The Golden Snitch
Challenge: Tiggerific Times
Prompt: (character) Crookshanks
Characters: Crookshanks, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter, Rolf Scamander, Ginevra Weasley, Ronald Weasley [other Weasleys mentioned]
Word Count: 529
Other: Written by collapsar, Slytherin, Hogwarts
Points: 5 points
Crookshanks is aware that something is not alright with Hermione.
She has been sleeping, and sleeping a lot - which is rather odd, the cat thinks, because his owner usually doesn't sleep very much. She puts studying higher on her priority list.
She's not sleeping in her bed either. She's in a big white room, and he's not allowed to crawl into the bed and sleep with her. He'd tried, but someone had taken him out - the tall man with the hair on fire. Ron, Hermione had called him. He had owned that odd rat. Crookshanks did not like Ron. Crookshanks did not like anybody who tried to take Hermione away from him.
Other people had been there, too. There was the man with the messy tangled black hair and bright green eyes, and the woman with hair like fire and eyes like his owner. He liked the other women whose head was on fire - she reminded him of Hermione, and she never forgot to feed him.
Those three people were always in the room. Occasionally, however, others would enter. There were lots of people with fire, but he was used to them. There was also a woman with long yellow hair. It looked like yarn when she braided it. He would always try to jump on it, but a tall man with tan skin and brown hair would always tuck her closer to him and shoo him away when he tried.
Besides them, there was a man who looked like he was still part kitten. The woman with fire had called him Nev. Nev had cried a few times next to Hermione. Crookshanks didn't know why.
After she had spent a long time in the big white room - it had been a month, at least - Crookshanks was allowed to crawl into the bed with her. He'd snuggle into her stomach and wait for her to hug him back. She never did.
In the beginning that made him mad, but then he realized that she never moved. Maybe humans stop moving in their sleep when they reach a certain age. That would make sense.
Hermione didn't move for a long, long time.
A long, long time. If Crookshanks was just another cat, he would have left her. But he was not just another cat. He had waited a long time for her at the Magical Menagerie. He could wait longer.
One day, Hermione moved.
Just her arm. But it was something.
The next day her fingers curled around his back. He snuggled deeper into her. Maybe she was waking up now.
It looked like she was, definitely. More and more people kept visiting, and a man and a woman he hadn't seen before, dressed white robes, entered the room a lot too. They would look at her hand and watch her fingers move.
Eventually, Ron took him off the bed again. But he stayed in the corner and kept watching her.
Hermione Granger woke up from her long, long nap at five in the morning. The only other creature in the room was her cat, and the first thing she did was hold him close to her chest and cry.
an: crookshanks stole my heart :( if you didn't realize, hermione's in a coma. i think i messed up tense in this, but i really can't tell, so sorry if i did