The Harry Potter world and characters are the sole property of JK Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros, Inc. I make no money from writing fanfiction.

This fic was translated from the original French by RaeWhit and submitted with the author's permission. "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat" par Lychee. Thanks to my betas Cyrianne (French text) and JackieJLH (English translation). Reveiws may be left here on Eros and Sappho, or may be submitted directly to Lychee by accessing her website from her author profile page and clicking on the link "Me Joindre".

Translator's Note: "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat" is a four-chapter story, and is the hallmark fic for which Lychee is so well known in French fandom.

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Chapter One

Harry purred when Severus Snape began to caress his back. Really, his Potions professor's hands were exquisite, and extremely adaptable to all sorts of activities….

He started to lick the man's neck in return, nibbling the pale skin, pulling a smile from the master of the dungeons.

"Come to bed," the man ordered as he picked him up to carry him to the bedchamber, or more precisely, to the huge, black-canopied bed.

With a blessed sigh, Harry pressed himself against the amused man's warm body, who then blew out the candle with a last, "Good night, cat."

"Meow."

***

A few weeks earlier…

Our story starts, not very surprisingly, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, center of the Wizarding world, renowned for having molded hundreds of generations of rowdy, little wizards…. Ah, Hogwarts. Its 992 corridors and 124 towers, its Great Hall with the magical ceiling, its secret passages, its dungeons…precisely, its dungeons….

"You can fuck off! You and your bloody potions!"

"Shut it, Potter! You understand nothing, and that doesn't surprise me, filthy brat!"

"I'd rather be a filthy brat than a pathetic, bitter, cynical jerk with greasy hair!"

"And I pity your entourage, Potter, the Boy Who Lived, for having to put up with your despicable, arrogant smile all of the time!"

"My bloody smile says fuck you!"

"Which will cost it 150 points from Gryffindor!" Snape bellowed.

The ringing of the bell prevented Harry, pale with rage, from replying. So he stuffed his things in his cauldron before striding out of the dungeons after a last exchange of nasty looks with his favorite Potions professor. It was only at a respectable distance from the classroom that he permitted himself to explode.

"Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh!"

Hermione and Ron took off after him to pull him away from the wall against which he was banging his head with a worrisome "bonk-bonk!"

"Harry, that's enough! That won't help anything!" the brunette scolded him.

"Oh, yes it helps!" he replied as he methodically began to shred Ron's tie, who promptly pulled it away from his hands.

"Why don't you try…I don't know…to make an effort?"

"Like he makes one? That disgusting bastard!"

"A problem, Potty?" drawled a mocking voice. "Your friends finally made up their minds to tell you the truth about your smile?"

Harry turned furiously towards his worst enemy, his eyes casting Avada Kedavras.

"You, Malfoy," he murmured quietly, as he just as quietly approached the Slytherin. "I advise you to clear out of here pronto before I triple the size of your balls and then paint them pink. Hmmm?"

Draco was gone in three-tenths of a second, his faultlessly executed Disapparition ranking up there with the best of them.

"Great!" Harry said with a satisfied grin before turning back to his two friends. "What were we talking about?" he asked them cheerfully.

"Harry…you're scary sometimes," Ron muttered.

"What do you expect? I'm playing tall, dark and brooding. Are we going to eat?"

***

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Had Obstinately Refused To Die And In The End Survived Against The Dark Lord Because After All Life Is Meant To Be Lived And It Wasn't His Parents' Murderer Who Was Going To Tell Him Otherwise Oh No And So There, was now beginning his seventh and final year of studies, barring the unforeseen possibility of repeating the year, at Hogwarts, which meant this was his last year, oh joy, of having to put up with the company of Severus Snape and, to a lesser degree, Draco Malfoy. Merlin be praised.

Despite the defeat of Voldemort, and the charges brought against Malfoy Senior for several little Death Eater-like activities—charges of which, surprise-surprise, he had been found blameless—Malfoy Junior continued to pollute his life. But in all honesty, it was nothing, truly nothing, compared to Snape. Severus 'I Am A Bastard Who Pisses Off The World' Snape.

Harry had thought he hated him with all of his heart by the end of his fifth year. Wrong. He had discovered that it had only been a tenth of what he would one day feel for the man. There wasn't a Potions class that went by when he didn't get thrown out. The man no longer assigned him detentions, Harry and himself having come to blows during the final hour of the last one. No, frankly, it was no longer an option.

But this evening, Harry had decided to put his plan into action.

***

The Supreme Boy Who Lived glanced at the old luminous watch that he'd inherited from Dudley. 11:27. Good. The rest of the room seemed to be quietly sleeping…. He focused and soundlessly took his Animagus form, and then stood still, straining his ears. No reaction. He jumped from the bed, slid through the half-open door, climbed along the curtain, and then reached the beam that led to the opening that allowed him to avoid the Fat Lady's portrait. He landed agilely in the corridor. Free.

*Who is it that's going to vandalize his adored professor's lab? It's Haaaaaaaaaaaary!*

He'd been perfecting his Animagus form for almost two months now. He'd been working on it since the beginning of July, profiting from the permission given to sixth-years to use magic outside of school. Training himself to transform into an animal while inside a cupboard had not proven to be very easy, but he'd eventually managed it, and was rather pleased with how his summer hols had turned out.

He was a young, midnight black cat with sparkling green eyes, and a tiny white mark on the spot where his scar would be. He had been rather surprised by his form, not knowing what to expect, hoping, perhaps, for a more impressive animal. But now he was entirely satisfied with it—its smaller size and velvet paws allowed him the run of the castle whenever he wanted.

He had, of course, told no one. Dumbledore would have congratulated him and straightaway forbidden him to use it, 'for his own personal safety', naturally. Hermione, ditto. He could have perhaps told Ron, if his friend hadn't seemed a little distracted lately….

With a triumphant step, he infiltrated the dungeons, his whiskers quivering with anticipation. Oh, he was about to get his, that arrogant old bat…heh heh heh….

CREEEAAK!

He pushed the Potions laboratory door open with a velvet paw and slipped inside. A whole batch of distillation devices, carefully lined up, waited in readiness for the next day's sixth-year Hufflepuffs. Checking one last time that no sound could be heard, Harry launched himself deftly onto the nearest table. Then he slowly stepped towards the delicate and fragile glass structures, painstakingly arranged by the meticulous proprietor of the property….

It was with something akin to ecstasy that he gave it a little swipe of his paw.

CRASH-CLANG-CRACK!

*TA DAAAA!*

He jumped like a crazy fool onto the neighboring table, giving the material he found there a big butt with his head, and so on. He was plunged into the most complete euphoria—oh, the temper that Snape would be in tomorrow—leaping here and there, smashing everything in his path, when….

"What in the world is…? NAME OF GOD!" swore a furious voice.

Ooooops. Snape had just put in an appearance on the threshold of a door to which, in all honesty, Harry had never paid attention, most of his Potions classes having been spent imagining with which horrible tortures he could finish off his professor. Still dressed, the man in question had just caught sight of the author of the devastation, and quickly planted himself in front of the exit, blocking all egress.

*Oh shiiiite….* Harry started to panic. All that was missing now was for Snape to recognize him and…. Gulp. At the dark look of daggers, he cautiously retreated.

"So," the man murmured, "you weren't taught good manners." His voice really did not bode well.

*Heeeeeeelp!*

Before Harry could decide between bolting under a cupboard or trying an all-out dash between Snape's legs, the latter leapt and grabbed him by the skin of his neck, carefully holding the scratching, spitting feline at arm's length.

"You don't really think you're getting away with this?" he asked him dryly as he took him into the next room.

*MUUUUM! DAAAAAD! I don't want to be dissected or end up an ingredient in I don't know which revooooolting potion. No-no-no-NOOOO! MERCY!*

They crossed through what Harry—his fur bristling as he tried to bite the hand firmly gripping him—vaguely realized was a sitting room, then into another room that turned out to be…a bathroom.

*Arrrrgggh! I'mgoingtohavemybellycutopenwithfingernailscissorsohMerlinhelpme—*

But instead, Snape tossed an already half-dead from fright Harry into the bathtub and turned the cold tap on full force.

"MEEEEEEOOOOOW!" *THAT'S COOOLD OOO OOO NOOOO!*

"You're welcome," Snape mockingly lectured the cat which scrabbled every which way, letting out screeches that were almost human. Unfortunately, the firm hand of the Potions Master held him mercilessly under the cold jet.

At the end of three minutes, it was a little ball of soaking, pitifully shaking, wet fur that the man took from the bathtub. Freezing, Harry had given up and abandoned any further idea of rebellion. Expecting the worst, it was with incredulity that he felt a wonderfully soft towel wrap around him, and the hands that had been squeezing him just a moment before started to gently rub him, while a mocking voice arose.

"I think you've understood a little now…."

Still a little dazed, Harry contented himself by replying with an indignant growl. The man smiled—Harry gaped at the sight of it—and ran his hand along his back.

"Go. Go back and see your master or mistress," he concluded as he set him onto the floor.

The Boy Who Lived left without further ado, crossed through the sitting room and laboratory at great speed, and fled post-haste to his dormitory,

***

"Aaaah chooo!"

"Bless you…."

"Sniiiff. Sank you."

So...he had a bad cold.

Even so, difficult to go and complain to Snape about it.

Harry sighed. After all, the adventure hadn't ended too badly. It was true—Snape could have recognized him and forced him to take his original form. Considering that he had still only imperfectly mastered the transformation of his clothing, and would have appeared in his most natural apparel…. Harry shuddered and thought to himself that, as it turned out, the adventure had ended very well—aside from the cold.

Still…he would've never thought that Snape…. Well, that he…that…he…could be…. Well, that he could act any differently than the revolting thing that taught them Potions. The man had almost seemed to enjoy himself. What was the world coming to..?

"AHHHCHOOO!"

"How did you manage to catch such a cold?" Ron asked, feigning admiration.

*I got into a scrape with Snape in a bathtub—oh my God!*

"Don' nah…a draft…."

"Potter and Weasley," interrupted McGonagall's voice. "When you have finished talk—"

"AAAAHCHOOOO!"

The class was filled with a respectful silence.

"Sniiiff. Bexcuse me."

"Are you all right, Mister Potter?" the professor asked worriedly.

The Boy Who Lived's nose was quite a pretty shade of pink vermillion.

"Sokay, sokay. I…AHHH—"

"Mister Potter, I—"

"—CHOOO!"

"…I think that you…"

"AHHHCHOOO!"

"…should go to the infirmary. Go."

Harry left the room, his nose in his handkerchief, cursing all the potions masters on the planet. Well, all right, so he was the one who had started it….

"MWAAACHAAA!"

"Mister Potter, when you've finished spraying your germs to the winds, would you be so kind as to step aside and clear the way?" snapped a dry voice behind him.

Harry shifted slightly to let him by, and the Snape in question, pushing a cartful of intact distillation apparatuses, gave him a suspicious glance as he passed.

When he saw the man round the bend in the corridor, Harry decided that, cold or no cold, he would find a way to pay the man back for the shower.

***

The best method for selecting the appropriate revenge was to perhaps first gather information on the enemy.

The door to the laboratory was still ajar. As a matter of fact, just about all of the doors in the castle were left ajar. It was more practical. He made his way into the adjacent room and cautiously checked it out. A little shocked, he admitted that it was nothing like what he expected of the habitat of 'Severus Potionus Snapus'. The room was large, warm, and tastefully lighted. A thick rug covered the floor, and the walls were covered with sundry books. It was very homey.

*Pffft. Surely the prior occupant...* he told himself without really believing it.

The master of the premises was seated behind an imposing desk, and was correcting, with a lack of conviction, a mountain of papers. Harry padded up and stopped beside him, sat on his hindquarters, and then swished his tail.

"Meow."

The man didn't react, scratching what looked like a pretty zero on the paper.

"MEOW!"

Snape took a look at him. "Ah, it's you," he said distractedly. "I don't have time. Go away…."

He turned back to his work, leaving there a Harry gaping with indignation. But no! His respectable feline's scorned sense of honor would not allow this.

Harry leapt onto the man's lap and sat there tranquilly, his chin resting on the edge of the desk so he could watch what Snape was writing. The latter let out a sigh, then decided to ignore him and continue his work.

"Neville Longbottom: an enthralling paper, Mister Longbottom. About as fascinating as the contemplation of a black hole. 3/20."

*Hey…this is my class….*

"Hermione Granger: the assignment was not to present your opinion on the question in six parchments, Miss Granger, but to furnish a brief summary, a concept that your brain seems to have difficulty comprehending. 7/20."

*Arsehole….*

"Draco Malfoy: despite a few careless mistakes, a well-structured assignment, nicely detailed with several personal examples. 14/20."

*You shite.*

"Harry Potter…."

*Ah.*

Snape carefully ran over the paper that Harry had spent two hours to write up, determined to show the man that he was perfectly capable of intelligent reasoning on a Potions topic—really just wanting to shut him up. He was, all in all, rather proud of his assignment.

The Potions Master grabbed his quill. "Mediocre. 5/20." No other comments.

*"FUCK IT!"*

Harry jumped onto the desk, and with a swipe of his paw spilled the ink-pot onto his paper, then promptly dashed off.

"Fermatum!"

The door slammed shut in front of his nose, and he had just enough time to bolt under one of the bookcases. Quivering, he hid himself at the very back.

Two sturdy shoes, flanked by the folds of a heavy cloak, approached and then stood still. Snape knelt with an annoyed cluck of his tongue, then his face appeared, and his black eyes scanned under the piece until they connected with Harry's.

"That's enough. Come out from under there immediately," he ordered calmly.

Harry had learned, to his own detriment, to never trust the man when he spoke calmly. He didn't move.

"Out. Otherwise, it's the shower."

Harry felt his fur stand on end at the memory of the dreadfully cold water trickling everywhere: filling his ears, his nose, his eyes. Anything but that. He gave his professor a tearful look.

"Meeooooow…" he mewed adorably but without budging a whisker.

The man sighed. "All right. I will not do anything. But come out from there now."

Harry cautiously crawled out and tilted his head to look up at Snape, who had stood and was watching him thoughtfully.

"You're really intelligent, aren't you?" he murmured. "Very intelligent."

Oooops. That didn't sound good. It looked like he might suspect something….

Harry purred as he rubbed against his legs. Slightly surprised, the professor gracefully bent over to scratch at his ears.

"Bah. You're only a cat," he concluded as he ran his fingers through the thick fur.

Harry didn't answer. Quite simply because he was in bliss. *Ooooo yes…again. Mmm, that's good…. Wait, no, what am I doing?! I'm not a cat! Ah no, not the stomach. Not the…ehhhhh…a little lower…aaaahh yes….*

Snape had seated himself squarely on the floor and was gently scratching an ecstatic Harry. He purred like a motor, incapable of focusing on anything but the long, slender, supple fingers that were affectionately running all over his body. The man seemed to get as much pleasure out of it as he did, obligingly petting his chest, brushing his fur in the wrong direction, gently mocking him and making shivers of delight run up and down his spine. Gratefully, the cat took to licking the man's fingers, running his raspy little tongue over the delicate joints, when he abruptly remembered that he was supposed to be Harry Potter, and this was the man he detested most in the world—and vice versa.

With a soft cry, he turned back onto his paws and ran off through the finally opened door.

***

He had let Snape pet him. Taken out of context, it was scandalous.

"Harry, are you dreaming?" inquired Hermione.

"…er…yeah, I think so."

"Well, I hope it was worth it, because McGonagall just took five points from you."

*Oh shiiite.*

Harry tried again to concentrate on the Transfiguration of ducks into pressure-cookers, but then gave up. What in the world had come over him? Unless…. He sighed with relief. Of course. It had to be the form of his Animagus. The fact of transforming himself into a cat must have exerted some influence on him. He was almost positive that if he had been in his normal form, he would never have let Snape get within a meter of him, that is, the width of his Potions table.

He went back to work, his heart a little lighter. He was going to ask Professor McGonagall at the end of the class. So there. She would probably confirm it for him.

At the bell, he asked Ron and Hermione to wait five minutes for him, and then headed for the desk of the great reference on all things Animagi.

"Professor McGonagall?"

The woman looked up at him, mildly surprised.

"Mister Potter. What can I do for you?"

"Could I talk to you for a minute? If I'm not disturbing you, of course," he added quickly.

"Stop talking nonsense and sit down."

Harry took a place on the other side of the desk, and then hesitated, groping for words.

"I'm listening," said the witch as she rested her chin in her hands. "A problem?"

"Hmm…no, not really. Actually, I'd like you to tell me about…Animaguses."

"Animagi."

"Sorry. Animagi."

McGonagall looked at him curiously. "Do you have an ambition to become one, Mr. Potter?"

*If you only knew, my dear old woman.*

He forced a smile. "I doubt I have the courage for it, ma'am. No, I only wanted to understand a little…. Actually, what intrigues me is the choice of the animal into which Animagi transform, and the effects that it has on them."

"It's a good question." She seemed to collect her thoughts for a moment. "So...the choice of the animal itself is tied to a great number of more or less obvious criteria. The first is the wizard's character. Someone fundamentally excitable and dynamic will never transform into a jellyfish; in the same way, a shy, unassuming person will never become a lion, you understand?"

Harry nodded.

"The second principal criterion is that of the wizard's power. In general, Animagi change into animals of a modest or average size—I'd say from that of a mouse to, at maximum, that of a horse. The largest Animagus ever recorded was Griff Gayspark who transformed into a dragon, which was not very practical. Be that as it may, an ungifted wizard will never change into a large, impressive animal.

Harry thought back to Skeeter and smiled meanly.

"Which then brings us to the needs of the wizard. One generally becomes an Animagus with a precise goal in mind: discretion, intimidation, espionage, combat. I'm not claiming that it's sufficient to say 'I want to transform into a rooster so I can awaken my neighbors' to see yourself grow wings. Often this desire is unconscious, and it's not until after the fact that one understands the transformation."

A 'sneak' in order to spy.

"The last element is more complicated. In the dedicated reference works, one speaks of a sort of 'predestination'. I think that the best example I could give you is that of your god-father: 'Sirius', the star of the dog constellation, and 'Black' for the color—the slightly distracted and show-off temperament which rather corresponds to the playful nature of a dog…with a certain aggressiveness at times."

Harry felt his heart constrict as he thought of his godfather.

"I'm sorry," McGonagall said quickly. "Be that as it may, once the transformation takes place, it's no longer possible to change it. It's in no way hereditary, and I have no idea of into what you would transform," she concluded.

"And…once the animal is determined—can this choice have an effect on the character of the Animagus?"

His professor frowned. "I don't understand."

"Did my god-father want to run after butterflies? Or Pettigrew gnaw on twine?"

The woman smiled. "Or do I want to hunt mice? Frankly, no, Mister Potter. As I've already told you, the animal matches the character of the wizard, but has no influence whatsoever on the human. Other questions?"

Chapter Two


It was a highly circumspect Harry who left the classroom.

So the Animagus form, then, did not have an influence on the human being. Which meant….

He felt his hair stand on end, as he frantically searched for a logical explanation other than...that he had, quite simply, liked Snape's caresses.

*Euuuh…going to be sick….*

"Harry? What's wrong? You're so pale!"

The Boy Who Lived cast a mournful glance at his friends waiting for him in the corridor.

"What's wrong?" Hermione repeated.

"Errr…."

"What is it?" demanded Ron, curious.

"I…well, you see…I've…. Do you think that sometimes, unconsciously, you could willingly do things that would completely disgust you if you realized you were doing them?" he asked them, out of the blue. "And then completely regret them afterwards? Really, really regret them?"

His two friends gave him a cautious look.

"You French-kissed Malfoy?" Ron ventured.

Hermione nudged him with an elbow as she laughed, while Harry thought to himself with dismay that his friend was not too far off the track.

"No, never mind," he finished firmly as he followed them to the common room.

***

Harry rolled over in bed. It was impossible to sleep. To think that yesterday at this exact time he was…. He shook his head. No matter. Sleep.

***

No use…. He wondered if Snape thought about the cat and what had become of him. Although, there was no reason for Snape to be interested in a cat. Except perhaps if this particular one had demolished his lab. Or maybe if he had liked it too, when….

Argh.

He had just admitted that he'd liked it.

There are things in life that are painful. To admit that you've liked letting yourself be caressed by Snape would certainly be one of them.

*But it's not pooooossible!*

He mentally gave himself two or three slaps, then undertook to reconsider the problem—with a relatively cool head.

*1. Snape petted you while you were in the form of a cat. (Important to clarify.)
2. You liked it, just as any cat would. (ditto)
3. Problem. You are not a cat.


The big question, then, is: WHY? And there's the additional question of whether Snape is really a living being?*

No use. He was going in circles.

Harry, being a Gryffindor, and the primary characteristic of Gryffindors being that of preferring action to reflection ad infinitum, he decided to do neither one nor the other. Transforming himself, he threaded his way towards the dungeons.

The door was still open, like the man was waiting for him.

*Hold on here. You'd think I'm talking about a lover's rendezvous now…. I really have to take better care of myself. Must have something to do with my scar. Who knows? Maybe Voldemort cast a curse on me that would make me like…. Noooo. That's it, concentration, concentration….*

Snape was once again at his desk, but this time leafing through a journal, the title of which, "Filters and Potions", made the hair on the back of the Boy Who Lived bristle. The man hardly seemed passionate about it either, and flipped distractedly through the articles with the same bored demeanor as when he passed in front of Harry's cauldron during Potions class. He didn't seem to hold the journal's authors in very high esteem.

"Meow."

The man looked up at him, and his lips curved slightly. "There you are. I was wondering what had become of you."

Harry had his answer: so the man had thought about the cat.

*He thought about me, he thought about me, he thought about me, he…. What the hell do I care if he thought about me? So what? I don't give a shite! I don't give a damn! I….*

"Come here, you."

"Meoooow."

Harry found himself on the man's lap, letting himself be tickled. And loving it.

*Heeeeelp...* he had time to think one last time before starting to purr in ecstasy.

An hour later when he left Snape's chambers, staggering from rapture, he only had strength enough to drag himself to his bed, let himself fall onto it as he transformed, and then fell asleep with a blissful smile on his face.

***

"Harry? Harry!"

"Yeah?"

"You're going to choke it."

"Er…what?"

"Your Morvduduc. If you keep stuffing it with turnips, you're going to choke it."

Harry looked down at Hagrid's latest discovery, which it would be best not to describe in too much detail, and abruptly ceased his affectionate stuffing when he saw the turnip purée coming out of its ears.

"What's gotten into you?" Ron asked with a cautious look. "You've got a sudden passion for Morvduducs?"

Harry put the beast rather hastily on the ground—SPROTCH—then ran a nervous and, as it turned out, drool-covered hand through his hair.

What had gotten into him, quite simply, was that he was impatiently waiting for the next night. And that, very understandably, terrified him. As much as he could be terrified by the memory of Voldemort or Dementors, they represented something almost normal alongside what was happening to him now.

There it was. Seventeen-years-old, after having managed to avoid tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, he was now addicted to Snape's hands.

"I'VE HAD IT! MEEWHYYYYMEEEE?"

Everyone turned towards the Boy Who Lived who was sobbing in the arms of his best friend. Ron gagged him by stuffing a Morvduduc in his mouth, and then dragged him a little distance away. He let him carefully spit out the revolting, purple gelatin, then grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Go on. Now, tell me."

***

Harry quickly churned out his sad 'little story', pulling his head into his shoulders in anticipation of the screams that Ron was sure to unleash. But his friend, after gracing him with a completely incredulous look, contented himself with just staring at him thoughtfully.

Harry timidly questioned him. "Ron?"

"It's okay," his friend reassured him. "I'm not shocked…. Well, yeah, but it's still okay…. A little surprised, mind you, but…." He looked at him again, strangely calm. "So? What are you going to do?"

Harry looked at him despairingly. "I don't know! You think it's time for the men in the little white coats?"

Ron looked skeptical

"But what am I going to doooo?" Harry lamented.

"First, we have to know if it's only with Snape," Ron said wisely. And when Harry looked at him as if he didn't understand, he said, "Transform yourself."

Harry glanced around them, and then obediently took his Animagus form.

"Cool!" his friend enthused while extricating him from his pile of clothes. "You think I could manage to learn it too? Er…yeah, okay, we'll talk about that later," he told the imploring face of the cat. "Don't move."

He went to work, scratching the cat's ears a little hesitantly. After a minute of bothersome tickling, Harry re-transformed and shook his head.

"No, it's not the same. When it's Snape, it's soooo much better—he has the gift of knowing exactly where…." His ecstatic smile faded, and he looked morosely at the redhead.

"Start by getting redressed," Ron advised him impassively as he held out his clothes. "You're completely starkers."

"Oh yeah, you're right…. I haven't completely mastered that yet…."

He slipped behind a tree. "We could ask Hermione," he suggested finally. "She'd be sure to have an idea."

"The first thing she'd probably do would be to tell Dumbledore that you're an Animagus," Ron replied. "Me, I think you should just wait for it to go away. There's bound to come a point when it won't happen any more."

"You think so?"

Ron gave him a reassuring smile. "You're not going to spend the rest of your life getting tickled by Snape, are you?"

Harry made a face and nodded. "Yeah, it'll pass. Thanks, Ron."

"Don't mention it."

They went back to the rest of the class, who were collecting the last of the Morvduducs scattered over the lawn. Harry left to apologize to Hagrid, while a curious Hermione approached Ron.

"What happened?" she demanded.

The last of the Weasley boys gave her a hilarious smile. "Nothing. Anyway, you wouldn't believe me."

***

So the following night, Harry went in search of his Potions professor—in his cat form, of course.

No time was wasted, and five minutes after his arrival he and Snape were lolling on the couch, trading tickles and scratches. Harry felt all his concerns slip away. It was too perfect. Period.

"Don't put your claws in my shirt," the man scolded.

Harry answered by voluptuously pushing his head against the man's cheek, and then let out a genuine howl of happiness when Snape petted his stomach. The latter burst into laughter.

A little later, rolled in a ball on the stomach of the man sleeping on the couch, Harry noted that he loved not only the ex-Death Eater's hands, but also his warm aroma. And while on the subject, he found the man much better without his kilos of black robes, clothed simply in his shirt and trousers.

He yawned, stretched out, and fell asleep.

***

Snape was returning their papers.

"You got in really late last night," Ron whispered.

"I fell asleep," Harry mumbled.

The redhead concealed a smile.

"Potter."

Schlack.

Harry grabbed his paper—of which he already knew the outcome—then glanced at his professor walking through the rows of grief-stricken students to return to his desk. Hmm. The thought came to him that he was undoubtedly the only one to have seen the man laugh. As if the others would even be able to imagine that Snape knew how to laugh.... He felt strangely pleased at this thought.

"Your paper is covered with ink." Ron looked surprised. "He gave that back to you? Not surprising that he gave you a…."

"It wasn't me," Harry said as he smiled. Well, actually yes, but….

He raised his hand.

"Mister Potter?" Snape asked dryly.

"Sir, my paper is covered with ink. I can't even…."

"You will find the meaning of the word 'accident' in the dictionary, Mister Potter," the man replied with exasperation. "Now, today's potion…."

"Well, I certainly will, but that still won't help me to read what you've written, so…."

"That's enough, Potter. You may leave." Snape impassively indicated the door.

"Okay." Harry calmly gathered his things, got up and passed through the silent class, opened the door, then turned back. "Good day, Professor."

Then he promptly left. Snape hadn't even looked up.

The class recommenced.

"That went rather well today," said Hermione philosophically.

***

"No. I must work, too. Leave me in peace for a while."

Harry turned away ungraciously and left to hole himself up under the bookcase.

"It's not worth sulking over," Snape added as he sat at his desk.

A royal silence was his only answer.

At the end of a quarter-hour, Harry had squashed twenty-some spiders and was starting to be bored stiff. He was seriously considering the idea of leaving Snape high and dry for the evening, but in addition to the door being shut and it being out of the question that he'd stoop to ask the man to open it for him, he had a visceral desire for the man to pick him up in his arms. He let out a huge, inward sigh.

*I hope you're right, Ron, and that this will go away….*

Knock knock knock!

Harry stuck out the end of his nose and saw the Potions Master look up in surprise.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

"Enter."

The man who burst into the room was easily the last that Harry would have ever thought to see again, and even more unlikely, at Hogwarts. Lucius Malfoy settled himself unpretentiously into the best armchair of the master of the premises, who calmly put down his quill.

"Lucius."

"Good," the other said coldly. "I see that at least you remember me."

"How could I forget you?" Snape said softly. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm here to make a proposition."

Intrigued, Harry came out from under his bookcase.

"A proposition," Snape repeated slowly. "And what would this proposition be?"

The Malfoy heir leaned forward, his eyes shining. "You know very well, Severus. Voldemort left behind a perfectly designed organization, which is just waiting to be utilized. This would be surprisingly easy! He sought too much to seize power, when he could have contented himself with becoming as rich as Croesus and Midas combined!"

The professor gave an ironic smile. "And the fact that I spied on all of you for years doesn't alarm you?"

Malfoy shrugged his shoulders. "It wasn't against us that you bore a grudge, Severus. Him. Against him alone. I know it very well," he said with a malicious smile. "I even know why." And when the ex-Death Eater paled, "You miss him, eh? It's true that you were good together…. But he's dead, Severus. He killed him, and you'll never see him again…."

Harry decided that he truly didn't like Lucius Malfoy, and that all of this had gone on for too long. In one leap, he was on his lap and unceremoniously sank his sharp, pointed teeth into his wrist.

The man let out a scream and slapped him soundly. Dizzy, Harry dropped to the floor, and then saw the man's cane raised in menace. But Snape had quickly gotten up and arrived, seizing it in mid-air.

"That's enough. You're going to make stains on my rug." He bent down and picked up a trembling Harry before turning to his guest.

"You have a cat now?" Lucius asked sarcastically as he massaged his wrist. "What a picture of domesticity…."

Harry spit in his direction, his fur standing on end.

"I very much appreciate his intelligence," Snape replied, looking pointedly at the bite. "To return to your proposition, Lucius, it's 'no'. And if I feel that you're going too far, don't even hope that I'll turn a blind eye."

Malfoy Senior gave him a furious look. "A threat?"

"Oh no. I would never dare. Well, I imagine that you have other things to do besides chatting with me?" added the master of the rooms courteously as he opened the door.

The visitor left with a last murmur of warning. Snape closed the door behind him and then fell into an armchair with a sigh. He looked down at Harry, still in his arms, who was watching him curiously.

"Bravo. You've earned a half-hour."

The cat very nicely licked his chin. The man, without paying him too much attention, absentmindedly unbuttoned and rolled his sleeve to his elbow. The Dark Mark of a Death Eater, a pale pink scar, was spread out on his forearm. Snape rubbed it gently with his fingertips, as if reassuring himself of its reality.

Harry placed a paw on the man's arm and bent over in fascination. He had only seen it once, and that from afar. But he easily recognized the skull and the almost life-like snake that writhed out of its mouth. He looked then at the man he hated most in the world, and he twitched at the sight of the man's sadness and fatigue. Snape seemed less hard, less inflexible, less unapproachable. A little younger. When his whiskers brushed the pale skin, the ex-Death Eater started, his face impassive as he looked at the cat again.

"Well, to bed."

Harry meowed in protest; what about his dose of tickles?

"Not tonight. It's too late."

"Meoooooow…."

"Sorry." He set him back down on the floor, then scratched his chin. "Unless you want to stay here tonight?"

Harry leapt in the air with enthusiasm.

***

*Mmm. He felt good…in the warmth.

***

He no longer knew where he was, but he felt good. He stretched. Oh. He was in a bed. With comfortable sheets…. And there were arms. Large, welcoming… It felt good. He felt really, really good.

***

The Other moved. He heard a sleepy sigh.

The Other.

What Other? He frowned. Where am I?

Harry opened his eyes and almost let loose a scream as he found himself nose to nose with a very familiar face. His heart beating wildly, he remembered what he was doing in Snape's bed, and hastened to verify that he hadn't accidentally re-transformed. No. Whew.

He glanced over the shoulder of the still-sleeping man and noticed that it was 6:15 AM according to the alarm clock. Shiiiite. He'd need to get going very, very, very quickly if he wanted to make it back to his dormitory.

He slid furtively from the bed and made his getaway, running like a maniac. Hopefully he wouldn't meet anyone…. Luckily the corridors were deserted. He slipped into the common room, re-took his human form, pulled on his clothes stashed in the corner, then discreetly climbed the stairs up to his room. Unfortunately, Dean, the early-riser of the group, was already up, pulling on his shirt.

"Hallo!" he whispered softly. "Where were you?" he added, the living incarnation of Indiscreet Curiosity.

Harry opened his mouth, searching frantically for a plausible story to blurt out, then settled for a conspirator's wink.

Caught in the act.

"A girl?" Dean asked, no longer in a whisper. "Hey guys, Harry's got a girlfriend! Guys, wake up!"

In twenty seconds, the entire room was up and bombarding the poor Boy Who Lived with questions. Harry was about to throw himself from the window to escape when Ron saved his life once more, pushing the others aside manu militari, and then led him from the room.

"Super discreet," he grumbled. "Everybody's going to wonder who you spent the night with. Well, anyway, that's what they're guessing," he added with a slightly ironic smile.

"I did not spend the night with…!" Harry choked out.

"In the literal sense, yes," Ron corrected. "As for the rest, I don't know the details."

Harry was about to retort a sharp reply when he realized that his friend was making fun of him. He aimed a nudge of his elbow that Ron ducked as he laughed.

"I'm hungry," the Boy Who Lived muttered.

"Let's get dressed and go eat. And after, you're explaining to me how to become an Animagus."

***

Harry followed Ron and Hermione absentmindedly towards their next class, thinking of the night before.

What was this story about someone killed by Voldemort that had pushed Snape into switching sides? Malfoy Senior had spoken of a "he". So, a man. A man that Snape would have loved? "You were good together…." A man who would've loved Snape? Snape preferred men? Oh, the tidbits he was learning….

In any case, if that's what it was, and given the ex-Death Eater's mood after Malfoy had left, he understood better why the man had hated Voldemort. And why he seemed so hard.

Even if he was adorable when he was sleeping....

*What are you thinking? You really need a detox cure, my little 'Arry….*

A spitefully mocking voice pulled him from his thoughts.

"So, Potter, it seems you've found yourself a little girlfriend? A Mudblood who really wants you?"

First Malfoy Senior, now Malfoy Junior. Harry sighed inwardly. "At least I have offers," he replied. "Now, let me pass."

Draco shot a furious glance at the few impudent souls who had dared to snigger, and then turned back to the Gryffindor. "You're not telling us who it is, Potty? Me, I thought you'd brag about it all over the school. Unless you're ashamed of it?"

Curious students were gathering around them.

"My private life is no business of a moron like you," Harry told him off. "Let me pass."

The blond acted as if he hadn't heard him. "Ohhh. But now I understand. Actually, it's just a story to cover up your…virginity?"

The Slytherins howled with laughter while the Gryffindors gathered round, clenching their fists.

"You see, Malfoy," Harry quietly replied. "My sex life—it's like my parents. I'd rather not have them at all than be ashamed of them."

In the silence that followed, Draco's scream could be heard in the tallest tower of the school. "I forbid you to insult my father! You hear me, I forbid you!"

The blond had thrown himself on Harry and punched him in the nose with his fist. Frightened, the students moved away from the two adolescents, who were now viciously pummeling one another. No one dared to intervene, until the feared and well-known voice coldly rang out.

"What's going on here?"

Snape pushed through the students and seized the two troublemakers by their collars. "Gentlemen, the cause of this disturbance?"

"Nothing!" the two enemies cried out in chorus before throwing each other an icy stare.

"I see." Snape turned to the spectators. "Would someone care to enlighten me?"

"I'll flatten the first one who opens his mouth!" Malfoy cried, without taking into account the look on Snape's face.

When the students hesitated and looked at each other questioningly, Ron's voice cheerfully intervened. "The same goes for the Gryffindors."

Astonished, everyone turned towards Ron, completely ignoring Snape, whose lips were now just a very thin, white line. The silence was heavy.

"Actually," stuttered Crabbe suddenly, "Potter fell on the floor, and Draco was helping him get up."

"Are you joking?" Draco snorted haughtily. "Me? Help Potter? I'm the one that fell."

"But they lost their footing and Harry fell on Malfoy," Hermione quickly added.

There was a long silence. Then Snape, whose eyes had gone as cold as ice, murmured just two words. "General detention."

***

The Gryffindors were sitting at a table on the left side of the room, pretending to work while they shot dark looks at the Slytherins, who were sitting at a table on the right side of the room, pretending to work while they shot dark looks at the Gryffindors.

"What got into you, to help Malfoy?" Harry whispered to his friend sitting opposite him.

Ron raised an eyebrow from his seventeen-page parchment that Snape had assigned them. "Well, Malfoy wasn't very enthusiastic about the whole school knowing you'd insulted his father—not outright, certainly, but still an insult. On the other hand, it seemed highly unlikely that you'd want the whole school knowing that you were out all night. So I thought to myself that it was a good idea."

He went back to his homework.

"But it's all going to come out anyway!"

"True, but at least you won't have to describe the whole thing to Snape. I don't think that either one of them would've appreciated that. You have to know when to compromise with the enemy, you know," Ron said distractedly without looking up.

Harry blinked his eyes, then turned to Hermione, who had followed the conversation with alarm.

He bent to murmur in her ear, "I'm a little worried about Ron right now."

The brunette nodded.

The room emptied little by little, the students handing in their homework at the last desk as they left, where Filch watched them with about as much sympathy as a bulldog lying in wait for the postman. With a sigh, the three friends, the last to leave—Harry and Ron, because they had nothing to write, and Hermione for just the opposite reason—finally left the room, their stomachs growling with hunger. They came face to face with Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be waiting in the corridor.

Before they could even put up their guard, the blond came up to them, and….

"Thanks," he told them, unfriendly, before stepping around them. He stopped, however, three paces away to turn back and face them.

"That doesn't apply to you, Potter. Just those two. Especially Weasley…."

He left without turning back, leaving them dumbfounded.

"Draco Malfoy thanked us?" Hermoine asked, getting the words out with difficulty.

Harry was flabbergasted. A smile played on Ron's lips.

"Okay. I'm going to get something to eat," the Boy Who Lived finally muttered. "Who wants to come to the kitchens with me?"

Hermione shook her head. "I'm going back to the common room. I still have some homework to do," she declared.

"I'm coming with you—I have some things to do, too," Ron added before turning to Harry. "Try not to get caught!"

Harry left them, all alone on his nutritional expedition. At 11:30 PM—bloody Malfoy and bloody Snape—Ron's advice was more than warranted. Especially if he really wasn't going back to his rooms.

And of course, since bad things never seem to happen just one at a time, he had only gone ten meters when he almost collided with his Potions professor.

"I'm sorry," he quickly stammered.

The man only gave him a distracted look, then a vague, "On your way, Potter". He continued on, casting preoccupied glances around him, as if he were looking for something. As if he….

Harry had to struggle to hold back a silly smile. "Hey, a cat!" he remarked out loud.

Snape pivoted quickly on his heels. "Where?" he brusquely asked.

"I saw him run off, over there," Harry replied with a polite but curious look. "A black cat…. You know it?"

"No," the man dryly answered as he strode in the direction that Harry had just pointed out.

Harry waited until the sound of his footsteps had disappeared, then burst into laughter.

Then he realized that the desire to follow the man was so much stronger than the desperate plea of his stomach. He swore under his breath.

Chapter 3



Harry awakened slowly, nestled against Snape's chest. It was the middle of the night, and the sliver beams of the full moon were streaming in through the large window of the room. The young cat lay there dreamily for a moment, savoring the crisp night air and the steady breathing of his host; then he gently freed himself and looked at the man.

Snape was sleeping stripped from the waist up, slightly turned on his side. His peaceful abandon in sleep was in direct contrast to his stiff and cold everyday posture. His slender and surprisingly well-proportioned body was tranquilly posed in the middle of the sheets, and Harry had to admit that he was, sum total…well…attractive.

For several nights he'd been wondering, without admitting it outright, what it would be like to touch him, really touch him, with his hands. To no longer have his black fur as a barrier between their skins…. But he was certain that if Snape awoke to find a flesh-and-blood Harry Potter in his bed, he wouldn't hesitate to eject him through the window. In the best case scenario.

He gave a feline sigh, and then slipped smoothly to the other side of the man; he rubbed himself lazily against the large back, then nuzzled his nose in the nape of his neck, nibbling at his ear and tangling himself in his hair. Snape mumbled in his sleep, then settled his head back into the hollow of the pillow. Harry moved back slightly to rest on his hindquarters and sat for a moment to contemplate the man. Then his eyes fell on the nightstand…and Snape's wand which had been carefully placed there.

***

"…the role of curly endive in the history of potions of the fourteenth century is no longer significant. Indeed, the synthesis of Green Juice not having been developed until the following century, the endive had long played the role of catalyst in curative potions before being replaced by the latter. It is important to note…."

"Harry!"

Ron burst into the room, completely out of breath. "Could you lend me your Firebolt for this evening? There's a problem with the school brooms, and…."

Harry cast a vague look at his friend. "Huh?"

"Your Firebolt. Can I borrow it?"

"Yeah, yeah…."

Ron grabbed the broom from the closet and turned back to him. "I'll take care of it. Don't you worry, okay?"

"Okay, I'll tell him tomorrow," Harry mumbled, engrossed in his work.

Just on the verge of leaving, Ron stopped and looked at him inquisitively.

"'Different Greens for Different Potions'…. It's good, your book?"

"Great."

"Ah." The redhead scratched his nose while hiding a smile. "You've decided to really dig into Potions?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm…that's cool…."

"…"

"It's good, then?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"…"

"Nah, it's really good. You've decided to work at Potions. Really…."

"…"

"So, all of the sudden, you're interested in Potions. Just like that. That's really good."

"…"

"I wonder what could have given you this sudden interest in Potions.... Oh, not that I'm criticizing. It's really good. It's just that I wonder…."

"Give me some bloody peace, will you? I feel like studying Potions! Final!"

Ron fled the room, dying with laughter.

***

Harry put his book down, rolled over in his bed, and buried his face in the pillow.

He had lied, at least in part, about studying Potions. It was true, after all, that there was an exam at the end of the year. Even if the book, which it turned out was much more interesting that he'd expected, was only to keep him from thinking. But he had finished it, and didn't have the energy to go look for another. And then, it really didn't keep his mind off of the real problem.

How and especially why? Such are the true questions of existence. How, and especially why, had he done that? How could he have spelled Snape to stay asleep so he could sleep in his arms in his human form? And why?

*Well, to sleep…and to enjoy it a little...yes.*

He sighed. All this because of this matter of a cat, a laboratory, and breaking it all, and…. Shite! And now he was in the biggest mess of his life.

*What's happening to meeeeee?*

***

"Here. When I tell you, push there."

The cat delicately placed a paw on the stove switch and waited while Snape grabbed his bottle of Mandrake juice.

"Meow?"

"Go ahead."

Harry firmly pushed the button while the man carefully poured the liquid. Then they both drew back cautiously and watched the contents of the beaker begin to bubble. At the end of a minute, Snape gave a satisfied nod and gently petted his head.

"Thank you. That’s it for this evening. You're staying?"

The Boy Who Lived went ahead of him, bounding towards the sitting room, then jumped on the couch and gave him a tempting look. Snape dropped down beside him with a smile.

They'd already been tussling for ten minutes when someone knocked at the door. Like a sphinx, Harry installed himself with dignity in the middle of the couch while his host went to answer the door.

"Albus?"

"Good evening, Severus. Sorry to bother you."

"Not a problem." The ex-Death Eater invited his superior to come in.

"Actually, I just wanted to know…. What have you done to your hands?"

At the astonished note in the old wizard's voice, Harry poked his head up over the back of the couch.

"Oh. It's my cat."

Harry could have sworn that Snape seemed embarrassed.

"Sometimes he's not very gentle."

*Hey! Who is it that pulls my whiskers? And you, you really like it when I nibble on your fingers!*

"You have a cat?"

Dumbledore seemed as astonished as if he'd just been informed that the castle kitchens were out of lemon ice-cream bars.

"He's not mine, strictly speaking. But he comes to visit me often."

*Every evening! What, you're afraid to say it?*

Harry jumped down and went to rub against Dumbledore's legs, who picked him up and examined him with childish curiosity.

"So, has he a name, this young man?"

Harry and Snape exchanged a look, then the man shrugged his shoulders.

"No. I don't even know whom he belongs to."

Dumbledore smiled and gently scratched his head—the cat's, not his colleague's. But his piercing eyes were thoughtful as he carefully scrutinized the little white spot ornamenting his forehead. "He has a scar," he remarked as if it were nothing.

Harry felt his fur stand on end.

"He was probably in a fight," Snape replied indifferently. "What can I do for you, Albus?"

"Ah, yes." The headmaster put Harry down. "I wanted to ask if you'd lend me your volume on Muggle freezing techniques." (Note: for his ice-cream bars…. He had a vested interest in the problem.)

Snape nodded and disappeared into his bedchamber.

Harry, seeking refuge on the couch, watched in terror as Dumbledore rejoined and settled down next to him. He played the perfect housecat, and jumped on his lap as he purred.

"It's not worth your trouble," said Dumbledore simply. When Harry pulled away, spitting, he added, "I don't know what you're up to, but no nonsense. All right?"

Harry nodded pitifully.

"And be careful," the old man sighed again as he pulled his tail. "Ah, thank you, Severus," he exclaimed, standing when Severus returned. "That's all. I'll leave you to it, then. You have a very intelligent cat," he added kindly.

Snape looked surprised, then nodded. After he accompanied his superior to the door, he came back to the couch. "He was impressed with you," the man said as he sat down.

Harry preferred not to reply, his throat still constricted.

"You're in a mood? Not going to be unfaithful to me, eh?"

The cat replied with a swipe of an outraged paw, then jumped to the floor and dashed out.

***

Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew that he was an unregistered Animagus, that he wandered around the castle at night, that he often visited Snape, and worst of all, that he chewed and scratched Snape's hands.

That. That really bothered him.

*What could he possibly think? O Merlin, what could he possibly think?*

In the best of cases, that Harry was playing a prank on Snape. But unfortunately, Dumbledore wasn't stupid.

Alas.

***

"Mister Superhero Potter, may I humbly point out to you that your potion is boiling over and has already spread over half of the room, at the same time coloring a good square meter of the floor a magnificent, soft pink?"

Harry looked up at Snape, who was standing triumphantly in front of him, then looked down at the aforementioned pink floor and sighed.

"I understand. Where is the scrubber?"

Obviously this punishment seemed too easy for Snape. "You will come to see me this evening, to scrub the laboratory and the corridor, from the food stockroom to just beyond the hydra statue."

Meaning: forty meters of corridor.

"Afterwards, if you still have time—and you will have time, Mister Potter, won't you?—you will clean the fifteen large cauldrons needed for next week."

"That'll take me the whole night!" the adolescent protested.

"Oh, but you can start immediately after class, Potter," the man magnanimously replied as he turned away.

Harry restrained himself with difficulty from dumping the remainder of his cauldron on the man's head so that he would match the rest of the room.

***

At the bell, instead of leaving with everyone else, he rolled up his sleeves and waited for Snape to condescend to pay attention to him. The man gave him a strained look.

"You're bothering me, Potter. I have other things to do besides babysitting you."

Harry put in his voice all the treasures of politeness that he could manage. "In that case, may I start in the corridor, sir?"

Snape ungraciously agreed, summoned a bucket and scrubber, and left him in the middle of the drafty dungeons after having made a show of securing the door to his laboratory three times. Harry got down to work.

When his adored professor returned a good two hours later, with the manner of a man who's just peacefully finished a good meal, Harry could no longer feel his shoulders, and his stomach was howling with hunger. Snape glanced at his work, made a critical face but no comment, then pointed towards the laboratory with a casual gesture. The adolescent was contemplating the pink stain sorrowfully when the man brought him a bottle filled with a strange, sparkling green content.

"You would, in vain, use all the scrubbers in the world, Mister Potter. You would never get anywhere," Snape told him in a bored voice. "It requires a special solvent. In this instance, if it interests you, which I highly doubt…."

"…a concentrate of Green Juice," Harry finished for him.

Snape shot him the look that he usually reserved for Neville's bungled potions—that is to say, openly incredulous in the face of such a phenomenon.

"Astounding," was the only ironic response.

"Pardon me for giving you such a shock, sir," Harry said in almost a whisper. "But it so happens that I also have a brain—something you'll have to take my word on, given that you're never going to have the opportunity to dissect me like you've seemed to want to do so badly for the past seven years."

"Perhaps one day I'll say to hell with my career, and allow myself that small pleasure," Snape murmured in reply.

But Harry could have sworn that his eyes sparkled.

"Now, clean up this stain before that blessed day proves to be this one."

Harry obeyed without saying a word.

Cleaning the laboratory took him only an hour. He was tackling the twenty—not fifteen—cauldrons enthroned at the back of the classroom when Snape returned. Catching sight of him, he dismissed him with an irritated gesture.

"Your stomach is making too much noise, Potter. Go fill that typically Gryffindoresque bottomless pit, and give me some bloody peace."

"All right, sir." Harry left, hardly able to believe his luck. It had to be the first time in his life—perhaps the first time in Snape's career—that he was leaving a detention without having finishing it.

For the man's generous gesture, he decided to come back for the night. But then, he really was missing that so much anyway.

***

Snape had greeted him with an ironic remark—His Majesty returns at last?—and a scratching of his belly that had gotten rapidly out of hand. At present the man was sleeping peacefully, helped along with a little Deep Sleep spell, alongside a pensive Harry, who had reverted to his human form.

He really was in the shite—excuse the expression. To summarize the situation with complete objectivity, he, Harry Potter, was currently spending his nights with his Potions professor. Without anyone knowing it, certainly, but without the principal interested party—in this case, Snape—knowing it either. The problem would present itself at the moment when someone learned of it. If it turned out to be Snape, Harry would surely survive no longer than one minute and twenty seconds—about the average time it would take for the man to understand the facts and force him to swallow one of his powerful poisons.

If it turned out to be someone else, then as follows:

1. Harry would be charged with being an unregistered Animagus.

2. He'd get a telling-off from all the Aurors he knew, for having acted, 'in a thoughtless manner, but oh
well, Harry just doesn't think, etc'. Knowing that Moody, Tonks, and Kingsley were Aurors, and that
Lupin took his security very seriously, not to mention Mr. and Mrs. Weasley....

3. His friends would surely refuse to speak to him. ('You spent the night with WHO?')

4. By the same token, his social life would be shot to pieces.

5. Snape would kill him. (See first scenario above.)

6. Snape would be in trouble, whatever he said, and that would be unfair.

In the end, he would prefer that Snape kill him immediately.

There was another, rather simple solution: that he never come back again. But contrary to what Ron had postulated, this wasn't going away. Besides, he was starting to get a little bit worried about it. The NEWTs were soon approaching, and afterwards…well, afterwards there would be no more Snape. What had made him deliriously happy just a few weeks earlier now created a curious weight in his stomach.

Then, in another respect, he would have loved…no, nothing.

Sighing, he sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes wandering around the room. Strangely, even without his glasses, he saw better at night. Perhaps he could throw out a counter-theory—something like the Animagus form really influencing the wizard. His eyes came to rest on a large, hard-bound volume that usually lay on the meticulously ordered desk.

He approached it with curiosity. It was a photo album; a curious collection of Muggle and wizarding photos, in black and white and in color, which didn't seem to be very recent. He quietly lit a candle, then looked at them more carefully.

The first one pulled from him a start of surprise and a grumble. A group of adolescents in Hogwarts uniforms, one of them Snape, was smiling angelically at the camera. It was winter, and a thick blanket of snow covered the ground. Behind them, the furious heads of the Marauders were sticking out of a block of ice in which they were encased. Harry wondered how Snape and the other Slytherins had managed a stunt like that. His professor seemed older than he'd been in the memory that Harry had explored in the Pensieve two years earlier. About his age now. Snape seemed to really be having fun—in the Snapesque sense of the word, of course.

Some of the following photographs pictured him during the school year, always with the same students: seriously bent over their studies, lazing about on the lawn, scrubbing the floor of a decimated Potions laboratory. He kept finding the same faces: Snape; a boy that looked very much like Draco Malfoy (and anyway, it didn't take a wizard to guess who this was); another, tall and slender, with a calm and smiling face; and a last one, rather small and almost frail, who closely resembled the latter, but seemed a little younger—probably his brother.

Over the course of the photos, he saw them work, persecute the Gryffindors—never the opposite—and amuse themselves. If Malfoy Senior was already full of arrogance, and Stranger Number One rather serious, Stranger Number Two seemed insufferable. With a mischievous look on his face, he endlessly dragged them into half-baked exploits that generally ended in catastrophe, but he appeared to be so irresistible that the others never thought of holding this against him. The plan, "Let's put CocoBubble in the Gryffindor ink-pots", was one of the more striking examples. He even managed to tease Snape, who….

Harry stopped suddenly at the next photo, wide-eyed, and almost fell to the floor. This one had surely not been taken with Snape's permission at the time. Snape, settled on the floor at the foot of a couch, with Stranger Number Two seated between his legs, his back against his chest. Snape had his arm around his shoulder, and seemed to be explaining a rather complex potions problem. Obviously, Stranger Number Two was blowing him off, and peacefully sleeping, his head lying in the crook of the elder boy's neck. Without being completely compromising, the posing was more than questionable.

Questionable and confirmed by what followed. Whoever had taken the photos had obviously not been shocked by the attachment that the two adolescents had shown for each other—just the opposite: Stranger Number Two, making a serious commentary while perched on the shoulders of a grumbling Snape, beside an ironic Malfoy; Stranger Number Two, starry-eyed, holding out his red-marked paper to a despondent, sighing Snape; Stranger Number Two pouting seductively, outrageously batting his eyelashes as a furious Lily Evans and James Potter passed by, while Snape stifled his reaction discreetly up his sleeve; Snape sleeping on the lawn, with Stranger Number Two's stomach as a pillow.

Then the photos left the surroundings of Hogwarts. The scenery changed. There was the park of a castle: a sort of university campus; a house that appeared to be Snape's; and still the same protagonists. A little older. Harry stopped at a grouping that made him shudder: the four Slytherins, in their long, black Death Eater robes, sharing a toast. Even Snape's lover…. For he was definitely his lover, he decided with the next picture, where Snape's hands were deep inside the man's clothing.

Shortly after, the album abruptly ended. It wasn't difficult to imagine why, Harry concluded, as he recalled Malfoy's words. "He killed him, and you'll never see him again…." Nevermore. He felt shaken. He had always hated Snape. But at the same time….

He turned back to the man who was still sleeping, thanks to Harry. So, this man had a heart. Just as anything in life is possible.

***

Tsk tsk tsk.

This wouldn't do at all.

At all. He had no reason to feel jealous. None. And first off—of what? A dead man?

°They say it's the ghosts that are most troublesome in love,° breathed a little voice.

*What does that have to do with me?* he replied.

°Oh, like that…. All right, eh, you just happen to be in Snape's bedchamber, totally nude, in the dead of night, after putting him to sleep so you could….°

*Shut up.*

Harry went back to sit on the side of the bed, then turned to his "host". So, okay, something weird was happening to him right now. But it was out of the question to think that he could've fallen in love with….

The man moved and brushed Harry's thigh, making all the hair on his back stand up on end. Oooo. Have mercy. That was too good…. No. Yes. No, out of the question. Out-of-the-question.

He found himself pressed up against his professor, sensually rubbing against the man's skin. Bah, what was he doing that was so wrong? No one would ever know it. It wasn't perhaps within the strict boundaries of morality and respect for others, but he couldn't care less. It wasn't rape. Just an innocent cuddle.

°A cuddle with Snape!° concluded the little voice mockingly. °MWAHAHAAA! MWAHAHAAAAAAAA!°

***

Easter. Joyful and lighthearted holiday; oh, how different from the feast of Christmas and the glitter of New Year's…but in comparison, so much more tasty.

Easter, then. Dumbledore had had the everyday class bell replaced with powerful bells that, once every hour, deafened the students and teachers, these last not seeming to appreciate having their classes interrupted by the heavy bass pealing that drowned out all possibility of making themselves heard. And, taken by a sudden whim, he had cancelled the afternoon classes to organize a huge egg hunt in the school gardens. The seventh-years were not the last to take an active part in the searching.

"Look at this one—it's a funny color," Ron said skeptically, coming out of a thicket on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Hermione gave it a look. "That's normal," she said calmly. "It's not a chocolate egg."

"Really? Then what? Almond-paste?"

"No. It's a griffin egg. You don't eat them. To tell you the truth, I don't think it was Dumbledore who put it there. And I hear its mother coming."

Ron hurriedly put it back in its place.

"Let's go back a little closer to the castle," the brunette suggested. "It really seems like there's more over there. Harry?"

The Gryffindor nodded as he swallowed the large chocolate he had in his mouth. "I really like Dumbledore," he remarked philosophically as they walked.

Hermione smiled as Ron nodded while licking his fingers.

"So, little kiddies, looking for chocolates?" Draco Malfoy's tone was anything but fond. Rather lethally scornful.

"Yeah," Ron replied without being flustered. "It's too bad that your standing as a Dignified Heir of the Great Malfoy Family doesn't allow you, you know. They're really great." He stuck an egg in the boy's mouth and walked on without looking back, leaving the Slytherin incapable of replying, his two gorillas enviously eyeing the booty of the three friends.

"You know, Ron, right now it's almost like you find Malfoy funny," Hermione said seriously.

"Oh, really?"

But their attention was captured by a crowd near the Whomping Willow. Obviously, something was happening—something important.

"What's going on?" Harry asked a third-year who was jumping up and down.

The other almost leapt into his arms in his enthusiasm. "There's an enormous egg in the Willow! A few students have already tried to get it, but they ended up taking some impressive hits!" He pointed to a little stack of unconscious bodies, ten steps away. "So they started to make wagers and agreed that the house that manages to get it will earn the right to exploit the other three houses for a week. More than half of the students have already signed up."

"The professors aren't going to like this," Hermione remarked.

"Stop. It's cool," the two boys exclaimed at the same time.

Then they exchanged a knowing look.

"Ron…."

"Yeah, I'm counting on you."

They left for the attack of the Giant Egg.

"Still, I wonder how he got it up there…."

"And after all, maybe the Bells are really real," Ron replied as he shrugged his shoulders. "Whoa!"

The egg was neither enormous nor gigantic. It was incredible.

"How are we going to get it down?"

"Don't know. Push it?"

A loud scream, followed by a worrisome CRAACK interrupted them. A student had just been ejected by the blow of a branch.

"…And we're waiting for new contestants!" called out a brown-haired girl, her voice amplified by a Sonorus. "Come on—who wants to try to get the egg down so their house will win? Ah! I see two new brave souls! It's…Harry Potter and Ron Weasley!"

Wild applause rose up from the crowd of students, supplemented with some booing on the part of the Slytherins present. The two friends took a deep breath, then moved forward.

"They're stepping forward without hesitation, ladies and gentlemen. Remember…they're the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth contestants to try to climb the Whomping Willow. Perhaps the first to come out of it unscathed. Who knows? Oh! Ron Weasley has just ducked the first branch! Magnificent reflex, that…. Careful! My God, my God, that was a near miss…. Harry Potter is almost to the trunk, but how is he going to get up there? OH, BRAVO! Weasley grabbed a branch on the fly and propelled himself. Now, he's not very far from the egg, but can he manage to dislodge it all by himself? Potter has also managed to crawl up, and is rushing to the top…. OUCH! That one must've hurt…. Ooooo. The whole trunk is starting to shake…. Our two contestants really seem shaken…."

Shaken, shaken…. Harry hung on with all of his might, trying at all costs to keep his glasses on.

"Things seem to be quieting down…. I have to say, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes…. Weasley has reached the egg! But he doesn't seem to be able to move it…. Potter has joined him… OH MY GOD! No! They're still hanging on! Come on, let's give them some encouragement! THAT'S IT! The egg is moving!"

"Harry…you owe me one…" puffed Ron.

"It…was…your…idea…."

"Damn, this thing is heavy…."

"They seem to be having trouble…. Will they do it? The Willow seems to be getting its second wind, and…. BRAVO! THE EGG IS DOWN! IT'S FULL OF CHOCOLATES, AND GRYFFINDOR WINS THE RIGHT TO EXPLOIT THE OTHER THREE HOUSES WITHIN THE LIMITS OF DECENCY FOR a…week…. Oh, hello, Professor Snape."

With a great cry, Harry and Ron tumbled down after the egg that had just smashed to the ground.

***

Harry opened an eye with difficulty, then shut it when he felt a cavalry of centaurs enter through his left ear, make three trips around his brain, then exit out the middle of his forehead. He waited patiently until the echo of their hoof beats subsided and then made a second attempt, this time a little more successfully, to open his eyes.

"Albus, promise me that you're going to expel them. You cannot not expel them. Did you see what they did? You saw it!"

"Yes, but…it's partially my fault…. One of the eggs was hung up there, and…."

"They intentionally climbed into the Whomping Willow, Albus!" Snape seemed on the brink of hysteria. "All that to impress a crowd of morons who…. No, frankly, if you allow this, then I can't see that there remains anything else to forbid. Albus? Promise me."

Harry heard the Headmaster waffling.

"They have their NEWTs in a few weeks. It wouldn't be…."

"Correspondence courses," Snape interrupted sharply.

Dumbledore sighed. "Severus…. They'll be leaving in any case," he said in his more serious voice. "And the entire school took part in this…incident. You wouldn't want me to expel the entire school?"

"It was Potter and Weasley who climbed," hissed the furious voice.

"After twenty-some other students, including Slytherins. They finish school in two months, Severus. They will be punished, but not expelled."

The man didn't answer.

"Good. I'm going to give my speech with a moral at dinner, and assign Mr. Weasley his first punishment. Good evening, Severus."

Harry heard the sound of footsteps leaving the room, then fade down the corridor. So Ron was all right...all the better. That way, he'd be the one who'd get all of Hermione's reprimands. That was great. He was going to be able to make someone else do his homework. Let's see…. There was a rather good Ravenclaw…. Well, surely everyone else would have the same idea as he was having….

He startled when someone moved in the room. Shite. Snape was still there. Pretend to be asleep….

He heard the man take several furious steps, then stop next to him. Praying that the man wouldn't lose it and make an attempt on his little life—which he was still attached to—Harry clenched his teeth. A chair scraped just beside him, then he felt the breeze of heavy robes on his right cheek. Then nothing more.

Silence.

*Whaaaaaat's happeniiiing? Helloooo. Helloooo, anybody there?*

Snape was thinking of the best way to make him disappear without a trace, he suddenly realized. That's what it had to be. A murder. He tensed his fingers in the sheets.

At the end of his rope, he was about to jump screaming from the bed when the man sighed deeply. Another sound of the chair moving, a "You can fuck off, Potter" in a tired voice, and then Snape left the room.

This fic was translated from the original French by RaeWhit and submitted with the author's permission. "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat" par Lychee. Thanks to my betas Cyrianne (French text) and JackieJLH (English translation). Reviews may be left here on Eros and Sappho, or submitted to Lychee directly by accessing her website from her author profile page and clicking on the link "Me Joindre".

Translator's Note: There is a sequel to "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat", which is a continuation of Harry and Severus' relationship, but is entitled "The Fox and the Ferret". The reader can guess the main pairing of this fic. It is still a WIP, with two completed chapters. If and when it is completed, I will translate and post it.

---

Chapter Four



"You can fuck off, Potter."

Did Snape really want to see him gone as much as that?

Hmm, yeah. But what was the point of saying that to him? On the one hand, he was sleeping—or pretending to be. And if the man had realized it, he would have woken him. On the other hand, Harry had known the man’s opinion of him for a long time. No reason to tell him again.

Still, it was weird.

His professor had sworn. Harry had never before heard him swear.

Then, Ron had distractedly told him that the man had been positively green when he’d discovered Harry unconscious on the ground.

He looked up at the brunette who had just burst into the common room.

“Hi, Hermione!”

“Hello,” was the very cold reply.

She was still angry with him over the incident with the egg. The presence of a seventh-year Hufflepuff at the table scratching out his homework for him probably wasn’t helping matters, either.

“Let it drop,” Ron muttered, his nose in a book. “Give me a chocolate.”

“I just swallowed the last one,” Harry said pathetically.

“You ate all of it!” exclaimed their friend, who seemed to forget her anger for a fit of indignation. “The cask of the Danaides, you know it? Never mind,” she added at their clueless faces.

“They say that people who eat lots of chocolate suffer from a lack affection,” Ginny remarked from a little further away. “They need to find someone.”

A nasty gleam shone in the brunette’s eyes.

“But Harry goes out every night,” she hissed. “Things not turning out the way you’d like?”

“Er...” he mumbled.

But she had already left.

“In my opinion, she’s furious at not being in on the secret,” Ron said as he continued to read.

“Or she’s jealous. She’s the one who needs a boyfriend. I’m going to suggest the chocolate to her….”

“Seriously? You’re going to tell her that?"

“Yeah, I’ll tell her that the day Draco Malfoy calls you ‘my love’.”

There was a silence.

“Anyway, I have something I want to ask her.”

***

“Hermioneeeeee.”

“I. Am. Very. Busy.”

Harry put on his most beautiful smile.

“But I need some advice!”

“Ask your Hufflepuff!”

He added little stars in his eyes to the smile.

“It’s not about a class.”

“Ask your dear Ron.”

He moved on to tearful mode.

“Buuuut…you’re the only one who can help meeeeee….”

She hesitated. Yes! Harry added just a slight hint of a blush. Hermione gave him a little smile.

“A problem with your love life?”

Harry gladly nodded his head. His friend was so predictable. Laughing up his sleeve, he continued, “It'saboutsomeoneIdontknowmuchaboutwhathethinksandIwaswonderingif….”

“What he thinks?”

Shite. Double shite. Triple shite. Quadruple shite.

“Harry, you’re talking about a boy?”

Hermione’s eyes widened. Uhhhhh-oh. His little plan to solicit her opinion without her guessing what it was really about was falling to pieces.

“Yes...” he stammered, when he couldn't think of anything else to say.

*Well, really, no…but I can’t tell you that!*

His friend took a deep breath. “Wow. That’s a shock. All right.” A big smile spread over her face. “Who is it?”

*Snape. NO!* "Er, I'd preferwellIdon'twanttoit'scomplicated.

Hermione laughed. "It doesn't matter. How can I help you?"

Harry carefully chose his words. “Let's say—and I ask you not to think of anyone in particular—that someone hates you. Now, let's say that you’ve just risked your life. Stupidly. And then this person, after ranting and raving, stays five whole minutes, sitting beside you without saying a word, and then leaves, saying, 'You can fuck off, Potter', in a very tired voice, knowing that you’re supposed to be sleeping, but that you’re actually not. So?”

Hermione stared at him for a good twenty seconds, and then replied in a wise voice, “So, you’re leaving school in two months. Maybe it's time for you to make up your mind.”

***

Honestly, Hermione was darned intelligent. Really, that was why he’d gone to see her in the first place….”

He was ensconced on the Potions master’s lap, who was seated in his armchair going distractedly over a paper. Yes, Hermione was intelligent, and usually gave good advice. But this time….

You’re leaving school in two months. Maybe it's time for you to make up your mind.

Make up his mind…. Make up his mind about what? To admit that he would gladly fail his classes to be able to spend another year on his Potions professor's couch? Pointless; he’d admitted that a long time ago. To throw himself at the man? Hmm, let’s see…. To stop all of this?

No…that he couldn’t do.

He jumped when Snape sent his paper to the devil and took him in his arms.

“It’s nice being a cat, eh?” the man murmured. “No worries. No rubbish to correct; no old goat to obey; no staring, dumbfounded wastes of a brain with raging hormones to try to teach…. No major problems to face, aside from finding someone to feed you twice a day. You’re happy, aren’t you?”

Harry must have looked sufficiently to the contrary for the man to be skeptical.

“You don’t seem like you are. If it makes you feel any better, we’re both in the same boat,” he sighed.

Harry looked at him with curiosity. Snape hesitated.

“No, never mind. It’s stupid.”

*Okay, it if makes you feel any better, we really are in the same boat...* the adolescent thought bitterly as he gave him a consoling rub with his head.

“Let’s go. Bedtime.”

***

Harry was daydreaming over his plateful of scrambled eggs, thinking of happy things like suicide, death, the why and how of his life, his Potions professor’s bed.... Damn.

“So, ready?” Ron asked cheerfully as he sat down beside him.

Harry gave him an uncomprehending and barely interested look.

“Hey! You remember today’s the start of the mock exams, right? This morning: Transfigurations. Afternoon: Divination. Tomorrow morning: Herbology. Tomorrow….”

Fuuuuck.

With resignation, Harry sank back into his mesmerizing introspection.

***

Wonderful.

He had survived. Once again, Harry Potter had survived—the mock exams. Well, almost. It was Friday at three in the morning, and Harry was cramming for his last and worst day of these bloody exams that he’d forgotten about—one wonders why. In this case, History of Magic and…Potions.

Won-der-ful.

***

Blue—no, green—no, blue—unless it’s actually red.

What color was this blasted potion supposed to be?

He knew that Snape, even if he wasn’t saying a word, was watching every move that he made. Harry knew that if he looked up at the man, his chances of remembering which blasted color would be next to nothing.

Okay, blue.

He poured with one hand—almost—and then closed the final vial, and waited.

It took a long time. It took a very long time. Damn—wasitnormalthatittookso—

Blue.

Snape didn’t say anything. Shite. He’d been wrong. Anyway, he didn’t even remember which potion this was, but that was how things usually turned out, and now he would get told off, and then Snape would be a bastard, and then perhaps he’d throw himself into the man’s arms, who would then agree to scratch his head?

*DAD, MUUUUUUUM! HELP MEEEE!*

“Not bad, Potter,” his professor said with a distinct note of disappointment.

Harry blinked his eyes. No, he hadn’t slipped into another dimension. Snape had actually paid him a compliment.

“Do you intend to dawdle here much longer?” The cold voice pulled him out of his befuddlement.

“Er…no, no….” He emptied his cauldron into the sink, rinsed it with water, and then grabbed his things. “Thanks. Goodbye,” he stammered.

Snape didn’t reply.

***

*IT’S MEEEEE!* “MEOOOOOW!”

Harry bounded into the Potions Master’s rooms and jumped immediately onto his lap.

“Meooooowpuuurrr….” *You missed me, didn’t you?*

He let out a growl of surprise when the man stood up abruptly from the couch, seizing him by the skin of his neck. He was about to give the man a half-indignant, half-playful swipe of his paw when he froze at the look on the ex-Death Eater’s face, who had lifted him up to eye level. A made-in-Snape look, a look that made you instantly understand that you’d be better off on the far side of the planet. But alas…

“Game over.”

…you are not there, but here.

*I’m screwed.*

“A cat without a master,” the man began. “A cat intelligent enough to understand what one says to him, and even what one does not. A cat that one doesn’t come across during the day. And a cat that is missing during the entire duration of the mock exams, only to spring up like a flower just four hours after the last session.” He wore a slightly bitter smile. “I was stupid, but in the end you were worse off than me. Some little worries over revisions, perhaps?”

If Harry had been able, he would have shot himself in the head without hesitation.

Before he could move a muscle, Snape had set him on the floor, taken out his wand, and pronounced the counter-spell. Harry then found himself sitting on the rug at the man’s feet.

Naked, of course.

Harry had never, ever been able to surprise Snape. He now made up for this fact beyond anything he could have ever imagined.

They remained the way they were, looking each other straight in the eyes for a good thirty seconds. Harry was terrified, and Snape was obviously having difficulty…breathing, thinking, swallowing…with everything. The man finally took a big breath.

"Potter, I—you—give me one good reason not to cast a Cruciatus on the spot."

"If you do that, I'll scream. They'll find me completely naked in your rooms, and you'll be in trouble," he mumbled.

It was the first thing that had come into his head. Snape stared at him coldly, then grabbed his wand.

"All right. The Killing Curse, then."

"And my body?" he tried feebly.

The man remained impassive, but Harry thought he saw an almost imperceptible sparkle in his eyes. An optical illusion, most likely.

"Don't trouble yourself over that, Potter," was the reply. "I have cauldrons large enough to cook you whole."

"I'm happy for you," he replied miserably.

Then he shut his eyes, his head drawn into his shoulders, waiting for the curse, vaguely regretting not having said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, not having thanked Dumbledore for all he'd done for him, not having punched Draco Malfoy in the nose one last time, not—

"Up."

He opened an eye, and saw that Snape was a standing a little further away and watching him coldly. Harry was going to promptly obey, but….

"Um…." He glanced at the man shyly. "You wouldn't have...er…something that…."

Snape tossed him a soft throw draped on one of the armchairs. Harry awkwardly wrapped himself in it.

"Thanks," he murmured.

A rather uncomfortable silence ensued. Harry stared at his feet, thinking distractedly that the rug was as comfortable under his cat paws as it was under the bare soles of his feet, and that he could even roll on it in his human form like he already had in his cat form, and that…. He blushed as red as a beet. Snape must have noticed this, for he finally spoke in a dry voice.

"So, Potter, are you going to tell me the reason why you've insinuated yourself into my private life for almost a month, in your Animagus form that, it must be noted in passing, is not registered with the Ministry, which already presents a more than valid reason for sending you to Azkaban?"

This was starting wonderfully, Harry lamented to himself.

"I'm obligated to answer?"

"Yes, I think so," was the dry response.

"Why? You can't take points—they'd ask you for the reason, and I think you'd be in a lot of trouble," he risked.

The man approached him, his manner menacing.

"Perhaps, Potter. But I assure you that I can easily arrange for you not to receive the good grade in Potions that you need for your entrance into the Auror Academy."

"That's blackmail," he protested.

"Excuse me, but I am the one who has just discovered that my cat is, in reality, an Animagus—and what's more, one of my students. So, what was it? A new prank of the valiant Gryffindors?"

"No!"

Snape raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"I…well, I…." Harry really didn't know what he could tell the man. "It was nice. Coming here. In the evenings," he simply stammered.

*Yikes. Yiiikes. Yiiiiiiiiikes.*


"Very flattered," Snape said, in a tone that expressed the exact opposite. "Mister Harry Potter, then, finds it 'nice' to transform into a cat and spend his evenings with his Potions professor? Which the professor, naturally, knows nothing about…."

Harry swallowed.

"Are you fucking with me, Potter?" Snape screamed, furious this time. "Answer me!"

"N—no, sir. I'm sorry, sir. But if I'd told you, you wouldn't have let…."

"Assuredly," was the sarcastic reply. "Get out of here now, Potter."

"But I—"

"Really, Potter. Leave," was the icy reply. Implied: before I kill you once and for all.

Harry hung his head and started for the door. "I'm sorry," he repeated again, once at the threshold. "I didn't want…."

"Get. Out." Snape's voice was actually shaking with rage. With rage?

The door closed behind him. Harry stood there, immobile for a moment, staring at the wall in front of him, and then turned around and knocked.

"WHAT NOW?"

Harry timidly pushed the handle and stuck his head through the opening. "Well, while we're on the subject… I mean, since you're already screaming at me…I wanted to thank you for having saved my life innumerable times," he declared softly.

Snape was ashen, his eyes flashing as he walked towards him. "That's it, Potter? Are you finished?" he articulated as he struggled to remain calm.

"I really meant it, you kn—"

Schlack.

A hand firmly pushed him out and the door slammed in his face. He stood for a moment, again without moving, and then knocked once more.

A string of swear words poured out as he quickly opened the door and slipped inside. Snape, a glass in his hand, looked at him like he was really going to vaporize him.

"I wanted to tell you that you have exquisite hands."

The man was dumbfounded, so Harry took advantage of the opportunity.

"And that you're positively attractive when you're sleeping."

"Potter…."

"And since I'm confessing it all," Harry continued as he tried not to think too much—if he had even thought a little, then he would've taken off at a run, "well, I took advantage of you sleeping to spend several nights—six exactly—in your arms, in my human form. Oh, and then I leafed through your photo album. I—I 'm truly sorry about your friend. Malfoy's a bastard; the father as well as the son. I adored getting tickled in your arms. Then Dumbledore recognized me that time when he came. And you really have a sexy voice. And I apologize for trashing your laboratory that first night. And then…. I wanted to ask you why you told me to fuck off in the infirmary, because you seemed really sad, but I guess you're not going to answer me. Well, I'm going now. I'll just give you back your blanket…."

He let the blanket fall simply to the floor. If Snape had looked shocked just minutes before, it was nothing compared to how he looked like now. Harry sighed and turned away, wondering idly exactly how many tenths of a second he had left to live.

"Potter…."

The man sounded like he was choking. Harry sent a quick prayer to Saint Guidinou—patron saint of wizarding students, and especially of their problems of the heart. Every adolescent at Hogwarts had learned to call upon him, more or less rapidly according to their needs. In short, he sent him a quick prayer, crossed his fingers, and then turned back.

And collided head on with Snape, who was moving towards him.

It was perhaps not intentional, but it had the end result of being effective.

Without even thinking, Harry stretched out his neck and kissed the man. What followed might have taken place in a dream, but it was simply too unbelievably—no words to describe this—unbelievably 'to scream for' to be in a dream. In one move, Snape's hands slid down to his buttocks, and—

"Ohsiirmmpphh!"

Snape's tongue, Snape's hands, Snape's body—Harry fainted.

***

He awakened in a large, familiar bed and glanced around, a little lost. What...?

Oh.

He buried himself under the blankets, his heart pounding wildly. Snape. Snape had kissed him.

And he had fainted.

Poor idiot.

"Awake, Potter?" The cold voice made him startle.


He poked his head out from under the blankets and saw the man in question, ever impassive, as he entered the room.

"Er…yes. How...how long was I out?"

"About ten minutes."

Harry digested this. Okay. Snape had carried him to his bed, not to the infirmary. It would seem that the man had some explaining to do. All right. Now what?

"I'm sorry," he murmured contritely.

"Sorry for what?"

"For fainting."

He looked for a moment into those two black, bottomless pools, and then understood.

"Ahh. Oh, that. No, I'm not sorry," he mumbled as he looked away, very aware that the man must have had time to recover his sang-froid, and so….

*I'm fucked. I'm fucked. I'm fucked. I'm fucked. La la la la laaaaa.*

But no Avada Kedavra came to strike him.

"How long since you've had something to eat?"

Harry thought about this. With the last revisions, whenever he had a moment…. "Last evening?"

"And slept?"

Whoa. "The day before the day before yesterday morning?" he risked timidly.

His professor didn't comment at all. He glanced at his watch, and then stood and headed for the door. "I'll wake you tomorrow morning, around six."

This information had barely registered in the adolescent's brain when he fell fast asleep.

***

Mmmm.

Really, the sheets on this bed were so comfortable.

Harry rolled over on his side, seeking the warm, soft, comfortable body beside which he usually spent his nights. He shouldn't linger very much longer. He would have to retransform soon. But where was that arsehole?

"Severus," he mumbled, groping in the sheets, his eyes still closed.

Then the memories of the night before flashed through his mind in a micro-second, and he sat up abruptly, completely awake. He saw that Snape was indeed there—if not in the bed, at least settled into a chair—studying him with an expression that made him suddenly swallow his saliva (whether from fear or in arousal, he wasn't sure).

"Good—good morning," he stammered, before realizing that he was still naked.

"Good morning," Snape finally said without seeming to pay attention to his embarrassment. "It's a little after six, and I suggest that you return to your dormitory."

It was his usual voice: cold, bored, and horribly sensual.

"Potter?"

Harry blinked his eyes. "What? Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I'm going. Thanks." He grabbed his glasses from the bedside table, and then turned to the man.

"Thanks…for last night."

If Snape understood, he didn't show it, content with waving his hand as if chasing away a fly. "Yes, yes. Go on now."

Harry sighed and transformed into the cat. Snape had the decency to appear impressed.

He jumped from the bed and headed for the door, but changing his mind as he passed by the chair where his host was sitting, he jumped to his lap, stood on his hind paws, and nibbled at his ear. He felt his professor hesitate, lift his hands as if to push him away, but then bury the long, delicate fingers into his fur, pulling from him little sensuous shivers. Purring properly, he re-transformed and sat on his professor's thighs, his naked torso against the man's chest, trembling under the hands that slid along his hips.

He murmured into Severus Snape's ear, "Do you really want me to go?"

A half-sigh, half-grunt was his only reply, so he smiled before he kissed the man; he was no longer sleepy at all, and this time it was so much better.

***

Several days later….

"Harry? Harry?"

The brunet turned to Hermione with a charming smile.

"You're impossible right now! What's the matter with you?" she asked with exasperation.

He didn't answer, happily chewing his mouthful of steak. He was very hungry. As it turned out, he had ended up with an average of ten—point—five on his mock exams—not very good—and he didn't give a fig about it. There were more important things in his life now. For example….

"Do you know where Ron is right now?" his friend went on. "I don't see him."

He shrugged. Ron was old enough to take care of himself.

Some cries coming from the direction of the Slytherins made him look up. A crowd had gathered at one end of their table.

"Oh, he's too cute!" squealed a voice that his ears regretfully registered as Parkinson's.

"Where did you find him, Draco?"

In between two uniforms, Harry caught a glimpse of Malfoy, who was holding something in his arms.

"At the entrance to the Forbidden Forest," the blond replied with a truly happy smile.

"Are you going to keep him?"

"Yes, I think so. He doesn't seem wild…."

Wonderful euphemism. The little fox that nestled in his arms really didn't seem wild. To be precise, he seemed to adore the slender hands that were stroking his head, and seemed to be positively in bliss.

"No," Harry breathed.

The little beast opened a lazy eye, noticed him, and then gave him a stunning wink. Then Malfoy carried him out of the Hall.


FIN.