House; Hufflepuff

Position; Herbology

Drabble/Standard; Standard

Prompt; "Keep the cat away from me!" (Alts: me - Her/him)

Word Count.; 1866

This is the one that took me so long to get written out fully, I stopped and started like a dozen times and I'm still not happy with it, but here is the final project for the deadline.

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The blast of green light caused the cat to hiss, a guttural noise of pure violence and fear. All fur standing on end, teeth bared and claws digging into the carpet in as threatening a display as he could be underneath the Potters' bed. His golden tag gleamed and reflected his lamplike eyes back on nothing in this abandoned room. Hickory had not tried to protect his humans. He had fled to his safe haven at the first bang of the door blasting open. The Dark Lord had never laid eyes on him. Cats are ambush predators, they stalk their prey and go for the back of the neck. Much like Voldemort himself, he would only have struck had he been given an opportunity where the intruder could not see him coming.

They were loyal creatures, though.

Before the magic had even settled in the air to be scented, before the first blast of gale-force wind had entered through the hole in the roof, before young Harry's cries had ceased, Hickory crept from his sanctuary, sniffing the air cautiously. No more shouting, no more loud, unfamiliar voices. He held his tail high with a crook in the top, creeping cautiously, as if on a hunt. His back feet treaded a careful path wherever his front paws lifted so as to leave as little trace of himself as possible while he stuck to the abundance of shadows in the dimly lit home towards the crib that contained the wailing infant.

His humans were often in this room, and he had a bad habit of sneaking in himself, despite the closed door that so often perturbed him. Now it was flung open, and a new obstacle course awaited him. Balancing upon every rickety step as he pounced from the chest of drawers to the overturned rocking chair, he spotted her red hair first. She was his favorite; her long nails scratched wonderfully into the scruff of his neck. Her voice was always so soft, her lap the warmest. Lily fed him and played with him; she was the woman who had been his mother first before Harry came along.

The brown ball of fluff had been an anniversary present from James to his betrothed; a pet of her own, a cat she'd long been forbidden to own because of her distasteful sister's allergies. Hickory's brown fur was the exact shade of the tree he was named for; he'd mewled like the infant he was, and Lily had instantly pressed his soft fur to her chest and promised him her love. The cat pressed himself against that very spot now, his high-pitched demand for her attention going unanswered now and forever. He'd grown older, of course, but even as she'd often brushed him aside now for her black-haired beau, his Lily had still always made time for him. She would give him scratches and make sure his water was fresh; her only reward being his long, deep purrs.

She was already growing cold beneath his impatient nips. He could smell death on her, but he continued to cry almost as much as Harry for what he'd lost. Snow was already drifting down from the hole in the roof, making her skin glow pale.

The magic that had ended her life had not saved the house as it had her son. Hickory grew colder until he finally leapt cleanly into the crib. Lily usually picked him up and removed him, but she still did not stir. Harry paid him no mind as he stood at the bars, shaking them and trembling with despondence. No one answered the crying of the two lost souls.

Eventually Harry's exhaustion won out and he flopped down hard on his filthy diaper right onto Hickory's tail. Hickory hissed and darted to the other side of the mattress, and this finally earned the babe's attention. He gurgled and reached his hand out for the familiar fuzzy creature. Hickory sniffed his sticky fingers delicately and allowed the child to messily slap his face a few times before jumping back away with displeasure. – The body heat of the little human was not worth his unpleasantly strong grip on his fur and that smell.

Harry's crying picked back up in tempo, somehow even stronger and louder with renewed frustration as Hickory hopped out of the crib. Hickory gave one last delicate lick to Lily's face, but the frozen expression did not waver. He twitched his tail impatiently as he left the room, and crept down the stairs.

James was loud. He was always the one shouting, "Keep that cat away from him!". His clumsy feet had stepped on Hickory no less than five times, all accidents of course, but the cat had remembered, and he still stayed well away on the opposite side of the room where James Potter stood. Despite being the bestower of his wife's treasured gift, he had never given much love to Hickory himself.

Now Hickory stood over his still form, but the odor emanating from his body was the same as Lily's, so he did not try and catch the man's attention. The front door was open.

His food bowl was behind him in the kitchen, his safe spot under the bed called to him, but even some animals learned human phrases.

Curiosity killed the cat…

He inched towards the door. It did not shut on him. He took another step, and he saw the icy wind leaving little bits of frost on James's glasses. The man did not wipe them away. The house was growing colder by the second. He took a cautious step outside, something he had not done in all his long life. The earth was cold, not like the warm carpet he loved to knead so much. Even so, his nose twitched with new stimuli and new instincts seemed to come alive.

Eyes focused on the world beyond, only his front two paws stood warily on the stoop as his senses went on high alert at a loud rumbling noise that was growing louder every moment. He darted to safety into one of the bushes by the front door.

The growling sound (Hickery knew it now, it was the motorcycle owned by the human that smelled like wet dog!)grew closer, louder. Hickory flattened his ears and yowled low in his throat, and fearing more green light and death, he took off into the night.

...

There were many things to learn quickly over the winter and long coming years. Nature was an unforgiving tutor. He pounced and missed; mice knew he was coming long before he realized he should be scenting them, and the warmth of human arms was no longer the comfort it once had been.

Over time, he forgot his name, the soft lilt of her voice, what his food had once tasted like, and even what his favorite perch felt like as his fur darkened with age. He learned to pounce and catch his meals like a proper feline, but found no new home with other strays or humans.

The will to live may be instinctual, but the world had other plans for the nameless cat. The now bandy-legged, squashed faced, well-practiced hunter wandered into Diagon Alley as the first rays of light died. He was stalking a billywig. He was used to traversing between human legs, now; they often gave him a wide berth and if not, a good hiss spooked them away. He paid no mind to anything but his quarry, meowing his displeasure as a hand swooped in and took his prize instead.

Lashing his tail back and forth but accepting this defeat, he turned to leave, but suddenly, his claws were swiping at air. He twisted and struck this way and that but hit nothing. The firm grasp on his scruff made him go limp as a large man said, "Oh come now, I've been trying to get a hand on you for ages. Why don't you come inside?"

It was not an option, apparently. The billywig was placed inside a container and he was plopped down onto a counter. The cat took off at once, landing splayed out with his fur standing on end on the floor. He got moving and hid under the nearest display case, hissing and spitting for all his worth.

"Saw that coming," the man chuckled without humor as he placed a fresh bowl of water on the ground. "Take as long as you like, buddy, no one's kicking you out of this place until we find you a good home."

This was a very strange room with many strange smells. The shop owner was a kindly man who gave him a new name. He gave no indication of understanding it. He had a cozy space and the man offered a good scratch at his leisure for the next few years, but the cat was more restless than ever. He found nothing in this shop to keep his interest for long no matter how warm his bed was or how freely the food was given. The creatures he wanted to bat around were magically barred from him and the few people who looked twice at him never did a third time when he pierced their ears with another ungrateful yowl.

It seemed his fate to simply go to sleep one day and never wake up again as his first owner had done, until he caught a whiff of an old, familiar scent. It was not the man of the house, but one of the man's companions that used to frequent that old long-ago home he had nearly lost all memories of, but it came back to him now as he gazed down at the scrawny gray rat on the counter.

They locked eyes, and the cat knew. This was no ordinary critter, and this was not a slice of home that had come back for him. This was a man disguising himself as something he wasn't, a mockery, a jest of what had once been warmth.

"Crookshanks, no!"

Too late, the cat had pounced with a grace he had never quite mastered and landed on the ginger child, his fur and that hair becoming one for only a moment as he continued his pursuit—right into the arms of a bushy-haired girl.

Her voice was gentle, her arms were not restrictive even as she scolded him with a calm voice. "Crookshanks." She kept repeating the name in a loving lilt he had long forgotten… No, he had not truly lost what the sound of love was. Lamp-like eyes still fixated on the door at the not-rat, a choice before him.

He could claw and bite to break free out that open door as the two humans spoke, or perhaps relax for just a moment with this girl, just a few moments longer— shockingly, he found himself purring. The deep vibrations stopped and stuttered as if he'd forgotten how, but the girl smiled and pressed her face close to his to draw as much of that to herself as she could.

Crookshanks, the name reverberated around him as gold exchanged hands. Yes, perhaps he could stop his travels for now.