For the Love of Crookshanks

Many thanks to my beta Meucci Warlock.

Chapter 1

Welcome to a New Feature here at The Daily Prophet, where we post book reviews from both specialists and the general public. Today's book is For the Love of Kneazles by Beneficent Bast. We hope you enjoyed it. Next week's book is Witches are from Avalon, Wizards are from Caledonia by Gossamer Moonfly. Send your reviews to our main office. Happy Reading!

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One of these books was left in our shop and I'm very thankful I have it now. I levitated it at a sewer rat that had gotten into the cellar. Knocked the sucker right out. Bam! The thing flew like 20 metres. We started calling our copy of the book, The Destroyer. Highly recommended.

--Fred Weasley, co-owner of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes

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Common misconceptions abound in the study and care of Kneazles. The uninformed witch or wizard will often treat them as a common house cat. Kneazles require much more specialized care and attention than simple felines. As familiars, Kneazles are far superior to their Muggle counterparts. A Kneazle will be loyal, attentive, affectionate and protective of his favoured witch or wizard. As the unfortunate among us who have dabbled in the world of Siamese, Tabby or indeed any breed of that species will undoubtedly attest, one cannot expect so much from a common house cat. Do not rely on products, food or toys that are made for the common cat. Kneazles will not take kindly to such an insult. (excerpt from For the Love of Kneazles by Beneficent Bast, pg 12)

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The weight of a beloved animal on a person could slowly crush everything but the appreciation of the moment, making one feel content and strangely complete. Crookshanks was not a delicate creature, meaning that he was what one might call broad, wide, stocky or any other euphemism for "bigger than average," and so it was impossible for Hermione to forget he was there. His rumbling purrs vibrated through her torso and he occasionally felt the need to get up and carefully rearrange himself, quite often stepping on Hermione's more sensitive parts in the process.

It might have been irritating for anyone else, indeed a fat hairy cat on a hot day is generally not a pleasant accessory, but Hermione found his weight and presence to be soothing, calming. Hermione was determined to enjoy these few moments of peace. Tomorrow, she would be leaving for an indeterminate amount of time, and at the present moment, she wanted nothing more than to hold her cat. She ran her hands over and through Crookshanks's frizzy and somewhat tangled fur. Crookshanks leaned into her hand as she scratched him behind his tattered ears and rubbed his round belly. The rhythmic hum of an early summer evening lulled both into drowsy contentment, each slipping in and out of dreams to the sounds of insects droning and birds chirping.

By nature, Hermione was not a relaxed person - she often equated relaxation with laziness and failure, neither of which she could abide, but possessing a vague notion of what she would be facing tomorrow and thereafter, she revelled her in new appreciation of stillness. Hermione hadn't allowed herself such nothingness, such peace in a long time. She was always pushing herself toward something else, something more, but at the moment, this was all she wanted. Nothing could have been more perfect than lying in the overgrown grass, with a massive cat draped across her belly in the fading summer light. There was an innocence and childishness associated with this position that Hermione found she had needed far more often in the last few days than ever before. Her body and mind were sluggish, but it wasn't unpleasant. She felt as though she had sunk into an all-encompassing comforting embrace - the likes of which she had never before experienced.

The fears and anxieties that had been plaguing Hermione for several weeks were still present, but they were less intense and barely defined. Hermione could see her worries and anxieties through a thick fog - she couldn't name them, but she knew they were there and amazingly, for our heroine at least, she didn't care. Shortly after coming outside, Crookshanks had settled himself on her stomach. Both Hermione and Crookshanks had been sleeping on and off for some time now. In such a comfortable situation, Hermione had finally accepted the uncertainty associated with the seemingly insurmountable tasks that awaited her, Ron and Harry. The evening breeze, the croaking of a few frogs and the fading sunset all converged to create a most peaceful environment. Both Hermione and Crookshanks had sunk so far into their relaxation as to feel utterly immobile, boneless and happy.

"Hey."

Hermione's first reaction was to ignore the familiar voice. Opening her eyes at the moment seemed almost impossible. She could no more have shrugged herself out of this barely-conscious dreaminess than best her eternal nemesis: the flying broomstick.

The voice however, was not to be deterred. It cleared its throat and said rather more loudly, "Hey."

The greeting did not shake her into awareness, but it did make her realise that she would have to face reality and relinquish her drowsy serenity - for the time being at the very least. Hermione lazily opened her eyes to see Ron standing above her. From her angle, he looked like an absolute giant. She could even see up his nose from here, which rather lessened her attraction to him for the moment.

"Oh, hi Ron," Hermione said, slowly blinking away her bliss.

"D'you mind if I sit?" he asked, motioning to the ground next to her. Hermione looked up at him, smiled and lazily shook her head. She sat up and shifted her drowsily purring cat to her lap. After swaying from slight dizziness for just a moment, Hermione leaned against the lanky, awkward boy sitting next to her, and let her head flop down on his shoulder, as it supremely silly to expend her precious energy on something so trivial as holding her own head up. Ron stiffened, but Hermione was far too relaxed to sit up on her own and far too comfortable at the moment to care. Ron awkwardly shifted next to her and reached out to pat Crookshanks on the head. Crookshanks's purrs were the only thing that interrupted the pregnant silence between the two. On any other day, Hermione's sense of peace and contentment would have quickly evaporated to be replaced with the awkwardness associated with nearly every teenage relationship. But not today. The tension she felt in Ron's body, his unique scent and the knowledge that he was so close couldn't even sharpen her senses. Hermione simply continued to stroke her nearly comatose cat while Ron picked at a few blades of grass.

Ron cleared his throat. "Um," he coughed, "I got Crookshanks a present." With a nervous smile, Ron handed Hermione a badly wrapped package, barely held together with a single string. Feeling a bit more energy at this surprising turn, Hermione summoned her will, lifted her head and took the gift.

"Oh thanks," Hermione said, surprised that Ron would buy Crookshanks a gift. Ron and Crookshanks weren't mortal enemies, but neither were they the best of friends. Ron thought Crookshanks to be altogether bad-tempered and Crookshanks thought Ron to be altogether clueless. Hermione turned the package around in her hands, wondering what Ron meant by it.

"Go ahead, open it." As he spoke, Crookshanks had shaken himself awake and had started to paw at the package. Hermione reached around Crookshanks's body and opened his present for him. Before she had even peeled away all the paper, Crookshanks snatched a little brown sack from her hand and leapt off Hermione's lap to gnaw at the little brown burlap sack.

"It's cat grass," Ron explained. "Or something like that. The lady at the shop in Ottery said that cats love the stuff." Crookshanks was gnawing and scratching at the "cat grass" and made little squeaking noises, apparently in enjoyment.

"In Ottery . . . Saint Catchpole?" Hermione questioned, turning to look at him. As far as she was aware, the Weasley's rarely, if ever, went into the little Muggle village by their home.

"Bill had some Muggle money and traded me for it," Ron said, by way of explanation, his gaze firmly on the ground in front of him.

"That was nice of him," Hermione answered, calmly intrigued by this turn of events.

"Yeah," Ron said, digging one of his heels into the ground.

The two friends gently descended into silence. Although embarrassment and awkwardness generally defined their relationship these days, Hermione was far too unconcerned with such trivialities this evening.

Hermione thought she sometimes sensed Ron looking at her as though he had something he wanted to say - something very important and meaningful, but that may have just been the guilty little fanciful corner of Hermione's consciousness. She had tried to encourage him, but he just mumbled and made excuses to leave her presence. Ginny had suggested that Hermione pounce on him, but the very idea of pouncing on a reluctant Ron Weasley horrified her. To comfort herself, Hermione often thought of the slobbery kisses Ron had shared with Lavender, with the idea being that it really was one of the most repulsive things she had ever seen in her life. Unfortunately, Hermione found herself longing for those slobbery, unerotic kisses and then berating herself, because no self-respecting young woman would actually wish for such kisses.

While Hermione and Ron sat in silence, Crookshanks gladly filled the silence with his clawing, meowing and pawing. Occasionally, he would jump into the air as though surprised and attack the small package with a vengeance he had not displayed since those initial encounters with Scabbers. Hermione had never seen him as a kitten, but she imagined that this was how he had behaved. The thought made her smile.

Hermione amused herself by imagining Crookshanks's excited, frantic inner dialogue. "I just, I just have to run over here right now, and now I have to pounce and now I have to pounce again! And again! And now I just have to go over here! And now over here! And what's that over there?! And now I just have to run in a circle! And now I have to jump on this thing! And now on this thing! And now I have to attack that orange fuzzy thing that keeps following me!"

Hermione's smile widened.

Ron sighed and leaned back. "Look, I'm sorry that I said nobody would miss Crookshanks."

A bit of Hermione's serenity quietly evaporated. "It's alright Ron," Hermione said, trying to quell her feelings of embarrassment.

"No really," Ron said earnestly. "I-I didn't mean it." He fidgeted and scratched his head. "I meant it as a joke."

"I know that Ron," Hermione said, her brow furrowing.

"Well," Ron started, and stupidly scratched his head again. Hermione looked over at him. He looked like a little boy with his face all twisted up in confusion. "Well, why did you start crying then?"

Hermione shrugged and pulled at the hem on her trousers. "I don't know. I'm going to miss him." Since Harry had made the decision to search out the horcruxes and eventually face Voldemort, Hermione had approached it all very rationally, as she generally approached everything. But when Ron had mentioned that they wouldn't see Crookshanks for months at a time and he for one wouldn't miss him or hearing him cough up hairballs, Hermione had burst into tears.

"Oh," Ron said and furrowed his brow in thought. After several moments of thought, Ron started cautiously, "Well you know, Mum and Dad will take good care of him while we're gone."

"I know." Hermione looked out into the sky and watched the sun set. Looking across the sky streaked and swirled with the vividest colours, Hermione could not deny the beauty of it, the sense of peace it bestowed upon the landscape, the almost ethereal nature of it, the way it demanded meditative contemplation. And the way it made her feel small and empty and long to hold Crookshanks tightly against her again.

"Mum will probably even spoil him too much. She'll probably feed him better'n she feeds us. Plus, he's got the gnomes to chase and Ginny might even be around and she'll play with him a lot and stuff. And he's got all this land to run around on."

"Ginny'll be around?" Hermione asked in surprise. From what she and Ginny had discussed late at night, Ginny had no plans to stay at the Burrow while there was a veritable war going on. This plan was not something the youngest Weasley had intended to share with her family and almost-boyfriend. Hermione was worried for her friend, honoured that Ginny chose to tell her and no one else, but uneasy about keeping it from everyone else.

"Well, I don't really know. She hasn't decided if she's going back to Hogwarts or not."

"Oh."

"You notice the way she and Harry are always arguing, real quiet like?" Ron asked, fishing for information.

"Yeah," Hermione said quietly, hoping Ron would abandon this line of thought. She had sworn to keep Ginny's secrets and she would. Familiar tension slowly started to retake its hold on her.

"I don't know what's up with them, but I wish they would knock it off."

Hermione murmured noncommittally.

Crookshanks ran around the edges of the garden, in search of some adventure or other. Upon finding a gnome, he pounced on it with the fury of a banshee, bowling them both over. Gnome and Kneazle rolled and yowled against each other in the funniest fight Hermione had ever seen. Hermione grinned and Ron openly laughed. It was quite apparent that Crookshanks had no intention of actually harming the gnome, and the gnome was incapable of harming Crookshanks, but in it, Crookshanks had found the second-best amusement known to Kneazle-kind. The first-best amusement known to Kneazle-kind most definitely required the presence of another Kneazle, preferably of the opposite sex.

"He'll be fine Hermione. Yeah. Just fine," Ron said with confidence, and it felt as though he were talking about the fate of the Wizarding World itself and not Crookshanks's comfort at the Weasley home.

Hermione paused before answering. "I know."

Abandoning the gnome, Crookshanks raced around Ron and Hermione three or four times and then took off around the edge of the house. Ron laughed openly and freely.

"I think he likes your gift Ron," Hermione said.

"Yeah. This is hilarious. It's almost better than Quidditch." Ron laughed again as Crookshanks ran from the other side of the house and with all the fury he could muster from within, pounced on a leaf.

"Better than Quidditch?" Hermione asked, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Almost," Ron clarified, in such a tone suggesting it was a very serious business to imply that anything was better than Quidditch.

Abandoning the leaf, Crookshanks returned to Ron and Hermione and again raced around them several times. Crookshanks was not an animal to expend surpluses of energy. Had she not witnessed it, Hermione would have doubted that Crookshanks could actually move so quickly.

"Umph." Crookshanks leapt into Hermione's lap at top speed. It had been rather like having a bludger leap into one's lap.

Ron laughed and Crookshanks panted from all the exertion of the last few minutes.

"I've never seen him like this before," Hermione said laughing. She affectionately rubbed his head.

"How old is Crookshanks anyway?" Ron asked. He joined Hermione in lavishing attention on Crookshanks and patted him on the back.

"I don't know actually. They lady at the Magical Menagerie just said he'd been there forever." Crookshanks again hopped out of Hermione's lap, intent on his gift. He grabbed it, settled in on Hermione's lap and happily gnawed at his little sack.

"Oh Crookshanks, that's gross," Hermione said, laughing in spite of herself.

"What?" Ron asked, peering over her, always eager to see something gross.

"Cat drool," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose.

Ron shook his head. "Girls."

"Pfft. What do you know about girls?" Hermione mumbled, and immediately regretted saying it. Another time, she might have taken this opportunity to try to subtly tell Ron that maybe the two of them could be together, maybe they could act on all that tension between them. But not today. Today, it was all somehow less important than it was yesterday. Her anxiety about her almost-but-not-quite-relationship with Ron had never given her anything anyway, except perhaps a headache.

Ron coughed and both pretended her comment had gone unheard. Ron picked at the discarded wrapping and extracted the string that had precariously held the whole thing together. Ron played with it for some time, wrapping and unwrapping it around his fingers, before deciding that Crookshanks might enjoy it more than he did.

Almost immediately upon dangling the string in front of Crookshanks, the animal flew at it. The string was always painfully out of reach for poor Crookshanks as he danced around it. It didn't seem to bother the animal though. Ron made him jump in the air and run in fast little circles.

Ron laughed and Crookshanks meowed and twitched his tail in appreciation of the hunt. Crookshanks would pounce on Ron and Ron would grab him and rub his belly. Ron played with Crookshanks much more roughly than Hermione ever had. They both appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely. It all looked very immature, which Hermione thought was quite fitting, but found herself laughing all the same.

Before she had realized what was happening, Ron had dangled the string over Hermione's shoulder, and Crookshanks had thrown himself against Hermione in search of the ever-elusive string. Laughing at her cat's silliness, Hermione rolled away from him, while Ron continued to dangle the string over her body.

"C'mon Crookshanks," Ron laughed as Crookshanks dutifully climbed all over Hermione, while Hermione giggled and shrieked as the none-too-delicate animal tap-danced across her body. Crookshanks caught his claws on Hermione's jumper and nearly lost himself in her huge masses of hair, but none of this deterred him from stalking his prey.

Eventually, Crookshanks had the string tangled all around his body. He appeared quite satisfied with his victory and finally ran out of steam. Hermione was once again on her back, while Crookshanks lounged on her stomach. Ron scooted over to them. He lay on his side and gave Crookshanks a tickle.

"Crookshanks will be just fine," Ron said. He draped his arm around Hermione's waist and rested his head on her shoulder as though it had been the most natural thing in the world.

"I know," Hermione sighed, resting her head against Ron. Closing her eyes, Hermione let one hand continue stroking Crookshanks, while the other tangled itself in Ron's hair. All three purred in contentment.