved someone in Gryffindor house with black hair. That’s all I could get out of him. And since you’re the only girl in that house with-” she broke into sobs again.
“Parvati Patil has black hair.”
“She’s taken. He said that this person wasn’t, but that he feared they would be soon, if he didn’t make a move.”
“Look at it this way, Pansy. Forget him. You’re better off without an immature brat to look after, right?” ~Watch it!~ Harry’s face was glaring at her, but his eyes were saying something quite different.
“Yeah, you’re right.” A shit-eating grin spread across Casi’s face as she thought of the perfect thing to do to Malfoy.
“Tell you what. Let’s put something slimy in his bed, okay?” Pansy considered for a moment.
“What’ve you got?”

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