Title: Vermin
Author: kbk
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling, not me. Not getting paid.
Notes: Inspired by my step-mother's cats, which insisted on bringing in small half-dead animals while I was sitting reading fic in the early hours of the morning and everyone else was asleep so I had to deal with them. And this was a tiny slice of domesticity which became very angsty. As things do around me.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?" she yelled in reply.

"Your damn cat just brought in another dead animal," said her husband in a dry voice. He had been opposed to her little menagerie, but agreed when she took full responsibility for them - which included corpses.

"So sort it out, Ron, I'm busy."

"It's your cat!"

"Fine." Hermione stalked into the kitchen and grabbed her cat by the scruff of its neck. "Bad thing," she scolded as she rescued the creature.

"It was giving you a present, you know," Ron chided. She glared at him, and he wisely shut up.

"It's a ferret," she announced as she inspected the thing. It struggled weakly in her grasp as she held it up for inspection. "I should check Brock's all right. Kill it for me, would you?"

"Hermione... it could be somebody's pet."

"Honestly, Ron, if it was then there would surely be some sort of identification on it. It's vermin. Deal with it."

Ron watched as Hermione left the room with cat in arms, and shook his head a little. She always got so tense in the run-up to exams - and she wasn't even sitting these ones. He looked at the ferret he held.

"Bedraggled wee thing, aren't you?" he said. "I'd put you out, but you won't be healing from that in a hurry." He knew far too much about injury and death, he thought. "It won't hurt a bit, all right?"

He placed the shivering animal on the floor and cast a quiet Killing Curse on it before gathering up the corpse. He took it to the bottom of the garden and placed it carefully under a bush. "Everything dies, mate," he murmured sympathetically, before straightening and heading back to the house.

A raucous cry caught his attention and he stopped, looking up to see a hawk wheeling overhead before diving to land at his feet. Before he could react, the bird shimmered and disappeared, leaving Ron facing his best friend.

He swore in astonishment. "Harry!" he cried. "You... animagus, you!"

Harry grinned bashfully, ducking his head a little. "I finally got permission," he explained. The attempt had previously been deemed too risky, and a distraction from useful Defence work. "Uh, Draco did it too," he rushed on, "and he should be here soon, in fact I really thought he'd beat me here, and I know you don't like him but really he's all right..."

Ron cut him off with a hearty clap to the shoulder. "I can put up with him for an hour or two for your sake," he said, "but watch out for the missus - she's all stressed out." The pair started towards the house. "So," Ron asked, "what's he, then? A snake?"

Harry laughed a little. "No," he said. "He's a ferret."