Harry Potter - The Accidental Animagus

Chapter 2 - Kitty!

Weeks passed. Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall investigated thoroughly, but found nothing. There was no movement from any known former death eaters. Severus Snape reported that he had heard nothing. Amelia Bones, though she was only partially privy to their information, heard no rumblings of Ministry interference, and no whispers seemed to float through any part of the magical underworld. It seemed as if Harry Potter had vanished without a trace.

Harry himself, of course, was oblivious to all of this. He spent his days trying to learn how to be a proper cat. It took some time to figure out all the new smells and tastes. He was a little annoyed that he could no longer see the colour red, and the other colours were strangely muted, but he saw no choice but to accept it. He wandered the streets, often following other cats, dumpster diving for food, and sleeping a lot. After a few days, he found he had wandered out of town. There were few rubbish bins out here, but he could still smell something tasty. He followed the trail just in time to hear some of those high-pitched squeaks and see a mole scamper into its burrow. He immediately backed away and vowed to stick to the rubbish bins (after all, what five-year-old, even a boy, wants to eat live rodents?), but after a couple of days in the country, he realised how hard it was to find food and decided to try again. It took a couple more days before he successfully caught anything and a couple of hours before he could bring himself to eat it, but when he did, he was surprised how good mice tasted. He wondered if they tasted better to a cat or if the humans were just missing out.

He kept wandering from town to town, not really caring where he was going. By November, he had got good enough at hunting to get by and had even started cleaning his fur with his tongue, like a real cat (although he hated the hairballs). Hunting was actually fun when he was the hunter instead of the hunted running from Dudley's gang. Harry would never hunt people, though, just small birds and rodents. Yes, he was enjoying life as a cat more than he ever had as human, except for one thing: the nights were growing colder and colder. He didn't want to spend the whole winter outdoors, so he started working up the courage to look for a human who would take him in.

A couple days' searching had netted him a bowl of cream and little bit of liver, but no entry into anyone's house. He was just starting his search again on the third morning, when he noticed a little girl with bushy brown hair reading a book on a bench swing in her backyard. The wind blew in his direction, and he caught a scent from her-a strange scent, but an oddly familiar one. He moved closer to investigate, suddenly feeling something he hadn't felt in weeks and didn't presently know how to accomplish: a desire to actually talk to someone.

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Hermione Granger was the only girl in her Year 1 class who was already into chapter books. Some of them were still learning to read in the first place. The other kids looked at her funny because she was reading books without pictures in them, but she didn't care...much. The stories were just too interesting to stick to the short ones with lots of pictures.

She was thoroughly engrossed in one of her chapter books when she heard a small mewling sound and looked down to see and adorable black and white kitten staring back up at her with the greenest eyes she'd ever seen.

"Hello, there," the little girl said.

The kitten just stared back, then mewled again.

"Would you like to sit with me?" She patted the bench beside her. To her surprise, the kitten leapt onto the bench. Maybe it had been trained. But it didn't have a collar. She idly wondered if her parents would let her get a cat. She reached out to scratch the kitten behind the ears, but it recoiled at her touch.