Mercedes hustled around her room, cleaning and organizing her things, she unfolded and refolded clothes. She would not be spending her Saturday sitting idly like some of her other classmates on a Saturday. Beside, at home Saturday was always cleaning day, anything and everything in the Irish Manor was dusted, mopped, swept, brushed, and bathed.

Ivy, Sadie's cat slept on the bed, curled in a furry cinnamon roll, her tail swinging out every few minutes. Sadie cooed at her softly, "Who's a good kitty? Ivy's a good kitty.", brushing her head with her hands. After, wiping down the wood, folding all of the clothes in her trunk, ironing a few shirts and, finally making her bed, Mercedes sat down with her flute and sheet music and started to play[1]. Ivy slunk down from her spot on Sadie's trunk to come and curl up by Mercedes feet.

Mercedes' lips eventually got dry, so she moved on to some homework. She did homework by order of her schedule. She did Charms, Defense, Transfiguration, Astronomy, then Potions. She particularly loved potions homework, she was very familiar with potions, the only magic she could do without getting expelled, at home. Her essay on burn-healing paste was going quite well.

After homework was done, their was still hours before lunch time, Sadie played her flute some more and started to clean it, when the the sound of footsteps came trotting up the stairs.

1.	]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PeIarkSQgg]

Fresh from the shower and smelling of sea-salt, Dione trotted up the stairs. She looked impeccable, of course. Saturday mornings were a time to pamper oneself, washing away the strain of a long week. She'd spent most of the morning in the girl's bath, taking her time, enjoying the warm water and the quiet of a morning when most people slept in. Now, cloaked in a perfect set of Slytherin green and silver, she missed only one thing -- her translation artifact, which she'd left in the dorm to avoid steam damage.

She arrived in their bedroom to find Mercedes with her flute, again. Dione examined her roommate evenly. The Posadas were of acceptable pureblood stock, not nearly as powerful as her own but worth the time of getting to know, and Mercedes had an edge to her that Rico Posada quite simply did not. If Dione had a worthy peer, Mercedes seemed the most likely.

Offering her a nod of greeting, Dione strode past Sadie, knowing that there would be little point in attempting to converse until she had the artifact in place. But to her horror, she arrived at her bed stand to find that her choker was missing. The artifact would not work without all three pieces together. Without it, Dione would be lucky if anyone in school could understand her at all.

She whirled on her roommate, signing frantically even though there was no way for Sadie to know what she said. "Sadie, it is gone. My necklace, gone. Need it. Have you seen? Where?"

Mercedes like her roommate, she was quiet. Sadie had taken a few hours of her time since September to learn the alphabet and a few basic words. She slightly felt sorry for Dione, a witch frozen in her own head. Mercedes felt terrible, considering she could communicate in more than just one way. Her Metamorphic powers were another form in themselves. Mercedes knew that Dione came from a noble pureblood line and that she would want to be taken seriously, despite her exceptionally.

Dione's hands were flapping quickly and urgently. Sadie looked up from her flute polishing. Her eyes grew wide and her iris' turned a bright yellow. Dione looked almost to the point of tears, signing with all of her being. By the look in Sayer's eyes, Sadie instantly new something horrible had happened.

She rose from her chair and placed her flute down on the table next to her. Ivy lept up and bounded onto the bed. "What happened, what's wrong? Tell me slowly." She said wiggling her fingers for "fingerspell"

Dione curled her fingers in annoyance, but managed to reign in her frustration. It wouldn't do any good, getting mad at Sadie. She didn't have any reason to take the translation artifact, or even part of it. Dione stretched her hands to clear the board, took a deep breath, and began to spell, slowly.

A-R-T-I-F-A-C-T. --She held up her hands, their backs turned to Sadie so she could clearly see the absence of the white-silver, chain-link web. -- C-H-O-K-E-R. G-O-N-E. -- Her fingers alighted briefly against the small of her throat, right above the ruined vocal cords, where the gem usually sat to give her words voice. -- W-A-S. T-H-E-R-E. -- She pointed to the bed stand -- S-E-E-N?

That took a painfully long time. If Sadie still didn't get it, Dione might just forget her manners and kick her in the shin out of frustration and spite.

Sadie could tell that Dione was having more than a little trouble with her slowness. She squinted her eyes as she read Sayer's hands. Her necklace was gone, now that was an issue.

Mercedes had grown accustomed to the sight of the gem sitting on her roommates throat and she was surprised that Dione wasn't making accusations, everyone else would have pointed fingers at her first. Mercedes rushed over to her fellow Slytherins 4 poster and started looking around.

She pulled up the sheets, she looked under the pillows, in the desk, on the chairs, the bedstand, and finally under the bed. The choker was no where to be seen, and Sadie was growing frantic now. She pulled open the doors of the wardrobe that she and Dione shared, zip, zilch, nada.

Then she looked at Dio, then at the girl's trunk, she dug into that until, her hand hit the bottom, nothing. He looked in the wastepaper basket.

"Where else could it be?" She asked Dione.

When they'd first been assigned the room, Dione had come up with basic signs to cover all her roommates' names. It was much easier than trying to finger-spell them every time she wanted their attention. Mercedes's had been the easiest to create, formed from two signs in rapid succession: SAY-D.

Now Dione found herself repeating the combo over and over, trying in vain to get Mercedes' attention as she tore up the room. The more furiously Sadie looked, the more upset Dione felt herself getting. There was no sign of the thing. Even if they could, who on earth would take it? It was worthless without the rest of the artifact. The only possible purpose was a prank too cruel for even the foulest mudblood.

A soft mew from the bed drew her attention. Dione glanced down at Sadie's cat, who watched her owner's search with bewildered curiosity. A thought struck Dione like a slap-hex: Cats liked stringed objects, especially ones that made noise the way a chain would when rattled. Perhaps Sadie's cat had a nest of its own, somewhere?

When Sadie turned back to her, Dione made the sign for 'cat', then remembered that Sadie probably couldn't read that one. She switched to finger-spell -- C-A-T -- and pointed to Ivy with a questioning shrug.

Cat?

Cat!

 Ivy!

Mercedes looked at her kitten quizzically. Ivy hopped down from her perch on Mercedes' bed and slunk underneath the box spring. Under her own bed, a place Mercedes hadn't cleaned and hadn't thought of.Mercedes got down on her knees, and placed her black hair down on the floor she had just swept and stuck her hand under the bed. Ivy hissed and batted her paw at her mistress' hand.

"Gato loco" Mercedes hissed as she grabbed Ivy's collar and dragged her from underneath the fourposter. Ivy hissed and spat as she sat up on the bed, clawing the comforter. Mercedes felt around under the bed until her hand found a fuzzy lump, not just one lump, but five fizzy, fuzzy lumps. Mercedes put her head down on the floor and saw what her hand had touched.

Five sleeping kittens laid on Sadie's Slytherin scarf and a few centimeters from the nest, was the choker. Sadie pulled the choker by the string and put it on the bed spread above her, without looking. Bringing her hand back down, she gently pulled the scarf  towards her.

The orange and grey kittens eyes were closed and they purred almost silently. Mercedes put her hands underneath the scarf and raised the kittens on the bed.

"Dione!" Mercedes said excitedly "Gatitos pequenos!" She summoned Sayer with her hand, not taking her eyes of the balls of fur than slept in front of her.

Dione snatched her choker as soon as it appeared on Mercedes' bed. Relief flooded through her as she snapped the familiar silver chain back into its proper place. To think that other students joked so liberally about 'losing' their voices. She'd have to be more careful from now on, maybe locking it up at night so no stray cat or bird could reach it.

She'd barely managed to fasten the clasp before Mercedes squealed, dragging something more from under the bed. Dione blinked down at the little fuzzballs. Kittens? In their dorm? That was...unexpected, to say that least.

Dione knelt on the other side of Sadie's bed, leaning over for a closer look at the baby cats. She'd never seen such tiny creatures before. They seemed so vulnerable, curled into their tiny balls on Mercedes's scarf and shaking as though they'd never been so exposed in all their short lives.

She signed, 'Do you think they are from your cat?' then remembered that she hadn't put on the other two pieces of her artifact, so Sadie couldn't understand. Dione waved to catch Sadie's eye and pointed to Ivy again, quirking her head to ask the question. H-E-R-S? H-O-W?

Sadie caressed each and every kitten, rubbing their tiny little heads. Ivy had come and wrapped herself around the kittens. Dione waved, just in her line of view. "Hmm?" She squinted at Dione's hand.

 ''Hers? How?''

"I don't know, I guess Taco[1] and Ivy got a little busy before we came to school..." She smiled. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't hear them or anything! Do you want one? Pick one!" Sadie said gesturing at the kittens, their eyes barely opening, they must have been there for at least a week!

Sadie was filed with a warm, fuzzy feeling, she only got on her birthday and on Christmas, a fuzzy warm, kitten feeling.

1.	Rico's cat

Want one? Pick one?

Dione stared like a doe in the proverbial headlights. She'd never had a pet before. Never even considered it. There'd never been time, between physical therapy and Auntie's lessons and her tutoring before school. They'd even had to get rid of their birds after her accident, because hearing the creatures sing when she could not upset her.

She glanced down at the gaggle of kittens, hesitant and -- though she would never admit it -- a little afraid. Slowly, she stretched out her hand and, after pausing a moment at Ivy's warning hiss, stroked each of the kitten's heads, as Sadie had done. Each made a tiny squeaking noise as it was stroked, except for the last, a tiny gray ball of fluff on the very edge. Dione gathered the kitten in both hands, held it gently, and listened. She could feel its purr rumbling her palms, but it made no sound. She leaned her ear close. Still, nothing.

It hadn't been hurt, like her. Perhaps it was only a quiet cat. But that would be enough.

Dione carefully replaced the kitten, pointed to it, then to herself. She offered Sadie a small smile -- a silent 'thank you' -- and turned away, retrieving the last two parts of her artifact. She slipped them on as quickly as possible and crossed her wrists over her throat to turn it on. "I have never had a pet. Is Ivy all right? She seems so young to have children."

Mercedes watched as Dione petted each kitten trying to decide which she really wanted. She gestured at the one grey kitten in the litter, the back at her.

"Somehow, I knew you would pick that one" She grabbed Ivy, and stroked her head and her neck. Ivy watched the kittens, while purring contently.

"I have never had a pet. Is Ivy all right? She seems so young to have children."

"Well we adopted her before we came, owls are disgusting, never wanted one, but the people at the shelter said that she was at least three and fully mature, so I guess it's fine," Mercedes poked and prodded her cat for irregularities. "I don't see anything wrong. I'm not a vet though, I think she'll be fine. She's just in full mother mode."

She looked at the kittens on the scarf as they explored the new terrain that was her bed. They toddled and tipped, the grey one, sitting and looking at Di, swaying it's tail. "I think it likes you." She gently turned the kitten around for a gender check. "Well, what are you going to name it?"

Dione stroked the kitten's head with one finger, weary of how tiny it was, how easy it would be to break it -- break her. The kitten closed its eyes and, for the first time, Dione understood what people meant by a 'cat-like smile.' She contemplated the name for a while. It had to be simple enough that she could sign it, but still suit her new pet.

"Echo." She decided finally, thinking of the Grecian nymph who'd lost her voice. The kitten cracked open one eye and stared up from under her hand. Dione took that as a sign of approval.

Another toddling kitten tripped on the scarf, falling into Echo. Dione couldn't help it. She giggled, shoulders shaking silently as she covered her mouth with one hand. Too cute. "What will happen to the others? You keep?"

"I think that's perfect." Mercedes said, looking at the fog colored kitten. "I think I'll have to give them to anyone that wants one, as long as they aren't going to turn it into a sock or something." Sadie thought of what the older kids would transfigure them into.

"Maybe it would be a better idea to give them to people I know, do you think anyone would want them?" Mercedes picked up a kitten, it was covered in small orange patches, and it's ears and tummy were bright white. "I like to name things," She said to the cat. "So I am going to name you... Mantequilla[1]" Sadie scratched under her chin. "Yes, I think that will do."

Sadie put down the orange kitten and scooped up another kitten, it was a black kitten with lighter grey stripes. Mercedes turned to kitten to face Dione. "What do you think?"

1.

Butter

Dione quirked her head at the odd choice for the second kitten's name. She tried to finger-spell the odd word experimentally, but it came out as gibberish. Stupid foreign words. They were almost as bad as the Latin passwords some fool prefect kept choosing for the Slytherin entryway.

Echo padded a bit closer to Dion and curled up into a ball on the bedclothes. Sadie held another kitten out -- black with gray stripes -- and Dione covered her mouth hesitantly before she signed an answer. "I am not good at naming things." It was a difficult thing to do when you couldn't actually speak and were limited mostly to existing words.

She eyed the kitten uncertainly. It yawned in her face and pawed at its eyes. "Morpheus." The word sounded strange when the artifact tried to pronounce it, so she tried again, making it shorter and more kitten-like with two motions. "Morph-ee. How old."

The thought occurred to her out of the blue. She didn't know much about animals, but she knew that babies didn't leave their mothers until a certain age. Ivy seemed calm enough now, but she'd started to pace as though she wanted to round up her wandering litter. Were the kittens even old enough to leave their mother's side?

"Morphee? Yes, your a very facial kitten aren't you?" Sadie pulled out of her father's Spanish accent and into her mother's Irish one. She scruffed up the top of the kittens head with her forefinger. "They must be at least a week old, I still can't believe they were here the whole time and I didn't even notice!" Sadie rubbed her hand on her face in thought.

"We'll have to wait at least another week or two until we can separate them, I don't think she'll have a problem though. Anyways, before Rico and I adopted our cats, Rico pulled all of his animal reference books from the shelves and we read all about them, these are filthy muggle books though, I don't know why my brother finds them amusing, the pictures don't move at all."

She was boring herself. "Sorry...rambling, so cats are normally fine with separation, like, uh, lions. The alpha-male lion chases off the younger males as soon as they get old enough to be a threat, I don't know if that would happen with domestic animals, but, maybe." Sadie mentally told herself to shut up.

"So, do you think any first years would want one?"