((Hello everyone! Less than a month to go until I'm home. I've been studying abroad in the UK for the term, but my last exam is in a week (mild panic). Obviously, procrastination was called for, hence the finishing of this very strange story I started a little over a month ago. But first, thanks to those who reviewed--I believe I've replied to all of you. I hope you enjoy the next bit. The second part of this story should be up in a week or so.))

The Intruder

In the pitch dark of his bedroom, Snape's eyes snapped open. He was in his four poster bed, lying on his back, his arms tucked beneath his pillow. Only a moment ago, he had been having a very strange dream involving Dumbledore and Trelawney in Muggle Hawaiian shirts getting lost in the tundra (so, a good dream). However, Snape was an extremely light sleeper, some of that based on natural inclination and most of it on survival. Living in dormitories with magical adolescent boys was dangerous enough, but Snape also had to live in the Slytherin dormitories as the most unpopular boy in his house (in the entire school, in all truthfulness) in a dormitory of magical, bored adolescent boys. Being able to wake from the smallest of sounds could save one the joys unnatural hair colors and changed voices (after Snape suffered a week in his third year sounding like a falsetto, to the uproarious joy of his classmates, he spent the next month more awake in bed than asleep). While Snape hadn't had roommates for several years, the habit was difficult to break, leaving Snape wide awake at the slightest drip from the cold stone walls of his dungeon rooms.

However, for the first time in years, Snape was glad of his unusual gift.

Something was in his room.

The thought was impossible. His wards could keep out a charging mountain troll, and no one, aside from perhaps Dumbledore, could remove them.

This reassurance did not change his conviction that something was in the room with him.

Snape's breathing remained even and slow, and he dared not move a muscle. He might have been caught asleep, but he would at least have an element of surprise on his side. He moved his eyes to the left—only his wardrobe, bookshelf, a couch, and armchair. He looked to his right—he saw nothing but his desk and leather chair. No Disillusionment charms were allowed in the castle. Invisibility cloak? Snape nearly snorted. As though anyone in Hogwarts would have their hands on one of those.

Then Snape looked directly in front of him.

For a moment his breath caught. Only then did he feel the…the…

Humming?

Suddenly, as though the intruder had felt the brief cessation of his breath, Snape saw a pair of luminous eyes staring at him, hovering just over his chest.

A second later, Snape had his wand (he slept with it under his pillow, another trick he learned from seven years of Slytherin dormitories) pointed at the eyes.

He noted that the eyes did not move, but the strange vibrations on his chest had stopped. He also noticed that the eyes seemed to be attached to a very small, warm body, probably no heavier than a loaf of bread.

"Lumos, he said. The light made him squint for a moment. After blinking, he realized he had had his wand pointed to a very small kitten.

It blinked back at him, its blue eyes curiously observing him.

"Mew?" it seemed to inquire.

Snape sat up, tugging the white kitten's claws from his nightshirt.

"Probably one of my Slytherins's new pets," Snape growled at the creature, holding it away from his body as though it were explosive potion ingredients, "Well I'm not playing lost and found with you." Snape walked across the room, the kitten wrigging in his hands. He put the creature on the floor outside of his door. He sneered at the kitten. "Have a wonderful evening. Hope Mrs. Norris doesn't find you."

With hardly a glance more at the animal, Snape closed the door and threw himself back into bed. He had potions with Hufflepuff third years that morning—he needed the rest.

Snape woke up that morning by sneezing. He grimaced without opening his eyes. Strange. He only sneezed when there was a—

"Mew?"

Snape lurched out of bed, his arms spiraling wildly as though desperately attempting flight, before losing his balance and tumbling off the side of his bed onto the cold stone floor.

The tiny kitten had crossed the bed and stared down at the man, cocking its head to the side, as though pondering the strange ways of humans. Then it returned to its previous occupation of chewing on the corners of Snape's pillow.

The potion master leapt to his feet, grasped the wretched animal, and literally threw it out into the hallway. "Get out, you mangy over-sized rat!"

Slamming the door behind him, Snape stormed around his room, preparing for the day.

The day was agonizing enough to momentarily forget about the animal. Three Hufflepuffs melted their cauldrons, spilling Swelling Potion all over the floor. Only Snape's quick barks of orders kept the class from dissolving into panic. That didn't mean that Hufflepuff wasn't 50 points under its morning quota by lunch. Then Snape had to attend the weekly staff meeting, have a discussion with the Slytherin Prefects about not accepting bribes from other students to let them out after curfew (Snape scolded them until they flinched, but he rather admired their economic savvy—he would have to describe them as "enterprising" on their recommendation letters), and then grade a stack of abysmal potion essays. All a day in the life of Severus Snape, unfulfilled Potions Master in Hogwarts School of Increasingly Stupid Wizardry.

In fact, it wasn't until Snape returned to his room after dinner that he contemplated the kitten question. How on earth did the creature enter his rooms? He happened to know his wards included animals (Aurora Sinistra's incident with Mrs. Norris forced Snape to add to his defenses). And it simply wasn't possible for Dumbledore to have taken down his wards, dropped off the kitten, and replaced them without Snape sensing a thing.

Snape strode into his room and sank down in his armchair by the fire. Ah, a little bit of heaven in his purgatory of a life. Now if he could only determine how—

There was a muffled "mew" from Snape's side.

Leaping to his feet, he saw, to his fury, the same kitten now taking residence in his, his, favorite chair. The kitten, he noticed, had also kindly decorated his floor with the white stuffing from the shredded chair's arm.

To give Snape credit, he did not blast the kitten on the spot. While he would verbally flay almost anyone who he deemed to be an antagonist (so—everyone) and would never hesitate to strike a hostile enemy, Snape was not a violent man. He did not relish bloodshed or pain, as his fellow Death Eaters did. He found silky insinuations and subtle threats did far more than threat of death. So, instead of drawing his wand, he observed it carefully, while slowing down his breathing to manageable, less hex-likely levels.

The animal, rolling on its back while chewing a piece of its fluffy prize, was a small white kitten, only about the size of Snape's whole hand. Its pristine white fur was fluffy, almost as though the cat itself were made out of dandelion puffs. Someone had tied a blue bow around its neck. The picture was completed with the bright blue eyes, pink nose and pink feet. It was undoubtedly the most adorable kitten Snape had ever seen.

He gagged. How positively revolting.

The kitten grew bored with the stuffing and started batting its tail playfully, looking up at Snape with large, innocent eyes. It curled up on its side, as though pleading with him to pet it. He snorted. Did the little beast honestly like him? Snape drew himself up to his full, intimidating height, looking down at the cat as though it were a terrified first year in his potion's class. He gave the creature his most intimidating stare.

"Mew," it said, cheerfully.

"You're appalling," Snape snarled, "I'm not going to pet you."

"Mew," it replied, still looking up at Snape lovingly.

"I hope you fall into the lake and dirty your perfect fur."

"Mew." Snape was further annoyed by the kitten's tone—affectionate and damnably close to indulgent.

"I hope you will be eventually consumed by the Acromantulas!"

"Mew." The kitten batted playfully at his robes. Snape inhaled sharply and took a step back.

"I hope—I hope you get bloody fleas!"

"Fleas, Master-Professor Snape?"

Snape whirled around to see a house elf looking at him inquisitively. He was mortified to have been found arguing—and losing to—a kitten but refused to show it. He tightened his jaw menacingly.

"Why does the Master-Professor want the pretty kitty to have fleas?" the house elf asked.

"That is Master-Professor's business, Patsy," Snape ground out, staring down at the elf, "If I had known that allowing you into my rooms would have entailed house-elf inquisitions, I would not have permitted it!" Snape's wards initially kept everyone—including house-elves—from entering his rooms. However, after a herd of house elves were found punishing themselves outside of his door, both for upsetting Master-Professor Snape's wards and for being unable to clean the Master-Professor's quarters, despite the wards, Snape finally conceded to allowing one elf, Patsy, access to clean his rooms. When accused of being a bit paranoid by the fellow staff ("Does he expect the house elves to hide jinxes in the sheets, I wonder?" McGonagall asked Flitwick in a tone of voice that purposely carried throughout the staff room), Snape shrugged. House elves were magical creatures in their own right and should be respected. He'd seen the Malfoy house elves performing discreet Cheering Charms on Lucius Malfoy when he was in bad form enough times to respect their magic and to be as suspicious of them as he was of wizards and witches.

However, house elves were house elves. She reacted predictably to Snape's remark. Patsy gasped. "Patsy a bad elf—a bad, bad elf!" She looked around the room and found a book from the shelf and started beating herself with it.

"NO!" Snape exclaimed, tugging the book from her hands, "That's a bloody first edition, are you mad—"

That only made Patsy wail louder. In lieu of any other torture device, Patsy crawled on the floor and started giving herself rug burns. Snape growled in the back of his throat and pulled the house elf to her feet.

"I was being sarcastic, Patsy. Do you know what that means?"

The elf only looked at him with wide, confused eyes.

"Never mind." Suddenly, he remembered the kitten. It was still on his seat, looking at him with unblinking devotion. He grimaced in disgust. "But you can redeem yourself, Patsy."

The house elf nearly fell over herself in delight.

"Remove that animal from these rooms," Snape said, "To the farthest corner of the castle."

The house elf looked very carefully at Snape. "Take kitten from Master-Professor Snape's rooms?"

"Yes—then return here for your cleaning. And bring a pot of strong tea while you're at it."

A moment later, the elf and the kitten were gone. Snape was delighted that the kitten hadn't even managed a full "mew" before it was taken.

Snape spent the rest of the evening gloating over his triumph, reading in his favorite, newly repaired armchair. He went to bed confidently, smirking in the dark. No purring, no glowing eyes, and no bloody kitten.

The first thing Snape realized the next morning was that his pillow was vibrating.

When he sat up quickly, he also realized that the kitten had been playing with his hair.

Cursing fluently, he stared down at the kitten sitting on his pillow, with little clumps of long, black hair in her paws, with a mixture of fury and shock. Fury quickly won over.

"You—you—demon!" Snape shouted. "How are you doing this?"

Said demon only peered up at him with that same curiously loving expression.

"Mew?" it replied.

Snape raged and screamed as he went through his daily absolutions. The demon (for Snape was growing more convinced by the minute it was a demon, what else could explain the infernal creature?) sat on Snape's arm chair, watching him with a bemused expression.

A moment before leaving for breakfast, Snape put his hands on either side of the arm rests and leaned in closely to the kitten. Snape's face was a portrait of rage, lividly white, his dark eyes bulging slightly, his teeth bared. The creature didn't even take a step back.

"I will not be outsmarted by a bloody kitten," he said softly, menacingly. "I don't know how you enter these rooms, but you will not be returning to them once I discover how you do it. I do not need a friend. I do not need a familiar. And I do not need a sodding white fluffy kitten. Do you understand that, demon? This is war—and I'm—going—to—win."

The demon had stared dotingly up at him the entire time. Snape leaned his nose in just a bit closer—when he felt a rough, warm tongue lick his large nose.

Surprised, Snape took two steps back away from the chair—backing into the couch and managing to fall backwards with it as it tipped over, his long legs comically sticking in the air out of his black robes.

The demon kitten sat calmly on Snape's chair, observing the disaster of which it was the clear epicenter. It tipped its head curiously to the side.

"Mew?"

((Hope you enjoyed it! This is a much less dark piece, or at least doesn't skirt the dark as much as the last chapter of the saga of how-Snape's-life-is-dreadful. The inspiration of this story actually came from a discussion with my friend about what I thought of "fluffy" fanfiction. I'm not a very fluffy person, so I defined my version of fluff as Snape being stuck in a room with a fluffy bunny and, while verbally hating it, secretly liking it. The idea (and mental image of Snape confronting a bunny) amused me so much that I started thinking...and here we are.

Also, although I believe I made this clear in the story, Snape is not a SPEW advocate. He doesn't care that house elves are enslaved, but, unlike most wizards, like Voldemort, does not dismiss house elves as being safe creatures. This shows his obsessively suspicious nature, but also his natural cunning as well, I think.

I also promise, though, that no house elves, kittens, or Potions Masters were seriously hurt in the creation of this story.

Also, an imaginary cookie to the person who finds the shameless Monty Python reference.))