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My garden is small but I like it that way. I wouldn’t have the time or patience to take care of it otherwise. But now I can easily maintain a few rows of flowers and maybe plant a couple of herbs every now and then. If Jenny knew about my gardening, she’d laugh at me. And I need her to take me seriously, so I will never tell her.
The thought of her lingers as I water my carnations. I used to plant lilies but it was dreadfully sentimental. I can’t hold on to the lilies, no. Carnations are better for me, as is Jenny. Although I don’t love carnations.
She’s coming over for dinner tonight and I’m cooking. I’m not a very good cook but I think I can manage some pasta and an interesting sauce. Besides, Jenny doesn’t mind. She doesn’t ask for much, just someone to keep the bed warm. We are alike in this sense, not looking for a lifetime commitment, only a bit of company whenever it’s convenient.
A strand of hair gets in my eyes as I work and I blow it away. Jenny says I should get a haircut, maybe dye my hair now that it’s turning grey. She prefers it jet black, the way it was in my picture on the university brochure and above the author’s bio in my books. I won't grant her the favour, though. I like my hair long and greying. I've always grown it out, in an attempt to hide my crooked nose and the bony edges of my face. As for the grey, I don’t mind getting older. In a way, the fact that I’ve made it this far is comforting.
I put my gardening tools back in the small outdoor cupboard and head inside. I’m about to close the door behind me when I hear it; a tiny, high-pitched meowing. A little grey furball is staring up at me from the base of the stairs.
“Jesus,” I mutter. Under the sound of loud hungry meows, I run to the kitchen and fish in the cupboards for an old tupperware. I pour some milk into it and return to the front door. The kitten is still there, crying.
I place the bowl in front of her and back away. She walks up to it with confidence and starts lapping up the milk with her small pink tongue. I take the bowl away as soon as she’s finished.
“Now go,” I shoo her and she disappears behind the bushes.
A few hours later, Jenny comes over for dinner as promised, bringing a bottle of wine.
“Sorry if the sauce isn’t up to your standards,” I apologise in advance as I serve the pasta.
“You’re the most brilliant chemistry professor I know,” she flatters me. “I’m sure you can handle a pasta sauce.”
We met at the university. She was a post-grad student and I was her supervisor. Later she became my TA, and now she has assumed the post of lecturer. She is very devoted to her academic pursuits. Perhaps she sees sleeping with me as a way to the top. I don’t mind. If that is the case, we both get something out of it.
Jenny spends the night and leaves early in the morning, stumbling in the dark and gathering her clothes so as not to wake me. She fails, but I appreciate the sentiment. I don’t make her breakfast and she doesn’t kiss me goodbye. That’s not part of our accord.
I get up later and head to the kitchen. As I brew myself a cup of bitter black coffee, I hear the meowing again.
“You can’t be serious,” I say under my breath and open the door. There she is again, the little grey furball. She has climbed the steps this time and her audacious blue eyes are looking up at me.
“What do you want?”
Meow .
“Alright, fine,” I roll my eyes. I’m about to go back inside and get her some more milk when she follows me in.
“This is not a place for cats,” I berate her but she doesn’t seem to care. She walks beside me to the kitchen and tugs at my trousers with her little paws.
“Just a second! Christ,” I say as I hurry to fill up her bowl. Once again, she devours it.
When she’s finished, I pick her up as gently as I can. She meows, not particularly disturbed by the situation. I take her out and close the door.
But she returns again and again. She takes her breakfast with me in the morning and waits for me to get home from work in the afternoon. Each time it’s harder and harder to convince her to leave. She likes to rub her head against my ankles and tickle me with her tail. Sometimes I pet her and she purrs in contentment; she is warm and soft to touch.
Winter falls in London and the temperature drops severely. The forecast says there will be snow in the coming days. When the small furry parasite visits again, I can’t find it in me to send her back out there. I let her stay and warm her frosty paws. This is temporary, until spring, I tell myself.
For the first few weeks I keep her unnamed, trying not to form any deep bonds. I call her cat . Eventually I admit this is stupid and decide to find her a real name. I think about it for days and ask her what she thinks of my name ideas. She replies with a meow , which is neither here nor there. I don’t really know what I was expecting.
A month in, she finally receives a name: Sophie. It’s sweet and simple, not serious and clever like one might expect from me, but I like it. I’m tired of overcomplicating things.
Thankfully, Sophie is a very well-behaved cat. She likes to sit on my lap when I read or drink coffee by the fire. Sometimes she climbs onto my desk and takes a nap on top of my papers; on such instances my research is postponed until the princess wakes.
Jenny has decided to leave town; she has been offered a position to teach somewhere in the north. She promises to call, but seldom does. Once again, I find myself alone. Except for my feline companion, of course.
Perhaps it’s time to take that sabbatical. A change of pace will do me good. It has been my passion project for years, a dream I’ve had since I was a boy, but something would always come up and I would move it to the back burner. Right now, however, I have nothing else to hold me here. I guess I might as well give it a shot.
Between school and home, my childhood was anything but easy. My love of science was a lifeline. I knew, despite everything, that I, too, could be great at something. But those school textbooks were rubbish. I much preferred studying at the library where I could do my own research. Even as a child, I would make revisions on the textbooks and scribble my own annotations in the margins. What I wanted more than anything was to rewrite them from scratch. To give students a book they could really learn from. To give children like myself something to be great at.
If I am an accomplished scientist now, I owe it to that bright-eyed kid who wrote his notes in the margins of tattered books. I want to accomplish his dream. I want to write my own school textbooks.
I’ve thought about this sabbatical for a long time. It would be useless if I were to isolate myself for a while and just write, cut off from the world. That’s how textbooks have been made forever, and I want to change that. I need to see for myself what children need and how I can bring them to knowledge. I need to work as a teacher.
I make the decision to call Hogwarts. A familiar voice greets me from the Headmaster’s office; back in the day she used to teach us Classics, but now it seems that Minerva McGonagall has succeeded Dumbledore in the post. This development delights me; McGonagall is stern but kind, a fair judge, and I have always respected her for it.
I talk to her about my plan, and ask if they would have me. She is thrilled. Yes, as a matter of fact they do have a position for me, she says, and they are honoured that I’m so unexpectedly available for it. “Professor Slughorn is retiring,” she explains. I find it hard to believe that he still works there; he was already middle-aged when I graduated.
“We will provide you with furnished housing as well, Severus,” she assures me as we go over the details, “so you don’t have to worry about moving out of your current home.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“Please, you may call me Minerva.”
“Thank you, Minerva.” It feels strange to call her that, but I suppose I will get used to it over time. “Now that you mention housing, I have a request. I understand if you cannot accept it but I must ask nonetheless. Are pets welcome?”
“Well,” she says, “Dumbledore did have that dreadful bird. What kind of pet are we discussing?”
“A cat, ma’am.”
“Oh!” her tone shifts at once. “How lovely. Of course, your cat is welcome. I’m quite fond of cats, you know. I consider them kindred spirits.”
Sophie can join me, then. It is settled. I will return to Hogwarts after all these years being weighed down by the memories, haunted by what could have been. It will be bittersweet, I know, but it’s the right thing. I need a purpose for my life, an outlet, and if I stay where I am I risk becoming stagnant.
My garden is going to wither in my absence. In the summer I will no doubt come home to find my carnations dry and faded. It doesn’t bother me too much - like I said, I don’t love carnations. My heart will forever belong to the lilies long gone.