As Snape stood in the entrance hall of Hogwarts Castle with Albus Dumbledore, the students began to trickle in from the Hogwarts Express, all a-twitter about dementors, which had evidently searched the train, just as Dumbledore had thought they would. Lupin pushed by students with an apologetic smile, nodded at Snape, and headed straight up the entrance hall stairs.
“Headmaster, you could have had me ride the Hogwarts Express,” Snape said quietly. “I am well able to deal with dementors.”
Dumbledore shook his head. “No, this was a good job for our new Defense professor, Severus. I wanted you to stay here and keep an eye out for our Bast.”
Keep an eye out for the Bast. Ha. The cat had barely been seen since she had arrived.
Dumbledore had continued, “I believe she has discovered more than one osseoraptor. I am concerned.”
That had been enough to distract Snape from his sour thoughts about Lupin. Snape turned his eyes from bobbing student heads to Dumbledore. “More than one? I thought there was just the original one Kettleburn had.”
“Yes, but it did steal bones from his arm.”
“Bones. Multiple bones, then.”
“Yes. Professor Kettleburn is a charming and intelligent man, but he never studied human anatomy much. As you know, the human forearm contains two bones. According to Poppy, both bones were present before the osseoraptor attacked, and now both are gone.”
“Oh.” It figured that Kettleburn wouldn’t have applied his knowledge of animal anatomy to his own arm and realized that he ought to have had two bones there.
“And our dear Bast believes both bones have already mutated into osseoraptors.”
Snape was unsure whether to be alarmed about three osseoraptors roving about the castle or amazed that Dumbledore could know what the Bast saw. Curiosity won out. “Does the Bast speak to you?” Snape asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Dumbledore smiled vaguely. Then he sighed. “Well, I need to go into the Great Hall. You only need stay here to meet students until Harry arrives. Come to the table as soon as you’re able, Severus. I expect the feast will, as usual, be excellent.”
Snape was not in the mood to meet the students. If Potter came in flamboyantly again this year, it would be more than Snape could bear. And as Snape stood glumly in the entrance hall watching for Potter to arrive, he spotted another student who tended to make him cringe“Anne Rhys of his own house of Slytherin, now grown several inches taller than most of the third year girls. She positively towered over the third year boys, and she had that by-now familiar absent expression on her face. Daydreaming again.
“Severus,” Lupin’s voice startled Snape out of his thoughts. The werewolf stood directly behind Snape’s shoulder. “There’s a problem.”
“What?” Snape asked. Was an osseoraptor loose in the entrance hall?
“The Sorting Hat. Minerva sent me after it. It’s gone.”
“It’s in the headmaster’s office, on a shelf. It’s in plain sight,” Snape said irately.
A pair of bony arms suddenly wrapped around Snape’s middle and he was engulfed by a smell of fruit-like shampoo and some plain, clean soapy fragrance. “Hi, Professor Snape,” a very American female voice said. The arms tightened briefly. “Did you have a good summer?”
“No, I did not, and you are...” Snape struggled to free himself from Anne Rhys’s embracing arms. The idiotic girl would have to hug him at the start and the end of every term, in addition to her Christmas hug!
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Anne obediently let loose of him, then gave him an abstracted smile. “See you at supper, then. What’s that? It looks like a bone that’s got legs.” She leaned around Snape, her clean, uncombed brown hair swinging freely, and pointed toward the top of the stairs, where shadows shivered in the torchlight.
“Go to the Great Hall this instant, young lady,” Snape ordered briskly.
“All right, but it looks like it’s getting away, whatever it is,” Anne said with a shrug. She turned, fortunately obedient this time, and headed toward the Great Hall with the hordes of student going that direction. Snape briefly spotted Harry Potter’s messy, cowlick-infested head being towed after Minerva McGonagall. So the boy was taken care of. Snape was free to move.
With Lupin mere feet behind him, Snape crept up the entrance hall stairs. Sure enough, there it went, skulking on quiet little feet. This osseoraptor had rather mammalian feet, not the usual bird-like feet, which was a bad sign.
“Osseoraptor on the loose, and a missing Sorting Hat,” Lupin said sadly.
“You find the Sorting Hat. I’m going to follow the osseoraptor,” Snape muttered. Where was that blasted Bast who was supposed to be hunting osseoraptors?
The osseoraptor padded down a long corridor, then changed its mind (if indeed it had a mind) and scurried into a classroom hallway. Snape pulled his wand out of his sleeve and followed it, ready to cast a shield spell at the barest hint of an attack. He’d have to keep his mind on this one; it was very quick. From the look of it, the creature was the larger of Kettleburn’s arm bones. It would be fierce.
Just outside classroom nineteen, however, Snape was distracted by a familiar voice.
“Ooo... hee hee hee!” It was a male voice. As Snape had his eyes and most of his mind on the osseoraptor, he couldn’t place who the voice belonged to, but it wasn’t Lupin, and it wasn’t Dumbledore, and he couldn’t think of anybody else, besides, perhaps, Percy Weasley, who ought to be wandering up and down these corridors with a dangerous dark creature on the hunt and a sorting and feast due to begin any minute.
“Ha ha ha!” The voice, chuckling merrily, came even closer. “Hee hee hee! Oooo!”
Oh, for crying in the night! Was somebody getting a cheap thrill in the presence of an osseoraptor? It didn’t sound like Percy Weasley after all, and everyone was supposed to be sitting down for a feast any second now.
“Severus, it’s coming your way,” Lupin called loudly.
The osseoraptor froze in one place, then turned around. Yes, it knew Snape was there now.
“Hoo hoo hoo,” the voice shrieked loudly. “Oh, that tickles! Hee hee hee! Now stop that! You’re not supposed to be doing this!”
The osseoraptor hunkered down, whether to attack or to defend, Snape did not know.
“Ooo! Hoo hoo hoo!”
“Severus, it’s coming your way,” Lupin called out again. His voice caused the osseoraptor to quiver alertly.
“Shut up,” Snape murmured angrily. Couldn’t Lupin see he was trying to corner a dark creature? Why did Dumbledore insist upon hiring one idiot after another for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts? Snape himself had the knowledge, having battled quite a few dark creatures in his life. But no, instead Dumbledore hired one oddball after another.
“Ha ha! Hoo hoo... hee hee! Oh, that’s... you’re tickling!” And as Snape crouched there in the corridor, he spotted the Sorting Hat going by. It moved all by itself, sporting a gray tail with a white tip out behind it. For one confused moment, Snape gaped at the tail. When had the Sorting Hat grown a tail?
“Hee hee hee! Oh, stop it! All right!” The Sorting Hat’s voice rose to a laughing shriek. “Hufflepuff! Hard working and loyal! Goal-directed! Hee hee hee! Hufflepuff!”
And the Sorting Hat, with tail, leapt onto the osseoraptor.
“Hoo hoo... ha ha!” The Sorting Hat hooted. “I hope you know what you’re doing!”
From under the Sorting Hat came a loud cracking, then a muffled snarl. Then came a whistling sound. And then nothing.
“Severus?” Lupin called uncertainly. “What happened?”
Indeed, what had happened? Cautiously, Snape approached the Sorting Hat.
“There you are, young man,” the Sorting Hat called out. “I need to be at the sorting. Ooo! Ha ha!”
Snape lifted the Sorting Hat up by its tattered point. And there under it, looking simultaneously mussed and triumphant, was the Bast. And in her teeth was the osseoraptor, obviously dead, its ugly hairless rabbit-like feet dangling straight down.
“The Bast,” Snape murmured. Then, belatedly, he added, “Very good catch. Who put the Sorting Hat over you, Bast?”
“Oh, is that the Bast?” Lupin strode down the corridor, his wand lighting the area fully. “Very pretty. I think it must have gotten the Sorting Hat by itself.”
“Oh, yes, she did,” the Sorting Hat agreed. “Very intelligent, the Bast. Though I must say, all that soft fur... very tickly! I haven’t laughed that much in centuries! Mostly it’s just unwashed eleven year olds’ hair on my insides.”
“Yes, well, perhaps Lupin would like to take you down to the feast,” Snape replied automatically. “It’s time for the sorting.”
“Oh, very well,” the Sorting Hat said, its voice becoming more businesslike. “Very nice to meet you, Bast. Do be sure to tell me when you gain a name.”
That sounded oddly ominous, like something Dumbledore would have said, or perhaps Anne Rhys, if startled in the midst of one of her daydreams.
Lupin walked away, leaving Snape alone with the Bast, who looked up at Snape with a pleased expression in her yellowish-gold eyes.
“Yes, well,” Snape cleared his throat, “very good catch. Will you be attending the feast?” he asked, feeling silly for asking. But he felt compelled to say something.
The Bast carried the dead osseoraptor to Snape’s feet and dropped it there on the toes of his black boots. Then, with one friendly glance up at Snape’s face, the feline padded away, back toward the entrance hall, back toward the feast, or perhaps back towards the corridor to the Hufflepuff common room, where she was apparently sorted.
One osseoraptor down, two to go“provided, of course, that no more bones were stolen and turned into dark creatures with quick little feet.
Snape gingerly picked up the osseoraptor by one leg. He’d pickle the thing. At least he’d have a sample. It was too late to give it back to Kettleburn as an arm bone, anyway.
Snape watched as the Bast turned the corner and went out of his sight, white tail tip disappearing last. Then he headed back towards the entrance hall, swinging the dead oseoraptor in time to his steps. The Bast, he realized as he followed her, was pleased--very pleased, not only with herself, but with him.
Maybe this year wouldn't be so bad after all.
Bast the Hunter by Spottedcat
Story Notes:
This is the second story about the Bast, a feline with wonderful qualities and beautiful spots.