Grin, cat, grin
Snort and laugh
Bite and yowl
But let us hear your
Grin, cat,
Grin
Two figures pay separate bills to a plump waitress in high heels. One is short and one is tall and they both have skin like snow and eyes like Death. Neither knows the other though they were once lovers of a sort.
Bells chime.
The door opens.
They leave.
One walks south and the other walks north. One is going home to a penthouse suite and the other to a dingy little flat with grime on the windows. One will go home and read over old cases of law all written in Latin and one will go home to his black and white telly. Both will remember the other this time.
Harry scuffs his feet and decides that he will soon need new shoes. Boots preferably and before the snow arrives. A new coat would be welcomed since the moths and bluebottles have made their home in his old one. Now Harry is forced to wear a jumper he found that he does not remember. It is the same green of his eyes and obviously hand made. It is very, very warm but not warm enough to keep out the chill sometimes.
Severus walks like someone well born and highly bred. His shoes are shined and his coat is made of the finest of wools and tightly woven. His own jumper was bought at one of the large department stores London has, it is charcoal grey and very well made like all of his clothes. Yet despite all of this, there are times when he shivers as if cold though he is so very, very warm.
It has been an awkward day for them both. Memories that neither has ever experienced fly at them like the soon-to-come snow and before Harry has gone two blocks, Severus turns and calls to him. The memories must stop and Harry is somehow the key.
'Yes?' Harry says back to Severus.
'I—you—perhaps a search of beaches renting cottages is in order?'
Harry nods and goes home.
Severus turns and returns to his home. He leaves the old law cases to collect dust and instead turns to his computer. It is big and shiny and ugly in all its metallic glory. It has the latest Internet connection and can load even the largest pages in less than one second. It has one of the strongest firewalls in London and if Severus is lucky, he uses it once a month.
It whirrs and clicks as he turns it on and the screen blinks quickly to life. In a matter of moments Severus is on Google and searching for cabin rentals. None match. They are all too old, too new or not white enough. It is as if his own memory cabin has disappeared.
Or maybe, though he refuses to believe this, it was not a memory at all but merely a trick of the mind. His shrink says he is well now, that his medications keep it at bay but sometimes, when Severus awakes shaking in the night, he doesn't believe the man.
But then why does Harry recall the same thing?
Does he awake hours before the sunrises too and does he see that cottage as if it were real, in the small hours of the night?