Challenge: Griffinesque's Mis-Matched Quote/Index Challenge, on HPFC
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Crookshanks
Prompts: "It might be termed the Law of Triviality. Briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be inverse proportion to the sum involvied." Parkinson's Law, (1958: High Finance)
Word: labyrinthine: incredibly complex, intricate.
Second character: Crookshanks
Word count: 1,050
A/N: The challenge rules said that romance couldn't be a main feature, which I'm hoping you'll agree is the case here. Any romance is but a reason for Crookshanks to move on to another place, another cat-sitter. Too bad they didn't turn to Mrs. Figg, I guess.
"I have work!"
"Have fun, Blaise," was all Pansy responded with, turning away from him and vanishing with an ear-splitting crack.
"I need to change the anti-apparation wards," he grumbled, turning to grab a shirt. Instead he froze.
"Meow."
He narrowed his near-black eyes at the cat, who he was considering locking in the spare bathroom until the damn thing wasn't his problem any more. "It would serve you right," he snapped, yanking his favourite black shirt out from under the orange demon. The chain of care was labyrinthine, intricate and confusing. Blaise sat on the couch, grabbing a piece of parchment and a self-inking eagle feather quill.
Granger still had the half-kneazle cat, whom she'd now had for a decade. Long enough for it to see through her relationship with Draco Malfoy, who the monster adored. So, usually, Draco would be the one to look after it. Except he'd been the one she was dragging to Australia with her. Blaise didn't really begrudge them that: they'd had to ditch their honeymoon last year when Narcissa had fallen seriously ill.
So Hermione had asked the Weaselette to look after the monster. Ginny had agreed at the time, perfectly willing to allow the thing to rule her life for the month the couple would be gone. Then, of course, there had been some drama between her and the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Stay-Dead. So the Weaselette pretty much lost her mind, and vanished into muggle London, last anybody heard.
Not before she walked to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, though. She'd thrown the monster at the surviving twin, and left immediately. According to Pansy, he hadn't even held it before he ordered Ron to take charge.
Ron lasted a record four-and-a-half hours, though that may have been due to his working for four of those hours. As soon as his shift at his brothers' shop ended, he went straight to Potter's, dumping the cat on him and screaming bloody murder about useless brothers and over-emotional women.
Potter put in an admirable effort, outlasting the Weasel. It wasn't until the next morning that he got rid of the thing, dumping it on Lovegood. Now, Lovegood, too kind to upset the hero who must have seemed heartbroken or some other extreme emotion to his irrational friend, hadn't bothered to remind him of her allergies. She'd spent two days practically dying, alone in her bizarre old house, before Longbottom showed up for their lunch date.
Longbottom took the monster and left it with Dean Thomas, some Gryffindor half-blood artist. Thomas forced it on an Iris wizard, Seamus Finnegan. There were at least a dozen others between him and Pansy, enough to include a couple of 'Puffs, Susan Bones, who was working too hard, and Hannah Abbott, who had healer training to deal with, and Cho Chang, some Asian would-be model who volunteered at some muggle libraries.
So the story went, Chang had attempted to seduce wireless announcer Lee Jordan. Claiming he'd come onto her, she'd foisted the monster on him. This act was wholly supported by Pansy, who had stumbled on the two almost shacking up, since they'd done so in the Parkinson-Jordan residence. Oh, Jordan hadn't really been going to screw the Asian, who Pansy had hexed immediately and transfigured into a dung beetle, so he got off relatively light in comparison. She only cursed him to be trapped in the house for a week, and then took the cat to go wake up Blaise, who, apparently, was much more dependable. He could be counted on to keep the damn thing, if only because all his friends had already suffered its' presence.
All of which explained how Blaise Zabini - vain, cunning Slytherin pureblood - came to be cat-sitting two weeks before its' owners were due back.
"Bloody cat," he snarled, glaring at Crookshanks as though this entire mess was his fault. The cat might have curled up and gone to sleep on the couch beside him and the piece of parchment he'd scribbled all over, but he wasn't about to relax. "I have work, you know."
"Meow," the thing grumbled.
"How damned trivial," he groaned, and moved to go to work at Gringotts. "Don't think this isn't war, cat, because it is."
Blaise discovered something over the next few days. He discovered that Crookshanks was a wicked opponent. And, the thought as he examined the deep scratches on his hand, a worthy one. The cat had settled willingly onto his lap after slicing through his skin.
"You know what, Crookshanks?"
The cat purred in response, apparently content in his vengeance.
"I'm actually going to miss you when your know-it-all owner and that lovesick oaf get back."
"Meow."
He laughed. "Yeah, I know, I'm being a sap."
The cat rubbed his head against Blaise's hand, uncharacteristically agreeable. The two shared a knowing smile, or would have, if cats could smile.
"What are you doing?"
The two looked up, surprised to find that Pansy had apparated in, unnoticed beforehand, despite the loud crack her arrival must have produced. The witch's dark hair was perfect, as ever, ebony against her light tan. Blaise smiled smugly up at her. "What's it look like, Parkinson? I'm embracing the Law of Triviality."
"What?"
"Parkinson's Law, actually. Muggle business concept that says the more inane an endeavour, the more time and money gets wasted on it. And that, if it's a worthwhile pursuit, it doesn't take long at all.
Pansy stared at him in confusion. "There's a muggle law named after an ancient pureblood family? Why?"
"Well, I don't know," he shrugged, arching a perfect brow at his former housemate. "Maybe there's some muggle who stole the identity of an ancestor, or maybe some squib in the line created a muggle line of descendants of the same name."
"How dare you -"
"Shut up, Pansy. I'm keeping the damn cat, alright?"
"Oh. Really? You are?"
"Uh-huh. Crookshanks and I have reached an understanding regarding the matter."
"You - it," she cleared her throat, "you are aware of the fact that it's a cat, right? It can't talk."
Pansy backed down, though, when she noticed that the look on the cats' face was frighteningly similar to Blaise's. "Bloody hell," she muttered, and disapparated with a crack.
"Women," Blaise scoffed, and went back to reading his book.