Sweet Soul Music

Disclaimer – The places and characters you recognise are JK Rowlings

Chapter Twenty Three

She sat silently in her chair gathering herself together, there was still no justification for his outburst but she could see why he had said it. The man had jumped to the wrong conclusions about her because of his own insecurities. What should she do? If she didn’t give him a chance would she be letting something good pass her by, it wasn’t very often that something like this happened. Not that it was a once in a lifetime thing, Cat wasn’t a hopeless romantic, but good things were rare.
“Did you really mean any of it?”
Severus shook his head gravely.
“And are you truly sorry?”
Again he said nothing, merely nodded his head slowly.
“Well, I suppose that is a start.” she said thoughtfully. “Tell me, did you actually plan to apologise at any point?”
“That’s why I came here. I wanted to ask Dumbledore’s advice. I’m ermm… not to used to saying sorry” a sheepish grin almost appeared on his face. “He said that he had just the thing and to wait here while he……..” his voice trailed off, where was the old goat anyway?

The thought hit them both at the same time. They were too wrapped up in other things to realise it sooner.
“It would appear that we have been set up” Cat had a note of exasperation in her voice.
“It would certainly seem the case” Severus agreed. The sneaky old devil, even he hadn’t seen that one at the time, they sat in further silence.
“We may as well leave, it’s obvious the old meddler didn’t actually want to speak to us at all” Cat eventually decided and stood up shaking her head.
“Can I walk you back to your rooms?”
“If you want to?” she tried to sound as though it didn’t matter either way. In truth her insides had flipped, she had already decided to give things another go. Misunderstandings could be worked past after all.

They approached her door in silence and she unwarded it. Severus stood there awkwardly unsure what to say or do. If he asked to come in would he be pushing his luck, if he didn’t ask would she get the wrong impression?
“Do you want to come in for a drink?”
“Please” that was fortunate; she had solved his dilemma for him and he walked through the open door behind her.
“Pick some music while I pour us both a whisky” She wanted him to pick the music? He looked at the vast array in front of him and didn’t know where to begin.
“You are aware I still have no idea what any of these sound like. Perhaps it would be best if you choose.”
“Just pick any that grab your attention, we’ll listen to all of them” she turned on the stereo on plonked herself down on the floor in front of it.
“Okay, if you insist, but you have been warned. If I pick something horrible I won’t be blamed”
Cat smiled up at him “I don’t own anything horrible”
Relaxing he grabbed a large pile of different Cds with impressive artwork on the front and sat down in front of the stereo, putting the selection between them.
“Interesting choice” she said as she put the first one in.

He had never really just sat and listened to music before. Music was always something that was there in the background while other things happened round it and until this night he had never really understood people who did. He found himself pulling more and more albums from her collection demanding that he heard them. The meanings behind the lyrics and the way the songs affected him was fascinating, he could have quite happily sat there all night until he noticed Cat yawning next to him. Looking at the clock he was shocked.
“Merlin’s beard, it’s almost two o clock.”
She nodded sleepily.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise the time” Cat smiled at him.
“No problem, I don’t mind late night music sessions. I do it myself quite a lot.”
He found it easy to picture her sat cross-legged on the floor, as she was now, surrounded by stacks and stacks of CD’s. His mind flashed to another evening spent on the floor in her company as he looked into her tired eyes.
“None of that tonight” he told himself, getting up slowly hoping to hide the bulge in his trousers that appeared whenever he pictured her naked.

Yawning, she followed him to the door. “I had a nice night tonight, thanks Severus.”
“As did I, thank you” her eyes were truly beautiful, even when tired and heavy.
He was staring at her face for what seemed like forever and his eyes were hypnotic. Fighting back her urges she stood up on tiptoes and kissed him softly on the cheek.
“Goodnight” she said quietly smiling at him.
“It is now” he thought absent mindedly touching his cheek as he walked back to his empty rooms.