Forbidden Union

Draco was returning to the common room after a long day of pretending to be normal. Laughing at his “friends” juvenile jokes and attempts at mocking the Gryffindors, pretending to eat the food at meal times, and making sure everyone saw that his eyes were actually exactly the same grey shade they’d always been. He was nearly at the hidden entry when he heard it; a agonised scream of pain and fear. Abruptly he stopped and Crabbe ran into him from behind.



“Hey! What…?” Draco searched the confused looks on his friends faces and realised they hadn’t heard anything. Then the scream came again and he realised why; it was a mental scream, he’d heard it only in his head.



“I just remembered Professor Snape wanted to see me again this afternoon… I’ll see you later.” He turned and headed back the way they’d come until he heard the door to the common room shut, then he turned back and continued along the corridor in the opposite direction.



He heard the scream again and followed it down a narrow dark corridor which looked like it was rarely used. There, glowing yellow eyes stared up at him like lamps from about a foot off the ground. As his eyes adjusted he saw the eyes belonged to a cat, a large cat with long ginger fur, and in its mouth a black mouse screamed, four tiny paws waving hysterically. Still watching him the cat calmly lowered its head and dropped the mouse onto the flagstones. Instantly the screaming stopped and the mouse froze. The tiny creature stayed completely still for about five seconds, then it was off so fast that Draco’s eyes barely followed the movement. Without taking it’s lamp-eyes off Draco the cat stretched out a paw, lightning fast and scooped the creature back up into its mouth. The screaming started again, an anguished mental cry of hopelessness and terror. Again the cat dropped the ragged ball of damp fur onto the ground by its feet and again the screaming cut off, the creature freezing as if that alone could make the larger creature forgot it was there. This time the mouse stayed still for a good ten seconds, the cat waiting patiently for it to make its move. When it did once again Draco’s eyes lost the movement, but then the mouse was once again screaming, its paws waving from between delicate pink lips.



Draco half turned to return to his common room, wondering why the cat was playing with its food.



“Because it’s fun.” The mental voice was rough and amused, and as clear as the scream in his head. Draco froze in shock, turning back to look at the yellow eyes which still studied him impassively, wondering if that voice could possibly belong to…



“Of course it’s me! Don’t be foolish.”



Draco looked around to make sure no-one was watching him, perhaps somehow playing some kind of joke. The cat watched him, and he got the impression of bored amusement.



The cat crouched, carefully placing the mouse back on the ground and bunching his legs underneath himself, tail flicking from side to side. This time when the mouse ran the cat let it get further away, and it was running past Draco down the corridor against the wall when the cat, a ginger blur, pounced. This time there was no scream, just a tiny crunch and the smell of fresh blood. Draco felt his mouth suddenly fill with saliva and he was glad he’d fed just that morning or he was afraid he would have killed the cat and eaten both of them.



A mental snort cut across his thoughts; “huh! You could try, human.” How the hell could this creature hear him? And how was it communicating back? Nothing like this had happened before, he could get vague impressions of someone’s emotions, but never had it been this clear, and never had it been a two way communication. Why now? Why with this creature?



“I’m a cat.” The creature answered smugly, as if this answered everything.



Draco stared at the ginger mass of fur. It stared back. He found himself wondering how this creature had found a mouse in the deserted corridors and surrounding grounds of Hogworts.



“Huh! Deserted! There are plenty of mice and rats and owls, but my human doesn’t like me eating the owls… so out of politeness I resist.”



Draco felt a surge of disbelief. He had searched Hogworts and the forbidden forest, with his other awareness, and he knew how rare any non-magical creatures, besides owls, were.



“Humans.” The cat made a strange movement and Draco was sure it was mentally rolling its eyes. “You just don’t know how to look.”



The practical part of Draco forced him to swallow his pride and ask, although he doubted he would get a useful answer; “how should I look?”



“Look for what you can’t see,” the cat whispered enigmatically, and then with the flick of a ginger tail, he was gone.



Draco shook his head disgustedly; ‘look for what you can’t see’; what was that supposed to mean?