For Old Time's Sake

1987

"Oh Mummy! Can we keep him please?" begged six year old Ginny.

She had gone outside early that morning to feed the pigs that liked to hang around their house, when she came upon a small red and brown kitten. His fur was matted, with large clumps missing, and you could see faint hints of rib bones sticking out from his sides. No little girl could resist an animal so miserable looking; so, without thinking, she had rushed to save the poor cat, and had run into her mother in the process.

"Ginny," Molly, her mother, said hesitantly, "We can't have a cat, you know that."

Molly looked helplessly at the kitten with tears in her eyes. It wasn't that she didn't care for the creature but they already had an owl and a rat that surely would not welcome this new pet.

"But he's so helpless, look at him!" wailed Ginny.

She held the cat up to her mother's nose, so she could get a good look at the condition of his tiny body. The feline mewed affectionately and pawed at Molly's nose. The older woman sighed in resignation, taking the little kitten into her arms to pat its head.

Ginny looked up in hope. "Can we keep him?"

She smiled anxiously at her mother who was cradling the creature like a baby.

Molly sighed again. "I suppose, but you'll have to share him with Ron."

Ginny squealed with excitement and took the kitten into the house to feed him. She found a small glass vial sitting atop the counter, yelling to her mother to help her find something in the form of a nipple. She'd never cared for a cat before, but had seen a momma cat feeding her young kittens once.

At the sounds of her shouts her older brother, Percy, who had just come home from his first year at Hogwarts, trudged down the spiralled staircase to see what the racket was about.

"What are you screaming for?" said Percy airily. He held a quill in his hand and had a fed up look on his face. He scanned the room, seemingly not regarding the little bundle of fur curled up in his sister's arms.

"I got a kitten," announced Ginny proudly, holding up the tattered kitty to give Percy a look.

He glanced at it with disgust then continued to walk past her towards the kitchen. A small bundle of his own quivered in Percy's front sweater pouch at the smell of the new creature.

Though her reaction was delayed, Molly came running into the house, thinking that Ginny might have been hurt. Who knew what a wild cat could do to a little girl.

"Ginny! Ginny, are you all right?" she yelled.

The little girl looked at her mother, confused, then replied, "Yes Mum, I'm fine. But I can't find a nipple for Baby's bottle."

Ginny had named the little thing Baby after looking at him snuggling in her lap; it had reminded her of the way a young witch and her child had looked, the day that Ginny had first gone to Diagon Alley with her family.

"Baby?" said Percy from his position over the sink.

Ginny shot him a hurt look.

"What's wrong with Baby?" she asked.

He shrugged nonchalantly with the same airy tone as his voice. "Well, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just uncreative."

Percy shrugged again, "Besides, he looks like a Jasper to me."

"A Jasper?" asked Ginny curiously.

It sounded remarkably like the name of a ghost in an old Muggle story book she'd once read.

"Yeah, jasper is a red and brown quartz, and that's what colour he is," said Percy in a tone of verity. He emphasised this fact by staring at the scanty patches of fur stuck onto the kitten's body, pointing out their colour.

Ginny studied the cat, looking it up and down before deciding, "Jasper is a nice name."

Her mother sighed once more and began digging around the kitchen for something resembling a nipple. This once tidy area now had the drawers and cupboard doors pulled open, and utensils and knickknacks were strewn around. Ginny's mum did most of the looking, in every possible space, while Ginny sifted through all the junk.

The kitten, now officially known as Jasper, cocked his head to the side, like a dog, at the scene in front of him. He mewed once or twice, but the sound was drowned out by the rowdy house ghoul and the clanging of silver.

Molly finally threw up her hands in despair, looking once again at Jasper who was now encircling her feet.

"We'll have to wait until your father gets home, I'm sure he has plenty of things we can use from the Ministry."

Arthur, Ginny's father, worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department and was always bringing home interesting Muggle things that had been confiscated from their previous owners. He especially enjoyed plugs, but had a shed full of other objects that he loved to tinker and toy with.

"But Jasper's hungry now!" wailed Ginny.

Jasper meowed in what sounded like a protest of agreement, now scratching his furless chin on the edge of an opened drawer.

"He'll be home in an hour, Ginny. If Jasper's really hungry pour a little milk in a bowl for him and see how he likes it."

With a wave of her wand, Ginny's mother cleared away the mess, and then set the dishes washing themselves and the broom sweeping the floor.

Instead of waiting at the door for her father as she usually did, Ginny picked Jasper up and headed towards her room. She'd completely forgotten about feeding her new ward, as little girls tend to do, and had decided to introduce him to the rest of the house.

Jasper gazed at the moving pictures along the stairwell walls; every so often he tried to swipe them, but his paws hit only air.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Ginny, who had noticed Jasper's playful movements.

Jasper cocked his head again with a questioning look in his eyes.

Ginny continued, "The pictures are kind of grumpy, they don't like to be touched. I once knocked one over racing Ron, that's my older brother, down the stairs, and the person in the picture glared at me every time I passed for at least a month. It ruined her hair, I guess, and mum said Great Aunt Elizabeth was real fussy about how she looked."

"And rightly so!" said a balding red haired man, sitting in his frame, as they passed.

Ginny instinctively stepped toward the right of the stairs, away from the man, and whispered in Jasper's ears, "That's Great Uncle Percival, he was her husband."

If Jasper had understood any of this, he gave no sign. Ginny, however, being the six year old that she was, happily went on babbling about the people in the pictures, until they had reached her room at the very top of the stairs.

The door in front of them had a lopsided sign reading "Ginny's Room", and looked as if it could fall off its hinges at any moment.

"This is my room," she pointed out.

A tiny ray of sunlight was streaming through the half opened curtains, highlighting a small area of floor covered with toys. The bed had been pushed into the corner to allow for more space, and was hidden under discarded clothes and candy wrappers.

The walls were stark white, with only one moving picture of the entire family. The Ginny in the snapshot, who had been three at the time, waved a little fist at the older Ginny and her new pet. Jasper meowed back in greeting, again trying to swipe the mobile figures with his paws.

Ginny had placed Jasper down on her bed, to look for a ball of string for him to play with, when she dug out an antiquated old dress that had once belonged to one of her many Muggle dolls. A slow, silent grin grew across her face as she put the dress up against Jasper, and it proved to be an almost impeccable fit.

She struggled to get the dress over Jasper's head. It was hard enough that it was already a fraction too small, but it was no help that Jasper kept trying to claw his way out and dash to the door.

With a bit of luck, Ginny was able to get the garment over his cranium and settled on his neck, before he bounded quickly for the door without a backward glance. In the haste of the moment, Jasper hadn't let Ginny finished putting one of the dress' arm holes over his front leg, and he now had to resort to limping across the hallway and down the steps.

Ginny scurried out of the room in time to see his tail disappear behind the first curve of stairs. She giggled quietly to herself and closely followed him to the very bottom, and then into the small living room, where her mother was rocking in a chair, knitting.

"Ginny!" she yelled, when half of Ginny's body submerged under an arm chair to retrieve Jasper.

Ginny stuck her head out in confusion and asked, "What?"

"What are you doing?" replied Molly suspiciously.

Ginny grinned again. "Just getting Jasper."

Molly raised an eyebrow, and then shrugging, returned to her half knitted blanket, which she had decided to make for Ginny's new pet.

"Evening, Weasleys!" boomed Arthur from the entrance way. His arms were full of Muggle toys he'd brought home for his children to play with.

There was a rush of sound as four boys appeared in the room, fighting each other loudly to get to their dad the fastest. At the sudden noise, Jasper bolted from under the chair, but not fast enough to escape from Ginny's grip.

The twins, George and Fred, were the first to reach their "old man", as they liked to call him.

"What did you get us, dad?" asked George eagerly.

Arthur smirked and handed both of his sons an aged and old looking miniature car.

"It's a car that runs on exceltricity. I'm not sure how it works, but you can take it apart if you want." Both Fred and George enjoyed dismantling Muggle toys, almost as much as their father did. The whole family had experience in what could happen if the boys got their hands on dangerous objects, and they were therefore limited in what they were allowed to have. Ginny, however, being both the only girl in the family, and also excessively better behaved then her elder brothers, got almost anything. She had a large collection of dolls that rested in a canopy hold in a corner of her room.

"And for my little angel," he said.

Ginny held out her left palm and received a bright red cat collar with Jasper's name engraved in the dyed leather. Her eyes widened with surprise and she smiled with glee.

"How did you know?" she asked.

Arthur winked secretively, and then whispered, "Your mum owled me."

Her smile got wider and bigger when she revealed Jasper, who had been hiding behind her back in her small right hand, to the rest of the family.

At the sight of the little creature Ron shouted out in protest.

"Why does she get a pet?" he pouted.

Ron was the only child in the household that didn't have anything to take care of. Ginny now had Jasper, Percy had his rat Scabbers, and the twins always had a frog stashed away, or a bird they had saved after falling from it's nest.

Their mother patted his shoulders reassuringly. "He's not hers, Jasper is everyone's."

Ron smiled smugly at Ginny's annoyed face and stuck his tongue out at her. He was always whining, why couldn't she just have something for herself? It was Ginny's turn to pout this time, and she hugged Jasper protectively against her chest.

No one had noticed Jasper's dress apparel, until George asked to hold him, and then instantly burst out laughing in surprise.

"Boy cats don't wear dresses," said Percy.

1997

Ginny smiled at the fond memory. It had seemed only yesterday that Jasper was the scrawny little cat abandoned outside their house. He was now quite the opposite. His once sparse fur was growing in dense bunches all over his body, and had darkened over the years to a deep burgundy red. The width of Jasper's waist had thickened, though he still gave off an image of being gaunt and slim.

He purred like a motor boat engine at the edge of Ginny's bed, while she reflected on her childhood.

He had grown into one of her best friends, and despite being a feline, he felt that it was his duty to keep a protective watch over her when she got lost in her daydreams.

"Remember that, Jasper?" asked Ginny. She'd been talking to Jasper, re-telling him the whole story as if he hadn't been there himself.

He meowed in response and narrowed his eyes. Like any cat, he didn't like being confined to clothes. Especially clothes that weren't even right for his gender.

Ginny suddenly leaned over her bed and began to dig through the piles of discarded junk that had been shoved underneath.

Jasper peeked over the mounds of blanket to see what she was looking for. Just as he was about to stand, the upper half of Ginny's body came back into view. Jasper cocked his head to the side, as he often when he was in a questioning mood. She beamed with good natured malice. In her outstretched fingers was the old dress she had tried to fit him into, the first day he'd spent at the house...

"What do you reckon?" she asked. "For old time's sake?"