Sorry, I Cat Speak!

Chapter 9

F R E E    F R E E     P A L E S T I N E

☆☆

Chapter 9

☆☆

At first, the elves were mortified to have such a huge and wild creature exploring their kitchen; the scar-headed cat didn't make it easier on them by playing The Predator and its Victim with some of the elves, sensing their fear and acting on its instincts with a playful edge to its movements.

Draconia laughed, delighted as one of the elves tried to climb the kitchen countertop before falling backwards on their bum. 

That was before her stomach gave a feeble, growling sound. Her face colored quickly in embarrassment.

“Winkey is finished preparing breakfast for Lady Malfoy,” the short elf said in a croaked voice, snapping her thin fingers when Draconia signed her gratitude and nodded politely, thankful of the elves' hospitality and their kindness.

It was a simple, yet delicious sight with an added addition, the mead. 

Draconia didn't know what wild cats eat regularly except maybe rabbits and well— ferrets? Something that huge surely ate regularly its own weight of meat. The elves, amusingly, thought the same by the size of a half cooked, chipped chicken meat on the large bowl on a pallet near Draconia's chair. 

They mostly ate in silence, Draconia enjoying her mead and beacon while the cat devoured its own noisily until it took interest in the bacon on Draconia’s plate. It started to sniff around the table near her food, and no matter how many times she tried to push it away or move her food away, it always found a way to best her. Until finally, it jumped on the table in front of her, shaking it and the plates, knocking her jug of pumpkin juice on the ground and frightening the working elves behind them into dismay. 

Draconia was startled, badly enough to choke on her last piece of bacon.

She coughed violently, trying to clean her airways— she tried to drink some juice only to discover that it was spilt all over the table, with only a last few sips in the glass in front of her that she gratefully gulped it in one swig.

“You are a menace,” She mumbled hoarsely, throat burning before thanking Winkey quietly who refilled her glass and cleaned the sticky mess on the ground; not before glaring hatefully at the scar-headed feline that made home on the breakfast table.

Draconia signed, resigned. She took the last piece of her food and offered it to the wild feline.

The cat sniffed at her hand then licked experimentally at the butter, and decided that it liked it. Surprisingly daintily, the cat picked the little scrap of meat from Draconia's hand with its short front teeth. It sank down to the table on bent front legs, tilting its head slightly to chop the meat up with sharp little bites, swallowed, and then looked up expectantly, ears with long tufts upright.

“There is no more, I'm afraid." She reached her empty hand out, alongside her plate to let it see for itself, knowing full well that she could ask more from the house elves but Draconia refrained, raising an eyebrow at the empty bowl beside her on the ground.

The cat sat up again to sniff her fingers, whiskers tickling Draconia, and then that pink tongue came out to wrap around first her index finger, then her thumb, licking away what little fat there might be left after the piece she'd already had. It scratched her skin like a piece of sandpaper that made her giggle and snatched her hand back reflexively.   

As she gazed into those mischievous green eyes; Drconia couldn't help but think, how nice would her future, dull days turn— if that beautiful, feline creature, that she was too afraid to name, stayed with her forever. 

Wishful thinking, that is.

It didn't take time before they found themselves in front of the huge Christmas tree at the end of the empty Great Hall. What little students thought to stay the holidays, were either invited to spend the rest of the day, partying or like herself; uninvited to with only her memories as a companion.

However beautiful the festival at Hogwarts was in the holidays, it felt heavy with unbeatable loneliness. The colorful decorations did nothing to ease the ache in her chest and mind as she stared at it. It missed the gatherings of her loved ones, of her mother and her friends; her family. The loss of war was bitter on every corner now, the loss of Vincent. And Hogwarts was everything that reminded her of that loss and her unmistakable part in it.

Draconia stood there; alone with words on parchments that made the memories of better days dipped in bittersweetness. The cat sat close to her, tail hugging its paws as it looked at the huge Golden star at the top of the tree, it appeared so much smaller and  lonely that her heart ached.

“Do you miss your family, too?” Draconia asked suddenly, a wobble in her voice that she didn't need to address.

It looked at her with unblinking, familiar, green eyes before giving a feeble deep sort of rumble. It tugged at her heartstrings painfully.

Draconia crouched to her knees slowly, mindful of her skirt before running her fingers through the cat's fur, scratching its scar gently and petting its back.

“It's alright,” Draconia soothed. She understood perfectly, she didn’t think any amount of alcohol could be quite enough to make this feeling any more bearable. It was that, after a few more strokes, she decided; the cat had to go to its family  rather than be stuck with her for company.

Draconia doesn't know why the realization was this painful, she got attached. Maybe because she was lonely for a long time this term, or maybe because this creature reminds her of someone that was long destined to be worlds away from her— maybe. 

She dropped a soft kiss on its nose, holding its face with both hands. It felt like a promise rather than a goodbye, when it responded with a rough lick on the corner of her lips. 

Tbc