Harry and the Great Fuss

Harry and the Great Fuss

Harry woke up.

This in of itself wouldn't be strange, as Harry frequently slept, but this time there appeared to be a cat on him.

A cat that not only had he never seen, but one that seemed quite content to lay on Harry's stomach and not move.

The cat lazily looked into Harry's eyes, practically daring him to protest.

"M'row," said the cat.

Harry was tempted to reply, but then realized that fraternizing with the enemy was not something he ought to do.

Harry wasn't even sure if the cat was an enemy.

"Hello there. What's your name?" Harry didn't expect a reply of any sort, though he was pleasantly surprised when the cat stood up and jumped off of his bed.

"Leaving so early?" The cat sat in the sunlight from Harry's window.

Harry, as a self-appointed friend to most animals (he drew the line at Thestrals. Those creepy bone horses still reminded him of that day, and besides- they stared at him.) was disturbed by this turn of event.

Normally, something like this wouldn't bother him, but lately he has been having strange dreams, not to mention all those headaches.

Thankfully, it wasn't a scar headache.

It was darn well near enough, though.

They would stab through his head, and it was all he could do not to groan in pain most days.

He was lucky if it hit in private- it was on more than one occasion when Hermione had been with Harry, and he had had to make up a lame excuse on the fly.

He had taken to using muggle methods of getting rid of headaches.

And then there were the dreams. They were all different except for one thing: all of them were very, very strange.

Usually he couldn't remember them, but there was one dream that Harry thought he would never be able to forget, one that kept repeating.

It starts out normally enough, with him standing in a purple field, vibrant trees all around his little circle of space. Harry would stand in the middle, fearing that whatever was in the forest would find him and hunt him down. Harry usually had enough cognizant control to be aware that he was in a dream, but he could never control his limbs.

He would begin to walk, despite the feeling of dread that would come with every step closer to the forest. Purple grass beneath his bare feet, cold breezes rushing past his wild hair. He would think to himself, 'if only the forest were not so evil; I could enjoy this.'

He would keep walking, dreading, fearing, aware somehow that something with malign intentions would intercept his walk.

And it did, every time.

Out of the green trees comes a strange figure, one of moss and vines and swamp.

Why would a swamp creature be in the forest?

Harry never knew. It would always shamble closer, growing in size just as it begins to speed up.

And then Harry would awake, usually in a cold sweat.

It was on these nights that Harry missed Ginny, his late wife.

She would have known what to do.

As if sensing his increasingly depressing thoughts, the cat stood up, leaping gracefully onto Harry's window sill, flicking it's tail imperiously.

"I guess you're right... Cat. Y'know what? Cat is a terrible name. I shall call you Minnie. You should be honored, she was a very formidable woman when she was alive... What am I doing? Talking to a cat? I have better things to do."

Harry sat up, sliding out of his nice, warm, comfortable- actually, five more minutes.

Harry went back to sleep, a strange cat called Minnie watching over him.

Who is to say that dreams aren't real?

//a/n~ first chapter, written at three in the morning! Woohoo\\