An Unlikely Coven

*

"Wow," said Linda Potter, gazing up at the castle. "That has to be the biggest building I've ever seen!"

"Hogwarts is bigger than any Muggle building in England," replied Neville Longbottom. "Of course, the Muggles don't know it, and they continue with their little attitude of technological superiority. I can only imagine how it must be in the States....."

Draco Malfoy's eyebrows shot up. "Neville, I assure you that technol-"

"Yes, yes, that's right, you have a little computer business, don't you? Nearly Magical or something like that?" Neville seemed bored. Apparently, his position of authority had come with a new attitude of haughtiness.

"Almost Magic," Draco corrected him, through gritted teeth.

"They didn't like each other much in school, did they, Mom?" Joey Malfoy whispered to his mother.

"Almost as much as your father and Harry," Ginny whispered back. "The difference is, they got over it."

"Well, then, this should be interesting....." Joey grinned.

Neville's attitude of indifference had obviously touched a nerve with Draco. "We worked hard to build that company up, and it would do you well to call it by it's rightful na-"

"All right then, time to go up to the castle!" Hermione Potter announced loudly.

"Perfect timing, Herm," Harry Potter added. "Don't you think so, Ron?" He looked pointedly at Neville and Draco, each of whom looked as if they were trying to kill the other with a stare.

"Yes, let's go. Now," agreed Ron Weasley, seeing the point. "Come on."

"But Dad, it's just getting interesting!" Bobby Weasley said, half-jokingly.

"Now, Bobby." Lavender Weasley pushed her son in the direction of the castle.

"Mo-om, I was kidding. It's amazing, really- you always utilize sarcasm, but yet you can't recognize it." Bobby complained.

"Young man, do you want to live to make another sarcastic remark?" Lavender inquired threateningly.

"Okay, okay. I get the point." Bobby started to walk quickly up the hill.

Linda and Joey ran to catch up with him.

"Is it just me, or is this all a little strange?" Linda asked quietly. "I mean, we don't have anything with us except the clothes on our backs."

"You have the mutant purse from hell," Joey pointed out.

"True. But besides that, and the weird stuff we bought earlier," Linda said impatiently, "we've got nothing. Don't you think that we should, you know, maybe ask about that?"

"Sure. Go for it, Linda," Bobby responded nonchalantly.

"What? Why me?" She tossed her hair over her shoulder.

Joey turned to her. "You're the one that seems so eager. Go on, Sherlock."

"Whatever you say, Watson," Linda retorted, stopping. They had crossed a drawbridge, and were now standing at an enormous set of double doors.

The adults soon reached the entrance. "Why are you just standing there?" Neville asked irritably. "Open the door!"

"It's not theirs to open, Neville." Draco was staring daggers at the man. "Go on, say it."

Neville's eyes narrowed. "No, Draco, old chum, I think it would be better for you to do the honors. Anyone who has attended this school, with good intentions, may do so. But, of course, you knew that, didn't you?"

"I think I will." Draco turned abruptly, and faced the door. "Alohomora."

Suddenly, the huge barriers swung open, and Linda found herself looking at the oddest, most elaborate place she'd ever seen in her life.

"This is it. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The largest, oldest, and most elite educational institution in the world of magic." Neville walked into the hall. "If you'll excuse me, I have some rather important business to attend to. I believe that you know the way to the Headmaster's Office. Please let him know of your presence." With that, he quickly absconded.

"I didn't think he could have possibly gotten any worse than what he was at school," Draco observed, watching Neville swoop up the stairs. "But, I was proved wrong. He's not a clumsy fool any longer; he's now a pompous ass."

"DAD!" Joey reprimanded him, mockingly.

"Shut up, Joey. You're starting to sound like my mother." Linda threw her hands up in the air.

"LINDA!"

"What! I didn't do anything!"

"That's not how you should speak to your mother!"

"Ma, Dad says that sort of thing to you all the time and he gets away with it!"

"It's different. You're a fifteen-year-old girl, and you shouldn't be talking like that."

"Ma, don't even give me the 'ladylike' spiel."

"I'm not. Did I say anything about that? No."

"You were going to. That tone of voice implied things."

"Linda, you're imagining things."

"No, I'm not! Just because I have a-"

"All right, already!" Harry groaned. "Unless either of you happens to be carrying any aspirin, we're all going to wind up with headaches the size of Alaska." He crossed the threshold.

The others followed, still murmuring about Neville's personality transplant.

"So what if I'm fifteen? Does that matter at all?" Linda grumbled. "I picked it all up from her anyway, why does she get so mad? It's not like the world's going to end because of my slightly guttermouthed vernacular....."

"Slightly? That's the understatement of the year," Joey interrupted, as they began to follow their parents up the stairs.

"Who asked you?" Linda tossed her hair over her shoulder, 'accidentally' hitting him in the face.

"Oh, God, Herbal Essences....." Joey gasped, coughing. "I think I'm going to be sick....."

Linda, not even bothering to turn around, replied, "Deal with it. It's just shampoo."

"Jesus Christ, Linda, need Midol much?" Bobby muttered, jumping away quickly. This was a smart move, as Linda's fist went smashing around in his direction.

"Can you two just momentarily leave me alone?" she exclaimed, stopping on a landing. "Ever since we got on the plane, you've been harassing me like.....oh, I don't know, you've gotten me so mad that I can't come up with a decent analogy!"

"Maybe if you'd stop acting like you're the almighty queen of the world, we'd treat you normally! God, Linda, what the hell's gotten into you?" Joey let out an exasperated sigh.

"Don't forget, Joey, that she's the most powerful one of us," Bobby added, in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone. "Remember, she's the leader now. We're not exactly equals anymore."

Linda gaped. "Wait a minute. You're telling me that just because I happen to have been born with more of an edge than you two, I deserve to be treated like dirt?"

"Would you three please stop your arguing?" came a new voice. "I am trying to get some sleep."

Linda, Bobby, and Joey momentarily halted their squabble, and turned in the direction of the voice. A tall, willowy girl was stepping out of a doorway.

The first thing Linda noticed about her was her amazing abundance of hair. She had masses of curly, dirty-blond locks, hanging down well past her waist. And I thought I had tress problems, she thought, this girl's got three times as much hair as I do. Bet it weighs a ton. Wearing rumpled flannel shorts and a tee shirt, she looking rather grumpy.

"Wh-who are you?" Joey demanded.

The girl laughed. "Odd that you take that tone of voice with me," she said, speaking with a slight French accent. "I was in my quarters, trying to get the rest that I missed last night, and what do I hear but angry arguments! I think it would be more appropriate if I were to take that tone with you, not the inverse. After all, this is my home."

"Well, then, if this is your home, I'm sure you won't mind telling us your name," Bobby responded.

"After you." The girl waited expectantly.

Linda stepped forward. "All right, then. My name is Linda Potter, and my two companions are Bobby Weasley and Joseph Malfoy. Well?"

"Ah, you are the so-called 'chosen ones'. No further introduction is needed. My name," the girl began haughtily, "is Marie-Kaitrine Dominique Patil." She surveyed the three assembled before her. "Kaites for short."

"Kett?" Joey looked confused.

"No. Kaites," the girl replied, obviously exasperated at the malignant American mispronunciation of her name.

Linda nodded slowly. "Kaites, like vous faites, correct?"

"Oui, c'est ca." Kaites returned. "Tu parles français, non?"

"Mais oui! Je vais passer mes vacances prochain en France!" Linda said in a French accent almost as good as Kaites's.

"What the hell are they saying?" Bobby whispered to Joey.

"How should I know? I barely passed French II," Joey shot back. "I really should have taken Spanish."

"It's much easier," agreed Bobby, as the two girls spoke rapidly in French.

Joey squinted. "All right, I think Linda's saying that she's going to France next summer, and Kaites is telling her all about Paris."

".....et mes copains, ils sont tres, tres ëgoistes," Linda was saying, while shooting murderous looks at the two boys. "D'aprés ils, je suis un antagoniste stupide!"

"Hey!" Joey broke in. "Even I understood that!"

"Glad you did," Bobby muttered. "Yo hablo español."

He shook his head at the scene before him: Joey tirading at Linda in *very* broken French, Linda shooting back Parisian-tinged insults, and this strange new girl- Kaites- laughing hysterically, occasionally exclaiming, "Comment bizarre!"

Nothing had changed when Hermione walked out of the Headmaster's office, followed by Lavender and Ginny. "It figures. We're in Dumbledore's office, explaining our presence, talking about you three, and yet here you are out in the hallway, fighting in foreign languages." She caught sight of Kaites. "Great. Did we pick up another one while I wasn't looking?"

"Ah, bonjour, madames," Kaites introduced, extending her hand. "Je m'appelle Marie-Kaitrine Dominique Patil. Enchante de faire votre connaissance."

"Ginny Malfoy. Smashing," Ginny responded, shaking Kaites's hand. "Another one that does French. Linda, I guess you have someone to talk to."

"Yeah. It's nice to be around someone that speaks decent French for once." Linda shot a pointed glare at Joey.

Lavender, who was shaking Kaites's hand, paused. "Wait a moment. Marie-Katrine, would your mother happen to be a certain Pavarti Patil?"

"Of course." Kaites nodded enthusiastically. "And, please, call me Kaites."

"Sure, as long as you speak English." Lavender replied. "Dumbledore mentioned that there were a few students taking residence in the castle- I suppose that you're one of them."

"Yes." Kaites gestured towards the door she'd exited. "That is my room, over there. My mother was recently hired as the Divination teacher, following the departure of a Miss Sibyll Trelawney. She is not in the castle at the moment, as she departed on a trip to Africa to confer with some Algerian associates a week ago, but we expect her back any moment now."

"Ah, yes, that old bat," Hermione recalled. "I do rather wonder what happened to her....."

"Probably got a 1-800 number and left to make more money selling false horoscopes," Lavender mused. "I often think that I was insane ever to believe her crazy predictions."

"Not all Divinators are fakers," Ginny protested. "Just the ones I work with."

"Mom, all the ladies you work with wear babushkas and power beads and shawls knitted from sacred lamb's wool and stuff like that," Joey pointed out. "They also reek of Opium perfume and wear too much rouge. And why do they all have dyed-red hair?"

Ginny toyed with a bangle bracelet. "There's a Muggle legend that in order to be a witch, you have to have red hair. It's silly, really, but they all hold stock in it. Terrible, terrible dye jobs. especially that one Italian woman, her olive skin just doesn't work with it....."

"Ginny, Lavender, I think we're all forgetting what we originally intended to do- get the kids," Hermione reminded them. "Shall we?"

"You don't even have to tell us, Ma. We're going," said Linda, who was halfway down the hallway to Dumbledore's office.

*

"Ah, here come the infamous three!" Albus Dumbledore exclaimed as the teenagers walked into his office. "And Miss Kaites, salut. I surmise that you've already made her acquaintance."

Kaites nodded. "Bien entendu."

"Okay, don't you speak English?" Joey asked confusedly.

Kaites's eyes blazed. "I shall speak whatever language I prefer to speak at whatever time I choose to speak it, Monsieur Malfoy. I do not tone myself down to whatever the atmosphere is, nor to the people around me. If you do not comprehend what I say, then you obviously must try a bit harder."

The room was silent at this stunning pronouncement.

"Wow. You can insult him so eloquently," Linda finally managed. "All Ive been able to work out lately is a few swears and a comment on his low intelligence."

"The fine art of cutting one down to size is something that must be practiced, many times, Miss Potter," Kaites explained. "Cursing should usually be reserved for a final resort."

"All right, before you two ride off into the sunset and start a 'Degrade Joey Malfoy for Fun and Profit' club," Joey broke in, "how's about we figure out what we're doing here?"

"But of course, monsieur," replied Kaites. "If it must be repeated to you that you are here for a crash course in wizardry, then let it be so."

Even Draco had to laugh at her patronizing tone.

"Okay, do you ever stop?" Joey looked pained.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Mr. Malfoy, if you think that Kaites is an interesting person, wait until you meet her sister."

Joey looked ready to faint. "The-there's another one?" he stammered.

Kaites looked disgusted. "Yes. My twin sister, Persephone. Fraternal twins, let me assure you. We are absolutely nothing alike. She doesn't speak French, she only curses like a truck driver. For the first ten years of our lives, we lived apart- I with our mother, she with our father. That is why we are so different. If you believe that I am an insulting person, you will cry at the sight of Perri."

Joey grabbed Linda's shoulder for support. "This doesn't sound good. Not good at all."

Kaites displayed a small smirk. "And, if I'm not mistaken, I think I hear her distinctive footwear making its way down the hall right now."

*