As he'd managed to get to bed at a more reasonable time last night than he had in almost a week, Severus found that he woke with the sun and, soon after breakfast, embarked on a journey into London again. He'd asked Remus if he wished to come along, but the werewolf had declined the offer, to Severus' pleasure, as the invitation had only been born of courtesy anyway. As he approached Autumn's flat, he found himself smoothing his hair almost subconsciously. An exercise in futility, to say the least.
He lifted his hand to knock, and thought suddenly that there was something he should have done before coming here. He should have used one of those Muggle telly-phoons to call her and ask if it was all right to come. She'd given him her number, and he was sure that if he tried hard enough he could have figured out how to make one of those contraptions work. He had left her number in his room at Headquarters, though.
No point in worrying about it now, he thought, and, taking a deep breath, he rapped firmly on the door. It took a few minutes before he heard rustling inside, and then the door opened a crack, and he noted that there was still a chain holding it shut. One eye peered out, then the door shut more firmly and opened wide, giving him a spectacular view of the woman he'd come to visit.
"Severus!" she exclaimed, pulling him inside quickly and then wrapping her arms around him as though answering the door in nothing but a bath towel was an every day occurrence for her. It was not an every day occurrence for him to be greeted in such a fashion, and his response was instant, and somewhat curious. His body responded to her closeness in a predictable enough way; after all, she was much more than half naked and her skin still radiated a warmth, and she was dripping wet… all enough to arouse interest. Less expected, however, was the effect her embrace had. He had an almost uncontrollable urge to sweep her into his arms and hold her against him, not moving at all, for the rest of the day.
"I… er… didn't mean to interrupt your shower," he offered by way of an apology.
"Oh, it's all right," she grinned. "Just make yourself at home. I'm going to finish getting dressed. Promise, I'll only be five minutes. Sit!" she gestured at the sofa, and he sat, gingerly adjusting the erection she seemed so blissfully ignorant of having left him.
True to her word, Autumn was only five minutes or so in getting ready, and when she appeared from the bathroom, a hairbrush in her hands, she was so respectably dressed that Severus didn't think anyone in their right mind would have believed that she was the same woman who'd answered the door in a bath towel.
"I was beginning to think you weren't going to be here," she commented idly.
Severus frowned and glanced at the clock, which now appeared to be working properly. If it was to be believed, it wasn't quite ten o'clock yet. "Unless time is playing an unexpected trick, I don't see how you could have feared that," he replied."Willow said you'd be here by ten," Autumn rejoined. "So I waited until a quarter till before I took my shower, because I was afraid I wouldn't hear you." His frown deepened, and it must have become pronounced enough for Autumn to notice. "Oh. Was she not supposed to tell me that?"
Severus shrugged. "It does not matter to me if she told you, but I do not see how she knew, considering I didn't tell her with any certainty that I would be coming today, and I didn't even know what time it would be until I left this morning."
This news hardly seemed to unnerve Autumn. "Willow is always predicting things. She's right more than she's wrong, really."
"Oh." Severus was rather startled at the matter-of-fact way that Autumn said that, but he nodded, accepting it on some level. He was slowly beginning to have an idea that if these Muggles didn't quite manage to dabble in magic, they certainly pushed the boundaries at times.
"And, I'm going to get your gift right now, before you manage to disappear on me again. Stay there," she ordered, jumping up again. He watched as she slipped off to a door he'd never seen past, his eyes locked on the seductive sway of her hips. She was wearing a skirt today, and it was long enough to swirl tantalizingly about her ankles. Odd that such a long, full skirt could make his throat tighten in a way that even her more revealing outfits could not.
A moment later, any thoughts he might have had of her clothes were chased away by her return. A return accompanied by something small and black in her hands. He watched almost warily as she drew closer, and then deposited the small black thing in his lap. It moved.
"What's this?" he asked, though the small black thing had turned big green eyes up to him now, and he could see very well what it was.
"Mrowr?" it seemed to be inquiring the same thing of him.
"He doesn't have a proper name yet, though I think he thinks 'Kitty' is his name," Autumn said, choosing not to answer the obvious question. "He's a little sweetie, isn't he?"
The 'little sweetie' was rubbing his head against Severus' hand, as though daring him not to pet him. Severus, for his part, was making an admirable show of not giving into the temptation, however alluring it might be.
"And what am I supposed to do with him?" Severus asked, looking at Autumn again. The kitten was now snuggling into the crook of Severus' arm, which prompted him to look down again.
"Aislinn wanted you to have him. Well, she wanted you to have a kitten. She told me to find you a black kitten with green eyes, but I have to tell you that that's not as easy as it sounds. Most black cats have golden eyes, it seems, or maybe it was just that I was looking for one with green…"
"Autumn," he interrupted her. The kitten had decided that curling up in his arm wasn't good enough, and had climbed to his shoulder and was now purring into his left ear. "I don't know anything about cats." He cast a sideways glance at the kitten, who promptly licked his cheek.
"You'll learn," she replied cheerfully. "They're really very easy to take care of. Take care of themselves, really. Now, I have a food and water dish for him, and a sack of kitten food, and a few toys, though really at that age, he'll play with just about anything. He's fourteen weeks old, now, so by September at the latest, you'll need to have him neutered and…"
"Have him what?" Severus asked, aghast.
"Neutered. It's really very irresponsible to leave male kittens un-neutered if you're keeping them for pets. Besides, he'll be more affectionate if he's neutered. Otherwise, he'll be so busy prowling that you'll never see him."
Severus shook his head and turned to look at the kitten, who reached a paw to his nose. "I really don't think I'm a good candidate for a cat," he protested as the kitten decided he wanted on Severus' other shoulder and so crawled through his hair and around the back of his neck.
"Nonsense. He loves you. Just look at him."
Grimacing, Severus reached up and disentangled two black paws from his hair. The cat was grooming him. "He's…" The kitten took that moment to yawn a yawn that was entirely too big for such a small creature, and then settled into his lap again. Severus was at a loss for words.
Autumn settled herself onto the sofa beside him and leaned against his chest, and, after a moment, Severus placed an arm around her shoulders. "Do you not want him? Really, Severus, if you don't, I can find him another home. I wouldn't force you to take him."
Glancing down at the gently vibrating ball of sleek black fur, Severus couldn't resist the temptation to scratch one of the pointy little ears. "It's just… unexpected," he murmured. "Why would Aislinn want me to have a cat?"
Autumn shrugged, and in so doing managed to snuggle closer to him. "She probably thought he'd be a good companion for you."
Of course. Aislinn had always had a sense about her, infuriating at times, of when he'd needed that extra squeeze. He'd never asked for it, and doubted he ever would, but she'd always known, instinctively, what he needed. And it was odd how that 'always' floated in his mind so easily when he thought of her. He felt like he'd always known her, but he had not. He'd known her as a student, of course, but that was to say he knew her name and how she was apt to perform on potions. He'd not truly known her until… mid-November, really, and she'd been gone in January. Three months. Three months now seemed to account for 'forever and always' in his mind.
And how long had it taken him to put her from his mind? As he sat there now, in Autumn's flat, the petite woman settled comfortably against him, he couldn't help but berate himself. It had been one week since her funeral. Never mind that it had been nearly four months since he last saw her, or that she had disappeared without so much as a word of explanation, or that a lifetime's worth of events had taken place in this past week. The bottom line, the end that was unjustified by the means, was that one week ago, he had attended the memorial service of the woman who had brought him to life, and within days he had been shagging one of her closest friends.
You really are despicable, he told himself, and suddenly straightened. "I need to go," he told Autumn rather abruptly.
"But you just got here," she protested.
He sighed softly. "I know, and I'm sorry, but I shouldn't have even come. Or rather, I should have behaved myself on Wednesday and then none of this…"
She had placed a finger over his lips. "Regrets?" she asked softly. "Don't run away from me, Severus. Talk to me. Nothing is so bad that we can't talk it out."
"Yes, it is," he insisted. I'm as bad as everyone thinks and says I am, he thought. "I need to go. This is wrong. It's…" he trailed off, and imagined for a moment that Aislinn was there. "It's just wrong." He was standing, the now blinking kitten in his hands. He looked at the kitten for a moment, then at the paraphernalia that Autumn seemed to think was necessary for caring for a cat, and he wondered if he really had the energy for that. If he was quite so cruel as to put a helpless creature through his ineptitude. He shook his head. "Here," he murmured, placing the kitten on the sofa. "I can't care for him." He tried to ignore the strange empty feeling he suddenly had. Unlikely though it might be, the kitten had been quite warm, really, and he felt oddly cold without it.
"You aren't really leaving, are you?" Autumn asked, her eyes growing wider.
"Yes, I'm afraid I am."
"But why?" She was standing too now, and looking up at him. She was so small. There were Second Year students at Hogwarts who were taller than she was, and it somehow strengthened his resolve, as though for a moment he equated short with young.
"Because this is all wrong," he replied. It's not right. It's…"
"Wrong. You keep saying that. But what's wrong? Sit down. Please?"
He looked at the sofa again, somewhat doubtfully, and she sighed, then waved at the chair. "Then sit over there! I won't so much as touch you, I swear it, but please, Severus? Don't I at least deserve to know why?"
Yes, she probably did deserve to know why, but he wasn't sure he was prepared to explain it to her. He stood there for a moment longer, then moved over to the indicated chair, seating himself in it gingerly. He didn't know what to say.
"Why?" Autumn asked again, sounding distressed.
For a long moment, Severus was quiet, then he swallowed hard and began, "Aislinn…" and that was as far as he got before the lump welled in his throat.
After a moment, Autumn nodded. "I see," she whispered.
He took an exceptional interest in the pattern on the arm of the chair, touching a fingertip to it, tracing a whorl and concentrating fully on the task which seemed inordinately crucial. "I loved her," he said after a moment, the words sounding soft and hesitant to his own ears. "At least, I thought I did. But, if I did…"
"How could you have tumbled into bed with her best friend so soon after she was gone." Autumn's voice carried a frown. "How could you have found happiness again so quickly." They were not questions, but statements of fact. He lifted his eyes to study her. "I've thought the same thing," Autumn continued softly. "If she were still here, Severus, I would never have looked at you twice, because I care too much for her. Cared too much. I would have pretended nothing was wrong and kept up the pretense if it killed me." She drew her feet onto the sofa and hugged her knees.
"But she is gone, Severus, from this life, at least, and she wouldn't want any of her friends to be miserable. Not because they were holding onto her memory." Autumn suddenly moved, unfolding her feet and reminding him how graceful she was, and she came to kneel in front of his chair, though, true to her word, she did not so much as touch him. "You can't bring her back, and all the wishing in the world can't change that," she whispered firmly. "The best you can do is be happy. It's what she would have wanted."
Severus lifted his eyes to hers and watched for a moment, then looked at the arm of the chair again.
"Tell me you don't want me," Autumn said softly. "Tell me you're not interested, and I swear I'll stand up and you can walk away and that will be the end of it. But don't walk out on me because you want someone who isn't anymore."
For a very long moment, he was silent, and then he shook his head. "Why?" he asked softly. She blinked at him in confusion, and he elaborated. "Why are you so interested in me? It isn't as though I'm a prime catch."
Autumn settled onto her heels and smiled at him. "I think you underestimate yourself," she said softly.
"But why?"
It was her turn to be silent, for a very long moment, and then she shook her head. "I don't know," she replied finally. "Maybe it was the wine. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find someone who appreciates a good wine? I don't remember the last time I found anyone. Plenty who drink it, who even know enough not to serve a Merlot with shellfish, but not anyone who has an actual appreciation for it." She frowned a bit. "Maybe it was because we were sharing such a potent pain," she offered softly. "We had something in common, and we reached for each other and connected." She shrugged. "Maybe it was fate, though I'm not as likely to say that as Willow would, but then, I never had her ability to glimpse the future. Does it really matter, though?"
Yes, it matters, Severus thought sullenly. It matters because, as far as I can see, it was nothing more than a pity fuck, and I don't want your pity any more than I want anyone else's. And that's a pathetic place to build anything else. Aloud, he merely said, "I really think I need to be on my way. I am sorry to have been such a bother these last few days, and to no end." He stood, carefully sidestepping her and determinedly not touching her in any way. "I apologize for the inconvenience, but I do hope you are able to find a more suitable home for the cat. Good day."
He was out of the door before Autumn could protest further.