Author's note: This is about the life Crookshanks led, before he was bought by Hermione. To avoid confusion, remember that he was not called Crookshanks all his life.
The Life of Crookshanks
The Robinson family chose him, the only ginger kitten from a litter of six. They named him Fluffy, at the children's request, a name that the cat despised. It was so undignified living with the Robinson's. He knew that if he saw six-year-old Katy donning her dressing-up Nurse's outfit, then he was due to receive a bath. This involved being swathed in towels and ignominiously anointed with water. It meant having his face and ears washed, which he particularly detested, but for the sake of Katy's gentle crooning and cuddling, he put up with these atrocities.
Eight-year-old Jane had thought up a torture of a different kind. He suffered being dressed in a matinee jacket, long nightdress, and booties with a satin-ribboned bonnet flattening his ginger ears. He endured being ridden up and down the road in the basket on the front of her bicycle. At the first sign of Jane's attention slackening, he would leap out onto the pavement, fly through gardens, and across fields to a secret place were he would rid himself of the hated garments. This went on until Jane ran out of baby clothes.
Thomas, who was two years her senior, had a habit of putting Fluffy on the top of doors. Just why, Fluffy had no idea. One minute he would be happily curled up asleep, and the next, he was being lifted aloft by Thomas and deposited on the top edge of an open door, scratching and clawing to gain balance. Once there, he could remain lying along the edge with complete terror in his eyes, until rescued by an adult Robinson.
Fluffy ate well with the Robinson's. They were always saying he was the only cat in Britain to have sampled every kind of food there was. This was because Grandma Robinson, who was very fussy, often refused her food and anything she did not want went into Fluffy's bowl. The Robinson children often slipped him portions of meat that they did not want, under the dining table. Fluffy was game to try anything from trifle to spaghetti bolognese.
Fluffy loved boxes. They were his all-consuming passion. He would climb into any box, trying it out for size. He would investigate the depths of paper bags, plastic carriers, hand-bags, suitcases, you name it, he would get into it.
When the crates arrived, he was delighted and curious. But when he made a few tentative forays, there were immediate shrieks of, "Mind the china!" "Get off the best linen!" and eventually, "Will somebody put Fluffy out, please?"
So Fluffy sat in the garden, and watched. There were no blanket baths or rides on bicycles these days. Everyone was so busy. He did not quite understand what was going on.
One morning, the Robinson family assembled outside with bags and parcels and he was being passed around for hugs and wet kisses. It was all very messy, and he did not quite understand what was going on. He hoped it did not mean that he was going down the road. Some of his elderly feline friends had told him that hugs and kisses meant going down the road, and not coming back.
So Fluffy was quite relieved when it was evident that the Robinsons did not intend to put him in the car with the rest of the family, and their mountain of luggage. He rubbed his head against Katy's new sky-blue socks, to show that he forgave her all the medical ministrations.
"We don't really want to leave him behind, but what else can we do?" sighed Mrs. Robinson. "One is always hearing about cats that walk back to their old homes, and poor Fluffy would drown in the ocean! We're so grateful for your kind offer."
"Shall I have a new kitten in Australia?" asked the fickle Jane.
"Of course darling,"
"Don't worry Mrs. Robinson, I'll look after Fluffy for you," said a new, sweet young voice. "He'll be perfectly alright with us, and he'll have Trixibelle to play with of course. I'm sure he'll soon get used to us, and we'll take great care of him."
Katy wept over Fluffy's ears. "Goodbye, darling Fluffy," she whispered. "I'll never forget you, never, never, never…"
It was all very disturbing for poor Fluffy. And then, suddenly, the Robinsons drove off, leaving Fluffy and the sweet voiced young woman on the front lawn. He looked at her, wondering what to expect next. She was young, and quite tall, with silvery-blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She regarded him a little uncertainly, her fair hair brushing her cheek, like a breeze stirring a cobweb in the moonlight.
"Come along," she said, trying to sound brisk. "You live next door now." Gillian picked him up carefully, and gave him a cautious pat, ruffling his orange fur the wrong way. She's not used to cats, thought Fluffy, worriedly, as he was carried across to the house next door.
The house that Gillian took him to was joined on to the Robinson house, and was exactly the same, only the other way around. He discovered that Gillian and Alan were newly weds, that they lived in silent rooms, and went out all day. It was all very odd. Sometimes Fluffy thought he had gone deaf.
It was an odd house. There was nothing to jump on, knock over, hide behind, sit on, scratch at, trample on, or investigate. Most of the time, Fluffy sat in the middle of the kitchen floor, polite and distant, grooming himself, and slightly nauseated by the pervading smell of paint. He missed the Robinsons, and all the noise and activity. He missed being talked to, and being included as part of the family. He missed having Katy tell him her fears and worries, and the way she kissed the top of his head.
Trixibelle was a kitten. She was a fawn coloured, seal-point Burmese ball of fur, and Fluffy despised her. He learnt that she had been bought only a week earlier by Gillian, when she first agreed to take care of Fluffy, so he would have a friend. A fiend is more like it, thought Fluffy to himself, crossly.
"We really ought to change that awful name," remarked Alan. "So childish," he mused.
"But to what though, darling?" asked Gillian, slightly exasperated. "You hated the name Trixibelle too…"
"Well at least that suited the idiotic fluffball. That cat is a menace, look at his wild eyes. Call him something simple, I don't know…George, Henry-"
"Alright, we'll call him Henry," said Gillian, to make the peace.
So Fluffy became Henry.
His life was boring. When Henry first explored upstairs, he wandered into the Marshall's bedroom, and made a flying leap onto the rose-patterned duvet. It sank most satisfyingly, but before he had even lain down, Gillian whisked him off again.
"Sorry," she said shortly. "Not on the bed."
He was not allowed on the two armchairs either, or on the draining board, or in Gillian's shopping bag, or under the TV set, or even on top of it. So he took to staying in the kitchen, pretending to be asleep.
The garden was immaculate, so unlike the wild unkempt jungle that the Robinson's had. Everything was planted in measured rows. Henry learnt to tread carefully. Alan Marshall was very particular about his garden.
Henry lost weight, not because the Marshalls were unkind to him, or starved him, or even fed him less, but because Henry was pinning for the way things used to be. If it is possible for a cat to be depressed, then that was what Henry was. Henry's heart would fail when, yet again, he saw Gillian reach for the tin-opener. He longed for a piece of fruitcake, or a saucer of warm cocoa.
He made one visit to his old house, but never returned again. A huge German Shepherd dog lived in the back garden. Henry was lucky to escape with his life. Henry shuddered, and kept to his side of the fence.
Sometimes, he sat on the pavement outside, and watched the world go by. One young woman with red hair always stopped and stroked him, knowing the special place under his chin where his purr started.
Sometimes he followed children along the road, but was afraid to go too far. He was less trusting that he used to be. Especially after the time with the field mouse. He had only meant it as a present for Gillian. It was so tiny, and was paralysed with terror. Yet Gillian had shrieked so loudly, and whacked the side of his head, so Henry opened his mouth in surprise, and the mouse dropped out. The situation improved somewhat when Gillian stopped going out all day, and started to sing around the house, which was rather nice. However, although she now sat around quite a lot, he was never permitted to sit on her lap.
One day, a new smell appeared in the house. Henry recognised it immediately. It was the sweet, thin smell of milk. Something stirred and breathed in the pram in the hall-way, and made mewing sounds. Henry pricked up his ears. Surely it was not another cat? He stood up on his back legs to peer in, but a mound of blankets obscured whatever lay beneath. Henry heard Trixibelle come up behind him, and he sensed her confusion too.
"Say hello to Timmy," said Gillian. She picked up the cats one by one, and let them peer in at the tiny pink baby in the pram.
Now the improvement in Henry's life accelerated.
"What on earth shall I do with all this cereal?" wailed Gillian one breakfast-time. "Timmy won't touch it!"
"Give it to the cats," said Alan dismissively.
Baby cereal! One of Henry's favorites. His rough little tongue could hardly lap it up for purring. Then at teatime, marmite soldiers were dropped by the baby, onto the floor, in various states of disintegration.
"Oh, you are such a messy baby," said Gillian exasperatedly. She hurried over to clear it up, but Henry got there first. It seemed like years since he'd had a marmite soldier.
Timmy soon began to crawl, and there wasn't a thing that Gillian could do about life at floor level. It became a glorious landscape of wooden bricks, round-eyed yellow ducks, chewed crusts, lost shoes, sticky spoons, and a fat brown teddy bear. Henry sat amid the chaos, keeping an eye on the baby, and keeping his claws sheathed. He still kept out of the way - even now, he was still like a visitor.
One afternoon, Gillian was sewing up a hole in Timmy's dungarees, while her baby sat on the floor, playing with some empty cotton reels. Henry was sunning himself by the window, when from the corner of his eye, he saw the baby reaching up towards the flex of a reading lamp.
Something stirred deeply in Henry's memory, he remembered when Katy Robinson had done the same thing, and had brought the whole lamp crashing down on her head. In a split second, Henry leapt off the windowsill, and sent the baby flying back onto his bottom on the carpet. The baby howled in surprise, and pain, for Henry then realised that for the first time he had forgotten to retract his claws. There was a crimson line under Timmy's left eye, which was starting to weep with blood.
Immediately, Gillian was down on her knees, sweeping her baby up in her arms, and placing him gently on the sofa. Then she started screaming at Henry.
"You, wicked, wicked cat! I regret the day we ever agreed to keep you, you deserve to die! You could have scratched his eye!" Gillian grabbed a trainer from the floor, and brought it down with all her might on Henry's head. She was so angry, she used all of her force, and Henry was immediately knocked back. He slumped onto the carpet, unconscious.
"Oh no," Gillian gasped. "No, no, no, don't let it be, I've killed him, oh dear God…"
Luckily, she had not killed him, and Henry woozily came round that night. But the next morning, he was shoved unceremoniously into shoved into the basket normally used for carrying him to the vet in. Henry's heart was beating wildly. They're taking me to be put down, he thought, I'm going to die. If cats could cry, then Henry would have done. But slowly, he realised that Gillian was driving in the opposite direction to the vets.
Gillian was thinking quickly. She was going to take him to an animal rescue charity. But they would ask her questions, discover all Henry's records under the name Robinson. They might even contact them, and tell the family what she had done. Besides, it would be so mortifying to have to dump him on them.
Gillian drove up to the local branch of the RSPCA (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and quietly took Henry, in his basket, out of the back-seat. She walked softly up to the front door, and placed the basket down. Henry's unblinking amber eyes looked up at her.
Gillian jogged back to the car, and sped off.
Two hours later, an RSPCA helper found Henry on the doorstep.
End of Part 1