Lucas Norwood was having a hard time focusing on anything the Professor was saying. Alright, so this wasn't necessarily atypical for a Friday afternoon lecture, but in his defense it wasn't the doodles in the margins of his parchment holding his attention. No, Lucas had found himself utterly fascinated by a pair of hands. The hands themselves were not particularly remarkable, at least Lucas had never noticed them to be before, so much as the increasing damage to them.

It had started earlier in the week with a very angry looking scratch that had definitely not been there before. Now, days later, the wounds had grown to the point that Lucas really could not ignore them any longer. Those were cat scratches, from a very large cat no less and no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember if he'd ever seen the hands with a cat, large or otherwise. Yet, there they were. Just there and vibrant and despite having been called back to reality a couple times Lucas decided he wasn't going to let hands get away without some kind of explanation.

Class was finally dismissed and he caught up with the hands as they were headed down the corridor. They were attached to a girl he knew in the way he knew most people in his house and year. They'd maybe talked at some point or another in the past years and they knew one another's name, but they didn't exactly spend meals together or seek each other out for paired projects. This did not stop Lucas from tugging on Evelyn Grimlish's bag to bring her to a stop.

"What're doing to yourself?"

The scratches didn't bother her. She knew how to treat them, and she had, though she didn't trust modern potioneering enough to use any of those textbook tricks to heal them completely. They didn't hurt. They didn't even sting. That didn't make them any less angry and red and ominous to look upon, however. It was an aesthetic choice, she thought, leaving them there for all to see. Evelyn wasn't at all ashamed of the scratches, and she felt no need to hide them – even the long, thin trail of scratches on the side of her face, startlingly close to her right eye, was in plain sight, only hidden behind a few strands of hair. Her hands and arms were the worst, though, completely covered with pink and red slashes, some in unfortunate locations like her knuckles, which caused them to spontaneously begin to bleed when she flexed her hand to write or perform spellwork. She didn't think anyone noticed, and if they noticed, she doubted they cared. This was, after all, Evie Grimlish, whose dresses were often covered in clay and ink on a good day.

She wasn't thinking about them. Not during class, and not after, once they'd been dismissed and she'd begun heading back toward the dorms. Though she looked like she'd been wrestling a tiger, the creature who was causing those scratches was actually far smaller than your average house cat. It seemed to be a full kneazle, as far as she could tell, which made the creature slightly wild and entirely illegal. It really was a tiny thing, though its nails were far too long, and she thought the poor creature might be having difficulty retracting them. Half of those cuts on her body hadn't been caused maliciously. As far as anyone could tell, the kneazle seemed smitten with Evie, which wasn't surprising since she'd been sent to him by the cosmos. The trouble was, he was definitely semi-feral, and was not yet remotely excited by the prospect of petting, let alone nail trimming. It was going to be a long road and, so far, that road required a lot of unfortunate blood letting. The kneazle itself was on her mind as she took up her things and headed for the door, but the scratches weren't. Needless to say, her classmate's question caught her off guard.

”What're doing to yourself?”

Evie looked up at him with her brown, almond eyes, her face a nearly expressionless mask. She was waiting for the rest of the question since, as it stood, she hadn't a single clue what he was talking about.  Honestly, she was more concerned with the fact that he'd been tugging on her knapsack and, once it was clear that he'd already asked the whole question, she was quick to check it, just in case he'd loosened a buckle.

 “What?” she asked softly, several full seconds after he'd posed the question, which made it unclear whether or not she'd actually heard the question at all. The scratches still hadn't popped into her mind as a source of curiosity. After all, she'd been collecting them for days! Evie just kept on staring at him, waiting for him to either elaborate or get bored and walk away.  That was usually how it went.

Evelyn didn't answer right away and for a second, he was convinced he'd started the conversation at the wrong point. It wouldn't be the first time he's excitedly jumped into a topic without any sort of polite greeting. Generally his closer friends let this sort of thing slide, or, at the very least reminded him to do so. He and Evelyn weren't all that close, he had to remind himself, and decided some backpedaling might be needed.

"Sorry," Lucas offered when she started fidgeting with her bag. "Hey," he tried instead, but it was all at once obvious that Evelyn didn't really have any sort of clue what he was asking her about in the first place. "It's just your hands," he lifted his own. "They're all banged up and..." Blue eyes had fallen to the lines on the side of her face that he hadn't seen while consumed with studying her hands during class. Admittedly, Lucas had not spent a lot of time looking at Evelyn's face to have it perfectly memorized, but he would venture to guess that those did not belong there either. "And... your face," he studied it a bit, reaching a hand to brush back the hair to get a better look before he thought better of it and traced the place on his own face. "What've you gotten into?"

Evie look down at her hands – first studying the scratched up tops of them, then flipping them over to glance at the mostly unaffected undersides. She was still staring down at them, much like she'd never seen them before, when Lucas moved like he was going to touch her. Evie completely missing the attempt and his subsequent bail out, only looking up in time to catch him gesturing to the side of his face, in the same spot where her new facial embellishments were located. Ah, so that's what he was asking about! She still wasn't sure why he was so concerned with scratches of all things. Perhaps she was still feeling intruded upon after a certain housemate of theirs had taken it upon himself to fuss over her chest cold not two weeks back. Had all of her housemates developed a sudden fascination with her health? Maybe the Ravenclaw boys all gathered around at night and had secret meetings about whether or not they could get away with slipping vitamin supplements into her tea. Perhaps she should have been flattered.

”What've you gotten into?”

“It's nothing,” she responded, returning her knapsack to her shoulders, satisfied that he hadn't done anything unforgivable to the vessel that held the majority of her important possessions. “I met a cat that wasn't very fond of me,” she semi-fibbed as she continued walking along, giving him the option to either follow her toward the Ravenclaw dorms or get left behind. The scratches had been caused by a cat – or a feline, in any case – and it certainly hadn't been happy with her in the moment that he lashed out, but it wasn't a random meeting, or even an isolated incident. She just wasn't entirely sure that she wanted it getting out that she was harboring a furry fugitive, and she knew that most of her classmates didn't have the same faith in the whims of the universe as she did. They wouldn't understand why she had a responsibility to the creature. Lucas in particular had never struck Evie as especially reverent in that regard, though she didn't know him well enough to say for sure.

Evie examined her hands as if she was seeing their battered state for the first time. Luc himself probably had at least three bruises on his person at any given point in time, but he figured he'd be hard pressed to forget about his hands like that. His knuckles had started to itch a bit just by studying them so acutely during class and he was resisting the urge to scratch at them. Understanding finally crept across Evelyn's features and if she'd noticed his aborted attempted at touching her, she didn't let on. That was just as well, though he didn't feel embarrassed by having thought of doing so, he might have if she reacted badly to it.

Evie moved her bag back to it's proper place and dismissed the wounds as nothing. She'd met a cat that didn't care for her, she continued on as she started moving down the hall. Under different circumstances, Lucas might be a little confused as to why a girl would be walking away while they were still talking. Instead, Luc was too curious to be confused about such a thing and instead followed after her. They were headed the same place after all, might as well walk with her to try to figure this out.

"You met them more than once," Luc said, "Some of it's healed up more than others," he explained his thought process behind his statement. "I've got a cat, if you need some supplies or help with anything."

Truthfully, Evie didn't have any “cat supplies.” She'd been improvising a lot, getting the cat's meal from the kitchens (he needed the luxury and the extra calories, and Evie herself didn't have any other way to prepare meat, which she didn't eat herself), and making many decisions based on instinct and book knowledge. She'd prepared a few tiny herbal poultices, which she'd been using to treat the kneazle's superficial wounds, and she'd been using acquired knowledge to try and fix the poor creature's gimpy leg. Most wizards, used to instantaneous healing, didn't know a thing about patience, but Evie's cruelty-free unctions and remedies required much time and tweaking. It was certainly a project, but it was important, and she was in no rush.

“Thank you,” Evie responded simply and softly, keeping her eyes pointed ahead while she thought about what she might say to him. It seemed she had been caught. Granted, she wasn't actually trying to hide the kneazle, just keep it under wraps. She didn't want any of the classmates who'd arbitrarily decided they disliked her to get suspicious and tattle. If there was one thing Evie didn't want, it was to have her things searched through and ripped apart. Having come from nothing, the witch's relationship to objects was a strange and sacred thing, and the idea of some prefect rifling through her belongings in search of something that might incriminate her made her want to vomit. Lucas had never seemed to hate her, though. He never seemed to care about her one way or the other which, frankly, she preferred. That was her life philosophy, too – read everything, hurt nothing, and mind your own business.

“His nails are incredibly long,” she said finally, deciding it couldn't hurt to share a few non-specific details with this particular inoffensive classmate. She'd stay vague for now. Unlike her brother, Evie knew how to keep some things quiet. “He's skittish, and I'd like to use as little force as possible when dealing with him, but he doesn't trust yet trust me completely,” she went on. Everything she'd said was the truth, even if it wasn't the entire truth. Would that be enough information for him?

“I've treated the scratches and they don't hurt,” she added as an afterthought. “It is going to take time.”

This was probably the longest conversation he'd had with Evelyn and even then, he'd be hard pressed to actually describe this as a conversation. Evie wasn't looking at him as she spoke, nor was she speaking very loudly either. She had, however, stopped blowing him off and was giving him something to actually work with. She kept it vague, leaving him to read between the lines of the sparse details she'd given. Whatever she was up to with this cat was fairly new and she didn't really want to talk about it. His nails were long and would probably remain that way until the cat trusted Evie more. That might take a while and probably even long before the cat allowed Evie to trim his nails.

"I've got some nail clippers, if you need them," he offered. Evie had treated the scratches, she told him. They didn't hurt anymore, which relieved the itching, but probably wouldn't relieve their distracting nature anytime soon. "That's good," he nodded a bit. "And I meant what I said about the help, it's hard to hold a cat and clip it's nails at the same time if they're skittish like that."

Evie was slowly warming up to Lucas, even daring to turn her head and make eye contact for a change. The other Ravenclaw seemed to be an animal lover, which was usually enough to make Evie like just about anybody. Some of the kindest people still occasionally stomped on spiders right in front of her face, though, which meant she'd had to broaden her definition of 'animal lover' quite a bit over the years. Evelyn's standards for others weren't nearly as high as the standards she held for herself in regards to the humane treatment of all creatures great and small, so both his obvious love for his own cat and his willingness to help an animal he'd never met were both enough to endear him to her. Though she was still secretive in all things, she was willing to share a little more for his benefit.

“He's injured. That's why handling him is difficult. He is getting better, but I'm not certain what hurts him and what doesn't,” she explained, making limited and fleeting eye contact as she continued down the corridor. She paused, but only for a moment, still trying to determine what was safe to divulge, even to someone with good intentions. “I don't want to use magic against him because he doesn't have that advantage and I don't believe it would be fair.” That was to preempt the 'why don't you just stun it?' question she always got from her brother.  He was also sensitive, but a different sort of sensitive than Evie was, and so far he didn't seem as wild about her kneazle rehabilitation project as she did. It was very frustrating when the one person she might have trusted to help her wasn't entirely on her team.

There was another long and thoughtful pause before she turned toward him, looked at him head on, and asked, tentatively, “Would you like to see him?”

Lucas must have said something right. Later, he'd be awake half the night trying to figure out exactly what, but in this exact moment, he couldn't help the smile that tugged on the corners of his mouth when he caught Evie's eyes with his own. Up to then, he'd decided that maybe he shouldn't be digging into business he obviously wasn't invited into. He'd give her the nail clippers during dinner and let the ball be in her court from there. Lucas knew what it was to feel harrassed and he really didn't want Evie feeling that way. Now, well, she'd loosened the mysterious mask just a bit to give him a peak inside.

She stopped and started several times as she spoke and Lucas listened, biting his lip a bit to keep from drowning her with all the questions bubbling up in his head. How was the cat injured,  he wanted go ask. Where had she found him? Evie already had an answer to his obvious solution to this and while he understood her point of view, he had to push down his argument to the contrary. Stunning the cat would be for his own good, but saying as much probably wouldn't win him any points.

All of the swirling questions and their progress down the corridor came to a stop when Evie turned to him and asked something he wasn't sure he heard right. Did he want to see the cat? "Hell yeah," he blurted out automatically. "I'd like that," he added.

Evie was a bit like a cat herself in a few small but significant ways. It always took her a bit of time to get used to new people, and even individuals she knew but hadn't spent much time with were subject to her skittishness and scrutiny. There were exceptions, of course, just like the ones actual cats were known to make on occasion. There was always the very rare person she met and instantly adored, for example, though it had been a very long time since she'd met one of those. Once she was comfortable, however, no matter how long it took her to get to that point, Evie wasted no time cozying up. It had happened fairly quickly with Lucas – perhaps because she wasn't really meeting him for the first time – but she had accepted him, and while her regular quirks and neuroses were on display, as always, she seemed infinitely more comfortable now. It wasn't anything he'd done. He'd simply passed an arbitrary test with equally arbitrary criteria that Evelyn alone was capable of scoring – arbitrarily, of course.

”Hell yeah. I'd like that.”

Flashing Lucas the briefest of grins, Evie stopped dead in her tracks and glanced around, almost as though she thought they were being followed. There were others in the corridor, of course – they hadn't been the only Ravenclaws in class that afternoon, and there were only so many ways to get back to Ravenclaw tower efficiently – but she didn't even glance at them as she looked around. “He's in the dorms right now, but you won't be able to come into the room,” she explained. She was trying to scout out a possible location where she might privately introduce her kneazle to him, but every alternate location she could think of seemed incredibly impractical. The tiny cat, with his super sharp claws, had made it abundantly obvious that he wasn't fond of being carried long distances, even by his cosmic soulmate.

“Would it be alright if I met you in the boys' dorms?” she asked him. She was in there frequently enough anyway, given that her brother lived in there, and nobody ever seemed to mind. She'd even spent the night in there a few days ago, back when she'd still been nursing that terrible cough. Granted, she hadn't exactly asked permission then – she'd simply fallen asleep on top of his covers before anyone apart from Avalon came in for the night – but nobody had seemed angry, so she'd taken the lack of comment as consent. “I'd like to keep him contained. Elijah's bed should be fine, or your own.” The fact that the sixth year Ravenclaw prefect position had yet to be filled didn't hurt, either. The chances of getting caught for her minor crime would be far lower in there. It seemed like the best solution to the problem. She looked to him for an answer before she continued walking again, just in case he were to refuse and she'd have to scout out somewhere different.   

Evie grinned, and in that brief moment it did something to her face that Luc couldn't quite put his finger on, but it definitely caught him off guard. All at once she was a bit brighter, a bit open, a bit pretty. Not that she wasn't attractive before or anything, he'd just never noticed it quite in that way before that exact second in time. And just like that, it was over and the thought slipped away with it.

Luc glanced around when Evie did, the act itself was contagious although he was unsure if they were looking out for anyone in particular or simply everyone in general. Whatever secrets were involved with this cat had his adrenaline starting up and his hands suddenly needed something to keep them occupied as a result. He stuffed his thumbs beneath the straps of his backpack and hoped that rushing back to the tower and to wherever Evie was keeping her mysterious friend would burn off some of the ever growing energy. Except, Evie apparently had the creature up in the dorms.

"Oh, okay." Luc nodded a bit as that bit of information registered. Evie's solution to the immediate and very obvious problem was that she should come to the boys dorm. For whatever reason still unknown to himself, or anyone else, girls could come and go freely. It wouldn't be the first time Evie'd been in their dorm, but being in to see him was a lot different than being in to see her brother. He didn't really know how Elijah might feel about such a thing, but having a sister of his own did make him hesitate just the slightest bit. It was short lived. Without waiting for an answer as to which bed this would take place, Evie started off down the corridor again and Lucas jumped to an answer without further thought.

"Mine's fine," he told her, catching up with her again. "I'll meet you in there." He pushed forward and made it into the Ravenclaw common room, giving a vague wave to friends on the couches as he bee lined to his room. He wasn't overly messy, but he did have what could only be described as controlled chaos going atop all the surfaces that belonged to him. The least he could do was clear off his bed and find some treats, right?

Evelyn didn't read anything into Luc's incredibly quick insistence that she should meet him on his bed in the boy's dorms. She was thinking of kneazles, not anything more nefarious than that. Although she had recently begun to make some explorations into the less casually discussed pleasures of the human experience by reading some slightly racy novels that had her fascinated, the girl still had never been kissed, and her mind just didn't go there unless explicitly prompted. Cats were just cats, bed were just convenient meeting spaces, and entering a boy's room was just a kind of visit. She nodded in agreement, suggesting that the location would be fine, and started down the hall again, keeping in step with him. As soon as they entered the tower, however, they took off in opposite directions as she headed up to her own dorm.

When she arrived, the kneazle was right where she expected him to be – the place he often lingered while she was out of the dorms. The universe seemed to suggest that the creature's name was Shadow, because that was what he'd been referred to as in Elijah's prophecy, but the tiny, beat up creature didn't seem much like a Shadow to her. Once he'd been cleaned up his fur was actually quite light in color, more of a pale buff than anything, with gorgeous light brown markings that had been difficult to see while he was still a matted, dirty ragamuffin living on his own.  Evie had once been a ragamuffin, too, and still kept a hoard of food under her bed due to some residual neuroses about going hungry. The kneazle guarded her hoard, day in and day out, sitting in front of the collection of foodstuffs like a tiny, amber eyed dragon. She'd begun calling him The Dragon in communication with her brother. It made for an excellent code name, but was also far more fitting as a given name, too.

He emerged from his den as soon as he sensed her coming near. His nose had a raw spot where there was some fur missing, his gait was still a bit off, and he was certainly still skinny, but he was looking well otherwise, and she was proud of her progress. His ears were huge, his tail beautifully tufted, and his patterning distinct, making it clear that he was no ordinary house cat. He walked figure eights around her ankles, claiming her as his, but she knew that if she tried petting him he'd grow ornery and lash out. She had no choice, however. Evie bent down to gather up the blanket she'd laid down below his favorite spot – the same blanket she'd wrapped him in when she'd carried him back to the dorm initially. She dropped it on him from above, gathered him up, and carried him with one hand on his scruff. He couldn't do much harm with his paws covered up, but he still made quite a racket as she quickly carried the bundle of cat into the boys dorm and set him down immediately on what she knew to be Lucas's bed. The kneazle fought his way out of the blanket and sat down, looking vaguely irritated.

“He's a kneazle,” she said to Lucas, pointing out the obvious fact before he could call her on her fib from earlier. “I can't be certain, but I think he was abandoned, as kneazles don't get lost. They are far too intelligent,” she explained as the cat eyed them both warily. There was some truth to that old wizarding nursery rhyme, 'He said to be gone, so it jumped in the pond, and he followed his kneazle home.' They were feisty, loyal, and always knew how to get back to where they began. “Do you see where his leg is funny?” she asked, pointing out the spot, but not daring to come within striking range for the moment. “I think it must be an old injury. It's proving very resistant to healing.”

Lucas had just retrieved the treats from beneath a hastily discarded pile of clothes when Evelyn came in bearing a bundle of fabric. She wasted no time in setting the pile onto his bed and Lucas slowly moved to stand beside her as they waited for the cat to work it's way out. The creature that finally found it's way out of the squirming blanket was definitely not a cat.  Kneazles were the sort of creatures that were likened to cats, so much so that they could breed, but they were two very different species. You didn't just find a kneazle, much less keep one even if you did. Suddenly all of Evie's evasiveness made sense, suddenly all the secrecy had a point to it  and Luc's mouth opened and closed a few times while he tried to fine words.

"Is that-- what are you--" Complete sentences were not going to happen right away, obviously and Evie was quick to supply what he was trying to say. He wouldn't tell anyone, he simply wanted to understand. "But, how?" It simply didn't make sense for Evie to come across such a creature, and yet here he was, on Luc's bed and looking very perturbed at that. Evie was convinced that he'd been abandoned and seemed to have a previous injury that she hadn't quite figured out. Luc watched the kneazle limp a bit and considered it. "It might be healed over already," Lucas told her and he watched the kneazle utterly fascinated. "He's bearing weight," he explained. "If it was bothering him, he probably wouldn't. Does he bathe that leg more than other areas?"

It was then that Luc remembered the bag of cat treats in his hand and opened them, holding the newly opened end toward the kneazle to inspect. "What's his name?"

“It is a very long story,” Evie offered in response to his confusion over how she'd acquired this scrappy creature. She knew that it wasn't a remotely satisfying answer, but she just wasn't sure what else to say. The last thing she wanted to do was out Elijah as a seer. If her brother wanted the school to know then  he would tell people on his own time. It wasn't her business to do so, and she she didn't intend to. It may have been better to say nothing at all. Evie herself loved stories – long stories in particular – and she would have been frustrated if someone had tried using that tactic on her. She thought for a moment, her mind tracing over exactly what she could say that was within her rights to admit. After a moment of standing back and watching her grumpy feline, she spoke. “It isn't my story to tell, but I have reason to believe that taking him in was very important.” She felt better about that answer. It was true and side stepped any betrayal, which was the best she could hope to do.

”It might be healed over already. He's bearing weight. "If it was bothering him, he probably wouldn't. Does he bathe that leg more than other areas?”

“He favors the other legs,” she explained, “I'm not sure if it hurts or if it is just difficult to walk on. The angle is a bit odd,” she went on, still keeping her distance from the kneazle on the bed. He was likely still feeling threatened and she didn't want to upset him by getting in his space so soon after catnapping him. “When he had open sores he licked them quite a bit, but I've been using poultices on and off lately and the sores have all healed nicely.” It was promising to see. He still had that scrape on his face, and the leg was still an issue, but he looked so much better than he had on the day she'd found him. He definitely wouldn't win any beauty contests now, but he'd place a lot higher today than he would have as recently as a week ago. “I received most of the scratches changing the poultices,” she explained. It had been worth it – though if she were smart, she'd apply some poultices of her own.

Evelyn watched in silence as Luc offered the grumpy cat some treats. She didn't have anything fancy like that to give him – though one might argue that the real meat she'd been procuring from the kitchens was practically a banquet compared to the wet food these creatures were often fed. She was curious to see if he'd be interested. After all, a nice meal was lovely, but sometimes you just wanted something special for afters. The kneazle stepped forward slowly, as if he were stalking the bag of treats, then stuck his head close by and took a sniff. He lifted one of his good front paws and batted at the bag, very clearly displaying interest in the contents. Evie smiled for just a moment, amused to see this feline acting like a proper cat. When the kneazle produced a mewling sound, she actually laughed outright.

“He doesn't have a proper name, but I call him Dragon. That might be his name. I'm not certain,” she explained as the gutsy creature shoved his nose into the bag. “He likes to sit sentry, guarding my things, and when you see his eyes glowing in the dark, it's easy to imagine a very small dragon hiding under the bed. He has the spirit of a dragon, and at the moment he also has the claws.”

"I have nothing but time," Lucas told her and meant it. Whatever essays or studying there was to be done could absolutely wait for such a tale. Not even quidditch practice or any other favored hobby could drag him away at a time like this. It might be a very long story, but it also wasn't hers to tell. That didn't seem fair. She'd invited him this far into the secret, it seemed only right to let him in on the whole thing. For whatever reason though, taking in the very illegal kneazle was very important. "Well, you couldn't leave him abandoned," Lucas agreed.

The angle of his leg was a bit odd, Evie explained, and the kneazle tended to favor the other legs. The wounds she'd been treating made it hard to tell if the gimpy leg was infected, but those had healed up well enough. With maybe some damage to the nurse.

 "You did amazing," Lucas said with a glance in her direction. It was hard to look anywhere but the kneazle right now, even when they were talking. "It's hard to tell without touching him," Lucas admitted. And it was true, he could make all kinds of guesses and offer all kinds of fixes, but he could only go off what he knew from his mum. Even then, animals were very different than humans and Evie had made it clear that spelling him wasn't an option.

The kneazle took interest in Luc's brown paper bag of cat treats and Luc couldn't help but laugh a bit with Evie. "Dragon's a good name," Lucas decided after a moment, pulling the bag away from the kneazle's face to shake out a few treats onto the comforter in front of him. "We can fix the claws if we get him wrapped up again. In a towel or a jumper, maybe." He didn't want to try to fight the folds of fabric of the blanket Evie had brought him in.