Summary: AU, SSHG, Sometimes your "friends" are far more dangerous than your enemies. At least you expect your enemy to shank you in the dark.

Beta Love: *Shifty eyes* Dragon and the Rose

A/N: Meow.


Nundu It Like That

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.

Marie Curie


"I'm tired of being the poor bloke who has a bloody hand-me-down familiar and clothes. I'm tired of being in a family who doesn't have even one house elf and just has a stupid ghoul hanging out in the attic," Ron growled as he gathered the ingredients from Snape's storage room. "I'll show everyone that I'm someone they need to respect!"

He stirred the cauldron briskly until it turned a radiant golden colour.

"Harry didn't need that stupid luck portion but I did," he muttered. "I'm going to be the most powerful wizard in the whole ruddy world! It's going to take more than a hundred thousand witches and wizards to so much as tickle my skin!"

He dropped in a few dragon scales he'd nicked from his brother Charlie, a handful of Demiguise hair, ground unicorn horn, a couple of gryphon feathers, various random magical beast bits from Snape's stores, and anything that looked even remotely dangerous. The potion shimmered brightly and turned a dark amber and seemed to smell like rainbows across the moors after a rain.

Ron grinned and just knew he was going to be the most powerful magical person his parents had ever seen. They would all regret making fun of him from this day forward!

He poured the potion into the special flask, wincing as it was still too hot to handle. He'd have to drink it when it cooled down a mite. He had no cork because he had expected to just drink it straight out of the cauldron. Shrugging, he quickly vanished any evidence of his brewing and grinned widely.

Perhaps, had he realised the potions being too hot likely meant his luck had already run out, he might have been more careful, but Ron was confidently high on his luck.

He took the potion and strode out of the potions supply closet, staggered slightly as he snagged his foot on the cauldron as he stood. A small droplet of the potion dripped onto the floor, where a small spider began to smoke slightly as the potion hit it.

Ron obliviously left the potions closet and closed the door, moving the potion back and forth in his hands like a hot potato because it was still much too hot. He tried to use his robes to hold on to it without it burning him—

And ran straight into Hermione, who was out on her evening patrol as prefect—

The flask slid out of his hands, the precious liquid sailing through the air as it fell, scalding one Hermione Granger as she was drenched from head to toe in freshly brewed potion.

The last thing Ronald Bilius Weasley saw was a giant spider crashing through the door of Snape's potion storage closet, breathing fire as blue-white magic crackled over its gargantuan body and the last thing he heard was Hermione's shriek of agony as she was transformed into something garbled and inhuman—

Just before he slammed into the tall body of a furious Snape.

"Aw, fuck," Ron cursed as the giant spider skittered toward them on a missiion, venom and magic dripping from its huge mandibles as they clacked together loudly.


The first thing Snape saw was his absolutely demolished Potions closet. The second was a terrified Ronald Weasley doing the reverse spider away from the actual arachnid that was bee-lining toward him with clacking mandibles.

The scream, however, brought his attention to the flash of familiar brunette curls and a prefect's badge. A cloud of sizzling sparks and smoke rose up off her body as she shrieked, and he knew from the sound that it had already soaked into her skin. There was a distinct difference between a potion explosion versus a potion exposure—and that was one reason why he always wore thick woollen robes like he did.

It was far better to be naked and safe with a potion all over your robes than burned or exposed to some horribly botched potion mishap that only a hormone-addled adolescent mind could come up with.

But, that was neither here nor there, as the depth of the cockup showed its ugly head in the form of a huge leopard-like creature that threw itself at the giant spider with a savage roar, the sound of teeth crunching on the hard arachnid carapace with a fingernails-on-a-chalkboard screeching noise that set his teeth on edge.

He'd seen leopards, panthers, and even lions at the zoo as a child—one of the few times he remembered when his family had fun together before his magic had made his father realise that Eileen hadn't exactly been on the up and up with him with regard to her background.

He hadn't understood it back then, but he did now as he was forced under the bootheels of two power-obsessed masters.

Trust was so bloody rare in his family. His father had loved his mum and even him, but her decision to keep something that "big" from him without ever giving him a chance to digest the implications had changed things, and not for the better.

Well, Severus understood that feeling, now.

He understood lip service versus stark reality.

No one, he knew, had ever trusted him. Not a single person. Not his students, not even his snakes. Not the headmaster. Not his colleagues. Not his fellow Death Eaters, and most definitely not the Dark Lord.

Sabre-like fangs the length of swords were bared and crashed down on the spider's strangely mutated carapace, sinking into the gap between the cephalothorax and the abdomen, the teeth serving like pry bars between the mutated scaly armour. They slammed into the walls, their bodies disappearing from view and reappearing in other places, each time their bodies locked in mortal combat. Magic sparked and crackled off their bodies as bricks and stone seemed to melt amidst their fierce struggle.

And then, because the gods hated him above all other people in the world, the Merlin-cursed bloody Slytherin Quidditch team came back from a late practice right down the hall of combat.

"GET BACK!" Snape roared, using a blast of his magic to shield them and push them away from the battling beasts, not bothering to be kind or to cushion them before impact.

Their bodies crashed into the far stairs as the giant arachnid was slammed into the nearby portraits. The portrait occupants screamed and fled for their painted lives as they fell off the wall with a bang and clatter. The suits of armour were smashed to pieces, metal skittering across the floor and bouncing down the hall.

There was a nauseating CRACK as the great feline beast crushed the madly screeching arachnid completely between its great jaws, separating the two parts of the spider into two separate wriggling pieces.

And then, his snakes did the most mind-blowingly idiotic thing in the entire inglorious history of human stupidity.

The sodding fools proceeded to attack the great feline, hitting the beast straight to the head with a wide variety of magical attacks—everything from slicing hexes to much darker unofficial spells that no Hogwarts teacher would have taught them, most likely learned from their families or devised on their own.

It was then the giant feline raised her fur and scale covered head, lips pulling back from her venom-coated teeth as a cloud of virulent disease puffed out of her mouth with dragon flames. The fire ignited her venom, spreading fire down every fang and down to the floor with the drip of the fuel-like venom.

It was then, perhaps, the pureblood idiots noticed the green spots in the beast's ears—the spots that every pureblood knew from their childhood nursery rhymes:

Green spots in ears;

Wizards fear.

Nundu comes.

Nundu goes.

Nundu takes a hundred

To even slow

White Nundu teeth flash

Like swords in the night

Their disease sacs will kill

Before the morning light.

Do not think

Do not breathe

For your turbulent emotions

Makes the great Nundu seethe.

The Nundu growled lowly, ears laid flat against her head as she bared her teeth and leapt toward them much faster than humanly possible—

And those incredibly stupid little snakes—

They just kept casting like it would help them, though clearly she was entirely unharmed but now extremely pissed off.

Severus knew there was only a small chance he would get there in time, even with the aid of the special power of flight his "Lord" had gifted him with.

And then what would he do? He had no idea.

But he couldn't let Draco fucking Malfoy die due to his own stupidity (yet again) thanks to his worried mother's insistence on him making a bloody Vow.

He could either die for failing or die for trying.

Frankly, it was a pretty horrible trade-off.

He flew past the pissed-off Nundu, trailing black smoke all the way, and placed himself directly in her path, his hands sinking into the thick mane-like scruff around her head that covered the infamous sac where all the pain in the world was concentrated to allow the Nundu to breathe out the most lethal diseases that Wizardkind knew of.

He pressed his fingers in approximate position to what he was sure the old Star Trek television show would've called the katra points and attempted to use Legilimency even as he opened his mind at the same time—something, anything that would help him reach through that seething, snarling rage and calm it down.

His fathomless black eyes met the glowing orange-green irises of sulphurous hate, and he felt an incandescent rage that was so much like his own—the kind of rage that he'd known all his life.

Impotent, frustrating, unseen, misunderstood—

He realised Granger was still mixed in there somewhere, and there was a chance, however small, that she was just buried in the sudden onslaught of predatory (if highly annoyed) instincts.

He opened his mind wide, meeting that towering wave of seething, primal hate and rage—and drank it in and swallowed it into that endlessly deep lake within himself where he sent all his emotion to prevent him from killing Potter or revealing his true emotions to either Dark Lord or Dumbledore. He drank it in like he was the thirstiest man on Earth, and she was the only source of water that would ever exist.

He was sprawled flat on his back with the snarling head of the monstrous Nundu in his face, the scalding mutant fire-venom dripping on his robes. And as he stared into those eyes of wild hate straight on, he saw the pupils widen as the colour of her irises slowly changed into a warmer, honey-cognac.

Severus, he heard his name whispered in his mind.

Hermione, he said back in his mind. It was impossible to be formal as their minds were so tightly blended. It was impossible not to see every sin that had been committed against her—his along with so many others. But even as he felt the weight of that crushing guilt, she felt the sins that had been heaped upon him. Every single one.

Tears flowed unheeded down his face as he suddenly realised that she knew—

Someone—someone actually knew and understood—the weight of his guilt. His life.

She did not deserve your guilt, he heard Hermione say, and he couldn't even be angry with her. He felt her genuine grief on his behalf. Her righteous anger. Her sorrow.

For him.

No one in his entire cockup of a life had ever been his defender. Truly righteous on his behalf—not for some distorted ideal or for attention or for show—just for his sake.

Never once had Lily been truly angry on his behalf. Even when she had supposedly come to his "defence" when Potter and his mates had exposed him by the tree, her lips had been curved into a smirk at his humiliation. That had been what triggered his anger that day—the beginning of what he had believed would be a lifetime of guilt.

Yet, here was this young woman who knew nothing of him short of his ridicule and scorn, who accepted him and his multitude of sins and the terrible burden of his guilt—

He saw the strain an entire year's worth of time-turning had caused her as she fought so hard to balance her studies with looking after two idiot friends who were bound and determined to do everything in their power to throw themselves headlong into danger at every possible opportunity. He saw how much she did, how desperately she worked to get the slightest sign of approval from her parents and teachers—even just one kind word.

One sliver of encouragement.

He saw Dumbledore—much as he did with him—dangling the prize of his approval in front of her nose, encouraging her to do everything she possibly could to aid Harry Potter and that witless freckled menace that passed for his best mate. If she helped keep them out of trouble and on track, he would give her access to the knowledge she craved. He would be pleased with her.

Only her constant studying just made her even more of a pariah.

Know-it-all.

Swot.

Good for nothing but homework "help" that usually consisted of her doing most of it for them.

Good for nothing but getting their unworthy tails out of trouble.

And instead of appreciation, Dumbledore gave her the position of prefect—heaping even more responsibility on her in addition to saving the dynamic duo of dumbarsery from their idiot selves.

Setting Potter up as a lamb for slaughter while he perched his bony backside upon his golden throne on Olympus and played the part of the wise and benevolent god.

And in that moment of complete and utter understanding, Snape felt a warmth unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. It was like a thousand and one Christmases as a boy all rolled into one. The moment of anticipation and joyous rapture of opening a present only—

Instead of something horribly banal— Hermione's mind opened to his completely and the warm seal of a familiar bond snapped into place—into his magic.

Into his soul.

He cried out in mingled anguish and joy.

Pleasure unlike anything he had ever known.

Rapture unlike anything he could dream—to just know that someone, let alone a person with so much to give the world, understood him, accepted him, and—

Her hot, sandpaper tongue tenderly basted his face as his tears flowed down—the fiery venom no longer burning him. If anything, it felt like being dipped in steaming bathwater on a frigid winter's night.

He felt her unconditional love, and was shattered into a hundred, thousand pieces as her presence seeped between the cracks and glued him back together, reunited and whole.

Body.

Magic.

Soul.

His forehead pressed against her furred and scaled one, and he could feel her heat under the deep rumble of her thrumming, building roar.

An owl flew over just at that moment, and a scroll unfurled and happily announced (quite obliviously):

Congratulations, Master Severus Snape on your formation of a rare and highly coveted true familiar bond! Please press your hand and your familiar's talon, foot, paw, or what have you on the indicated square!

Severus, almost drunkenly, pressed his hand on the square marked for him, and Hermione cocked her head and pressed her massive paw on the poor scroll. The scroll expanded crazily to accommodate as a seal of official magic surged, and a delicate magical chain of glowing runes appeared on his wrists and on Hermione's forehead, the sparkle of bonding magic showing like a glowbug's thorax in her scales and fur.

The scroll rolled itself up, opened up a tiny vortex, and shoved itself into it with a POOF!

Severus stood up, using Hermione's massive bulk to stand up and steady himself, brushed himself off, pulled his hair back from his face, stood straighter, and roared, "Mr Weasley, you will march yourself IMMEDIATELY to the headmaster's office for breaking into my storage room and crafting whatever in Hades transfigured your fellow classmate into a XXXXX beast and that will be one hundred points from Gryffindor while you contemplate your navel and highly questionable life choices with Mr Filch while you polish every chandelier in Hogwarts without magic! And you—"

Severus felt himself seething even more at his snakes for being such sodding idiots. "All of you will lose ten points each for your unbelievable stupidity in trying your level best to get your sorry arses KILLED by a Nundu and I will have to write to all your parents and explain to them how you almost DIED by attracting an angry Nundu's attention that every single one of you should have recognised the moment you laid eyes on her! I have never been so appalled and disgusted by members of my own house! NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

The Slytherin students, all staring down at their feet and completely cowed, shuffled in various directions of shame, the distinct odour of urine adding a touch of acrid miasma to the air.

Hermione expelled a small cloud smelling of ripe blueberries right in Snape's face.

"Thank you," Severus said, rubbing under her chin.


Albus Dumbledore stared across the sitting room as the huge spotted feline's legs dangled from her perch in the Whomping Willow that seemed to have moved from the grounds right to the middle of Snape's quarters.

Hogwarts, without his express permission, had greatly expanded the previously small room, given her enough room to house an entire tree that had a beautiful magical sunroof that would have made Pomona green with envy.

The Nundu lazily chewed on the willow's budded branches, breaking open its gnarled, overly hardened catkins with her sharp teeth. The catkins popped open, unfurled their stamens, and showered the air with willow pollen.

"Severus, you cannot possibly be serious," Albus protested.

"She's my familiar, Headmaster," Severus reminded him. "It would be against the oldest of laws to have her anywhere but by my side."

"But she's a student!"

"There is nothing preventing her from finishing her classes, although—" Severus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I will probably have to purchase her a few dictation quills and arrange for accommodations in her classes to account for her greatly increased mass and size. The DoM is working on a collar she can wear that will allow her to communicate with others if she so chooses, but it will take a year for the spells to be customised to her genetic imprint and magical signature."

"You spoke with the DoM?" Albus asked.

"I could not avoid not doing so considering the moment Nundu showed up on my familiar paperwork, Madam Bones was at my chamber door. I met her at my door before I had even had a chance to go in."

Albus' jaw dropped slightly and he seemed to gather himself mentally. "I see. What about your classes? Surely you cannot teach with a Nundu in your class?"

"All students will have to be on their very best emotional behaviour," Severus stated simply.

"I don't like this, Severus," Albus said, rubbing his beard. "This cannot be a safe situation for any school."

"Are you firing me, Headmaster?" Severus said, his face as still as stone.

"No, I simply want you to have Miss Granger moved to much safer accommodations. Hagrid's hut, perhaps."

"Don't be ridiculous," Snape scoffed with a scowl. "Hagrid can barely wipe his own massive arse when given a map and explicit directions to follow."

"Hagrid is not totally inept, Severus," Albus said with a tone of mild reproof.

"No, he's just mostly inept," Severus snarked. "And my familiar must be at my side as she is a registered familiar and an XXXXX creature, no thanks to the youngest Mr Weasley. She is not permitted to leave my side unless she has been sent on a reasonably short task."

"And what would be considered a short task?" Albus asked.

"The time it takes to hunt and drag a hippo carcass up a tree," Severus said, calmly inspecting his fingernails. "Or to eat one, depending on the situation. She has been given permission to Floo, Apparate, or Portkey to Africa and hunt game as the forest does not contain the kind of prey she would require in the wild."

"It's hardly appropriate for a minor—"

"She's seventeen, the age of maturity," Severus argued. "Probably a bit older if you add the time travel to the equation. The DoM measured her paw-to-body ratio and has determined that she is a full-grown Nundu—as if her massive size is not sufficient proof of that. She was questioned by the DoM under Oath with the assistance of a duly registered Beast-Legilimens as to whether she was comfortable working and living with me, and she said, and I quote, that she would happily claw the balls off whoever would foolishly attempt to remove her from my side."

Hermione chose that precise moment to tear into a hippo haunch and made disturbingly loud crunching noises with her teeth as she stripped the flesh and tendons off the bone with surgical precision. She made extra loud squishing noises as she chowed down on the tasty meat with exaggerated enthusiasm.

Severus's mouth twitched as Albus turned slightly green but fought to hide it.

"What about her friends, Severus? Surely she would want to be with them?"

"One of her supposed best mates is the one that turned her into a Nundu using an unauthorised and untested potion made with ingredients pilfered from my private stores that I use when making delicate potions for the infirmary and the Ministry. He did this after nicking a vial of extremely rare and expensive Liquid Luck from Mr Potter, who formally reported to Minerva that it was stolen from his trunk last night—a potion that Horace admitted that he gifted Mr Potter for brewing a perfect Draught of Living Death. While I sincerely believe that Potter's skill in brewing is hardly exemplary, I can only go based on what Horace has told me."

Albus stubbornly tried again. "Severus, I really must insist that you remember your promise—"

Suddenly, Hermione was there standing between Albus and Severus, her disease bladders already half-expanded as her lips pulled sharply back from her teeth.

"I'm terribly sorry, Headmaster," Severus said blandly. "I believe my familiar requires me to brush her teeth. She gets so demanding about proper dental hygiene."

Albus had already taken a few steps backward. "I will let you get to it, then," he said hastily. "We'll speak later."

Severus' face was set like stone. "I'm sure we will."

Hermione's tail whapped into his side a few times as she rubbed her chin against him, practically tipping him over.


"Severussss," Voldemort said as he beckoned him over. "I see that your little farce with enlargement spells has gone a bit too far."

"My Lord?" Severus asked as he bowed at Voldemort's feet.

"As I understand it, you even went as far as to write to so many concerned parents about this—Nundu." Voldemort's voice was weighted with scorn. "What a disgustingly overinflated beast," he added. "I do not like it."

"Crucio," Voldemort cast as he snarled at Snape, making his body dance and writhe upon the Italian marble floor. "You should never make our own, treasured people feel like their children are anything less than the valuable magical beings they were born to be, isn't that right, Severus?"

Snape screamed as his body thrashed and convulsed wildly as if he were a tased muppet.

"What's that, Severus?" Voldemort asked, inflicting another round of Crucios."

"Yes, my Lord," Severus hissed into the ground.

"Now, I want you to take this transfigured moggie and bury it," Voldemort said, pointing his wand at Hermione. His lips curved into a cruel, hateful smile. "CRUCIO!"

The sickening green beam hit Hermione straight to the face, and she grimaced, her lips pulling back from her teeth as she leaned forward and breathed a full bladder of virulent disease directly into the Dark Lord's face.

And Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord Voldemort, Scourge of the Wizarding World, dropped to his knees and choked a few times before falling over dead, his body covered in pustules and boils worse than the most severe case of spattergroit.

"I'm going to strangle you with your own beast intestines!" Bellatrix screamed as she ran forward, her wand out as she cast a few curses in rapid succession, ending with an Avada Kedavra.

But as her body hit the virulent cloud of still-there disease, she began to choke, flail, flap her arms wildly, and then fell over, foaming at the mouth as a series of violent convulsions took over. Boils and pustules formed over her skin, and then Bellatrix' body went rigid and still like her master's.

"You half-blood wazzock!" cried Walden Macnair from the table as the other Death Eaters all rose with wands drawn. "I'll kill you where you bloody stand!"

Severus Snape, however, his body still prostrate on the ground where the Dark Lord had Crucio'ed him, could only smile into the floor as the cloud of disease simply drifted to the other side of the room and took out every single Death Eater in a hideous disease-borne calamity.

And the bodies proceeded to hit the floor, one after another.

Severus Snape stood a few minutes later, leaning heavily on Hermione with a grimace. "Would anyone else care to raise any concerns?"

Total silence was his only answer.

Severus Snape touched his third button and traced a symbol on it, and it glowed.

A pulse went out, neutralising the jinxing in the area as multiple Apparates sounded off as a strike team of Aurors and DoM Unspeakables appeared—all wearing old-fashioned Muggle gas masks.

Severus rubbed Hermione under the chin. "Good kitty."

Hermione set her head on his shoulder and licked his cheek with her sandpaper tongue.

Job's done.


End of the Wizarding War That Had Hardly Begun!

Dark Lord Voldemort Revealed as Half-blood Tom Riddle!

Diseased Death Eaters Found Deceased at Revel!


Lucius Malfoy Invites Teams Into Malfoy Estate To Clean Up Bodies

"I leave the estate for one night, and come back to find it filled with bodies!" claims Lucius Malfoy


Hogwarts Student Ronald Weasley Accuses Professor Severus Snape of Being a Death Eater and Rips Left Sleeve to Prove It, But

No Dark Mark Found!

Crowd Ridicules Weasley And Drives Him Home To Mummy!


Ronald Weasley Found Guilty of Forced Transfiguration of Fellow Student: the Notorious Trollop Hermione Granger!

Did She Deserve It? We Think So!


Hermione Granger Missing!

Lunatic Conspiracy Theorists Insist She's Now a Giant Cat!


Albus Dumbledore Called To Ministry, Identifies Corpse of

Tom "Voldemort" Riddle!

Wizard Breaks Down in Wizengamot. Emotions Overflow!

Why?!


Hogwarts Harbouring a Nundu?

Minister Fudge Sends Team to Subdue, But Finds Nothing!

How Can Something That Big Hide?!


Minister Fudge Stricken With Severe Case of Cocktrice Pox, Down For At Least Five Months!


Hogwarts' Own Rubeus Hagrid Claims Big Cat Ate All His Friends!


Hogwarts Seeking New Potions Master After Severus Snape Resigns and Horace Slughorn Retires


New Potions Master Lucretia Lockhart Blows Up Classroom Along With Students!


Students Blow Each Other Up as Potions Professor Lockhart Flees Into the Night Screaming "YOU CAN'T PAY ME ENOUGH TO TEACH THESE HEATHEN BARBARIANS!"


Entire Year of Potion Students Earns Troll Marks for Class


Ministry Mandates Remedial Potions Class for Students To Approach N.E.W.T.s With Any Hope of Success!


Classroom Found Full of Rampaging Animals After Epic Potion Explosion Mishap


Severus Snape closed his copy of the Prophet and set it on the side table as he shook his head in disgust. He reached over to take his tea and sipped it. Hermione looked closer, nose working, and he held it out for her to lap at.

Hermione cleaned the teacup entirely, fastidiously licking her chops.

Severus sighed. "You're so insufferable."


Hermione laid her head on Severus' stomach and yawned, licking her chops.

Severus opened one tired eye and rolled over, ignoring her.

The Nundu's whiskers twitched, and she yawned, tongue lolling before she padded over to the willow and sank her claws into the bark and shredded it dutifully. The willow shuddered as it woke up and lightly dusted her with pollen, reaching down to offer her a bud to chew on. She gnawed on it helpfully, and the catskin popped in release. The willow caressed her body with its limbs and then returned to an upright position.

Hermione, like most people, had always believed that trees never moved. They put down roots and then, well, basically sat there.

Whomping Willows, however, apparently moved to where "their" Nundu was, and the Hogwarts' willow had decided that she was its feline of choice, transfigured or not. Hermione didn't mind, though. It was nice to have a friend that always had her back. If anything, being transformed into a giant monstrous feline had taught her—well, that true friends were pretty scarce.

Though, she couldn't really be super disappointed when her unexpected bond with Severus Snape had given her a connection no one had ever expected possible. The man had so many secrets, it was a miracle he'd successfully kept them all hidden, even from his alleged "allies." She felt pretty gifted to know them and—

Grateful.

It was hard not to be grateful when the complexities of such an enigma unfolded before her like a flower and—

Understood the pit of feelings inside her. How she had never truly fit in. How she felt used for her studious mind and ability to solve even the most complex problems. How terribly lonely she was, even when her supposed "best friends" laughed and joked around her but never with her.

They never asked about her day. They never actually cared about what she liked and didn't like. They just sidled up to her when she was useful for something, and Dumbledore—

Hermione wrinkled her muzzle, tail lashing in distress.

Dumbledore had been the ultimate manipulator, the depths of which she hadn't truly realised until she'd taken a dip into Snape's highly structured but equally abused mind.

The DoM had been teaching her all about mental bonds ever since her arrival, and it had all been super fascinating. Hers, apparently, had been an emergent desperate connection during a mutual emotional upheaval—amidst Snape's desperation to be understood, he had dropped every shield he normally had.

And in her despair and rage mixed with Nundu instincts (and whatever else had been added into that potion of fate)—once he had swallowed her raging emotions enough for her to think clearly, all she had wanted was to be understood.

They had both found something incredibly precious in that desperate moment of serendipity—along with various other belated benefits of having a wide variety of magical creature parts added to the potion.

Like how her teeth acted like a unicorn horn and purified whatever they touched—like say, a Dark Mark.

Or that there was a venomous barb and sac hidden in her tail from her manticore heritage—as if she needed a weapon other than her acidic flame saliva and with virulent disease breath.

Ever so slowly, the DoM was taking inventory of what various magical creature traits had been added to her Nundu form, but even their experts were shaking their heads in awe of the amazing amount of good luck that had gone into her making.

And perhaps, the equally amazing amount of failure that hadn't happened.

Hermione licked her paw and gnawed, licked, and cleaned between her toes.

Being confined to a four legged existence wasn't all that bad, she mused. She was a lot more stable on four legs and much faster as well. Her awesome jaw strength was apparently so disturbing for the poor wizard that had measured it that he'd subsequently fled into the deepest bowels of the Ministry babbling random things about hyenas.

Hermione was pretty sure she didn't have any hyena in her makeup but—the gods only knew, really.

She was a Nundu built by committee, only the committee in question had been completely knackered.

And, according to Severus—completely idiotic.

Hermione could agree. What idiot would wander around with a flask of rare potion with no cork or, honestly, even brew said potion full of stolen ingredients in the Potions master's own closet?

Enter a certain redheaded moron with more freckles than brain cells.

Hermione huffed, a small cloud of raspberry-scented breath hanging around her head.

There was a knock on the main door, and Hermione's ears perked as her nose worked to figure out what might be on the other side. She'd smelled everything from fresh baked bread to Master Morgan's special mango sorbet, Severus' toothpaste with a touch of cinnamon, and someone who had apparently managed to dip themselves in molten tar.

Odd things definitely were normal in the DoM, and her being a Nundu mixed with the gods only knew what was apparently just another day, another creature to them. That surprised her, if she was being honest with herself. Then again, she had been on the receiving end of a lot of surprises as of late.

Hermione pressed her paw against the plate near the door, and the door promptly slid open, the stone sliding smoothly aside like a high-tech sci-fi door from her father's television collection.

Harry stood in the doorway looking quite dishevelled and needy.

Hermione's lips pulled back from her teeth, and she slammed her paw back against the plate, bounded up the willow and parked herself on a particularly high branch.

The knocking returned, and her ears flattened against her head.

A yawning and uncaffeinated Severus shuffled toward the door in his slippers and bathrobe, his hair still damp from the shower.

Hermione slinked back down the willow, knowing it was her "job" as a familiar to be at his side, but—she didn't have to like it, especially given the identity of their uninvited guest. She grabbed the Nundu-friendly mug of coffee on the table and carried it over to the door.

As Snape opened the door and blearily focused on who was standing there, he reached over, quaffed the entire mug of coffee, and gave it back to her. "What do you want, Potter?"

Harry grimaced, obviously fighting with his emotions.

Hermione, in true familiar fashion, crunched up the mug in her mouth, making extra copious amounts of fiery venom drool.

Harry's eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. "Sir, I would really like to speak with Hermione."

"I'm afraid it would be a very one-sided conversation," Severus said, deadpan.

Hermione huffed, a small pink cloud of bittermelon scenting the air.

Harry hastily stepped backwards with a frantic gulp. "I just—I mean—I—" He rubbed slowly where the scar was emblazoned on his forehead. "I think Voldemort left pieces of himself after he died. I think—this thing in my head might be one of those things. I've been having horrible nightmares, sir. Worse now than ever before. Hermione told me once before that I really needed to have it looked at by someone, but I didn't listen to her at the time. But—well, I'm listening now. I want—I need to get someone to look at it and just—I don't know, tell me if I'm being bloody mental or not. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in—a very long time."

"Is there something wrong with Mr Moody that you would drag yourself to the Department of Mysteries instead of simply asking for his help? He had to have brought you here, after all. Don't think I don't know that he's over there skulking in the bushes like a highwayman."

"He doesn't trust me because I believe that Dumbledore knows better than any of us what's best," Moody said from the shrubberies. He sighed and stepped out, leather-clad, and looking appropriately broody.

Severus' eyebrow raised.

"Perhaps there is some hope for you yet, Mr Potter," Severus said gesturing inside the entryway. "Do come in."


Severus sat back in his comfortable chair, leaning back as he let out a long sigh. "It feels like the Dark Lord," he agreed. "I've carried that kind of foul magic around with me long enough to know his brand. His particular tainted magic."

"Albus would have said something—" Moody protested.

"Could have does not mean would have," Severus said. "There is, of course, a tried and true way to test if the scar contains the remains of the Dark Lord's essence."

"Well, it's not like we have a bloody unicorn here to purify it," Moody huffed.

"Unicorns are so last Tuesday, Moody," Severus said as Hermione promptly pounced Harry and knocked him over, sending him to the ground to lie flat on his back.

"Hold perfectly still, Potter. I wouldn't want you to accidentally encourage her predatory instincts," Severus said.

Hermione snarled lowly, her great jaws coming oh so close to Harry's terrified face, her lips pulling back from her pearly white teeth. Rainbows seemed to dance across them as the venom flowed, and flames followed in its wake.

"Oh Merlin, Hermione!" Harry blurted, his eyes wide with fright behind his glasses. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I ever doubted you. I'm sorry I used you to do my homework. I'm sorry I didn't believe you over Ron. I'm a ruddy arsehole. I'm a true wazzock. I'm sorry! I'm so SORRY!"

Hermione shoved her nose against Harry's and breathed a small puff of brown-tinged vapour right in his face. Harry's body went completely rigid as a board as he was certain that Hermione would be his death. Hermione gave his forehead a big, wet, slurp, letting her pearlescent unicorn-infused teeth brush against Harry's scar.

She pulled back, her muzzle wrinkled in disgust, and she frantically licked the carpet to rid herself of the awful taste even as Harry let out a yell as his forehead steamed, smoked, and writhed like his skin was concealing a seething horde of ants.

Then, much like peeling a banana, Harry's scar opened up and a dark cloud of foul nastiness poured out in a seemingly never ending stream. It formed into a man's eerily serpentine face that screamed in impotent fury, cursing the very air they breathed and the ground they walked upon.

Hermione, having finished scraping her poor, abused tongue across the carpet, turned to face the annoying dark cloud of Voldemort, and coughed a large cloud of disease at it. It swirled around the Dark magic and imploded with a boom, sending a shimmery rain of rainbow glitter sparkles everywhere.

Severus, stoic as ever, patted Hermione on the head. "Go brush your teeth now."

The Nundu bounded off toward the washroom as the sound of frantic scrubbing and minty fresh suds filled the air.

Alastor Moody sat down hard in the chair and looked like he'd just seen the avatar of Merlin himself show up in his living room only to ask "what is magic?"

Snape poured himself another cup of tea and said nothing at all.


Hermione lazily rolled over and yawned as the DoM Unspeakables swarmed all over their residence and took reports for everyone. Harry was, unfortunately, quietly sobbing in the corner as he tried to sort out his feelings and the realisation that his mark of being either cursed or blessed was finally gone. His life was no longer forced upon the same path as before—but what his future had in store remained as elusive as a tadpole evading capture by his clumsy, seeking hand.

Hermione found that she didn't really care so much what Harry thought anymore, nor did she seek the approval of Albus Dumbledore. She was content learning about what it meant to be on all four legs instead of two and having a creature inheritance the likes of which would make a typical chimaera look like a rank amateur.

Though, she counted herself very lucky to not have to share a body with a goat head sprouting from her back like it had somehow gotten lost along the way. Greek myth made for some pretty strange beasts, for sure, but now she couldn't really dismiss them as being completely far-fetched.

She was one of them, after all.

Severus, she was glad to realise, was a very different person outside of Hogwarts. She'd never given much thought to the dour, biting, utterly rude man who taught Potions, no matter how brilliant she'd thought he was in his craft. He'd still been a rampaging arse and a half.

Yet somehow—they had been so similar in their neglect. Hers had not been intentional so much as a child who had their needs provided for and all the books she could ever want, but when it came to friends, she might as well have been a rock surrounded by ocean and the occasional shark. And Severus—and it was really hard to call him by his last name anymore—was a complicated man with so many facets that she'd never been privy to.

She supposed being bound to his soul probably made her a rather biased judge of the person he was, but that didn't, at least in her opinion, make it any less valid.

It didn't make what she'd seen less true.

It didn't make her empathy over what he'd gone through any less.

And he was willing to work on tempering his hate to ensure she didn't accidentally murder someone—for hate inspired her disease. All emotion did, but hate was a weapon more powerful than any wand because disease didn't even have to be seen to wither, plague, and destroy entire populations.

The old tales claimed that Nundu could take out entire villages and towns, and with a little Muggle understanding about the vectors of disease, she realised she didn't even have to do anything after the initial breath. Other things—wind, surfaces, touch, fleas—could all do her work for her.

And while her the touch of her pearlescent teeth could, technically, act like a unicorn's horn to cure and purify all manner of things—Severus preferred if she kept her mouth to herself for safety.

Her mouth of daggers and swords were not the tools of a friendly introduction unless you wanted to scare the everliving shite out of someone.

And there, again, he showed a perfect understanding that sometimes she just needed to sink her claws and teeth into something, so he crafted her a giant stuffed squeaky hippo with a feathered tail. She pounced, tumbled, attacked, batted, clawed, death-gripped, and tore into that construct like it was the real thing (well, if the real thing had a feathered buttocks) and then lay in a sunbeam like some overgrown moggie that just wanted to be solar powered.

He really did understand her so much better than anyone else.

Harry, on the other paw, didn't understand her in the slightest. Not in human form or otherwise.

Which was probably why Harry was convinced that Hermione was the second coming of the apocalypse while Severus leaned up against her side playing with her toe beans and answering all those boring questions the Ministry quill pusher had to ask.

Every time he'd poke her toe beans, she would unsheathe her claws and then slowly retract them again, lazily making a big show of it for Harry's benefit.

And the scribe as well because the wizard was both boring and annoying all wrapped up in the same cocoon.

Hermione's tail tip twitched, a bit of restlessness creeping in, but Severus' mind gave her structure and more discipline, and she remained calm despite instincts that wanted her to drive the annoying trespasser into crocodile infested rivers.

She'd never thought of herself as being quite so violently inclined, but territory was a rather new instinctive drive. She didn't like anyone but Severus being around the willow tree, either, so it was hard to keep that instinct from rearing up from time to time.

Alastor Moody was kind of an odd duck, she noted. He smelled like leather and pumpkin juice which he chugged from his flask like it was a hidden shot of alcohol. But she knew that it wasn't—it didn't smell like that almost acidic burn that alcohol had to her sensitive nose—or that sickly sweet hint diluted in the air of smokey pubs. Moody was, to her surprise, all too sober, but he acted like a man that was in desperate need of a fix.

She thumped her huge paw into Severus' cheek with a silly squeegee noise and looked him in the eyes.

Severus held her gaze as he realised she had something she needed to convey without words.

It was odd, but despite her ability to speak to him mind to mind, it was sometimes easier to explain what she sensed by letting him feel it the way that she did through their familiar bond. The whole package—

He sent her a mental image of that flask—

And she knew what he wanted her to do.

The next time she saw Moody unscrew that flask and tip it back to drink, she was on top of him in a blur of fur, claws, and teeth. She snatched that flask between her jaws and let her saliva flow to coat it. Then, very deliberately, her pearly fangs crushed it with a screech of ivory against metal.

Moody let out an anguished yell, clutching his head, and all of the Unspeakables in the room immediately twirled around and hit him with about a hundred different spells at once, each performing a precise weave of complicated magic that only highly practised and skilled specialists could even hope to do.

Moody coughed and retched violently, and he finally hacked up what seemed to be a small scarlet feather—

A feather that hit the magical woven net of magic the Unspeakables had sewn before it was frozen in place as an object of damnation.

The intimidating form, condensed into what could only be a human guise, stepped out of the murky shadows, and Amelia Bones, Head Boss of You of the Department of Mysteries scowled so deeply she gained a new silver hair.

"Is there anything else you would like to unearth, unravel, or otherwise expose today?" she asked wryly, levelling her gaze at Severus.

"I'm feeling pretty good about today," Severus replied, deadpan.

Amelia's lips twitched as she jerked her head. "Unspeakables, secure this area, document everything down to the last spider hiding between the floor planks, and get Auror Moody secured in the treatment infirmary at once. And Mr Potter—"

Harry startled in the chair he hadn't moved from since evil had literally billowed out of his skull. "Ma'am?"

"You're going to have to accompany me to the DoM infirmary as well. We need to perform a complete head-to-toe physical on you to make sure there isn't anything else lying in wait for a sign of weakness."

Harry grimaced but nodded in agreement. "Okay."


Unexplained Fire Outbreak Across Britain

Local Lunatic Fringe Claims Men and Women in Bathrobes Holding Sticks Were To Blame


Obliviators Working Overtime To Quell Muggle Interest In Mysterious String of Magical Fires


Boy-Who-Lived Harry Potter Replaced by Alien Duplicate?

"He's Got Nuh Scar!" Blurts Fellow Student


Where IS Harry Potter?


"I'm telling you, Dumbledore wasn't hoodwinking me," Alastor groused. "It was just an Oath for a gathering of people preparing for the Dark Lord's eventual return! To keep us all safe! To keep our meeting place secret!"

"What is this organisation?"

"I cannot say. Its members must be protected to be ready if the Dark Lord returns."

"I think this just proves that you need to stay with us a while longer, Mr Moody," the healer said evenly as he measured out a dose of potion. "The Dark Lord is quite dead—and all that were linked to Mr Potter went up in flames of purification. That leaves us wondering why you are so convinced he'll be coming back when all the evidence screams otherwise. Even Mr Potter is finally sleeping—something he hadn't been able to do since Tom Riddle rose again for the second time."

"It just can't be true," Moody insisted.

Moody startled as a very large Nundu nudged the healer's hand, a hamper of potions dangling from her mouth.

The healer smiled, rubbing her ears in thanks as she took the basket. "Thank you, Hermione. Please tell your master he is a life saver."

The Nundu gave the healer a friendly lick, and Moody boggled as his eyes played tricks on him. He swore the healer looked younger. Trick of the light, perhaps.

The healer regarded him with weariness. "Perhaps, Mr Moody, it is time you put your faith in the right character at this stage in life. The one who saved us from the war was not some clandestine organisation. It was not the Ministry. It was one boy's selfish aspirations on the wings of liquid luck foiled by the true courage of a man who had so many reasons to let us all fall and a witch who would, in a stroke of fate far greater than us, become our saviour but asked for absolutely nothing in return but a little patience. A little understanding. A little acceptance. Her humanity was the price for our freedom, and I would think about that as you decide what you truly wish to do with that hard-earned freedom."

The healer shelved the potions from the hamper with a swift gesture of magic and gave Alastor a slow blink. "Do you wish to live under the bootheel of someone else's vision of your fate or do you wish to blaze your own trail? Some of us only have one life to live and a short time in which to live it. Should we not make our own moves instead of being used as a pawn in someone else's chess game?"

Alastor rubbed his temples as he slumped in his chair, the weight of so many things dragging him down.


Severus Snape stood in the hallway along with Hermione as the Head Boss of Us spoke with the headmaster about "a rather disturbing enchantment" on one of her agents. While Snape was rather curious as to how such a conversation would go, he didn't really want to be in that room facing Albus' accusatory looks for betraying his Vow to remain at the man's heel like an obedient dog—

The Vow that had been strangely neutralised by the welcome presence of a raging Nundu within his soul—a singular familiar bond that simply refused to share him with anyone or anything else. A bond that demanded he take care of her perhaps even better than he would himself—and take care of himself so that she would remain balanced as well.

She was not his overlord any more than any feline that demanded cuddles or food rights at tummy-o'clock, but he'd found that in taking care of her health and mental status, he was also taking care of himself better. They were both benefiting from it in a true symbiosis—something he'd never dreamed he would ever share with anyone or anything.

TinktinkTINKtinktink'tin'INK!

A large crystal ball bounced down the stairs to the Divination Tower—a common occurrence that had reminded Severus of the constructs he and his da used to make together when he was very young—setting bags of marbles up to create chain reactions, spin mills, and tip over carts as they rolled along. The fleeing crystal ball immediately caught the attention of one highly prey-motivated Nundu, and she promptly tore after it like her tail was on fire—batting, chomping, pouncing, and flinging it up in the air, as well as giving it multiple chomps. Her fangs clanking against the crystal with the high ringing sound, and she mouthed her new toy with enthusiasm—getting it extra drooly in every sense.

Severus saw her excitedly poofed tail and wide eyes, realising that Hermione was deep in the predatory instinct to pursue and chase, and he wondered if Minerva had ever had such moments of feline "boogah" where nothing that wasn't nailed down was safe from her paws and claws.

The thought amused him far more than was probably appropriate.

Hermione, picking up on his amusement, snapped out of her predatory mauling of the innocent crystal ball, and she trotted back over to him and thumped her head against his side for ear scritches and chin rubs—her favourite indulgence short of the rubbing of her fuzzy Nundu belly or clawlessly batting at his face so her toe beans made that silly almost squeaky noise.

It amazed him that something as silent and predatory could manage to emit such silly sound effects whenever the Nundu was just playful and happy.

Happy.

She was—happy to be with him.

Surely the universe had hurled him arse over tit into some strange alternate dimension where octopus-headed brain-eating aliens ran amok just to ruin your day.

But the warmth of her fur against his skin and her presence within his mind felt so natural.

It felt—right.

She wasn't oppressive or invasive. It was comforting, companionable. Safe.

Even when her curiosity was high, she would give him the eyes that told him she really, really wanted to know something, but she never barged through his mind like the Dark Lord or Albus Dumbledore did. Even more oddly, he found that he could open his mind to her, allowing her to find the information she needed without the same old self-protective fanaticism he had usually demonstrated.

The snivelling female voice coming around the bend caused the hair on his neck to stand on end, and Hermione immediately stiffened beside him. There was a strange schlucking sound as she—swallowed the crystal ball.

Severus looked at her with concern. That couldn't have been even remotely comfortable.

Hermione snorted and looked to the side rather shiftily, perhaps attempting to hide her shame at having accidentally swallowed a crystal ball in her enthusiasm.

"Sshhheverusssshh," Sybill's whiny voice broke through any calm there might have been. "My most beautiful Sheverushhhh," she mewled with her increasingly obvious sherry-tainted breath. "Have you sheen my favourite crystal ball, Sheverhsufhhhhsh?"

"Madam, kindly remove your unwelcome hands from my posterior," Severus said icily. "I guarantee that you do not want your crystal ball back."

"Oh Sheverhufhshhhf! I need it. It has my most accurate prophecy yet!"

"I highly doubt that," Severus snorted, his lip curling as the annoying witch continued to fondle his bum. "Remove yourself from my buttocks, madam!"

He stepped to the side as students were starting to gather around and gawk, even as they gave the huge Nundu a very wide berth.

Hk.

Hkhkhk.

HKKHkkhKKhKKKKK!

Hermione coughed up the crystal ball along with a rather large hairball that hit Trelawney's shoes with a disgustingly wet splat.

The gathered crowd of gogglers all simultaneously went "EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" in a collective demonstration of truly outstanding maturity.

Trelawney patted around on the floor blindly, her hands eventually meeting the hair and slobber encrusted crystal ball with a stomach-churning schlork.

Severus' jaw clenched tightly as the crowd of students let out another round of disgusted sounds.

Trelawney brushed the muck off her crystal ball, cooing at it like it was a pet Crup. "There you are, my pretty," she gushed in delight.

She gave the crystal bedroom eyes, and Severus suddenly found himself staring at her.

"Oh Sheverussh, my love, you've finally realised how we are meant!" Trelawney gushed.

But it wasn't her making cow's eyes at him that had caused him to freeze in shocked horror. It was the black smoke rising off Trelawney's hands where the skin was crawling eerily as if insects were busily moving underneath—almost like Polyjuice, only Severus knew full well that smoking skin was not a sign of Polyjuice usage.

Trelawney's typically slumped posture became distinctly taller, straighter—her glassy-eyed expression that had been her most distinguishing feature short of her perpetual drunkenness was altered beyond recognition. Her voice changed into a normal, sober female voice with a distinctive Mancunian accent that was so very odd coming from Trelawney's mouth that it seemed more like a badly dubbed cartoon on Muggle television.

The squinty wrinkles around her eyes disappeared, her sallow complexion lightening to a pristine pale ivory. Her hair, which had always been a wild tangle of brownish blonde pulled back with obnoxiously loud coloured headbands, smoothed out and went poker straight, turning a bright auburn shade that made the distinctive Weasley red hair look a mediocre burnt orange by comparison.

It was only when those eyes turned a brilliant, piercing green that Severus realised who he was staring at and what Trelawney had been drinking and covering it up with sherry—

It wasn't the typical polyjuice, no.

It was the special variation of Polyjuice that he brewed for the DoM's hit wizards and witches when they literally needed to become someone else. He had designed the brew for long term usage—it was permanent until nullified but it also came with a serious case of halitosis.

It was definitely not something you wanted to be on any longer than absolutely necessary—unless you happened to like killing off innocent plant life and attracting lonely feral skunks that had escaped the pet trade.

But here, right in front of him, Severus realised that Albus had successfully pulled off the ultimate swindle and hoodwinked the British Wizarding public in the process. He'd somehow managed to save Lily Evans Potter and passed her off for decades as Sybill Patricia Trelawney—the dotty alleged seer who couldn't see the future any more than she could her own feet.

He'd hidden her from the entire Wizarding World, the Dark Lord, her own son, and, Severus realised, especially him.

And Lily, knowing full well that the greatest offence against Severus Snape would be to touch him with familiarity, so she made sure to do so at every possible opportunity.

So he would never look too close.

So he would never suspect her of being anything but a sherry-sozzled basket case.

"Lily," Severus whispered, his face paler than usual, his fist clenched.

It was then that Lily seemed to suddenly realise her ruse was unravelling, and she touched her face frantically.

"No, no, NO! This wasn't supposed to happen until he DIED!"

She turned and ran toward the headmaster's office only to plough headlong into Amelia Bones and the headmaster himself, bowling them both over in front of the crowd of students.

Phineas Nigellus regarded the chaotic scene with steepled fingers as he graced a nearby portrait frame. "Now, this just keeps getting better and better. And I didn't even have to say a THING."


Lily Evans Potter, Long Believed DEAD, Found Hiding at Hogwarts for Nearly 16 Years!

Oh, readers, do I ever have a story for you tonight! The infamous Lily Potter, mother of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has been found very much ALIVE at none other than Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!

How could this happen, do you ask? Oh ho! She was there the entire time masquerading as Divination professor Sybill Trelawney, granddaughter of famed seer Cassandra Trelawney. Rumour has it that Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore was trying to keep her safe from You-Know-Who, now known as Tom Riddle!

How was Mrs Potter's true identity revealed? HO HO HO! She was caught groping the bum of former Potions professor, Severus Snape!

It is a true pity that Harry Potter hasn't been seen in weeks—but who knows, maybe he'll show up when he finds out his mum has been living the Hogwarts life right under his nose!

But wait, you say? Where is the real Sybill Trelawney?

No one seems to know for certain, but rumour has it that Trelawney has been living across the pond all this time, reading palms in a Muggle travelling carnival!


Harry Potter Spotted at St Mungos Having Breakdown

"Mum Didn't Love Me!"


The Prophet Offers Reward For Safe Return of Talented, Beloved Reporter Rita Skeeter


Home of Rita Skeeter Ransacked By Aurors!


Quibbler Exclusive!

Prophet Under Investigation After Rita Skeeter Found Guilty of Unregistered Animagus Form, Spying, Bribery, and Unlawful Surveillance!


Daily Prophet Bankrupted After Multiple Civil Suits Filed With Barristers!


Hermione enthusiastically batted about a carefully sealed, soundproofed, unbreakable jar in Amelia Bones' office with one paw, the large beetle sealed within completely freaking out as her body was repeatedly slammed against the sides of the glass with every powerful swat.

Amelia rubbed Hermione's velvety ears with affection. "Good kitty."


"I swear to you Severus, I had no idea," Minerva said as she practically wrung out her tartan robes like a dishrag.

Hermione, being the ultimate feline of civilised nations, crunched bones noisily from her willow tree.

Severus found he felt much better as he watched Minerva grimace in clear discomfort.

Hermione, feeling Severus' sense of mischief, silently landed on the ground and padded around them, then sank her claws into the back of Minerva's chair and RirrrrirrrrRIIPPPed into it noisily.

Minerva practically hit the ceiling as Hermione padded over to Severus and flopped down on her side so he could reach and thus rub her fuzzy belly.

She rubbed her squeaky toe beans on the legs of his chair to make comical noises, fully aware of how absurd it was.

Nothing that stealthy should ever be so equipped, Severus figured, but then again with all the dangerous everything she did have, maybe it was the universe's way of saying "nah, you really need something obnoxiously funny that makes no sense."

Granger, he knew, was already brilliant if not a true genius in so many ways, and becoming a monstrous beast did not crimp her style in the slightest. If anything, she was even more insufferable with her insatiable curiosity and the need to learn everything.

"It hasn't been the same without you at Hogwarts," Minerva said with a sigh.

"Much more peaceful, I'm sure," Severus replied. "Think of all those complainants whose prayers were finally answered when I left."

"You know we didn't all feel that way," Minerva scoffed.

"No, not really," Severus said quietly. "No one ever stood up for me, Minerva, no one who did not have to or else they wanted something from me."

McGonagall closed her eyes. "I failed you, Severus, and I am truly sorry. I should have been much more vocal. Done more."

"It wasn't what the old man wanted," Severus said after a time. "He was very good at getting what he wanted. Albus believed in his idea of the greater good so completely that he could deceive the masses into believing he had a heart of gold."

Severus sneered. "We all played the roles he assigned us, Minerva. I do not hold you any more to blame than I do myself for the places we stood on stage."

"Have you—" Minerva trailed off delicately.

Severus snorted. "No. I have not spoken with her. What could I possibly say to someone who let her own son think she was dead just to avoid the gaze of the Dark Lord? And even if she couldn't have given a rat's arse about me, she let Black roast in Azkaban—let Pettigrew get away with murder, let Lupin believe himself to be the ultimate scum."

"I have grieved her death for how many years now?" Severus mused. "Did so many things for atonement in her memory. But that was all it was. A memory. A fatally flawed one. And I have learned to make my own memories now. With those with not enough wisdom to leave me on the side of the road like they should."

Hermione blew a cloud of mulberry breath into Snape's face, distinctly unimpressed.

Minerva almost fell over in shock when she heard Severus chuckle and then actually laugh. He looked so much younger. Far less tortured. "What have you told her parents?"

"It was quite an awkward conversation where I proved that a large monstrous cat was their daughter," Snape said with a sniff. "The dry erase marker and large writing board in her parents' library helped."

Minerva tilted her head.

"Strangely, her father simply examined her teeth and soon realised it was her," Severus recalled. "No idea how he could tell, but I'd imagine it was her pristine tooth enamel and exemplary brushing and flossing habits."

"You can understand her—?"

"Obviously."

"I mean—" Minerva grimaced. "In actual words?"

"She can be insufferably chatty, but she prefers to express her meaning with pictures in the mind lately unless she's sitting her exams."

"And she's already sat her N.E.W.T.s?" Minerva seemed strangely surprised.

"Minerva, when we had our little come to Merlin moment together when the familiar bond first formed we learned a lot of things directly from each other's mind. If she had hands, she'd be a potions master." Severus sighed. "All she requires now is practice and whatever theories to fill in the subjects I never cared for. As it is, I have a mind full of terrible memories of how she was treated that would make me watch Gryffindor Tower burst into flames and enjoy it."

"She also has enough book knowledge of both Muggle and magical origin to make Madam Pince look like a mere novice," Severus said. "And the DoM is just adding that much more to her already impressive stack."

"Why did she never come to me?" Minerva said. She seemed rather hurt by the revelation.

"I'd imagine it was because she suffered through it hoping to earn Dumbledore's approval— to make him happy with her," he replied with a gusty sigh.

Severus scowled and shook his head. "So, is Potter going to come live with mummy?"

"Legally, since Lily is officially alive, yes, but I think he's throwing himself into his school work far more seriously and will be spending his holidays at Hogwarts. As for what he plans to do during the summer hols—I do not know." Minerva seemed more sombre at the thought. "I would like to think he will not waste the opportunity to know his mother— something he built so many of his dreams upon."

"That rather depends on her, I suppose," Severus said. "And however much effect being on a potion meant to be temporary has on one's mind and body. I'm sure the healers are having 'fun' with that. While I am not entirely convinced that there is nothing wrong with her, you cannot live another life for that long without a certain amount of—baggage."

"Speaking from experience?" Minerva asked.

Severus arched his brow. "I do have quite a bit in that area, yes."

"And how did you manage to recover?" Minerva asked.

Severus rubbed the purring Nundu under the chin. "Her."

Hermione licked the side of his face and thumped one big paw against his cheek with a silly squeak.

He pushed her away half-heartedly. "You're so insufferable."


"Sevv, why won't you talk to me!"

"I would think it obvious."

"I was in witness protection!"

"Is that what the old man told you or what you told yourself?"

"Is it so wrong that I wanted to live? Dumbledore said it was you that alerted him to the danger!" Lily protested.

"That gives you the right for you to let me believe you dead? To live my life in atonement for your death to what I believed was my failure? To let your own SON live with Petunia? Who you KNEW would hate anything that reminded her of the magical world? That she wasn't magical?"

"Albus said he cast a protective spell, but it had to be hidden in a Muggle—it would protect Harry!"

"If you're so worried about your son, then why are you traumatising him by pushing him away?"

"I—" Lily stammered. "I can't protect him alone!"

"He doesn't need protection," Snape said with a scowl. "He needs a mother."

"Not w-while HE is out there!" Lily cried. "I'll bring on his death!"

Snape's hand clenched, his teeth grinding together.

Immediately, Hermione was there at his side, wedging her large head under his arm so his hand pressed into her head, her lips pulling back from her dagger-like teeth, her tail stiffening as the hidden stinger unsheathed from the end.

Snape's eyes widened as he realised what his turbulent emotions were doing, and he quickly brought his mind to heel. His expression went slack and stoic in a moment as he swallowed his anger, letting it sink like a stone into the Earth and away. Hermione's battle-posture relaxed, and the tension she reflected turned to playfulness as she head-thumped into him, grinding her cheeks against him and sinking her claws into his robes just enough to make a ripping sound but not actually damage him.

"Fft," Snape muttered, shoving her huge head away.

Hermione, expert diffuser once her immediate anger was channelled away, grasped his hand in her mouth and pretended to snap his hand off by manoeuvring his hand behind her longer, more concealing fangs.

Lily paled, gasping loudly at the sight, and she passed out onto the floor in a graceless heap.

Snape's lips puckered slightly. "You're such a drama queen," he told the Nundu.

A nearby chaperone assigned by the DoM lifted his head from his seated position. "That went—well."

"Better than expected," Snape answered dryly.

Hermione bowled over the poor chaperone with a mock roar, landing just right to make the obnoxiously cute squeaky toe-bean noises.

The wizard flailed spastically. "Halp! Nundu attack!"

"Sorry, it takes at least a hundred wizards to subdue an angry Nundu," Snape said with a sniff.

"What about a mischievous Nundu?" the wizard blurted.

"At least a thousand," Snape answered, deadpan.

"Woe!" the wizard cried, pretending to die.

Hermione curled around him and gave him an amused lick, deaging her "victim" at least seven months.

Suddenly, Severus narrowed his eyes as he stared down at the unconscious Lily Potter.

"I need you to report to our HBOY that if it is possible for Lily Potter to still be alive—so may be her husband. I cannot be involved in this due to my being far too close to this drama, and I have a fully loaded Nundu as well."

Hermione licked her chops.

"Noted," the other wizard said. "My lady, could you please allow me up?"

Hermione lay down on top of him, yawning.


Memo:

From: Amelia Bones, HBOY

To: All agents

The recovery of James Potter from Lundy Island, Devon must be kept tightly under wraps until we can confirm his identity. The state of his mind at present is—questionably stable. We cannot allow any rumours to leak out until we are sure these are not clever decoys. I do not want even more traumatic news unsettling Harry Potter or Lily Potter until we are absolutely certain—at that point, it will be unavoidable.


"No!" Lily cried. "He saved my life! He saved Harry's life! He didn't force me to do anything!"

"Except not speak to anyone about your survival—to have you pose for well over a decade as a teacher that no one took seriously because she was always reeking of alcohol," Amelia said with a scowl. "Exposing impressionable children to your horrendous drunken behaviour!"

"I had to cover up the horrid Polyjuice breath! And I had to teach, otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay at Hogwarts!"

"And your constant sexual harassment of a colleague?"

Lily's green eyes were wide and wet. "It wasn't like that! I knew that if I touched him, he would be too disgusted to look at me too closely. It was so he wouldn't ever figure it out!"

"Well, congratulations, Mrs Potter," Amelia said sourly. "The one person who tried to be a better person, to protect your not-so-orphaned son because he wished to honour your memory didn't find out about your cruel deception. Meanwhile, your infant son was forced to live with your abusive, magic-hating sister and came to develop a desperate reliance on Headmaster Dumbledore—much like you. Apparently it runs in the family."

Amelia let out a long breath through her nose. "You will be detained here in residential quarters under guard until the inquisitors are done questioning you. If you choose not to cooperate with them, I will place you under caution and you will be more than detained. And then you'll find that your comfy accommodations will become far less—accommodating."

Lily's lip quivered, and she jerked a nod.

A large Nundu head poked abruptly out of the seemingly small hole in Amelia's desk, her mouth stuffed full of mail.

"Oh, thank you, dear," Amelia said, giving the feline a chin rub after taking the mail. She placed a small parcel into her mouth. "Please bring this to Severus."

The Nundu took the wrapped parcel in her mouth and disappeared back into the hole in the desk.

Thud.

Amelia peered over her desk to find that Lily had passed out in her chair and slid onto the floor. She sipped her tea and sighed.


Severus looked up from his papers and narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Hermione looked up from her zebra haunch, blood covering her muzzle and tail flicking in conflict of lunch versus mauling the messenger.

"It appears the wizard they found is indeed the real James Potter," the messenger said. "Healer Bruswick said he Obliviated himself in order to pass as a Muggle, but it's been so long that a full recovery is—"

Severus sniffed. "Complicated."

"Yes."

"So, Harry Potter has two utterly incompetent parents that are even more screwed up than he is and quite unable to take custody of him either due to legal detention or mental scrambling over a long period of time."

The messenger nodded somewhat fearfully as Hermione licked her muzzle with her venom-coated tongue. Dribbles of toxic saliva dripped down to the carcass and fizzled, sending smoke-like tendrils up like a makeshift SOS signal.

Severus closed his eyes. "No."

"No, sir?"

"I will not," Severus said bluntly. "I am bonded to a highly emotionally motivated Nundu, and I will not be responsible for the welfare of an emotional tinderbox of a boy who can't even stop hating me for a few seconds to realise I'm not the one who sat practically under his nose for however many years and couldn't be bothered to send notice. No. You can tell Healer Brunswick that I cannot and will not take Potter into my care. I spent years trying to keep that boy alive, all for the memory of a woman who couldn't even give me so much as a heads up before going into self-made witness protection and hiding from her own son. I will not be made the fool again."

The messenger gulped and cleared out fast due to Hermione standing up and padding ever closer to him with blood staining her muzzle—

Severus sighed, closing the door behind him with his magic.


As the years passed by, Severus was finally able to let go of his lingering emotional baggage regarding Lily. It helped that she was alive and actually accruing even more drama than her son—arguably she'd never been dishonest in that.

Her Hogwarts tenure as "Sybill Trelawney" had been drama incarnate.

But, that gaping chasm of guilt had finally dissipated, and it certainly helped that a certain furry feline space heater had filled in that wound quite nicely.

Taking care of Hermione had, in many ways, kept his mind on things that weren't vengeful or even angry. He had to be so very careful about keeping such emotions at bay when the emotional litmus Nundu was always nearby and ready to rip off someone's face just for thinking a horrible thought around him.

The irony was pretty thick. Most people would have believed he'd be the one to let a raging Nundu blaze a path of destruction and run amok murdering random people via their own emotional backwash.

And maybe he would have not so many years ago.

Before Hermione.

Before forgiveness.

Before acceptance.

She was, in so many ways, that other half of his soul he hadn't even realised was missing. He'd searched for it, perhaps, all his life, never realising exactly what was missing or even why it mattered.

Now, years later—

With the Potter spawn having left Hogwarts to study mermaids in the Bermuda Triangle with Luna Lovegood, Severus was just happy the door to that part of his life was finally closed, sealed, hexed, jinxed, and covered in molten magma.

Potter's "best mate" however—in his delayed trial before the Wizengamot—had graduated Hogwarts by the skin of his teeth, only to find himself facing charges resulting from what he had done to Hermione "as a man." Only Weasley, a true coward, had chugged the preserved "sample" of the potion that was extracted from Hermione's old robes and turned into a giant angry spider creature right in front of his horrified mummy and daddy as well as the full Wizengamot.

Weasley might have, given how powerful the elixir was, managed to escape if he hadn't gotten a butchers at his newly arachnified reflection and promptly Avada'ed himself to death. (He'd really-really-really meant it, after all.)

Severus and Hermione, however, had chosen to sleep in that day and missed all of the excitement, drama, news articles, the piteous wailing of Molly Weasley, and whatever else came with some idiot turning himself into a massively powerful creature and then promptly offing himself.

The experts at the DoM said it was probably the only surefire way of being defeated when it wasn't another massively powerful magically-enhanced beast to bash his head in, and the paperwork for that would have given him a headache no matter how justified.

No, he was perfectly content to brew in peace, teaching an occasional class to mature adults on the intricacies of Defence Against the Dark Arts and how to manage one's emotions around a Nundu.

Hermione had finished all of her studies early, but her continuing studies had kept her mind engaged despite her feline instincts, and some of the healers had said there was hope for her regaining a human form—even if she got there a little at a time. Some speculated she could learn a human shape as her Animagus form since she was, technically, about as animal as that could be.

Alas, no Mandrake leaf on Earth was capable of withstanding Nundu slobbery—especially enhanced Nundu slobber. That plan was then shelved until something better could be thought up.

While he could be content with her companionship, a part of him wondered if she truly missed having hands, being human. She never seemed depressed or otherwise broody over such thoughts, though, and every night, she insisted on sleeping next to him in bed—either stealing all his warmth or providing it, depending on who was asking.

So, like so many a night before, he went to sleep with her massive bulk hogging most of the bed, her radiant heat making him feel warmer than ever had felt at Hogwarts while living in the dungeons. She licked his cheek as usual, tearing away the days off his skin like a potion of youthfulness—

Only on this night, he tenderly pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too," he whispered into her fur, and promptly fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning as always, the tangle of crazy fur in his face, and he smacked his lips only when he ran his hand through it, the hair parted to expose pale skin.

Human skin.

He bolted straight up in bed, and Hermione shot straight up like a typical startled feline, orange-green eyes wide and ears swivelling—

Only she had a very attractive human shape to go with those ears and her weaponised tail.

"Hermione?" he whispered, utterly gobsmacked. He reached out and touched her silky smooth cheek, feeling its warmth, and she leaned into his touch.

He felt the streaks of warmth left by tears trailing down his face. He wanted to be joyous, but a small, selfish part of him wondered if her regaining a human shape would nullify the bond they shared, and she would vanish just like everything he'd ever valued.

Like smoke in the wind.

"Kiss me," she whispered softly.

His eyes widened, his throat going dry. He licked his lips nervously. He had never—

She turned her gaze downward, perhaps taking his hesitation as his answer, and he quickly placed his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up as his head dipped and his mouth covered hers in a first, entirely awkward, but genuine kiss.

That flare of magic that had bound them so long ago resonated with the tone of a singing bowl, and a flare of magic danced across her eyes.

She smiled up at him. Shy. Nervous. Happy.

"Marry me," he said hoarsely. "Stay with me because you wish to, not because you have to."

She pressed a small kiss to his nose. "Always."


AND THEY ALL DIED HORRIBLY! THE END!


Ahem. I mean they all lived happily ever after.


Amelia looked up from her desk as a few spotted furballs dashed by her desk, gleefully chasing a certain unbreakable jar filled with a highly fearful and rather battered beetle Animagus inside, leaving behind a path of mischief and destruction all the way down her normally peaceful hallway.

She sniffed, picking a quill up from her desk and finishing her stack of orders for the DoM and all of its many and varied magical occupants. In her lap, one cub was curled up, kneading her legs and making herself a menace of comfort, exposing her silky spotted belly for rubs while her siblings ransacked the next room.

"Good kitty," Amelia said as went through some dossiers.

Miranda the cub radiated feline smugness and warmth from the lap of her favourite human petting slave and warm lap provider, letting out a soft contented cloud of sweet strawberry breath.


And they lived Nunduically Ever After


A/N: Hope you enjoyed the erm… short.

Thanks to Dragon and the Rose for passing out on this story and osmotically betaing it from a semi-comatose state.

Ron bashing brought to you by the letter I for Idiot, and we can all assume that Lily and James lived a long, dramatic, dysfunctional life where nothing ever went right.

Harry and Luna probably got swallowed by a whale and published a book called "Luna and the Whale: Our Lives At Sea Chasing Chargumongastics." What are those you ask? Only the gods know.