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“He really isn’t himself,” Hermione said, frowning and wringing her hands together. “I hate to leave him.”
“He’ll be fine, love, I promise,” Fred said, coming up behind her and kissing the top of her head. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. “I’ll be with him all day and make sure he gets to his vet appointment.”
Fred kissed her cheek and she knelt down to stroke her hand over the head of her ginger cat. Crookshanks looked up at her and let out a long, forlorn, “Meroooooow.”
“Fred’s going to take good care of you and the vet will help you feel better,” she assured her familiar.
“Chances are the little bugger got into something he wasn’t supposed to when he was outside and now his stomach’s paying the price,” Fred said with a chuckle.
“My poor boy.” Hermione scratched behind his ears and said, “Be good for Fred and I’ll see you soon,” before standing back up.
“I’ll owl you as soon as the appointment is done.” Fred bent and kissed her lips, then nudged her towards the floo. “Hurry or you’ll be late.”
With a nod, Hermione gave him one last kiss and then flooed to the Ministry, arriving for her meeting just in time. It was hard to concentrate on creature classification changes and permit laws when she was so worried about Crookshanks.
The cat hadn’t been himself for the past two days. The first day he had been extra sluggish and didn’t eat much. The second day he hasn’t eaten at all. Hermione had scheduled the first appointment she could with the magical veterinarian, not noticing until the last minute that the appointment time coincided with a meeting that she couldn’t miss. Luckily, her husband was generous enough to spend his free day looking after their poorly feline.
When Hermione was finally able to return to her office, she found their owl, Odin, perched on her desk and a letter strapped to his leg. As soon as Hermione untied the scroll, the owl took off. Unfurling the parchment, she read-
‘Crookshanks is perfectly fine, but you might want to come home as soon as you’re able. -Fred’
Fred Weasley was the only person able to make Hermione nervous by saying everything was ‘perfectly fine’. Grabbing her purse, Hermione locked her office and hurried to the bank of floos in the lobby. When she stepped out into her living room, Fred rushed in to greet her.
“Hi, love,” Fred said, kissing her cheek.
“What’s wrong? Why did I need to come home?” Hermione asked.
“Nothing is wrong, per se, but things apparently aren’t what we’ve assumed.”
“Fred,” she warned.
“So, I was washing up the dishes when I noticed Crooks wasn’t in his bed.” Fred pointed to the empty cat bed by the kitchen entrance. “I set off to look for him, calling his name and shaking the treat bag, and I hear this tortured meow coming from our bedroom.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her up the hallway. “I go running back here to find him, worried he had gotten himself stuck. Alas, he was not stuck. He had a whole other surprise in store.” Fred pushed open the bedroom door and pointed to the dirty laundry basket. “Well, I should say, she had a whole other surprise.”
Hermione slowly approached the laundry basket where Crookshanks was laying on top of a pile of dirty clothing, surrounded by small, mewling balls of fur. Scooping the nearest grey furball into her hands, she held the tiny kitten up to her face and laughed when it let out a raspy, barely there, cry. Weight on her arm brought her attention down to see Crookshanks hooking his-her!- paw and trying to drag the kitten back.
“Kittens?!” Hermione cried, placing the kitten back in the basket and looking over at Fred in disbelief. “How does this happen?”
“It appears some very inexperienced person mistook a female cat for a neutered male,” he answered with a shrug. “I told you she got into something she wasn’t supposed to outside.”
“She,” Hermione sighed before laughing and shaking her head.
“When I first found her, there were only three kittens but I think my last count was up to seven.”
Hermione hovered a finger over the litter, attempting to count the various wriggling kittens that were blindly fighting their way through siblings in order to nurse. After a double count, she turned to Fred and said, “Ten.”
Fred looked at Crookshanks and commented, “May as well make it an even dozen, mate.”
“Because ten just isn’t enough?” Hermione jabbed him with her elbow. “What are we going to do with ten kittens, Fred?!”
“Make some nieces and nephews very happy.”
“Oooh, good plan.” Hermione reached out to pet Crookshanks and was happy to hear a happy purr as the cat cleaned up her new brood. “You are now officially an inside cat, little miss.”