Familiars
Chapter 6
'Furry little problem'
Disclaimer: I only play in the World which JKR created. I own nothing nor do I profit from it.
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Hermione's neural pathways seemed to only register pain, lots of pain, pain which seemed to be resonating from her head. If she could use any description for it, she'd probably go with what she heard about contact with a bludger. Without the bliss of unconsciousness which normally came after it, which she'd prefer, especially when it felt like said homicidal ball was guiding a marching band through her cranium.
Blinking and groaning Hermione rolled over in search of what awoke her. Her vision was blurry and it hurt to look into the brightly lit room.
"Good Lord." she moaned to herself.
She could hear voices coming from somewhere in the room. She wanted to yell at them to 'shut up' but in a much less civilised manner and hex them to Osaka, Mexico - hell just outside of the room would do if she didn't need to hear their traps open and shut.
The voices got louder as the fog in her brain cleared; the pain was still definitely there mind. She knew those voices. She thought dumbly that it was Lavender and Parvati.
'I don't remember getting into bed let alone Gryffindor tower.'
"Can't you do anything for her Poppy?" 'Poppy? Madam Pomfrey? Wait is that Professor Dumbledore?'
Hermione strained her ears to hear more but they sounded so far away even though their voices were so loud.
"… She had a punctured lung… stomach…fractured hip and ribs… blunt force trauma to the temple…" She could only make out from Madam Pomfrey's reply. 'Blunt force trauma? Good God was I attacked again? OH Brilliant - Bloody Brilliant Hermione, Yes well done - can't keep alert enough to keep enough brain cells till the Newts. Someone's going to have to tell Professor Snape he's got to pick a new name for me - I'll know NOTHING by the end of this - if even that!'
"She can't be awoken… no spells I've tried have told me what's wrong…" 'What? Can't be awoken? Well they'll be in for a treat when they come to see check on me again. I'll just listen for just now, maybe they caught the person.'
"...Potions?" 'That sounded like Professor McGonagall.' "No, far too dangerous… reaction to whatever caused…could try -" 'Oh dear, even Professor Snape sounds worried, perhaps I should tell them I'm actually awake now.'
Hermione went to sit up but her whole body felt off. 'Last time I felt like this was when I woke up from being petrified.' she moaned to herself. She tried to stretch to waken her body up, but it didn't make the feeling go away. Her whole body felt awkward like it was on loan, totally unfamiliar and yet hyper aware of the things surrounding her. The hyper sensitivity was akin to another fleeting memory of second year before being petrified - 'No, it couldn't…' but as Hermione opened her eyes the memory and thought floated out her head. She was a frequent visitor to the Hospital wing and so knew a few things about it. One of which was, that last time she checked, that Madam Pomfrey had not flipped her bonnet and gone and enlarged everything to 10x there original size.
She let out a squawk of surprise and turned her head wide eyed around the room. 'I could have sworn the ceiling wasn't that high up.' She felt so tiny and taking her eyes down ward she nearly had kittens, pun not intended.
Hermione was tiny! And furry!
"Its second year all over again - but worse!" she bemoaned. "Oh dear ohdearohnoohdearohdearohno…" she muttered panicking to herself as he eyes scanned the room for a mirror. "Yes!" she spied one peeping through the curtains of a cubical on the other side of the room.
Standing, somewhat unsteadily on all fours, Hermione wobbled to the edge of the bed. "It's so high!" She squeaked, "Calm, be calm Hermione, breath, that's it; in, out, in, out." If she was honest with herself she knew it wouldn't work, but she was grabbing onto the familiar panic routine with all she had.
Seeing a chair at the other side of the bed she made her way towards it. It was somewhat lower than the high hospital wing bed itself, which were rightly so to keep any unwanted drafts that plagued the castle at bay, but right now, Hermione wished the school Matron had switched to futons instead.
"Right" She said as she looked across the gap between the bed and the chair, "On the count of three. One" She shrank back just like she had seen Crookshanks do a hundred times before. "Two…" Her hind legs twitched to ready themselves, "Three!"
She jumped - and promptly fell flat on her right hip, "Owww." She said somewhat dumbly.
Giving herself a good shake she made her wobbly trek to the mirror which now looking at it from floor level, hadn't seemed so far away when she had last looked from the bed. 'Why the hell am I an animal? What happened to me? Who did this? When's it going to end? It is going to end isn't it?' Hundreds of questions milled through her still painful head until she reached the mirror and stepped beyond the curtains and stared at the image before her. "Oh Dear …"
Staring back at her where her eyes, yes, but that was all she recognised. There was a small bushy furred brunette kitten with a large bushy tail looking at her with her eyes, blinking back at her in as much awed horror as her feline face would allow. "I look like a mini brown version of Crookshanks!"
Hermione went to sit down only to yowl in pain "Ow… tail, got to remember the tail." She turned back to her reflection. She didn't know what to do. She was a kitten! Honestly! How was she going to get out of this one? She was sure that it couldn't be a potion induced change; Polyjuice she knew couldn't change one into an animal, from experience, and even that only could last for one hour. Hermione was definitely sure it had been over an hour, the morning sun pouring through the windows made that clear. Her thinking was cut short by the echoing foots steps and voices as they neared.
She slid underneath one of the beds closest and watched as Professor Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape and Madam Pomfrey walked towards the bed she had previously vacated.
'They'll be bound to panic seeing how I'm not there.' She thought and was just about to wobble over to the group when she stopped short.
"Poor girl, just look at those brutal marks! The monster." McGonagall tisked.
"Wha - What? But - but - but I'm here!!" She cried in shock and scuttled over to her professors, she still wasn't stable on all fours. "Professor McGonagall! Professor! I'm here - Hey!"
They couldn't hear her, she realised with a pang. How was she going to let them know that it wasn't she who was occupying the bed?
"Where did the cat get to?" she heard Pomfrey ask, "It had a nasty bash on its head and a few deep cuts - I do hope it's alright." She looked about the floor and Hermione saw her chance to be seen and wobbled over to her. Pomfrey saw her make her shaky way from out under the occupied bed and scooped her up. Hermione felt uneasy when the witch began stoking her head, after a moment it was alright; it made her remember how her mother use to stoke her hair when she was ill. It was strangely soothing and Hermione was shocked that she could feel Pomfrey's emotions passing over her; anxiety, pity, sorrow - but as she continued to pet her she could feel the negative emotions seeping out and Hermione's own soothing feelings being past to the witch. 'So that's how Crooks did it!' Hermione thought happily, having solved that little puzzle.
Hermione was getting sleepy in Pomfrey's arms and was about to nod off when Snape's voice startled her. She had honestly forgotten about her predicament for that moment.
"If it is indeed Miss Granger's familiar, as you claim it to be, I'm perfectly sure it'll be fine after being concussed - the damn thing already looks like its ran into enough walls as it is." He mumbled the last part as though speaking to himself.
"When my patient wakes up, Severus, I'd rather the death of her pet does not worsen her condition!" Pomfrey retorted scathingly.
McGonagall stopped the oncoming argument, "So it's not a spell induced coma Poppy?"
Hermione was astounded. Not because her head of house had interrupted Pomfrey and Snape but because of the worry in her voice and as she looked at her Professor, saw her teary eyed expression. It was so… unreal and oddly comforting. Harry and Ron had told her how McGonagall had been when she had gotten Petrified in 2nd year but she never did believe them - she thought they were trying to cheer her up from missing all those classes.
Pomfrey sighed deeply, "No Minerva, the tests I ran didn't show anything, I'm at a loss -"
"What about Potions?" Dumbledore asked while looking at the figure on the bed. Hermione still couldn't see the impersonator from the way Pomfrey was holding her.
"I said the test didn't show anything Albus and I do mean anything!" the Matron snapped irritably, "I know she's alive but comatose because of all the physical signs. The tests showed nothing - no pulse, no brain activity, no spell residues or potion." She gave a world weary sigh and removed the hand patting Hermione to massage her eyes. She looked so weary, so - old, Hermione thought sadly. Conscious of the Matrons emotions Hermione unconsciously butted her head against the witch's arm. "It's alright Madam Pomfrey; it's not your fault. That's not me, don't worry." she knew her words were falling on deaf ears but she said them any how.
Pomfrey smiled down at the bushy brown kitten and continued to scratch behind her ears and Hermione felt the sorrow agitation seep from her.
"You know Poppy, I really don't think this is Granger's familiar. I seem to recall the beast was a Weasley follower."
"There are Charms for colour change Severus, you do realise."
"Yes I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Granger was practising spells in her free time, it hasn't been covered on the syllabus but still it's not a surprise." McGonagall chimed in, her voice sounding a little lighter for talking about her top pupil's quest for knowledge.
"Hmm" was all Snape said. He didn't sound convinced.
'That's it!' Hermione had an idea hit her. 'Professor Snape's a Legilimens! I'll just have to try to catch his eye! If I'm acting un-cat like he's surely going to try to find the reason behind it and put 2 and 2 together! Especially after finding out Pettigrew was a rat. No one would want to take any chances with anymore illegal animagus running through Hogwarts. I'm not an animagus sure but in theory it still should work.' then a horrible thought struck her, 'That is unless Legilimens cant effect animals.'
She sighed to herself. If it didn't work then she'd just have to find another way to alert the Professors attention to her dilemma. Harry and Ron would be no help at all. They didn't pay that much attention to her or her things, she thought sadly and strange things happen all the time with animals in the wizarding world. Only someone as paranoid as Snape and Moody were would find something suspicious about her. Luckily or unluckily, how ever you may see it, Hermione had Snape close at hand.
Pomfrey put Hermione down on the occupied bed gently. Hermione only just noticed because of the absence of strong emotion, she could still feel them from everyone else but weaker.
"My Poppy, I'd never thought I'd see the day you'd let an animal onto your pristine hospital covers." McGonagall commented.
Pomfrey sniffed. "This cat's an exception - it wouldn't leave last time and made quiet a fuss, though now that Severus says it, it was larger and ginger furred."
Hermione wasn't listening to the conversation of the group around the bed. What had her attention was the occupant. She was staring at her own unconscious face. 'How can this be?' she thought horrified that someone could take her identity. Her subconscious voice countered that that's exactly what she tried to do in her 2nd year. The person was her! Well someone who looked like her except for the coppery hair. The side of her face - their face was bruised and swollen - probably caused by a broken jaw. The bruise travelled up to her - their left temple, it was pretty nasty and she didn't envy this would-be-her; the hair especially - 'It makes me look like a watered down version of a Weasley.'
After a while of staring at her counter part Hermione got the creepy sensation like she was being watched. Looking above her gave truth to the feeling. Professor Snape was staring down his nose at her, scrutinising her. 'Now's my chance!' she thought excitedly and turned full circle to sit in front of the potions master and look him directly in the eyes. 'Come on Professor Snape! Legilimens!' she willed him to use the spell.
Disappointingly, the only thing he did in the few moment of her silent pleading was raise an eyebrow at her in amusement. 'I think by the time I'm cured that I'm going to be able to write a book titled - 'Potions Master: the many emotions of an Eyebrow'
"Apart from the mussel that looks as though it's seen a few doors -" he began joining the conversation between McGonagall and Pomfrey, "– It is the only thing I can see similar to Miss Granger's cat and this - Kitten," He sneered the last word as though it was something disgusting. "It doesn't even have feline eyes Poppy."
"Ah…" Hermione said, "That's why you were staring."
McGonagall peered over the bed and into Hermione's eyes as she turned her head to her transfiguration Professor. "How odd."
Hermione felt her tail twitching with unease. The way the Professors where scrutinizing her made her feel agitated and uncomfortable.
"You all should know when a students been turning into an animal! Shouldn't you? It must have been done a hundred times before! There's got to be some way to know." she said and wanted to hit herself in frustration. "They can't even hear me!" she moaned as she remembered.
They didn't know when Peter Pettigrew was a rat, they didn't know when Malfoy got turned into a ferret as it was only by pure chance that McGonagall happened to get the gist of what Barty Crouch Jr was doing then. They didn't even know about that horrible Skeeter woman being a beetle on the grounds - she found that out! She gave out a yowl of defeat and flopped down into the mattress on her side and buried her head under her little fuzzy paws.
"Goodness! I wonder what's wrong." Pomfrey exclaimed as she watched the kitten.
Snape snorted, "If it is a Gryffindors familiar it's probably too lazy to even stand." he murmured.
"I heard that Severus!" McGonagall snapped and glared at him.
Hermione wasn't aware of her house being insulted, she had already dozed off.
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