Chapter 9: May 2015

As April became May, the last of the snow that had been covering the Hogwarts grounds had melted, and flowers were beginning to bloom. Though Dominique was glad that summer was on it's way, she was not looking forward to the end-of-year exams that were growing closer and closer.

"Come on," Brooke pleaded. "Let's just go outside for twenty minutes and then we can come back and keep studying."

"We don't have time," Dominique insisted. "We have to get through Astronomy today, because we're not going to have any time tomorrow and we have that pre-exam quiz in class tomorrow night."

"But does it really matter how well we do on the quiz?" Brooke wondered. "I mean, it's not like it's the exam."

"It's still going to count towards out final grade," Dominique reminded her. "And besides, if we fail the quiz, it's going to be that much harder to do well on the exams."

Brooke sighed. "Fine," she muttered.

Dominique flipped over the page of notes she was studying only to realize that she'd left the rest of her notes elsewhere.

"Hang on," she said. "I think I left some of my notes upstairs, let me just go and get them."

Thankfully, the girls were in the common room, so she didn't have to go far. She hurried up the stairs and into her dorm, stopping short when she discovered a black cat curled up right on top of her bed.

"Well hello there," she said, taking a slow step forward. "Who are you?"

Of course, Dominique knew the cat wasn't going to answer her back, but she still felt compelled to talk to it out loud.

"Who's cat are you?" she asked. "Are you lost?"

The cat stared at her evenly with it's big yellow eyes, unable to tell her anything. If Dominique was in seventh year, she could cast a spell that would allow her to actually communicate with the cat. Since she was only a second year though, she would have to settle for this.

Walking over and reaching down, she scooped the cat up in her arms, cradling it carefully to keep it comfortable, and then returned to the common room.

"Hey Brooke," Dominique said, walking over. Brooke was still pouring over her notes and didn't notice the cat.

"Did you find them?" Brooke asked, still not looking up.

"Not exactly…" Dominique shook her head.

Brooke raised her head. "Well where – Why are you holding a cat?" she asked in surprise.

"I found it on my bed," Dominique explained. "Do you have any idea who it might belong to?"

Brooke shrugged. "No idea," she replied.

"You don't remember Holly or Brittany or Joy getting a cat recently?" Dominique checked.

"I think we'd have known if one of our roommates got a cat," Brooke pointed out. "It probably just wandered into the wrong dorm. Leave it be and it'll find it's way home."

"But it's so sweet," Dominique frowned, stroking the cat's fur, eliciting a soft purr. "Can't I keep it?"

"No," Brooke shook her head. "That's somebody's cat. You can't just go around stealing people's cats."

Dominique sighed. "Alright," she said, setting the cat down and re-joining Brooke at the table. "So what were we doing?"

"You were getting your notes from upstairs," Brooke reminded her.

"Right!" Dominique cried, jumping up. "I'll get those now!"

She hurried upstairs, this time actually going to her trunk and rummaging around until she found the Astronomy notes that had somehow gotten separated from the rest. Hurrying back downstairs, she redoubled her studying efforts. She was going to pass this quiz if her life depended on it.

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"That was horrible," Dominique groaned the following night as the second years descended from the Astronomy Tower after taking their quiz. "If that was anything like the final's going to be, I have a lot more studying to do."

"I never want to look at a star chart again," Tom added.

"Good thing next year is basically more star charts," Miles joked.

"So not the time, Miles," Brooke shook her head sleepily.

"Sorry," Miles apologized. "But it's true."

"Let's just get through this year before we start worrying about next year," Dominique said.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and Tom muttered the password, causing her to swing open. The Gryffindors climbed through and then said goodnight before parting ways, the boys heading to the boys' dorm and the girls heading to the girls'.

When Dominique entered the dorm, she almost didn't notice that the black cat from the day before was curled up on her bed again. It wasn't until she went to pull back the covers that she saw it and gasped in surprise.

"What wrong?" Brooke asked sleepily.

"The cat," Dominique replied. "It's back."

"Well put it out," Brooke groaned, pulling the covers over her head and going to sleep.

Dominique sighed. She knew the cat wasn't hers, but it seemed cruel to kick it out at such a late hour.

"Don't worry cat," she muttered softly. "You can sleep with me tonight and tomorrow we'll find where you really belong."

Dominique crawled into her bed, careful not to disturb the cat as she did so. As she fell asleep, the soft purring of the cat comforted her, and she found herself wishing that it really did belong to her.

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The next morning, Dominique awoke when she rolled onto floor with a loud thud.

"Wha - ?" she cried in surprise. It had been ages since she'd fallen out of bed – not since she was very young.

She sat up and realized that the black cat that had spent the night had managed to push her completely out of the way so that it could take up all the room.

"Dominique are you alright?" Brooke asked, coming in from the bathroom to find her friend on the floor.

"I'm fine," Dominique replied, rubbing her side where she'd landed. "The cat pushed me out of bed."

"I thought you were going to send it away," Brooke said with a frown.

"I wasn't about to make it spend the night alone," Dominique pouted.

"It wouldn't have been alone," Brooke rolled her eyes. "It would have found it's way home and spent the night in it's own bed."

"But it looked so comfortable," Dominique stuck out her bottom lip.

"Dominique, it's not your cat!" Brooke cried.

"Fine," Dominique sighed, reaching over and picking the cat up. "Come on cat, time for you to go home." She pushed the door open and put the cat down on the landing just outside. "Go on," she said.

The cat looked up at her and then made to re-enter the second year's dorm.

"No cat, I'm sorry, but you have to go find your human now," Dominique said. "I'm sure whoever it is is worried sick looking for you, so go."

Dominique went back inside her dorm and shut the door behind her to stop the cat from getting back in.

"Happy Brooke?" she demanded as she started to get ready for the day.

"Yes, I am," Brooke nodded. "Come on, we've got to get to breakfast."

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The rest of the day was extremely boring. Dominique and her friends went to all their classes, and in each one their Professors insisted on reviewing with them, which Dominique found exceptionally tedious. At least when they were learning something new it could be interesting.

By the end of the day, all Dominique wanted to do was take a walk outside or play gobstones with Miles. Brooke on the other hand, had other ideas.

"We need to study now before dinner," Brooke insisted. "After dinner we'll be tired and full of food and much less inclined to pay attention to what we're reading.

"I'm pretty uninclined right now," Dominique muttered, hoping that this would change Brooke's mind. "Wasn't it just a couple of days ago that you were trying to convince me to stop studying?"

"Yes, and now I see the error in my ways," Brooke nodded. "You wrote that Astronomy quiz, you know how hard it was. If we're going to pass our exams, we've got to get way more serious about this."

"I'll go and get my stuff," Dominique sighed, dropping her bag on a free table in the common room and climbing up to the dorm.

She opened the door and started laughing as soon as she entered the room.

"You came back!" she cried gleefully, seeing her black cat friend curled up in her bed yet again. "Why do you keep coming back?"

The cat stared at her and she hurried over to pick it up. "Well clearly you're not going anywhere on your own," she muttered. "So it looks like you and me and are going to have to go on an adventure."

Dominique returned to the common room with the cat and Brooke groaned. "Not that cat again!" she cried.

"It's not my fault," Dominique assured her. "The cat just keeps coming back. I think I need to start actively looking for whoever it belongs to because it's clearly very lost."

Brooke nodded and stood up. "I'll help you," she declared.

"No, you should study," Dominique shook her head.

"I'll study later," she said. "Right now we have to return a cat."

The girls decided to start by going around the common room to the various students that were hanging around, but nobody recognized the cat. Then they decided to check each of the girls' dorms for a possible owner. Most of the dorms were empty, but the few that had occupants claimed that they'd never seen the cat before.

"Maybe it belongs to one of the boys?" Brooke suggested.

"Well we can't very well go wandering around in the boys' dorms now can we?" Dominique pointed out.

"I know what we need!" Brooke cried. "We need to put up fliers with pictures of the cat on them."

"Where are we going to get pictures?" Dominique wondered. "We don't have a camera."

"No but there's one in the school newspaper's office. Maybe we can borrow it," Brooke said.

Dominique frowned. "We have a school newspaper?" she asked.

Brooke rolled her eyes. "Come on," she said, dragging Dominique out of the common room and down the stairs.

When they arrived on the first floor, Brooke led Dominique to what she'd always assumed was another empty classroom. To her surprise though, the room was set up just like a newsroom and sheets of paper were flying all around.

"Excuse me?" Brooke asked loudly to the whole room. "Who's in charge here?"

"That would be me," an older Ravenclaw student said, stepping forward. "I'm Elizabeth Bobbin, editor in chief of the Hogwarts Herald. How can I help you?"

"We found this lost cat and we can't find who it belongs to," Dominique explained. "We'd like to borrow your camera to take a picture of it so that we can put fliers up around the school."

"Do either of you know how to work a magical camera?" Elizabeth asked.

Brooke and Dominique exchanged a look. "No?"

Elizabeth sighed. "Cody!" she cried over her shoulder. "Can I borrow you for a second?"

Another Ravenclaw student came forward, younger than Elizabeth, probably third year. "How can I help?" he asked.

"These two want to use the camera to take a picture of this cat to make fliers to put up around the school. Can you help them out? Neither of them have used a magical camera before," Elizabeth said.

"No problem," Cody smiled. "Happy to help."

"Great," Elizabeth nodded. "Well I've got to get back to work. New issue comes out the last of every month and it's almost here, so it's crunch time."

Elizabeth walked away, leaving Dominique and Brooke alone with Cody.

"So you just want a picture of the cat?" Cody asked. "That should be no problem. I'll show you where we keep the camera."

Cody led the girls out of the newsroom and into a room directly adjacent. It was much smaller and much darker, a cauldron of something in one corner and a large table in the center of the room covered in small basins of some kind of liquid.

"This is the developing room," Cody explained. "After taking a picture with the camera, we have to develop it by covering it in developing solution and leaving it in here for a full twenty-four hours."

"So we have to wait a whole day until the picture is ready?" Brooke asked in dismay.

"Unless you want a blurry picture," Cody nodded.

"Let's just get this done with," Dominique nodded. "The sooner we take the picture, the sooner we can make the fliers and the sooner we find the Cat's owner."

"Now you've named the cat Cat?" Brooke asked in disbelief.

"Well I don't know it's real name," Dominique replied. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Here's the camera," Cody said, opening a cupboard to reveal a very complicated looking contraption. "It might be best if I take the picture, since you've never worked one of these before."

"Go ahead," Dominique nodded, putting Cat down on the floor.

Cody took the camera out and assembled it before pointing it at Cat. He pressed a button and a light flashed and then a black square popped out of the bottom.

"Is that it?" Dominique asked, pointing at the black square.

"Yup," Cody replied, taking the thin square and laying it in a basin. "Alright, almost ready…" He brought the cauldron of developing solution closer and ladled it into the basin on top of the photograph until it was completely submerged. "And there you go," he said. "You can pick it up tomorrow afternoon."

"Thanks a lot," Dominique said gratefully.

"No problem," Cody smiled. "Anytime."

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The next twenty-four hours were torturously long. All Dominique wanted to do was to make the posters, but Brooke insisted that they study instead. By the following afternoon, Dominique was about ready to explode.

"It's ready!" she exclaimed when they returned to the developing room, reaching into the basin and pulling the photograph out of the developing solution. "Look, it's perfect!"

On the small square was a picture of Cat walking back and forth and meowing.

"Let's get those posters up then," Brooke nodded.

Making the posters didn't take long. They just had to paste it to a piece of parchment and write 'Lost Cat' across the top and Dominique's name at the bottom. Then Dominique found Teddy and asked him to duplicate the poster about a hundred times (duplication was an advanced form of transfiguration that wasn't taught until fifth year).

As soon as the posters were ready, Dominique and Brooke began to traverse the entire castle, sticking them up to the walls with temporary sticking charms. Dominique was sure that Cat's owner would claim him once they saw the posters. They started on the seventh floor and worked their way down to the main floor, ending in the Great Hall, where they put a poster on each of the main doors.

As they were preparing to return to the common room, someone came up behind Dominique and cleared their throat. "Excuse me?" they said.

Dominique turned around and froze when she discovered that the girl who was addressing them was none other than Quinn Adams.

"Oh hi Quinn," Dominique greeted the girl. "Can we help you with something?"

"Why are you posting pictures of my cat all over the castle?" Quinn demanded.

"Cat is your cat?" Dominique gaped.

"Midnight is my cat," Quinn clarified. "And she's been missing for a week. I've been looking everywhere for her. Where did you find her?"

"She must've found her way to the seventh floor," Dominique explained. "Because she just turned up in my dorm one afternoon and I haven't been able to get rid of her since."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "I can't believe of all the places she could run off to, she ran off to Gryffindor Tower," she muttered.

"Well I can go and get her and bring her back here," Dominique offered.

"Where is she?" Quinn demanded.

"Back in my dorm," Dominique replied. "It was getting exhausting carrying her around with me everywhere and she seemed happy curled up on my bed."

"Oh gross, she's been sleeping in your bed?" Quinn cried. "Now I'm going to have to bathe her to get all the Gryffindor germs off her."

Dominique shared a look with Brooke.

"Well why don't I go and get – "

"No," Quinn shook her head. "I'm coming with you. I don't trust you to come back. You might try to steal her."

"If I wanted to steal her, why would I be putting up posters all over the school?" Dominique wondered.

"Can we just get my cat please?" Quinn requested. "I'd like to spend as little time on the seventh floor as I have to."

Awkwardly, the three girls made the trip up the Grand Staircase to the seventh floor.

"One of you has to wait out here with me," Quinn demanded when they reached the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. "Otherwise you might not come out."

"I'll wait," Brooke offered, making a face.

Dominique wondered why Quinn was being so paranoid. Cat – Midnight – had been missing a week already and she hadn't seemed too worried until just now. Wanting to get this over with as fast as possible, Dominique hurried up to the dorms and grabbed Midnight off her bed, carrying her back down and out of the common room.

"Here you go," Dominique said, handing the cat off.

"Thank you," Quinn said stiffly, taking the cat in her arms and fumbling for a moment to get in a comfortable position. "Goodbye."

Quinn disappeared and Dominique watched sadly as Cat disappeared also.

"Oh don't look so sad," Brooke insisted. "Cat was never your cat, and it's good that she'd been reunited with her owner."

"I guess," Dominique sighed. "But I'm definitely going to miss Cat."

"Come on," Brooke said, leading Dominique back into the common room. "We should get back to studying. We've wasted a lot of time."

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That evening at dinner, Dominique was more mopey than usual.

"What's with Domi?" Miles wondered, watching Dominique push her food around on her plate.

"We had to give Cat back to her owner today," Brooke revealed. "Dominique's just a little sad about that."

"Who did Cat belong to in the end?" Tom wondered.

"Quinn Adams," Dominique wrinkled her nose. "I can't believe I had to give Cat away to someone like Quinn Adams. She's terrible."

"It was Quinn's cat though Domi," Brooke reminded her.

"Yeah, whatever," Dominique sighed.

Just then, Joanna Miller from Hufflepuff came over and tapped Dominique on the shoulder.

"Hi Joanna," Dominique said in surprise. "What's up?"

"I saw the posters you put up around the school," Joanna said. "You know, of the cat? Well he's mine. His name's Tommy and I'd really like to have him back if you don't mind."

Dominique frowned. "He's your cat?" she asked, confused.

"Yes, ever since I was nine," Joanna nodded. "The last time I saw him was Wednesday morning."

Dominique didn't know what to say. Was the cat Joanna's or was it Quinn's? Dominique turned around and scanned the Slytherin table for Quinn. She was sitting almost directly parallel to where Dominique was sitting and she was staring right back. Quinn tilted her head and then smiled evilly, raising her eyebrows as if to say tricked you.

Dominique felt her blood go cold. "Joanna, I'm so sorry…" she muttered. "I – Quinn said the cat was hers so I – I gave Tommy to her."

"You did WHAT?" Joanna cried.