Dear readers;

Thanks for all of your comments and feedback; I really do appreciate it! :)

Here is the next bit as the stage is set for mayhem – I promise more on the Bed and such in the next chapter.

As ever, please let me know what you think!

Sincerely,

Chaos

~

Like Cats and Dogs

Chapter 10

~

Night and quiet.

Severus lay curled in his favorite chair, but not asleep.

There was a cat-door in his door.

There was a fire in his fireplace that now lay in fading red embers.

There was a woman in his bed.

All was not well with the night.

Emily Mayborne was in his bed, curled up and sleeping in a tangle of silk and cotton.

He could not bear to go in and look.

Emily Mayborne was bathed, and she smelled like a harem of odalisques when she was fresh from her bath.

Severus had stayed virtuously in the chair all during Emily's nightly ritual. The bathing. The lotion. The cup of herbal tea.

He heard the hiss of silk as she removed her dressing gown and the sounds of someone settling happily into bed.

The range of sounds that she made had been something that Severus had forgotten. Small noises of her comfort and contentment made him ache.

"Good night, Professor."

"Nyow."

Emily Mayborne was in his bed – warm, happy, possibly naked and definitely smelling like a very carnal type of delight.

And he, Severus Nicander Snape – idiot extraordinaire - was a cat.

There was a God  – and He was an utter bastard.

~

Remus lay on the bed in nothing but a pair of shorts. On his stomach, pillow under his arms and chest, he was reading a history of the Dark Arts in ancient Greece – and driving Sirius utterly mad.

Ankles, Sirius had found, were very sexy. Feet, too. And legs, he could not forget legs.

Mostly because Moony would not let him.

Moony had long, slender feet with high arches and almost delicate bony ankles. His legs were thin, but leanly muscled and covered with a fine, light brown hair.

Sirius had never wanted to lick Remus' feet before. Never had he considered biting bony ankles or nibbling the place at the back of his lover/friend's knees. Grumpily, the Border Collie-bound wizard shifted on his most excellent dog bed and sighed.

"You can end it any time, old friend," Remus called from the bedroom. "You're not the only one affected by all this. That nice young Miss Mayborne – poor thing."

Sirius snorted agreement, anyone who had to put up with Snape breathing down their neck on a daily basis is someone he could pity.

Remus' glance was one of reproach, as if he could hear Sirius' thought. "She and her partner are being separated by all of this. It's quite something if they've been together since they were in school."

Well, considering that her partner was a Malfoy, who knew? It might actually be good for her. Malfoy and Slytherin went together like plague and pestilence so far as Sirius was concerned. Emily Mayborne was nice enough, even if she was a bit stroppy with Dumbledore. She was also a Ravenclaw and therefore more trustworthy than a Slytherin – though anyone was, really.

Again, Moony seemed to be reading thoughts, "Slytherins are people, too, Sirius. People like to say that every witch or wizard that goes bad came out of Slytherin, but look at Peter. Severus came out of Slytherin and Dumbledore trusts him where he would trust nobody else."

Snape had been a bloody Death Eater for heaven's sake! Albus Dumbledore trusted a lot of people where he really shouldn't.

Like a werewolf and a hotheaded, attempted murderer who just spent the larger part of his adult life in prison?

"Just think about it, love." Remus marked his place and closed the book, removed his reading glasses and set them on the nightstand. A warm rush of pheromones and amusement reached Sirius' nose. "Besides, my back gets cold when I sleep alone."

With a muttered, "Nox," the grinning werewolf doused the lights, leaving the disgruntled animagus in the dark.

~

Severus made his accustomed rounds last night, more out of needing to clear his head than anything else. Upon returning to his rooms, he had looked in on Miss Mayborne.

She did indeed sleep in the nude.

Severus lay awake until false dawn, unaware that he slipped into sleep until the call of nature woke him from vague and frustrating dreams.

Upon his return from bestowing another gesture of his regard upon Gryffindor tower, he found Miss Mayborne awake and moving about.

Mercifully – disappointingly – clothed in a Puddlemere United jersey and matching shorts. The house elves had brought up a breakfast tray and he could smell coffee instead of tea, toast, jams, eggs and bacon. There was a smaller tray beside it on the round table, still covered

"Good morning, sir," she yawned at him and lifted the cover. "This would be yours, I think."

"Yowmrrr." He raised his nose and opened his mouth as he inhaled, allowing himself the full impact of the scent. Is that smoked salmon? Eggs? Hmm… cream?

Snape's mouth watered and his stomach was suddenly, achingly empty! Food! He had to have food!

"Meeeeooooooowwwwwwww!" FEED ME! HUNGRY! Feed me NOW!

"Good lord! You'd think you'd never been fed before!" She set her coffee on the table and picked up the tray in slow motion. "Just a moment. You won't die of hunger in the next thirty seconds."

Snape discovered that there was at least one true word that his cat-body could produce, "NOW!" he darted between her feet and did a rapid figure-eight about her ankles, causing her to curse, stumble and nearly drop the tray. "NOW! NOWWWWWW!"

"Bloody… keep that up and you'll be wearing breakfast instead of eating it!" she set the tray on the floor.

Whatever she had to say after that was lost on Severus – he was EATING.

Salmon in scrambled eggs made his stomach warm and full, the cream coated his tongue and throat with an indescribable richness. At length, with bowl and plate emptied and licked clean, Severus sat back on his haunches feeling much at peace with the world. He could hear the shower running and agreed that a good wash would set him all the way right.

Stretched in his reading chair, he dozed after his wash. The house elves made noises only a cat could hear as the came to bundle away the trays.

The bathroom door opened and woman-scented steam augmented with flowers and moss dissipated in the cooler air.

Good lord. What was that girl doing smelling like that? She had never lost her preference for scent and had apparently refined it to a high art. Still, she was going to be teaching, not seducing the faculty!

With a grunt, he descended from the chair and stalked into the bedchamber, tail straight out behind him.

And stopped, staring so hard that his eyes hurt.

It was not that he went about ogling young, healthy bodies. He taught row upon row of such every year with no trouble at all – they were students, young and impressionable. Even those who had figured out the power of sex were clumsy with it, unsubtle and amateurish in their attempt to wield it. The few who foolishly thought him approachable were rapidly and brutally disabused of that errant notion.

Perhaps it was simply the fact the he had desired and found the desire returned, or the fact that they had come within a hair of consummating that desire that held him now. Perhaps it was that – in his less disciplined moments – some few of his fantasies had been based on conjecture of what lay under the ultimate layer of Miss Mayborne's wardrobe.

Emily was a very woman-shaped woman with curves, slopes, and mounds that reminded him of a landscape. No skin-and-bones, semi-starved waif, she. Muscle smoothed with a cushion of flesh, the gentle curve of a belly instead of a flat plain. The gentle bas-relief of her collarbone shaded into a shoulder that he suddenly wanted to lick. Her waist flared into wide hips and an ass he had dreamed about getting his hands on once more – round and smooth and…

Well, he certainly had facts enough to sustain him now! Clad only in her long hair, a brassiere and… those weren't like any knickers he had ever seen. He hoped she hadn't paid much for them, other than a thin band of fabric, they'd no back to them at all!

Severus turned and stalked back out of the room. So now he was a pathetic voyeur, peeping at women whilst they were undressed and unaware. His fur rippled with shame and he immediately set himself to washing the self-disgust away.

Albus maintained that Severus was his own harshest critic, flagellating himself endlessly for the most trifling of infractions. That long-ago night, after stashing Peeves, Severus had gone immediately to Albus and confessed the whole thing. Appalled at his own lack of control – he should have broken the clinch when that barrier went down – Severus offered to resign on the spot.

Albus brought out Severus' documents of tenure and spent a good bit of time scanning them.

"Severus, I'm terribly sorry about this," the old man had looked up at him with sorrowful eyes, "but while I can find terms requiring honor, adherence to the rules of Hogwarts staff, discretion, respect, and honesty – I can find nothing in your terms of employ that require celibacy, chastity, saintly virtue in the face of an armful of willing temptation, or that you check your balls at the gate. Sorry, dear boy, you're stuck."

Stuck, yes, he certainly was stuck.

And it was all the fault of The Dog.

He would get even. He would! No matter what it took or how miserable it made him, Sirius bloody Black would crawl and beg before Severus would relent.

Oh, the serenity that mental image engendered. Severus felt his shoulders relax as he concentrated on the image of Toffee in supplication at his feet, begging forgiveness and a return to human form.

~

Remus heard the voices coming up the stairwell before he saw the owners.

"Nyowr!"

"Don't you take that tone with me, you stroppy thing. This is a faculty meeting, and I doubt that any of the other staff are being babysat by their familiars."

"Mrow yow mrip now! Mrrrrr."

"Bitch all you want, I can't understand a word you're saying."

Severus made a highly expressive feline; Remus could hear the seething frustration very well. He slowed his steps so that he and Miss Mayborne would meet at the top of the stairs.

"Good morning, Professor Mayborne, and… er… " Remus was at a loss on how to greet Severus. Albus was going to put it about that Snape had been called away on urgent family business involving some of the more notorious members of his bloodline.

"Good morning, Professor Lupin, and this is Pamiu." Emily offered blandly and Remus coughed to cover his laugh. No, Severus would not appreciate being called 'Old Tomcat' even if it was in ancient Egyptian!

"Good morning, Pamiu."

Severus merely narrowed his eyes in a green glare, the very image of frosty offended dignity.

One of these days, he hoped Severus would actually listen to him. Even if he could not mend the fences with Severus, he wanted to at the very least have a civil conversation across it. Remus thought sadly that if his friends had protected him, Severus' had paid his passage to hell.

Remus instead turned his attention to young Emily and gave his 'fatherly professor' smile. The young woman smelled distinctly nervous as she fiddled with the books and parchments cradled almost defensively in one arm. "You're not nervous, are you? You're a steely-eyed Acquisitor, surely you're not scared of a lot of stuffy old teachers?"

Emily looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "Spitless. Just spitless. I mean… McGonagall?"

"Would it help at all if I told you it was normal? It's a little like always being a child to one's parents," he chuckled. "The first year I taught here, someone would address me as 'Professor' and I would turn around to see who was behind me."

"Yow." Came the definite agreement from near his feet.

"See? Sev… ah… he and I agree on nothing but we can agree on that." Remus carefully did not mention that the one-sided feud between him and Severus resulted in Remus quitting before angry parents could besiege the school.

Emily's look said that she knew something about it, but she chose to venture no further comment, asking instead, "What are you teaching, Professor Lupin?"

"Me? I'm handling Combative Magic whilst Professor Umbridge recovers from his latest attempt at finishing the Annual Swedish Broom Race." He gestured her down the corridor to the Staff room, Severus walking between them with the 'Cat Who Walks by Himself' air.

The woman winced. "Again? He was three years getting over the last time through! Did he at least finish?"

Remus shook his head, "A Swedish Short Snout tail-slapped him into a fjord."

"You'd think he'd learn by now. That makes what, four times?" Remus opened the door for her and tried not to bow as His Excellency The Cat went strutting through at her side.

Good thing Sirius had been in too much of a napping mood to attend.

They took a pair of chairs and chatted while the rest of the staff filed in, most of them eyeing him and Emily with undisguised curiosity. Severus simply elected to survey the room from the lordly height atop the wardrobe in the corner. Albus and Minerva entered together and Minerva called everyone to order.

"Good morning and welcome back. I trust that you are all comfortably settled and ready to begin another school year." The entire table was as quiet as an obedient classroom. "We do have two last minute staff changes to announce. Philomenus Umbridge was injured – again – whilst competing in the Annual Swedish Broom Race and will be some time in recuperating. Professor Remus Lupin has agreed to take his place until such time as he can return." Some of the staff smiled and nodded at him in a friendly fashion, but others simply darted a nervous glance at him and smelled of hate/fear. "Severus Snape has been called away unexpectedly. I am given to understand that it involves a longstanding dispute and… well, the less said the better. He is counting on our discretion."

The Snape family had a reputation for hot tempers and grudges. Which or how many of them might be boiling over at the moment was open to question. In theory, Severus could be anywhere from England to Belize to New Zealand to South Africa  - if he weren't sitting on top of the wardrobe and licking a paw.

"My good friend, Reginald MacGuffin," Albus smiled, "has agreed to loan us one of his very best Senior Acquisitors with a senior journeyman status in Potions." At the word Acquisitor, some members of the staff shifted and Remus heard at least one mutter something about 'bloody mercenaries.' "Miss Emily Mayborne was one of Severus' most highly regarded students, and despite the demands of a hazardous profession, has managed to continue her education in that field."

Emily stood at a gesture from Albus, but Remus noticed that her small, polite smile did not reach her eyes. Her scent, if the objector had been able to smell it, was the smell of steel in a forge. Remus was very surprised, she did not look the type, nor had her rather sweet, earthy scent given him any hint that it might overlay such a temper.

She sat down and the meeting began in earnest.

The new security arrangements were in place, and though everyone was uncomfortable with giants about, all were vastly more relieved that they were there. There were other arrangements and overtures being made to other denizens of the forest – principally the werewolves. Remus caught Emily eyeing him speculatively before turning her attention back to the proceedings. The teachers with the less hazardous submitted lesson plans first, which were approved with very little discussion.

Potions, Combative Magic, Offensive Flying, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and some of the more advanced courses in Charms and Transfiguration were considered hazardous. Those lesson plans came in for intense scrutiny. Defense against the Dark Arts was to be taught by a rotating roster of faculty. It appeared that word had got out that the job was cursed and now nobody wanted it.

Most of the lesson plans were ratified easily, but when it came to be Remus' turn, there was heavy scrutiny and a great many – in his opinion – slyly phrased questions. Even McGonagall seemed taken aback at the tone. Albus was his usual serene self, but his scent betrayed an unusual annoyance.

A strange ozone-like scent abruptly flared from Emily. "Pardon me, Professor Shand, but what exactly is your objection to this particular lesson?"

The entire table looked at her in surprise, Shand – the Runes professor, a thin and sly-looking man  – bestowed a very patronizing smile upon her, "Now, Emily, I don't expect you to understand much about how the faculty decides…"

"Then explain it to me."

"Well, hypothetically, the situation that… the professor describes is ridiculously unlikely and…"

"How would you know?" Emily stood, and leaned on the table weight on her hands. "Have you ever been in the field as a combatant? An Auror? Acquisitor?"

"I fail to see…"

"Yes, you do." With that, Emily turned her back, pulled up her hair and eased her robes back to reveal two pink scars the size of Sickles between her spine and shoulderblade. Remus felt a chill; those were puncture wounds. "I got these from a new breed of Quetzalcoatl in Southern Mexico. If I had done as you had advised, I'd have been gutted. I did it as Professor Lupin described and lived."

The tense silence was broken as a black streak shot from the top of the wardrobe and landed in the center of the table, hissing and spitting a variety of feline curses first at Shand and then at Emily.

"Well it's no good yelling at me now. It's done." Emily looked around the table, "Now, I believe that I'm the last one to face the bench. Can we get on with it, please?"

The Potions lesson plans were given much scrutiny until Emily pointed out that these plans were from Professor Snape himself. Snape was under the table. Growling. A particularly stupid or obviously obstructionist question would bring a sound out of him that a banshee might envy. It amused Remus to watch the more obstructionist members of the faculty becoming more jumpy and twitchy with every yowl and growl.

Finally Emily said that if the faculty had any questions as to the appropriateness or technical accuracy of the lesson plans – which were, after all, Snape's - she would be happy to owl Snape wherever he was with their questions and objections. Failing that, she was sure that perhaps a visit from a Senior Master of Potions – such as Lorenzo Zaldivar – might allay their concerns.

Minerva was looking at the younger woman as if seeing her for the first time. "Further objections? Questions? No? Ratified. And," there was a note of undisguised relief in the older witch's voice, "you are all dismissed. Professors Shand, Gralvey, and Blenkinsop, a moment please."

Emily gathered her materials and swept from the room in a swirl of skirt and robe, Severus at her side with tail lashing and ears laid back.

~

TBC