Cat House

Daylight slunk from Spinner's End like a beaten dog anxious to get away from its tormenter. The dilapidated houses crowded along the street seemed to swell in the twilight, their fronts morphing into angry, twisted faces. A single streetlamp flickered feebly, its half-hearted glow doing little to illuminate the walk and nothing to chase away persistent shadows.

Hermione shivered in her light camisole and shorts as she stood on Snape's porch, rubbing her arms to chase away the gooseflesh. Now that the sun had gone down, the air was cool and damp; her warm weather attire was wholly inappropriate. For lack of a better plan, or any plan at all, she turned on the spot and Apparated to Hogsmeade. Anything would be more desirable than lingering at Spinner's End.

Fortunately, luck was with her. She had wandered the village, which had changed little in the last twenty years, for all of an hour before spotting the cluster of bulletins tacked to a village message board. A local widow who had lost her family and right leg to Death Eaters was looking for a young lady to care for her cats, cook, and keep the house and garden tidy in exchange for room and board. Though the fact that all of those chores could be handled with domestic magic made Hermione suspicious of the widow's intentions, she followed the bulletin's directions to a rambling stone cottage at the edge of town. Within fifteen minutes of meeting the good widow, she was ensconced in a cozy little attic room, just large enough for a narrow bed and wardrobe, and her misgivings had been put to rest.

The Madam Beetlebump was lonely, if a tad bit barmy. And, she had lots of cats.

She also had trunks of old clothing that she had insisted Hermione "paw through" (the old crone didn't even acknowledge the pun) and keep what fit.

"Those trousers she's wearing aren't fit for a proper witch, eh, Bartholomew? No, they are not!" Madam Beetlebump had addressed a fat tortoiseshell lying stretched out across the table as Hermione had prepared a late evening meal. Madam had not wasted any time putting her to work. "And that... well, I wouldn't call it a shirt! She'll do well to wear Cassy's old robes. Merlin knows she won't be needing them anymore, rest her soul."

By the time Hermione had curled up under the bedclothes, she was housed, fed and clothed, though no closer to unraveling her current predicament than when she'd left Snape's house. Determined to review the facts and draw some preliminary conclusions, she stared thoughtfully at the slanted ceiling and was asleep within minutes.

The Beetlebump cats had a schedule. They also knew how to manipulate door handles. Hermione learned both of these particulars the hard way when she woke to a pink dawn under a blanket of meowing, purring, kneading cat flesh. One feline was nibbling her right big toe. As soon as her feet hit the floor, over two-dozen pairs of paws followed suit. Amidst winding bodies and plaintive meows, Hermione found herself padding toward the door, nodding earnestly at two cats that were darting forward, then stopping to look over their shoulders at her, tails held high, speaking in the universal cat language that meant Breakfast Time.

Whoever it was that had spoken derogatorily about herding cats had never been herded by cats.

Like the well-trained human that she was, she obediently followed the cats to the kitchen and opened the high cupboard under which they had clustered, twining around her legs and mewling. She had the cats fed (McTabby's Best Cat Chow, Hairball-be-Gone formula) and a pot of tea steeping when the Madam thumped down the stairs.

"Good morning, pets!" she exclaimed as she hobbled across the kitchen, her knobby cane and wooden leg working in tandem. "Has she fed you already? Wonderful, wonderful." She nodded approvingly as she surveyed the empty dishes that littered the floor and the sated felines lounging on counter tops, chairs and the kitchen table. Smiling fondly, she plucked a cat off the chair closest to the kitchen hearth and had a seat, plopping the cat back in her lap.

"Good morning, Madam," Hermione said finally when it was clear that she wasn't going to be acknowledged and poured the old witch a cup of tea.

"It's a good thing, too! I've got so much for her to do today." Madam Beetlebump continued as if Hermione hadn't spoken, instead pulling a wad of parchment out of her dressing gown pocket and brandishing it at the cat in her lap.

"Yes, well, I'm happy to help," she addressed the cat in Madam's lap as she pulled the list from her hand.

Madam grinned toothlessly and patted Hermione's cheek. "She's a good girl."

Sighing, Hermione wondered if all of her conversations with the Madam would be moderated by a pounce of cats. 'It's only temporary,' Hermione reminded herself as she smoothed out the list. She sighed again, realizing that if she wanted to get these chores done today and still make her appointment with Snape, then she would have to start now and forgo the cuppa she had planned to drink while figuring out how to approach her mystery.

At ten o'clock, sharp, she rang the bell at Spinner's End. The neighborhood wasn't much more inviting in the morning than had it been the previous evening.

She was dressed in borrowed russet robes piped in copper, somewhat musty smelling but clean and well made. Wand and phial were tucked away in hidden inner pockets, and her hair was twisted into a long braid down her back. She'd caught herself wishing for a bit of mascara and lip-gloss, then dismissed it as silliness. It wasn't as if she were making a social call to a friend; she was embarking on a business deal and research project with a...

'Partner? Associate?' she asked herself as she waited at the door. He was certainly taking his time in answering. Had he forgotten? A moment later, the door swung open, revealing the unshaven, sleep-creased visage of a young Severus Snape. She blinked, taken aback.

"You didn't expect me to come back," she blurted when he simply continued to stand and stare at her with glassy, black eyes. At least he wasn't wearing a dressing gown; it looked like he hadn't bothered to change out of yesterday's clothes before going to sleep.

His lips turned down in a familiar frown. "Is that cat hair on your robes?"

She glanced down at her front, spying the scattering of white hairs across her chest and lap. Certainly, a gift left by Pumplenoose, a longhaired Persian. She'd had to shoo her out of the open trunk of hand-me-downs. Her robes must have been at the top. She opened her mouth to snap at him, for at least she had bothered to shower and change, but he'd already swung the door wide and slouched back into the gloom of the entry. 'Odious git,' she fumed as she followed him into the house, missing the surety and grace with which he had moved as a tenured Professor, not to mention his decorum, if in dress only.

That afternoon found them both buried in books, seated across from each other at the kitchen table, the phial standing improbably on its pointed end between them. A small sample of dust had been extracted from the bottle and now simmered in an agent designed to reveal its alchemical properties.

"Must you continue with that infernal noise?" Snape barked suddenly, and Hermione jumped, dropping her quill and almost upsetting her inkwell.

Retrieving her quill and glaring at the top of his greasy head, still bent over his book, she snapped, "What noise?"

"You mumble to yourself as you read," he spat as if it were the most disgusting thing he'd heard in a long time.

Hermione had heard complaints on this very subject from Ron and Harry. Then, her response had been to tell them to deal with it or they could do their homework by themselves. It had been an effective strategy to nip that argument in the bud, at least until they had forgotten. In this case, however, she was there somewhat at the mercy of Snape's humor. He had the potions lab and the library, whereas she had... cat-sitting duty. 'Breath, relax, it's only temporary,' she coached herself yet again that day, plastering an ersatz smile across her face. "Sorry about that. I'll try to keep quiet."

"See that you do."

He hardly seemed mollified, but since he didn't say anything more on the matter, she turned back to her book instead of trying to bore a hole through his head with her acid glower. She flipped through several pages of rather dry text in a tome entitled "Darke Vessels and Deadly Alembics, Volume I." Snape was perusing Volume II. The idea was to look for a reference to a crystal phial filled with dust (or not) that sometimes glowed (they hadn't been able to recreate the glowing, yet) while waiting for the results of the reduction. It was a long shot at best, but they had to start somewhere.

She'd found an interesting reference to the Vie de Terre, which was a fine, gray dust that one would sprinkle in the garden to ensure a bountiful harvest. Unfortunately, it was usually stored in terra cotta pots to let the dust breath, but she thought it worth noting.

"Miss Greenglass," Snape snapped just as she had dipped her quill into the pot of ink. Her hand jerked violently, spilling the ink and sending her quill skittering across the table. Jumping to his feet, he hollered, "You incompetent twit! Can you do nothing right?"

'Evanesco,' she incanted silently, vanishing the small puddle of ink. Gritting her teeth, she forced a pleasant expression on her face and focused on the tattered shoulder seam of his tee shirt, stating mildly, "Perhaps if you wouldn't startle me when you had a complaint, then accidents like these wouldn't happen."

"Don't talk to me like a bloody child! I'm a Professor..."

Loosing all patience, Hermione slammed her balled fist against the table, cutting him off mid-tirade. "Listen, Sev," she growled in the voice that had earned her the title "Mean Ol' Aunt Hermione" from Harry's child, "I've had it with this nonsense. You will either treat me with respect or I will leave."

Snape gaped at her for a moment, then schooled his features to an expression of stiff politesse and sat back down, folding long fingers together on top of his book, the knuckles whitening with barely contained rage. It amused her, through her annoyance, to see him try to adopt Malfoy's mannerisms and wondered when he had abandoned them altogether, in favor of sharpening that anger on the most convenient subject. The Snape she knew would never have backed down and attempted reconciliation. Or, perhaps, was it her phial that was motivating his abrupt change in demeanor?

"You must be a nightmare of a professor." The words had tumbled out of her mouth before she'd even realized that they had been hiding behind her tongue.

He blinked, his face slackening in surprise. When his hands twitched, Hermione braced herself to duck his inkwell, which was sure to come hurtling toward her at any moment.

"I have my moments," he drawled in a fair approximation of Malfoy, his black eyes glinting in a manner wholly unfamiliar to her. She unsuccessfully stifled a snort that dissolved into giggles, which she held behind her hand. Though he didn't smile, Snape seemed to truly relax slightly instead of pretending, and with the loosening his shoulders, the tension in the air dissipated. When they returned to their books, the silence, though not amiable, was comfortable.

Several rather fruitless days of research and experimentation passed quickly, and as each day came to an exhausting close, Hermione became more anxious.

None of the twelve volumes of "Darke Vessels and Deadly Alembics" referenced her phial. Neither did "Artifacts Most Foul" or any of the other books itemizing Dark objects. Not that she was convinced that it was Dark, for she wasn't. It had simply fit her lie to Snape.

Their attempts to unravel the origins of the phial's contents were similarly discouraging. So far, Snape had been able to determine that the dust was neither plant nor animal and was moderately acidic, though it would not form a salt when a base was applied to it. It also resisted all attempts to break it down into its comprising elements, was flame retardant, and conducted and stored magical energy, though not for very long. It still would not glow.

"Perhaps it's like a battery," Hermione suggested one muggy afternoon as she leaned against the workbench in his laboratory, "and we just haven't figured out how to charge it."

Snape was glaring at the few grains of dust that floated undisturbed on the surface of a boiling potion, as if it had committed some foul crime against his person. And maybe it had: it was supposed to have steamed one of five different colors to indicate toxicity, but had yet to steam at all. Strange, that, considering it was boiling. "If that is what you call 'thinking aloud', then I dread to hear what you actually intend to say."

"If you have some enlightening observation, then by all means, do share," she replied sarcastically, knowing that he didn't. Between the lack of progress and the overabundance of bad attitude, she was almost ready to throw herself down the well, just to see what would happen. She might have already, had it not been for the... well... she wasn't sure what it was. Luna Lovegood would probably have some thoughts on giant, sightless worms with rows of fangs that lived in time-holes. Not that she would ask her. Unfortunately, Snape watched her like a vulture stalked carrion, so she hadn't yet been able to approach the well unobserved during the day. Her evenings and mornings had been filled with a myriad number of chores ranging from running errands, to gardening, to reading aloud from the latest edition of "Kneazle Cross-breed Fancy."

"If you would leave it here overnight, I would make better progress." He unfolded his arms and vanished the contents of the cauldron. Hermione winced to see yet more dust lost to experimentation. They had been conservative in the sizes of their samples, but there hadn't been much in the bottle to start.

"I'm not discussing that again," she sighed tiredly and rubbed her eyes. "It stays with me." He was right, and she knew it: he might make better progress if she left the bottle with him. However, she didn't like the greedy gleam in his eye that shone whenever he thought she wasn't watching. He knew, or guessed, something about her object that he wasn't sharing with her.

"You are sabotaging this project!" he rounded on her, one long digit thrust in her face, his face twisted in a sneer.

Hermione batted the finger out of her face. "Don't be ridiculous! I want this project to succeed! I'm trying to help!"

"Help!" he mocked, tiny beads of spittle flying from his lips. "You are a joke! A disgrace! A bungling dunderhead who has no talent for the subtle art of potion making! Miss Evans was brilliant..." He cut himself off abruptly, poised frozen in the sudden, fragile silence.

Hermione took advantage of his momentary stillness to holler back, "If I'm so useless, then go call her!" Brushing past him and making sure to bump his shoulder, she flounced out of the basement laboratory, punishing each step with the heavy tread of her feet. It wasn't until she was stomping down Spinner's End to an out-of-order phone box that she'd been using as an Apparition point that she realized whom the esteemed Miss Evans actually was.

She paused as she was pushing the folding door inward to open it, her eyes scrunching as she contemplated his curtailed sentence. "Did Snape just compliment a Potter?"

Severus flinched as his front door slammed with enough force to be heard down in his basement laboratory. He had not meant to say that, even if he had meant it.

He had caught himself comparing Miss Greenglass (if that really was her name – he wasn't quite convinced, as he couldn't remember a Greenglass on the Hogwarts roster in any of the years he had attended. There was a chance, albeit slim, that she had attended an out-of-country school, but that just didn't ring true.) to her many times over the last few days, each instance a dig in the already open wound that was her death: her death, which was his fault. The cold feeling that had burrowed into his gut a year ago squirmed restlessly.

Grimacing, he stowed the cauldron and burner below the worktable and retrieved a rag to wipe down the surfaces. He felt like a fool to have revealed so much in such a careless statement. Despite his frequent claims to the contrary, Miss Greenglass was not stupid (neither was she). His hand paused during its methodical wipe-down, stayed by his sudden concentration to push such comparisons away. His own thoughts, usually disciplined and under his strict control, had betrayed him, continuously dredging up her face and smile and casting it next to Miss Greenglass' since the day the annoying chit had showed up at his door.

She was prettier. Her smile hadn't been as brittle. She hadn't trusted him. He hadn't made her laugh.

The worm twisted again, coiling in his stomach. He welcomed it as his due.

It was an odd feeling, being treated as an equal by a decent person. Dumbledore was a master just as much as the Dark Lord had been and was as successful in keeping promises. They had failed her as surely as he had. His colleagues still had a tendency to treat him as a student. Lucius, one of the few "friends" from school with whom he continued to socialize, could hardly be called decent. He just could picture Miss Greenglass' incredulous expression if he were to suggest it.

His hand paused again as his eyes widened, and he began to wipe with renewed vigor, as if cleansing the table would similarly scrub the image from his mind. If any woman's face deserved to overtake his imagination, it was hers. He wished it wouldn't.

Though, in his more self-recriminating moments, he would pull her countenance to the forefront of his thoughts, tracing each treasured feature with fingers of his memory: the bright green eyes sparkling with intelligence; the cascade of shiny, auburn hair; the rosy lips, so flexible in their expressions. It was a deserved torture for what he had done.

Miss Greenglass was both an intrusion on his melancholic castigations and a window that looked out into a world where he was an acknowledged member of the human race. She was respectful most of the time, agreeable rather less of the time and far too noisy for a woman of her stature, but... she didn't ridicule him.

Things would have been easier if she had.

He could have taken the phial and Obliviated her, putting an end to the whole disturbing business. Then, he wouldn't have been reminded of what it was like to study in companionable silence or discus Potions theory over tea. Of course, there was little chance that she was coming back, placing both the phial and pleasant afternoons out of his reach.

Pleasant afternoons could go stuff themselves.

The phial was another matter.

Slouching over to the lab sink, he rinsed the rag and wrung out the excess water, moving mechanically, absently, still lost in thought.

He would give her a couple of days to come back, and if she didn't, then he would seek her out and claim the phial. She wouldn't be too difficult to find for a man of his skills, nor would she be difficult to overpower. Compared to his betrayal of her, petty theft was nothing. He wasn't even positive that it was what he thought it might be, but if there was a chance, even the slightest, that it could...

A sharp rapping at an upstairs window shook him out of his stupor. Running quickly up the steps, he half expected to see Miss Greenglass' angry face peering at him through the kitchen window. To his disappointment (a feeling that thoroughly annoyed him), an irate barn owl had its claws dug into the sill and was hitting its beak against the glass. To its leg was tied a scroll with a familiar 'H' in red sealing wax.

Splendid. Nothing brightened his mood like a reminder that his indentured servitude was to resume in a few short weeks.

"Why isn't she off to see her young man?" Madam Beetlebump asked a fluffy, orange, squash-faced cat that resembled Crookshanks so much that it made Hermione's heart constrict. From Madam's lap, the cat gave Hermione an inquisitive look.

"He's not my young man," Hermione explained to Butterpaws, the cat. She no longer even felt silly doing it. And now, she was not only missing Crookshanks, she was missing Ron, as well.

Sighing, she slouched down into the garden chair and sipped morosely at her tea. Ten o'clock had come and gone, and she was starting to feel guilty for standing up Snape. It wasn't that he didn't deserve it; at best he treated her with irritation, but usually used her as a verbal punching bag. His demonstrations of a sense of humor were like rays of sunlight burning through storm clouds: few and far between, but glorious when they appeared. She had actually enjoyed his company for brief moments. Just the same, having been compared unfavorably to Harry's late mother by a man she was sure had never spoken well of anyone left her with a leaden weight in her stomach. It brought back the feelings of inadequacy and the need to prove herself that had plagued her in her first years at Hogwarts, then later when she had started her social work job at the Ministry.

Madam had begun tut-tutting in the manner of meddling old busybodies the world over, so Hermione turned her attention back to the cat and clarified, "We were researching a problem, but it doesn't look like he was the right one to employ."

Oh, bother. She would have to go back to pay him, at the very least.

Madam Beetlebump chuckled throatily, stoking the cat in her lap. "Oh, the research Mr. Beetlebump and I used to get up to... we made quite the magic." She chuckled again at her double-entendres.

"Not that kind of research," Hermione groaned. Even Butterpaws looked uncomfortable, choosing to lave an unruly patch of his tail than to participate in the conversation. Unfortunately, Madam was undeterred.

"She should go back to her young man and make up," she stated firmly, prodding the cat when he ignored her. "We always did like to make up."

Hermione took another sip of tea and wished that she had a tail to clean.

A/N: I wanted to clarify one point – I'm taking certain liberties regarding DH. One of them is that Harry did not share Snape's private memories with his friends because they were, well, private. Therefore, Hermione would not know that Snape held a torch for Lily these past 20 years. Just in case any of you were wondering. Thanks for sticking with me – and I appreciate your feedback.