No one was quite sure where the kittens came from; the basket just appeared on the front steps of the castle. There was a note with them that said: "Please take care of Spot, Dot, Speck, Polka and Fred. I just can't do it anymore." The five spotted kittens were at least half-kneazle, if not more, very bright, very magical and very mischievous. No one could control them, either. They were EVERYWHERE. One morning, in the Great Hall, Spot was dangling from a chandelier, Dot was buried in the porridge bowl, Speck was attempting to pounce on Draco Malfoy's hair tie, Polka was climbing the Hufflepuff banner and Fred, well, Fred had decided Mrs. Norris was scary and had promptly run up the back of Headmaster Snape's frock coat onto his shoulder and from there he leaped onto the top of his head. And there he sat, quite proud of himself.
"That is quite it!" roared Snape. "I have absolutely had it with these kittens. Someone must take them to hand, or they will have to go!"
Everyone was trying to figure out how Fred managed to hold on through this diatribe. But hold on, he did, and Snape was left with a rather fuzzy, spotted, purring hat.
At that moment, Crookshanks wandered in to the hall nonchalantly, sauntered to the middle of the room, sat down, licked his left paw, which he then used to groom his left ear, then looked up and declared "Miaow!"
With that, all five kittens left what they were doing and fell into line behind Crooks. He got up with a sigh, then proceeded to march out of the Great Hall, looking entirely too much like a Mama Duck with her ducklings.
Headmaster Snape looked quite pleased at this, and vowed to himself to make sure that Miss Granger's cat got a nice serving of salmon from the house elves.
Once the kittens had followed him out of the Great Hall, Crookshanks turned to them and said "Miaow!" This meant, "OK, kittens, you had your fun, now find yourself your person and make them your slave."
So, each kitten set out to do just that.
Spot decided his person would be Neville. He liked helping him garden. Swatting the little tools Neville used while working on the plants was fun.
Dot decided his person would be Luna. Nargles were quite fun to hunt.
Speck decided he wanted Draco. That might have never worked, except that Draco realized the purring kitten helped keep the nightmares at bay. They were fairly inseparable after that.
Polka couldn't decide, but he figured that if he took Ginny as his person, he would get Harry too. That made him happy.
And Fred? Well, that day in the Great Hall was not the last time the headmaster was seen with a fuzzy, spotted, purring hat.
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This is a gift for Annie
Talbot.
Thank you to Mia Madwyn for the beta.
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A/N: All of these things were done by Artemis, our first cat. Well, except maybe the Nargles. But she certainly liked to hunt. And sit on my husband's head.