Chickens, Cats and Warriors
I.
The ferocious beast crouched in the tall grass; solemnly...patiently watching his prey. He lazily twitched his tail as he watched the sunlight glint off those trusting, unintelligent eyes; watching, as his unsuspecting snack feasted on tender blades of grass. Oh, yes. This was the day. The day this proud, mangy old warrior would haul in the coveted, tasty bounty that was to be envied by all those who dared to lay eyes on his glorious and majestic countenance. The magnificence of the revered warrior's mane would blind every female within miles, and his ever-sharp glinting fangs would be the envy of every other warrior in the vicinity...
Crookshanks shook himself out of his reverie...it wouldn't do to miss the kill due to daydreaming. The moment had come. It was time to make his move. Slowly...slowly he crept through the tall blades of grass. Ears forward, tail low, he crouched. He steadied his paws, tested the ground...right, left, right, left...any moment now...
And the chase was on! Prey leapt, warrior leapt...
"Ewww! Crooks!"
Hermione picked up the mangled grasshopper between her thumb and forefinger and tossed it off of the page she was reading with a disgusted huff, as her smug familiar busied himself rolling in a patch of catnip in the back garden of Grimauld Place.
"Must you always bring me your gifts when I'm in the middle of important research?" Crooks gave his mistress a pitying look, and proceeded to clean the remnants of his glorious prize off of his paw. See if she would be getting any presents from him any time soon. Ungrateful human. Oh, well; let her starve if she must. When she gets hungry she will likely go after one (or many, judging by the state of her flanks) of those icky 'biscuits' the humans are always on about and some of that tainted hot water, 'tea' that they are always drinking (disgusting if you asked him, waste of good milk), and leave his hard won gift to the wayside. More the fool, her. Oh, well.
Giving up on all concentration for the moment, Hermione went back inside the house. How on earth were they supposed to do this when almost everybody had given up? As it turned out, Lord Voldemort had misled the entire order through cleverly placed 'clues' and rumors, to believe that he had created horcruxes in order to make himself immortal. When Ron had discovered, quite by accident while destroying the latest horcrux, that they were nothing more than sick party favors (the last one had actually burst in a cloud of glitter in his mother's garden...which, oddly enough, the gnomes had come running out with little wheelbarrows to collect), the panic that had ensued due to Dumbledore's apparent wrongness, was astounding. When Voldemort couldn't be destroyed even after all of the horcruxes were gone, most of the order had simply packed their things in the dead of night and fled.
The current state of the wizarding community was sad, indeed. After certain families had fled (ahem...we won't name a certain flock of red-headed chickens, shall we) the rest of the wizarding community followed suit, seemingly overnight. Even Harry, the supposed "savior of the wizarding world - boy who lived - last hope of the witches and wizards of Britain..." flew the coop, so to speak.
Hermione heaved a tired sigh and let her head fall to the kitchen table. Such a hopeless situation. She didn't notice the dark figure coming out of the cellar lab, as she continuously knocked her head against the table muttering about chickens, cats with grasshopper parts stuck in their whiskers, and weird garden gnomes.
"Perhaps, Miss Granger, you should take a trip to St. Mangos to have your head examined, as it appears that your insanity is about to damage the kitchen table." Sneered the order's spy as he crossed his arms and regarded Hermione with disdain. Hermione yelped as a particularly large chunk of her hair was ripped out, caught in a particularly wide splinter on the side of the worn table when she jerked her head up. She glared at the potions master as she massaged her head.
"Shut up, Severus." she muttered. Over the years, she and the grumpy spy had developed an odd relationship. At twenty-five, Hermione could hardly bring herself to be afraid of her former professor, and had usually responded in kind to his pointed jibes. They had formed a grudging sort of friendship, based on camaraderie and sarcasm. "How is the potion coming?", she asked while inspecting her head for a bald patch she half expected to be there now.
"The potion will be ready for the last ingredient in approximately two hours.", he said as he shoved a cup of black tea under her nose. "And, where are all the bloody biscuits. There were two packs in the cupboard yesterday.", he grumped as he sat across the table and pulled out his latest potions journal to hide behind as he drank his tea.
Ahhh, the joys of having roommates. Having to share your 'bloody biscuits'. Let him get cranky, achy, and practically bleed out every month and then we'll see what happens to all the 'bloody biscuits', thought Hermione grumpily as she resumed glaring and searching for bald spots. "I'm off to do more research", she said suddenly, and flounced out of the room, intentionally skirting the biscuit issue. Let him find his own biscuits.
Severus rolled his eyes and wondered why premenstrual women were always so bloody moody. Thank gods Minerva was well past that phase. Although...considering the nearly bipolar moods of the menopausal ones...he thanked the gods once again that he wasn't born female.