It starts, really, with the cat. Skinny thing, tufted, feral: it poses regally enough, but swipes at him like a desperate vagrant whenever he gets too close. He apologises to it, a simple ‘I’m sorry’ to start with, building into a rambling explanation of the whys and wherefores when he takes note of the way its big, pointed ears swivel about at the sound of his voice.
‘Really it’s nothing personal, and I’d sooner learn from a textbook than go poking at you, but you know how tutors are – do you know how tutors are? Stuffy mostly, and much too set on things being done their own way every time, if you ask me.’
This isn’t exactly a task set by a tutor, but the prefects whose ranks he hopes to join. He’s young for it at twenty-seven, a full three exams away from the average magical aptitude level of the others, but his father’s stern assertions have made Baelmyrr Alvantaris well aware that he’s not doing the family proud just yet, and this seems as sound a way as any to claw his way back into Haelmyrr’s good books, a task he has become familiar with over the years.
For this attempt, he must familiarise himself with the cat. The prefects weren’t entirely exhaustive with the details; rather, he knows only that he must spend the weekend with the creature, studying it and making sure it doesn’t starve in the process. Baelmyrr suspects starvation would be more the culmination of prior months of malnourishment than his own failure as a provider in the case of his particular stray, but has no intention of raising this point. Instead, he practices his conjuring. He summons up fish, minced steak and milk in silver bowls, and resolves that his subject will leave his care in far better health than it came – if he parts with it at all.
(Source: fanfiction.net)
