He didn't really want to go back to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place just yet. In fact, he wasn't at all sure he wanted to return to Headquarters at all. The thought of even more 'sympathy' was simply unbearable, and he didn't want to face questions from Remus and he didn't want to sit in that big, quiet house and try to ignore the one other person who would be there… Somewhere in all his list of things he didn't want to do, there had to be something he did want to do, but he couldn't imagine what that might be. At such a loss, Severus found himself wandering rather aimlessly, not even entirely sure where he was, precisely, but that didn't particularly worry him; after all, he didn't need to know where he was in order to Apparate away from the place.

At length, his meanderings took him to the river, and for a few moments, he stared across the water of the Upper Thames. The fog that had been settled over the city had lifted by now, and, in the distance, Severus could hear the chiming of one or another clock announcing that it was eleven now. An hour since he'd arrived at Autumn's door. He hadn't spent long there, obviously. Just long enough to destroy the his chances of becoming too pleasurably involved with anyone again.

Why did you do that, you dunderhead? And why are you here, instead of at her door, begging forgiveness? Buy her a dozen roses and a box of chocolates and crawl back to her on your knees and beg her to give you another chance. You were happy with her.

That was the problem, wasn't it? He was happy with her, and somehow, it seemed wrong to be happy. He knew, of course, that Aislinn would have backhanded him if he'd ever expressed such a thought to her, but there it was. He had been in love with Aislinn Ichalia—or fancied yourself in love with her—and she'd no more than died before he'd tumbled right into another woman's arms and bed. Despicable. And yet, he knew that Autumn had been right. Aislinn would never begrudge him happiness.

She doesn't have to. I'm going to do the job for her. But why? Why was he so determined to thwart his own efforts at happiness? Was it really guilt, or was it more akin to fear? He considered that for a moment, but Severus had no frame of reference for either emotion. Fear was something he had spent a lifetime denying; guilt was a luxury he could never truly afford. Not true guilt, at least. A momentary pang here, a wisp there perhaps, but nothing that was strong enough to force him to action.

If it's fear, what am I afraid of? The pain, perhaps. He had been happy with Aislinn, allowed himself to trust her, to believe her foolish insistences that ecstasy was but a wish away. And it had been, for a while. There had been beauty and hope, and belief. Faith. That was a gift he hadn't realized she was giving him, but she had. She'd given him an overriding faith that some everything would work out in the end, and where had that gotten him? He'd soared through life for a few precious months, and had forgotten to be so sour and bitter. He'd forgotten to scowl quite so much. And now? Now he had forgotten what it meant to wake up and face a new day without dread. To want to get out of bed in the morning. To have a reason to shower and to brush his teeth and to eat breakfast and to put one foot in front of the other and move about his daily business. He'd forgotten what it felt like to have a reason to live, but he knew, with exquisite certainty that there had been a time in his life when he did know these things. And he could remember being happy.

Years… no, decades… of emptiness and solitude had built a hard shell around him. An impenetrable shell, that he didn't want anyone to get past, including himself, and everyone had seemed to accept that. To respect that. To leave him to his silent misery and chosen solitude. Damn her for reminding him what it meant to be happy; beside the memories of joy, pain was deeper, and Aislinn had been right when she said that he had a great capacity to feel. He hadn't realized it, but it was true. It was like a lake covered in ice, and now that there was a crack in the ice, he didn't know if he would ever be able to mend it so that he could walk across it unscathed. He was going to drown in his own emotions, trapped below the surface in a shell of his own making, and no one would even know the difference. The irony was nearly laughable. It might have been laughable if he had any inclination to laugh.

He paused in his aimless walking and looked around, as though to get his bearings. It was a fruitless labor, though, as he still didn't know where he was. A large, blocky building stood across the street, and he didn't know at first why it caught his eye, but he found himself staring at it for a long while. The bricks were old-looking, covered in soot and stains that spoke of decades of abuse from the harsh London atmosphere, but, oddly enough, running along the top of the structure was a glass… room? He stared at it, momentarily distracted from his sorrow.

Awareness crept into his eyes slowly as he realized that people were walking into the building in droves, and trickling out in a steady stream. He took a hesitant step forward, then shoved his hand into the pocket of his Muggle trousers and felt his fingers curl around a couple of crisp papers. He took them out and examined them, forcing himself to focus on the colorful picture of a young woman. It was a five pound note, and in his head he quickly tried and failed to convert the currency, but he didn't think it was worth very much. Not even a galleon, he'd say. And he had six of them, which meant that he had thirty pounds, which meant… Absolutely nothing to him. He wondered how many of these things he'd have to have in order to go into that building (experience told him that Muggles liked to make you pay for damn near everything, including entrance to various buildings.)

Shoving the notes back in his pocket, he watched the throng of people entering and exiting the building, trying to make up his mind. Finally, he stepped into the street and very nearly jumped backward as a red blur zoomed past him. Wide-eyed, he looked to his right, then to his left and to his right again, and, seeing nothing, stepped gingerly onto the street once more. Despite himself, he hurried across, feeling horribly self-conscious that he was nearly running until he realized that there were a dozen other people scurrying across as well. He breathed a minute sigh of relief as he came to a halt in front of the building and watched for a few minutes more.

Eventually, his overwhelming desire to forget so many things overcame his reluctance to make a fool of himself, and he waited until another large crowd began to push their way into the building, and then fell in behind them, following. To his surprise, they didn't stop to pay anything, and he continued to follow the throng until he was well and truly inside. He slipped off to one side and frowned slightly, trying to figure out where he was exactly. Finally, his eyes rested on a sign—Tate Modern. That was all. His frown deepened, and he took up his aimless wandering again, following whatever instincts would drive a person who had no idea where he was but was determined not to stand still and look foolish.

There was a dimly-lit hallway, and he followed it, finding himself in front of double doors that were flung open, a sign proclaiming 'Surrealist Exhibit' then a number of names that meant nothing to him. With a slight mental shrug, he stepped into the room, and spent a moment letting his eyes adjust to the new lighting before looking around. It was a gallery of some sort, and people walked through it, pausing to look at one painting and then moving on. Some of the people walked without so much as stopping, seeming largely uninterested in the paintings. Some of them stood and stared, their expressions ranging from perplexed to bored to admiring. Severus glanced around, and found a painting, and walked to it, planting himself in front of it.

It was… He blinked at it, and looked around, then looked at the painting again. It was… He caught his lower lip between his teeth and squinted at it. It was… He glanced around, and thought he could understand why there were so few people actually studying these paintings and wondered if this was what passed for Muggle art. He looked at the painting again. It was… His eyes flicked to the plaque on the wall beside it. The Seeded Earth. 1942. Oil on canvas. Masson, Andre. b. 1896, d. 1987. He looked at the painting again. He still didn't know what it was, but he couldn't see anything resembling a seed in it, and he certainly couldn't see the earth. It was a collision of color, and he idly wondered if anything had survived the apparent crash. He moved on.

The next painting was as unlikely as the first, but it, at least, had some recognizable elements to it. Well, one recognizable element. A lime. He looked at the plaque, and saw the same name as before—Andre Masson. The… Severus looked critically at the painting again and hesitated to call the man an artist. This one was called Woman from Martinique. He took a step back and looked at the painting again and was startled to realize that the lime was the woman's nose. And he could see something that he could trick his mind into believing was a woman, but… He tilted his head to one side and stared at it, idly wondering what this Andre Masson would select to represent his nose. He rubbed the appendage in question somewhat thoughtfully and then shook his head and moved on.

He walked slowly, staring at each painting, and he felt that his own face was taking on the perplexed expression that so many others wore. He was standing in front of a large painting that was quite recognizable if no less nonsensical. It was, he had decided, a train emerging from a fireplace. It was illogical, and impossible, but that was what it was. Time transfixed. The clock painted onto the mantle said it was a quarter till one, and Severus wondered if that held some sort of clue to the meaning behind the painting. Surely, whoever had painted this (and another glance at the plaque named the painter as a Rene Magritte) would have had a reason for such an odd painting. There was something about it that made him uncomfortable. One of the candlesticks didn't have a reflection in the mirror, and at first he'd thought it a trick of perspective, but after looking it over thought it was likely an oversight on the part of the… he still hesitated to call these people artists. Frowning, he turned away from it and jumped as he nearly ran into a woman with red hair and green eyes.

"I thought I might find you here," she said, sounding almost like Sybill with that faraway voice. She looked familiar.

"I don't see how you could, considering I never knew I'd be here."

She shrugged. "Call it instinct, then."

Willow. Autumn had said she had an uncanny ability to predict things. Instinctively, Severus closed his mind and shrugged slightly, moving on to the next painting. The next painting was a rose growing from the stem of a pear. Only he couldn't tell where the rose ended and the pear began and it wasn't really a painting. The plaque on the wall gave the unimaginative title Rose and Pear. The means of existence. Rene Magritte again. He frowned at it.

"Odd, I wouldn't have pegged you for liking surrealism," Willow commented, and he realized she was at his elbow.

"Surrealism?" he repeated. "I've no idea…" his frown deepened at the painting. It was raining in it, but the rain wasn't touching rose or pear. But the pear looked like it was in a field of liquid sand.

"Ah. You aren't a lover of it, just wandered in here. Pity."

He looked at Willow, then at the painting, then back at Willow. "Does that mean something to you?" he asked, frowning even deeper.

"The world," she replied with a slight smile. "The earth and sky and rain, food and beauty. What more could one possibly want from life?"

He looked at the painting again. "I suppose," he replied, his tone indicating that he had his doubts. He moved to the next painting, wondering if Willow would follow. He thought he could use her help in understanding these images, but he wasn't going to ask for it.

The next painting was again not a painting, he realized as he studied it. Unless someone was very good at making paint look like torn paper. But, given what he'd seen so far, he wasn't going to rule that out. It was gray, with blue and white squares arranged on it. Collage Arranged According to the Laws of Chance. Jean Arp. He frowned at it. There was more blue than white, and it was somehow… pleasing to look at. Not as worrisome as that very first painting had been, but it was… uncomfortable still. It was messy. He kept staring at it, trying to make something out of it. Willow, he noticed, was still at his side, though quiet, and she was studying him as intently as he was studying the painting. He moved on.

There was another collage, and then two statues, and another collage, then he found himself in front of a painting that made him stare in disbelief. The images here were more concrete, easier to recognize, but no less unusual or discomforting. It was a chicken. He thought it was a chicken, at least for a moment, but no, it wasn't really. It had human hands and it was a top and after a moment of staring he couldn't see why he'd originally thought it was a chicken. It was utterly bizarre. And Willow was still staring at him, making him all the more aware that his expression was far from appreciative. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then took a deep breath.

"Why are you here?" he asked pointedly.

"I came to talk to you," was her reply. Not a note of hesitation. How had she known… Don't ask, Severus. Just don't even think about it. He shook his head and went back to staring at the picture. "Do you understand it?" she asked, and he grimaced.

He momentarily considered retorting that of course he understood it, but he couldn't bring the lie to his lips. Even he wasn't that good a liar. "No," he admitted. "Not at all."

She laughed slightly. "Hardly surprising," she commented, and he felt himself bristling. What was she implying? "Few people do," she answered as though he'd asked the question, and he emptied his mind a bit more, once again convinced that she was a Legilimens.

"What does it mean?" he asked, deciding to humor her, hoping to deflect her attention elsewhere.

She smiled brightly. "Not a damn thing," she replied.

"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't mean anything," she repeated.

Severus looked at the painting again. How could that possibly not mean anything? "All art means something," he muttered, and moved on. The next painting was a woman, that much he did comprehend, but he could not understand anything else. He couldn't even be sure he knew anything else. She was naked, he thought, but with some frilly cloth spread across her like an apron. Or a loincloth. But her upper body… it was far from sensual or pornographic or even realistic, and he decided maybe she wasn't naked after all. And maybe that wasn't really her hair. And what on earth kept her from toppling over?

"Most art means something," Willow granted. "And, on some level, this does too, but not in the way most art does."

"What?" He stared at her, perplexed. "I've had enough crypticism for one day, Willow. Please…"

She smiled and shrugged. "The surrealist movement was an effort to capture the images and fantasies of the mind. Like dream images. It's a unity between the psyche and the physical world," she explained, and he looked skeptical. "The images themselves are meaningless," she said, shaking her head. "You can stand there all day and try to figure out what the artist was 'saying', but you'll never work it out."

"I don't understand," Severus said, still frowning. "You mean it really doesn't mean anything?"

Willow shook her head firmly, silky red hair sliding over her shoulders. "Nothing," she reiterated. "It just is. Like… like the air. Does the air mean anything? Does the sky mean anything?"

He looked at the painting again, trying to absorb the new knowledge. "You mean that I'm supposed to just accept that… that… that image as though it is the air or sky?" he asked incredulously.

Willow nodded. "It's a comment on the nature of reality," she offered. "And our perception of reality. The meaning of life, in some ways. How long have you been staring at half a dozen paintings, trying to make sense of them?" she asked softly. "And how many things in your life have you wasted inordinate amounts of time trying to make fit into your perceptions of reality? That is the secret of happy living, Severus. To live and not worry about if you're doing it right."

He stared at her for a long moment, wondering what she knew.

"Have you seen the Dali yet?" she asked, and for a moment, he stared at the painting again, wondering if the woman pictured was, in fact, a doll. That would shed a different light on it. Willow answered herself, though, and extinguished the stray thought from his head. "Of course not," she was saying. "You haven't gotten that far yet. Come on, he's really the only one worth spending any time on that you haven't already seen. Persistence of memory, and then the Weaning of Furniture, and then why don't we go have a bite to eat? You can lose days staring at these paintings."

He followed her blindly as she led him past another dozen paintings, then stopped in front of one that made his breath catch. Clocks. Clocks melting in the desert. For the first time, he felt that he understood something in this art, but he didn't know what it was precisely. He didn't know, but it didn't matter, because he did know, but couldn't explain it even to himself. He stared at the clocks, and he found himself wondering how long it would take before time melted away to nothing. Willow was tugging on his arm again, and he let her lead him to another painting, bypassing several others.

His frown returned as he stared at the image, not sure what to make of it at first. There were so many things in the painting that initially, at least, he didn't realize that the central figure was a person—a woman—with a hole in her body. He leaned forward to stare more closely at it.

"That one is a metaphor," Willow said, coming to stand close at his side. "The woman was Dali's nurse, and he associated her with his nightstand and bottle, so much so that he considered them to be a part of her, so he 'weaned' them from her, over there," Willow's long, delicate finger was pointing, redirecting Severus' eye. He found the nightstand, and then a smaller nightstand with a bottle atop it. "But, taking away such an integral part of who she was left a void, so he gave her a crutch to support her."

"That's horrible," Severus murmured. "He couldn't separate her from other things, so ripped part of her away to keep the other things in tact? Why couldn't he just let them be a part of her?"

Willow shrugged. "Why does anyone deny themselves or anyone else something crucial out of desire to keep another memory untainted?" she asked softly.

Severus' head turned sharply to Willow, but Willow was facing the painting again. What did she know?

"Come on," she said, reaching for his hand. "Let's go have lunch. Come on." He let her pull him along after her, and they emerged into the brilliant light. She paused for a moment, and looked around then pointed. "This way," she said, and soon they were in a small café with menus in their hand. Indian food. Severus stared at the menu blankly for a long moment, then shook his head, looking at Willow.

"What's good?" he asked, and she laughed.

"I don't know, I've never been here. And I've never had Indian food, either; that's really more Autumn's thing."

"You haven't?" Severus frowned at the menu again. "Then why did you choose this place? We passed three pubs and…"

She shrugged. "It smelled good," she replied, and suddenly jabbed her finger at the menu. "That's what I'm having."

"What is it?" he asked, peering at her.

"I don't know," she replied with another grin. "But whatever it is, it's what I'm having."

He stared at her for a moment. "How do you know you'll like it if you don't know what it is?"

"I don't," she replied merrily. "But I'll never know if I don't try it. Now, what are you having?"

"I don't know," he replied, "but I'm going to look at the menu before I decide." A waitress chose that moment to come and take their drink orders, and his musings were interrupted as he ordered tea and Willow ordered a Coke. The waitress looked at her a bit oddly, but nodded and was off. Willow giggled.

"I guess that most people don't have Coke with their Sag Paneer," she pronounced the words carefully, and quite possibly incorrectly. Severus wasn't even going to pretend he knew. He wasn't going to pretend he knew what a Coke was, either.

After several more minutes of staring at the menu, he came to the conclusion that it might as well have been written in Japanese for all he knew what he was looking at. Obviously, whoever had written it expected patrons to be familiar enough with Indian food to not need more than cursory explanations. He sighed in resignation as the waitress came back, setting his tea cup in front of him and a glass of fizzing brown liquid in front of Willow.

"Are you ready to order?" the waitress asked, and Willow promptly pointed to the selection she'd made, and the waitress nodded. "And for you, sir?"

Ah, what the hell, he thought. He pointed randomly to something on the second page. "This one," he indicated, and the waitress nodded again.

"I'll have that out in a few minutes."

"Oh!" Willow said suddenly. "Can you add one more thing?"

The waitress raised an eyebrow, a gesture similar to Severus' expression, but nodded. Willow pointed to something else on the menu. "This, please."

The waitress looked a cross between amused and bewildered, but nodded and made her note, then tucked her pen behind her ear. "Anything else?"

Willow shook her head, and Severus shook his. When the waitress was gone, Severus studied his table partner. "Hungry?" he asked after a moment.

"Not particularly, no," she replied.

"Then why did you order a second dish?"

A flicker of doubt crossed Willow's face, and she shook her head. "Sometimes, I have a sense that something will happen. Usually it does. Often enough for me to trust it, at least. Regardless, though, I try to refrain from making an issue of it, in case these predictions don't come true."

"What are you talking about?"

"What did you think of Dali?" Willow asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"It was disturbing. What do you anticipate will happen?"

"Ah…" she began, then her eyes lit up and she smiled broadly, waving suddenly. Severus turned around in his seat to see where she was looking, and nearly sank under the table when his eyes landed on Autumn.

"Bloody hell," he hissed. "Did you do this on purpose?" he asked Willow, who was blinking wide-eyed at him.

Autumn had stopped in the middle of the door and was staring, as though having a hard time believing what she was seeing. Severus sank his head into his hand and wondered if a term in Azkaban for Disapparating in front of Muggles wouldn't be preferable to this.