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Minerva Mcgonagall sat in her office wishing for something more interesting to do than grading papers. With still half a stack of assignments left she decides to take a break and go for a stroll through the castle.
“Crookshanks!” she hears from a few corridors away. “Come back here Crookshanks!”
As expected the large orange cat is strutting down the hall. He slows a bit to greet her as she nods her head politely, saying, “good to see you.”
He responds quickly “ yes, of course. Have you seen Mrs.Norris anywhere?” he stops for a short moment awaiting an answer.
“I haven’t, no.” Before this conversation could get any further, he’s running off again.Without even thinking about it she quickly switches to cat form and runs after him.
Once they’re far enough away that they can’t hear Hermione anymore they slow down to a walk. She notices that they’re heading in the direction of the abandoned tower where the cats in Hogwarts sometimes gather together.
As the two of them entered, Minerva caught sight of the caretaker's cat. They made eye contact briefly before Mrs.Norris was slowly heading in their direction.
“Hello there.” Mrs.Norris says looking at Crookshanks. He looks as if he's about to respond, but instead turns to look at Minerva. She gives him a questioning look wondering how he’s going to get the three students out of trouble this time. (They don’t know that she knows about these bribes) So without saying anything she leaves their presence.
As the night progresses she learns quite a lot about her students and their new ways of cheating. She’ll be sure to put a stop to that on Monday.
She’s just about to head out for the evening to finish those papers when she’s approached by Mrs.Norris, “I caught them sneaking around at night again. He swears they have a good reason and practically begged me not to do anything.” she explained.
“I assumed it was something of the sort.” She replied, wondering why the other cat had decided to explain this to her. “If you’ll excuse me, I have papers that need grading.” she said, slowly walking around her and towards the door. Noticing that Mrs.Norris is following her out she sends her a quick look of confusion.
“It’s after curfew. I’m sure there are kids out just waiting for a detention.” She says with excitement in her eyes. They walk together in silence for a moment before they both hear a pair of footsteps walking quickly and quietly just around the corner. Mrs. Norris gently nips at her to get her attention and looks pointedly towards the darkness behind a suit of armor.
They just get into the small dark space and all Minerva can see is the beautiful bright yellow of Mrs.Norris’s large eyes before the two giggling girls round the corner and hurry down the hall. Before they can get too far Mrs.Norris breaks their eye contact and jumps in front of the girls and hisses. They both get pale and the smaller girl lets out a small scream. We can now hear Filch's loud hurried footsteps and even louder breathing from the other direction. The girls take off running back the direction they had come from.
By the time Filch gets there it’s too late to catch the girls, so instead he scoops up Mrs.Norris and coos at her. She looks to Minerva over his shoulder with a horrified look on her face, purring quietly against her will. Filch continues down the hall leaving her alone still behind the suit of armor.
–Monday–
Lunch is almost over as Minerva is walking through the nearly empty corridors towards her classroom. She sees professor Snape and decides to stop and chat with him. They’ve been talking for a few minutes before Mrs.Norris shows up and shamelessly leans on Minerva's leg asking for attention. This had already happened a few times since they had seen each other on friday. She politely dismisses herself from the conversation and walks the rest of the way to the classroom with Mrs.Norris on her heel.
Once they get there she immediately asks, “What is this about?”
Mrs.Norris hops onto a desk near the front of the class, “What do you think it’s about?” is her confident reply.
Minerva is a bit taken aback. What do I think it’s about? Now that she's thinking about it, maybe this is just Mrs.Norris’s normal cat behavior. Maybe it’s nothing more than the fact that they are acquaintances and some cats enjoy attention wherever they can find it. She replies somewhat ashamed, “well, nothing… I suppose.” There’s a pause and then students start coming into the classroom.
Before she leaves Mrs.Norris says “Meet me in the tower tonight,” a small pause, “after curfew.” and then she’s leaving through the open classroom door. Luckily the students in the room wouldn’t have been able to understand what she had said considering she’s a cat and they are not.
–Later–
She walked most of the way there before switching to a cat so as not to draw any attention towards herself. Once she got inside she saw the stunning silhouette of a cat sitting on the windowsill looking out over the lake as the moon shone inside. Mrs.Norris turned her head, slowly making eye contact. She didn’t leave the windowsill so Minerva joined her up there, sitting a mere few inches from each other. They both looked out over the lake for a moment before Mrs.Norris spoke up, “It’s not nothing.”
What’s ‘not nothing’? That doesn’t even make sense… Unless… “What are you talking about?” she questioned looking towards her.
Mrs.Norris continued gazing out the window, “well…” she breathed deeply, “This is difficult for me to admit.” A few seconds pass as she looks like she's contemplating how to word this correctly. There’s a sharp intake of breath, a pause, she shakes her head, another pause. Minerva gently wraps her tail around the other cat in a comforting manner and it’s only then that her eyes leave the lake and look into her own, green meet yellow, for a moment it’s like she can see the others very soul…. And it’s beautiful, and she understands everything Mrs.Norris couldn’t say.
She closes the short distance between them and nudges her head against Mrs.Norris’s who immediately starts purring. They sit there all night eventually falling asleep.
–
Minerva wakes up the happiest she’s been in a really long time. She feels completely carefree, and then remembers why, and if cats could smile she would be smiling the biggest of them all. She looks out the window in front of her seeing golden rays of sun shining down between the clouds and reflecting off the surface of the lake, it’s as if the weather was reflecting her exact mood. “I didn’t realize you’d still be here.” she hears quietly from next to her.
“Why wouldn’t I be here still?” She questions, looking into those amazing eyes.
Mrs.Norris has a look of bewilderment on her face, “You’re supposed to be teaching!”
How could I have forgotten something like that! She springs to her feet in an instant “I’ll talk to you later!” She says panicking and running from the tower as quick as she can and she's almost to the classroom when she remembers to turn back to a human. Trying to fix her hair and clothes before entering as calmly as possible.
She was expecting to see a room full of chaos but instead found the room completely empty. The students must have gotten tired of waiting for her. This would give her time to come up with a believable excuse as to why she wasn’t here all morning, and she could get something to eat as well.
–
It was an hour past curfew now and Minerva has been wandering around (as a cat) for a few minutes hoping to find a certain brown furred, yellow eyed cat. Instead she found headmaster Dumbledore who looked at her as if he knew something, and realistically he did. She had been late for class a few too many times now for it to be a coincidence, and if she did get to class on time she would be very tired from only being able to see her girlfriend after curfew.
She slowly walked past him not wishing to engage in an uncomfortable conversation at the moment, he didn’t stop her.
She found Mrs.Norris on the third floor watching Filch give detention to one of the older Gryffindor boys. Once she caught sight of Minerva she abandoned her duties the way she has been doing since they got together a month ago. They started their walk to Minerva's sleeping chamber and all she could think of was how she never wanted this to end, but instead of saying that she asked "Is Mrs.Norris your full name? Or... do you have a first name that you haven't told me about?"
–The End–