A/N: Sorry about the LONG delay, dumb finals!! Anyway, I'm back to the keyboard, so expect stuff to simply pour from my fingers over the next week or so. (At least in the afternoons, when I finally wake up... heh heh...) This chapter: however did Crookshanks wind up in the Magical Menagerie? And the baby (::grin::) arrives! Part 2 is beginning to take shape in my head, everyone!!



Lyria always was good at adapting, and she adjusted to the new lifestyle very quickly. I didn't really mind, since it wasn't very different than the way we'd lived before he'd moved in. (Unless, of course, you count the presence of baby care books and the slow conversion of a corner of the room into a nursery. I just hoped the kid didn't stink too badly.)

Anyway, Lyria's pregnancy passed in relative calm. Some of her family spent more time with us than they had before, particularly her mother, but besides that, life was almost dull.

That didn't last terribly long.

One night, Dell came home rather than Lyria. "Let's get you fed so I can go see these new babies of Lyria's," she said, talking more at me than to me.

Ah, the notorious baby had arrived! But wait, BABIES?!? She couldn't possibly be having more than one, could she? How small were those things? They were people, after all...

Well, at least she went into labor at work and not in the flat. I'm sure *that* would have made an awful mess, at least from what I hear.

Dell fed me and then left, and Lyria returned to the flat the next day with two small bundles, one pink and the other blue.

"Crookshanks, meet Jason and Athena," she said grandly.

I peered at them. They were both small, squirmy, and loud. Neither of them was stinky at the moment, but I was sure it was just a matter of time. I looked at Lyria, who was looking down at the two little creatures as if they were something truly extraordinary.

I tried looking at them again. The blue bundle, which I assumed was Jason, bore a certain resemblance to Sirius. I decided that if I hissed at it, I'd do nothing but make Lyria angry, so I refrained from it. Besides that, he really was rather cute, and at least quieter than the pink bundle.

I moved on to the girl—Athena – the pink bundle. She was crying at the moment, face all screwed up and red. She had about the same amount of dark hair as her brother. Lyria calmed her, and I saw that she had purplish eyes and was really rather cute when she wasn't crying.

Lyria put them to bed, and I braced myself for the changes that were sure to come.





It was less than a week later—barely a few days—when it happened. Lyria was making dinner for herself or heating a bottle or something of the sort when someone knocked at the door. Hands full, she used her wand to open it. "Give me a minute!" She put whatever it was down and picked up Athena. "Can I help you three with something?"

I knew who they were by reading the paper over Lyria's shoulder. One was Cornelius Fudge, the brand new Minister of Magic. He'd taken the office about two weeks ago. To his left stood Alastor Moody, who I knew to be an Auror that had helped train Lyria. Just slightly behind them was Albus Dumbledore.

"If you have a minute, Lyria, we'd like to talk to you," Moody told her.

"I never have a minute, I have children," she replied with a smile. "Let me get Jason. Have a seat."

She placed them both in some sort of baby holding contraption.

"They're lovely, Lyria," Dumbledore told her.

"Thank you. But I doubt the three of you came here for small talk." She replied.

I wandered over to sit near the baskets.

Moody & Dumbledore both looked at Fudge.

"Well... we actually came here to talk to you about the children..." Fudge began hesitantly. "The Ministry feels it would be in the best interests of everyone if you were to..."

"Yes, Minister?" She said, looking more than a bit exasperated at his reticence.

"If you were to put them up for adoption," he finished.

"WHAT?!?" Lyria exploded. Oooh, I almost pitied him. He had incurred the wrath of Lyria. Yes, Minister Fudge, sit in your chair and be afraid.

"Let's be reasonable, Miss Strider," he tried again. Stupid. "With their father being... who he is, people are afraid. Little Harry Potter got rid of the dark lord, but his followers still live. Having the children of his heir around, well, it makes people nervous," Fudge informed her.

Lyria's eyes narrowed. "So that's the story you're telling, is it?"

He winced.

"It'd be easier for you, girl," Moody told her. He was one of very few people who could talk to her like that. "Two children, all by yourself, and keeping up with your work... it'll be difficult."

"I think I can manage," she snapped.

"I can't be responsible for the results," Fudge told her.

"I don't ask anyone to be responsible for my decisions. Get out of my flat," she demanded.

I think he was in shock at being spoken to like that. He simply got up and obeyed, followed by Moody. They closed the door behind them.

"And do you agree with them, then?" she asked Dumbledore, still looking outraged.

"No, I do not. I think you've made a wise decision," he told her reassuringly. "I'll keep in contact." And with that, he was gone.

Lyria simply Summoned the bottle off the counter and heated it with her wand.





Lyria left for work, leaving a well-meaning elderly woman in charge of the babies. Sadly, however, she wasn't quite on top of things, and she wandered out of the flat around midmorning.

Not much later, a pair of wizards in peculiar robes entered the flat. I knew what they were right away. Ministry Hit Wizards.

"Let's find these kids and get out of here. I don't believe him, sending us to go get them..." One said.

"I guess he's afraid of Strider setting some protection up. Come on, let's go," the other replied.

I jumped off the sofa and stood in the door to the room. They weren't getting past me! I hissed at them furiously.

"Get out of the way, stupid cat." One of them went to kick me.

I attacked, but suddenly everything went black.

When I woke up, Lyria was home and the living room contained Fudge, Dumbledore, Remus, Dell, and Lyria's Auror partner, a man by the name of Frank Longbottom. Remus was the one who'd reversed whatever they did to get me out of the way, I judged quickly.

"My *children,* Minister!" Lyria bellowed. "My children are GONE!"

"I understand your distress, Miss Strider, but I did warn you," he replied. "People are afraid."

THAT GOOD FOR NOTHING, SNIVELING, COWARDLY LIAR! Not for the first time, I longed to be able to talk, to loudly proclaim what I'd seen. To tell Lyria that the twins hadn't been stolen by a raving madman, but by her two coworkers...

"Everyone'll look into it, Lyria," Longbottom assured her.

"You don't think there were Dark Wizards involved, do you? Trying to raise Black's children as they see fit?" Moody asked Fudge.

I ignored everyone and went to rub against Lyria's ankles. She was going to need all the comfort she could get now.