Oh my, I don't know what put this in my head, but oh well. Severus is adopted by a cat. /o\

The mangy mongrel, so skinny and pitiful it barely had any right to be alive, had started hanging around outside Severus's home one hot August afternoon, the summer when even the rats in Spinner's End had all starved to death.

Pettigrew, naturally repulsed by anything of the feline variety, tried to shoo it from the stoop; but Severus shoved the rat-faced man aside, and peered down at the sad excuse for a cat.

The thing gazed up at Severus with crusted, yellowed eyes, and uttered a faint "Mow." Then it lowered its head again as though certain its plea would not be heeded.

"Feed it," Severus said to Pettigrew curtly, turning on his heel and entering the house again. He knew it would aggravate Pettigrew to no end, a notion which drew a grim smile across Severus's face.

Naturally, the cat, now recognizing Severus's house as a source of sustenance, returned the next morning, where Severus was interrupted from reading the Daily Prophet by the ragged yowl of his new protegee.

"Now you've done it," Pettigrew slobbered as he brought Severus his tea. "That rangy thing will never let us be."

Severus merely cuffed Pettigrew in response, ordered "Never mind, you. Go feed it again."

"But-"

"NOW."

As Pettigrew grumbled and whined to himself whilst preparing a bowl of leftover sausage, Severus smirked to himself behind his newspaper. Anything that caused pain to his enemies gave Severus much amusement.

By day three the cat was a fixture on Severus's stoop, a bit less mangy than before (with the help of several rounds of sausage) but still nothing one could admire. Yet Severus insisted that Pettigrew feed it again, and when Pettigrew made a face, Severus nodded, said "Very well. I suppose there is nothing to be done but to invite it in."

"Invite it in?" Pettigrew asked with horror. "Are you mad? It's probably got rabies! At the very least, the thing is likely infested with fleas, and-"

"Silence!" Severus spat. "Your opinion was not solicited. Now bring it in."

Severus clucked to himself contentedly behind his book as he listened to the cat growl and spit in Pettigrew's arms, then as Pettigrew yelped when the cat scratched him up before he set the creature down on the parlor floor.

It didn't look good. While the cat had improved in appearance somewhat, Severus noticed the tip of one ear was missing, and its tail was twisted in a strange way. Yet in Severus's presence it heeled, and seemed to wait patiently for Severus to address it.

"Well?" Severus found himself asking it. The cat twitched his nicked ear toward Severus in greeting, and Severus bowed to it in response before he realized what he was doing.

"Feed it, and prepare a place for it to stay," Severus ordered Pettigrew.

"To stay?" Pettigrew gibbered.

"Certainly. Perhaps it can move into your quarters, and you can sleep on the stoop."

When Pettigrew began to whine and beg Severus not to make him sleep outside, Severus rolled his eyes, said "Then do as I say. Prepare a corner in the kitchen for it, and if you utter one more word of complaint, out you go."

The problem was that the cat wasn't content to stay in its own bed that evening. Severus found this out when he awoke in the middle of the night for a glass of water, and felt a small warm lump at the foot of his bed. At first he was compelled to kick the thing out, but deciding it could do no harm, he let it be.

The next morning, the cat seemed always at Severus's heels, following him into the bathroom (where he was not invited in), following him around his room as Severus got ready for the day, following him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Severus told Pettigrew to give it a helping of eggs and sausage too.

"At least you aren't a dog," Severus murmured to the cat as the cat tackled its sausage.

"Mow," the cat agreed, flattening his ears as though disgusted by the idea.

Over the next couple of weeks, Severus became used to the cat's presence, not even noticing much when the cat hopped into Severus's lap as Severus read a book or the newspaper. While Pettigrew's teeth chattered in horror and disgust, Severus would even absently scratch the thing behind the ears till the cat butted his head against Severus's hand, his yellow eyes drowsy and flat with contentment.

"You going to give it a name?" Pettigrew asked sourly one morning while he shoved a plate of sausage under the cat's nose.

"Why should I," Severus observed behind his newspaper. "I'm sure he's already decided who he is, so any attempts of mine to presume an identity for him would probably be regarded as an insult."

"You talk about him like he was a person," Pettigrew sneered.

"Certainly he's got a tremendous amount more dignity and intelligence than some of those who are ostensibly human," Severus replied, raising his eyebrows pointedly at Pettigrew. "He also has the advantage of knowing when to be silent, unlike some others I could name."

When the fall semester grew near, however, Severus arrived at a difficulty. Was he to leave the cat at Spinner's End, where no doubt Pettigrew would either torture it or run it off, or should Severus take the cat with him to Hogwarts? After all, there was no policy restricting staff from keeping familiars. Filch, for instance, had Mrs. Norris, and, well, Minerva was a cat from time to time. Certainly, after a werewolf had been permitted to teach at Hogwarts, there should be no exception taken to Severus having a mere harmless mongrel.

It was decided. Though he wasn't sure how the cat would endure traveling by Floo. There was nothing to be done but to try to explain to him the necessity.

"Now," Severus told the cat on the morning of departure. "See this here." He pointed to the fireplace.

"Mow," the cat replied.

"What will happen is that we will step inside of this, and within a matter of moments, travel to another place."

The cat flattened his ears, as though in distaste at the idea of some new location.

"It will be well, I assure you," Severus said. "In fact, it's rather more comfortable than this house. Certainly the variety of sausage is more select."

Somewhat mollified, the cat flicked its ears at Severus as though bidding him to continue.

"Very well then. Now. The difficulty is that, while we are traveling, you may experience some moments of discomfort. But fear not: it doesn't last long, and you'll likely forget all about it as soon as it's over." The cat narrowed his yellow eyes skeptically.

"Of course, those who are timid and fearful in general suffer the most difficulty," Severus pointed out. "But," he added, his eyes roving over the nicked ear, the twisted tail, "I dare say you are quite equal to the task."

Well, perhaps the cat endured it better than could have been expected, but Severus didn't escape the ordeal without a few deep rents in his robes. Still, the cat seemed to forget all about it when Severus summoned a house elf to bring a plate of several different types of sausage to his chambers, and before long, the cat, surfeited and content, curled up in the old cloak Severus had rolled into a bed for him in a corner.

Having never had a familiar before in his life, Severus could not have known that his method of treating the cat with polite dignity was the absolute correct way, nor could he have known that the cat's behavior toward him was rather extraordinary. All he understood was that cats were far superior to dogs and rodents, and that only a fool would choose a drooling, smelly canine or a shifty, squeaky rat as an Animagus over the cool, clean, dignity of a feline. Perhaps the only animal that was better was a snake, though he'd never tell the cat this.

Also, having never had a familiar before, the pleasantness of the cat's company while Severus prepared for his classes or brewed potions came as a surprise to him. Like many introverted people, Severus disliked the presence of others, yet yearned for some sort of companionship, and so the cat seemed to serve that purpose quite well, without the aggravating traits that most humans were saddled with.

Unfortunately, it didn't take long before the rest of the faculty got wind of the cat's presence. It must have been when the cat had run into Mrs. Norris one afternoon, and the two of them raised a ruckus on the fourth floor. Later, Severus was plagued with questions by the other teachers, especially Minerva, who seemed surprised that Severus of all people should have a pet, and a cat to boot.

"But where did you find him? What's his name? How long have you had him?" Minerva pecked at him over breakfast in the Great Hall.

"Why does everyone insist I should give him a name," Severus muttered over his tea.

"How do you call him then?"

"I don't 'call' him anything."

"So he's just The Cat?"

"Yes."

Minerva shook her head as though Severus were an especially slow pupil, and Severus rolled his eyes impatiently.

"Minerva tells me you have a cat," Pomona addressed him that afternoon, before the faculty meeting was to commence.

"I don't understand why this is so astonishing to everyone."

"Well," Pomona shrugged. "You just don't seem the type, I suppose."

"What is the 'type', then? Little old ladies?"

Pomona giggled, and Severus sighed in resignation.

"You have no idea what I've had to endure today," Severus told the cat that evening when he returned to his chambers.

"Mow?" the cat asked with a smirk.

"Be grateful that all you're required to do is eat and sleep," Severus nodded as he sat down behind his desk. "I doubt you'd last five minutes if you had to attend a Hogwarts faculty meeting."

The cat stretched luxuriously in his bed, seeming to laugh at Severus through his narrowed yellow eyes.

As winter set in, Severus was especially glad for the cat's company, for at night it warmed the foot of his bed better than any charm could do. And after supper, as Severus sat before the fire in his chambers, he often drifted off to sleep in his chair with the cat dozing soundly in his lap, its purr breaking the deadly silence that usually filled Severus's quarters.

And thus it might have gone on indefinitely, till one warm day in the spring, the cat leapt onto Severus's desk while Severus corrected his students' parchments, and Severus realized he was face to face with a completely different animal.

In fact, if it weren't for the nicked ear and the twisted tail, Severus might not have even recognized him. So sleek was his form, so shiny was his fur, so healthy and clear his eyes-almost nothing like the feeble mongrel who had turned up on his stoop in Spinner's End the summer before.

Severus lay down his quill, stared at the cat for a moment; the cat returned his gaze steadily, swishing his tail. Severus immediately understood.

"You too, then?" he asked the cat quietly.

"Mow," the cat replied, pressing his nose against Severus's cheek.

That afternoon, Severus stood at the foot of the castle while he watched the cat bound through the heath till it was the size of a rat, the size of a mouse, till it was out of sight.

Some years later, a certain feral beast would haunt a certain patch of earth on the grounds of the school, but no one ever saw it, and even if one had, they wouldn't recognize the feline ritual to salute a fallen friend.