I couldn't help it. Here's the second chapter. haha

Chapter 2

A month after Harry Potter's disappearance, the Order was holding a serious meeting in 12 Grimmauld place, headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix. The subject, as it had been the past month was Harry Potter.

Severus Snape stood in a shadowed corner of the room, arms crossed impatiently and a deep scowl on his face. He was tired of going to these meetings. Tired of hearing the same things being reported over and over again.

No one had seen the damned Boy-Who-Lived for nearly a month now. An unusual spike of magic in his family home had brought Order members to the muggle's front door. They'd been met by food splattered and furious muggles.

Severus just knew the spoiled brat had had a fit because they hadn't made his favourite meal for dinner or something equally ridiculous. They complained that Potter, in a fit of rage, had threatened to kill them, had thrown food at them, and had simply vanished. All searches since then had ended empty-handed.

Severus was in a worse mood than usual, angry he'd been unwillingly dragged into these daily searches. He'd spent too much of his limited free time searching Surrey and London at the usual teenage haunts. All he wanted was to spend his summer break from school doing absolutely nothing but brewing, reading, and relaxing. Of course Potter had to find some way to ruin that for him.

It was unusually hot out when the meeting finally finished. Severus apparated to Spinner's End in hopes to escape the heat and brew the Hospital Wings potions so he could finally get to his many experimental endeavours. Unfortunately, he was tasked to leaving in a few hours to continue the pointless search for the brat.

Approaching his property, he spied a few stray dogs snarling and pacing outside his front gate. Hating dogs with a passion, he send several vicious unobtrusive stinging hexes their way. They scattered towards the abandoned end of town, yelping with tails tucked between their legs.

Smirking, he continued on. Entering his gate, he spotted a dark pile of...something in the middle of his walkway in the blaring sun. Staring suspiciously at the lump, his eyes caught a small movement.

He approached it cautiously, wand still drawn and ready to defend himself. Only when he was a few feet away did he realize the pile was some sort of animal. A severely injured and painfully thin animal. A small triangular ear twitched in his direction as he took another step. The size of the animal and the shape of the ear had him realize that he was staring at a small black cat.

Its fur was a deep black, absorbing the sunlight but even so, still looking darker. Despite this, he could still see the wounds covering it, red and pink marks all over its coat. No part seemed to be spared from the damage. Even from where he was, he could count every rib and vertebrae. Hip bones and shoulder blades protruded out sharply through its damaged skin. Legs had no muscle or fat and even it's small face was sunken in. It was missing patches of fur, whether from illness and/or mange he wasn't sure.

Feeling pity on the animal, he removed his cloak and kneeled down next to the small body. He wrapped his cloak around the cat as gently as he could and only received a small twitch in response. He could feel the heat radiating through the robes indicating possible heat stroke. Even if it wasn't, he wasn't surprised the wretched thing had collapsed.

He pulled the cat closer to his body to support it better but his nose rejected the idea. Something about this cat stank to high heaven. It smelled of death. Examining it, he found the source of the smell.

It's right hind leg was only dangling there. The muscles were atrophied to nearly nothing, no muscle between skin and bone. The rest of its body looking nearly as thin.

The skin on the leg, broken and scratched from a fresh bite wound and who knows what else, was clearly necrotic. It was festering and flies constantly surrounded it. His first step to helping this creature recover would be to remove the largest source of infection, the leg. Animals were tough and he had no doubt should the cat survive, missing a leg would not stop it from acting like a regular cat.

He carefully carried the cat into his home, taking smooth, careful steps as to not jar his burden. The poor thing seemed to be too out of it with fever, heat, hunger, and pain to react to anything.

He brought it into his lab and set it gently on his desk. While he was confident the cat wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon, he cast precautionary wards on the desk to prevent the cat from leaving its top should it awaken and panic.

He stood there for a moment and made a mental list of problems and possible treatments.

Top of the list was that hind leg. He needed to get the creature's body stronger in order to for it to survive the procedure. He pulled out fast-acting strengthening potion and nutritive potions. While they worked their magic, he collected a numbing potion, a fever reducing potion, and a strong antibiotic potion and spelled them directly into the cat. He left several other potions to the side for after he was finished.

Casting a bubblehead charm to allow him to breathe without gagging on the rotting leg's odour, he took a few fortifying breaths and examined the leg under the light. It looked as if the rot had spread up most of the leg, stopping at the knee joint. He knew if he left too much of the leg that the cat would try to use it resulting in open sores and possible future infections. He decided to cut at mid thigh to dissuade it from using it to walk.

It took him nearly an hour of careful and precise cutting and sewing until he was finally finished. He banished the blood, thick from dehydration, and dressed it. He cast an impervious and impenetrable charm on the bindings to prevent the bandages from getting dirty or wet and to prevent the cat from chewing it off.

Figuring he should properly wash it now while it was unconscious, he carefully cradled the cat up to his bathroom. Waving his wand, he slightly filled the bathtub with room temperature water, just enough to dunk the small body underneath the water for rinsing. He began to to slowly wash off the filth, grime, and blood from the cat. The water quickly turned black and he refilled the tub with clean water to continue.

This repeated several times before the cat looked clean. He could now see that the cat was not completely black. It had a small streak of while on it's front right paw and a small white mark stretching down it's forehead. With it's wet fur and it's stumped leg, the poor thing looked worse off than before. He could now also see the sheer number of wounds and scars littering it's body.

He decided to towel dry it carefully, as drying charms left skin dry and itchy. He didn't want to add that on top of everything else it was suffering through.

As he gently towel dried the cat, he could feel ribs shifting under his fingers and saw that's it's front left paw was swollen. Apparently the hind leg wasn't the only damaged bone plaguing the cat.

When he returned to the lab and placed the now clean cat on the desk, he cast a thorough scanning charm on the limp body.

Some of the marks covering it's body were simple scratches. Others though, he'd seen the cats that had fallen in Bellatrix's hands enough times to determine that many wounds were caused by a knife. He had thought that perhaps the cat had found himself in fights with other animals and cars, but now he had serious doubts. Much of this was human-caused. He was now expecting a cat that feared a human hand.

Many teeth marks covered the cat's neck and legs, common targets by another cat or dog.

Fever ran rampant through the small body. He knew much of it was cause by infection and severe malnutrition. He figured this cat had not eaten a good meal in a very long time. A stray normally hunted it's own meals or foraged in alleyways in dumpsters. With a one completely useless leg and another broken, this cat's dexterity and agility would have prevented it from catching any easy prey. Also with its assumed negative history with humans, he doubted the cat would be hanging around anywhere humans densely populated.

He estimated it was only about 10 months old, no longer a kitten but not yet an adult. A cat that age should have been larger and at a weight of nearly 4.5Kgs or 10 pounds. His scan showed the cat only just barely weighed 2Kgs or under 5 pounds. A couple more days in the wild without food would have killed the poor thing.

He definitely had his work cut out for him. He needed to get weight on this scrawny creature. He knew this one, like many other desperately sick animals, felt too poorly and would simply refuse to eat. He swore he would do his best to bring this unlucky cat back to health. Maybe it would stick around and keep him company then.

Yawning, he fed the cat the remaining of the required potions and glanced at the clock. 10:00PM. Surprised how long he'd been there tending to the cat's wounds, he realized he'd never gone out to search for Potter.

Carrying the limp form to his bedroom, he placed the cat under a spare blanket on the second pillow on his bed. Arranging it comfortably, he rushed to his floo to give his excuses.

"I apologize, Albus," he started as soon as the call was answered. "Something came up and I was unable to to join the search this evening."

"That's alright, Severus," he said with a sigh. "This evening has also yielded no good news. I'm sure whatever it was was urgent."

"I came upon a dying feline on my return home," he explained.

Albus held out a calming hand, "An understandable distraction. I do hope the poor thing will be alright."

"As of right now, things are not looking well," he murmured with a frown. "I am not comfortable leaving the beast alone for any amount of time at the moment."

"Then it's condition is quite dire," the older man nodded. "I won't keep you then, Severus. Do take care of the poor thing and only join the searches when you feel you can without worry. We've got plenty others searching for Harry."

Severus nodded and ended the call. Checking on the still unconscious cat, he finished his night time routine and went to bed.