Chapter 26: Territorial Inspection

Harry and the other young wizards who had owls looked nervously at Fish and were considering how to persuade him not to bother the owls when Fish spoke again, "It's a pity Minerva said owls are friends, and I can't eat them meow..."

Harry and the others breathed a small sigh of relief, and thanked Professor McGonagall in their minds.

On the other hand, after holding Scabbers for a while and watching him, and finding that he was just tired, Ron put him back in his pocket and then looked at Fish and said helplessly, "It's not just the owls, basically all the animals at Hogwarts are kept by people and aren't allowed to eat them."

"I don't really want to eat them," Fish replied, sitting on the edge of the bed and shaking his legs, "I'd rather eat them cooked now, I'm just playing with them."

Hearing Fish say that, the others could hardly relax, they could still accept their pets being chased by Fish, even though it was a bit harmful to their pets, but it was better than being eaten.

"Go to sleep...," yawned Seamus Finnigan, "we have class tomorrow."

The sleepy group, not bothering to tidy up their messy dormitories, crawled into their beds and closed their eyes to sleep.

The next moment, however, Fish, this restless fellow, transformed into a cat and came out.

"Fish, where are you going?" asked Neville, the first to notice his movements.

"Meow.", Fish replied nonchalantly, and then ran out of the room and disappeared.

"What did he mean by that?"

The boys in the dormitory looked at each other, they weren't Professor McGonagall, and they couldn't talk to Fish in cat language.

Dean Thomas hesitated and said, "I have cats at home, and from what I remember, they're always very active at night."

"Oh, no...," Ron spat, "I hope he doesn't get caught, or we'll get points taken off on the first day of school..."

"I'm more worried about him going to the owl hut," Harry was even more worried about Hedwig, even though Fish had said he wouldn't eat the owls, Harry would be just as upset if he accidentally hurt Hedwig, but he didn't have the guts to break the school rules and go on a spree on the first day of school.

The young wizards lay anxiously in their beds, but eventually fell asleep from exhaustion.

Fish, after leaving the room, was halfway up the spiral staircase when he stopped suddenly, his triangular ears flicked a couple of times and then he lifted his little pink nose to sniff the air.

It was Minerva's scent.

Fish immediately lowered his body and silently approached the door to the entrance of the boys' dormitory. Through the crack in the door, Fish saw Professor McGonagall sitting quietly in an armchair in the common room, her stern face facing the entrance to the boys' dormitory.

It was obvious that Professor McGonagall had been waiting for the boy to get restless in the night and had been waiting for him for a long time.

Now Fish was depressed Would his plan to inspect the new territory be aborted before it began?

Although he had been unsuccessful, Fish did not give up, for he knew that Minerva could not stay here to watch over him, for her routine had been assimilated by the humans.

With this in mind, Fish did not rush back, but settled behind the door to lick his fur.

Sure enough, Professor McGonagall got up after a while and left the common room, but Fish was still in no hurry to leave.

He had just put a 'Wild Mark' on Minerva, and while Professor McGonagall appeared to be leaving, she was actually hiding with an invisibility spell, waiting for Fish to jump into the trap.

Minerva's a great liar, but I'm smarter! (=ΦωΦ=)

Fish was lying behind the door, wagging his tail in triumph.

It took Fish a few moments longer to sense that Professor McGonagall had actually left, so he jumped up, opened the door to the boys' dormitory and strutted out.

After sharpening his paws on the fluffy armchairs in the common room and digging up all the absorbent cotton on the cushions, Fish wandered around the common room with a cotton ball in his mouth, before being drawn into the fireplace.

He quickly released the cotton from his mouth and ran towards the fireplace.

After circling around the fireplace, and even putting the cat in the fireplace and pulling the ashes everywhere, Fish couldn't find any Flu dust, but instead was filled with dust.

Fish got out of the fireplace and quickly shook his fur, shaking the ash out of his fur, and made a series of cute black footprints in the common room.

"Meow?"(=ΦωΦ=)

Turning around and noticing the two rows of footprints behind him, Fish was suddenly intrigued.

Although felines have a habit of covering their tracks, Fish was no ordinary cat, and instead of covering his tracks, he ran back to the fireplace, dug all four paws into the ashes, and strolled into the common room, leaving a pile of footprints.

He even used his arachnid abilities, not sparing the walls and ceiling.

After wreaking havoc in the common room with his paw prints, Fish made his way to the girls' dormitory, having lost interest in the subject.

The girls' dormitories at Hogwarts were haunted, and under normal circumstances boys could not enter them, or the alarm would go off if they did.

The exception was the rare and special Animagus spell, which was a spell that even a senior Auror could not master and was not tested in exams, so almost no one learned it during their student life.

The spells couldn't even detect animagi, so Fish's druid spells went undetected by Fish, so Fish opened the door and slipped in without setting off the magical alert in the girls' dormitory.

The girls, like the boys, had fallen asleep from exhaustion and no one noticed Fish's arrival.

In fact, even if they had found him, they would have welcomed him with open arms.

Finding that the girls' dormitories were no different from the boys', Fish grew bored and left the Gryffindor dormitory after a quick look around.

Leaving the dorm, Fish wandered around, occasionally sharpening his claws on places that looked good or not so good to him.

It was while wandering that Fish came across one of his own.

It was a skinny, dull gray cat that looked a little old, and when she saw him, she greeted him, "Meow!"

"Meow!"

The two cats greeted each other and then looked at each other silently, blinking from time to time, wiggling their ears, wagging their tails, and touching their cheeks with their noses.

These are the unique ways cats communicate with each other, looking at each other and making subtle movements to determine if they want to hurt each other.

After a brief, mysterious exchange, both parties confirm each other's friendliness, then meow twice, exchange names and parted ways.

Primarily, it was about Fish's animal affinity, otherwise Mrs. Norris, having been raised under Filch's tutelage, would have wanted to impose her dominance even as a normal cat, rather than the peaceful coexistence with Fish that she had chosen.

In good humor with his new friend, Fish continued his "territorial inspection" with his tail in the air.

"Cough," Suddenly, a familiar cough was heard behind him.

(?Φ△Φ?)

Fish's feet froze for a moment, and the next instant he leaped forward like an arrow.

Immediately behind him came the roar of Professor McGonagall, "Five points off for Gryffindor! No! Ten points!"