Disclaimer (see chapter one)
A/N One thing before we get going here... This is where the story starts to take a spiritual turn, so don't say I didn't warn you.
Chapter 2 In Which a Cat Recalls that It Is NOT Proper for a Lady to be Eating Decomposing Fish Heads That Came Out of Someone Else's Dumpster.
In a dark alleyway off a bustling and over-crowded street in the heart of downtown London, a cat with brilliant green eyes and long fur rummaged through a restaurant dumpster. At one point, her fur had been silky smooth and pure white except for the very tips of her ears, which had always been black, but years living on the street had changed that.
The restaurant owner didn't approve of having stray cats digging through his garbage, scattering trash all over the alley and fighting over scraps. It hadn't occurred to him that if he merely left them to it, the number of fights would drop, and the contents of the cans were only scattered when he interrupted them. This particular feline held no qualms about disregarding absolutely everything that he saw fit to yell at her as she continued searching for something that would ease her aching stomach. Anything would do, but she was particularly found of fish. That was why she had been drawn to this particular restaurant. All-you-can-eat fried fish for the customers meant all-you-can-eat fish-bones, and other scraps that humans couldn't stomach, for the local cat population.
After only a few seconds of having to endure the owner's ranting, the cat found what she had been looking for, and, picking it up between her teeth, she leaped jauntily from the dumpster. She dodged the empty tin he had lobbed at her, and, tail held high twitching nonchalantly, she walked toward the far end of the alley. Once there, she hopped gracefully on to the dividing wall and there perched herself to consume her meal.
Several satisfying minutes later, she remained sitting on the wall in a state of utter contentment. "That was the most discussing thing I've ever done in my life." This realization dislodged her from her lofty perch with great effectiveness. Leaping into the air, she landed on the grungy cobblestones, which made up the pavement of the alley, in a heap. Dazed from her sudden return to ground level, she looked up at where she had once been, confused, but quickly recovered and went on her merry way.
Later, as she sat on a street corner, licking her paws clean, without a care in the world, she found herself, once again, in utter consternation, "Soap and water would make this so much easier." In a panic, she dropped back to all fours and skidded into an alley. In a split second, she was at the far end, cowering behind another dumpster. Her heart pounded against her rib cage for a full minute while she considered what had just happened. She had just run away... from a thought. The consequences of this were truly disheartening. If thoughts were frightening to her, that meant that she hadn't been thinking for a very long time. Vaguely, she wondered just how long it had been.
"If I haven't been thinking, what exactly have I been doing?" She remembered the incident on the wall earlier, and gave an involuntary shudder. "That's definitely NOT proper behavior for a lady… When have you ever cared about proper behavior, Lily? That's your sister talking." Lady? Lily? Sister? "Where did all that come from?" All were new, strange terms to her. But if she had used them, she must now their meaning. She pondered this for a while before coming to a conclusion. Lady meant she was human, Lily was her name, and sister… Again she thought, gently lifting the memories out of her subconscious mind. She had a sister named Petunia, who was obsessed about the proper way of doing things. "But if I'm human," she found herself wondering, "Why do I have fur?" Then, slowly, a memory crept into her minds-eye, washing over her, as though in answer to her question.
She was in a brightly decorated room, standing next to a crib, holding a frightened, balling baby in her arms, and trying desperately to comfort him when she was terrified herself. Then, she saw it through the window, a flash of bright green light in the direction of the living room, and heard the shattering of glass. "James is dead!" She remembered thinking. Not knowing what she was going to do, she set her baby down in his crib and ran from the room. Anything she might try would require her wand, and she had stupidly left it sitting on her bedside table when she had gone downstairs to tell James to come to bed. Now, he was dead. Peter had betrayed them after all!
Her husband's murderer saw her closing the master bedroom door from the top of the stairs, and laughed his high, cold, cruel laugh. He came through the door just as she rounded the corner of her bed to get her wand.
"You cannot save him now, woman," he told her, with a hint of jest in his inhuman voice. He thought she had come in here to get the baby! Well, she certainly wasn't going to try to correct him.
"Not Harry! Not Harry! Please, I'll do anything!" she wailed. And she would have.
"Stand aside, you foolish girl! Stand aside, now!" he ordered her, but she wasn't really listening. If she didn't step aside, he would kill her, and after he killed her, he'd kill Harry. But if she died to save her son's life…
"No, not Harry! Take me, kill me instead!" she begged. But as she did, she thought, "If I try to go for my wand, he'll kill me for it, and it won't have been for protecting Harry. But I can't just stand here and do nothing! He'd never expect me to leap at him and attack him, but I have no weapon. I'm no match for him like this." So she didn't leap on him as she was, she leapt on him as a cat. Or she tried, she was only half-way through the transformation when the curse struck her.
"Then, I should be dead," Lily Potter thought, when she realized she'd reached the end of the memory. "I should be dead and buried, six feet under!…Next to James." Grief flooded through her. Why wasn't she dead enjoying the bliss of paradise with him? She'd heard of out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, but this was ridiculous! She wanted to cry, but then realized that, as a cat, that was physically impossible. "Am I able to be a human again? Or has my disruption of the natural order of things left me stranded in this body forever?" She felt that it would probably be a fitting punishment, but there was only one way to find out.
There was a loud scraping noise, as the dumpster was pushed away from the wall of the alley by her suddenly expanded body. She then found herself tightly pinned into her hiding place. "Great!" she said, with just a hint of sarcasm. "Ok," she said, a little breathless because of the intense amount of pressure on her diaphragm, "I can either retransform and find some other secluded corner to transform back in." Considering her fear that she was going to be trapped, that was not an entertaining prospect. "Or I can try to wiggle free of this… thing." She hadn't said the word, but she had thought it. And as she made a fruitless attempt at her second option, she mentally chastised herself for it. "Or," she continued through clenched teeth as she fought to make her words a reality, "I can try…rrr… to…umph… get this… arrr… thing… ugh… off of meeee…"
With a terrible echoing screech and a sigh to expel her frustration, the giant trash can gave way to Lily's efforts, "Rahh!" She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then said, "Jiminy Cricket! What are they throwing away in there BRICKS?" Now that the crisis was averted, she was free to grieve in peace.
She felt her knees hit the ground, as they buckled under her. They'd bruise later, but she really didn't care. She needed to be on her knees right now. The pain of loss tore at her, as she folded her arms across her stomach, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and turned to the one source of help Who was there no matter what. She poured out her soul to Him, with everything she had. Later, she wouldn't be able to recall the words she used, just the feeling, which had come over her by the time she had finished. It was peace. Somehow, though she'd never be able to explain it, she knew that everything was as it should be, and that was enough.
She stood. The first thing she needed to do would be to find out what day it was. That would be easy if she could find a newspaper. She knew the date of the day she… the last day she could remember. She walked out of the alley, and stood in the sunlight for a bit, feeling the warmth on her face. "It's summer." She started walking down the street at a brisk pace, when she made this realization; it had been October when she… That meant it had been, at the very least, nine months since then. Panic was starting to get the better of her again.
After a bit, she realized that passers-by were staring at her. "I must look a fright," she thought, "It makes sense; living as a common stray cat for… who knows how long." She stopped to stare at her reflection in a store window, before crossing a side street. She was right. She was filthy, from her grungy, tangled hair to her stained and tattered clothes. Oh no! Her clothes! She was wearing a nightdress! No wonder people were staring! She decided to proceed on her quest for a paper with added vigor.
Coming upon the next street corner, she stopped and crouched in front of a mechanized newspaper stand to read the date at the top. For the second time that day, she dropped to her knees. This time it was from shock. The stand ratted noisily, as she allowed her forehead to bang into the door. The date reverberated over and over in her mind, July 31, 1996. She had been living as a cat for nearly fifteen years. "It's Harry's birthday," she thought, but then added, "If he's still alive… No," she told herself firmly, "Don't think about that, yet. There will be plenty of time for it when you get to the house." And with that, she stood up, marched strait into the nearest alleyway, ducked behind a dumpster, and disapparated.
A/N If the quotes of Lily and Voldemort from PoA are off, PLEASE tell me what was wrong, so I can fix it. I don't have a copy with me ( ,( ) to use as reference, so I had to do it from memory. Hope you like it anyway.