Bothari woke, startled by the clunk of something bouncing off a window, then falling on the floor with a clunk. Skywalker's room. He sprang out of bed and hurried to find out what was wrong. Just as well he slept in pyjamas, not naked the way some of the Armsmen did. You never knew when you'd need to be on duty in a hurry.

Skywalker was awake, blinking sleepily, but he didn't seem hurt. His breath mask was pulled out of the hose attaching it to the ventilator, and lying below the window at the far end of the room. The elasticated straps were still on it, but torn through at the back, instead of the Velcro fastenings being undone. 'Morning exercise?' Bothari asked, glancing at it.

'An – accident,' Skywalker explained. 'When I woke, I – I thought I was still in my armour – that all this had been just a dream, to taunt me. I – panicked.'

'Trauma flashbacks. I get those, too. So does Professor Snape.' He patted Skywalker's shoulder reassuringly. 'Feel better now you're awake?'

'I am unchanged. Your friend Snape may not be. I think – it was his emotions that woke me. I sensed a screaming in his soul. I believe he has undergone a change of state.'

Was 'a change of state' Jedi-speak for dead? That didn't make sense – this was the afterlife, most fellows here were already dead, except the ones who were just visiting, the way he used to.

'He is still here,' Skywalker reassured him. 'I feel his presence. But its shape has changed.'

'I'll go check.' Was Snape sick? Unconscious? Poisoned? Bothari called out the Professor's name, but got no response. 'Where is he?' he thought to ask Skywalker.

'Downstairs.'

The ground floor was open-plan. Bothari could see everything from the staircase, and there was no wizard stirring potions, only an empty robe slumped on a chair. Something twitched in it. Bothari tensed, ready to spring at the whatever-it-was. His instincts screamed, 'Kill it!' Keep calm. You can't kill anyone here, the Rock doesn't work like that. Can still pound them to a pulp. Cheiron won't like that.

The whatever-it-was peered out. Something hairy. A small, fluffy black kitten with wide eyes as black as its fur.

Bothari hadn't paid much attention to cats since the days when, as a boy, he used to hunt them for food. There were plenty of strays in the alleys of Vorbarr Sultana, bigger and meatier than the rats, and their fur was good and warm – too small to make more than a pair of gloves on its own, but you could use it to patch a ripped jacket.

Since then, animals hadn't been part of his life, except that being Armsman to the Vorkosigan family meant he'd learned more about horses than he'd ever wanted to know, especially once Lord Miles had been old enough to want riding lessons. There had been cats around the stables, on the look-out for rats, but he hadn't needed to pay much attention to them beyond not tripping over them when patrolling at night.

One thing he was fairly sure of, though, was that cats generally had green or yellow eyes, not black. 'Professor?' he said uncertainly.

The kitten hissed in a way that could mean either, 'Of course I am, you dunderhead!' or 'Don't be ridiculous, I'm a cat!'

Bothari didn't often get visual hallucinations these days, as long as he took his medication regularly. But they could be triggered sometimes, if he was tired or stressed or there was a change to routine. He didn't feel stressed – well, obviously he was worried now, but he hadn't felt stressed until he'd heard that there was something wrong with Snape. But he knew he wasn't always aware of his own emotions until they exploded into murderous rage. And he hadn't slept all that much – he glanced at the kitchen chrono – it was barely six now, and he'd gone to bed at midnight. And having Skywalker here was certainly a change.

So, this could be a hallucination. Then again, with wizards, it could be real. He didn't think changing into a cat was one of Snape's spells, but after all, if you had a useful move like that, you wouldn't go around telling everyone.

Or it could just be a stray cat that had wandered in through the open kitchen window and decided to bed down in Snape's robe. That would be the most obvious explanation in any normal world, but the Rock wasn't normal. But everyone, from all sorts of worlds, came here, and that included cats. You mustn't hurt anyone here. Cheiron was very firm about that.

'Want breakfast?' he asked. After all, if it was a real cat, it would want food, and if it was Snape, he probably wanted breakfast anyway, and if it was a hallucination, the real Snape would probably walk in soon, tell him he was hallucinating, and give him a healing potion.

He checked the fridge. There was a casserole prepared and ready to go in the oven. Was it safe to dig out a small portion of the uncooked mixture for the cat? Maybe you shouldn't feed a cat something that had onions and cocoa powder in it. He'd have to ask Cheiron.

In a bowl on a lower shelf were some pieces of vat-grown chicken, or more likely wizard-grown. Everyone came to the Rock, including talking pigs and rabbits who didn't want to be eaten, and bears, ogres and dragons – or human cannibals, for that matter – who wanted human meat. Not many wizards had the power to conjure food out of nowhere – on Snape's world, it was one of the few things magic absolutely couldn't do. However, there were plenty who could turn a wisp of Peter Rabbit's fur into enough meat to make pies for a village, or a drop of their own blood into drinks for dozens of vampires, much faster than the most high-tech planets in Bothari's universe could manage.

The kitten watched suspiciously as Bothari set out a small plate of raw chicken and a bowl of milk on the floor for it. Eventually, it jumped down from the chair, padded over to sniff at the food, and gave a cursory head-butt against Bothari's ankle, as if to say, 'Hmm, not too bad, I suppose.' Then it ran over to the table, jumped onto one of the chairs, sat peering up at the tabletop high above it, and jumped onto the table.

So, it – no, he – still thought of himself as human. Bothari brought the plates over to the table. 'You'd best not try to use a knife and fork just now,' he warned the kitten, who glared at him before lowering its head and eating ravenously.

He ought to check whether Skywalker wanted a drink and/or snack, too. Cheiron and the Durona doctors had warned him and Snape not to be rigid about scheduled mealtimes: that the important thing was to keep on prompting Skywalker to eat and drink, little and often, until he got used to noticing when he felt hungry or thirsty.

On the other hand, he wasn't sure what the kitten might do. Snape as a human adult had seemed to like being on his own – or he just didn't feel safe around other people. But leaving this kitten to explore the room might be like leaving a hyperactive five-year-old unsupervised.

Was there much that the kitten could eat that was poisonous? The room was full of vials of potion, all neatly stoppered, but it didn't have the usual bowls of ingredients laid out to ferment or marinate. The cauldrons were all washed and put away. The Pensieve was now enlarged to about two metres wide, and was leaning on its side against the wall opposite the sofa. It looked as if Snape had known something was going to happen to him, and had got all the work done that he could possibly do and then tidied up before he left. Probably he had just gone somewhere else, and the kitten really wasn't him. But if so, where was he?

One thing at a time. 'Just going to see if the General needs anything,' he explained. 'Want to come?'

In answer, the kitten took a flying leap at him. Bothari reflexively raised an arm to defend himself, before his rational mind could shout 'No, he's tiny, you'll crush him!' Just in time, he managed to switch from being ready to bat his opponent to the ground to catching the small, furry bundle safely. 'Careful,' he warned. The kitten climbed up his sleeve and settled itself on his right shoulder.

This didn't feel Snape-like. Not so much the jumping at him – though Snape as a human had always preferred to keep a distance between them – but sitting trustingly on his shoulder. This felt more like when Lord Miles was a young child, not yet able to walk, who liked to be carried high so that he could see everything that was going on. Or five-year-old Emperor Gregor, even earlier, when they'd had to take him to the mountains to keep him safe, during the Pretendership War. Not that human children had claws that dug into the skin, but even so…

He remembered the argument with Snape yesterday. 'You – held him? As in, gave him a hug? We don't behave like that with each other, and we've been friends for years.' Maybe Snape hadn't just been worried for him, frightened that he was letting Skywalker manipulate him? What if Snape had felt lonely and left-out because no-one was offering him a hug?

He reached his left hand up, as slowly and gently as he could, to steady the kitten and pet him. The kitten hissed at him and jumped down to the ground, and stalked along ahead of him, fur bristling with indignation at anyone daring to touch him. He slipped through the not-quite-closed door into Skywalker's room and leapt up onto the bed, sniffing the patient to inspect him.

'Severus,' Skywalker greeted him. 'I was not aware that you were a shapeshifter.'

The kitten snorted and turned his head away.

'General. I need to ask you. Is he Professor Snape? It's not a cheat?' At least he didn't have to ask, 'Is it a hallucination?'

'He is Severus Snape. But – changed. His presence is – not quite like a human, and not quite like a non-sentient animal like a tooka. But it is even less like another sentient, such as Zygerrians or Togorians. He feels like – a human soul in the body of a tooka kit, trying to think human thoughts with a tooka brain.'

'Can you translate for him?'

'As far as he has sentient thoughts, yes. He may not understand your questions, let alone have an answer.'

'Professor? Can you hear me?'

The kitten meowed.

'He knows your voice. He is not sure what you mean by "Professor".'

'Snape? Severus?'

At the word 'Severus,' the kitten became immediately more alert, came over to the edge of the bed and rubbed his head against Bothari's pyjama jacket. He coughed something that sounded like 'Kn!'

'He knows his first name. And yours.'

In a way, it was easier to think of the kitten as 'Severus' than as 'Professor Snape'. 'Severus.' It was a name like a cross between a hiss and a purr. Bothari repeated it, and the kitten calmed, and rippled its body.

'He wants you to stroke him.'

Seriously? When the kitten had jumped down when Bothari had done this a few minutes earlier? Still, he ran a forefinger gently along the kitten's spine, from his neck to the base of his tail. The kitten purred and rubbed against him for a moment, then suddenly jerked away, back arched, snarling and spitting.

'He is – unsure what he wants. Unsure whether to trust you.'

'Prof- Severus, do you know how to turn back into a human? Or do magic while you're a cat?'

The kitten meowed.

'He does not understand the question,' Skywalker explained.

'We'd better ask Cheiron. He'll know what to do.' But Cheiron was probably still asleep. Besides, it wasn't right to go and call on him with kitten-Severus and leave Skywalker on his own. The three of them needed to stay here until Cheiron came to visit or someone else came to Jedi-sit. It was getting on for seven, now, and time was getting on.

'Doctor Durona's coming to see you at ten,' he reminded Skywalker. 'That might be Rowan again, or some of her sibs. I need to give you breakfast, take you to the toilet, put you in the bacta tank for an hour, then clean you up and dress you.' Which was going to be tricky without Snape being in any condition to levitate him. 'Can you levitate yourself? Just into a float-chair and off it?'

Skywalker closed his eyes in concentration for a few minutes. 'No,' he said eventually. 'I could use the Force to slow myself in falling, or to leap if I had legs. I could levitate this bedsheet to carry me. But as for flying into the air – I am in no condition to do that, right now. Can you lift me?'

Bothari considered. He could, if he had to. He'd stayed in shape over the years, doing weights training as well as running and unarmed combat practice. He was nearly as fit at sixty as he had been at forty, and he had been nearly as fit at forty as he had been at twenty. Skywalker, even without limbs, was a big man, and carrying him wouldn't be like carrying a short, scrawny teenager, but it was possible. But considering he was injured and recovering from surgery, the risk of mishandling him or dropping him wasn't worth it. Nor was the risk of Bothari putting his back out and being out of action, when Skwalker and Snape both needed him.

'Could, but I shouldn't,' he said. 'Safer if I wash you and change your pad on the bed. We'll ask the Duronas if it's all right for you to have your bacta bath later today.'

This wasn't like secretly trying to keep an injured prisoner alive while pretending to torture her to death during a war, he reminded himself. He wasn't on his own. He could ask the Duronas for advice, could ask Cheiron for help – Cheiron didn't like going up and down stairs, though he could manage it in an emergency, but he would know someone who could help. Cheiron would know how Snape had got turned into a cat, and whether there was any way to turn him back.

There was just a wait of a few hours. He just needed to hold things together for three hours. He was now the most nearly functional member of the household, and that meant he had to take responsibility.

Then again, that was probably how Snape had felt, before turning into a cat.

Author's note: I don't like the way that the Star Wars universe uses 'sentient' to mean 'a sapient life-form' rather than 'any creature that is conscious and has feelings' – since by the latter definition, plenty of animals are sentient without necessarily being sapient. Nevertheless, since Galactic Basic does use the word 'sentient' to mean 'sapient', this is the usage Anakin knows, so I'll stick with it for now.