Chapter 7: A Potions Master and a Manticore Walk into a Kitchen…
Backtracking his movements was rather easy, as it turned out. Severus found his wand under a bunch of pots in the kitchen and used it to conjure up a set of rough-looking robes from one of the kitchen drapes because he was shivering and barefoot in the cold, stone room despite the fact that Hermione was standing beside him like a large, furry furnace. The wand was no worse for wear, but Severus could smell Hermione's scent all over it.
"You used my wand, didn't you?" He said suspiciously, turning to look at her with an arched eyebrow.
Hermione gave him the best version of a shrug that her manticore body was capable of making in reply.
Severus opened his mouth to ask her another question but before he could, he was hug-tackled by Mimi, who'd been in the middle of cleaning up the massive mess that he'd left.
He was eminently glad that he'd at least had the wherewithal to make himself halfway decent before that point.
"I am sorry that I made...such a mess," Severus sighed, looking around the room and feeling horribly awkward as Mimi hugged him tightly. She always did this when she saw him in human form, and had once even called him "Father," which felt horribly awkward, especially considering what Severus had pieced together about her life before having been rescued from the frozen stump she'd been tied against in the forest. For lack of a better term, he'd settled on "Professor," even though he hadn't taught in nearly a decade, but he could tell by how she said the honorific that she was saying it in the exact same tone as she'd called him her parent.
"It's okay, Professor," Mimi said with a happy smile, "I'm just glad to see you're less fuzzy today."
"I could change back at any time. You know that. Why aren't you behind the charmed door with Charlotte?" Severus admonished, but his heart wasn't in it to scold her.
"You never hurt me, Professor," Mimi said, beaming, "You always know who I am, so it's fine. You've even given me a horsy ride before."
Severus stared at her in shock, his mouth opening slightly as he registered her words.
"What do you-" he started, but Mimi had gasped and pointed behind him.
"Who is she?" Mimi asked. "Is that….Hermione?"
Hermione made a loud thrumming noise and rolled onto her back, exposing her belly. Mimi made a squeaky noise of happiness and ran to her, petting Hermione with gusto.
"Wow!" Mimi exclaimed, pressing her ear to Hermione's chest and feeling her breathe, "She's so pretty!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Severus spluttered, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, "Manticores do not adhere to beauty standards."
The door behind him opened slowly and he turned to see Charlotte stepping through it cautiously. She looked up at him for a moment and then quickly cast her eyes at the floor when she realized he was looking back at her. Her mouth was drawn down in a bit of a scowl that Severus recognized as being very similar to one of his own. Charlotte had become a bit of a mimic when it came to him, which he secretly found endearing. Though Severus hated to consider that his treatment of either Charlotte or Mimi was remotely familial, he had grown to care for their well being, and was increasingly loath to attempt to send them back to their blood relatives. Whoever would tie them up in the snow like garbage to be thrown away did not deserve to raise a child at all. Charlotte scribbled in a notebook and then handed it to Severus with an unsteady look before staring at the ground again.
"Yes, Charlotte, the manticore there is, as you say, that strange old lady," Severus replied with a sigh.
Charlotte was tall for fifteen and she tended to be even more tactless than he was when she wasn't being utterly silent. He didn't mind her tendency to flap her hands when she was excited or rock back and forth at inopportune times. He'd given her access to his books on arithmancy and she'd taken to it like a quidditch player to flying. She'd have probably forgotten to eat if it weren't for Mimi, who dragged her to dinner more often than not. Severus had started her on some simple brewing, which had, surprisingly, gone well. Charlotte didn't have much in the way of magical aptitude or the use of a wand, at least according to what she'd told him about her upbringing, but she was able to devote all of her focus on the things that she enjoyed. The more methodical and logical, the better.
Charlotte wrote something else down on her notebook and he scowled as she handed it back to him for him to look at.
"No," he said, his voice growing annoyed, "we are not throwing her out into the forest to fend for herself, especially not in the middle of a blizzard."
Charlotte made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat and turned around, stomping off back to the lab that he'd constructed in the servant's quarters. He'd felt more comfortable in the smaller rooms than the castle at large, and there were a number of heavy doors that were easily repurposed to keep himself from rampaging around in his lab when he transformed. Before his transformations had begun to last longer and longer, and long before he'd rescued the two girls from where they'd been tied in the woods by the townspeople, Severus had been overly optimistic that he'd be able to work through his "condition" by the first snow. He'd made so much progress over the years, using a combination of his own research with a number of promising studies published around the world regarding spontaneous transformation.
But apparently it wasn't enough.
Severus levitated some logs into the large fireplace near the back of the kitchens and ignited them with his wand. He also transfigured a threadbare carpet into a large, somewhat plush cushion.
"There," he said, as Hermione padded onto it and began to knead it with her forepaws like an oversized cat. "She'll be fine while we work in the lab."
At this, Hermione's ears perked and she bounded over to him, bumping her head against his shoulder. "Mrrr?"
"Don't you give me that," Severus grumbled as Hermione looked up at him with soulful eyes. "I have no idea when I will be changing back, and in any case, you don't want to be trapped like that forever, do you?"
"Mrrrr!" Hermione bumped his hand insistently.
"Fine." Severus petted her behind the ears somewhat stiffly.
Hermione purred and rolled onto her back, looking up at him with her eyes half-lidded with pleasure as he gave her chin and neck scritches. Despite himself, Severus found himself enjoying himself far more than he thought he should, especially given the circumstances. It was surprisingly peaceful to watch her purring under his touch, though a deeper part of himself felt the stirrings of something more complicated. Before he could think much about it, however, Mimi brought a platter of cold cuts and left them near the fireplace. The sound of the tray clattering softly against the stone floor as Mimi set it down seemed to snap Severus out of his reverie and he gave Hermione's head a pat before turning to leave.
"Mrr…" Hermione said, her ears flattening down with disappointment.
"I'll be back, you insufferable creature," Severus replied, his voice surprisingly soft.
Hermione seemed to accept this and lay down in front of the fire, her eyes flickering in the firelight as she watched the door shut slowly behind him.