A/N: Prompt from littleaiman026
Draco's first response when he entered the common room was to blink several times in quick succession before sighing and immediately retreating to his dorm room.
No matter what he thought, he had not seen one of Mill's cats sat in his chair giving him the evil eye to end all others.
He hadn't.
Had he?
He rushed back out to the common room and, yep, there was a cat. Instead of looking at the entrance to the common room as it had been when he came in though, it was looking at him.
It wasn't one of Mill's cats. No matter what he first thought, he could tell now, after looking for a little while. It's squished face was not unfamiliar though. He knew this cat.
Whatever.
When he turned to head back to his room, one of the perks of both being a prefect and in Slytherin was his own room, the cat followed.
it would be months before the cat left for more than a few hours but Draco never heard anyone worry about their missing cat so he forgot about it. As far he was concerned, the cat was his (mostly).
"Bloody Potter."
He looked over at the cat, who he called Squish, in deference to his squished face and his squishy cuddliness.
"It's not fair."
He didn't get an answer, of course. Cat's couldn't talk.
"Him and the Weasel. They both spend so much time with her but all she does is their homework for them. It's like she's not even a woman to them, she's just their walking reference book."
He threw himself down onto his bed with all the dramatics he could muster.
"The ball last year, that was when they recognised she was actually female, how stupid is that. she deserves better than them."
"Mrrrw."
"You think so too?" Draco nodded decisively. "I knew I wasn't being stupid, Squish. Bloody Potter. You know there are Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs taking bets about who the idiot is going to marry? Like that's what he cares about. I just hope he doesn't do something stupid and get her hurt. Why couldn't she have been a Slytherin, she should have been."
Squish tilted his head to the side and Draco rummaged around in the drawer of his nightstand to find the treats he'd nicked of Mill.
"Lovegood was saying she'd managed to get that interview for her father's magazine because Granger locked Skeeter in a jar for a few weeks. And I know she's the reason that Potter's little club hasn't been discovered. She's brilliant and devious and how she wasn't a Slytherin I'll never know."
He fed Squish the treat and stroked his head and down his back.
"Not that being a Slytherin would make her acceptable to my father. That and this shit with the Dark Lord, I'll never have a chance. I didn't before the end of last year and I definitely don't now."
He rolled over onto his stomach. "Squish, I'm expected to marry a pureblood girl, no matter how dull she is, just to "keep our lines pure". I'd rather have an intelligent halfblood child than a stupid, boring pureblood one."
Draco sat up and buried his face in his hands.
"I'm so fucking stupid, Squish. That pulling Pixie-tails nonsense in first year and the stupid shit I said in second year, Merlin, I'll be lucky if she ever talks to me civilly, that's assuming The Dark Lord doesn't win this stupid war. Not that it matters much anyway because I've only got about a year before Father decides I should be Marked for "The Cause" anyway." He had tears rolling down his face, not that it mattered too much, Squish wouldn't tell anyone.
"Potter's going to get the one person who could help me be a good person killed, Potter's going lose and I'm going to lose her. How can I help them, Squish?"
Draco swallowed his gasp as Fenrir Greyback dragged in his captives. He saw her face, he saw bloody Potter.
"I don't know, I don't think it's them," he said.
And then the fight, the cat, Squish, being absolutely fucking vicious towards those Slytherins that would fight against Potter, against Granger — Hermione — against Weasley.
Potter was dead. Potter was alive it was fucking Chaos. Squish was there.
And suddenly, so was Granger.
"That's my cat," Granger — Hermione — said.
"Are you joking?" He had to ask. There was no way he'd taken care of Granger's cat for the majority of the last two years without him knowing after all.
"No," Granger told him. "His name is Crookshanks."
Squish — Crookshanks — Looked between the two of them. Draco let out a snort of laughter.
"I've been calling him Squish for the last two years," he told, smiling among the rubble, "He wouldn't answer to anything else."
Granger — Hermione — smiled. "Yeah," she said. "That sounds like Crooks."