A/N: Sometimes Life says, "Nope, you have other things to do."

For the record, I don't ever abandon my work. I can't say that plot lines inspire always to the end over a given time, but I don't abandon them. I saw this story marked as "abandoned" on a tumblr and could only shake my head. If you write, you'll understand why this both amused and depressed me while also, ironically, gave me less inspiration. Life gets busy. I thank those of you who have always been patient and understanding of my muses.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose and Dutchgirl01

Warning: Foul mouthed lintball.

Nine Tails of Retribution

Chapter 4

Sickness and Health

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

~ Henry David Thoreau

-Harry-

I woke up. That was unexpected. I honestly hadn't expected to survive this horrid disease that had taken ahold of my body and ravaged it into paste. Now that I was awake, however, I was feeling quite human again. Better yet, I was no longer sneezing the house into shaking thanks to bursts of accidental magic. I really didn't want to be responsible for destroying Hermione's ancestral home.

Wow. Ancestral home.

My godfather was a pureblood supremacist and a Dark wizard. I had lost what I had thought was my greatest link to my parents in life, but the harsh reality was that I had never really had it to begin with. Sirius Black—my father's best mate—had never really existed. But Hermione, Merlin, she was the true heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Black. Remus said that made her family. Real family. Like most pure-bloods, all of them were related in some way. The Potters were no different before they were outcast from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

I had family. Real family—right in front of my nose for the last five years. And I had treated her like—

I closed my eyes in shame. I had treated her horribly. In my desperate quest to find a "real family" I had shunned her in my anger, blaming her for not responding to my owls and keeping in touch when I really needed her to. Yet that, too, had been a lie. Remus had finally taken the jinx off Hedwig, saying it was a rather nasty piece of work to hijack an owl, forcing her to deliver all of my outgoing mail to Sirius first.

All this time, every single piece of mail I had ever sent out had been read by Sirius Black. My heart, my thoughts, my anger—all of it—had gone straight to him, telling him exactly how to manipulate me. Hermione had said she hadn't received more than one or two letters from me, thinking I just didn't give a flying fig about writing, but the truth was I had sent weekly letters, detailing how lonely it was for me the Dursleys. After a while, I stopped writing, thinking she just didn't care enough to write me back.

And Sirius—who somehow managed to get everyone to trust him—remained blissfully unsuspected, slowly turning me against my own friends. Herding me into his perfect cage of anger and hatred that "only he could truly understand." He had even driven Remus away, using his status as a werewolf to shame him into hiding, too afraid to contact me lest he endanger me with his violent, uncontrollable, tortured inner wolf. After seeing the wrathful change here under the roof of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, I had already forgiven him his fears. He had lived with that simmering under his skin for longer than I'd been alive. Thinking about it, I realized I would have banished myself too.

Remus and I had managed to have quite a few long and interesting talks while renovating Grimmauld Place, at least, we had before we both came down with the wizard flu. Now, Hogwarts was only a week away, and I felt like I just wasn't ready for that. For the first time ever, I found myself wishing that I had a little more time before I had to go back to school.

I looked over to where Hedwig normally perched and found her preferred spot empty. After sneezing her off her perch a few times and covering her with snot, I didn't blame her in the slightest.

I decided to do my best to feel human again by taking a long, hot shower, brushing my teeth, and even gargling. Magic was wonderful, but nothing beat a real honest-to-goodness deep-cleansing shower, or if time allowed, a proper bath. Apparently someone had cleaned up after me because the bathroom was utterly pristine, absolutely spotless, with no evidence whatsoever of my recent illness. The seat to the toilet was down—which might have meant that Hermione did it.

Oh gods. Hermione… cleaning up after—

Please, please, let it have been Kreacher.

How embarrassing.

Males, you have to understand, are not always the most cleanliness-conscious of creatures. Not all of us are useless layabouts, mind you, but when you go to a magical school where things always get picked up for you, and your home life up until that point had been all about cleaning up after everyone else, I uh—okay, I admit it, I was a lousy skiver.

It wasn't that I didn't have a clothes hamper or had T-rex arms to make me incapable of using it, but I felt like for once in my life I could drop my socks on the floor in my own room—my own ROOM!—and not have bloody Vernon trying to shove me up against the wall with his bloated gut as he spit in my face in his frothy anger. Some people rebel by wearing leather, smoking, or doing drugs. Me? I was just a typical indolent teenage bloke.

Indolent? Where had that word come from? It must have been something Hermione called me when I wasn't really paying attention.

To be fair, I wasn't lazy about everything, but lately I felt like I had some wild hare (and I do mean the long-eared, chased by a fox kind) up my arse, and I just had to say no to everything and everyone.

I could see Hermione's lip curl slightly, rather unnervingly like Snape's. She'd have her hands on her hips as she rolled her eyes. "Really, Harry. You're a teenager, but you don't have to act like the stereotypical example of one."

Now that Hermione was most decidedly not a teenager, my mental image of her was even more off. She'd gotten as far as puberty, had skipped over most of being a teenager and had gone straight on to becoming a mature adult. If anyone could have become an adult and take it in stride way before her time, it was Hermione. Still, seeing her there—that tall, porcelain, raven-haired vixen—and then imagining that same gorgeous witch scrubbing the floors and cleaning the bathroom just made me feel like a horrible example of a human being.

Once I had gotten my hygiene in order, I put on some fresh clothes and walked down the stairs. The portraits grunted greetings as I went by, and blessed be to all the gods, Walburga was not screaming for once. Come to think of it, she hadn't screamed at all since Sirius was arrested .

Something smelled absolutely wonderful, and my nose seemed to have a direct communication line to my eager stomach. My stomach growled loudly in protest of its current empty status. Alright then. First things first: breakfast, lunch, or whatever it was time for.

A bowl of soup was sitting out on the counter with a stasis charm over it. I would've left it, thinking someone would be coming back for it, but there was a small card leaning against it with "Harry" written on it in overly neat handwriting that simply screamed Hermione. Well, then. Don't mind if I do.

When I had first come to Hogwarts, I had thought the food there was the ambrosia of the gods. I had believed that it was conjured from thin air by some divine form of culinary magic. After a rather long lecture from Hermione about basic Transfiguration laws, I had learned that food did not just simply appear out of nowhere. However, the magic of that singular moment when that glorious food touched my tongue for the first time—was nothing compared to the taste of this amazing homemade cock-a-leekie soup. Move over barbeque chicken wings, ginger newts, and treacle tart. This soup was the ambrosia of the gods made form. I could taste the love in the making of it.

"Apprentice Black will be happy to know you're enjoying her soup," a low, baritone voice rumbled, setting the hair on the back of my neck standing up straight.

Professor Snape glided in like a dark spectre, which I was beginning to think was an inborn talent of his, and dished up a bowl of soup for himself. To my horror, he sat down at the counter and began to eat. I sat there, frozen like a deer caught in headlights, staring speechlessly at my Potions professor calmly dipping into his soup like he was a huge saltwater crocodile in the middle of the only watering hole for miles around.

"Your soup is getting cold, Potter," he said in between spoonfuls of his own soup.

"I—uh, yeah," I stammered, staring down at my soup bowl.

"We are not in class," Snape commented quietly. "You are not in my classroom. That is not a cauldron of scalding hot half-finished potion, and it's not going to blow up if you stir it the wrong way. Contrary to popular belief, I don't really care how you eat as long as you don't cover me with it."

I kept staring at him like a complete idiot. He lifted his head, arching his brow at me. It was like a sudden jolt of electricity, and I felt compelled to eat faster and stare at something, anything else.

There was something I really needed to get off my chest.

Don't be an idiot.

Don't be an idiot.

"Why do you hate me so much, sir?" I blurted. God damn it all, that was NOT what I had wanted to say!

Good job, brain. If he hexes you into next month with a broken neck, it'll be your own bloody fault.

Snape's spoon clanked against the china bowl, and I wasn't looking at his face. I knew—felt it in my bones—that he was going to bite my head off and somehow make my life a living hell for it.

"I do not hate you, Mr Potter," he replied.

Wait. Back up. My mind desperately wished for instant replay in real life. "Uh… wha?" I managed. Brilliant, Harry. Way to express your intelligence and prove that you're not a total dunderhead.

"I greatly dislike your propensity to throw yourself into danger like a bull charging at a moving target, brazenly thinking you are correct, and then somehow miraculously surviving increasingly mindblowing acts of stupidity that are akin to Wile. E. Coyote from Looney Toons."

I, uh… well, he really did have me there.

Three-headed dog, a near-fatal chess game, breakneck broom-back key fetching, death by disgustingly putrid troll stench, firewalls, and some creepy guy named Voldemort attached to my stuttering DADA professor's head—and that was just my first year! Second year was a homicidal basilisk on a mission, the murderous ghost of Tom Riddle, almost dying due to the efforts of said snake—that was year two. Each year to date had amazingly become even worse, and while I could at least argue that the Goblet of Fire was not my fault in the slightest, there were such stunning examples of Gryffindor idiocy such as throwing myself in front of a rampaging werewolf, almost getting my soul sucked out by Dementors, throwing rocks at myself and nearly giving myself a concussion, and—yeah, ok, he really did have a point.

Instead of waiting for Molly and Arthur to get back, Ron and I had hijacked the family's flying car, got ourselves seen by Muggles, and then crashed into the Whomping Willow only to have the thing go feral and try to kill us. A bit later it saved us from giant man-eating spiders and then kicked us out on our arses and left us in the dirt again. Sure, Hagrid did tell us to follow the spiders, but who was more the fool there? The fool who told a bunch of firsties that it was perfectly safe to go searching the Forbidden Forest in the middle of a night for a unicorn killer or us for believing him?

Hogwarts was supposedly the safest place in wizarding Britain—and yet I and Ron had somehow always ended up finding all the unsafe places to be. Hell, even Hermione had been petrified trying to get us a message about the basilisk, got herself turned into an anthropomorphic cat, and—

Professor Snape really did have a point. There hadn't been any point where the thought "Hey, this is really dangerous, I should go talk to an adult" had ever crossed my mind. To be fair, Hagrid had been the one to send us out in the Dark Forest looking for unicorn bandits—scared kids running around the forest in the dark. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Riiiight.

Professor Snape sighed. "I am not a kind man, Mr Potter. My experience with such things has been few and far between. I do, however, know my potions, and I know when you have studied the material and when you have been slacking about and had Miss Black "help" with yours and Weasley's homework. I expect each and every student to do precisely as they have been instructed—and entirely on their own unless otherwise indicated. Yet, of all of my students, it seems that you, Messrs Finnigan, Weasley, and Longbottom have the worst comprehension of basic verbal instructions of your entire year. Much like a child running out into traffic and being hit by a car, once you blow yourself up, there is no coming back from that. By some stroke of luck, none of you have managed to lose fingers or an eye, and I believe that is only because of Madam Pomfrey's exceptional skill as a mediwitch—not for your lack of trying."

I heard Professor Snape sigh deeply as he finished the last of his soup. He stood up and began to wash his dishes, the Muggle way, in the sink. He plunked the clean bowl and silverware into the drying rack and leveled me with a gaze. "Here, outside of Hogwarts, Lupin gets to be responsible for your own lack of responsibility, Mr Potter. At Hogwarts, it is my job to insure you don't kill yourself or anyone else on my watch. And for every second I spend catching you wandering the halls after curfew, getting yourself into trouble time and time again, I assure you, I would far rather have been relaxing in my bed."

I thought back to when Professor Snape had been so calm in the garden, when he had left me there rather than yell at me after I had lost my cool over believing Sirius over Hermione, and again when he had talked Hermione down from murdering Sirius in cold blood. I focused on that—the supposed Dark wizard Death Eater that would prefer to watch you die slowly rather than lift a finger to help—and I realised that the man I thought I knew was far more complicated than I had ever imagined.

"Can't trust him, mate," Ron's voice rang in my head. "Bloody Slytherins. There hasn't been a wizard gone bad that wasn't from Slytherin."

Except that there were people "gone bad" from other houses, including Gryffindor. Two of them were directly involved in the death of my parents. Just because you were Slytherin did not automatically make you an evil person.

Unless the people around them made it so they believed they had to be.

If everyone believed you would be the next rising Dark Lord, then was it really any surprise when you eventually came to believe it and then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy?

And speaking of self-fulfilling prophecies—

What if this prophecy I was entangled in was just some made up pipe dream and it was coming true simply because everyone believed it would?

I didn't really feel like anyone special. I wasn't nearly as brilliant as Hermione. Sure, I was a Seeker at a really young age, but was that the kind of thing that could win a battle against a powerful Dark wizard like Voldemort? Okay, the snitch is out in ten seconds. First wizard who catches it wins the war… GO!

If only.

Badump. Dadump. Badumdumdump.

The skitter of claws on the floor and mad peeping came to my attention as one aubergine purple phoenix chick clung to the top of a many-tailed Kitsune's head as she went tearing around the corner at full tilt, slid across the kitchen floor, and scrambled out the far door. I listened only to hear the sound getting closer again, and this time she was running full tilt into the kitchen's new sliding glass door that had been Remus' pride and joy.

FWOOOP!

Suddenly, Kitsune and phoenix chick were out in the garden, tearing up the path between the rose bushes, tails a-waving in wisps of fire. They had just blinked through the door.

A low, rumbling laugh startled me out of my chair. The sky was falling. The world was ending. Merlin, save us all. Snape was actually—laughing?

Professor Snape let himself out onto the patio, laying back in the reclining outdoor chair as he pulled out a book to read. Part of me was screaming, "Hey, who does he think he is! This isn't his house!"

I realised, though, that this house actually belonged to Hermione, and Professor Snape was her master. He was also the potion brewer for the Order. Hermione opened the doors to let the Order remain here. Hermione had arranged for Remus to have a place here so I could, in turn, have a place away from the Dursleys.

She trusted him.

Whether I could wrap my mind around it or not, the truth was staring me right in the face.

"YIP!"

Flomp. Scramble. Claw. Claw. Flop.

The little white fox with multiple tails was curled up in Professor Snape's lap, sprawled on her back, paws in the air, tails swishing, with a fluffy phoenix chick perched on her belly.

Professor Snape idly rubbed her ears as he continued to read.

"Miiii," Eggplant cooed.

Hermione said Eggplant was a rebel, and her name not being Aubergine was just one more testament to her obstinance.

"Hrrrhyip!"

"Hn," Professor Snape replied, flipping the page to his book.

"Merlin, please tell me there is some of whatever I smell left," Remus groaned as he entered the kitchen. He was wearing nothing but his boxers—boxers with a charmed wolf chasing a stag across the front and back, diving through the trees and bushes.

I stared up at him—and his very Marauder-esque boxers.

"I woke up with them on, and all of my clothes were missing," Remus protested, leveling a gaze at me like it was somehow my fault.

"I didn't do it!" I swore, waving my hands frantically.

He stared back at me like I usually stared at Fred and George. I knew that expression very well. It spoke of disbelief and a strong desire to let loose a few choice hexes.

Remus, however, had decided that food was far more important than glaring me into submission, and he was stuffing his face just as fast as humanly possible.

"Mmmmerlinthisissooooogood," he moaned in ecstasy between large spoonfuls. His eyes sort of rolled back into his head and then he lazily blinked at me. "Nothing tastes as good as food after starving yourself while you've been sick for days."

I chuckled at him as he dished himself up another bowlful.

"If being human means getting sick on occasion I will happily take it to being a werewolf," Remus said with no small amount of relief. "You're always so hungry before and after. Worst thing—the smell of people makes you even hungrier."

I shuddered. Remus' violent werewolf self had been clearly ready to commit murder. I couldn't imagine living with that for so long—just under the skin, waiting, hungering, gnawing at your insides.

"He's not as bad as we've been trained to think, Harry," Remus said, staring out on the patio as he cleaned his dishes in the sink. "No matter how bad we had it between us back then, that stupid schoolboy rivalry, he didn't deserve to be almost murdered by me. Your father saved him that night. Warned him before he walked right into my jaws. For a while, your father started to wise up, get less angry, torment Severus less. I see now why he went back to being—well. All that time, our best mate was really our worst enemy."

"Severus and I—" Remus trailed off. "We have a lot of dirty laundry to air out, but you don't have to fight your way through as much history, Harry. Just remember, that man out there, right now, is the real man, and more people would have known this had it not been for people like your father and myself, Peter, and Sirius. We all had a hand in it. Willing or not. Knowingly or not."

I looked up, biting my lip slightly as I tried to process it all. "That's quite a lot to take in," I said after a while.

Remus smiled. "I know, Harry," he replied, "but look at them and tell me you don't see the kind of trust we can only wish we were lucky enough to have instead of the pack of lies from the ones we only thought we could trust."

I stared out into the back garden. Somehow, in the last few minutes, the entire back garden had been transformed into a very inviting-looking hot spring complete with a tumbling waterfall. Professor Snape was floating on a reclining seat in the middle of the steaming water with a Kitsune sprawled out in his lap and a happily warbling phoenix chick nestled into his hair. There was just enough tree cover to provide adequate shade for the springs that kept the mid-summer sun from baking down upon the pool.

"I think I know why I woke up like this!" Remus exclaimed, striding towards the door.

"But—your boxers!" I protested.

"These aren't boxers, Harry," Remus said with a wink. "They're my swimming trunks."

I watched Remus climb onto a bright blue and yellow pool pony, floating half in and half out of the water.

I—

I just—

Oh, bloody hell!

I stormed upstairs to get my own swimming trunks on. I was so not going to get left out of fun in our brand new hot spring pool!

Time flew by, even more quickly than before, and it seemed like I had only just recovered from being sick when I suddenly found myself back at Hogwarts again, staring up at the head table and wondering what on Earth was going on. Hagrid apparently had been sent off on some sort of secret mission with Madame Maxime from Beauxbatons (thank you Extendable Ears™) and wasn't coming back "any time soon."

Someone named Professor Grubbly-Plank was filling in for Hagrid, and a squat pink monstrosity of a witch named Dolores Umbridge was teaching DADA. She was also the Undersecretary for Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge, but I had no real idea what that meant. Did it mean you were under all the other secretaries? She sure didn't act like it.

Ron was being extra cranky because Percy had apparently cut off all contact with his family contact due to me—stating that all the talk about Voldemort being alive was nothing more than a load of rubbish. While Ron really didn't care all that much about Percy, his distraught mother had apparently poured down over all her family like a monsoon of acid rain, making all of them completely miserable.

Oddly, the Aurors had recently caught a pair of Dementors hanging about in my old subdivision, and they had attacked the Dursleys, leaving Dudley in the hospital along with three of his friends—they had been using my old room as a gaming room and that was where the Dementors had found them. Aunt Petunia had arrived home just in time to find them all passed out cold on the floor, the room filled with a strange, cold mist and a rather eerie glow. Her frantic screams, or so she said, caused the room to heat back up and all the strange, glowing mist to disappear.

Muggle law enforcement were called out to investigate the incident and a group of government scientists blamed the strange event on an excess of cell signal towers, paranoid people blamed the government, and Vernon Dursley was caught on the telly yelling "The bloody freaks did this! It's all because of those pointy hat-wearing, stick-waving FREAKS!"

That, of course, brought an entirely different sort of law enforcement team in to check things out—the kind with wands. Uncle Vernon's mad antics resulted in the police hauling him off to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after he started kicking every neighborhood cat in sight, loudly accusing them of being "freaks in disguise". Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bloke.

Dumbledore's attempt to get me back with the Dursleys "for my own safety" fell through epically after the news broke about Dementors being discovered hanging about in Little Whinging. Alas, the Aurors could only confirm sightings and trace them back to the Ministry. They could not, however, trace precisely who had sent them. As soon as the news hit the Daily Prophet, all sightings of Dementors in the public suddenly disappeared, making an already suspicious situation even more so.

The Office of the Minister for Magic was still proclaiming that Voldemort was dead and I was nothing more than a lying drama-monger—a deeply disturbed little boy who was desperate for attention. Anyone who truly knew me would have known that the single last thing in the world that I wanted was more attention. There was, unfortunately for Minister Fudge, the small matter of one Gertrude Bumworthy, who had abducted and confined Rita Skeeter to a cellar in Ottery St Catchpole for the last decade—who said she was working under orders. There was a whole slew of newly convicted Death Eaters, all complete with Dark Marks who were singing like canaries about all their exploits and the status of their Dark Lord being very much alive. All of them had been "infected" with a truth-telling geas that seemed to be tailored specifically for those wearing the Mark.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Then, there was Sirius, who had happily if not gleefully spilled his guts about everything he had done since he tricked the hat into Sorting him into Gryffindor. There were bloody mountains of evidence in my favour. The Minister and Madam Umbridge, however, seemed utterly convinced that it was "all too convenient."

What?

Luna's father, Xenophilius Lovegood, was having a fine old time publishing all sorts of pot-stirring articles wondering why the Ministry continued to insist that Voldemort was dead, discounting any and all evidence to the contrary. They had articles about Dumbledore, too, thanks to the Ministry trying to fling mud at him as well for "having lost his mind" and "no longer being fit to run a school."

That was really why Umbridge was here—to keep Hogwarts in line.

Only, she was having a horrible start of it at Hogwarts. The moment she stood up and attempted to speak, the owl on the podium proceeded to attack her, the napkins all swarmed her face, and all the meatballs on the nearby dinner tray leapt up and tried to force feed themselves to her. She had to be rushed to the hospital wing, her face and pink cardigan splattered liberally with pasta sauce, for forcible extraction of said meatballs.

Later, while we were in back in our dormitories, the prefects sent word that old Filch was posting some sort of Educational Decree stating that owls were no longer permitted in the Great Hall. Later, we heard loud shrieks emitting from the vicinity of the hospital wing as every single owl from the Owlry came to perch on and around her bed, glaring at her. Hedwig returned to me shortly after the screaming finally stopped, looking terribly pleased with herself.

The next morning, said educational decree was nowhere to be found, having seemingly flown off by itself.

Umbridge spent the next four hours screaming at Filch for daring to take down her decree, and for once in our lives, the students saw something that inspired more ire in the old squib caretaker than even Peeves himself. As if sensing that there was something he could do that no one was going to complain about, Peeves made it his personal mission in life, death, er... whatever he was, to torment Umbridge in every way possible.

On the first day of class, she was late after somehow getting stuffed into a suit of armour. Someone gave Peeves access to the Divination Tower, and all the crystal balls came rolling down the stairs every time she tried to go up (or down) them. She then banned crystal balls from the school and grounds, royally pissing off people like Lavender and Parvati, who really looked forward to their Divination class every year.

"I don't want to be stuck reading ruddy tea leaves all term!" Lavender complained bitterly.

Once the crystal balls had been locked up in a cage inside her office, Umbridge found herself being followed by rolling rocks of all shapes and sizes. Whenever she stopped moving, the rocks would roll over her feet, breaking her toes. She then banned rocks from Hogwarts.

"She does realise that this is a castle made of stone, yeah?" an incredulous Fred asked George.

"I don't think she's really thinking about anything at the moment, bro," George replied.

Hogwarts, the next day, seemed to be in almost an amused mood, as every wall shifted into a stunning collection of bricks made up of precious gems and metals. Gryffindor was constructed of ruby and gold, Hufflepuff had onyx and topaz, Slytherin had emerald and silver, and Ravenclaw had sapphire and black pearl. And as if to mock her even more, the Great Hall was constructed of tourmaline and flawless rose quartz. Dumbledore's office had broken out in amethyst, and from the chatter at the High Table, every office had taken on new and interesting characteristics—all in gemstones and precious metals.

Umbridge's office, however, looked like the inside of the foulest of sewers, and it came with a horrendous odour to match. She demanded that she be moved, the headmaster duly had her things moved, and she woke up the next morning in the same smelly surroundings. Hogwarts, apparently, had an exceedingly low opinion of her.

What was even more comical—if anyone other than her came to visit, the room would be pristine, comfortable, and seemingly constructed out of a lovely mahogany wood. Comfy overstuffed chairs would appear, an exquisite goblin silver and bone china tea service would pop in via elf, and an inlaid wooden floor the likes of which the Queen herself would have envied would bless the floor.

"Cornelius!" she was heard whining to the Minister. "Come look at this awful room they put me in!"

"Well, I'm not sure if those pink kitten plates really go with the mahogany furniture, Dolores, but this room is really quite spectacular. It's even better than the Headmaster's Office," he said, rubbing his chin. "By the way, did someone accidentally transfigure the school into gemstone and precious metal?"

This was all during the course of her first month at Hogwarts, and it seemed to be getting steadily worse. Her sanity, if whatever she had could legitimately be described as such, was definitely suffering.

One day, she passed out a stack of books for us to learn her brand-new "Ministry-approved" DADA lesson plan, told us to read passages from it, but all the pages had mysteriously gone blank. She tried again the next day, having shipped in a new set of books, and all the pages, save her own copy, had some rather scandalous photographs of herself with Minister Fudge—disturbingly, Minister Fudge was wearing a frilly French maid's uniform while Dolores herself sported a horrifying hot pink leather dominatrix outfit.

Of course, when Fudge came in to look over the books, they were all painfully dry and boring reading.

"Dolores, are you sure you're quite up to this?" Fudge asked, visibly concerned. "These books look perfectly fine to me."

Sadly, the books remained as boring as ever after that event, but something even more interesting happened: Umbridge gained her very own soundtrack.

Everywhere she went, music followed her. Stalking, whimsical, angry, stormy, funny, suspenseful, or some combination thereof—you could literally hear her coming and instantly know what mood she was in. One time a butterfly flew in the window while she was teaching, and her normal ominous grating music turned whimsical and happy—until she smashed it with her hand. The music immediately changed to the shower scene music from Psycho and then switched to Chopin's Funeral March. Only the Muggleborns and those Muggle-raised seemed to appreciate the irony and recognise the soundtrack for what it was.

We could always tell when she was skulking around the hallways looking for trouble. The Jaws theme always started playing. It must have frustrated her to no end not being able to catch anyone doing anything out of line. It was like an early warning system for mischievous students.

"I don't think she can actually hear it," Seamus commented gleefully as he stuffed his face with fish and chips. "She doesn't seem to realise we can hear her coming."

Best of all, perhaps, was the theme from Top Gun that would play whenever the owls started their "air raids" on Umbridge. They would even "buzz the tower" to make her spill tea all over herself.

Finding no miscreants to punish, the pink-clad, toadish woman set her gaze upon the faculty, and that was when things went decidedly pear-shaped.

-Hermione-

"Hallo, Tails," the little witch cooed, picking me up and cuddling me without a second thought. "Come to keep me company?"

Oof. Can't breathe.

She stopped squeezing me, and I panted heavily. I was getting used to the treatment. Most people thought I was "Professor Snape's familiar." I didn't mind. My nickname had become Tails for obvious reasons. Even though they could see my Kitsune form, very few saw my ears and tails when I was human, but I suppose that was a good thing. I had enough scrutiny between the recent changes to my appearance and being Professor Snape's new apprentice.

The little witch pet my tails and rubbed my belly, which was always greatly appreciated. My true weakness, perhaps—well, that and food. I'd always admonished Ron about stuffing his face at all times, but I was always hungry. Alastor said it was because I was channeling a lot of magic all the time. Charming Aurors out of their sandwiches, however, that was a game I never quite grew tired of. I licked my lips. Especially when someone had turkey. Mmm, turkey.

I'd never really been much for physical contact until my transformation—strange considering my change had while come under physical and emotional duress—but good things seemed to happen when people indulged my driving need for belly rubs and ear scritches. No one seemed to be complaining, yet. My mam seemed to think I provided stress-relieving therapy. Combined with a certain puffball chick—comic relief.

My ears twitched as I heard the distinctive Jaws music approaching. Quickly, I nipped the little witch, whose name I completely forgot, and drove her deep into the rose bushes. She protested a little, but seemed to get the message that I wasn't playing. She hunkered down in the bush, drawing her knees up to her chin and stayed quiet.

"You!" a voice hissed. There was the sound of feet squeaking across the rather luxurious-looking smoky quartz flagstones. "Why is there no one else about?"

"Ma'am?" an older boy's voice asked.

"Why are you just sitting there reading? Why aren't there people playing around in the corridors?"

"Against the rules, ma'am," the boy answered, sounding puzzled.

"I know you're up to something!" Umbridge hissed.

"Studying this rather dry book, ma'am," the boy answered.

The little witch was clutching me tighter, petting my ears as she trembled in fear.

"No school can have nothing going on for this long!" Umbridge exclaimed, her voice getting rather high. "No—ribbit!"

"Sorry, ma'am?"

"Ribbit!"

"I—I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have no idea what you're saying?"

"RIBBIT! RIBBIT! RIBBIIIIITTTTT!"

There was the sound of a slap, perhaps her clapping her hands over her mouth and frantic shuffling down the hall.

"Psst, hey Tails," Fred said, poking his head over the wall and talking into the rose bushes. "The coast is clear. She's running towards the headmaster's office now."

I poked my head out of the rosebush and licked Fred on the nose.

He deserved it after that.

He picked me up and threw me over his shoulders so I could look behind him, doing my best fox stole impression. "Careful getting out of there, Mary Jo. There ya go. Better get back to the common room before Umbridge gets back."

Mary Jo—ah, that was her name—rushed off after giving me a little kiss on the nose. I was strangely okay with that. Then again, I was strangely okay with being thrown over someone's shoulder and pretending to be a piece of clothing. I had never before had so much fun being, well—portable!

"Not sure what to call you anymore, Hermione, so I think I'm going to stick with Tails," Fred said, giving me an ear rub. "Well, when we aren't being all formal-like. Mum is a bit rattled still. Percy isn't helping with his telling everyone that Harry Potter is a lying, attention-grubbing something or other. I kinda stopped listening quite a while before he stormed out of the house."

That was rather depressing news. Harry had said that Ron was being extra cranky lately due to everything that had been going on. Thing was, he really couldn't say exactly what it was that was bothering him, but he sure seemed pleased to take it out on everyone around him. So far Ginny had Bat-Boogey hexed him at least twice a day since term started. Fred and George had hogtied him with licorice whips, and Neville—believe it or not—actually told Ron to "get stuffed."

Seamus and Ron weren't talking after the first time Seamus wasn't the one blowing things up. Ron had accidentally sneezed into his cauldron, causing it to explode all over Seamus. That, of course, had Severus raining Merlin-forsaken hell down upon them like their own personal storm cloud, complete with thunder and lightning zapping them repeatedly on the arse.

Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, had secreted himself away in his amethyst-walled office and was singing the Hogwarts anthem very loudly and off-key, making us all shake our heads and wonder what in the world he was up to. He'd seemed—rather irritated that Remus wasn't able to be his own personal werewolf ambassador (really, who does want to be that?) and Severus was unable to be his Dark wizard pocket-spy. No Mark; no spy. Tough luck, that.

I tried to be sorry, but it didn't quite work. Both the Grangers and my Mam taught me better than to lie.

"George wanted to call you 'Little Buddha' but I pummeled him about the head and shoulders for you," Fred informed me with a wide grin.

My tails were swishing about in amusement. Good on Fred for standing up for me like that. To be fair, both twins treated me like a highly-prized crystal vial filled with Liquid Luck after the entire outing of Sirius Black as the enemy people thought he was the first time around. Damn, but that was getting pretty confusing.

As far as I knew, he was now cooling his heels in an Animagus-proof cell awaiting his next trial to decide if it was life in Azkaban or the Dementor's Kiss. As long as he was locked away in Azkaban, I felt better about the entire situation. I wanted him far away from me, from the ancestral home that I didn't even know I had, and Harry, who was now actually related to me.

Deep in the recesses of my mind was a detailed scorecard, a chalkboard with all sorts of diagrams and circles, names, lines, and zigzags. And in the middle of it all was a phoenix chick using the string as a nest and leaving little bird footprints in the chalk dust.

She did that in real life, too. She was probably doing it right now in Minerva's classroom. Eggplant was just a feisty little chick with her own insubordination issues— like her name. She refused to be called Aubergine like a proper British phoenix named after a vegetable. She didn't want to be called Aalish, her proper name. She wanted to be called Eggplant, by gum, and she would peck out the eyes of anyone who tried to say otherwise.

Eggplant loved being turned into a goblet and back. She trusted Minerva to not let her stay a goblet for too long. I tried not to judge. I turned into a multi-tailed fox, after all, and if there was anyone I trusted to transfigure me into anything, it was my mam.

"I assure you, Madam Umbridge," I heard the voice of Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank protesting vociferously. "If you indeed have a Niffler in your office, it is not one of mine. All of mine wear little gold collars and identification bands on their left hind foot. They are all in their habitat, so unless someone broke into my highly-warded classroom and stripped them off all identifying marks—that Niffler is not one of mine."

"I'm going to trace this creature!" Umbridge seethed.

Fred and I looked around the corner to see Umbridge waving about a half-strangled Niffler by the neck in front of a furious Professor Grubbly-Plank's face. The little creature was squeaking frantically in absolute terror.

"Help! Help! Helphelphelphelp!" I heard the voice.

My eyes widened. Oh yeah—magical creature.

I jumped down from Fred's shoulder and tore down the hall towards the pink monstrosity. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do something to save that poor Niffler from certain death via asphyxiation. I quickly dove between her legs, diving under Professor Grubby-Plank, making it look like I was being chased by something really big and really hungry.

I clung to her leg under her robes so only my tails stuck out from under the robes. I pondered, quite seriously, if I would going to have to take one for the team and take a bite out of Umbridge's puffy ankle just when—

"ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Umbridge sneezed loudly and quite violently. Suddenly, there was a panting Niffler hiding next to me under Grubby-Planks' robes.

"Oh, hello there," the Niffler said. "Thank you!"

"ACHOO!" Umbridge sneezed again. "Oh I'm goin—ACHOO!"

"I don't think I actually did anything yet," I confessed to the Niffler.

"AHHHHHCHOOO!"

"Oh, dear," Professor Grubbly-Plank exclaimed. "I think you may be quite allergic to Niffler dander. It's exceedingly rare but—"

"AAAAAACHOOOOOOOOOOO!" Umbridge was waving her hands frantically and running top speed down the hallway towards her office.

A warm pair of hands scooped me up off the ground, cradling me with one hand. Oh hello, warm hands and what are you—oh yesssss, right there. Thank you.

The Niffler was getting VIP treatment too, and was riding along in one of Professor Grubbly-Plank's rather capacious pockets.

"Thank you for your assistance there, dearie," the smiling elder witch said while giving me a good scratch behind the ears.

Honestly, where did this woman learn how to—oh wow. YIP! Were my tails wagging? Oh, yes they were!

"You have to help Severus teach in a half hour, don't you dear?" she said.

I made a soft noise of disappointment when she set me back down.

"Don't worry, I'll find him a nice horde of shiny things and a comfy habitat," she said with a wink. "Just as soon as I let Poppy know that Madam Umbridge may be having some serious issues at the moment."

Issues—that seemed entirely too tame an explanation for why Umbridge was such an unbelievably awful person.

"Say hello to Severus for me," Grubbly-Plank said cheerily.

"Yip!" I tail wagged at her, bouncing off towards the Potions classrooms.

Most of my lessons came in the evenings and the weekends or whenever someone could squeeze me into their schedule. As an apprentice, I had one-to-one teaching, and I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful that was for me. I retained more, learned even faster, and generally didn't have to worry about someone blowing something up two feet away from me.

Thanks to my life-lessons from the Auror Office, martial magic and potions from Severus, all things health-related from Poppy, plant-whispering from Pomona, levitation and you from Filius, and Arithmancy and how Divination sucks from Septima, I was well into my N.E.W.T.s already, and everyone who knew me knew that. Keeping me occupied was the main challenge, or I'd get my multiple tails into mischief—more so now than ever before. Before, I didn't have tails to get into mischief. Now, I had seven of them to dip into trouble at any given moment, a pesky phoenix chick that delighted in adding to it, and then there was Crooks, whom I'm convinced was purposely not talking to me just to keep me guessing.

The late afternoon class was, thankfully, a more laidback class. It wasn't that Severus was anything but a beady-eyed, error-seeking vulture in any of his classes, but it was the N.E.W.T. level students, who had been there, done that, and knew better than to blow each other up. Well, usually.

Severus never once had to say "the instructions are on the board" by N.E.W.T. level, didn't have to drill which directions "clockwise" and "anti-clockwise" were, and didn't get hammered with really inane questions like "How do I get milk out of milkweed?"

Technically, that last one was a trick question. You had to tickle the pod with your fingers and hope you didn't get a cranky one that decided to latch onto them like a Fanged Geranium. Ever had to pluck Fanged Geranium fangs out of your finger after one latches onto you? It's horrible. Those things are like super-fine porcupine quills. Let's not even get into the collecting the Spitting Cobra plant venom without getting it in your eyes. Merlin help you if you had to collect Cobra plant venom and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi plant fruit for the same potion. Swift hands and good teamwork were crucial to avoid getting bitten.

Speaking of ingredients…

I thunked my paw down on a runaway vial of eye-teeth that had gotten away from one of the students. Creepy things, eye-teeth. Teeth shouldn't stare back at you, in my opinion. Maybe it was the raised-by-dentists thing.

"Thanks, Tails!" the wizard near me said, giving me a stroke along the back before collecting the vial.

I'll be honest. I really liked the rapport I had in classes now that I had seven more tails to my name. Even Severus seemed less stressed out. He was standing with his arms crossed in front of him as he scanned the room like a gun turret waiting for movement. Even so, he was more relaxed.

I got away with murder in his classes as a Kitsune. I could jump up on the desks, pace down the edge, stare into cauldrons, nip fingers, fetch lost vials, and get surreptitious ear scritches all in the same class! It was glorious. If I found one I didn't like, I would park myself by it and stare.

And stare.

And tail twitch.

And stare some more.

By then, either the student would have an epiphany or Severus would be there personally GIVING them an epiphany. Only the latter was significantly more traumatising than the former. The main difference in the higher-level classes was that most of the students knew when they had royally mucked something up. The problem was knowing how to fix it without blowing their cauldron, themselves, their partners, or half of their fellow classmates up. Merlin forbid if they managed to blow up their professor.

Now, the super secret of the high-level classes was that if everyone did well and managed to not blow anything or anyone up, we all got to have our next class outside collecting fresh potion ingredients. That was my favourite kind of class. It was usually the Ravenclaw class, but I didn't mind. My nose was the hottest commodity around for finding things that were just right for harvest. So far, my best find was not a potion ingredient so much as a find that paid for the entire class's field trip to Greece : black truffles.

What does black truffle smell like, you ask?

It smelled like petrichor mixed with a strong tang of sharp loam. It smelled good enough to both wear and eat at the same time. Sound odd? Don't judge me until you've experienced it as a Kitsune.

The biggest truffle I found was the size of a Muggle car tire. Half went to the centaurs because it was their territory after all, and half went to a very happy contact in France. All expenses-paid field trip weekend to Greece, and we got to keep half of everything we harvested due to a highly-lucrative arrangement with our hosts, who were letting us frolic through their quite extensively forested lands.

The higher-level students seemed to be perfectly tight-lipped about it too. Not one word about it was leaked outside of their class. It was almost as if they were afraid that if word got out that they were actually enjoying the class that Professor Snape would go back to being the arse-chomping terror of the dungeons from their first year and all the fun field trips would cease. No one—not one student—wanted that.

Professor Sprout had done a joint field trip with her high level N.E.W.T. students, and we'd all Portkeyed to New Zealand for what would be the first-ever Herbology-Potions Camptravaganza. It was an extra-long weekend; it got us out of Hogwarts, far away from the estimable Madam Umbridge, and we got to make messy but utterly delicious s'mores and campfire pasties at night.

Bliss.

I was used as a pillow by someone I can't remember the name of—but that was just fine. I woke up to the heavenly smell of bacon sizzling over a campfire. All was forgiven.

I found that being a Kitsune was far more natural to me than being human was. Four legs made it much harder to trip over things. I didn't bump my head on things. I never felt like there wasn't enough room for me, and if there was a free lap, I had dibs. I also got to lick all of the plates clean. Happy Kitsune, oh, yes.

The tents they had ordered were specially made by the Frobozz Magical Tent Company, and I swear if Muggles had tents like these, housing concerns after a natural disaster wouldn't be, well, a concern. As Harry often said, "I love magic."

Crookshanks was curled up on Severus' desk, sprawled over a pile of turned in essays. Eggplant, the little stinker, had apparently moved from the Transfiguration classrooms to the Potions classrooms with the ringing of the class bell. She was roosting between Crooks' paws, giving contented peeps as Crooks snuggled into her. Who said felines and avians couldn't get along?

Harry had asked why I named her Eggplant instead of Aubergine, but her chosen name was Eggplant. She liked it. Who was I to argue? Besides, she got cranky when people called her Aubergine— a lot like that Tonks witch, who hated being called Nymphadora. Can't imagine why.

Crooks had been busy "overseeing" the new magical animal habitats that had shown up shortly after Professor Grubbly-Planks had given me a fantastic belly rub during the last faculty meeting. Her "new" chambers now had her office and chambers connected both to the inside, where a line of new animal habitats allowed students to observe them at all hours from the hall. The other side connected to the new and improved animal paddocks and habitats outside, giving her access to both student and the animals she cared for. Crooks may not be on speaking terms with me, though he obviously loved me greatly, but he was having a great old time watching over the habitats and making sure "unauthorised visitors" didn't disturb the enclosures.

Crooks wasn't the only one, either.

Mrs Norris would stop in and stare at the Niffler habitats, sometimes batting at the transparent wall. The tiny flame-birds, which were no larger than a galleon, flitted back and forth on the other side, seemingly enjoying the "safe" game as she batted at the wall where each bird was. Other familiars seems to find it fascinating as well, and it wasn't long before the hall in front of Professor Grubbly-Plank's office was busy all the time with familiars, students, and even owls that would come in to socialise.

Best thing?

Despite her very best efforts, Madam Umbridge couldn't find anything wrong with it.

The habitats were perfect. They were all warded and safe. There wasn't one animal that wasn't perfectly well-behaved thanks to their new habitats that catered to all of their individual needs, and the more touchy magical animals that required special handling were all safely outside in clearly marked restricted areas.

Like most restricted areas, they tended to attract a fair amount of would-be miscreants, but usually it was kids trying to come in and try to get a glimpse of "what was so restricted." Really, the entire concept of restricted only made things more curious. I should know—the restricted section of the library called me and every one of my tails by name.

Ironically, Madam Pince was one of the few souls in Hogwarts who didn't succumb to the charm of the Kitsune. No belly rubs from her, and thus the library never seemed to get any better for anyone. I found it rather sad. It was the one place I would have loved to be all the time, but the moment she saw me, it was war—as if I'd rip up a book just because I happen to have claws and teeth. Psh. Severus told me it was the balance. I couldn't have everything I wanted, so I had to have something that I couldn't charm.

Why did it have to be the librarian that didn't like me? Such sadness.

To make up for it, however, Kingsley and Alastor gave me unlimited access to all of the reference books in the Auror's Library.

Thank you!

They would often find me curled up on top of a large tome of Wizarding law like a dragon over a hoard of treasure. I may or may not have hissed when Auror Proudfoot tried to remove me from my tome just so he could look something up. Hey, a gal had to have standards. I had been using that book, and he didn't say the magic word.

Auror Savage always spoke my language. He arrived, lured me away with a piece of his sandwich, rubbed my ears until I was seeing hippogriffs dancing around my vision, and then cradled me against his shoulder as he snatched up the book.

That wasn't so hard, was it? Easy.

Severus tched his tongue, and I perked, catching his signal to check out something across the room. I hopped down on the floor and started moving towards the other side.

My whiskers twitched. This side of the room smelled like someone had practically bathed in patchouli. It made me want to sneeze.

Skkkkssst!

Okay, so I did sneeze.

Damn. Didn't people realise that covering themselves up with scent only made them even more insufferable?

"Hem, hem," a voice froze me in place. Oh, to be a thestral. Damn, and I had really hoped the woman was still sneezing herself into Oblivion in her smelly swamp-ridden office.

The woman smelled like rotting vegetation with a chaser of flesh decomp. I'd smelled better from the butt end of a hippogriff and from Ron Weasley's dirty laundry.

Hogwarts really, really didn't like her. I didn't blame the school at all, and really who could? Well, anyone sane, anyway. The woman had a serious chip on her shoulder with enough bitter bigotry to make Alastor's tenacity with Dark Wizards look like kiddy park play.

Her hair was full of— stuff. I wasn't even sure what it was. Debris? I wanted to say it looked like she'd been fighting with an overzealous tumbleweed, but that would insult overzealous tumbleweeds. She looked desperate to hurt someone in any way possible.

Crookshanks appeared like the ghost he was, sprawling out in the middle of the room with Eggplant nestled in his fur. Someone had given her an aubergine and she had busily carved it into the perfect replica of Umbridge's face. Who knew phoenix chicks could have hobbies. Had Crookshanks taught her? You never knew with Crooks. He was mad brilliant, and he seemed perfectly capable of teleportation and could just show up someplace like he'd always been there. He could do it silently too. He had serious skills.

I had to wonder if Crooks was really half-Kneazle and more like two hundred percent Kneazle. I'd read up on Kneazles extensively the year I got him, and no one had ever said Kneazles were fond of or could indulge in teleportation and plot the downfall of a pureblood Dark Wizard all on his own. Maybe Sirius Black had been a special inspiration.

"Dou van mij!" Eggplant cheeped. "Dank je wel!"

I grinned as Umbridge seemed to take the chick's Dutch as an insult even though all she said was "love me" and "thank you." I wondered what would happen when she did start cursing in Dutch.

"Ik ga het proberen! Mierenneuker!" Eggplant warbled.

Oh dear. Where had she picked that gem up? Gosh, was I blushing under my fur? I think I was. My little fluffball darling was a potty mouth.

"Snape," Umbridge said, looking terribly pleased with herself.

"Yes, Madam?"

"I'm afraid you are being let go," she said, serenely happy about it.

"Hn."

She frowned, expecting more wailing, perhaps.

"Does Albus know, or are you just pulling some educational decree out of a random lumen of the lower gastrointestinal tract?"

Umbridge frowned, her face making a good go at severely constipated mixed with the possibility of projectile vomiting. It wasn't a pleasant sight, and I hoped my Master had put up a shield just in case.

"I want you out of here, Snape!"

Severus, the kind of guy who made one look curdle your soul if you put the wrong ingredient in, gave her a completely unexpected smile— the sort of thing that would have sent every student that knew him screaming while begging him to forgive whatever transgression they had caused. I'd tried to emulate that particular smile, but it just didn't work. Maybe it was because fox faces weren't meant to twist that way. I could give an excellent seven-tailed salute though. I was especially good at the two-tailed salute, much to Auror Proudfoot's eternal glee.

"Ah well, I guess I shall be going," Snape said, his voice drawled as if he were commenting on the weather. "Don't forget to lock up."

As he swept the room with his typical flare, he turned back. "And thank you, Madam Umbridge, for satisfying the conditions of my termination clause. Do have a won-der-ful end of term."

He silently signalled me to follow, and I did. There was no way I was going to stick around to see Madam Umbridge blow herself up— well maybe that would be fun. I started to head back to the classroom as Severus scooped me up and cradled me in his arms as he walked back towards our quarters. He was packed in about 30 seconds, everything in his room having moved into one trunk, sorted by colour and size (cripes, he was anal) and all his private potion ingredients had marched into his second trunk. All of my stuff took a few minutes, mainly because he wasn't sure what to do about ladies underthings, and really, who could blame him there. It had taken me forever to figure out the torture device known as the bra before I had discovered the glory of the sports bra.

Best thing? Kitsune didn't have to wear bras. That alone was worth celebrating.

With a quick Patronus to Minerva to explain what had happened, and a purposely forgotten Patronus to Dumbledore to leave him to find out from Umbridge, we were at the front of the Hogwarts' gate and Disapparated.

It wasn't until we were floating around on the top of the hotsprings, well me, I was more using Severus' stomach as a raft, that he told me that Dumbledore had put a clause in his employment contract that if someone were to terminate him (something Dumbledore did NOT intend to do, ever) that Severus would be provided a rather obscene amount of compensation (intended to make sure he was provided for if Dumbles had managed to croak before the mission was complete) and a whole bunch of other entanglements that basically boiled down to Severus never having to work again, ever, unless he bloody well wanted to.

He was now free, filthy rich, and able to spend all his time making sure I was the best educated Kitsune on the face of planet Earth. I wasn't complaining!

My beloved mam was keeping us apprised of all the drama that happened after our being kicked out of Hogwarts. I was his apprentice, so of course I had to leave with him.

Obviously.

The school was not amused. It had been amusing itself by torturing the toad of a woman since she set foot in Hogwarts, but now it was war. Minerva sent pictures, courtesy of Colin Creevey.

And as if the food moving out of reach of her at the High Table, the gargoyle not letting her into Albus' office, the plants down in the dungeon dusting her with pollen that made her sneeze herself into different odd mutations wasn't enough, Umbridge had to deal with the all the classes she had gained due to firing the Potions Master. It was apparently a position no one else wanted upon hearing why the last person had left.

Apparently one of the potions classes had blown up a cauldron in her face, and it just happened to be a fertilizing potion for Professor Sprout. While Minerva's details were somewhat unclear as to what had really happened, a cauldron had exploded on Madam Umbridge and she ran out of the classroom in a hurry and wasn't found for a few days. No one had seemed to notice she was gone until a group of third-years found her in her far greenhouse for the Venomous Tentaculas making sweet love to them as she called the amorous plants Cornelius. The third-years had to have therapy and possibly obliviation, and Umbridge was in the infirmary being detoxed for the strange side-effects of the potion explosion— no minor one being she was sprouting plants out of her body in random places. Since it was a private affair and no one was supposed to know, of course everyone knew about it— and a picture had somehow been fed to the Daily Prophet, making headline news worthy of Rita-Gertrude Skeeter, oh whatever the hell her real name was.

It had taken my master a few hours not to laugh at the very hilarity of it all. All of Dumbledore's great plans for him had fallen away due to my accidently healing of his Dark Mark and making him "useless" as a spy. My curing of Remus had just driven the knife in deeper because you don't sent a human in to parlay with the werewolves. Then Umbridge had fired Severus, triggering his contract termination clause, freeing Severus from Hogwarts (and Dumbledore's thumb) while giving him a sickening amount of galleons in recompense.

It was hysterical just how absurd that was.

Minerva said that the Board of Governors was frantic to get Severus back as their Potions Master, but since Umbridge was technically "still there" they couldn't do anything. Meanwhile, just about every class had near fatalities with the teachers they did bring in to cover Potions (which were apparently not that great in number).

Severus only shook his head and called them all blithering dunderheads.

Lessons were so much more exciting when Severus wasn't distracted by all the drama of Hogwarts. I'm pretty sure we were breezing through seventh level material like it was nothing—not that it wasn't a challenge to learn, but that was all I was doing was learning. I would like to think I had the jist of learning down to a science.

I was Hermione Gr— erm… well, I was Hermione, after all.

The new last name was going to take a little while to soak in.

New, er— old and rediscovered?

Hellfire!

Who in blazes knew anymore?

Eggplant was doing her best to nest in my hair, but she could never quite figure out if she wanted to nest in it or on top of it. Most times she liked simply nestling between my ears so she had quick access to tug on my ear tufts like a backseat driver. Playtime, however, was often swinging by the Kitsune's tails.

"Mmmm, mmmmm," she said, sticking her leg out to snag Severus' robes as he went by. She transferred over like she was catching a train car, walking up his robes like her own personal jungle gym.

Severus, to his credit, didn't walk around a door on a sharp angle and scrape her off by accident (or on purpose.)

Eggplant would have considered it a challenge to stay affixed to him. It was exceedingly difficult to rid yourself of a determined, clingy lintball. I should know. Her father told me so.

Fawkes and Calida visited often, but I had no idea if Dumbledore knew about his phoenix's travelling proclivities. Merlin knew it wasn't as if I was trying to keep track. I could barely travel from point A to point B without ending up arse over teakettle with my face eating my tails.

The phoenix chicks, like most babies, were curious as all get out, and they chased each other around Grimmauld Place, immolating dust as they went (or collecting it and spontaneously combusting— whichever you prefer.) I'm sure there was some sort of marketable skill there, but the moment you make something a job, it ceases to be fun.

Who was I to argue with free cleaning ala phoenix?

After their play, the chicks would go steam themselves silly in the hot springs, making themselves even more fluffy and adorable, and it was almost too much for one Kitsune to take.

I ended up cuddling the entire lot of them.

They weren't exactly arguing.

In fact, it may have been their sneaky plan all along.

You're only supposed to have one familiar according to "people that know" but I was starting to think that it was just because no one had fess up to being owned by multiple species.

It was perfectly acceptable to be "owned" by a feline, for example, and thought that taking care of one as your familiar was plenty of work.

Crookshanks, however, had a more hands-off (paws off?) attitude when it came to me— at least when you compared him to Eggplant who wanted to be with me all the time. Well—

She and all her clutchmates.

Right the chirp now, thanks.

Severus had me studying while doing things I wanted to do as well, and I began to think that the "sort the library so it stops offending everyone's sensibilities" was actually his way of getting me to read new things. I mean, I had to read the books to sort them—

Obviously.

I found a great idea for a mastery project while I was buried in tomes.

"Potverdriedubbeltjes!" Eggplant announced from the pile of tomes next to me.

Oh, really? Did you lose a page?

I eyed the lintball suspiciously.

Aalish eyed me cutely.

Calling her by her actual name only made her seem more suspicious. At least when you called the aubergine chick Eggplant you knew she was going to be spunky and defiant of social norms.

Titus (Trouble) was perched on the window ledge looking out at the neighbour's cat who was looking for, dare I say it? Trouble.

It probably wasn't expecting to have its tail set on fire by a feisty phoenix chick, though.

Whoever expects that?

That poor cat went flying off the window so fast—

I'm pretty sure I heard it extinguishing itself in the neighbour's birdbath. I'd imagine the cat was not feeling good about the entire situation.

"Kappen nou!" Eggplant rawked.

Trouble went skittering off of the ledge and out of the library as fast as his little birdie legs could carry him.

Sigh. Kids.

Nuri (aka Nuisance) was living up to her name by knocking over some of tome stacks, and I snatched her up and tangled her in my hair to keep her strapped in. Hotaru (also known as Tangerine) was smelling distinctly of citrus fruit, making me think he'd pillaged the fruit bowl in the kitchen before arriving in the library.

Kreacher, bless his little soul, was a hundred thousand times less stressed with the removal of Sirius from the Black family home. He took care of the chicks and their parents and even "Potter" with far less venom. It wasn't to say he didn't find relief in the fact Harry was at school, however, which made me think the pair did not see eye to eye on any level.

The scars caused by Sirius Black ran far deeper than anyone could have known.

When it came down to it, I realised that people had truly trusted Sirius.

Hell, I had trusted him up until I realised I couldn't— whether that was a testament to my own stupidity or simple blindness, I don't really know for sure.

Assuredly, my naivety level had lowered quite a bit after my adventure in escaping Sirius Black.

A lot of things change when you realise someone you trusted with your life has proven to be the furthest from trustworthiness—

When I thought about it though, my opinion of Sirius Black had largely stemmed from public opinion rather than first hand experience. Dumbledore had insisted he was trustworthy, so I had accepted that as fact.

Severus, however, I trusted implicitly.

He had never let me down, once he had sworn to be my master and all that entailed.

I had also sworn never to (purposely) set him on fire again—

Baby steps, Hermione.

Truth be told, I was pretty sure that very few if any people knew Severus outside the forbidding persona he wore in the classroom. Outside of it, he was far more patient with lessons. He seemed to enjoy the one on one relationship of master and apprentice as much as I did.

My mam trusted Severus, too, but I think there were still mysteries between them that had her tartan wrinkled on occasion.

Again, I think she was having the same issue as other Order members— deciding who to trust when the word of Albus Dumbledore wasn't enough.

That same trust had insisted that people treat Severus with more respect, but unlike Sirius, he had a less than pretty playboy face and even less of a charming personality. People had outright taken one look at Severus and assumed him to be the token Dark wizard and all that entailed.

But it had been Severus that had kept me from—

Doing very bad things to Sirius Black.

Very, very bad— quite possibly even fatal things.

Up until that point, perhaps the group of them—the Order— would have gladly believed Sirius Black over the likes of me.

I was just Hermione.

Even now, only a handful knew my secret— what I was, what I could do— and that was probably best considering the power was as chaotic as my tricks.

Something told me that what I had thought stole years from me to grant had actually done something else. Granting soul-felt beneficial wishes gave me strength and power— the sort of thing that gained me a tail or—

In the case of Remus Lupin, it had given me age.

And age to a Kitsune was also power.

Some would say I had lost my childhood, but I had lost that the moment Sirius Black had tried to force himself on me.

I had lost my childhood.

I had lost a piece of my humanity, perhaps.

But I had gained something powerful through trials of adversity.

Well, something other than tails, of course.

Arguably, one might be able to argue that the tails were simply a manifestation of power.

And my fur?

Apparently I had a "positive" Kitsune experience pool that kept me from quite literally going black as pitch.

The wizard who gave me some of his treasured eggs, rice, and sake and honoured the traditions I hadn't even learned yet at the time, the children suffering in a home riddled with pollution who had offered me half of their treasured sandwich, accidentally saving Britain from a disguised witch posing as a reporter who just happened to be a Death Eater, the much-needed renovations to Hogwarts—

Save for one horrific experience with Sirius Black, the positives were adding up nicely. Six whole tails worth. So far.

I checked, just to make sure.

Okay, phew. No unexpected counting fails.

No unexpected tails to make me wonder if I'd been out sleep walking and granting random wishes along the way.

Not that it wouldn't have been fun to read about—

I slumped a little as the "old Hermione" and the "new and improved Hermione" had a bit of a row in regards to what constituted proper behaviour. The old Hermione was primarily interested in studies, homework, and following the rules (read that as not getting expelled.)

But now, however—

I was a bit of a wild card.

I still loved my books and learning. I listened to my master, did my projects, dutifully did as directed—

But, I followed my gut almost literally, now.

I'd like to think I wasn't a sodding twit like Ronald Weasley who spent ninety percent of his time with food in his mouth like he was starving to death—

I couldn't be sure, though, as I was ravenously hungry a lot.

Alastor said it was all the magic I was channelling— not that I was pulling it from myself like a witch or wizard would normally do it, but providing the conduit between "the universe" and whatever mischievous magical justice the Kitsune directed towards a person, place, or thing.

Kitsune were, as Fawkes put it, catalysts.

There were the benevolent ones— and the ones that would gladly see you take the wrong turn off a cliff.

I'd like to think I was a fine example of the former classification, but the stories I was hearing from Hogwarts about a certain pink monstrosity made me wonder if I'd picked up a few black hairs of late.

My thoughts about her, in particular, were not benevolent at all.

Maybe it was a majority rules sort of balance. I certainly didn't have it out for humanity. I'd met some really beautiful souls out there during my adventure, and it gave me hope for humanity in a way that the blood feuds did not. Meeting a few bad apples had not ruined my opinion that people were as capable of great kindness just as much as they were able to do the opposite. To blame an entire species for a few would be terribly unfair, even when groups of people tended to shut off their brains like an errant first-year who would rather be playing Quidditch than paying attention in their Potions class.

I realised I might still be somewhat bitter about a few things—

Was my eyelid twitching?

Bother.

Hedwig landed on the window ledge with a disgruntled crash, seemingly in so much of a hurry that landing dignified wasn't an option. She stared at the window pane accusingly as if it offended her somehow.

Harry writing?

Things must be dire indeed.

How many times had I begged Harry to write before he begrudgingly did? Then, Sirius had hijacked Hedwig, messing things up even more epically.

I sighed, opening the pane so the owl could enter. She flew in to land on her perch with a heavy thump, helping herself to the stasis-froglegs Harry had left there for her.

I took the scroll from around her leg, and she hooted with a weariness I had no idea translated into owl-ese.

Hermione!

You have to do something!

Umbridge has taken over the school and banned owls and forced us to write that we shan't tell lies with his quill that makes us bleed what we write on our skin! I had to send Hedwig to you because she's threatening to kill any owl that hadn't been removed from the school by tonight!

I managed to send her out with this message only because she was distracted. She banned brooms too! Fred and George are thinking of leaving school completely! Firsties are crying in the hallways.

She's punishing us even when she can't catch us doing anything. She's making up reasons to punish us!

She created some kind of Inquisitorial squad that goes around finding things to get us in trouble for!

You have to do something, Hermione!

Ever since you and Snape left, it's been getting bad here.

Really bad.

Please!

You have to help us!

The letter trailed off, making Hermione think he had to rush to finish and send it in haste.

"Something troubles you?"

Severus' expression was quite concerned, his eyebrows knitting together seamlessly.

The warmth of his hand brushing against my arm was enough to chase the panic from my stomach.

I handed him the letter, not even a thought of keeping it from him crossing my mind. I could not hide anything from him any more than I could lie to my mam. The crease between his brows deepened. "I have a meeting scheduled with Minerva for later today. I believe I will make it earlier and inquire as to the current state of things this afternoon."

He let out a soft sigh. "I know it will be hard for you to focus as you normally do with such grave concerns, but I need you to focus solely on your tests. You are more than ready for them. If anything, you will prove how supposedly antiquated systems are nearly not as bad as some people might think. The master and apprentice system has long proven to be a superior method of education, and the curriculum can still be challenging even for those who prefer a non-specialised educational path."

I shuddered. Even as ready as I knew my master had readied me, taking my N.E.W.T.s in my fifth year (even with all that side-studying during the summer) seemed a bit crazy. Then again, every test I felt I wasn't ready for. Even the stuff I'd studied obsessively for—

"Are you su—"

Severus gave me a look that would have curdled milk. "Ob-viously."

I hung my head. He hadn't taught me to be a dunderhead, but I still felt like one.

I'd survived Sirius Black and a slew of new adventures. I'd gained six tails. Surely N.E.W.T.s wouldn't be that hard in comparison?

Maybe?

Possibly.

Severus put a hand on my shoulder. "You will do fine. You will prove to them all that neither Minerva nor myself coddled you, and that you can stand alone. That being said, you will still be my apprentice until I say otherwise."

Bugger.

He always knew how to say what I needed to hear.

The truth was, I wasn't ready to leave him. I didn't care what the grades said.

But knowing that he'd be there for me regardless of my exams— I could breathe a lot easier.

"Yes, Master," I said, accepting that his judgement was law. If he said I was ready, then by Merlin I was ready.

"Good," he said, leaving me to my studies as he left the letter on the table.

My stomach squelched nervously as I tried to convince it that I was as ready as he said I was, yet even as I did so, I couldn't help but wonder if the disquiet was simply anxiety over the test or the fact that Severus was going to Hogwarts alone.

Perhaps, it was neither of those things, and the real issue was that Severus had left Grimmauld Place, and his comforting presence had left along with him.

My N.E.W.T.s were, as anyone who knew the acronym could attest, nastily exhausting indeed.

Thanks to my "age," no one gave me a second glance, just waving me through to take them.

As far as I knew, you could take the N.E.W.T.s as often as you had the money to if you mucked up the ones taken at school, but the price to retest was limiting to many. It truly paid to get it right the first time while the nuances of book learned spells were still fresh in the mind.

Still, there were those, such as Aurors, who needed Os in all the key subjects, so if they were down one score, they had to take that subject's N.E.W.T again until they got it right. There was something to be said about determination at that point.

Severus, as my master, paid the fees for my testing, so his supporting me to take them early was not just a vote of confidence in my skill but also trust that I wasn't going to waste a pile of galleons on his behalf.

While I am sure that my mam would split the difference with him should he require it, I think I'd be absolutely mortified if that had to happen.

Even if he was filthy, stinkin' rich thanks to Umbridge's firing him.

Hell, I was pretty sure I could afford to foot the bill myself thanks to the little-known fact I was Hermione Black by blood, but the very idea that I'd fail at a test hurt me in places I didn't even want to explore.

No thank you.

The written portions lasted upwards of four hours, and then the practicals after being exhausted as heck went over about as well as a flamethrower in the Hogwarts' library.

My spells all superpowered themselves thanks to my weariness, and my counterspell sent the proctor flying across the room into a suit of armour.

Oops?

My potions were flawless, I'll have you know, and I would have been able to brew them blindfolded with my tails tied together. It would have been uncomfortable, though. Tails do not like being tied.

Eggplant was quiet all day, bless her profane little heart, nestling into my neck and offering silent support. She seemed to realise I needed comfort and not distraction.

The exam officials seemed boggled that I didn't take the Divination exam as apparently "most young witches do". After having Trelawney as a professor, let's just say I'd rather bite my own tails than suffer through learning Divination.

Arithmancy was more my style.

It was complicated but logical.

Maths always followed rules.

Divination—

I'm not even sure stirring one way or another before sipping the tea you read the leaves of was a real rule or something Trelawney made up.

I'm pretty sure she made a lot of things up, even if that one part might have been true.

Like when she was off raiding the kitchen for cooking sherry and loftily claimed she was "consulting with the mystic forces."

Right.

As if you could bottle that.

Potions were the closest you could come to bottling the mystic forces, and there wasn't one potion that legitimately let you see the future as it would be.

Could it be? Maybe.

Would it be? Not a chance in hell.

My last practical involved levitating all manner of things. I had to turn Eggplant into a goblet and levitate her across the room without dropping her. Then, after proving I could transform her back, I had to levitate a body like I was transporting them to the hospital wing and weave it in and around these cones without hitting any of them.

The poor guy had a helmet on and knee and elbow pads.

Apparently other test takers hadn't done as well as myself.

The test ended with me having to find which Crookshanks was the real Crookshanks in a sea of illusionary half-Kneazles.

It ended with me pulling out a charmed piece of the stinkiest damn cheese on the fair face of Creation.

The real Crooks was on it in a flash while the other illusions seemed to whimper and meow out of existence.

Pansies.

Apparently that test was all about verifying I actually treated my familiar well enough that I'd be able to tell which one was the real deal, as it were.

I had to wonder— Wormtail actually being human aside— if Ron would be able to tell which Scabbers was the real Scabbers if all of them were covered in an equal amount of cheese powder and crisp crumbs.

Surely Harry would easily pass the test with Hedwig, right?

Right?

They tried to get Eggplant to cooperate for a test, and she disgruntledly perched on the old brass perch they seemed to pull out of Merlin's armpit. They "cloned" her, moving the image and her around until the room was full of Eggplants.

I waited.

They stared at me, each official wondering why I wasn't doing anything.

I continued to wait.

"Strontziek!" one Eggplant said. "Ga naar bed, halve gare!"

I smiled.

"That one," I said, pointing to the little profanity spewer.

Eggplant hopped off the perch, fluttered to the ground, and beelined to me. She scrambled up my robes and dove back into my hair. "Hou van mij! Mooie vogel!" she announced, acting all innocent. "Gloeiende gloeiende!"

The Eggplant clones all looked horrified.

Judging by the expressions on the judges, none of them knew Dutch.

Thank the gods for small favours.

With that, I was done with my N.E.W.T.s.

I barely remember getting home as I face-planted into my pillow almost immediately with just my tails sticking out from under the duvet.

The scent of herbs, both fresh and dried, wafted in from somewhere in Grimmauld, reminding me of my Master's promise to speak to Minerva.

Sleep came quickly.

Peace at last.

I woke to realise there was an owl trying to plaster itself against my window, its beak rapping against the glass like it was utterly offensive.

Perhaps it was—

Only the gods knew what had been done to some of it when Sirius lived under the same roof.

Though, I suppose, a little Kitsune magic had helped make the place much more livable and thus less akin to his highly questionable tastes.

Not that I had had anything to do with that save for being a conduit—wishes were a fickle sort of magic. All creatures that dealt with wishing magic tended to have some check and balance system. For me, it was never about having control over another's free will to wish something as long as it satisfied certain conditions of feeding the Kitsune belly and rubbing said belly like a furry Budda.

Remus' wish was something that had tread the line— a wish made from the depths of his very soul. He probably had a price he paid for that wish as much as it had accelerated my evolution, but what it was was probably well worth it to him.

Being a werewolf in today's world was a curse one way or another, either in complete ostracisation or the sad fact that you would try to murder your loved ones three times a month—

Or even your most hated ones—

Werewolves really didn't give a flip either way.

I groggily opened the window, and the owl burst in, a scroll clutched tightly in her talons, and promptly landed on one of Hedwig's perches in the hallway. Hedwig's rather annoyed screech-hiss told me she was not amused at all by the interloper taking her perch.

So what if she had like ten of them scattered throughout the house?

Sheesh.

The fact that Hedwig was still here told me that Harry had instructed her to stay— so whatever he believed was going on at Hogwarts at the moment was dire enough that he truly feared for Hedwig's life.

I sighed as I practically staggered over to the owl in question and relieved it of the scroll.

Damn but those graders got the N.E.W.T. scores out fast!

I looked at the scroll with trepidation, not wanting to see how badly I had failed. It was a deeply rooted failing, perhaps, thinking that not only that I would have done poorly but that I'd disappoint the people I admired.

Here I was, taking a test when I should be taking the O.W.L.s, all because my master believed I was ready.

I never felt truly ready.

I'd double-triple checked every answer—

And fretted.

And simmered.

And almost cried.

I knew I'd gotten most of them wrong.

I knew I'd failed, and Severus would look down on me with disdain— having failed him.

Having failed everyone.

I stared at the scroll.

The owl stared at me like I was being impossible.

Yes, well, maybe I had the right to be a little impossible in the face of my entire career spiraling downwards into hell and damnation over the results of—

I could feel the phantom thump of Severus' hand on the back of my head.

Don't be a dunderhead.

Yeah— it was his voice in my head too.

Since when did my inner voice have his voice?

I frowned.

Since forever.

I couldn't really remember the time that inner voice sounded like my mum or my father.

I had been away from my parents for almost six years, and that did not even count the time I had inhaled thanks to the Time Turner. Minerva had allowed me to distract myself from my parent's death— it had given me focus in work. The apprenticeship had become my lifeline along with shadowing my Auror friends at the office learning constant vigilance and how to be a real Scottish wench.

The thing was—

I'm not sure when it had become an apprenticeship versus him just keeping my mind occupied— challenging me to get my head out of the past and focus. He took that energy and wound it up, sending in the direction that would help me best, and well—

Isn't that what a master did for an apprentice anyway?

Oh sure, I had woken up after fixing that Wolfsbane potion with his apprenticeship pin on my collar— but really, was that truly the beginning? OR was that just the official word.

Unofficially.

It was still a secret to a great many people, as most of everyone thought I was just an orphaned Granger who toddled off to some distant relative during the summer.

No, Hermione Granger McGonagall had basically taken turns learning from everyone from her mam, to Severus, from the Aurors, Poppy Pomfrey—

Perhaps, I should stop fretting on if I was ready to take the N.E.W.T.s I had just taken and open the damn scroll.

Whooo.

The owl seemed to agree.

I rubbed the golden scar where the young unicorn had inadvertently impaled me, and it tingles, giving me a bit of inner strength.

One more badge of life in the world of Hermione Granger McGonagall—

One more hidden scar of survival.

If I could survive all of that life was throwing at me since I was a quivering firstie with incessant hand-waving proclivities, then by the gods, I could open that damn scroll.

Right?

RIGHT?!

Why was I standing there like a complete idiot then?

I reached out to take the scroll, felt the tug on my navel—

Oh bloody fuck.

The portkey took me with a startled yip.

Then Oblivion awaited me with gnashing teeth and eager growls.

I'm sorry, Master. I'm a fuckup after all.

I woke to find myself strapped down to some kind of table like the Frankenstein Monster— sans the lightning and psychopathic "it LIVES!" screaming in the background.

"Hermione!"

Harry's voice. From my left.

My ears twitched, swivelling.

Yes, definitely the left.

"Hermione! You're up! Get us out of this!" Harry insisted. "I know you can get us out of this!"

That's some faith, Harry, considering you had absolutely none in me earlier this year and before that. None.

Oh, sure. You were working on being better, but you'd accused me of ignoring your owls as well as other things throughout every hardship— every trial.

I couldn't even move to acknowledge him. Part of me didn't want to. I knew I was in some fresh kind of hell, and I had no idea just how bad it was other than I'd been swindled into touching a touch-activated Portkey.

So much for being constantly vigilant.

I'd been so preoccupied with my stress over taking a test I could have very well taken over again had I truly been horrible that I'd allowed a trick Portkey to pull me into its trap.

Idiot.

Stupid, stupid girl.

What good was all that training and lessons if all you do is set yourself up for being the weakest link?

The dunderhead who got herself in trouble the moment she was alone—

Again.

Harry's voice was buzzing about my ears like the chatter of many bees, and had I not been tied and bound with my wand off somewhere unknown, I might have paid more attention to his blathering.

I had other things on my mind, though.

"It doesn't work that way, Harry," I said into the dark.

"What do you mean it doesn't work! I saw it work! Back at G—"

His voice cut off, unable to reveal the place with the current company, which meant only one thing. There was someone else not privy to Grimmauld Place that was here—

Harry.

He was always thinking far too fast but not in a way that helped. One tracked focus to the end— assuming he was right and that his solution was always justified.

I wasn't even sure all the "rules" that made wishes reality with a Kitsune. For me, it had been about food— or perhaps contentment with food, I really wasn't sure. Perhaps, it was about genuine but innocently done need. Then, there was Remus— so all bets were really off.

I had no idea how it worked. I could only guess.

So much for book knowledge or learning from experience.

If anything, experience was teaching me that I could only do things by the seat of my tails— whatever those were.

Did tails have seats?

Maybe, mine did.

"Come on, Hermione!" Harry blurted. "You grant wishes! I'm wishing for you to help me! Help us!"

Tssssst!

I recognised that hiss.

Severus.

"Shut your mouth, Potter!"

"She can help us!"

"Shut. Your. Mouth!"

"I won't! You know she can help us! Why won't you tell her! Tell her!"

Had I ever been so blind? So adamant?

Perhaps, when I was eleven and hand-waving like an idiot with so much to prove—

I knew that if Severus was trying to shut him up that the situation was dire, and like most dire situations Harry Potter found himself in, he thought with his emotional pool, not his rational mind.

Suddenly, Severus screamed, and whatever platform I had been bound to moved, slamming me against my back as the room lit up—

Giving me a perfect view of him being tortured above me.

Blood dripped from his skin in various places where cruel, taunting words were carved into his skin.

Impure.

Traitor.

"Hem, hem," Umbridge cleared her throat, a smug smirk plastered to her toad-like face. She had a quill in her hand and she wrote on a doll that had a familiar lock of black hair on it.

"That'll be enough from you, I think," she informed Severus, writing on the doll.

Severus screamed as fire seemed to tear into his skin, opening hideous, gaping wounds on his face.

The words I will be quiet, dripped thick rivulets of blood from his face.

"Now that you are here for our little meeting," she cooed. "Perhaps Snape will tell me what he's been holding back all this time."

Severus glared at her through bloody streams of his own blood as it zig-zagged across his pale skin.

I saw the wounds clearly— felt them covering every inch of his alabaster flesh. He'd endured it all— for me.

"Potter was so good to send his owl begging you to come help," Umbridge heckled. "The Ministry seemed to think you were ready to take your N.E.W.T.s. Two things made it so terribly easy to reel you in. And thanks to Potter, I now know exactly what was getting in my way. Thanks to him, I know exactly how to get exactly what I want."

A flaming ball of outraged lint hit Umbridge in the face, pecking at her eyes and scratching at her face.

Eggplant!

Umbridge screeched, her hand crushing around Eggplant's flaming body. Her face was bleeding— one eye bleeding and shut.

Her hand was like a cruel vice around Eggplant's body, and I felt her tiny lungs being crushed.

NO!

"Halve gare!" Eggplant spat furiously at her, her beak tearing into Umbridge's fingers.

But Umbridge didn't let go. Oh no.

She dropped the doll she had been using and shoved the blood quill directly into Eggplant's squirming body.

I felt the fire of agony flare in the little chick's body as my own body felt the flames consuming her.

"Hou van jou," the little chick croaked as the fire devoured the chick's body to ash and she breathed her last. I love you.

No!

NO!

Umbridge suddenly grabbed my face in her hand, her fingers pressing tight against my jaw to force it open.

I struggled against her, but she whispered a spell into my face, and I screamed in agony as my skin seemed to split, blood running like a river down my body.

Rage.

Rage like nothing I had ever felt mixed with my despair.

Ash from my beloved chick mixed with my blood, even as the blood of my master mixed with mine.

Rage.

Despair.

Hatred.

Blackness was creeping into my vision— bleeding from my eyes, rimming my eyes with black. My fur was turning colour, a stripe of purest, darkest black sneaking into my pristine white fur.

But the hate did not have only one focus.

No.

It knew Harry, too.

I could feel his— but I could also feel the blame hanging from his soul—

He had chosen to betray me.

My secret.

My life.

He had told her about me.

He had told her how to use me!

Drops of pure hatred spilt from my eyes, seeped through my fangs, and my muzzle twisted into form as blackness dripped from my teeth.

She shoved a piece of pink sponge cake into my mouth and popped a cork of some flask and forced it to my mouth. Her face twisted in savage glee.

"I wish to become the most powerful witch in all the world!"

Her other hand forcibly rubbed my belly—

Perverse.

Ugly.

Unnatural.

The binding geas on the nature of the wish tethered my magic and my rage, but also it surged up to grant this unnatural wish of ultimate selfish power.

But every wish had to come with a price—

And Dolores Umbridge had just made the most gargantuan of wishes.

To make one being the most powerful of all, there had to be a balance.

My muzzle twisted into a snarl.

No.

I blinked. The creases on my muzzle loosened a fraction.

It was Severus's voice.

I looked up at him.

Don't let her— make you a monster.

His voice was but a whisper of the mind— a caress against my heart— yet it was thunder in my heartstrings. I knew in that moment that he was dying of blood loss, but he was willing everything in his being to be my anchor.

My soul anchor.

My heartsong.

I trusted him.

He believed in me.

I—

I felt his love—

In his blood.

In his soul.

It was a painful, guilty, selfless love—

He loved me so much he'd give his last breath to ensure I did not fall into darkness.

He loved me so much he had never admitted it— confessed— said anything.

He was my teacher.

He was my master.

He was the love of my life— this life, the next.

What would I be without him?

Never had I felt a love so pure, but he had been willing to hide it away for my sake. For my future. For my possible future with someone else—

When had it happened?

Yet—

I felt it in my very soul that I loved him too.

How else could his very whisper drive the hate from my body?

Severus.

I looked into those black eyes that seemed to hold more warmth than anyone I had ever known. How could anyone possibly think him so cold and callous?

How could they ever think him irredeemably Dark and unscrupulous?

My magic— the magic of my newly indoctrinated Kitsune soul— wove tightly into his, wrapping its fibres into the very core of his magic and soul.

His soul was succor— warmth that seemed to caress like a hand across my fur. It was a full belly filled with turkey and a hand rubbing my belly. He was home, and I felt my core open to him with an all-encompassing recently-realised love.

His blood.

Mine.

The ashes of my poor, loving Eggplant.

The most selfish of wishes—

My fangs glinted as magic crackled from my tails.

Kerrrr-ZAP!

It struck Dolores Umbridge right between the eyes as Severus fell from the raised torture device and enveloped me in his arms and the darkness swallowed us whole.

Dolores Umbridge

I felt the surge of magical power singing through my entire body… YES!

Finally!

Finally, I'm getting what I deserve!

Finally, I am getting what I have wished for!

I exited the wrecked room (Snape and his stupid animal-girl were probably dead anyway, good riddance!) and laughed as I punished everyone I ran across with their own personal hell.

Serves them right!

I hated children.

I hated them so much!

They were crying, and I loved it. I loved to hear them cry, and I loved that they were finally afraid!

They should respect their elders!

Respect their betters!

They feared me now, and I was okay with that!

I'd father they fear me.

I strung that old headmaster out by his beard and turned him into a manky old goat.

I turned that stupid willow into a strand of cattails.

I gave myself the Headmaster's office, bending the magic of the school to my will to pitch all of his stupid globes and books out the window along with his damned bird.

I turned the phoenix into an ostrich and laughed as it fell from the sky with a startled squawk.

I threw the half-giant into a giant tub of rose-water and suds, enchanting brushes to scrub him until he sparkled.

I turned that annoying squid into a whale and beached it on the shore.

Hahahahahaha! The freedom!

Aurors were streaming in, and I turned them into a mewling litter of newborn kittens. Much better.

Teachers were running to defend the school, and I turned them all into terrified mice then turned the children into cats.

I smiled.

Survival of the fittest.

I transformed the school into a monolith of shimmering pink granite, smiling as it looked so much better.

Voldemort-schmouldyvort.

Oh!

I waved my hand, and the supposed Dark Lord Voldemort and his goon squad appeared in front of me, looking quite startled and confused at that.

I snapped my fingers, and they turned into a garden of exquisitely detailed feline topiaries depicting cats sprawled across the green and climbing up the outer walls, even lapping water from a couple dozen or so decorative fountains surrounding the Black….

No, ahem, make that Pink Lake. Hrm, what next?

Hah!

So much for "Lord" Voldemort.

There was no such thing as the Dark Lord.

Psh.

I remembered the ridiculous rumour that Voldemort had somehow devised a way to render himself immortal—

I clapped my hands, and a pile of rubbish and a section of the DADA classroom lay before me.

I set them to fire, happy to hear the screams as the cat-shaped Fiendfyre devoured the entire pile in a matter of moments.

That is what a real witch could do.

I laughed as I created myself a bejewelled pink velvet throne to sit on in the Great Hall. I was now the sovereign queen of Hogwarts in my very own castle. The tables were lined with cat bowls and water fountains, and the students immediately swarmed in to eat, meowing and behaving so much better than mere children.

Hah!

I saw two beautiful, shimmering bracelets on the table, and I took them. They were made of goblin silver and pink sapphires, were shaped like cats and even had jeweled cats carved into them.

Fit for a queen.

I put them on at once, admiring them.

There was a loud thump on the Head Table as two foxes jumped upon them. One was white with red markings. One was black with markings in red The white one had a freakish number of tails— all white save for one. The black one only had two tails— one white, one black.

They rubbed up against each other and then proceeded to help themselves to my dinner of lobster tail and filet mignon.

I pointed my finger at them, casting a spell to make them into a gorgeous fur stole.

Nothing happened.

I tried again.

The two foxes continued to dine on my steak and lobster, licking each other's faces clean of the tasty juices.

The NERVE!

I took out my wand and aimed it at them.

"Bombarda Maxima!"

Nothing happened.

I threw every spell I knew at them. Slicing curses! Hexes!

Nothing.

The white fox yawned, showing dainty white teeth. "Infinite magical power."

The black fox lashed his tails. "Itty bitty living space."

I looked down to see that my body was being sucked into a rose-coloured oil lamp.

What?!

No!

NOOO!

The foxes' tails crackled and energy jolted from tail to me, and the lamp sucked me in like I was going down a drain, swirling me as if I'd been thrown into the toilet.

No!

It wasn't fair!

It wasn't FAIR!

The lamp rocked and came to a halt on the throne, shrinking to the size of a child's toy just before it was encased in unbreakable crystal shaped like a rearing centaur.

"Enjoy life as the world's very first mortal djinn," the black kitsune said dryly.

"You say the loveliest things," the white kitsune yipped, playfully licking his jaw.

The black kitsune gave her a heated glance, and they descended into a bit of carnal pleasure right there on the Head Table, the power of their consummation causing a blast of magic to flow outward and flow over Hogwarts and all her inhabitants.

"Yip!" they cried together, flopping down in exhaustion on the Head Table.

Each smug-looking kitsune sported a new pink-tipped black tail as Hogwarts went back to normal.

Except for the strange gathering of topiaries on the green—

Dancing foxes surrounded a figure with no face save for an outraged mouth opened wide in a silent scream as it lay on a bed of eternally smoking purple ash surrounded by smaller piles of ashes shaped like a ring, a goblet, a locket, what might have been a crown of sorts, and even an enormous bloody snake —

No one could quite explain why there was also a strange pile of ash shaped like a certain infamous mop-haired student, even while the student in question was still very much alive.

End of a Wizarding War That No One Realised Was Back Again?!

A squad of Aurors responded to a frantic summons for aid at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry last week and found themselves amidst what could only be described as Hell on Earth.

Madam Dolores Jane Umbridge, Undersecretary to the Minister For Magic, forcibly took over the school, used Dark magic to bend the school to her will and transform both staff and students at her whim, and draw the once-thought-dead Dark Lord You Know Who into a fight on the green.

The Aurors, transformed against their will into mewling kittens, could only watch in horror as teachers were turned into rodents, children turned into cats, and chaos reigned supreme over the magical school thanks to Minister Fudge's support to allow Madam Umbridge into the seat of power that gave her the ability to usurp more power in the first place.

Umbridge is presumed to have discovered a magical artefact that allowed her to transform herself into the most powerful magical being known, but it was her ultimate undoing as it came with the fetters of servitude and a binding into a magical vessel.

Madam Umbridge was found trapped within a miniature pink oil lamp encased in an unbreakable crystal sculpture of a rearing centaur— orchestrated by her own selfish desire for ultimate power.

Interestingly, the sculpture had a vial of memories fastened around its neck in the ultimate damnation.

Minister Fudge has vehemently sworn that he had no knowledge of and does not support Madam Umbridge's actions stating, "I would never condone the use of violence and torture. I had no idea Dolores hated children so much! This is a most horrifying discovery, and I will be working very hard to assist Hogwarts in repairing any and all damage done during Dolores' unlawful rampage."

Headmaster Dumbledore has been temporarily replaced by Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall while he is undergoing de-cursing at St Mungo's from a lingering curse from Madam Umbridge.

Memo

To: Unspeakables

From: HBOY, Amelia Bones

Thanks to Master Morgan, we have found a use for that paperweight known as Madam Umbridge, and we have hooked her up to power the Ministry. The unlimited power can be siphoned to light and maintain spells well into the next century or at least until Madam Umbridge would naturally die. Until then, we have power to spare, and everyone is encouraged to leave your lights on and enjoy this boon while it lasts.

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving witch.

Memo

To: Master Manfred Morgan

From: HBOY, Amelia Bones

Manfred, you mischievous old dragonbat, making a flashing arrow with "UMBITCH" lit up in eye-bleeding pink pointing to the powering station was NOT sanctioned by the Ministry!

You take that down right now!

(Um, in about a week or so. I told them you were off on vacation in the wilds of Madagascar and sadly unreachable.)

Memo

To: Ministry Kitchen Staff

From: Master Chef Jackson Kilburn

Okay, enough is enough, you guys.

Whoever let that purple phoenix chick into the fruit storage room? Well, ha bloody ha, you great sodding berk, whoever you are. Very funny, you got me good. Now stop letting that little blighter into our fruit stores! We have to make a ruddy great pile of fruit salad for the Minister's function this Friday!

Far away, in Grimmauld Place, one black and one white kitsune curled up together in the garden as an entire phoenix family turned themselves into a number of steam-fluffed feather and lint balls.

One especially smug little aubergine chick gulped down a large gooseberry and snuggled in-between them, nesting comfortably in their warm neck fur.

"Hou van mij!" she cheeped. "Hou van jou! Mmmm, mmm! Gloeiende gloeiende, ga naar bed!"

She yawned impressively, then tucked her little beak under a wing and closed her eyes.

Everything was just the way she wanted it.

End of Chapter Four

A/N: Did anyone remember this story? Hah! And you thought it was abandoned! Never! Thank you for your understanding that muses are fickle and real life is a rude, rude taskmaster.

Thanks to Dragon and the Rose for staying up to task in wrangling my shenanigans and Dutchgirl01 for teaching me Dutch profanity. (shifty look)

What?!