2A/N: A short writing piece I did for a challenge at Scrivenshafts. It was a prompt to describe the potions classroom in detail, I wanted to do something original with it ;).
Cat Sense
By E.K. Kropp
The wide, yellow eyes of a familiar cat shined in the dark as it slinked its way through the dungeons of Hogwarts. It was very unusual to see this particular feline in this part of Hogwarts; he normally stayed in the Gryffindor tower, where his human was housed but not this night.
The half kneazle, orange tabby cat, turned a corner and peered into the absolute darkness. Crookshanks lifted his nose into the air and sniffed. There it was again, the distinct odor that he had been catching whiffs of for the past week. Crookshanks, by nature, was a very curious cat, and when something was off he just had to hunt it down and find out what it was. The new smell reminded the cat of something he had smelled before, something bitter, and foul.
Crookshanks rounded one more corner and continued to stay in the shadows, keeping both his eyes and nose out for something odd. He came to a patch of light on the stone floor and looked up, seeing a slightly ajar door. It was extremely old, made of tightly joined planks of wood.
The cat narrowed his eyes and tip-toed, almost human like, toward the ajar door. He sniffed the door and then around it, the odor was very strong now, almost over powering to his super sensitive nose. Being very careful not to make a sound, Crookshanks began to squeeze his head through the small crack in the door. His whiskers cleared through the door, and the cat was now able to see into the room.
A mix of interesting smells met the cat's nose as he took it all in. It was a salty, putrid stench, with a hint of cabbage. There were only two candles burning, one on a large, birch desk, and the other on one of the shelves at the back of the room. Even though the light was dim, the room was illuminated enough to see everything in detail. Like the rest of the dungeon, this room was also cold and damp. Wetness shined on the walls, floor, and ceiling. The floor was made of a different stone than that of the outside corridor and had a completely different quality. The room was a square shape, with a raised platform at the north facing wall. There were numerous desks all lined into neat rows, and the very large desk was sitting atop the raised platform.
The desks had all been polished by the students who had served detention there that night; but no amount of polishing would rid the wood of the many stains that painted its surface. Some were a bright purple color that seemed to jump out at you; others ranged from dull yellows, to deep blacks. Some stains covered the entire desk and others were just small splashes or drops.
He now knew what room he had sniffed to, he had detected this unique smell on his human before. It was the potions classroom. The other odor, the one that had led the cat there in the first place, was different, and he could still smell its distinctness through all the others.
Realizing that there was a room off of the potions classroom, Crookshanks began to squeeze all the way through the small crack in the door, once again trying not to make a sound. The cat seceded, and he was now entirely in the classroom; the cat stayed in the shadows as he slithered, almost snake like, around the room, always heading for the other door. He was almost there, but then something huge crawled out, coming strait toward him.
Crookshanks had never seen such a creature, it had no legs or arms, and had a thick, long body which slowly tapered off into what, Crookshanks could only assume, was a tail. Its pink, forked tongue flicked out into the air, tasting it. The cat was oddly still, as he continued to stand, his muscles tense, and his back arched. Then, the cat finally reacted when the huge thing opened its wide jaws, revealing its fangs, then it closed the powerful jaws violently with a snapping sound.
Coming to his senses, the cat streaked from the room, leaving the red eyed creature behind. He never looked back, and finally stopped when he had emerged from the dungeon. Crookshanks immediately started back for Gryffindor tower to alert his human to the evil lurking in Hogwarts.
A/N: Please review!