Chapter Twelve-The Cabbit
A/N: A cabbit is something I invented myself, or at east I think I did, so if there has been a creature in fantasy called a cabbit, but it's nothing like the way I described it, oops, sorry, I didn't know. Anyways, on with the story! ibelieveinsnorkacks
After a couple of hours the five friends trooped towards The Three Broomsticks before heading to their last shopping stop.
They hurried into the warm pub, glad for the shelter from the bone-chilling wind. They hurried over to a table large enough to fit them and their many parcels.
"Shall I go get the butterbeers then?" Remus asked before hurrying off to the bar.
Conveniently enough, once everyone had found their seats and gotten their drinks Lily and James were sitting next to each other on one side of the booth with Sirius, Remus, and Alex on the other side, in that order.
They all sat, drinking the warm butterbeers, thinking. After a while, however, Sirius could no longer stand the silence.
"Well, we are a noisy lot aren't we?" he said sarcastically.
The others grinned sheepishly at him as he broke their train of thought.
"So are we going to head back to school when we're done? We only have a little bit of time left." asked Lily.
"No, we have one more stop before we leave." James answered, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"We do? But we've already gone to every shop in Hogsmeade!"
"Not all of them, we didn't go to that brick one at the end of the street." Alex pointed out.
"Or the one across the street from us." Remus added.
"Yeah, but you guys wouldn't let us go into that one" here she pointed to the one Remus had said "because you think a powder puff exploded in there and that it's too girly for the 'Macho Marauders'! And we didn't go into the other one because you guys" here she looked at Sirius and James "said that it would be a waste of time since no one needed any pet food or anything!" exclaimed Lily.
"Yes well we've changed our minds. We need to go to the owl emporium." Sirius said defiantly. Lily just rolled her eyes.
So they finished their drinks and bundled up again and started for the pet store.
When they opened the door the smell of various animals greeted them (a/n: ewww…) along with hoots, grunts, squeaks, squeals, gurgles, and honks. The store was dimly lighted for the sake of the owls lined up on the top row of spacious cages. The cages underneath them held all sorts of animals, like multi-colored bats with especially fluffy fur; tadpoles with shimmery tales that were changing into miniature monkeys with gills (a/n: hehe, sea monkeys…yeah, lame, I know) instead of frogs; small blue, purple, and green birds with silver beaks that were emitting notes like those of flutes, clarinets, and French horns (depending on their color); lizards that were pure white lay basking in the heat of their incubators while singing opera, while custard colored furballs where humming happily along from the cage next to them; fish were emitting bubbles that formed into words (sometimes the sayings were rather crude) from tanks in the back of the shop. There were dozens of others, some cute while others slightly disturbing, such as the spiders that were the size of baseballs, but with fangs like a vampire instead of pincers.
"Lily, if you had to pick one animal to buy, what would it be?" James asked, turning to face her.
She looked back at him curiously.
"Why?"
"I dunno, I'm just curious I guess." James answered, the picture of innocence.
Lily still looked slightly suspicious, but started wondering around the store, looking into the cages at their occupants. She finally stopped at one.
"Awww! Look at these little guys! They're so cute!" she exclaimed, sticking her finger in the cage to try to coax one of the creatures over to her.
The others walked over. She had stopped in front of a cage labeled as follows:
Cabbits
"Cabbits are a mix between a rabbit and a cat. Cabbits are bred for the sole purpose to become family pets. Although rabbits and cats alone are quite un-magical (unless they happen to be a familiar), combined they are the opposite. Cabbits are included in the Magical Creatures category and are among the few that can be tamed. With the ears, nose, eyes (though larger), and hind-legs of a rabbit, they have the mouth, front legs, and body (though slightly less long and a little rabbit like) of a cat. Cabbit's tails are a mix between the two. They are extremely fluffy and twitchy, like a rabbits, but slightly elongated, like a cats. Cabbits vary in colors. They can be black, gray, calico, spotted, creamy-colored, orange, white, or any other color that you might find a rabbit or cat to be and may grow to be the size of a dwarf rabbit. They enjoy eating almost everything a cat and rabbit like, though it mainly depends on your Cabbits personal taste. For a treat you may give them carrots and cream, served like peaches in cream."
Lily squealed with delight as one of the Cabbits hopped up to the cage door and allowed her to stroke it as it purred happily. There was a cream colored one, a calico, and a black one with white spots. This was the cabbit that seemed to have befriended Lily.
The store clerk walked over from where he had been working with his assistant, looking happy that Lily had taken an interest in the Cabbits.
"Ahhh, those little guys just came in yesterday. Since we were closed that day no one has had a chance to buy them yet until today. There were three or four others, but we sold them almost as soon as we opened today! These three are still for sale though. They're extremely sweet and docile. They make great pets and are wonderful with people of all ages, making wonderful pets." The clerk said, switching into salesman mode. "Would you like to hole one?"
Lily quickly agreed and asked to hold the spotted one, as the others were huddled in the back of the cage, looking positively frightened about all the attention they were receiving. Indeed, they seemed extremely happy when the clerk led the five friends to a little playpen.
As soon as the clerk had let Lily into the pen, closed the door behind her, then lowered the baby cabbit down onto the floor it began to jump around Lily on its rabbit like hind-legs. It jumped on her lap and tried to jump up and nuzzle her face, but being so small it was nowhere near close.
"He's so adorable!" exclaimed Lily, cuddling with it.
"Actually, this one's a she. She can become extremely feisty when she doesn't get her food, and I've had enough experience with this after only a day!" the clerk said.
"Remind you of anyone?" Remus whispered to Alex, jerking his thumb at Sirius and James. Alex covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. They turned back to Lily and the cabbit to find them playing again.
Indeed, Lily was so caught up with her new found friend that she didn't notice James slip quietly off. At a look from him, Sirius, Alex, and Remus crowded around Lily to block her view as James walked quickly over to the animal supplies.
About five minutes later, James joined them with several new parcels that looked nothing like the many Zonko's packages that were already in his hands. He quickly shrunk the supplies and stuck them inside his pocket.
"Ok, are we ready to go?" he asked, the mocha glint back in his eyes.
"Hold on one second James." Lily quickly and carefully placed the cabbit in Alex's arms, where it looked up at her with big, beautiful blue eyes that almost looked anime-ish.
"Excuse me sir, but how much is she?" Lily asked the clerk, who was back at the cash register? She hoped to Merlin that she still had enough of her savings left.
The clerk looked up from sorting the Knuts, galleons, and sickles in his hands.
"I'm sorry, but she was just sold." The clerk said as Lily's heart sank
"Oh. Thank you anyway sir," she replied, looking crestfallen.
The clerk however, had been giving instructions. Looking quickly over the young girls shoulder he insisted that he show her some of the other animals.
After a brief resistance, Lily agreed half-heartedly, sure she wasn't going to find something that she liked half as much as the cabbit.
The clerk brought her over to the musical birds that were now playing a trio that sounded like Symphony Number Nine. He kept her blind from the activity at the cash register, where Alex, Sirius, and Remus were trying to keep the cabbit from breaking free and rushing to Lily, while the clerk's helper hurriedly tried to get a carrying cage ready for the cold-trip back to Hogwarts.
They finished with perfect timing, for the clerk had run out of animals to distract Lily with.
Alex came up to where they were standing next to the fish, who were saying some very crude things indeed.
"I'm sorry sir, but we really must be going now." She said, smiling gratefully at the clerks efforts to distract her friend. "Thank you for all of your help" she said, but extra emphasis on the word all.
She steered Lily towards the door, where the boys were waiting outside, the cabbit hidden with a disillusionment charm and covered by the many folds of James' billowing cloak.
They walked in silence for a moment, James trying to conceal Lily's new friend, trying to keep the cage from falling, and trying to carry his Zonko products, and trying to appear perfectly normal all at the same time.
After about a minute, Lily finally broke the silence.
"I don't understand how someone could have bought that cabbit when she was for sale when we got there, but no one entered or even flooed the shop." She said quietly, almost to herself.
Alex looked around, spotted a shop, grabbed Remus by the arm and hurriedly said that she forgot to buy something. She hurried away, but not before giving Sirius a look.
Catching that hint, Sirius mumbled something about needing polish for his broom handle, then hurried to the quidditch store.
Things were quiet for a moment after he departed.
"Well, that certainly was odd." Lily said, stopping and truing to face James.
"Er, yeah, it was." James said awkwardly.
"James, are you ok?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm…fine" But in truth he had never been more nervous in his life.
"Lily, you know how you were saying that no one could have bought the cabbit, because no one was there besides us?" Lily nodded. "Well, what if you ever bought the cabbit was one of us?"
Lily looked at him baffled.
"Lily, I was the one who bought the cabbit."
Lily's eyes filled with confusion. She was about to question him, but what he said next cut her off.
"I bought her for you, kind of as a way to say sorry for all the things I used to do…" James drifted off, not sure what else to say next as he brought out the cage and re-illusioned the cabbit.
Lily took one look at the cage and flung her arms around James.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" she squealed, practically choking him.
"Lil-y! You are ch-choking m-me!" he spluttered.
"Oh! Sorry!" Lily gave him one more squeeze and backed off as James handed her the cage.
Lily peered inside. The cabbit squeaked happily as when she saw her and quickly tried to nuzzle her through the door.
"I guess we need to go back so I can get all her stuff." Lily said, her face glowing with happiness.
"Nope, I bought those too." Said James as he reached into his pocket and pulled out four or five parcels the size of buttons. He then undid the shrinking charm he had placed on them and added them to his ever-growing stack of packages.
Once again Lily hugged him, but not as hard as last time.
James breathed in deeply. She smelled like vanilla, something that had always smelled wonderful to him, but did more so now.
Ironically, Lily did the same. James was wearing a cologne that smelled crisp and clean, completely different from the sickly sweet odor that most guys wore, a scent that mad her want to gag.
When they finally broke their embrace Remus, Alex, and Sirius were walking back towards them from their "shopping". (Really they had rushed to the windows of the stores and pressed their faces against the panes, trying to see what was happening. Unfortunately Sirius had knocked down a display while he did this, so the manager had coming running, yelling at him and demanding that he leave. Sirius' reply was "Be quiet you old codger! I'm trying to listen!")
"Get all your, cough shopping cough done?" James said while glaring playfully at them.
Remus just shrugged while Alex muttered something about them not having what she was looking for. Sirius simply said "Nah, the old fogey that runs the place kicked me out. Again."
"Mmhm, right." James said, looking at their guilty faces in turn like a parent scolding three naughty children.
They looked at one another, then looked back at James defiantly, just as any child would.
Laughing, the group started back for the castle, each taking a turn at looking at the baby cabbit before handing her cage back to Lily.
"So what are you going to name her?" Alex asked eagerly.
"Hmm…I think I'll call her Tinkerbell, or Tink for short." She said, giving the cabbit the name of one of her favorite childhood fairy-tale characters.
Apparently, however, magical children didn't not watch movies like Peter Pan, for the four stared back at her.
"Finker-whosie?" Sirius asked.
"No Sirius, she I think she said Binkergell." James said, looking as bewildered as Sirius.
"You're both morons. She clearly said Dinkerfell!" Cyanne said, though she looked as confused as the two boys.
"But who is Finker-Binker-Dinker-kell?" Remus asked.
Lily could barely keep herself from laughing.
"Her name is Tinkerbell! T-i-n-k-e-r-b-e-l-l. Tinkerbell, or Tink, was a fairy from one of my favorite stories when I was little. She was named Tinkerbell because when she talked it sounded like tiny, tinkling, bells." Lily explained, finally controlling herself.
They all looked at her like she was crazy.
"What kinda demented fairy is that!" Sirius demanded.
Lily just giggled. She should have expected this. James and Sirius especially, since they were pure-bloods. She thought that Cyanne and Remus might have known since they were both half-bloods and loved to read.
"She's not a real fairy; she was made up by an author named J.M. Berri!" Lily explained between giggles.
So the group continued on their way to the castle with Sirius muttering something like "…psycho writer guy…"
Later that night, the Marauders, Lily, Cyanne, and Anna were lying around the common room. It was around one a.m. so everyone else was asleep.
Tink was bouncing around the room, sniffing everything with her pink little nose. She really was extremely cute.
"Excuse me, but I have an announcement to make!" Sirius said, acting ridiculously pompous. "I do believe, young'uns, that it is time that we played another prank."
James looked up excitedly from where he had been playing a game of exploding snap with Remus. His eyes got that same glint that he had that afternoon and he looked incredibly excited. Remus too looked excited, but slightly wary. Peter just looked down-right scared. Tammy, Alex, Lily, and Anna looked at each other, got up and moved slowly towards the staircase.
"We'll just be going now…" Anna said cautiously. When it came to the Marauders and their pranks, you never could tell what would happen.
"Oh no, you four fine young ladies will be joining us." Sirius said, still acting like a puffed up adult.
"Ok, first we need to come up with something, and it needs to be pretty big, I mean we've given them nearly a two weeks peace. They're going to think we've lost our nerve." James said as everyone huddled together. Tink was trembling excitedly in the middle of their circle, almost as if she understood what was going on. Must be one of her powers, understanding our language Lily though, looking fondly down at her.
And so they began to plot.
Mwahahaha! What evil is in store Hogwarts? Review or I won't tell you!
