Hermione was sitting in her room, holding a bright and furry cat-like creature to her chest. To anyone watching, she could be seen to be in a state of misery, of distress. Crookshanks, however, was her respite. When she seemed about to cry, she grasped Crooks all the harder and squeezed until he had a nice scowl on his face, making him appear even uglier than usual.
And someone was watching. He stood near the door to the Head Girl's room, daring only to peek at the scene through the crack in the door. When he could take it no longer, he turned around and headed back to his dungeons to wallow in his own misery with nothing but a pensieve for comfort – an object which only gives comfort after the reviewing of the scene. It takes courage, yes, and he never claimed that he was a Gryffindor.
And thank Merlin he wasn't. He didn't exactly hold the highest opinion of them.
Traipsing back to his quarters, he stopped only twice to remove points from one Gryffindor wanderer and one pair of over-eager Ravenclaws that he caught in a very compromising position.
And now he was feeling better. Twenty points off Gryffindor (because, of course, they're Gryffindor) and a nice and hefty forty-point reduction from the Ravenclaws. Each.
Oh, the Slytherins would definitely win the house cup this year. If only he could figure out a way to rig the quidditch standings and get the blasted trophy out of Minerva's office.
Perhaps this was to be his respite.
But it was not his only one. Crookshanks had decided to leave his mistress and frequent the best spot in all of Hogwarts for rat catching. He watched Crookshanks. He watched him seek, head for, and attack the rats. He saw him miss, he saw him win. But first and foremost, he saw a creature that didn't mind being around him. Nay, some might even say the cat liked him, for he always brought him all the dead rats as gifts. A lousy gift, you might think, but these rats were always his favorite gifts. No potions book or sock would equal this, could equal this.
Respite. Something not usually given to him. He too could now hold Crookshanks, secure in his anonymity, so that he might lose some of the pressure regarding the war, regarding Hermione.
Hermione, his Hermione.
She, he believed, found respite from Crookshanks in two ways. One was the war effort. She would cry, he knew, over the lost muggleborns, the fallen order members, the loss of her parents' memories, even the wasted lives of the Death Eaters, and, if pressed, she would be ready to defend the wizarding world as if it were her brood.
But she wasn't pressed. She was told to trust in the Order, that the Order would take care of things, and that her opinion as a seventeen-year-old girl wasn't necessary.
They didn't even bother to get her age right. She had told them time and again that she was nineteen because of the time-turner use, but still she was relegated to the position of seventeen year old.
And thus she held Crookshanks, eager to release her passions, to not have to feel so many things for humankind, for wizardkind, and not be able to act.
And that leads to the next type of respite that she found. He, at least, believed that her other type of respite was from him – from longing for him.
They had seen each other at Order meetings, making potions for the rest of the Order, being the only ones competent enough to do so. It had been a meeting of the minds of the finest order.
Never, though, could they act on it. Never. There were just too many forces proclaiming otherwise. There was Voldemort, her friends, his coworkers and headmaster, the rest of the Order itself, and just about the entirety of the rest of the wizarding and muggle worlds.
And Crookshanks comforted her.
Crookshanks did similar things to him on occasion. He needed respite from his spying job, respite from looking at lives and dealing in importance. He needed respite from the mass killings and the activities he was forced to engage in. He, too, needed respite from his overwhelming feelings holding him to her and her to him.
But he had no Crookshanks except on few days like these.
"If only I could play with you just like she plays with you, removing the sad worries of desire," he thinks, holding Crookshanks for the first time in weeks.
He does not ask to be in Crookshanks' place. He has no right to ask that.
The night draws down upon the dungeons, and Crookshanks leaves, returning to his mistress. Come five minutes, he knows what she will be doing, what she must be doing.
She must again be seeking solace. But instead of crying, she hugs. And somehow, that's enough.
If only he could also hug. But keeping any sort of pet, any sort of love, any sort of respite would emasculate him, would feminize him. And for the good of the wizarding world, that must not be done until the death of the Dark Lord. He must play his role, and he must play it well.
He will wait.
AN - The phrase in quotation marks is taken directly from my translation of Catullus 2
This is the poem in its English entirety:
Oh sparrow, pet of my girl,
With whom she is accustomed to play, with whom she is accustomed to hold in the folds of her garment,
Who is accustomed to give a tip of her finger to the sparrow seeking it
And is accustomed to provoke sharp bites,
It is pleasing for my shining object of desire
To make a joke of a dear something or other,
As a little comfort of her pain,
I believe, in order that her weighty passion may subside;
If only I could play with you just like she herself plays with you and
Remove the sad worries of the mind.