The Cat's Meow

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! xD I\'m glad people like it. This is a really short chapter, but I\'ll try to make up for it in the next one.



As soon as the Granger chit was gone, Severus shut and warded the door, feeling his breath turn shaky and his heartbeat erratic. Damn it, it wasn\'t fair, he snarled to himself, raking a hand through his hair. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not greasy and oily and disgusting. He merely cultivated the illusion that it was, to foster a more sinister impression upon the idiots he was forced to teach. Idiots quite unlike Miss Granger...He sighed raggedly.



"Fifteen," he reminded himself aloud, the sound of his own voice making him startle. "She\'s only fifteen. She\'s a child."



But oh that mind...Severus strode back into his chambers and grabbed a fresh bottle of firewhiskey. He needed a drink right about now. Hermione Granger was brilliant. The kind of student that you only came across once or twice in your lifetime, if you were lucky. Her friend Luna was smart enough in her own way--Severus wouldn\'t have let her audit the fifth years if she wasn\'t--but she didn\'t have the overall breadth of knowledge and intellectual curiosity that Hermione possessed. She reminded him of himself at that age. Only she was far more self-possessed than he had ever been, even at eighteen.



That jinx...he could have sworn he\'d seen it before, too. Severus\'s brow furrowed. The look of shock on Hermione\'s face when her hood became dislodged had been nearly enough to make him hug her. He wanted to soothe and comfort her (his beloved, his mind whispered, torturing him). He wanted to fix it. He could tell that she hated what had happened. She didn\'t want to be a feline-human hybrid. He hadn\'t dared tell her that he thought her calico ears and tail were quite fetching, then. It turned the adorable teenager into something exotic and even more beautiful than she already had been.



He didn\'t dare admit, even to himself, that he had picked the love potion because he knew Hermione would do it correctly. Or that he had deliberately chosen her to test it, hoping that he would be the one her feelings intensified for. Of course, it\'s not like he knew if it was him or not, but he doubted it. She had looked so apprehensive when she\'d woken up in his sitting room and seen him. Like he could hurt her. Her! Hermione, his scholarly angel. Besides, he was a Hogwarts professor. There was no way he could harm one of his students, much as he wanted to sometimes. Like those "friends" of hers, Harry and Ron. Severus had to admit that Potter, at least, possessed some talent for potion-making, but the Weasley boy was a rank idiot at it. Almost worse than Neville Longbottom, if that were possible.



Severus took a generous swallow of firewhiskey, feeling the warmth burn down the length of his esophagus and settle in his stomach. Why was he thinking about the moronic parts of "the Golden Trio?" He\'d rather think about the one who personified it. Hermione. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, although few noticed or admitted it. To most of her classmates, she remained the bossy bookworm know-it-all. It didn\'t seem possible that he was the only one who noticed her quiet maturity, the way her figure had blossomed, her wry sense of humor (so like his own), and the gentle fall of her chestnut-colored curls down her back. Her hair was the reason he had bemoaned the addition of hoods to the school uniforms. Why cover up that glorious dark mane? Now, however, Severus had an inkling of why that particular proclamation had been made, and he had a very strong feeling it had to do with the fuzzy protuberances on Miss Granger\'s head.



"I have to help her," he told the empty rooms, taking another gulp of fiery liquid. "I have to help her become fully human again."



Still that faint niggling at the back of his mind, something to do with a feline jinx...but what? He couldn\'t remember anything about it other than that Hermione had been extraordinarily lucky. If it was not discovered and healed in time, the unlucky recipient would become a human-sized cat forever. In some instances, the afflicted wizard or witch was not able to even retain human language and had to resort to feline caterwauling for any kind of communication. Severus could never let that happen to Hermione.



Heaving a sigh, Severus set the rest of his firewhiskey down and turned to his library. It was going to be a long night of research again.