Crookshanks | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 165

Jenna and Harry stayed in the room for almost two hours, speaking. Although neither of them felt the time pass, as if they had only been speaking for twenty minutes.

    Jenna told Harry stories of their time at Hogwarts and the adventures she had with James and her own friends; from getting in detention on their first week at Hogwarts with James, to how she had become friends with Lily and other others, all the way to the time she had turned herself into Filch and given Sirius a good scare.

    Harry laughed hard, and Jenna found herself smiling. She hadn't felt this happy in ages. They were bonding quicker than she had ever imagined. It was easy talking with him, as though she had known him her whole life. As though she was speaking with an old friend. As if she had her brother back.

    At last, their laughter died away when there was a knock at the door, and the next moment Sirius walked in.

    "Molly's starting to think you've been kidnapped," he said, grinning at Harry. "You've been up here for almost two hours. She forced me to come and see if you were alive."

    "I'm pretty sure I'm alive," said Harry sassily, grinning as he got to his feet. "I better go and tell her I'm fine. I don't think she'll believe it until she sees me in person."

    "That sounds about right." Jenna chuckled, getting up as well.

"I still can't believe you've been Crookshanks all this time," said Harry, smiling goofily. "I mean, every pet I've known turned out to be human. My best friend's cat has been my aunt all along, Scabbers was the one who betrayed my parents, and the grim I've been seeing throughout third year turned out to be my god father. Who's Hedwig? My long lost sister or something?"

"Oh, Elvendork..." Jenna let out a laughter, shaking her head at his sass.

Harry frowned in confusion. "Elvendork?"

"It was what James would've named you if Lily wasn't reasonable enough to stop him," Jenna explained. "But Sirius here, sent a letter to all our friends saying that you'd actually been named 'Elvendork'. Lily was furious."

"It was classic." Sirius snorted in laughter at the memory. "Tell him what his full name was."

"No!" Jenna shook his head at him briskly, smacking him on the arm playfully.

Harry chuckled. "You know what I just realized?" he started. "Ron's going to faint when he finds out who Crookshanks really is."

"Yeah, well, he has it coming for all the kicking he gave me," Jenna said in a playful warning tone.

But then she turned to Harry, saying more sternly, "Look... do you think it would be all right if we kept all this between us for the time being? The less people who know I'm undercover as a cat at Hogwarts, the better."

    "Yeah, of course." Harry nodded earnestly. "Will I — will I see you again?"

    Jenna found herself smiling. "Of course."

    Harry nodded again. He turned to leave, but then the next moment he came to a stop to look at Jenna, before moving forward and bringing her into a quick hug. Jenna froze, feeling her heart stop beating for a second. She could see Sirius smiling from over Harry's shoulder, and so she hesitantly leaned into it and hugged him back, bringing him into a warm embrace like a mother.

    "I'm glad I met you, Jenna," said Harry, finally pulling away.

    "Me too," Jenna muttered. She couldn't have said anything more, sure that it would take her only one more word to burst into happy tears again.

***

At Christmas Eve, everyone had gathered at the Weasleys' house; from Bill and Fleur to Sirius and Remus who were talking with Harry as they sat around the fireplace, as well as Ron, Ginny, and Lexi who was sitting on the couch nearby with Fred and George.

Jenna had showed up as the family owl, when she had made sure that the real Errol had gone out for his night hunting. She couldn't really fly too high, but only enough to fly up toward the windowsill and staying there with her wings resting at her sides.

The music was playing and everyone was chatting, having a good time. Harry seemed in an oddly better mood after he had met Jenna, probably happy that he had found a family of his own.

"Shall we have a nightcap, then?" asked Arthur loudly, leaping to his feet. "Who wants eggnog?"

With that, he quickly went to the kitchen and came back, handing out the eggnogs on a tray to everyone as they went back to chatting.

"What have you been up to lately?" Harry finally asked Sirius and Lupin.

"There are a lot of people that Voldemort wants on his side," said Sirius. "We're trying to get to them before the Death Eaters get the chance to."

"Can't the Aurors help?" Harry asked.

"Yes, but other than the Aurors that are part of the Order, the rest of them work for the Ministry, and frankly the Ministry doesn't know what they're even doing. They just to want seem like they're up to things, but in reality they're getting nowhere."

"Like arresting Stan Shunpike?" Lexi asked and Sirius nodded.

  "But we go on Dumbledore's orders," said Remus. "He's the only one knowing what's going on. He has his... sources."

And with that, he told them all about his mission and how he had been living undercover with the werewolves as a spy for the past few months, under Dumbledore's orders.

"Greyback believes that werewolves deserve blood," said Remus gloomily. "He thinks that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people by attacking them."

"But you're not like them! You are normal!" said Harry fiercely. "You've just got a — a problem —"

Remus and Sirius both burst out laughing at those words, and Jenna let out a small hoot from where she sat beside the living room's window.

"Sometimes you remind me a lot of James," said Remus brightly. "He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit."

"I'm pretty sure Marlene spread that rumor," said Sirius and Remus nodded, chuckling.

"Marlene McKinnon?" Lexi questioned, raising a curious brow at them. "I knew she was part of the Order, but I didn't know you guys were friends back in your school days."

"Well, we weren't direct friends," said Sirius. "She was just a friend of — er — another close friend of mine."

"Too close, I would say," said Remus with a scoff, causing Sirius to shot him a warning look.

Harry was looking between the two men with a smile on his face, as if he were in on their inside joke as well.

"So now that we're on the topic of old school days," Remus started amusingly and held up his glass, turning to face Lexi and Harry, "how's Mr. Filch doing? I'm sure Padfoot here misses him a lot."

At those words, Sirius turned on him sharply and he looked murderous by those words, glaring daggers at Remus.

"It's been twenty years!" he shouted. "Let it go!"

But Remus said nothing and just smirked into his drink in silence while Harry laughed.