Card Name: Bonfire

Square #: N

Square #: 1

Link:

Line Y/N?: (Down, Across, Diagonal) Y

Blackout Y/N? N

Your Team: Vampires

Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Beta Love: Publishing Unsupervised

Card Name: Bonfire

Square #: I-5

Square #: 1

Link:

Line Y/N?: (Down, Across, Diagonal) N

Blackout Y/N? N

Your Team: Vampires

Prompt: Missing Familiar

Beta Love: Dragon and the Repose

Out of the Bag

"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God."

Christopher Hitchens

She didn't expect anyone to understand.

To them, Crookshanks was just a cat.

She didn't have some highly sought-after mental connection. She didn't have the ability to speak to him like a person or understand what he'd say to her in return. He'd never done what she wanted, only what he thought of first. If anything, he'd botched up any and all attempts at stealth or sneakery.

But to her—he'd been more than just her cat or friend.

And now, he was gone. Gone with the Burrow—gone along with the memories.

And with all the grieving and carrying on, it was easier not to say anything than be accused, again, or valuing a stupid cat over a person like Fred.

But Fred hadn't let her hold him tight as she cried.

Fred hadn't refused to let her be depressed, danced on her kidneys to get her up no matter the weather, no matter the situation so he could get his kibble.

Fred hadn't listened to her rant or staunched her tears.

That had always been Crookshanks.

The years that passed—never seemed to ease that lack of closure. There had been nothing to bury. No proof he was dead or alive.

He was just—gone.

There was a knock at the door, and Hermione sucked it up and walked over to it.

The dark shadow filled the doorframe. He held out a hamper with a small cloth tucked over it.

"Come on through," Hermione said with a welcoming smile.

He understood. He alone had helped her staple posters to every place imaginable. He alone went to shelters in cities all over Britain asking about a certain orange furball.

He alone had held her as she wept into his robes no matter how irrational she became. No matter how attached she was to that "squash-faced furry menace."

As he walked in, his cloak detached from his back and floated over to her, wrapping her up in a warm hug before attaching to her back.

Severus tutted, shaking his head. "Forgive him. He is—insufferable."

Hermione smiled. "He's sweet," she said as she lay the hamper on the table. She'd set the table already. It was Sunday. The one day he wasn't up to his eyeballs in the apothecary and the one day she didn't have to honour the hit list—the list of Dark witches and wizards that had the stupidity to make it on the DoM's list for their team of hit wizards and witches.

She and those like her—would track them down.

But what the majority of the Wizarding World didn't know was that those like her sacrificed so much more than just their mundane lives to become a hit wizard or witch—at least if you were employed under the DoM. There were those others—the ones who took up beds in Mungos with their own name plaque attached as some sort of strange badge of prestige—that were also called Hit Wizards.

But she was not one of those.

She never could be.

Not after Bellatrix' little torture session.

She—she was straight out of Egyptian nightmares.

Bellatrix screamed but was cut off as the jaws of a great crocodile clamped over her head and bit it clean off her shoulders—and swallowed it along with the tattered wisps of the soul.

Hermione roared, a strange sound both reptilian and mammal, her formerly curly mane of hair cascading down her back in dread-like braids, each captured with the golden beads bearing Egyptian hieroglyphics. The scales on her crocodile head were marked in gold like the face paint of old, striping down her muzzle and around her eyes. Her dreads formed a kind of mane as her frontal body was that of a lion, save for the crocodilian head. Her lower body was that of a hippo, but there was no mistaking the rage—

She snapped up Bellatrix' beheaded corpse and devoured it whole, gulping it down like a heron with a fish, a crocodile with a hunk of meat—

As she did so, a headdress formed over her head, taming her mane even more as the serpentine rearing cobra settled between her ears. Her eyes glowed as whispers of the spirits seemed to cry out, "Ammit, Ammit, Ammit—"

Hieroglyphs glowed over her skin but faded as her human form returned, and Hermione passed out on the floor, unmoving until Harry and Ron came to rescue her.

Hermione pulled out the food she had under stasis and dished out the plates for them both from toad in the hole, Yorkshire pudding, and Scotch eggs.

"Such a bounty," Severus said quietly. "Are you planning to fatten me up and devour me?"

Hermione laughed, passing him the bottle of blood wine. "Hardly. Who would I cry on if not you?"

Severus snorted and shook his head. "Walter would volunteer."

Hermione chuckled. "I appreciate his affection, but I think I prefer to cry on you and fan the flames of awkward feelings to ease my grief."

"Interesting path through the seven stages," Severus said. "I think, however, that I have finally found the cure."

Hermione eyed him as she sipped her drink.

"Aren't you going to open it?" His eyes tracked to the hamper.

"You brought a new after-dinner wine?" Hermione asked.

"Not exactly."

"Created a stress tonic?"

"No, I think this is in line with the more traditional."

Hermione stared at him.

Severus, as usual, was as emotionally revealing as a statue with a poker face.

Hermione tentatively touched the basket and pulled back the cloth.

Mrrrrt!

An orange squash-faced menace leapt out and latched onto her chest, headbonking and purring like mad.

"C-Crooks?!" Hermione cried out in astonishment.

Crookshanks leapt onto the table and helped himself to the salmon tartare.

"W-what—where-how?" Hermione babbled as Severus took her into his arms. She sobbed hysterically into his chest.

"He was two-timing you in a house in Pembroke, living his best life and fathering many generations of part-Kneazle kittens," Severus said.

"Bloody cat," Hermione sobbed. "I was worried sick, and here he was having kittens all over Pembroke."

Severus rubbed her back.

Hermione sniffed, eyeing Crooks as he attempted to help himself to the gravy and seemed utterly put out that the protective spell she put over it kept him from sticking his head into the gravy bowl.

Rrrrow! he complained, batting at the energy barrier.

"He's been a Muggle farmcat for far too long," Hermione said with a sniff. "Now he's put out that he's not supposed to be on the dinner table eating our food."

Walter, unamused, floated over, swaddled up Crookshanks, and moved him over to the settee, set down a litterbox in the corner, and dumped litter into it. He then smacked his "cloth" together as if wiping his hands, and "sneezed" making all the orange cat hair that was sticking to him fall into a pile on the floor. He then floated back towards Hermione and reattached himself to her back.

"Want my advice?" Severus asked as he rubbed her back, not really expecting her to answer one way or another.

Hermione looked at him with both relief and exhaustion. "Stop thinking my cat is a traitor?" she asked.

Severus pulled out a box from his robes and opened it to expose a goblin silver cobra ouroboros ring . "Marry me. Be my mate, and the insufferable Lethifold will officially be your wedding gift and familiar for putting up with me, and your wayward cat can just be the cat he is."

Walter warmed on her back like a hug, signalling his approval.

Hermione's lip quivered, and she burst into tears again.

Severus grimaced, pulling her to his chest. "Gods, woman, what can I say that doesn't break you?"

"Yes," Hermione sobbed, clinging to his body. "Yes to everything!"

"Everything breaks you?" Severus said, his brows knitting together.

"I want everything—with you, with Walter, and with my bloody two-timing cat!" Hermione cried into his robes.

Hermione pulled back to look him in the eyes and panicked as she saw him bleeding from the eyes. "Oh, gods! What did I say? Did I put too much garlic in the—"

Severus crushed her to his chest. "No, you bloody insufferable chimaera of dangerous Egyptian beasts! It's my stupid body trying to tell you in the most unsexy of ways, that I will be able to provide you with blood so you will never be thirsty."

"You—you're bleeding, for me?" Hermione asked softly, touching his cheek.

"Literally," Severus said with a sigh. "I've managed to suppress it for a while now, but the moment you said yes, I—I felt hope for the first time in a very long time."

"Hope?" Hermione whispered. "Hope for what?"

Severus winced as he cupped her cheek with one hand and then slipped the ring on her finger. "That you weren't a hallucination. That you weren't going to run off and marry the roaming cock of the UK because Molly Weasley said so—that you'd adopt another cat and say you didn't want to see me anymor—mmph!"

Hermione snogged him senseless enough to make him forget he didn't really require oxygen and wasn't actually smothering to death.

"I love you, you paranoid bastard," she said with a half-sob.

Severus let out a wheezing huff of relief and pulled her into his arms. "Really?" he questioned, still unconvinced.

Hermione tilted her head to the side and guided his mouth to her neck. "Really."

Severus Snape, insecure git extraordinaire, claimed his witch at last.

As the couple retired to the bedroom, Crookshanks hopped up onto the mantle, pushed off the picture of Ron and Harry and let it land on the floor, then he curled up nose to fluffy tail in the warm spot of his choice.

His long-game finally completed, Crooks yawned, closed his eyes and settled in for a well-deserved nap.

Meow!