"Oh, I see. That is what happened!" Hermione said the next morning as she bent over the open book after she returned from the Potions lab where she had completed and bottled the Wolfsbane. She would deliver it to the recipients later. "Let me guess," she said as she looked up at Bat Severus after she had finished reading the indicated chapter. "You anticipated Voldemort's attack and had prepared some potions beforehand. However, at some point you had to transform and the potions weren't geared for the much smaller amount of mass that you had as a bat. Therefore, you essentially overdosed. Am I correct?"
The bat just glared at her. Insufferable know-it-all! he thought, both irritated and impressed that she got it right on her first try.
"I guess that is my answer," she replied and allowed herself a small laugh at his obvious discomfiture before looking at him seriously again. "Do you know of any way to reverse the effects so that you can be human again?" she asked and then breathed a little sigh of relief for him when he nodded hesitantly. However, then a sly smile returned to her face. "Wait a minute. I don't have to kiss you in order to get you to turn back into the Half-Blood Prince again, do I?" He blinked in surprise at this comment and when he opened his eyes again, a lynx was sitting in the chair opposite him. After flicking her tail nonchalantly and laughing at him again for a minute, she got down to business. "Alright then, tell me everything!"
Lynx Hermione then listened intently as he explained everything that had happened after she had left him in the shack five years ago, the potions that he had used then, how the large concentration of ingredients had reacted with his smaller bat form, and the counterspell potion which he believed would allow him to access his human form again. To her credit, Severus noted that she didn't interrupt, and didn't ask any questions until she had heard him out. He did notice how her paws twitched, however, and wondered about that.
"Merlin, I wish I could take some notes!" she suddenly exclaimed and cleared up the mystery.
"Still the swot, I see!" he commented snarkily, and then it was his turn to laugh at her.
"Hush it, you!" she growled at him good-naturedly. "We both know that I could eat you if I wanted to!" After he had given her the bat equivalent of a sneer, she laughed again.
Merlin, are we actually teasing each other and having fun together? thought Severus incredulously for a moment and wondered when…if…that had ever happened to him before. Suddenly, her voice broke into his thoughts again.
"Seriously, though, I love my animal form. However, the limitations are so frustrating! It does you a great deal of credit that you have been able to adjust and live as well as you have for the past five years like this without so many of the human…amenities…to which you were accustomed!"
"It was extremely difficult at first, but it does get easier with time and practice," he agreed, reluctant to admit to any weaknesses.
"Well, let's see if we can get you back into the practice of being human again!" she said reassuringly. "The first thing that we need to do is to get that book so that I can check out the formula for the potion and see what ingredients that we will need. Something tells me that it's not going to be as simple as raiding one of my supply cupboards. Complex potions usually require rare ingredients." She sighed when he nodded in agreement before answering..
"I know that I have a few of them in my personal supplies - back in my chambers. They should still be fine, even after all of this time. However, there are probably a few that we will have to collect ourselves since they will have to be fresh."
Hermione nodded her understanding. "The question is how? I can't get into your rooms and you can't fly with a heavy book or a bundle of potion ingredients. Lonny could probably get the book for us, but he wouldn't be able to differentiate between the ingredients well enough to bring us the right ones." They both fell thoughtfully quiet for a moment until Hermione gasped excitedly when the answer came to her. Severus looked at quizzically and she smiled, showing a row of frightfully sharp teeth, before she told him her suggestion. "How do you feel about telling Minerva about all of this?" she asked. "Hear me out," she said firmly when she mistook the flash of emotions across his face for one of disagreement.
"First of all," Hermione pointed out. "She regrets how things ended with you. In fact, ever since she found out the truth about your loyalties and Dumbledore's death, I believe that your memory has haunted her. In fact, I strongly suspect that is why she doesn't come down to the dungeons anymore or why she has never unsealed your chambers. She would want to see you, Severus. I guarantee it! She would keep your secret, as well, if you choose to continue to stay apart and live out your life elsewhere. You know that she would! On the other hand, you will also need her support if you plan to rejoin the wizarding world after your problem is handled. At any rate, she won't be pleased if we keep it from her much longer and she finds out later. As of right now, she will understand – especially since I just found out for certain and you weren't able to communicate with anyone else before now. Also she, as the current Headmistress, is the only one who has the power and authority to ask the Castle to unseal your chambers. As soon as that happens, we can get the books, supplies, and anything else that we need to get you back on your way to being human again! Plus, you will have somebody else to talk to besides a dunderhead like me. That should please you…even if nothing else does."
Severus had wanted to tell Minerva his secret for years, so he didn't need to be cajoled into it. He let the Lynx Witch finish her argument, however, even if he couldn't tell if that last sentence was meant to be a joke or not. "Don't let it go to your fuzzy little head, but you are right," he then told her. "It would be beneficial in many ways to let Minerva know the truth." Then he paused before adding, "…and you have never been a dunderhead." Then he closed his eyes and pretended to drift off into a thought-filled bat nap which meant that he missed the look of pleased surprise on her feline face at what was obviously meant to be a compliment.
Minerva looked confused when Hermione popped into her office and requested her presence for Sunday tea in her chambers. She and Hermione often had tea together and she was quite fond of the girl and really felt as if she were a favorite niece or even a beloved goddaughter, rather than just a former pupil. However, her Potions Mistress was acting oddly excited today and she wondered what the special occasion was – especially when Hermione asked her to make sure that she came alone since it was a private matter.
Severus was extremely agitated when the time for tea finally arrived. He had waited for five years to talk to one of the only people whom he had ever really respected, who had unfortunately thought the worst of him for the longest time for obvious reasons, and who thought that he was dead. Now that the time had arrived to finally see her, he found that he just couldn't sit still. He climbed the drapes, the bookcases, and even Hermione once in her human form before she growled at him to remind him that he was still edible. Then he took to swooping in and out of the balcony door that Hermione had charmed for him. It would open and close for him in a similar way that the windows in his chamber had so that he could easily fly out to do his business and then get back into the warmth as soon as possible. He was grateful for this because he was stuck in animal form, after all. Therefore, the loo wasn't really an option for him.
Finally, the achingly familiar knock sounded on the door and he settled down on his perch and nervously wrapped his wings around himself like a security blanket. Hermione smiled reassuringly at him as she went to answer it and he was surprised to realize how grateful he was that she was doing this, as well as everything else, for him and with him. Just then, however, Minerva entered the room and she immediately spied the large bat on the perch.
"How is your foundling doing, Hermione?" she asked kindly, but in the same crisp Scottish tones that had commanded the respect of both children and adults alike for more years than Hermione had been alive. When Hermione told her that he was fully healed, the Headmistress nodded, pleased to hear it. "And did you find out where he belonged?" she asked.
"I did, indeed!" Hermione grinned with anticipation. "In fact, that is why I asked you here today. I hope that you don't mind if we postpone tea for a little bit while I tell you…or that we change into our feline forms for the story."
"My dear girl, whatever is this about?" Minerva asked, quite confused by the request.
"Please just do it, Minerva. Trust me!" said the young woman before she shifted and suddenly a lynx was sitting in her chair instead.
"Very well, Miss Granger, but only because you aren't usually one to do foolish things – unless those boys are with you, at any rate." Minerva smirked a bit at this and instantly shifted into her cat form herself. "Well, Hermione, what did you need to tell me like this?"
"Oh, I'm not the one who wanted to talk to you, Headmistress," the larger of the two felines stated. "He was!" With that, she indicated the bat with her head.
At her words the bat slowly unfurled his wings and peered uncertainly at the smaller of the two cats. "Hello, Minerva!" he said in his unmistakable smooth voice. "It's been a long time."
"Severus!" Cat Minerva gasped. Any doubts that he may have had about her reception of the news were immediately removed when the usually staid tabby cat launched herself across the table at the bat and almost knocked him off of his perch in her eagerness to touch him all over with her paws to determine if he was real. "Is it really you, my dear boy?" she cried and then proceeded to groom his ears with such motherly ferocity that he would have blushed…if bats could do that sort of thing.
Once the Headmistress was reassured of Severus's continued existence and of his actual presence in the room, she demanded to hear his story. Therefore, the three of them spent several hours in earnest conversation. Severus told his story and Minerva mewed sympathetically. "Five years!" she exclaimed. "If only I had known that you were down there, Severus, my boy. However, I just don't transform as much as I used to because it's a bit tough on these old joints – especially down in the cold dungeons. In fact, I have not been down there as a cat at all since you…went missing."
Severus shook his head at that. "I have never blamed you for it, Minerva, so please do not blame yourself. There is no way that you could have known. I was the one who chose to keep my form a secret. If I had trusted in you a bit more, I would not be in my current position. It is entirely my own fault…and if Professor Granger had not found me in the snow that day when she did…nobody would have been any wiser as to my real death."
"Oh, yes! Another thing to be grateful to our dear Miss Granger for. I do hope that you also know that she has done a remarkable job in the Potions department since Horace retired…again."
"I have had the opportunity to observe her in both the classroom and the lab, Minerva. Therefore, I am well aware that your praise is not misplaced." Severus conceded, much to the surprise of both of the women.
"Keep up all of this sweet talk, Severus, and I just might decide not to eat you after all." Hermione declared with a smile.
"That's probably for the best, Miss Granger. I daresay that I wouldn't agree with your delicate constitution and would probably cause you a world of gastric distress, at any rate." Severus retorted smoothly. Hermione's whiskers just trembled with silent laughter at these words.
Minerva just sat there and eyed her two former pupils with surprise. Merlin! she thought. I never expected that I would see the two of them actually getting along…and did Severus just compliment her? Is it just gratitude that she saved his life…or…is there something more there? After all, they have been sharing living quarters for some time now.
Then Hermione started to explain what they wanted to do next and Minerva had to push those intriguing thoughts away for the time being after she determined that she would watch the two of them carefully and do everything that she could to encourage their…friendship…at the very least. She knew that those two would be very good for each other, since they were very similar in a lot of ways. When Hermione had finished the explanation, with occasional input from Severus, Minerva agreed that it sounded like a good plan – especially since it was the only one that any of them had at the moment. Then she noticed that it was getting late and she still had work to do. Therefore, she reluctantly shifted out of her comfortable cat form, made even more so by the warm fire, and turned back into her human one. She then tried to ignore the ache in her knees as she turned to face the bat again.
"Severus, dear, thank you for trusting me with this. Your secret is safe with me and, of course, I will do anything that I can to help. I will perform the ritual to ask the Castle to unseal your chambers as soon as I get back to the Head's office. Just give me a couple of hours and then you can probably go in and get everything that you need. You will probably need to keep it disillusioned and warded though, so the children won't find their way in once they come back to class tomorrow…but you would probably do that anyway, wouldn't you? Regardless, once you figure out what potion ingredients you need that we don't already have, let me know, and we will try to procure them – in one way or the other." With those parting words, she stroked both the bat's and the lynx's heads affectionately and then apparated straight out of Hermione's quarters into her own. Apparating inside of the Castle and grounds had always been the Head's prerogative, and she used it tonight in order to avoid climbing all of those stairs with her sore joints. Besides the ache, though, she was the happiest that she had been in a long time! Now that she knew the truth about Severus, it was as if a weight that she had been carrying for years had been suddenly lifted off of her shoulders.