Author's Note: A doggy diversion for my long-suffering fellow judge and friend Corvus. If she has to read a thousand terrible Lady and the Tramp themed stories, it's truly only the smallest kindness to offer her one that has a bit of fluff and our very favorite OTP.

A Dogwarts Tale

Hermione opened her eyes slowly and yawned as wide as she could. Something about the familiar motion seemed to be...odd...somehow.

She blinked to clear the sleep out of her eyes as she stretched out in her bed. For some reason, her hands were stiff and she felt inordinately warm. Wait...why was her nightgown so huge? And why were her sleeves so...long?

Hermione tried to cry out, but instead, a sharp yip escaped her mouth.

'Oh no no no no,' she thought to herself, struggling and rolling in the lump of bed sheets and her voluminous nightgown until she found herself teetering over the edge of her mattress and rolling onto the cold, stone floor.

"Oof!" She could feel the wind had been knocked out of her and lay on her side for awhile, even though the cold floor was incredibly uncomfortable.

When she'd finally caught her breath, Hermione slowly wiggled out of the neck of her nightgown, glad that at least her body was small enough to do so without much pain. Oddly enough, it didn't feel all that embarrassing to be naked now that she had fur. She shook her body and looked back to find that her short, stumpy tail was wagging back and forth without any conscious thought on her part. She decided to walk over to the tall mirror that was attached to the outside of the small tower bathroom door and her eyes widened with shock.

"I'm a….cocker spaniel?!" she yelped, nearly falling over as her own voice escaped her muzzle.

She cocked her head to the side, feeling somewhat silly for doing so, but she needed a think and it seemed appropriate. Perhaps this was her animagus transformation? But no, that wasn't right. Animagi could not speak in their animal forms. Hermione tried to rack her brain for some sign or reason for why she had suddenly turned into a canine, but she couldn't think of anything out of the ordinary, which was incredibly irritating. Just then, she realized that the other beds were full of students.

"Lavender!" she stage-whispered at the form lying in the bed.

"Hngggh," said the form under the pillow. "Ten more-whufff-minutes."

Hermione could see a very-inhuman muzzle sticking out of the duvet, and decided that it was likely that Lavender was a much larger dog than she was, so it was probably a bad idea to attempt to wake her up. Parvati was whining in her sleep and Hermione could see what looked like a tail whipping back and forth under her sheets.

Dogs. They were all dogs too!

Hermione immediately thought of Harry and Ron, and ran back to her bed to grab her wand. For some reason, no matter where she looked, she couldn't find it, which was odd.

Luckily, she was able to get the door open with some creative maneuvering and she found herself climbing down the stairs to the common room, being careful not to trip over her long, curly-haired ears.

What awaited her on the other side of the door was, put lightly, utter chaos.

A number of dogs, from a large Great Dane to a tiny thing that looked like it could fit in a tea cup, were barking and carrying on and running about sniffing things. Hermione nearly jumped when a basset hound came over to sniff her backside.

"Excuse me!" she fumed.

"Hermione! Is that you?" Hermione could feel her mouth dropping open as the voice of Seamus Finnegan escaped the large jowls of the short-statured dog.

"Oi, introduce me, won't ya?" Dean's voice escaped the mouth of a much taller chocolate lab, whose tail was wagging back and forth like crazy.

"It's Hermione, Dean!" Seamus said, wagging and sniffing. "Oh right, you probably want to know where Harry and Ron are. They're still cowering in our room."

"I've always wondered what it was like to have an animagus form," Dean said, panting happily, "but I never imagined all of us would be different species of dog!"

Hermione opened her mouth to correct Dean about that, but the two had already disappeared in the crowd. Sensing that there was nothing else to do, Hermione climbed the stairs towards the boy's dormitory, eager to speak with her friends.

The room looked as though it had been ransacked, which wasn't all that much of a change from how it normally looked. However, Hermione knew that usually, when she visited the boys in their room, there was an abject lack of a dog with a wastepaper basket stuck on its head. A beagle with a strange, lightning-bolt scar on his forehead was desperately trying to pull the wicker basket off of the head of a jack-russell terrier.

"Hep peeez," he said, his mouth full of basket.

Hermione moved into position behind Harry and her friend only had a moment before she'd grabbed onto his tail and begun to pull. Harry made a pained noise but began to pull with renewed vigor and finally, with a comedic-sounding pop, the other dog was free.

"Blimey, mate," Harry said, spitting out bits of basket that had broken off in his mouth, "next time, can you please just wait until we get down to the Great Hall?"

"But I smelled a Chocolate Frog in there!" Ron said unhappily, shaking his head to dislodge bits of paper from his head.

"Chocolate kills dogs, you know," Hermione said loftily, fixing Ron with a dog's version of a disapproving scowl, which was hard to do because dogs do not have eyebrows.

"It'd be worth it," Ron said dreamily.

"So, a cocker spaniel, eh, Hermione?" Harry said, giving her a doggy grin.

"Speak for yourself. You're a beagle," Hermione replied.

"Yeah, but I'm stinking cute," Harry retorted, giving her his best soulful puppy dog look.

"I can bark loudly!" Ron interjected, sitting on his haunches and letting out a loud series of barks to illustrate his point. They echoed around the room and even Harry whined at the pain of the sound.

"Lovely," Hermione replied irritably, wishing she had hands so she could rub her ears. "So, any idea how this happened?"

"We need to talk to Dumbledore," Harry said, sounding convinced that the headmaster would know how to solve the problem.

"I'm not sure about that," Hermione said skeptically.

"Do you have any better ideas, then?" Harry asked, giving her an exasperated look.

Hermione shook her head and marveled at how floppy her new ears were.

"Well, then," Ron said, shrugging in a very un-dog-like way, "Dumbledore it is."

Hermione was fairly certain that the moving staircases were trying to kill her. She'd tripped over her own ears more than twice on the steep incline of the steps, which had obviously only been made for human legs, and had to resort to climbing down backwards. This didn't help much since the stairs kept switching courses and Hermione nearly fell off into empty space twice. The other students seemed content to stay in the common room, so it had fallen to Harry and Ron to grab Hermione by her stumpy tail to keep her from falling further, though Hermione had been forced to return the favor when Harry had tripped on his own ears. When they finally got to the lowest landing, they all breathed a sigh of relief. It was disconcerting to be so close to the ground and Hermione began to wonder just how many layers of dust were under her paws.

They made their way down the hall, the clicking of their nails the only thing they could hear in the empty halls. It seemed that many of the other students-turned-dogs were still in their common rooms, waiting for their Heads of House to appear. Hermione wondered if Professor McGonagall had awoken to a horrible canine surprise as well, and found herself wondering what breed of dog the Transfiguration professor would be.

Shaking her head, she found that she was lagging behind her friends.

"Hurry up, Hermione!" Ron barked.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," she grumbled.

"Oh dear, what are you three doing here?" A large collie had come around the corner and the unmistakable voice of Professor McGonagall had come from its mouth.

"We were looking for the Headmaster," Harry explained, his ears tucking down slightly as though he was about to be chastised. "Professor, do you know what happened? It seems to have affected all of us!"

The collie looked down her long nose at them. "We've tried to figure it out, but none of us can say for sure. I've never heard of anything like this in all my years of teaching Transfiguration. Professor Snape has been trying to look through his potions books but he's been having trouble finding anything that might change us back."

Hermione found herself wondering what sort of dog Professor Snape had become when suddenly a deafening noise filled the air as the doors to the castle blew open.

"Don't panic!" Minerva cried out. "Hide behind me, you three!"

The sound of many boots rung out in the hallways and Hermione felt her hair stand on end. And suddenly, there was a red jet of light blasting through the air and Hermione knew no more.

Hermione awoke in darkness. She heard people talking nearby, and began to snuffle around, touching the walls around her. She was enclosed. There was no escape.

"Here you go darling…" came the voice as she felt the container picked up.

Hermione held her breath. She knew that whoever was going to open the box would be more powerful than she was. She was small and fuzzy and had no wand.

A smiling face appeared as the top of the box was lifted away and she was pulled out.

"Oh, she's lovely!" the woman exclaimed, looking adoringly at Hermione. "Now, then, what's your name?"

"Hermione! Please! I used to be human!" Hermione said, but the woman seemed not to hear her.

"Aw, just listen to her cute little barks!" the woman gushed. "She's so beautiful, just like a little lady. I think that's what I'll call her, then. Lady. I'm your owner, Lady. My name is Diana and I promise to love you forever and ever!"

"I've got just the thing for you," the man, who was ostensibly Diana's husband. "Here you go, Lady. Your very own collar."

Hermione allowed the woman to untie the bow that had been put around her neck and place the collar there instead. It gleamed nicely on her neck, but she was still miserable.

"I'm not a dog," she muttered, "I'm a person...I'm Hermione!"

But Diana and her husband simply cooed at her patronizingly for being cute.

Hermione tried to escape at first, but her small body didn't make it easy. She was allowed in the front yard, but they put her on a leash attached to a stake. Without opposable thumbs, there was no way that Hermione could get out of it. Luckily, there were a couple dogs from the neighboring houses who were kind to her. They weren't from Hogwarts, but Hermione could communicate with them just fine. They were nice enough, but none of them had ever been human, so they mostly talked about the sorts of things that dogs enjoyed, such as sniffing other dog's butts and chasing squirrels.

Hermione hated eating dog food and being forced to "do her business" out in the backyard, but she kept telling herself that she was just biding her time. Soon, she would escape, and she would find a way to become human again.

It took over a year for Hermione to get her chance.

Hermione was able to smell it long before her owners knew. Diana was pregnant with her first child. Hermione knew that parenting led to long nights without sleep, and she was sure that she would be able to figure out a way around the precautions that her owners used to keep her from escaping.

It was around that time that she began to see a strange dog prowling around the neighborhood. He looked a bit like a doberman pinscher, but he was all black with only a bit of white on his paws and chest and a notch in his ear as though he'd been cut. The dog had been caught knocking over trash cans in the neighborhood, which had begun to draw raccoons and skunks. Even Hermione, who was not really a dog, had found that it took the edge off the boredom to bark at any living creature that tried to come near her owner's' home.

One evening, the black dog walked by the front gate of her home as she lay under a tree, trying to stay cool in the residual summer heat. He stuck his nose through the loose slats of the fence, his nose twitching curiously in her direction.

"Hey you! Don't you even think of coming in here!" she growled.

"And risk being tied up like that? I wouldn't dream of it," he said, his voice somehow achingly familiar.

"Do I know you?" Hermione asked, perplexed. Her ears were perked towards the strange dog as she waited for him to answer.

"A lot of people know me," the black dog replied. "It's one of the perks of being free."

"I'll have you know that I didn't choose to be a pet!" Hermione huffed. "In fact, I'm not even a dog, but I have no idea how to turn back into a human, so I'm just trying to bide my time until I can escape."

The black dog took a step back. Then, quietly, he asked, "What is your name?"

"They call me Lady," Hermione said resentfully, motioning with her head towards the house behind her.

"No, I don't mean that, I meant your human name. Your real name."

Hermione's heart nearly stopped.

"Come again?" she asked.

"Look, are you some sort of dunderheaded-"

"Hermione." She took a deep breath, trying to stop her tail from wagging uncontrollably. "My name is Hermione."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Interesting," was all he said before he trotted off and disappeared around a corner.

Hermione was left with the oddest sensation that, if he could have done so, he would have raised an eyebrow at her.

'...and that voice,' she thought to herself as she curled up on her dog bed that night, 'it really was familiar, wasn't it? But where have I heard it before?'

She tossed and turned fitfully that night and the next morning, she wondered if the conversation with the black dog had all been part of a dream. She didn't see him for weeks and weeks, even though she would regularly go to the window and stare out of it, or get herself tied up in the front yard. Now that they had a newborn to worry about, Hermione was often an afterthought. And, even though she hated dog food, it was the only food she got, so it miffed her greatly when her owners forgot to feed her at all.

Finally, she had her chance. The couple were going on a weekend getaway, leaving the baby at home to be watched by a nanny. The nanny took an immediate disliking to Hermione, and Hermione supposed that this was in part by the fact that the nanny had two hairless sphynx cats that liked to tease Hermione. Normally, she didn't care about them at all, but when they started saying more and more outrageous things to get a rise out of her, she became worried, especially when they began to talk about smothering the baby in her cradle. Though Hermione hated being treated like a mere pet, she had to admit that her owners didn't know any better and they didn't deserve to be harmed. Of course, when she tried to chase the cats out of the baby's room, it had all gone to hell in a handbasket within moments. The nanny had banished her to the backyard and strapped her into a thick, wire muzzle. Hermione lay on her pause looking miserably at the house. It was just her luck that she was stuck in the backyard. She'd never see the black dog either, and from the clouds above her, it would likely rain. The doghouse in the backyard had enough cracks in the top that she knew she'd get soaked to the bone. Her belly growled and she hated herself for craving the disgusting dog kibble in the kitchen.

"Hey, you." A gruff voice came from her left. "Stop lying there and feeling sorry for yourself and help me push this board aside so you can get out of this prison!"

Hermione's ears perked and she ran to the fence. Luckily, her chain allowed her to get that far, and she saw that, indeed, a familiar black muzzle was poking through a gap in the bottom of the tall fence. One of the boards had rotted away enough to create a small crawlspace, but the larger dog was having trouble fitting, so he was trying to push the board further to the side.

"I'd love to come with you, but as you can see, I'm a bit tied up at the moment," Hermione said, snorting at her own unintentional pun a moment later.

"Oh, a comedian? How droll," came the reply, "Now. More helping, less quipping."

Hermione did what she could, but it was hard with the muzzle on her face. In the end, the black dog did most of the work, and his strong jaws were able to make enough of a hole for him to slip through.

"That looks like a nasty piece of work," he said, looking much larger and more imposing now that he was merely a foot away. "What did you do this time, Granger, eat some poor fool's homework?"

Hermione stared. She'd never told him her last name. And that voice….her mind reeled and she stepped back, uncertain.

"No. It can't be," she said, not wanting to believe it. "It is you, isn't it, Professor?"

"Oh, so you haven't let your brilliant little mind waste away after all," the large, black dog said. "I escaped, but only barely, and I've been working on a potential cure ever since. Of course, it's hard to do much without opposable thumbs."

"I know, right?" Hermione said, looking at her paws disdainfully. "So...then...what should I call you? Professor?"

"First thing's first. Let's get you out of that thing," the black dog said, ignoring her question. Suddenly, his muzzle was nearly level with hers and she fought the urge to flinch. He truly was tall for a dog, his long, lean legs ending in large white paws.

"What are you-?" Hermione was cut off as he placed his mouth gently on the leather strap that attached the muzzle to the chain.

"Hold still."

Hermione held as still as stone. With a sudden, sharp growl, the black dog had bitten through the leather and tore it away from the chain. Hermione was left wearing only the muzzle, but she was free.

"We'll handle the rest later. Come on, now, let's get out of here!" The black dog immediately ran towards the fence.

Hermione didn't need to be told twice. She wiggled through the fence, realizing that her backside was a bit wider than she remembered, and followed the black dog down the twilight street into the unknown.

"It's not much, but it's home." The black dog led Hermione into a small open room that appeared to have been worked into the side of a hill. It was accessible through a large drainage pipe.

"What was it supposed to be, do you think?" Hermione asked, looking around at the strange set-up. There was a bunch of laboratory equipment on the floor and a bed made out of a bunch of ragged-looking pillows in the corner.

"I think it was actually supposed to be some sort of electrical transformer box, but they seem to have lost the funding to put it in," the black dog replied. "Don't worry. No one ever comes near. There's nothing around nearby but marshland and I don't exactly plan to be here forever."

Hermione was about to say something else when her belly growled. Loudly.

"I don't suppose you have anything to eat around here," Hermione said, feeling embarrassed.

He shook his head. "It's probably a good idea to get you out of that muzzle first, don't you think?"

Hermione nodded, feeling silly.

"Professor?"

"Don't call me that, Granger. I'm not a teacher any longer, as you can probably tell by the four paws and the tail," the black dog said, obviously irritated.

"Then what? I don't want to call you Snape. It sounds disrespectful," Hermione retorted, knowing that she always became more argumentative when she was hungry. "And don't you dare tell me to call you Spot or Blackie or something silly like that. My brain would short-circuit."

"Are you finished?" The black dog loomed over her, now, and Hermione began to think that it had been a bad idea to go off at the mouth like that, especially after he'd helped her escape.

Hermione nodded, not trusting herself to say anything nice.

"Just call me Severus. It's a name, it's mine, it works."

For a moment, Hermione felt as though she might scream because even though she knew dogs could not blush, she felt as though her face was burning.

"T...then call me Hermione so it doesn't feel weird," Hermione blurted out.

"Fine. Now, are you ready to get out of that muzzle, Hermione?" She could tell that he used the name deliberately, drawing each syllable out individually as he looked at her.

"Yes, very much so, Severus," Hermione replied, looking up at him. She would not allow him to intimidate her, and it filled her with a sense of power to call him by his first name. Though she knew it sounded silly, it made her feel as though they were on the same level.

"Hmph, come on, then, we need to see a beaver about a muzzle," Severus said. "Remember this place, though. That's why I brought you here first. If you ever find yourself in danger-"

"Danger? What sort of danger?" Hermione asked.

"Ahem," Severus replied, pulling off the dog-version of glaring at her, "As I was saying, if you find yourself in danger, come to this place to hide. I will be able to find you. There are all sorts of things, like dogcatchers and Death Eaters who would love to find one of the Ministry's 'relocated witches and wizards' and turn them into dog meat stew."

"What do you mean by 'relocated witches and wizards'?" Hermione asked.

Severus looked as though he was about to tell her and then shook his head. "We have to go before he's too far downriver. Come on, then. We'll talk more on the way."

As they made their way towards the riverbank, Severus explained that the Ministry, under the direction of Dolores Umbridge, had decided to make a desperate bid against Voldemort. If everyone at Hogwarts was a dog, Voldemort could not infiltrate by stealing children or using spies. The idea was that Voldemort would see how futile it was to try and take over the Wizarding World and simply give up. All of the students had been rehomed by Ministry officials, and would be returned to human form within a so-called "reasonable" amount of time. The problem was that Umbridge refused to say how long was reasonable, and Voldemort was still around causing havoc. A lot of it had leaked into the Muggle world as well, and it seemed that many Muggles were slowly becoming aware of magical influences. Already, several Death Eaters had been caught by Muggle military forces and were summarily executed for trying to kill their way out of their cells while awaiting trial. Wands had been confiscated and were being inspected by Muggle scientists to figure out how they worked.

"They did some sort of ley-line charm," Severus explained. "It tapped into the natural magical faults in the land and changed everyone within a certain radius. Obviously, some of the wealthy pure blooded families were able to take in their children...as dogs. Poor Narcissa and Lucius- I hear that Draco transformed into a chihuahua."

Hermione snickered at the thought of Draco yapping up and down the halls of Hogwarts like an angry, bat-eared mouse.

"The rest of the story will have to wait until after we speak to this fine gentleman," Severus said, pausing. "Hello Bruce, how are you this evening?"

There was a scuttling in the bushes and a large beaver made its way from the bushes.

"How ken I help yeh?" the beaver said, looking at them both with beady eyes.

Hermione stared. This was the first time she'd ever seen another animal besides a fellow dog speak.

"We have a bit of a muzzle problem, as you can see," Severus said, motioning to Hermione. "This little lady wishes to give you this fabulous fish cage for the very low price of free, if you can get it off of her head."

"Hmmm, well, I'll do my best," the beaver grunted, moving slowly to where Hermione stood. "Bow yer head down, girl."

Hermione obeyed, feeling scared as she saw the teeth hanging down from the top of beaver's mouth. Though they weren't sharp-looking, they were long and yellowed. Hermione thought back to the time her own teeth had been enlarged by nearly that much and shuddered.

"It'll be but the work of a moment," the beaver said, grabbing the strap in his little paws.

Hermione shut her eyes tight and quivered with fear, but then realized that something warm was pressing against her. When she opened her eyes, she realized that Severus was lying next to her, his front paw over her back.

"I'm here," he said softly, "I won't let anything bad happen to you."

Hermione was torn between shock and relief. She was shocked that Severus Snape of all people would do or say anything like this for anyone, much less herself, but she was relieved because all she could think of were those teeth coming down on her head and-"

"Done!" the beaver proclaimed, pulling the muzzle off of Hermione's head. "I'll tek t'is."

"Good doing business with you, Bruce," Severus said with a nod of his head.

They watched the beaver swim off with the muzzle in its mouth.

"Do you think he'll be able to catch fish with is?" Hermione asked.

"Who knows? Anything is possible," Severus replied. "Now, did I hear that you were hungry?"

"Hungry is an understatement," Hermione replied, her stomach aching as she remembered just how hungry she was.

"Ah, well, I think I have something you will like quite a lot."

Hermione followed Severus down the alleyway with her ears pricked for any sounds. Rats lived in alleys. So did mean alley cats. And what if there was a Death Eater? How could they escape without wands?

"It's just through here," Severus said, walking up to a yellow door that was set into the back of a large brick building.

He barked loudly- three long backs and a yip.

In a moment, the door opened, and two friendly-looking men with differently-shaped mustaches strode out.

"Ah, there you are, boy!" they said, petting Severus, who panted and played the part of a happy dog. Hermione stood in the shadows, afraid to come out.

"Who's hungry, then!" the rounder, shorter man said, pulling a link of sausage from his pocket.

Hermione's stomach screamed at her and her feet listened. She bounded into the light next to Severus in a moment, rolling onto her back and whining sadly.

"Oh? Who's this? Did you get a lady friend, boy?" the taller, thinner man said with a wide grin. Severus barked once, which seemed to delight the man even further. "Why, this is cause for celebration!"

Hermione found herself minutes later sitting before a makeshift table on an upended garbage can with a giant fresh pile of pasta and meatballs being served on a chipped plate. It smelled like heaven, but the kicker was when Severus pushed the biggest meatball over to her with his nose.

"You deserve it," he said, as the two humans stood nearby and made adoring noises.

She ate it with gusto, not realizing that the strand of spaghetti she'd taken in with her next bite was the same as the strand that Severus had in his mouth. They ended up with their noses nearly touching and Hermione pulled away, feeling as though she was about to catch fire with embarrassment. When she looked back, though, she realized that Severus was just staring at her, his ears pricked as though she were the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.

The moment passed as the short, stout man blew his nose and they both bid the two dogs farewell. They finished their meal quickly and padded quickly back to the secret room that Severus had showed Hermione earlier. It was then that Hermione remembered that there was only one bed.

"Don't worry," Severus said, "I won't get fresh with you. You take the bed. I'll just sleep over here." He motioned with his head at a slab of concrete and Hermione shook her head.

"No you won't! Besides, there's plenty of room, and it's not like we're humans. We're just dogs!" she protested.

"We're also completely naked, if you haven't noticed," Severus replied. "And even though we have our human minds, if you happened to go into heat...well…"

"I don't care!" Hermione sniffed. "You're not sleeping on a freezing cold floor, and that's final! Besides, I don't feel hot at all."

"Well...if you're certain that's how you feel on the subject…" Severus trailed off, but his body sagged with relief at not having to sleep on a slab of concrete. "We'll get an early start tomorrow. I've got a few of my...associates coming by to help with the final preparations on the potion we'll need to use on the ley lines in order to reverse our current sorry states. There will also be some traveling involved, as we may still live in Scotland, but we must go further north to find the proper lines to affect."

Hermione tried very hard to understand what he was saying, but it was terribly late and her belly was so full of food that she hard trouble processing his words. With a wide yawn, she turned around in a circle and lay down on one of the pillows. Moments later, she felt the warm, dark bulk of the larger dog settle against her side and she was asleep before her head hit her paws.

The "associates" that Severus had mentioned turned out to be two raccoons who lived nearby in a hollow tree. Their small, deft paws were almost like hands, and the raccoons were able to follow the instructions laid out by Severus in exchange for prime morsels of meat that Severus had somehow found. Hermione guessed that a lot of these items were what he had salvaged on all of his garbage dumping runs in the nearby neighborhood.

In the end, it took another full day for the potion to be ready, and even then, Severus took extra precaution, rolling the potion up in a blanket and placing it gingerly inside of a box, which he had the racoons wrap and tie with twine. He then placed the box in something that looked like one side of an old pair of saddlebags. He then pulled the saddlebag over his head and gingerly stepped one paw through. This way, the bag shifted onto his back but didn't turn as he moved.

"Where did you find this?" Hermione wondered aloud.

"Never underestimate what you may find in a dumpster. One man's trash is another man's treasure," Severus quipped in reply.

Hermione was impressed and she leapt about joyfully once the potion was complete. Severus slid out of the saddlebags and they shared a couple links of sausage that Severus had saved in butcher paper.

"We will leave first thing tomorrow," Severus said with a yawn as he lay on the pillow after they had finished looking at the old, ripped map that Severus had laid out on the floor. "The route will be tough, but it will be worth it."

"I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world," Hermione replied, and she did something she would normally never do, she turned and licked Severus right on the muzzle.

He went very still for a moment, staring at her, and then, his large, pink tongue was flashing across her furry face and she found herself being given a doggy-version of a tongue bath. They groomed and cuddled the night away, falling into a deep sleep curled together in the dark. The next morning, once she could think more clearly, Hermione was very glad that she had not been in heat. The thought of finding herself the mother of puppies was too much to bear.

"I'm human," she muttered to herself, "I'm human, human, human."

"Penny for your thoughts?" Severus asked, pulling the saddlebag into place.

"I was just thinking...what happened last night...probably never would have happened if we weren't dogs," Hermione said, feeling somewhat sorry for herself.

"Probably not," Severus replied.

Hermione knew that dogs could not cry, but at that moment she wanted to let out a sob. She whined sadly instead, but it just wasn't the same.

"However," Severus continued, bending down to nuzzle her softly, "I am glad that it happened just the same. I can count it among the very few things that have made this sorry existence worthwhile."

Hermione made an embarrassing yipping noise and she raced up to press her nose against his.

"Do you mean that?" she asked, her heart thudding with excitement.

"Obviously," he replied with a sniff. "I don't usually make a habit of embarrassing myself by wearing my heart on my sleeve or allowing myself to get close to...former students…"

Hermione licked his muzzle once for good luck and they started out over the hills. It was hard going sometimes, but they made good time, and it was only three days later that they finally reached the ley lines around Hogwarts.

"But how are we going to unstopper the potion?" Hermione wondered, as Severus pulled everything out of the saddlebag with his mouth.

"Easy," Severus said, placing the potion on the unrolled blanket.

He howled, then, long and low, and Hermione got the idea that she had to do the same. Together, the two of them howled and howled until, they heard a new sound moving through the woods.

"Hail," a female centaur said, moving cautiously into the clearing with a bow on her back. "The stars foretold a shift in the ley line here, so I imagine that you are here to help it along."

Severus whined and wagged his tail.

"Very well," she said, unstoppering the bottle. "This is all that I may do to interfere. I wish you luck, Severus Snape and Hermione Granger. Your actions will bring about great change, though we still know not how great or terrible this change will be."

Hermione pawed along the line with Severus, using her claws to scratch out an approximation of the ley line's path.

"Luckily, we won't need to cast any magic," Severus explained. "The potion will simply reset the tampering that the Ministry did earlier...if everything goes right."

Hermione stopped her scratching at the dirt and stared at him. "What do you mean, 'if everything goes right?'"

Severus sighed. "I was working in a dirty hovel with inferior ingredients and using raccoons as my potion brewing staff. There's no guarantee that this potion will activate as optimally as it would if I had been human and had access to the proper tools."

"I suppose not," Hermione said, looking down at her paws, "but that doesn't mean we can't try, right?"

"Well," Severus said, finishing the last of the outline, "it's now or never."

Severus only needed to pour the fluorescent green liquid into the corner of the small channels they'd dug together. At first, it sunk into the dirt, but then bubbles of greenish yellow began rising on the surface and the liquid grew from nothing until a tiny river of light ran down to the treeline and out of sight. Hermione knew that Hogwarts was somewhere nearby, but the charms and wards on the grounds were strong enough to repel most non-human animals.

There was a great flash of light and Hermione could see a tall spire rising in the distance above the treeline and took a deep breath.

Hogwarts. It was there, same as always.

Hermione was about to say something to Severus when a loud cracking noise, like the sound of ice cracking, grew louder and louder. The ground began to shake and light spilled into the sky like a reverse Aurora.

"It's beautiful," Hermione said, sitting on her haunches. Severus sat behind her, resting his head on top of hers.

"It is," he replied, "I just hope that the castle can take the tremors.

"I feel weird, Severus," Hermione said, doubling over, "I-urghhh-"

She could feel his tongue licking her muzzle as he covered her with his body, trying to provide her with comfort as pain filled her body, but then he too started to whine and she knew she wasn't the only one.

The last thing she remembered before everything went black was the weight of his body against hers.

Hermione's eyes were heavy, but she pried them open anyway. She was freezing...well...except for her back, that was incredibly warm and lovely. She rubbed her eyes with her hand and let a little excited scream loose from her lips.

"I have hands" she squeaked excitedly. "Fingers! I'm-"

And that was when she realized that she was completely, utterly naked. What was more, she realized that the delicious warmth pressing against her back was a very unconscious and very naked Severus Snape.

"Severus….Severus! Wake up!" Hermione turned to face him, relishing how her breast pressed against his chest. His arm was around her and she enjoyed how it snaked down her back in a protective embrace.

Severus groaned but didn't open his eyes.

Hermione frowned. Well, there was something she was pretty sure would work.

"Severus, I'm giving you one more chance," she said, her lips drawing up in a playful smirk.

When he did nothing more than sniff loudly and let out a deep sigh, she realized she had to take drastic measures.

"Well," she said aloud, "it worked on Sleeping Beauty."

With that, she pressed her lips firmly against his.

Severus opened his eyes so quickly that she nearly jumped back in surprise. Within moments, his arms had grabbed her around the middle and he was squeezing her hard, his lips pressing back against hers as a soft moan escaped his throat. He stroked her hair with his free hand and she melted into his touch. The cold dewy grass was no longer too cold as their bodies grew hot and full of could see all manner of things reflected in his dark eyes. It made her want him more than anything she'd wanted in her entire life.

"I think," she whispered, her voice husky with lust, "that I'm in heat now, Severus."

"Oh, really?" he asked, before his lips were crashing against hers and there was only their bodies doing what bodies do best, entwining and writhing in perfect symmetry to sate their mutual need.

They didn't notice that the light in the ley line trench was growing brighter, the pulsing green flickering and changing color until it was the deepest blue imaginable.

The next morning, there was pandemonium across the country as people woke up to find naked people in their homes. Dogs were missing en masse, prompting some people to wonder if it was a signal that the End Times were near.

Also, a man claiming to be immortal was found wandering the streets. It looked as though his nose had been ripped off in a horrible accident, and when he was apprehended, he was wearing only a sheet and walking around with a stick shouting poorly worded Latin at people and getting annoyed when they didn't die. He was sent off to a mental ward in the country, and soon proved to require absolute isolation in a rubber room, due to his obsession with sticks and pointing them at people as though trying to do magic.

In other news, a number of very poorly behaved cats had been found, all with a strange marking on their right front legs. Many of them settled down considerably once they were all spayed and neutered, though.

Dolores Umbridge was never seen again, but a very fat blue Persian wearing a tiny pink bow was found in her bedroom and subsequently rehomed with a famous breeder, who paid a high price and was delighted to find new breeding stock for her business. The Minister was beside himself, as many of the Hogwarts students who had been turned into dogs were now at least twenty-one years of age. There was something to do with how dogs tend to age more quickly than humans, but there was no real way to reverse it, so it ended up a moot point. It did, however, mean that the graduating class of Hogwarts the next year was absurdly huge, and many of the students required remedial classes. Hermione ended up teaching and tutoring extra courses due to the lack of staffing resources, but that was all right with her. After all, she'd always enjoyed a challenge.

As for Hermione and Severus, they found that they'd unwittingly beaten the Dark Lord and all of his cronies and inadvertently found the love of their lives in one another.

And, when the chaos cleared, it was most assuredly true that every dog had had its day.