<sub>[The thing about living alone in a quiet room on a quiet floor is that you live alone and it's quiet. There definitely shouldn't be faint sounds of shuffling coming from your bedroom when you walk in the door.

Victor listens for it again--yes, there it is again.

Nothing that can sneak into a locked apartment can be good, in Victor's experience, and he carefully sets down his keys on a side table (one would think that having a lock and key would help prevent this sort of thing, but apparently not).]</sub>

Hello?

<sub>[I'm armed, he thinks to add, and then decides against it. Better not to announce it should he need his pistol.

There's no answer. The sound continues.

When Victor hazards a cautious look to see what it is, he discovers the source to be not be shuffling movement as he thought, but crinkling. The crinkling of paper being brushed back and forth across his bed. The culprit, a cat, sits there like it belongs there. Which it certainly doesn't for more than one reason, the primary one being it's a dreamt-up hallucination from an event.]</sub>

You shouldn't be here.

_{[Because if he's not mistaken, this is a cat from that wizarding school. Katherine's cat.]}

[ vasilka will be wherever she wants to be. doesn't victor remember this? ]

[ she looks up at the greeting and stares unblinkingly at him. it's almost as though vasilka's asking how dare you come into my home. but she'd found a home — her hogwarts version — in victor's things, from his quills and licking them to biting his laces to even wearing his jackets as a blanket. vasilka had lived and breathed victor in hogwarts, and this version of her seems to have been looking for home once more. ]

[ as if taking his comment as an invitation, vasilka picks herself up and scurries across the room to leap onto the very top of a drawer. if something is knocked right over by her paw, it was clearly accidental. ]

<sub>[Oh god, why is this thing still alive? Shouldn't it have faded away with the event? It's a small apartment that offers few places for a person, or even a small animal, to hide; nevertheless, Victor looks around like he's half-expecting to find one of Hogwarts' ghosts next. Or a doppelganger with Elena's face.

The time it takes him to glance away is all the cat needs to abandon the bed and jump to a new piece of furniture scattered with books and articles of clothing he hadn't gotten around to putting away.]</sub>

Hey.

_{[Victor approaches, arms out like a net in case it should try to jump past him, giving him a chance to grab it. How did this bloody animal even get in here?]}

Get down from there.

[ vasilka gives his command some thought and kindly rejects it. ]

[ she simply stares at him. hadn't he missed her? katherine won't give her the time of day, so she's decided to come bother her third favourite person. (the second doesn't exist in this universe, sadly.) ]

[ for the reason why vasilka's here, it isn't for any ulterior motive of her owner. katherine's forgotten victor's existence as she has anyone she deems to be irrelevant to the grand scope of things. a mistake, in vasilka's opinion. for the way he doesn't grab at her, she likes him and misinterprets his actions for a welcome. ]

[ vasilka remains where she is, golden eyes staring at him. her tail stills for a long moment before it begins to sweep again. her paw twitches before she lifts it. instead of jumping into victor's arms for the hug she deserves, she leaps into the mess of clothes he's left in a pile. she surfs a little on one book in the process. ]

Where did you even come from?

<sub>[Baffled exasperation marks his response to the animal jumping all over his belongings (shedding cat hair every step of the way, he's sure of it). The momentum of the first book bumps a small paperback sitting on the edge of the chest of drawers, sending it toppling to the floor in a flutter of pages.

This is either a reason why not to leave your things stacked in piles everywhere, or a reason not to keep pets. He prefers to think it's the latter.

In the manner of a lion tamer attempting to corral a lion, Victor slowly moves closer, hoping against hope she'll stay in the nest she's making of his clothes. His plan stops at what he'll do once he actually catches her. Put her out in the hall? He's not sure what else he's supposed to do with a witch's familiar that's broken into his private room to lounge about.]</sub>

[ vasilka has two choices: she disappears and scatters fur all over victor's clothes, or she leaps into his arms. ]

[ as the cat who seemed to have a bit of a crush on victor, it's obvious which option she chooses. ]

[ that crush doesn't live in the past. ]

[ she remains still, almost suspiciously so. sitting on her throne of clothes, vasilka looks up at victor expectantly, as though she's waiting for his hands to produce a golden throne for her to perch upon. she eyes him and doesn't so much as twitch. where another cat may shrug him off and continue to pilfer his things, leaving fur everywhere, she waits. ]

[ if he so much as picks her up, his touch better be gentle. vasilka is very much like her owner — she demands and takes only the best from those who are blue-eyed and her prey. ]

<sub>[As a boy in a world where wizarding familiars have power and their own unique personality, he'd respected Vasilka as one would a person--Katherine's companion. But reality is back in play now and animals are just animals.

As a man, he's no longer concerned about offending a cat's sensibilities, and when he's close enough to reach out and touch the hairy beast, he gets a hand on either side of her and scoops her up without preamble. He doesn't intend to hurt the cat--that would be an unforgivably harsh response to an innocent animal, even here where animals are more or less just figments of their imagination given form.]</sub>

You're a troublemaker just like your predecessor. A pity you don't seem capable of speaking--you could explain to me how you got into a locked room ten floors up.

<sub>[No answer. Hard to say if he should've expected one or not--this is Wonderland. Talking cats are what Wonderland is known for.

The puffball's fur is so thick that it's like picking up a pillow; as he'd thought, long strands of black hair fall from her as she comes away. (Guess who's going to be re-laundering those clothes? If you guessed him, you'd be right.) Holding her gingerly in both hands in case his surprise guest is in the mood to claw, his intentions become clear when he reverses direction and heads toward the door. She's free to do what she wants so long as it's not here.

It's a scrape of teeth against his wrist bone, not a scratch, that has him frowning in speculation halfway to the front door. It's eerie how alike she is to her event self.

Could Katherine have...? No. What reason would Katherine have to ask the closets for a cat just like the one she'd had at Hogwarts? That seems a little too sentimental for Elena's spiteful ancestor.

He cracks the front door open and sets the cat down outside it.]</sub>

Off you go now.

_{[Shoo, shoo. Back to wherever you came from.]}

[ vasilka isn't going to move. she sits, tail sweeping along the ground, as she looks at him. even licks her lips like a hungry vampire would, but unlike the countless versions of dracula out there, she doesn't leap forth and take hold of his neck. ]

[ she does consider his bony ankle, but vasilka would prefer to claim for resting her paws against a shoulder. there's something about height that makes her feel so regal — besides, a part of her doesn't quite like being on the ground. a princess through and through, she wishes for a pillow to perch on and cat biscuits to be fed like grapes to her. ]

[ sitting outside, she remains there, gaze on him, opening and closing her mouth. he may remember this from the cat in hogwarts, watching him in the shadows with only two golden eyes visible in the dark. she had even perched herself right on his paper to stare at him. ]

[ then, unexpectedly, she darts back in to grab something small from his room. ]

_{[What is the animal waiting for, an invitation to mosey along? Well, whatever, as long as it's out of his sight and his space. Victor starts to shut the door, but he's not quite quick enough--the cat dashes between his legs, back to the scene of her crime.]}

Hey--

_{[Why is this his life? Picking up strays is supposed to be Malcolm's job, not his.]}

[ collecting bits of victor's things had been vasilka's job in hogwarts. this cat's no different, even though she doesn't walk in ink to purposefully ruin victor's homework. rather than try and compel him to have fun with her, she bolts into his room and pulls the smallest, easiest thing to carry from his pile of clothes. ]

[ she thieves a bowtie, and runs right back through his legs and into the hallway with it. ]

[ (and you bet she'll be back for more over the next few weeks. she needs to add to her victor shrine, after all.) ]

_{[Wow, who the hell do you think you are, cat?]}

Get out of there!

_{[... Fine, have it, he never liked that thing anyway. This cat is too damn spry, swerving around his legs before he can snatch her up. But he's triple checking his locks, you hear?]}