This time next week the chapters start getting more serious again.

Purr, Purr, Purr

February 9th, 1996
7th year
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Jo and Leilani sat in the library trying to finish up some last-minute homework. They both procrastinated. Rather badly. Leili was scribbling out a vexing essay for her Alchemy professor, Jo was studying up on Potions.

Morgan, Leili's cat, was lying between the girls (who sat opposite each other at the table) watching Leili's quill wave back and forth and around in the loops of her letters. Every now and then Morgan would reach out a paw and bat at the feather. Leili would distractedly nudge it away and go back to her essay. And then there would come the paw again, bat bat, bat bat.

Eventually Leili had enough of this. "Morgan, would you please not do that? I'm trying to finish this, I'll play with you later," she pleaded. She'd been unusually clingy this week, sticking to Leili like Velcro, meowing and shrieking at a near constant level.

Morgan responded by catching the quill between her paws and biting down on the end. Leili made a frustrated little noise, extracted the quill, lifted her cat and set her on the floor. "Look, I'm sorry, but you're distracting. Go back to bed or find some other cat to play with, ok?" Morgan weaved between Leili's crossed ankles a few times before prancing away, the bell around her neck jingling with every step.

"Cats," Leili scoffed. "Remind me why I chose a cat for a pet again?"

"Because she was cute and she liked you," Jo reminded.

"Right."

"And because you couldn't have a dog, and your dad is allergic to feathers."

"That too."

"How's the essay?"

"Miserable. Potions?"

"Dreadful."

The girls sighed and went back to work and Leili didn't wonder where Morgan went off to.

Morgan however, was happy to roam the castle, and eventually found herself in Umbridge's office. The damage wrought by Thorn and a few invasive Nifflers had been meticulously repaired and an alarm spell had been set over every threshold in the room, every door, window and fireplace. Morgan sauntered over to the front of the desk and sat. Her tail twitched back and forth as she calculated the jump. She sprang, her claws catching the edge of the desk. Up came her back paws as her front claws dug in further. She hoisted herself on to the desktop and stretched. Her chest went down, her rump went up and she kneaded the tabletop as she pulled her chest towards her tail. She plunked herself on the table and yowled long and loud. She was joined by another cat who yowled back.

When Umbridge burst into her office, wand at the ready, Morgan and her paramour were long gone but there were deep gouges in the desk and several rips in the chair cushions, three kitten plates lay in pieces on the floor and there were ashen paw prints on the plush, pink carpet.

That night at dinner, before Leili had truly begun to worry over her cat being missing—she was usually in the kitchens around feast-time anyway—the staff table had a shiny new addition: one black cat sitting beside McGonagall's place of honor, being lovingly caressed by the Deputy Headmistress.

Leili dropped her forehead into her hand with an audible thwack. "Cats," she moaned.