A Day in the Life of Crookshanks
I was in the middle of having the prophetic dream that I usually have about me being the supreme ruler of the universe, when the fire beside me gave a particularly loud ‘pop’ and I woke up. I yawned, stretching my paws above my head. I was in the room that my girl, Hermione Granger, called the “Gryffindor common room”, or something like that. I got to my feet, following the familiar route up to my girl’s dorm. When I got to the door, it was slightly open, courtesy of the most wonderful girl alive”Hermione.
I stepped silently into the dorm. Hermione was still asleep. Shame on her! It was almost dawn! But then, maybe I was in the wrong! Maybe I was still supposed to be asleep! Horrors! Yes, that must be it. My girl was always right. She said so herself. Even that self-absorbed redhead that she hung out with admitted that she was brilliant.
I jumped lightly onto the bed, crawling up to snuggle with my girl. She rolled over slightly in her sleep, so that I had to dig my claws into her arm to keep myself on the bed. My girl’s eyes flew open.
“Crookshanks!” She whispered, startled. I gained my balance and she pulled on my paw to remove my claws. “No! Don’t scratch me like that!”
I was offended. Did she not know that I had needed to keep myself up, or fall into the abyss between her bed and her nightstand, and never be seen again? Did she not love me? Then I realized, she is more important! She is you GIRL, you are supposed to do anything for her, even leap into that gaping hole, just as long as you do not wake her in the process! I meowed, hoping that it would mean my redemption.
“Oh Crookshanks,” Hermione whispered to me. “Don’t worry! It wasn’t your fault, it was your instinct! I would have done the same thing.” Ah, it meant so much that she understood. I meowed in thanks. My girl just closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
She is the wisest creature in the universe! I reminded myself. You should fall asleep! I shut my eyes, thinking about digging my claws into the obnoxious redhead’s feet…
I felt movement beside me. I hurriedly jumped up, awaiting orders from my girl. Hermione sat bolt upright, looking around at her clock. By the way her eyes went wide, I guessed that the clock said that she had been late waking up. But did she not realize that she was not late, but everyone else was early? She must be too modest. My girl was always modest in her brilliance.
My girl jumped up, quickly dressing herself, muttering something about being late to potions, and that the man she was always complaining about, Professor Snape, would skin her alive. I meowed loudly, to assure her that if he ever dreamed of doing that to her than I would put his eyes out.
Then my girl stopped, in the middle of pulling on her sock. She laughed.
“Crookshanks,” she said. “I forgot! It’s Saturday!” I did not know what this meant, but it must have been good. She burst into a fit of giggles, leaning against her headboard to keep herself steady. “I suppose I might as well go on down to an early breakfast.”
I meowed again, assuring her that it would not be early, that it would be right on time, and that everyone else would be late. Misunderstanding my assurances as a request for a treat, she bent down, pulled a bag of treats out of her nightstand, and gave me one.
“You are so lucky,” she said, scooping me up and placing me in her lap. “You aren’t a human, so you don’t have to go through being sixteen.” Oh, I thought, the painful pangs of adolescent humans. I knew about it very well, since I had been my girl’s confidant through some tough times. I also knew about how stupid it made even the most intelligent humans. Lately my brilliant, beautiful girl, was feeling attracted to that moronic, hideous, cruel redhead that she had been friends with since her first year here (or so she told me). At first I had believed that I might have been wrong about the redhead, but that same day he had kicked me almost across the common room, along with another of the numerous arguments that he was prone to with my girl.
“Well, I suppose I’d better go get something to eat.” My girl lifted me off her lap, dropping me on the floor. I followed her to the doorway out of the common room that my girl and her friends called the “portrait hole”, but kept in her company no longer than that. The hearthrug was calling to me.
When I awoke from my glorious slumber, it was to see an extremely unpleasant sight. The evil redhead and his friend, the black-haired boy with glasses, were sitting at a table with books spread out in front of them. Maybe, I thought, the red hair is a side effect to having no brains…. It was for divination, a subject that my girl highly disapproved of. I walked over to them, to see if I could get a good swipe at the redhead.
“You know,” the redhead said in his painfully obnoxious voice, “Since Trelawney is the one teaching the next class, I think that we could always go with the original way of doing our homework. I mean, she doesn’t know the difference between fake predictions and real ones, so as long as we make ourselves miserable, she’ll believe it.”
“Yeah,” the boy with the glasses said. “Remember when we got O’s on the completely made-up homework?”
Completely FICTIONAL homework, dufus! I thought, wondering why my girl decided to hang out with them. I suppose they have hidden intelligence. Except the redhead. He has no intelligence. I gave them a stern look to attempt to make them realize that that would be cheating, and that they would never learn anything if they cheated. That was what my girl always said.
“Ok,” the redhead said, dipping a feather in a cup of red liquid. “This Monday, I’ll… erm… I’ll be robbed!”
“All right, I’ll be… I’ll be beat up!”
“That works. Then on Tuesday I’ll be tricked into eating an earwax flavored jelly bean.”
“Are you sure that’s tragic enough?”
“Hmm”maybe not. Okay, I’ll be tricked into CHOKING on an earwax flavored jelly bean!”
“Are you sure that it shouldn’t be vomit flavored?”
“Harry, deal with your own predictions.”
“Ok, fine. I’ll be the one choking on a vomit jelly bean.”
“No, don’t do that! Then she’ll know that we made up the predictions!”
“FINE! Then I’ll be locked in a broom closet!”
“That’s better.”
Here comes my opportunity to scratch him, I thought as the redhead extended his hand towards me to re-dip his feather. Just a little closer… NOW! I extended my paw, claws bared, and raked them against the flesh on the back of his hand.
“OW!” He shouted, dropping the feather and grabbing me by the back of my neck. What a HORRENDOUS, UNDIGNIFIED way to treat the future supreme ruler of the universe! When I become all-powerful, I thought, you will bow down before me, and that scratch will be NOTHING compared to what you’ll have to go through!
“You…” the moron seemed to be unable to think of a bad name to call me. “You neurotic buggar!” He shook me. I tried to hold myself back from reaching up and digging my claws into his eyes. Remember your girl, I reminded myself. She’ll put him in his place. I was right. At that moment, as if called by justice to intervene, my girl came into the room.
“RON!” She ran over to the mentally unstable redhead, pulling me out of his cruel hands before he could do real damage. “How dare you! How dare you! Don’t you lay another finger on my cat!” So there, carrot-top! I thought haughtily, wishing now that I HAD clawed out his eyes.
“That cat is a menace!” Ron said, shoving his hand in her face, showing her the scratch I had made. I’m a menace? I thought, growling at him. “Look what he did to my hand! I didn’t do anything to him!”
“You must have,” she said simply, glaring at him in a superior way. “Crookshanks doesn’t scratch without reason.” Yes, I agreed, you like my girl, and you bewitched her to make her like you! You deserved more than that!
“I was just reaching across the table!”
“It’s true, Hermione,” the bespectacled boy said. “Ron didn’t do anything.” Hermione looked down at me. I gave a small meow of apology.
“Oh, don’t worry Crookshanks,” she said. “You didn’t know you were doing anything wrong.” My girl and her friends sat down on a couch by the fire, my girl placing me on her lap. The boy with hair like tomato soup sat down on her other side and shook his head at my girl.
“That cat isn’t normal, Hermione.”
“I know. He’s a genius!” My girl said testily. I felt elated. What high praise!
“You know that’s not what I mean. He’s not SANE, Hermione, he’s a nutter.”
“No he isn’t.”
“So,” the black-haired boy said loudly, giving the redhead a significant look. “Did you hear about that Halloween dance that they’re having for sixth and seventh years?”
“Yeah,” the redhead (with more freckles than there were humans) answered. “I heard it’s going to be sort of like the Yule Ball, except with only Hogwarts students, and it’s going to be for Halloween.”
Duh, I thought, the dance is all my girl has been able to talk about for a month, praying that you’ll ask her! I felt a bad taste enter my mouth at the thought of my beautiful, smart girl dancing with that lanky, hideous boy. That is, if you could even call him a boy.
“Say, Hermione,” the tomato-paste-haired boy said, looking at his knees (look at my girl when addressing her! I thought irritably), “would you like to go to the dance with me?” I felt my girl tense up underneath me.
“Well,” she said slowly, looking down at me. “You did call my cat a buggar, and yell at him for scratching you accidentally, and say he was a nutter….”
“Oh come on!” He had spun around and was looking desperately at her. “I’m sorry about that! I can’t help that I don’t like your cat!”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Hermione said, looking him in the eye. “Apologize to Crookshanks!” The redhead, looking pained, shifted his gaze from my girl to me.
“I’m sorry, Crookshanks.” My, I thought, he must really care about my girl to apologize to me! Maybe he isn’t as bad as I thought.
“Well,” my girl said, giving him a dignified look. The carrot top seemed to be holding his breath. Then, unable to keep up the act any more, my girl broke into a grin, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’d love to go to the dance with you! I’ve been hoping you’d ask!”
“Well,” the lucky boy said, putting his arms around my girl. “I’m glad. I was sure that you’d never say yes.”
“You need to have a little more faith in me, Ron,” my girl said, smiling and pulling away. The redhead seemed reluctant to let go. “Didn’t I tell you after the Yule Ball that you just had to ask me before anyone else?”
“I’m the first person that asked you?” The redhead said, raising his eyebrows (the results being to make him just look more stupid).
“Well, no,” my girl admitted. “Neville was. I told him I was going with someone else.” She looked down at her shoes. Don’t be ashamed! I thought. You deserve much better than Neville! He’s not good enough for you. You were right in telling him that. Besides, he has a toad! Granted, it’s not much better than a psychotic owl, but….
“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier!” My girl confided in me that evening as she changed into her sleepwear. “I can’t believe he finally asked me!” She sat gracefully onto the bed beside me. “I can’t believe it….” she said, more to herself than me. She just smiled (for the two hundredth and ninety-fifth time) and crawled under the covers, putting out the light with her wand.
“Goodnight Crookshanks,” she yawned, wrapping her arm around me. I meowed, assuring her a good night. With that I curled up and started to purr.