Thank you for all the wonderful reviews. I appreciate your kind words. Just one more chapter after this. I told you this was going to be short.
Thanks to June and Selened for helping me out with the beta work.
I don't own these characters, they belong to JKR. Only Osiris belongs to me.
Chapter 2
Severus had been gone for five days now, and Hermione was missing him more than she had imagined she would. She stopped teaching her classes the week he had left, and was now sitting in their living room with several dozen unread books. As she picked one up, she decided she wanted some tea. She was about to call on a house elf, when Osiris came into the room.
“How are you feeling?” asked Osiris.
“I’m feeling like an overstuffed Christmas hen,” she answered, as she tried to get up.
“What do you need?” he had hopped onto the armrest of the couch, and touched her shoulder with his wing.
“I was going to send for some tea, but I think I’ll just make it myself.”
“Hermione, you’re a witch, just conjure up a damn cup of tea.”
“Osiris, I can’t just sit around doing nothing. I’ll go mad.” She managed to stand and walked to the small kitchen on the other side of the room. Osiris turned towards his room. He thought he heard the television come on. He flew in and found Crookshanks pawing at the remote control.
“Oh good, you're here. Do me a favor, put that movie in for me,” Crookshanks pointed to a DVD he managed to pull out. Osiris looked at it and shook his head.
“Crooks, you do realize that there are no cats in this movie, don’t you?" He looked at Crookshanks, “It's about some woman who pines for her husband, who doesn’t want anything to do with her, because he thinks she had an affair with his best friend, who killed himself after seeing her. Then of course there’s the overbearing father, and dopey mother. Of course you can’t leave out the brother, who even though he’s got the ugliest wife on the face of the earth, he can’t seem to keep his dick in his pants, because he’s got something like eight kids, and…”
“All right, all right, I get it, no cats. From the title, I thought it was a horror movie.” Osiris shook his head and placed the movie back in its place. They both went out into the living room, and joined Hermione, only to fall asleep as she sipped her tea and read her book. Hermione however, fell asleep before she got to the second chapter of her new book, only to be awakened abruptly by a slight pain, and a terribly wet feeling.
“Oh no!” she cried, as Osiris and Crookshanks woke up.
“What is it?” asked Crookshanks.
“My water just broke,” said Hermione as she looked at him. Just over six months ago, she and Severus discovered that Crookshanks was able to communicate with them, thanks to his bond with Osiris. Hermione found Osiris’ warning several months earlier to have been correct- sometimes she couldn’t get Crookshanks to shut up.
“Well, fix it!” said Osiris, as he looked onto the couch and floor, seeing small puddles of liquid.
“I can’t fix it, it’s time,” she panted, and grimaced as she felt another slight pain.
“Time? No, it can’t be time, you can’t, you have to wait,” said Crookshanks as he started running about.
“Tell that to the baby,”
“We have to stay calm. Crooks, go get Madam Pomfrey!”
“And how do you suggest I get her here? She can’t talk to me, stupid!” Crookshanks looked at Hermione, “Can she, does she know Legilimency?”
“No,” said Hermione as she panted, “I don’t think so.” She held her breath to try and keep the pain to a minimum. “Very few know that skill. Get Harry, or Albus.” She sat back against the couch and held her belly. “HURRY!” Crookshanks took off as fast as his four paws could take him. In the meantime, Osiris flew to the kitchen and turned on the hot water faucet with his beak. He then dipped a towel in the water and once it was soaked grasped it with his claws and flew back to Hermione
“Hot, hot, hot, hot,” he dropped the towel onto Hermione’s belly, only to have her scream.
“Aahh, Osiris, are you crazy, that’s scalding! Are you trying to kill me?” she yelled, as she threw the towel onto the floor.
“I saw it in a movie, they kept talking about towels and hot water,” he landed on top the coffee table, “It sounded like a good idea.” Hermione rolled her eyes.
“That’s just in movies. Oh, please, you need to keep track of my contractions,” she said, as she tried to lie down.
“What do I do?” he hopped onto the back of the couch and looked down at her.
“When I tell you to start, look at the clock and start timing, then stop when I tell you to stop. Depending on how far apart my contractions are, that’s how close I am to giving birth,” she then began the breathing exercises her mother had taught her.
“I can do that,” he looked at the clock, and wondered what was taking Crookshanks so long.
Crookshanks had gotten halfway up the stairs when he felt something drop over him. It was a net. Mr. Filch had decided he would find out once and for all, who kept playing tricks on Mrs. Norris. He would keep Crookshanks caged up for a while, and if nothing happened, then in his mind it would mean that the orange cat was behind all the pranks. The latest being that Mrs. Norris was walking around covered in, not fur, but daisies. He bound Crookshanks up in the net, and rolled him into a bundle, then hung him up on the coat hook behind his door. Filch left him there, and then left to see if he could find a cage over near Hagrid’s hut.
“Great, just great.” Crookshanks moaned. He hung with one hind paw hanging out of the net, and his head twisted in the wrong direction.
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Just in case some of you were wondering, Crooks was trying to watch "Cat on a hot tin roof." Severus returns in the next chapter. And yes, Crooks can communicate with the others as well. If you read my last story, you'll see that during th epilogue, Severus was already starting to susptect Crooks had the ability to communicate with them.