The Cat's Pyjamas

by Healer Pomfrey

All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
The translation of the Pangur Ban poem is from an unknown author (chapter titles).

This chapter is un-betaed, and I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.

#+$

This story is dedicated to my wonderful friend and beta Mushcorn

7 - When at home we sit & find

"Patrick?" Pangur asked carefully. "Is something with Goldie? She will come here, right?" 'Oh Merlin, please let everything be all right,' he thought, impatiently looking at the adult.

Patrick slowly cleared his throat so as to win some time, before he replied, "Yes, eventually, she will arrive. The problem is that she refuses to fly. Tonight, they're going to bring the remaining three horses here; however, they're not certain if Goldie won't refuse to come again. Apparently, they have tried convincing her to come every night without success. In fact, I was wondering..."

"Oh Patrick, can we go and see her?" Pangur urgently interrupted the vet. "I'm sure that she'll be ready to come if I tell her so. She was the one who asked me to take her with me."

Patrick remained thoughtful for an instant and finally said, "I already thought about that, but since you weren't well enough, I decided to ask you if you wanted to come on Sunday."

"Oh yes," Pangur replied eagerly, "but can't we go tonight? Please, I can't wait to see Goldie and to have her here, and she has to fly in the evening anyway."

"Okay," Patrick agreed. "I must ask Poppy and your grandmother if you may go, but if they don't mind, we'll visit Goldie tonight. Now, will you come and assist checking on the cats?"

Pangur happily followed Patrick into the clinic. Besides the brewing of potions, caring for the animals in the clinic was his favourite activity, and he enjoyed being together with Patrick. 'It is as if he was my father,' he thought, 'just like Severus, my godfather. My life has become really good. I'm the happiest boy in the world.' During the next few hours, he changed several injured dogs' bandages, helped Patrick to check on the cats and dogs, on which the vet could not use magic for one or the other reason, or just calmed and held the animals, so that Patrick could give them shots or medicine. By the time they headed to the Atrium for dinner, he felt exhausted but also very happy, knowing that they had been able to help many sick animals. So far, Patrick had never allowed Pangur to accompany him to the part of the clinic, in which he kept the more dangerous animals, explaining that the boy had to learn several defence spells, before he could even think about meeting wild, magical animals like dragons.

猫のパジャマ

To Pangur's delight, Minerva and Poppy grudgingly allowed him to accompany Patrick, and right after dinner the same evening, Patrick apparated them to the hippovol stables. While he still greeted the Seals, Pangur took off towards the stable with the Candy Cane foals.

"Goldie," Pangur shouted happily as he stopped right in front of his familiar. "Why didn't you come? I was waiting for you," he asked in a soft voice, laying his arms around the foal's neck.

'I was waiting for you to come and fly me to your home,' Goldie replied telepathically, rubbing her nose against Pangur's face.

"But I can't fly," Pangur stammered, inwardly sighing in relief when Patrick and the farmer entered the stable.

"Only if she is willing to let us both ride on her. You may not fly alone, considering that you have never even sat on a hippovol," Patrick decided, and a short while later, Pangur sat in front of Patrick on Goldie's back.

Pangur held his breath and firmly kept his arms around Goldie's neck, feeling very much reassured by the fact that Patrick held him close with both arms, when the small Candy cane horse flapped her wings and slowly took into the air. 'Wow, this is too cool,' he thought as they flew over Lexington. He could see many small lights in one place, which he assumed had to be the centre of the town, where they had been shopping the previous week.

'The vet is very nice. Is he your father?' Goldie suddenly asked telepathically. Before Pangur could think of a reply, the horse continued, sounding slightly reproachful, 'I thought you wouldn't come back to me. I've been waiting for you to contact me the whole time.'

"I'm so sorry Goldie. I badly wanted to speak with you, but I didn't know how to use telepathy," Pangur replied in a small voice, thinking, 'Maybe Goldie can help me learn how to think to her, but I can't ask her that in front of Patrick. I'll speak with her about it when I get a chance to be alone with her.'

As if the horse had been able to read his thoughts, Goldie told him, 'You just have to imagine that you were speaking with me and direct your thoughts towards me. It's easy.'

'Hmm, do you understand me?' Pangur thought back; however, there was no reply from Goldie, before Patrick directed her into the direction of the new horse stables behind the clinic.

猫のパジャマ

During the weekend, Pangur spent much time with Goldie; however, to his great disappointment he was not allowed to ride on her before the horse riding classes, which were going to take place the following week.

'Thank Merlin they didn't begin last week,' Pangur thought on Monday morning, when he was finally allowed back to classes. He felt very annoyed to have nearly missed a whole week due to his own carelessness and resolved to pay more attention in the future. However, during the following months, it became clear that his problems with magic did not only result in his own mistakes. While he once a month used more magic than his body could handle, each time he had caught as much as a slight cold, his condition worsened immensely at the smallest amount of magic he cast.

Fortunately, horse riding on the hippovols did not afford any magic, and Pangur enjoyed himself very much riding on Goldie during their Horse riding classes. When each of the first years was able to firmly sit in the saddle, they were finally allowed to fly, and they also began to learn playing Hippolo.

Professor Hooch noticed soon that Pangur was very good at catching the Snitch and promised, "When we're going to set up the Hippolo tournament for the next school year, you will be our Seeker."

"Is every class going to have their own team?" Hermione asked, her voice laced with anxiousness. "Do we have to participate?"

Pangur inwardly chuckled when Professor Hooch rolled her eyes. "No Ms. Granger, each class will be paired with their partner class. The second years will have a team together with the ninth years, the third years with the eight years and so on. The first years will have to adjust to the school first, while the tenth years must learn for their NEWTs, so that they won't have a team. Therefore, four teams are going to participate in the Hippolo tournament. If everything goes well, we'll commence with Hoopitch the following year."

'Thank Merlin Hippolo comes first,' Pangur thought in relief. So far, he had been suspended from their broom riding class, because the adults feared that it would afford too much magic to fly on a broomstick, and Pangur was not very happy about it to say the least.

He felt also totally annoyed by the fact that by the end of his first school year he still had no clue how he could communicate with Goldie when they were not together.

"I shall teach you during the summer holidays," Severus promised one day when Pangur once again had to miss classes and instead helped in the Potions lab. "It's not easy though, and you have to be careful not to apply too much magic."

'Yes, I know that,' Pangur thought, inwardly rolling his eyes. 'Bad enough that I'm having these problems all the time, but does everyone have to make such a fuss?'

Pangur was very sad when the school year ended. On the one hand, all the teachers had promised to utilize the holidays to teach him everything that he had missed during the last few months, but on the other hand, his friends were all going to return home for two months. He liked all of his classmates; however, Hermione, Eddie and Adrian were his best friends. The four of them were inseparable, and everyone used to call them "The Quartett".

猫のパジャマ

On the last day before the summer holidays, Pangur observed together with his friends how their parents arrived with several group Portkeys. Minerva and Medusa had invited everyone's parents to visit the school for the weekend. Seeing his classmates being pulled into hugs and then stand together with their parents, Pangur was just about to feel a little lonely, when Minerva came and pulled him into her arms.

"Don't worry, Pangur. Medusa will take my place today. I'm going to be here for you," she whispered, laying her arms around his back.

'She is going to just be my granny instead of acting as the Headmistress today?' Pangur thought, feeling very happy as he noticed that indeed Minerva remained at his side the whole weekend just like all the other parents were together with their children. The students showed their parents the school, made an excursion to Lexington and spent some time just hanging around with their friends and their parents, enjoying their free time. Only on Sunday morning, when all students were gathered on the grounds to watch a Hippolo match, Minerva had reserved some time for conversations with parents, who wanted to speak with her. However, Pangur was too happy to mind her absence during the match. Professor Hooch had set up two teams of students, whom she deemed good enough to become members of the respective Hippolo teams from the next school year onwards, and Pangur was very happy that he was allowed to play Seeker, especially since he could ride on Goldie.

It was a bright, warm summer day, and Pangur was fooled a few times, when he thought to have seen the Snitch only to realise that it had been something else twinkling in the sunshine. However, shortly after he noticed that Minerva came and sat next to Poppy in the teachers' seats, he managed to catch the Snitch and win the match for his team.

Too quickly for Pangur's liking, the weekend passed, and with mixed feelings did he return to his own room in Minerva's quarters on Sunday evening. However, he should not have much time to grieve about his friends' absence. When he got up in the morning, wondering if he had time to go and see Goldie before breakfast, he found a parchment on his desk. Curiously taking it into his hands, he realised that it was a time-table.

Monday morning Charms (Medusa), afternoon in the Animal clinic
Tuesday morning Transfiguration (Minerva), afternoon in the Potions lab
Wednesday morning Telepathy (Severus), afternoon in the Animal clinic
Thursday morning Defence (Severus), afternoon in the Potions lab
Friday morning Healing (Poppy), afternoon in the Animal clinic

"Pangur, this is only a suggestion," Minerva suddenly spoke up, causing the boy to jump up in surprise.

'When did she come in?' he wondered, having been so engrossed in his lecture that he had not heard anything. "No, this is great," he replied quickly, "but won't they mind teaching me during their holidays?"

"No Pangur," Minerva said, sighing. "It is not your fault that you missed so much during the school year or that you can't do much magic at once. You need special classes, where the teacher can fully concentrate on you. In the afternoon, you may assist Patrick or Severus, but only if you wish to do so and not the whole afternoon anyway." Seeing that Pangur listened with interest, she explained, "Poppy, Rolanda and I will take you flying."

"Oh right," Pangur suddenly remembered. "I promised Goldie to ask if I could fly her every day during the holidays."

"Whenever the weather allows it, you may do so, and we also want to teach you to ride on a broom, provided that you're interested. We'll see if you're able to spend enough magic without harming yourself."

"Of course I want to learn," Pangur replied eagerly. "I want to play Hoopitch together with everyone else next school year."

猫のパジャマ

When Minerva and Pangur walked to the Atrium a few minutes later, Pangur thought happily, 'This is going to be a very interesting summer, the best I ever had.'

Only Severus was present in the Atrium. His hands wrapped around his favourite green mug that held an image of an ingredients spitting cauldron, he seemed completely engrossed in a newspaper that was spread out on the table in front of him.

"Everyone seems to deem sleeping in higher than enjoying the quiet of the holidays," Severus said dryly, quirking an eyebrow at Pangur. Seeing that the boy's eyes were fixed on his newspaper, he continued, "Although we do not intend to return to Britain any time soon, we deem it necessary to keep ourselves informed about the British magical world. Therefore, we choose to read the Daily Prophet."

"Anything interesting?" Minerva queried, stifling a yawn.

Pangur did not notice that Severus shot him a glance, before he pointed to the cover page. However, when he took his seat at the table, the main headline caught his eyes.

'Failure of Blood Wards – Where is Harry Potter?'

tbc...

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