Need [ dramione ]

Chapter 39

17 March 1999 - New Moon

Being a lynx, a cat, whatever... it is confusing.

Not the fact that he is a cat. The more he thinks about it, really thinks about it, and puts house prejudices aside... Well, cats always seem to land on their feet, don't they? And given the past few years that Draco has endured, all of the battles and struggles, all of the twisting and turning... well, he's certainly not in Azkaban, and he has the Golden Girl of Gryffindor as a soulmate, and he has a future as a Hogwart's professor with a mastery...

He certainly landed on his feet.

And he's loyal... but picky in who he places his loyalty in. Most within Slytherin never chose a cat, simply due to the fact that cats tended to shed, and while there were spells to remove the hair, that would mean performing a labor that a house elf should perform, so... but he remembers Millie's cat. It was a fickle thing, with an allegiance to only it's owner.

That bloody cat had pissed in Pansy's shoes more than once.

And Draco... well, while he has no intention of releasing himself into any shoes in the near future, he does understand having that kind of allegiance, that level of allegiance. If someone looked sideways as Hermione...

A bit of piss in a shoe would be the least of that person's problems.

No, what's confusing about being a cat is the bloody paws.

Every step he takes, it's almost like walking on a cloud of some sort. He can feel the vibrations of the earth underneath each step. On more than one occasion, he had considered reaching out to McGonagall, but... well, the Headmistress was a house cat, a tabby cat.

What would she know about running through the Forbidden Forest, the ground covered in melting snow, with earth and rocks and dirt and...

Practice seems to be the only answer, so practice is what he's doing. He wants to nibble, to be quick, to be used to it. He wants...

His dreams, in recent days, have been filled with a new idea. An idea of Hermione running free on Malfoy Estate. Of her not being contained by Wolfsbane Potion. Of her roaming the land, with him by her side. Between the wards around the property and the expansive acreage, there was no reason in the world as to why they couldn't do such a thing.

It's a dream, an absurd dream, but...

It's one he has all the same, which means, he needs to practice running with these bloody paws.

And then, he fully intends on pulling Hermione into his bed in the Slythering Dorms and laying beside her, purring in his lynx form. He likes doing that, likes vocalizing his soothing. And... she likes curling up against him.

And he might be a little obsessed with the way that she scratches between his ears...

He reminds her of her cat, she says. The cat that had been left behind. The cat that... well, he doesn't know what had happened to the ugly orange thing that used to follow her around. She had whispered that he had once caught and chewed on Peter Pettigrew, when Pettigrew was hiding as a rat animagus, and he had laughed so hard, he choked on air.

He wouldn't mind sharing Hermione's affection with such a creature... if it's even still alive.

His front paws land in deep mud, and he has to resist the urge to shake them clean, and the even worse urge to lick them clean. That... that's another thing about being a feline that he is still struggling to grow used to...

crack.

And that. The hearing. The hearing is...

Draco shifts from a lynx to a wizard in no time flat, another skill he has been practicing. With wand in hand, he whips towards where the sound had only just come from, only for him to step in melting snow and no longer frozen dirt. He winces as a bit of the icy mud seeps into his shoe, but at least this time, he still has his shoes on.