Chapter 2 – Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Minerva's POV
Minerva's head was reeling. During the short time she'd spent in the house, Harry's aunt had handled him without even a thousandth of the loving care she'd seen her reserve to her son and denied him the pleasure of a pet just for the sake of cleanliness – speaking of which, it appeared that keeping every surface pathologically spotless was Harry's responsibility as well. At this point, she highly doubted that all the work he'd done in the garden had been his own idea. She had thought of a one-time occurrence, perhaps to raise some more pocket money, or to please someone in honour of their birthday or some other special occasion, but it was probably a normal event. More than anything else, though, what worried her was the woman's tone of voice. There were, of course, more pressing problems at hand: the child was overworked and the rough way he'd been treated was a promise of worse things to come, perhaps even regular beatings, though she was willing to give the Dursleys the benefit of the doubt about that – for now. But that tone alone spoke volumes: her choice of words and the sound of them were all purposefully designed to make Harry feel unwanted, and she knew by experience that young boys were more sensitive than it seemed to such subtleties. She'd seen more than her share of them throughout her career, and she was very much aware that a smile and a kind word or two could make the difference between 'strict but fair' and 'the teacher that everybody hates'. Petunia seemed to have taken all the wise words of advice she'd received from her older colleagues when she started teaching and reversed them: she appeared to be constantly angry at Harry, or at least annoyed by his very presence, and there was always something in her remarks to dutifully remind him that he didn't belong with them, that this was just the house where he happened to live, but not quite his home. Minerva had been surprised by how quickly Harry's mind had sprung to the thought of finding her a place to stay, even though he'd been resigned from the very beginning to the idea that he couldn't keep her, but the scene she had witnessed explained a lot. If the other two treated him in the same way, the boy was in desperate need of some form of comfort, and was more than ready to cling with all ten fingers to the presence of a new pet; or maybe – even the consideration was painful – his heart went out to all homeless creatures because he felt homeless himself.
Though her head was full of more apprehension than a cat had ever felt, she forced herself to put her concerns aside for long enough to make two basic decisions: first, that the garden shed would be a suitable hiding spot to sleep, but also to sit and plan new ways to get inside, hopefully for good; second, that until she managed to become the Dursleys' pet, she would turn to Mrs. Figg for meals, either by committing the rather rude act of inviting herself to join her at the table as a human or by feasting on an extra bowl of cat food with her other feline friends. She ended up spending most of the day in her new headquarters, as it offered some respite from the summer sun, doing nothing useful but never truly relaxing, her ears and whiskers waiting for even the smallest sign that something was amiss. She didn't like the sounds coming from the house at all – at what she supposed was dinner time, she thought she heard something that sounded like a heated argument, though she could only make out bits and pieces of what was being said.
"Filthy animals... our house... ungrateful... orphanage..." Whatever they were shouting at him, it definitely didn't bode well for Harry. That last word seemed to hang in the air for a painfully long time: why would they be talking about an orphanage? Minerva didn't know the exact content of that letter, but she was sure Dumbledore had stressed the importance of raising the boy in that house with them. His faith in the blood wards was complete: apparently, he believed that what he'd written was enough to convince them to keep him, even if it was far from making them love him. On the one hand, there was no spell or potion that could force them to, let alone a bit of ink and parchment, but on the other hand, they were his family, and family shouldn't need any help, magical or otherwise, to feel the affection that every child in the world had the right to.
The next morning, Minerva woke up bright and early and stretched her muscles to get rid of the stiffness she had from sleeping curled up on the hard floor of the shed. Spending long periods of time in her tabby cat form, with all the discomforts, great or small, that came with being an animal, was becoming more and more unpleasant with age. Her sleep had been fitful, perhaps because of the thoughts that plagued her, perhaps because she had vowed to have nothing but cat food all day to get used to the taste and hadn't digested it well. She was willing to endure it, especially now that she'd seen the extent of the problem with her own eyes, but she still shuddered at the idea of not returning to her human self for days or weeks on end.
She was pacing nervously in the garden, waiting for the Dursleys' day to start, when Harry made his second appearance. This time, he entered the shed and emerged from it with a pair of shears much too large and heavy for a seven-year-old to handle with ease, and set out to trim the hedge.
Minerva repeated her little show of meowing, rubbing and generally looking as cute as possible, but his reaction was quite different from what she expected: "You again? Go away."
She sat and looked up at him in surprise, clearly showing that she had no intention of leaving.
"I'm serious! Shoo! You already got me in enough trouble the first time around. Go!"
Ah, that explained it. He wanted nothing more to do with the very thing that had upset his 'family' so much. She took a couple of steps back, but didn't let him out of her sight.
The first break from work came much earlier this time – from the way he was acting, Harry seemed to be aching and tired. She dismissed it as a symptom of the efforts from the day before: something that shouldn't have been there in the first place, but still natural. But when his body language made it clear that something was deeply wrong, she ran to him, finding him too exhausted even to shoo her away. To Harry, it probably looked like she was staring at him for no apparent reason, which was perfectly normal for the notorious staring contest champions that cats usually were, but the truth was that she was examining him from head to toe. Her first thought was: Where is Madam Pomfrey when you need her? The second was that she did not need her, for once. Though his overlarge clothes did a good job of covering most of them – so good, in fact, that she hadn't seen them at first glance – there were several newly-formed bruises on the boy's skin, and she had more than one good reason to imagine the sickening pattern of black and blue continuing under his enormous hand-me-downs. That, too, was a hint that something was amiss: hadn't she seen him wearing them once before, she would have supposed they were a sort of working outfit he only put on for potentially dirty outdoor chores, but all the clues suggested that this was his everyday wear. Not that she'd never seen anyone wearing second-hand clothes, but the families she knew – the Weasleys, for example – at least bothered to shrink them when there was a vast difference in size between the previous owner and the current one. Using scissors, needle and thread instead of a simple spell was, she supposed, longer and harder, but it was no excuse for them to leave him in such a state. She could only hope such behaviour was limited to the house and garden, and that they didn't send him to his Muggle school looking so ridiculous. Being laughed at couldn't do him any good. This wasn't the first case she'd handled, so she could say without fear of bragging that she knew how these things worked. If, as she had all the reasons in the world to believe, Harry was being abused, the treatment must have destroyed what little self-esteem he had by now, and being the butt of everyone's jokes wasn't exactly conducive to rebuilding it.
Harry worked on and on, disregarding the protests of his audibly growling stomach. "Guess I'm skipping breakfast again," he sighed, falling back into his brand new habit of talking to her even though he supposedly didn't want her there anymore. "Uncle Vernon wants the job done quickly because there's some client coming tonight and everything has to look perfect. They've already told me five times to stay out of the way during dinner. Don't they think I know that?"
Minerva had to replay his words in her mind to make sure she hadn't misheard. Why in Merlin's name was he talking about skipping meals as if it were a regular occurrence? Why did he believe he had to remain unseen by guests, as if he weren't part of the family? For the tiniest fraction of a second, she wanted nothing more than to turn back and go hex them into oblivion, but she stopped herself just in time and chose instead to vent her anger and disgust in a much more feline way: her tail got out of control, moving frantically from side to side. It might have looked cute to Harry, especially if he didn't know much about a cat's behaviour, but the true meaning of that gesture was that she was seething.
Just then, the door opened to show Petunia bidding her husband goodbye with a quick peck on the cheek. "Have a nice day, dear."
Such a sweet, respectable everyday scene. She might even have believed they were a perfect family, if it weren't for the fact that Harry put a little more intensity in his work as he passed. Her heart clenched when she saw that he shrank back in his presence, as if to make himself less noticeable. She wished he would go away, if only to make him a bit more comfortable, but no such luck. Vernon stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted her.
"Is that the cat Petunia was talking about yesterday?"
The boy's eyes went from the shears to him and back, and Minerva needed no Legilimency to see what he was thinking: he would have to stop working in order to answer, which would make him angry, but if he went on and kept silent, he would get mad at him for ignoring him anyway.
"Yes, sir," he finally said, not even averting his gaze from the hedge.
"Have the decency of looking my way when you talk to me!"
"Yes, sir," he repeated, this time staring straight at him, though he was obviously afraid. There was another interesting trait to think about: he faced his fears instead of running from them. He'd also had the nerve to be rather defiant to his aunt the previous day. Hmm, were those hints of Gryffindor she detected?
"And you haven't sent it away, even after she specifically asked you to?"
"I-I couldn't, sir. It just came back."
"You couldn't?" His hand had an odd sort of twitch, at which Harry flinched visibly. Again, their body language spoke louder than their words: to an acute enough observer, it was painfully clear that he'd just resisted the impulse of hitting him, perhaps for fear of being seen. "Well," here his angered expression faded for a moment, replaced by a sly smile that did not reach his eyes, "make sure it sticks around."
"W-what?" Harry stammered, completely forgetting the 'sir' his uncle seemed to demand from him. This was an outright contradiction compared to his wife's behaviour the previous day, and it understandably came as a shocker to both of them. Was this, perhaps, her chance?
"You heard me. My client's wife is a cat lover. I honestly couldn't care less what you do with it afterwards, but let her see it. It'll make us look good."
The two opposite instincts of grinning like a loon and staying serious and focused until he left waged a furious battle on Harry's face for a few seconds. When Vernon started the car, he let the smile win.
"Did you hear that, Mr. Kitty-Cat? You're staying! Well, at least for a while."
Minerva was cheering internally too, but she struggled not to show it: after all, she wasn't supposed to understand the exchange.
"I'll have to think of a proper name for you while I finish. I'm tired of calling you that. I don't even know if you're a 'Mr.' or a 'Mrs.'."
Oh, so now he's thinking of that? It was about time! Minerva instantly chided herself for that reaction. Of course he would be thinking of it late, seeing as the possibility of keeping her, even temporarily, had only become a reality moments before.
He toiled in silence for a while, then he was struck by inspiration: "'Tabby'! You're a tabby cat, and it's fitting for both a boy and a girl, right? Do you like it?"
Minerva meowed appreciatively, wishing there were wizards who could talk to cats as well as snakes.
"I'll take that as a yes." Then, wiping his forehead from sweat – and in doing so, exposing the very thing that made him so special –, he said: "There, I'm done. I'll put the shears back in the shed, don't you disappear on me, okay?"
Something in those words made her paws take on a life of their own and follow him. I won't disappear on you, Harry. The boy needed all the reassurance he could get, even if it was in the form of a cat deciding not to run away from him.
He smiled at her. "Smart cat. It's as if you actually understood what I said―" Harry choked a little on those words. "Thank goodness Uncle Vernon's gone to work. If he'd heard me, I would be in for it. Animals can't talk. That's not the way things are supposed to be."
Once again, she had to resort to moving her tail as an outlet for the ever-growing surge of disgust she felt for that sorry excuse of a man. What 'way' was he going on about, and why exactly didn't it include talking animals? She had an awful feeling about this. All her instincts, feline and otherwise, pointed to one solution to that mystery, and it wasn't good: if he scolded himself for thinking of a seemingly irrational event such as a cat being able to understand English, then they must be refusing to tell him about magic. She'd always known that a Muggle family could never help him express his full potential, but she'd foolishly trusted Dumbledore enough not to consider it could be that bad. But wait―if they hadn't told him anything about the wizarding world, how could they possibly have explained Lily and James's deaths, if they had? They couldn't very well tell him the truth, only replacing the Killing Curse with a gun: it wouldn't explain the scar. There were only two options available: they had either filled his head with lies or said nothing at all. Why, why had she vowed to stay in her cat form? She could definitely use her wand hand right now.
"Let's get you inside." He picked her up and made his way towards the house. From this privileged position close to the boy's neck, she could see marks that even an untrained eye could recognise as an attempt to throttle him. What in Merlin's name was going on behind those doors?
Petunia stared at her in a most unpleasant way – or perhaps it was her usual 'welcome' to Harry. Come to think of it, it was probably a combination of the two.
"Uncle Vernon said it's okay," he blurted out on the defensive, as if that settled everything. "If they ask, its name is Tabby. I haven't figured out if it's a boy or a girl yet, so―"
"Enough of your blabbering, boy! I heard you two, I'm not stupid. The cat has to stay for long enough to make Mrs. Carter happy."
Harry nodded and gently deposited her on the floor, looking a bit downcast at the thought that this was just a farce to help his uncle's deal go as expected.
"Well?" Petunia said, as if anxious to get rid of the both of them.
"What?"
"Go make yourself useful! And keep an eye on the cat, we don't want it to run away before the guests arrive."
"What do I have to do?" Merlin's beard, this boy was like a house elf, only with better grammar! Those Muggles really needed to learn a lesson.
"Dudley's room needs tidying. Oh, and by the way, I'll fix dinner just this once, but don't think of it as a treat to you. It's important, and I don't trust you with it."
"Come on, I'll take you on a tour of the rest of the house while I'm at it," said Harry, motioning for her to follow him. There was no way a normal cat would have obeyed so promptly: they were more independent than that. Maybe the boy had, on some level, understood that there was something different about this particular specimen.
"If I find out the cat broke any of Diddy's things, you're going to be sorry!"
They didn't have much time to linger in each of the rooms he showed her: he was in such a hurry to start working that he barely told her their names. It was then that she caught her first glimpse of Dudley, who was so engrossed in whatever television programme he was watching that he didn't even notice them go in and out at the speed of lightning. As the tour went on, Minerva found her impressions confirmed: he was definitely treating her at the very least like a creature of near-human intelligence, though how much of it was due to him sensing her magic – at his age and with no training whatsoever, it would have been truly impressive – and how much to his need to talk to someone who didn't sneer in response, she couldn't tell.
As she trotted upstairs beside him, she did not for a moment consider that she would be getting yet another shock from this part of the tour. With hindsight, she should have known better.
"This is Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room," he explained, his pose clearly spelling out that he was ready to stop her if she even thought of going in. "I'm only allowed in when I have to clean it, so don't get any fur on their things, or it's not going to be pretty." For a fleeting second, she toyed with the idea of rushing in and digging her claws into anything she could reach out of sheer revenge for the matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke of his punishments, but she discovered that deep, calming breaths worked for cats as well as humans.
"This is the guest room. It's only ever used when Aunt Marge comes to stay." He didn't elaborate, but by the sound of his voice 'Aunt Marge' seemed to be just as bad as the rest of them. To her heightened sense of smell, it seemed that a faint trace of the presence of dogs had stubbornly survived several thorough cleanings; she came to the conclusion that the mystery woman owned at least some of them.
"This is Dudley's room―" he peeked inside to assess just how much work was ahead of him, "which apparently really does need tidying, but we'll get back to that later."
There was one last door that could be hiding something of relevance, and he opened it for her. The jumble of all sorts of objects, many of which broken, was unbelievable. Apparently, she'd just found Harry's first bad habit: he was precise when it came to working for others, but terribly disorganized in private. Just as she pondered on that contradiction, he announced: "And this is his second bedroom, where he keeps everything that won't fit into the first."
There were so many things wrong with that one sentence that she didn't know where to begin. Firstly, if Dudley owned so many toys and had so little regard for them, he must have been spoiled rotten, and that in itself wasn't right. Secondly, and more importantly, if this wasn't Harry's room, then where exactly was he supposed to sleep? Mixed with her fury, there was a stab of something that felt like curiosity. For the umpteenth time, she fought back the urge to transform, if only to ask him directly.
On that note, he deemed the tour over and went back to his cousin's room. Minerva was glad of this chance to observe it: the little details of his bedroom could speak volumes about his character. It was as though a miniature hurricane had strewn all his possessions across it: it was a wonder he could find anything in there. From the state he'd left it in, it was obvious that he expected someone else to clean up: in fact, it was so bad that she suspected he had purposefully made the job hard for whoever was in charge of it, and all the evidence suggested that said person was always Harry. Crumbs and empty packages revealed he'd been eating all kinds of junk food; the clothes about the size of a young whale that Harry was rushing to put back in the wardrobe where they were supposed to be seemed to have cost a pretty penny, though she wasn't a good judge of the quality of Muggle items. She didn't know exactly what everything was: her smattering of Muggle Studies could only get her so far. She did notice, however, that the boy had his own television and computer, and that next to it were several untidy stacks of plastic cases containing things that were somehow related to it. She jumped onto his desk to check, barely avoiding making an even worse mess, and guessed by some of the brightly-coloured titles that they were games. The pictures that came with those titles didn't seem suitable for a seven-year-old at all, but quite frankly, with all the terrible mistakes the Dursleys were already making in raising both him and Harry, this made very little difference. There were books in the room as well – a quick look at the covers showed her all the basic subjects he was to learn at whatever Muggle primary school he was attending – but her inner teacher was pained to see that they looked untouched.
"When I'm done here, I'll show you where I sleep too," he said out of the blue, distracting her from what was now a full-fledged inspection. "It's where I'll have to stay tonight so the Carters don't see me. It's too bad they have to see you, though. I could have used some company in there other than the spiders. I'd considered giving them names, but they don't make very good pets, do they? Besides, I can't tell them apart in the dark, so that'd be useless."
Minerva had a sudden flash of herself storming downstairs in human form and telling them exactly what was on her mind, possibly punctuating her stream of insults with a well-placed hex or two, but alas, that fantasy wasn't destined to come true anytime soon. He hadn't said exactly what sort of place his room was or where it was, but the words 'dark' and 'spiders' were more than enough to send her over the edge. What were they doing to him? Their horrible behaviour was a problem that someday, somehow, she would have to solve, but once again, it wasn't the practical side of things that hurt the most. What truly broke her heart was his acceptance of the situation. How did he not realise how sick and unfair it was? It was as though a permanent blindfold didn't allow him to see his own life clearly. Didn't he ever wonder why he and his cousin were treated so differently? Had he been the only child in the house, with no one else to compare himself to, it would have made more sense for him to accept the only life he had ever known without complaint, but he had a completely opposite model before his very eyes every day. Why didn't he ever speak up and claim what was due to him? Had they perhaps drilled into him that he wasn't worthy of the same privileges Dudley had? From some hints he had unknowingly dropped, it seemed so, and so Merlin help her, if that one deduction was true, they would have to pay dearly.
Minerva resigned to sit and watch him work. It appeared, from his occasional mumbled comments, that there was a certain way his cousin wanted his things arranged, even though that perfect order would soon turn into utter chaos again, and more than once he found himself wasting time looking for this or that particular item. She decided on the spur of the moment that if she couldn't hurt the Dursleys as much as they had hurt him, she would at least make his work easier. Tidying a room was a much simpler task when you had a companion with a good sense of smell, a keen eye for details and the ability to slink into seemingly impossible corners. It became a sort of game for them: every time Harry complained about the mysterious disappearance of something, not expecting her to raise a paw in response, she would find it and point him in the right direction with a meow. It was the best she could do, and the boy seemed to appreciate it.
"Wow, you really are smart. It's like you always know what I'm looking for. But then again, it's not the first time freaky things have happened around me. It's what I get in trouble for the most." She stared in rapt attention, her ears upright and completely turned towards him: it was the first time he'd openly mentioned magic, even if not by its proper name, and every syllable was important. Moreover, if the 'freaky things' he was talking about were indeed accidental magic, he had just confessed being punished for it. Oh, it was getting worse and worse. "Try to act a bit more normal around them, okay? It'll be our secret." His eyes lit up at that last thought and she let the shadow of a human smile play on her lips at the sight of his excitement, but a new consideration promptly came to sadden her: if what she'd seen so far was any indication, he wasn't happy about having a secret, but rather having someone to share it with. There was a profound difference.
With her sneaking in all the places even his small frame couldn't reach, they were done far before Harry expected. "That's another job done. Come on, I'll show you where I sleep. Speaking of which, I should make you a bed too, just in case they decide to let you stay forever... like that'll ever happen."
She followed him downstairs, more and more puzzled by the second. She was certain they'd seen every room on this floor of the house.
The mystery was solved, in the worst possible way, when Harry stopped abruptly in front of a small door she'd ignored the first time around and opened it, revealing a cupboard under the stairs. "Well, this is it. It's not much, but I'm sure there's room for two, since you're not very big."
Everything she'd felt towards the Dursleys in that short time came rushing back to her multiplied by ten. This – this – was what he called his bedroom? The idea made her sick to the stomach. Sure, there was enough space for him in there, but she dreaded to think what his relatives would do the day he grew out of it, which, considering how small it was, would be coming soon. There was a cot that could hardly be called a bed and very little else: a couple of shelves holding his few possessions tried and failed to make the cupboard look like a proper bedroom, and the rest was taken up by some of the cleaning supplies he was so familiar with and a few cardboard boxes containing unidentified stuff that had to be stored away. An old sign made out of a crumpled piece of paper that had been carefully smoothed out declared it, in a childish scrawl, to be 'Harry's Room'. Upon spotting a large teddy bear abandoned on the bed, she felt a split second of relief at the thought that they at least allowed him the comfort of a toy, but then she saw that it was missing an arm. Harry shut the both of them in, sat on his cot and examined the hole carefully. It was dark, but her feline eyes had no problem adjusting, and she could clearly see that, by the look on his face, he'd closed the door to have some privacy. It was the same worried look that flashed across his features whenever he took a break from work, the one that said: 'I don't want to be caught.'
"I sneaked this from Dudley's second bedroom to see if I could fix it, but I couldn't find the arm. Ah, well, it looks like I've found a better use for it."
He reached for one of the boxes and emptied it: it contained the same schoolbooks she'd seen earlier in his cousin's room.
"I'll find these some other place. This box is now yours." He then proceeded to take the stuffing out of the teddy bear and meticulously use it to create a soft layer on the bottom. "It's not a five-star hotel treatment, Tabby, but you'll have to make do, okay?" Hmm, creative thinking. He'd used common things in a completely unexpected way. There seemed to be a pinch of Ravenclaw in him as well.
Any other cat would have mistaken the makeshift bed for a funny new plaything and destroyed it in a matter of minutes, but she wasn't any other cat. As soon as he put it on the floor, she curled up into it, making a great show of appreciating the gesture. That was definitely something he'd inherited from Lily: just how selfless did he have to be to give up part of what little he had for the benefit of an animal? Minerva found it sincerely touching – not to mention that the box was actually rather comfortable, if one were willing to ignore the bits of stuffing that would surely stick to her fur the moment she got out. She vowed to use it at all times if she succeeded in staying at Number 4 for longer than a day, which was still part of her master plan. There was already more than enough proof for her to go back and tell Albus exactly how big of a mistake he'd made, but she needed to see more, no matter how deeply it disgusted her. Before reporting the case to the authorities, she had to know just how far the Dursleys had gone. She wanted to commit plenty of examples to memory, examples which she would later share with a handful of trusted people through a Pensieve. To be entirely honest, she would have dearly loved to revert to her human form right then and there and take Harry away, but Head of Gryffindor or no, she knew she mustn't act rashly. Where would she take him? How would she keep the whole matter secret to avoid unwanted attention from both the press and Voldemort's old followers? There were too many unanswered questions. It was clear that Harry needed to get out of that hellhole before those horrible Muggles broke him entirely, but organising his great escape was no mean feat.
"Glad you like it," said Harry with a smile, interrupting her plotting. Glad I made you happy, even if just for a minute.
The next hours went on slowly, with Harry always busily engaged in some chore or other and Minerva costantly hot on his heels to witness even the smallest sign of abuse. From the unmistakable marks she'd seen on his body, she supposed this, compared to many others, was his lucky day: there were plenty of snide remarks that made her want to attack Petunia until not an inch of her skin remained unscratched, but no one laid a finger on him, mostly because Dudley was too desperately overweight to catch him; his behaviour, however, was evidence that his parents encouraged, or at the very least allowed, acts of bullying towards him. Yet another item to add to her growing list of things that were going terribly wrong.
At about half past seven, Harry was given a meager dinner consisting of an amount of bread and cheese that could in no way sustain him until the next day; to add insult to injury, he had to wolf it down as quickly as possible before the Carters arrived, using the kitchen counter as a table and without even the privilege of sitting down, because every other usable surface was taken up by the many courses of a fancy meal he couldn't even dream of tasting. He had barely swallowed the last mouthful when the doorbell rang. He started as though hit by an unexpected Stinging Hex and dashed to his cupboard. Minerva made to follow him, but remembered that Vernon's client and his wife were supposed to see her: she wished she could keep Harry company, but if staying with him meant earning him a beating as soon as the guests left, she'd much rather make the two unknown Muggles happy. Showtime.
The evening passed in an insufferable mix of meaningless, hypocritical chitchat and business discussions about some Muggle tool called a drill, to which Minerva only half-listened, all the while trying to look as close as possible to Mrs. Carter's idea of the perfect house cat, even going as far as to sit in her lap, eliciting a shower of worried comments from Petunia about her getting fur on her lovely dress. It was sickening, though she had to admit the woman had a way with animals and her inner cat found her very agreeable. Perhaps she was a better person than her neverending small talk suggested.
And then, finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the exchange of goodbyes began and the Carters were escorted out. A quick look at the sky caused the last inane comments about the weather: while they were enjoying dinner, menacing clouds had gathered, and while that meant some relief from the heat, there was a great deal of polite worrying about the guests not having an umbrella. Come to think of it, Minerva shuddered at the idea of being kicked out and getting soaked to the bone.
When he was entirely sure they were out of earshot, Vernon bellowed: "Boy! You can come out now! They're gone!"
Harry emerged from the cupboard and thought it wise to pretend to be interested: "So, how did it go?"
"It's none of your business. Now, what are we going to do about the cat?"
His eyes opened wide and the question was out before he could stop it: "But I heard you just now. It's going to rain. Can't Tabby stay just for tonight?"
"It's been here long enough already! Get it out!"
Harry sighed in defeat and Minerva saw no other option than to allow him once again to pick her up and take her outside. This time, however, he didn't just leave her on the doorstep. Running as fast as the extra weight would let him, he gently deposited her in the shed.
"At least you won't get wet in here. Sorry I can't bring your box. The floor will have to do, okay?"
She heard a faint: "Took you long enough!", but by the sounds that followed, or rather the lack of them, the result of the meeting had put Vernon in a good enough mood not to hit Harry for the delay. That was something, at least.