Chapter 02

II.

...

A puff of orange interceded. Crookshanks leapt between them again, his fur at its fluffiest, hiding the sleeker-furred wizard-in-disguise. His golden eyes stared at her, his bulk shifting as she tried to angle her wand for a better shot.

"Move, Crooks! Move!"

A black paw came through the fur under Crookshanks' belly. It pushed at the two tiles in the center of that last sentence. NO. Then batted at the two preceding words in emphasis, if awkwardly since he couldn't see what he was doing. AM GOOD

"Good? You killed Professor Dumbledore!" she protested, voice rising in her agitation. "Why shouldn't I hex you?"

A knock on her door interrupted her. "Hermione?" her mother's voice called through the panel. "Are you alright?"

Torn between the two situations, Hermione forced herself to reply, "Um...yes, Mother; I'm fine! Just talking to myself..."

"Alright, then. Supper will be in half an hour. Don't forget to set the table!"

Hermione returned her attention to the black menace in her bedroom. He had slunk out from behind Crooks, and was rearranging the letters. He flinched under her angry regard, but hurried to pat the tiles into place.

HELP ME

"Why should I?" she demanded, keeping her voice low and her wand trained on the furry traitor in front of her.

CAN EXPLAIN

With his whiskers low and his ears back, he looked about as unhappy as a cat could get. He knew very well that she could hex him quite easily, helpless as he indeed was, stuck in the body of a cat. Hermione hesitated. Her gut was conflicting with her brain. She knew he had killed the Headmaster last year...and yet he was still in front of her, not trying to flee. He could've stayed silent, like Pettigrew had done all those years, hidden under the guise of Scabbers, the Weasley pet rat. But no, as soon as he had realized he could use the tiles to communicate with her, he had chosen to do so. Risked exposing himself to her, knowing that she was suspicious and he was helpless.

Sighing roughly, she prodded him with the tip of her wand. "Well? Go on! Explain, if you can."

Giving her a sardonic look...which cats were good at doing, she had to admit...he pawed several tiles into place.

NOT ENOUGH TILES

"...Not enough tiles? That's a cheap cop-out!" Hermione protested.

BUY MORE

Oh. Well. She hadn't considered that option. Staring at him, Hermione realized abruptly that she didn't have to buy more tiles. She was a witch and could just transfigure what they needed. She merely needed a lot of small objects in order to do so. Not quite trusting him to stay put, now that he was revealed, she flicked her wand. "Stupefy!"

He keeled over, unconscious. The limpness of his body made him look almost as pitiful as he'd been back in that alley. It reminded her that he had nuzzled her for attention, that he had been a good-kitty all this time in her company. That he had hissed at Ron, for being stupid enough to try to douse her with the twin's equally stupid love-potion. It also reminded her that he'd seen her taking a pee, and undressing in her room, and...

Scooping him up, Hermione resolutely stuffed him into the cat-carrier, locking the grille in place. Hopefully that would hold him until she returned. There was a hobby store just a few blocks away; if she hurried, she could get there, buy several bags of marbles...far cheaper than several Scrabble sets...and return with plenty of time to wash up, set the table, and eat supper. As for her prisoner, the traitor could starve for a little while, the way she was currently feeling about him.

...

Severus woke needing to use the bathroom. He also woke with the fear of having been transported to Azkaban after her attack, since the first thing he saw was a grid of metal wires. It took him a moment to realize the purple ruffly thing in the distance was the valance at the bottom of Miss Granger's bed. A familiar sight, over the last week or so. He was in the cat-carrier.

As if that could hold him. He still had some wandless, wordless magical tricks. Rolling his eyes, he concentrated, Apparating out of the cage with a soft crack! Appearing in the bathroom, he leapt up onto the toilet, used the facilities, then Apparated back. But not into the cage. As much as it might be smarter to stick himself back in there, to hide his ability to escape, Severus shuddered at the thought of being trapped like that. His whole life had been a trap. Poverty, hatred, discrimination, being swayed by the rhetoric and false logic of a madman, serving two masters in the hopes of destroying the evil one of them...and being trapped into destroying both of them for the greater good.

No, he had to convince the chit to help him, somehow, without getting himself locked up.

A delicious smell wafted into the room. Severus realized he was hungry, and that the bedroom door was open. Supper-time. Trotting downstairs, he headed for the dining room. With her parents home, he was reasonably certain she wouldn't put up a fuss at his appearance. That, and he was hungry. It smelled like shrimp, one of his favorite seafoods.

Hermione caught sight of a black object entering the dining room. She looked over at 'Puss' sharply. "How did you get out?"

He stopped and looked at her for a few moments, then disappeared, displacing air with a crack. Apparating onto her lap. Her mother startled.

"Goodness! Is that a wizarding cat?" Rachel Granger enquired, blinking at him. "I didn't know they could do that. Crooks certainly hasn't! At least, not in the last four years..."

"No, just this one," Hermione muttered. "And he's in trouble for it." She lifted her hand, intending to push him to the floor. He head-butted her palm, twisting himself so that she was forced to caress him, not shove him off her lap. "Don't think you can butter me up, mister!"

"Is your cat in trouble?" Jeffrey asked his daughter.

The cat in question purred loudly, nuzzling up against her stomach. "Yes...and if he doesn't stop it, I'm going to Petrify him."

He stopped, giving her a hard look. Her mother reached over and scritched behind his ears. "Oh, don't be so hard on the fellow, dear. He's been quite nice, so far. Now, you were telling us about your visit to Harry's?"

Trapped into social politeness with her parents, she buried her agitation at having the bastard traitor on her lap and resumed the conversation. And gave in and fed him scraps from her plate, when he nuzzled her fingers. The worst of it was, he was cute as a cat. Sleek and handsome. Affectionate, and even cuddly. She'd always had a soft spot for cats, but the concept of Severus Snape, Bastard Extraordinaire, being cuddly churned her stomach.

The telephone rang just as the meal ended. Her father went to answer it as Hermione pushed Snape off of her lap in order to help collect the plates. If he took offense at being dumped like that, she didn't see it. Instead, the annoying feline followed her from room to room, almost like a faithful dog. Apparently, he didn't trust her further than he could see her. Well, that was fine; she didn't trust him, either. Of course, he could just be trying to ingratiate himself, somehow...

She was coming out of the kitchen for another handful of dishes when her father called to her.

"Hermione, it's for you. It's Aunt Eumenia." Jeffrey held out the receiver to his daughter. 'Aunt' Eumenia was actually more of a second cousin, but she insisted everyone call her 'Aunt', one of her many eccentricities. The woman was a paleo-archaeologist. Hermione had always liked her because the woman had encouraged her to read all sorts of things, usually gifting her with some odd Muggle research text on an obscure but fascinating subject for birthdays and holidays, many of them on ancient ruins.

Curious, Hermione picked it up. "Hello, Auntie! How are you?"

"Hello, Hermione dear, and just splendid, thank you! I have a really big favour to ask you. You're about to leave the last year of that private school of yours, right?" the woman on the other end of the phone asked. "You must be home for a school holiday or something, yes?"

"Er...yes. That's right," Hermione hedged. "This would be my final year, yes."

"Excellent! It turns out that I'm about to leave, too! As in, leave the country," her aunt continued briskly. "I've managed to snag a position on an expedition to Burma, only it's for at least three months, and that's just too short a time to lease out the house, yet too long a time to let it stand empty. So! I was thinking, there's you, a young lady just getting out of school, fairly responsible, good head on her shoulders, and I thought it would be a perfect match if you came and stayed in my cottage while I'm gone! What do you think?"

"Er...well..." She realized within moments that it suited her plans. If she had a house of her own, she'd have time to interrogate Snape-in-Boots, who was seated at her feet at the moment. Time, and privacy to deal with him and his situation. And she would be able to enjoy living on her own. "I'm thinking that's a great idea, Auntie. I'd need to arrange with my folks for some way to pay for food, and the utility bills..."

"Nonsense!" Eumenia interjected. "I leave at the end of the month. I can have a neighbor watch over the house for the first half of June, until you're ready to come home, but I'll need you to pop up here as soon as you can; we'll visit the bank so I can open a joint account with you, and you'll just withdraw whatever's needed from that account to pay the bills and buy the food while I'm gone, plus a little splurge money for yourself. Not much, mind you, but I know you're not a wastrel when it comes to money, and I know you'll pay the bills and such on time. You can even bring your cat, since Pookie is going off to stay with my sister's kids."

"Yes, I'll definitely bring the cat," Hermione agreed, studying the black-eyed feline at her feet. He narrowed his eyes, but couldn't say anything. "I'm actually free on Monday, if you like, and school lets out at the start of June, so I can move in as soon as that."

"Excellent! Oh, and, erm...if you want to bring over any men friends," Aunt Eumenia murmured in her ear, "I've a supply of prophylactics in the master bath you can use. Just restock them, that's all I ask; no questions!"

Hermione blushed. "Er, thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

"Well, a girl can never be too careful! I'll see you on Monday, then! My place, no later than ten o'clock, no earlier than nine!"

Hermione said her goodbyes, hung up, and faced her parents. "Erm...Aunt Eumenia wants me to watch over her place while she's gone for three months, on an expedition in Burma. She said she'll arrange for me to cover the bills and such...and I've said I'll do it."

"Well," her father murmured, eyeing her from head to toe. "You're growing up rather fast, making plans to move out on your own, already."

"Dad, it's just house-sitting!" Hermione protested against his teasing. Scooping up the cat at her feet, she headed for the stairs. "I'll need to arrange a train ticket up to Nottingham, money for a cab... Come along, Puss," she told the cat in her arms, "we have so much to plan."

...

Severus found himself dumped unceremoniously on the floor in her bedroom. She cast an Imperturbable on the bedroom door, essentially locking him inside. He decided it was a good thing he'd already visited the lavatory, though a bit of water would have been nice. Somehow, he didn't think she would get him a saucer of milk anytime soon.

There were half a dozen netted bags on her desk that hadn't been there before, largish bags filled with scores of marbles; she must have fetched them from somewhere while he was unconscious. Ripping them open, she dumped them on the floor, settled on the carpet, scooped them into several different piles, and started Transfiguring them into Scrabble-like tiles. Severus carefully stayed back and to the side, not wanting to call her attention to him while she was wielding her wand. To his relief, she not only duplicated all of the letters in sufficient quantity, she also added punctuation marks and numbers. A flick of her wand separated out the original tiles, sending them back into the bag, and from there to the box still in her suitcase, up on the bed.

A last swish, and the Transfigured tiles arranged themselves into neat groups and stacks. Settling herself more comfortably, she looked around, spotted him, and arched one of her brown brows. "...Well? Come and explain yourself! If you can."

Disliking her attitude, Severus picked his way over to the piles. He hunted through the letters, tapping here and there with his paw, leaving her to the menial task of assembling them into words. She had even included a largish stack of blank tiles for space-markers, he noted. Then again, she had always been a thorough pupil, if a bit pedantic. As his words turned into sentences, she started murmuring suggestions when he was three and four letters along, making him nod or shake his head. It sped up the assembly process a little, eventually allowing him to write a short paragraph.

TOOK 2 UNBREAKABLE OATHS – ALBUS AT 19, NARCISSA 1 YEAR AGO. COULD NOT BREAK OATHS. 1 TO DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO DEFEAT DARK LORD. 1 TO PROTECT AND HELP DRACO IN TASK. HAD NO CHOICE. WILLING TO TAKE VERITASERUM TO PROVE TRUTH WHEN HUMAN AGAIN, BUT NOT IF NO ONE WILL LISTEN. DIDN'T DO ALL THIS ONLY TO BE EXECUTED WITHOUT TRIAL!

Hermione sat and absorbed his short-hand paragraph. Finally, she swished her wand, clearing the carpet and reordering the stacks.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth? I can't exactly administer Truth Serum to a cat, since you'd be too useless from its effects to pick out the letters, and I can't trust turning you into a human again unless I know you're not going to draw your wand and hex me. And I have to assume you still have your wand, since if you told me you don't, I couldn't trust you to be telling the truth about that."

He tapped several tiles. I THINK I STILL DO.

"You think you still have your wand? ...How can you not be completely sure?" she asked him, wanting to clarify his comment.

I CANNOT REMEMBER.

"What do you mean, you cannot remember?" Hermione countered, frowning at him. He tapped the tiles one after another, slowly getting his explanation across.

CONFRONTED THE RAT, BEFORE THE END. RAT REALIZED I WAS STILL LOYAL TO ORDER AFTER ALL. I CAN'T REMEMBER HOW I ENDED UP AS A CAT, NOR HOW I ESCAPED. AM MISSING SOME MEMORY. LAST THOUGHT, COULDN'T GET TO HIM, SO HAD TO ESCAPE. DID, SOMEHOW. HID. LEARNED WAR ENDED TWO DAYS LATER, WENT LOOKING FOR ST. MUNGO'S TO BE NORMAL. COULDN'T GET HELP UNTIL FOUND YOU. KNEW YOU WERE SENSIBLE.

It was shorthand speech, but it got the message across.

"If I were sensible, I'd bind you up and hand you over to the Aurors," Hermione muttered, flicking her wand to restore order to the tiles. He shook his head, earning a dark look from her. "It would be. But...you've gone to a lot of trouble to confide in me, and if you can Apparate, that means you could run away at any point in time. Which means...you're staying with me because you probably do think I could help you, somehow."

Severus nodded, and tapped another set of tiles. YOU ARE SMART, CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO UNENCHANT ME. ALSO COMPASIONATE, BE MY ADVOCATE TO OTHERS. ALWAYS BEEN ON ORDER'S SIDE. DAY 1.

"...You've been working for the Order since Day One?" Hermione repeated skeptically. He nodded sharply. "You mean...since before you joined the Death Eaters?"

WAS ASKED TO JOIN BY LUCIUS. SAID WOULD THINK ABOUT IT. ALBUS FOUND ME THINKING. MADE ME SWEAR VOW TO JOIN, DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO SPY, AND NOT SAY OTHERWISE WITHOUT HIS PERMISSION UNTIL WAR WAS FULLY OVER. WHICH IT NOW IS. BUT WITHOUT HIM, AM STUCK WITHOUT ADVOCATE. NEED VERITASERUM, NEED PENSIEVE FOR MEMORIES AM NOW FREE TO SHARE. NEED TO BE HUMAN...BUT NOT SO IDIOTIC AS TO RISK SELF. SURVIVED WAR. WANT TO SURVIVE AFTER-WAR.

"So, Albus made you spy for him from the very start?" Hermione asked, clearing the carpet once more. Snape-the-cat tapped several tiles, until she blushed at the result.

OPPORTUNISTIC BASTARD.

"Er, yes, well... So, you wouldn't have agreed to do so without the Unbreakable Vow?"

SWORE 1ST VOW OF OWN FREE WILL! TO KEEP 1ST VOW, HAD TO SWEAR 2ND STUPID VOW.

"Oh." She thought about that for a few moments. "Well...if this is true..." At his narrow-eyed look, she gave him a glare of her own. "Look, this is hard for me to accept! And if it's hard for me to accept, it'll be hard for the others to accept. In fact, I'm not even sure if I should be the one making up her mind on what to do with you."

I DID WHAT NO ONE ELSE COULD DO, WHAT WAS NEEDED. SMALL THANKS I GET FOR HELPING SAVE WIZARDING WORLD. WOULD RATHER STAY A CAT THAN GO TO AZKABAN. HAIRBALLS HEAVEN COMPARED TO SOUL BEING SUCKED OUT.

Hermione couldn't help the soft snort of laughter that escaped. She was sure he was trying to be snarky and sour, expressing his bitterness at what they both knew would happen if he revealed himself to anyone else without the evidence to clear his name, but his sniping comment was actually rather funny. "Well, it would serve you right, suffering a massive hairball. You were quite unpalatable as a teacher, you know."

He pawed out the tiles from the previous paragraph, spelling, ANNOYING KNOW IT ALL.

"Well, at least I'm not your student anymore...and you'd better be nice to me, because I'm the only hope you've got to clear you name, if it can be cleared."

She didn't quite know what had made up her mind, but Hermione felt like she had to help him. If his words were true...well, Veritaserum would confirm them. She had acquired a small bottle of the stuff in the last year, and there was still enough left to dose him for her own purposes. The first problem, of course, was transforming him back into his human self. Which she didn't dare do if this were some sort of horrible trick, unless she had a way to confine him and protect herself from his wand. He hadn't actually said he wouldn't harm her...and she couldn't exactly cast an Unbreakable Vow with him, without him being able to speak his own half of the Oath, nor without a third party to cast the spell.

But she could lay down the law, as it were, about a few other things. Ways for him to prove he would at least cooperate for now with her. "Alright. You want my help? You've going to have to agree to certain rules, from here on out. First off, you don't lie to me. I'll hex you six ways to Sunday, if I ever catch you in a lie. What happened to Filch's cat back in my second year will be a piece of cake, compared to what I'll do to you."

Severus expected that. He did not, however, intend to give himself away to anyone else...and he wanted a few caveats of his own listed. Rooting through the tiles, he assembled a short retort. WON'T LIE IN PRIVATE. BUT NO REVEALING SELF TO OTHERS.

Hermione read that, and planted her free hand on her hip, the other still holding her wand. "You think you can make demands of your own, do you?"

He managed to arch one whiskered brow at her in eloquent silent rebuttal, for a feline.

She had to admit, at least to herself, that he did have the right to protect himself. Considering how everyone else still vilified his name... "Fine; we'll both agree on when it is time to reveal your identity...Puss. But you're not allowed to watch me anymore when I'm changing, or using the lavatory!"

Batting at the tiles, Severus painstakingly assembled a response to that piece of idiocy. HAVE ALREADY SEEN EVERYTHING. WHO CARES?

"Who cares? I care!" she retorted.

YOU'VE SEEN ME LICK MYSELF. SAME THING. SUFFER. She started to protest, so he assembled more words. MUST SEEM LIKE CAT! CATS DON'T CARE.

She wanted to protest that it wasn't the same thing...but she had seen him licking himself, and had seen him using the toilet...which explained how he had learnt to straddle and use it in a civilized fashion. It wasn't that far off from her own bathing and peeing, some of which he had seen. A memory returned to her, of her tipping him up in her arms, pushing back his tail, and staring at his fuzzy genitals in order to determine what she thought was a normal sort of cat's gender. Heat suffused her face from chin to forehead. Clearing her throat, she conceded his point.

"Alright. We'll just...carry on as normal, then. You'll keep pretending to be my cat, and I'll keep pretending you're just my cat. A very precocious cat, considering you can Apparate," she added under her breath. "Once we get to Aunt Eumenia's and get settled in, then we'll see if I can come up with a way to fix your condition. But not until then," she asserted. Mainly because she knew it would take time to figure out how to contain him long enough to dose him with Truth Serum. She backed up in her thoughts a moment later, frowning. "Hang on...how is it that you can Apparate?"

The body of a cat wasn't built for shrugging. Severus nosed the tiles around again, bored with the tedium of it, but at least grateful he could communicate. His former colleagues had once accused him of wanting to eschew all social contact. After too many days of not being able to communicate beyond the simplest of body-language offerings, even tedium was better than nothing.

DON'T KNOW.

"...Right, because you can't remember what that rat did to you," she muttered. "Most cases of wizards being transformed into animals by other wizards, they don't retain any of their own powers. It's what makes being Transfigured nearly an Unforgivable. But on the other hand, most such Transfigurations don't last long, with the wizard flexing his will against the magical bonds imprisoning him. Have you tried to become human again?"

Severus nodded his head; of course, he had tried!

"And it didn't work?" she queried. When he shook his head, she nibbled on her lower lip. "If you were an Animagus, you'd still have the ability to Apparate, and such, but if you were, surely you could've freed yourself by now..."

Severus blinked at her for a moment, then hunted through the piles of scattered tiles. WHAT IS AN ANIMAGUS?

Hermione's brows rose with disbelief as he finished patting together the final tiles with his paws. "What is an Animagus? You know what an Animagus is!"

He stared back at her, and shook his head.

Dismay wrinkled her brow. "What do you mean, 'no'? Professor, everyone knows what an Animagus is! There's not that many of them, but we all know!"

I DON'T. He nudged those letters above the others, then patted the first line of his previous question, emphasizing it. WHAT IS AN ANIMAGUS?

"An Animagus is a wizard or witch who can turn themselves into an animal and back; it's a very hard piece of magic, and outside of the Marauders, the only other one I personally know of is Professor McGonagall. You certainly knew Sirius Black was an Animagus, after he escaped and went back to Order Headquarters to live! How can you not rememb...oh!" Eyes widening, she stared at him in comprehension. "Of course! Pettigrew didn't change you into a cat! You changed yourself into a cat, when you were trying to escape him...he must have struck you with a Memory Charm!"

Severus listened to her, absorbing her words. He supposed it made sense, since if the girl took these Animaguses...Animagi...for granted, yet he didn't know about them...well, she wasn't the only know-it-all in the room. He patted three letters together, and a punctuation mark. HOW?

"Professor Flitwick mentioned this once, when we were discussing Memory Charms in class, in my sixth year. He said that if the wizard or witch being struck with the hex was casting magic at the same time, a more powerful magic, the hex had a small chance of erasing that from their memory, instead of whatever the caster originally intended! And changing yourself into an animal is one of the most powerful and difficult forms of Transfiguration out there! You can use your magic, but the reason why you cannot change back is because you cannot remember how to do it!"

This made things so much easier. Except, Hermione had no idea what spell Lupin and Black had used on Pettigrew to turn him back into a man. She chewed on her lower lip again. "...I'll have to find some way of asking Remus what spell they used on that rat, all those years ago. But it shouldn't take long to practice, and as soon as we reach my Aunt's place, we can just change you back into your human form. No more living like a cat."

Something about that made Severus' ears dip flat. The thought of being permanently his human self wasn't a bad idea, but the thought of not knowing how to re-disguise himself as a cat was. As vulnerable as this form was, it was a near-perfect disguise. Certainly it was far easier to hide as a smallish housecat than as a tallish, adult wizard.

Batting at the tiles, he reassembled them into a new string of words. NO. MUST RELEARN ANIMAGUS THING FIRST. GOOD DISGUISE.

Hermione considered his words. It was a good sort of disguise. It had kept Pettigrew hidden all those years in the bosom of the Weasley clan, after all. The only problem was, she was going to have to teach him something she herself didn't know how to do.

Wait, why can't I learn how to do it myself? Am I, or am I not, the best student of my year in Professor McGonagall's class? Well, I was the best, she amended, thinking about having to give up her seventh year with the same twinge of regret she had suffered all through the last year. It had ended up being worth it, in terms of ending the Dark Lord's reign of fear and hatred. In fact...if I ask Professor McGonagall to teach me over the summer, she just might agree!

"I'll do it!"

Her sudden exclamation had Severus puzzled. He patted her denim-clad knee with a paw. When she looked down at him, he quirked one furry brow at her.

"Oh...I'm going to learn how to be an Animagus myself, and I'm going to try to get my lessons from Professor McGonagall herself, this summer. If I can. And when I do, you can sit in on the lessons and pay attention! ...Unless she already knows you're an Animagus, and will recognize your markings?" Hermione asked, worried. "Does she already know?"

CAN'T REMEMBER, he batted together, giving her what he hoped came across as a sardonic look. He was a furry black cat at the moment, not a sarcastic, brooding human.

...

Even though she'd agreed that him seeing her naked now was no different than earlier, Hermione still changed for bed in the bathroom. She wanted to don her longest, thickest, most opaque flannel nightgown, but it was a warm spring night. She settled for a satiny set consisting of a short-sleeved pyjama top and knee-length shorts, instead. Padding back into her room, she doused the lights so that only the lamp by her bed still glowed, then slipped into the covers. Adjusting the pillows at her back, she picked up the book she had fished out of her shelves, hesitated, then settled it against her upraised, bedding-draped thighs with a sigh.

A glance around showed she was alone. "...Puss? Puss-in-Boots! Come here! Come here, Puss!"

Under the bed, Severus narrowed his eyes. He had just finished grooming her ginger-marmalade cat, lapping at the back of Crookshanks' head, and was now being groomed. It was an awkward but equitable exchange; he couldn't groom the nape of his own neck very well, nor could the other tom. When Crooks had first done it to him, it had startled him, but the half-Kneazle had been showing him how to be a convincing, effective cat. And it didn't feel bad. It could smell a bit ripe, if the furry beast had just eaten tinned-whatever, but it felt kind of nice.

Being a cat was a lot more sensual than he was used to experiencing. After three weeks, Severus was beginning to enjoy all the sensations this form of body could hold. Stretching was a blissful ritual, when one was a cat. Curling up into a warm ball, tail over nose, was remarkably cozy. And being petted...heaven, or damned near close to it.

"Fine. Be that way," he heard her state. "It's just that I've found the textbook that talks about Animagi, and I thought you'd want to read it with me..."

Crookshanks had already taught him that there were times when a feline ignored a human...and times when they paid close attention. He had intended to ignore her...but curing his ignorance was too important to curing his current condition. Pulling free of the ginger cat, he padded out from under the bed, pausing to stretch his hind legs as he emerged from under the valance. Cleared of the bed-frame, he arched his back, stretching that as well. Then shook himself, twisted, and leapt up onto the covers.

"Oh! There you are. Erm...you can come up here beside me, while we read. You don't need me to read aloud to you, do you?" she asked him hesitantly.

Padding towards her, Severus stopped long enough to give her a look and a shake of his head. However, after sitting beside her for a minute, his position was just too awkward; her arm kept getting in the way. Giving up, Severus stepped onto her belly, making her inhale sharply in surprise.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "I didn't say you could sit on me!"

Deliberately, he whapped her in the face with his tail-tip, before settling down in a crouch. The pages were awfully close at this distance, but he had grown used to that from their earlier reading sessions. She stared at him for a long moment, then sighed and resumed reading the book on her own. The moment she tried to turn the page, however, he stretched out a paw, trapping the sheet in place. Telling her without words that he wasn't done, yet.

Hermione regarded the back of her former professor. "Twitch an ear, or something, when you're ready to have the page turned."

He obliged a few seconds later, removing his paw and flicking his right ear. He only had to catch up with what was listed on those two pages, since he hadn't been able to read much with her arm in the way, to start. Together, they silently read the next section. Flicking his ear just as she started to slide her fingers between the next few pages, separating out the next leaf, he waited patiently for her to finish before turning the page. She only took a few seconds longer than he did, matching their reading speeds quite nicely.

There were only about ten or so pages in the text pertaining to what they needed to know, but it was a fairly in-depth history of Animagi, and it discussed the troubles and difficulties of the transformation process. Not the necessary spells...which had to be mastered both wordlessly and wandlessly, which was why so few people ever mastered the necessary skills...but the whys and wherefores. Around the eighth page or so, her free hand absently shifted to his spine once she finished turning the current page. Just as absently, she started stroking his fur.

Bliss... Who cared if she was an annoying ex-student, and best friends with some of the most annoying twits it had ever been his misfortune to teach? He was currently enjoying two of his favorite activities: the ages-old pleasure of reading and learning something interesting...and the newfound joy of being caressed by sensitive, talented fingers. Yes, there were things he missed about being human, but there were certain things he loved about being a cat. As they finished the chapter together, Severus found himself purring with a level of happiness as a cat that he simply hadn't known very often as a man. If at all. His had not been a life filled with pleasant human contact, let alone contentment.

Hermione, closing the textbook, realized her fingers were running through his fur. Not only that, but the normally sarcastic, cruel man, a man who had insulted and belittled her for years, as his student, was purring. For a brief moment, she wanted to rub it into his face...but only for a moment. He hasn't had much in the way of comfort in his life. Not being a spy, not having to watch his every word, his every move, never being able to trust anyone but a bare handful...and being reviled for all the things he had to do, as a convincing Death Eater and spy...

She couldn't push him away. Nor torment him. If she could bring him a little pleasure, with both of them knowing who and what he was...well, it was a valid technique to praise and reward someone, to encourage them to be good. That, and his fur is so much softer and nicer than his hair ever looked. The thought almost made her giggle. Gently, she scrubbed his jaw-line with her fingernails, enjoying the way he enjoyed it, leaning into her hand and twisting his head so that she hit all the best, itchiest spots.

Yes, it definitely looked like Severus Snape made a far nicer feline than he did a man.

...

They settled into something of a routine. She had to leave him behind for her daytrip up to Nottingham...explaining that her aunt's dog was hyper-excitable and loved chasing cats, something he agreed he did not care to experience...but when she came back, they eventually settled into a round of reading various magazines and texts while lounging together on her bed, and then discussing the contents of their efforts. It was Hermione who coaxed him into talking with her, albeit in his limited fashion. She pointedly reminded him that the more time a wizard or witch spent in their Animagus form, the more they needed to keep their higher thought processes stimulated, to keep from sinking too far into animal-thoughts.

Since the more he learned about Animagi, the more Severus remembered Pettigrew being a twitchy little idiot with several distinctly ratty habits and characteristics, he grudgingly allowed her to prod him into halting, tile-batted conversation. It was exercise for his body as well as his brain, but it was inevitably tedious. Even when she tried to help him by guessing what words he was trying to spell, and completing the ones he confirmed with a nod, arranging the tiles with her opposable thumbs. At first, he wasn't sure just how good a conversationalist a pedantic know-it-all like her could be, but she turned out to be very quick-witted and widely read for her young age.

She not only soaked up knowledge like a sponge, but retained it remarkably well. Four days before they were due to pack up and move to Nottingham, she pulled out a back issue of Ars Medica, the journal for wizarding world medical practices, and argued the point she was trying to make, regarding the use of Muggle ginko bilboa in Memory-Restorative Draughts. Admittedly, the trial described in the article she referenced did say there was a slight percentage increase in the success rate of restoring lost memories...something useful for their own position, since he had argued with her about brewing him the Draught once they were at her aunt's place...but it wasn't just her argument that held his attention.

It was the advertisement in the margin next to that column that caught his attention. When she started to close it, Severus lunged at the paper, pouncing on it. He did his best to ignore her started giggle, nosing back the sheets of paper until the ad was revealed. Reading it quickly, he pawed at it, looking between it and her to draw her attention.

"What did you find?" Hermione asked, tugging the journal out from under him. She scanned the side-column, finding the spot his paw had batted. "'Lucigna's Diaries: For Trauma Patients Who Cannot Speak,'" she recited. Blinking, she frowned at the small-print. "'Useful for spell-muted patients who can neither speak nor write, due to hex or curse; simply bind the diary to the patient with the enclosed spell, place their hand upon the page, and ask them whatever you like. These finely crafted and enchanted, blank-bound books will write their owner's answers upon the pages in their own handwriting, as quick and easy as can be! Cannot be used to revive memories of Obliviated victims; Creator not responsible for scrawled gibberish caused by cases of insanity. Cost: 2 galleons, 5 Sickles.'"

"Mao!" Severus asserted. He did not want to suffer through any more tedium of hunting and patting at tile after tile. It forced him to abbreviate his words, and that grated on his nerves, like reading one too many first-year essays.

"Yes, I quite agree...if this Lucigna is still enspelling these books, then they're perfect for your condition," Hermione confirmed. "The cost is a bit pricey, but it'll be worth it to not have to sit there and wait for you to hunt up the necessary letters. I hope she's still creating them.."

The sniffy look of the black cat curled up on her stomach told her that he hoped so, too.

...

The place reeked of dog. Severus scrunched up his nose, deeply offended. Bad enough she'd stuffed him into the cat-carrier with Crookshanks for the train-trip and cab-ride. He could understand that; they had to maintain the appearance that he was just a normal cat. But to make him suffer the stench of canine dander was too much. As soon as he could breathe...sort of...he batted at the nearest of her suitcases with an impatient meow. In specific, the one holding the book that had arrived via owl-post the night before they had left.

"Just a moment, Puss!" Hermione chided him, finishing paying the cabbie who had brought her bags and trunk into the house for her, including several sacks of groceries. She'd paid extra to be able to have the cab sit and wait at the grocer's so she could buy what she needed for the week, though she'd been forced to hurry to keep the cost down. "There you go, sir."

"He's an impatient one, isn't he?" the cabbie observed as the black cat meowed and whapped the suitcase again. "Wants his kitty-treat, does he?"

"Something like that," she agreed. "Thanks for the ride, and for waiting for me."

"Anytime, miss...thanks for the tip!" Touching the brim of his hat, the cabbie left. Hermione closed and locked the door behind him, then warded it with a spell. Not so much to keep Snape from getting out, as to keep curious Muggles from getting in. Her aunt lived in a neighborhood where each 'cottage' sat on roughly an acre of land, but the neighbors were very friendly with the outgoing, middle-aged archaeologist.

Fishing out her wand, she slashed it at the suitcase. It unlatched itself, and the paper-wrapped book inside sailed out, landing on the floor at his feet. It had arrived too late in the evening for them to use, literally arriving with a tap of an owl-beak on her window when she was snuggling under her covers. She had tossed it into the suitcase and promised to enspell it to him when they arrived. Dropping to her knees, Hermione unwrapped the package, read through the introductory card included with the book, then lifted one of her ex-teacher's paws, placing it on the cover. He permitted the indignity, giving her a narrow-eyed look, but held himself patiently still while she cast the enchantment inscribed on the card.

Magic swept up out of the book, over his furry hide, and back into the cover again. For a moment, cat and book glowed, then both subsided, appearing normal once more. Nudging him aside, Hermione opened the tome, and gestured for him to place his paw upon the first page. Ink immediately spilled out from under his fuzzy black toes.

About bloody time! This place REEKS of dog, and I demand you do something about it, immediately! The Mundic class of Cleaning Charms, at absolute full-strength, if you please!

Hermione choked on a laugh. "My, you're rather demanding, aren't you? No 'thank you' for my buying you this book? I thought you were a civilized cat, not a barbaric crab."

He looked at her for a long moment, then more ink followed below the first set of words. Fine. Thank you for the book; it is a lovely and most useful gift. I deeply appreciate your expenditure on my behalf. NOW will you clean the bloody house, before I have to claw my deeply assaulted and offended sinuses to shreds?

Shaking her head ruefully, Hermione rose to her feet, squared her shoulders, and began Cleansing the cottage. "Domu Mundicarum! Penetrodu Mundicarum!"

Grime and dander swirled up out of every crack and crevice, pulling out of the carpeting and the upholstery, shaking free of the draperies and the leaves of the potted plants. Within moments, she had a compact ball of ick centered in the air, ready to be discarded. Even to her human...and thus less-sensitive...nose, Hermione could tell the difference in the air.

"Well. We'll just do that for all the remaining rooms," she told her two fellow houseguests, though Crookshanks was busy sniffing at a potted plant, "and then this place will be livable!"

Good. Don't forget to put away the groceries. I don't want the milk to spoil.

Hermione dipped a mock-curtsy. "Yes, Your Majesty...go hunt for mice, or something. I'll be back when I'm done doing all the real work."

Cheeky girl, Severus thought, but removed his paw from the book before doing so, not wanting it recorded. He eyed the pages. They looked like they would gradually fill with a permanent record of everything he shared. If the two of them talked too much before he learned how to transform himself, they might have to buy another book, though at least this one was fairly fat, with large pages. Thankfully, my handwriting is fairly small. I can be almost as verbose as she is, without too much risk of running out of blank pages too soon...

That thought made him sit back on his haunches, considering the youngish woman he could hear enchanting in the next room. She has grown up, hasn't she? Quite smart, and rather mature for her age. And a good conversationalist. Somewhere in there, she learned how to listen to another person, and not just talk the ears off her listeners... He shifted a little, uncomfortable with another realization. She's grown into a rather attractive young woman. She's matured, mentally and intellectually. And her overblown compassion has been tempered somewhat with experience and realism. She's not trying to save the whole world, anymore, whether or not it wants to be saved.

Of course, she has helped to save-the-world, he admitted to himself. Now that that's over, she can help to save me.

Crookshanks pounced suddenly, then snapped at something beneath his paws. Severus realized that it was a spider and shuddered internally. He heard Hermione enchanting another room clean and trotted in her direction, wondering what she planned for luncheon.

...

...Well, of course Bode's work on the Psyscandum Charm revolutionized psychic Healing, Hermione! There are far too many Hexes and Curses that affect the soul to not have a reliable means of scanning one's psyche!

Hermione opened her mouth to retort that there was more to her point than that. She did a double-take before she could speak, re-reading what he had written. "You said my name!"

I...what? Severus withdrew his paw from the page, blinking at her.

"You said 'Hermione', right there in your own handwriting," she pointed out, tapping the scrawled pronoun with the tip of her finger. Flashing a smug smile at the indignant black cat on her aunt's dining table, she asked, "Finally seeing me as an adult and an equal, are you?"

That was beyond the pale. Narrowing his eyes, Severus planted his paw back on the pages, all but standing on the book. You may be an adult, but you're still a slip of a girl who is half of my age, and half of my experience! There'll be no cheek out of you, Miss Granger.

She blinked at his affronted scribble, and squared her shoulders. "Well, if there'll be no cheek out of me...I suppose scritching your cheeks is out of the question! Or would you rather not be deprived of the feel of my impertinent fingers dallying with one of your favourite pleasure-spots, hmm, Severus?"

He lifted his paw from the page, but not before the word, Impertinent... had scrawled itself on the paper.

Hermione balanced a curl of shredded cheese on her fingertip. He stretched out his head and neck, stepping back onto the page in order to get close enough to eat it. "Stop sulking, Severus, and have a bit of cheese, before I eat it all. Considering our situation, I don't see why we cannot address each other by our first names. We are adults, and we're stuck together in an unusual and therefore somewhat intimate situation. So suck it up, don't have a hairball over it, and let's get back to my point. Which isn't just that Bode's work revolutionized psychic Healing; it's the reason why Harry, Ron and I were able to find so many of Voldemort's Horcruxes...oh, stop flinching! It's just a name!"

A scary name, scrawled his handwriting on the page. He ducked back, stared at his admission with downward-pulled whiskers, then flicked his ears and stepped on the page again. I hate the way this thing reveals my thoughts...

"Well, it's better than the previous system we had," Hermione pointed out. She noticed a final scrap of vegetable on her plate and scooped it up with her fingertip. "Last bit of zucchini?"

Yes, please! Leaning closer, he nibbled it from her finger. Even as a cat, this still tastes good...

Cunningly, Hermione brought her other hand up while he was occupied, and started stroking him from head to shoulder-blades. As she did so, she glanced at the pages under his forefeet. Sure enough, his thoughts spilled onto the sheets.

Oh, yes...yes, I like that...I could let her do that for ages...wish she'd massage me all over; that would be heavenly...god, I'm such a hedonist...yes, ye...oh, fuck! How dare you invade my thoughts like that? Can't a man have his privacy whilst he's being petted so heavenly...FUCK!

Scuttling back from the book, he glared at her. Unrepentant, Hermione laughed. "Suffer, Severus. You may have had to present a bastardish face to the rest of the world for longer than I've been alive, but you can't fool me any longer. You actually like certain aspects of life. This life, as a cat. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you are turning into a hedonist. As much as it may dismay you." She offered him a last scrap of cheese. "I'll remind you that you've survived two decades of highly dangerous espionage and outright warfare. You helped us win the war. You deserve to be happy, now. Stop wasting such a miracle and start enjoying life!"

He gave her a hard look. Hermione waited for him to take the cheese, but to do that, he would have to step on the page again. Sighing, she waggled her finger.

"Don't make me dangle a piece of string in front of you!"

That narrowed his eyes even further, but he accepted the cheese. Namely by moving around the book, in order to get to her finger-tip. Nipping it delicately from her skin, he snapped it into his mouth, then licked his jaws and planted a paw on the open book. You try being a cat, and never having any privacy when you want a bath!

Drawing her wand, Hermione tapped him lightly on the nose. "Felidamundic!" His fur crackled and fluffed slightly, cleaned by the spell. Not quite as fluffy as the first time, but clean enough. "All you had to do was ask."

It's not the same, he grumbled. There are things I do like about being a cat, like cheek-scratchings and how much better cheese tastes, but there are plenty of other things I heartily miss...

"Poor Puss," Hermione sympathized, scooping him up and cradling him on her chest. "We just have to wait two more weeks, then Professor McGonagall said she would visit and I could learn how to be an Animagus from her. Once we learn how to do that, you can be a man or a cat, and have the best of both worlds. Mind you, I think I'd fancy being a cat myself, though it's not always possible to control the end-result of the transformation. I'd certainly hate to end up a bug, like that horrid Miss Skeeter. Of course, being a bird would be nice," she mused, sitting back in her chair as she stroked and scritched him absently. "I hate broom-flying, and riding on a thestral wasn't fun when I couldn't see it...but maybe if I were in control of flight...

"Who am I kidding?" she snorted. "I hate heights. I always have, and I always will. Going up to the midlevel observation deck on the Eiffel Tower was the scariest thing I've ever done, outside of maybe fighting Death Eaters... No, I think I'd rather be a cat. I certainly won't want to be a snake or a lizard." She looked down at the cat in her arms, purring quietly as she stroked and cuddled him. "A pity you cannot remember anything about deciding to become an Animagus. I'd love to know if a cat was what you were aiming at. Certainly no one would expect you to turn out to be a closet hedonist."

He cracked an eye open, stared at her, then squirmed free, landing next to her plate. Padding over to the book he faced her and touched it. Clean up the dishes, then come back and pamper me. If I am to be a hedonist, then I shall wallow in it whilst I can.

The bold, blunt admission, edged with an autocratic flair, made her laugh. Pulling him close, she kissed his forehead. He leaned into it, then skittered back. It was too late, though; the words had already formed on the page.

Ohhh, I like that...

If a cat could blush, he was definitely blushing. So was she. Clearing her throat, Hermione picked up the luncheon dishes. "Well. I'll just go and see if I can remember that cleaning charm Mrs. Weasley likes to use on her dishes."