Severus burst into his quarters and was torn from his internal fuming by a loud yelp. He turned and saw that Hermione had been launched and hurled a few feet when he had opened his door. She must have been lying on the floor in front of it.
"Shit," He breathed, rushing forward to her side, stroking his large hands over her coat to search for injuries. Finding none, he whipped out his wand and did a few diagnostic spells to make sure, breathing a sigh of relief when all the results came up normal. Hermione fumbled a moment but stood up and gave him a toothy grin before pouncing on him, wrapping her paws around his neck and burrowing her head into his shoulder.
She pulled back immediately, her eyes searching his face, and Severus realized that he hadn't moved a muscle after finding that she was ok, that his body was stiff as a rod and his hands were fisted and pushing down onto the floor, and that his walls were now in place over his emotions, meaning his face was completely blank. He tried to sigh, to release the tension in his body, to allow some cracks in his walls to let some positive emotions through - but he couldn't. Summoning his strength, he pushed Hermione's heavy lioness body off his person and stood, moving away from her to the kitchen to pour himself a drink.
It was all too much. If he afforded Hermione so much as a smile his walls would break like a dam and all the negative emotions and thoughts would overwhelm him. He needed time to process what he'd just been told, what he'd been ordered to do.
He drank the whole glass of firewhiskey in one gulp and poured another.
And another.
And another.
Hermione was afraid. Severus had gone, to what she assumed was a Death Eater meeting, while she was asleep. She wasn't sure how long he'd been gone, but after a while of pacing she curled up in front of the door. She knew it wasn't a smart place to lie because she'd get hit when he opened the door, but at least she'd know when he came home.
She hadn't been expecting to get launched across half the room when he burst through the door and strode in like there was fire at his heels.
She'd seen a flash of concern in his eyes, and he'd checked her for injuries, but then his walls came down.
He'd pushed her away and gone to the kitchen to drink. Hermione had allowed him a few before going in and butting against him, using her body to try to force him away from the large bottle of firewhiskey on the counter in front of him. He was surprisingly strong and resisted even her most forceful efforts with a sneaky dodge, sending Hermione barreling into the side of the counter. She was beginning to panic, and panic meant that she had trouble thinking straight, even more so since she was stuck in her lioness form. If she was human, she'd just let her magical instincts take over, and usually a solution or spell would pop into her mind for her to utilize. Not so in her lioness form. All she had was brute strength, but apparently Severus wasn't drunk enough to be stupid or clumsy and had some moves of his own at his disposal despite his inebriated state.
She'd lost count of how many drinks he'd poured and swallowed, but it was finally starting to affect him.
She slammed into his legs again and he stumbled to the side, grabbing at the counter and wall to balance himself.
"Leave m'be witch," he slurred, swaying slightly as he stretched his arm out to grab the bottle which was now just out of reach.
"Go aw-" Hermione barreled into him again, almost knocking him to the floor. His face twisted with fury and he fumbled to get his wand out of his pocket.
Oh shit.
Hermione lunged, grabbing the end of the wand gingerly but firmly between her teeth, tearing it from Severus's hand before he could get a good grip on it and aim it in her direction. Hermione sprinted to the other side of the room, ducking behind Severus's arm chair, wand still in her mouth.
"Bitch!" Severus bellowed, making his way determinedly towards Hermione, using the back of the couch to balance himself.
"Gi'me back my fucking wand," he spat, rounding the corner of the couch towards his chair, which Hermione was still behind. Hermione backed up slowly as he approached with his arm outstretched, her hackles raised and claws unsheathed subconsciously.
She growled in response, baring her teeth around the wood that rested on her tongue.
Severus lunged forward without warning, falling onto Hermione and wrapping his arms around her neck, bringing her head to the floor into a choke hold.
Hermione braced her paws on the floor, digging her claws into the surface, and fought to wriggle her neck out from between his biceps that held her. One of his hands was fisted into the loose skin under her neck, the other wrenching on her collar. Unable to slip away, she instead pushed into him, knocking him to the floor so that Hermione was between his knees and her face was pressed over his shoulder. He adjusted himself so that he could reach one hand up to grab at his wand. Panicking, Hermione bunched up her hindquarters and launched herself forward, accidentally pushing off of one of Severus's feet, her claws digging into the dragon hide leather of his boot.
He twisted underneath her as she flew forward so that his arms wouldn't get pulled out of their sockets. She just made it over his head before she hit the floor, one of her back legs narrowly missing his ear. Hermione was tugged forcefully back around so that she was face to face with Severus. Both arms were outstretched and gripping either side of her head, hands still curled around her collar. His eyes were glazed and he was breathing heavily. His mouth was close to her nose and every time he exhaled Hermione got woozy from the strong stench of the firewhiskey that overwhelmed her sensitive nose.
They stayed that way for a moment until they both moved at once, Severus removing one hand from her neck to grab at his wand, Hermione pushing herself to the right, breaking free from his grasp at last. She sprinted down the hall, making it only a few feet from the door to her room before a feral growl came from behind her and an intense feeling of dread washed over Hermione. She was so screwed.
Two giant paws landed on her shoulders and an immense weight fell on top of Hermione, causing her legs to collapse under her. She slammed into the floor, her mouth opening in shock, causing the wand in her mouth to skitter across the floor ahead of her. Her lioness instincts immediately surged, and Hermione fought to keep control. The weight disappeared from on top of her as the tiger lunged forward to get the wand. Hermione rose and burst forward, grabbing one of the tiger's back legs between her two fore paws, causing him to whirl around with a snarl, his teeth bared and his eyes wild. Hermione watched as the last bit of Severus disappeared from the dark eyes, and she made the flash decision to let her lioness instincts take over. There was no more Severus and Hermione. There were only two large, wild cats ready to fight.
The lioness turned and sprinted down the hallway back to the living room, followed by the large tiger. They met behind the couch in the empty space between it and the door, circling one another. Their bodies were low to the ground, tails swishing, lips raised and snarls escaping between bared teeth. Both their ears were pinned; the tiger revealing a white spot and the lion revealing black ones on the soft fur of each ear. The tiger was much bigger than the lioness, and well muscled, although lean. The lioness was lean as well, and slightly ribby, but her legs moved under her easily and with utter silence; she practically glided across the floor. Each of the tiger's movements was purposeful and planned, and backed with experience. He waited for the rookie fighter to move, to make a mistake in her attack, so he could take the advantage.
But the lioness was smart. She knew she was inexperienced, and that the tiger was enraged. She waited for his patience and control to break, ready for him to charge, blinded with fury, so she could gain the upper hand.
They circled a few more times, and ended up both moving at once, both cats reaching their limits and needing to move, to fight. The tiger reared forward, front legs off the ground, paws and claws outstretched, hindquarters rippling with coiling muscles. The lioness ducked low and surged towards her enemy, aiming for his exposed underside. She snuck just below his sharp claws, opening her mouth to make contact with the soft white and black fur of his stomach.
The tiger brought it's two paws down to the lioness's back, digging into the flesh of her hips, forcing her hind end to the ground. The lioness twisted, planting her paws into the tiger's chest which was hovering above her face. She pushed with all her strength and lifted her mouth, biting at the skin directly behind the tiger's foreleg. The tiger growled with pain and lowered his head to bite the lioness's thigh, evoking a yowl from the lioness's throat, causing her to twist under him and scramble at the wood floor, trying to gain purchase so she could escape the teeth now implanted in her flesh and the claws digging into her. A few of her claws caught a crack in the wood floor and she hauled herself forward, surging with enough strength to shoot out from under the tiger to get her upper body over his back, reaching one foreleg over to the opposite side of his body to dig into the hollow in front of his hip, the other reaching around under his tail and slapping into his thigh, digging in ferociously.
The momentum of the attack caused the tiger to stumble slightly, and he tightened his grip with this claws on the lioness, but released his bite in order to raise his head up to balance himself. Relieved of the pain and pressure, the lioness was able to shift enough to scramble with her hind end to push herself up into a standing position.
Now both felines had a hold on the other's hind end, which was not an advantageous position for either one. The tiger moved swiftly, releasing the lioness's hindquarters in order to brace himself on the floor to duck his head under her stomach, pushing her away from him in hopes she would release him and fall.
Instead, as the lioness's back legs flew off the floor, she used all of her strength in her core and upper body to pull herself around, her tail swinging wildly to help balance her. Her lower body now out of reach of the tiger, she pushed off the floor and released her forelegs from the tiger's hind end, reaching forward to grab around his neck as her back legs lifted off the ground and landed on his scarred back.
The tiger twisted his head around and met the lioness's movement, digging his canines into the exposed flesh under her neck as she tried to bring her own sharp fangs into the back of his. The lioness growled in fury, her throat vibrating in the tiger's mouth, and she released her right paw in order to smack it into the right side of the tiger's face, digging her claws in around his eye and in his cheek.
The tiger pushed himself sideways and fell, slamming both himself and the lioness on top of him into the floor. Still with his mouth dug into the lioness's throat, he rose over her, overpowering her and raising a paw into the air, striking it home and slashing it across her ribs before planting his paw down firmly on her back. He dug in with his claws, planted his other paw firmly on the floor, and tensed his body, moving his head forward to quickly grab more of the lioness's throat into his mouth, and he moved to pull backwards, to rip out the lioness's throat.
The sound of the door to the quarters opening was lost in the screaming yowl of the lioness and the triumphant, ferocious roar of the tiger, only slightly muffled by the flesh in his mouth.
A flash of light and all that could be heard was the quiet, desperate whine of the lioness bleeding profusely on the floor.