There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness

It was so weird, approaching the apartment like a stranger, but Selwyn had promised he'd do this the old fashioned way. What he thought of as the cliched way, not that he'd let Addie know it.

It had been a fortnight since school broke up. A fortnight of events washing around him, that Selwyn refused to engage with in any genuine way. He knew he ought to be more concerned about what had happened with the train. They were his students and he was responsible for them, but so long as nobody else brought it up, he was happy to let whoever was dealing with it at the ministry or the school take the problem off his shoulders.

Besides, he had other problems. He hadn't anticipated how Shylock would react to what he'd imagined as a simple favour, and now they were barely speaking.

So now in his attempt to make it right, with everyone, Selwyn was knocking on his own front door. He had gone to all the effort. He was wearing a suit, he'd bought flowers (granada roses were pretty, but not that deep red that presumed romance was in the air), he had no idea what he was going to do when she opened the door.

He hoped she was home. Would it be presumptuous to let himself in if she wasn't?

[ooc: Kim is up for a thread between Selwyn and Kaiden if it suits you? So they can have a pissing contest or whatever they want to do. I can have her ask Kaiden to come over, like, to meet her outside so they can go somewhere at some point when Selwyn decides to come over or something? Like, in a follow-up thread. Just to make it sufficiently awkward.]


Adrienne left work early after Kaiden's shocking arrival, unable to handle the stress that it had dropped onto her shoulders. It felt all the more strange to know that she was returning to Selwyn's flat rather than a place that was strictly her own. At least she had told Kaiden the truth to some extent, informing him that she was staying at someone else's.

Either way, she was preparing to change out of her dress and into something more comfortable when there was a knock at her door. Surely it couldn't be Kaiden; she hadn't given him any sort of address, so if he was standing on the other side she would probably just hex him for being all the more mental and confusing than he already had been.

Still, she went to the door despite picking her wand up along the way. When she opened it, her mouth quite literally fell open. Merlin, what a day she was having. It was just lucky that Kaiden didn't remember having a thing for her, otherwise it was perfectly guaranteed that she would've gone running for the hills.

"I- Hi," she attempted, her eyes flicking across him and then back to his face. A little smile pulled her lips upwards despite the confusion behind her eyes. "You clean up well. But, um... Have I forgotten something?"

The compliment made Selwyn forget his nerves enough to smile, but they returned twofold when she asked if she'd forgotten something. 

"Uh, no," he said, proffering the flowers.  "I hoped this wouldn't be an unwelcome surprise."

A surprise.  Yeah, he thought of it as a surprise.  Selwyn liked surprises.  Selwyn liked being spontaneous and doing things on the spur of the moment. 

That letter had been a surprise he'd hoped wouldn't be unwelcome as well.

"Sorry," he began tripping over his words in haste to apologise as realisation dawned.  "I wasn't thinking.  I ought to have owled.  I can send you an owl.  We can organise something."

Adrienne reached out immediately when he held out the flowers - first, because they were lovely, but also because she couldn't imagine leaving him standing like that and wondering what she thought.

"Oh," she began, quieting when he continued. She didn't actually mind being cut off, considering she was still trying to find her footing. But he looked ready to run away after a second, and that wasn't what she had been going for.

"No, no. I'm sorry, I've just.. it's been- Have you ever had one of those days?" She asked suddenly, her eyebrows pulling together expressively. Merlin, it had been exhausting but somehow made her pulse race all the same, and at some level the excitement was both too much as well as a welcome change of pace at work. "It was just the strangest thing, earlier. Here," she paused, stepping out of the doorway. "Come in, obviously. Sorry."

Adrienne left the door closing to him, moving towards his kitchen to find something to put the flowers in. "See," she began, properly unwitting when it came to how strangely casual she was acting as compared to usual. At least, around him anyway. "I was working like normal and then Prichard walked in asking if I could talk to someone about putting a search in the paper. I thought, you know, an animal or something," she shrugged, taking a vase over to the sink and passing him back the flowers to hold onto as she did so. She could've done it with magic, of course, but if she was going to get the story out, she needed to be doing something else at the same time.

"Of course, that would've been too simple. Too normal. Ugh. You honestly, just, seriously will not believe who walked in." Shaking her head, she turned off the tap and moved to his side, holding the vase out so he could drop the flowers inside. Adrienne swallowed before just diving in and saying it all, hoping he wouldn't cut in out of surprise or indignation. "Kaiden claims to have lost his memories. He was looking for family, apparently, but then he- he did the weirdest thing, because he said he'd been away, in Greece, for ages, except then he suddenly remembered why he'd left and it seemed extremely convenient. I just don't know. How in Merlin's name could he have been here as well as there?"

Completely uncanny, walking through his own home as though he was a guest. Kind of nice too, though. Addie seemed more comfortable in the role of hostess (which made him feel a little bit guilty since he'd kind of forced her into it, what with turning up so suddenly and all), but it could also be that she was distracted with her story.

He nodded in understanding of "one of those days". Every day had been one of those days for him, lately.

He made a show of trying to arrange the flowers so Addie could make her revelation, but when it came, Selwyn was surprised by how underwhelmed he was.

"There are dozens of explanations," he sighed. "The obvious one is that he's lying, but honestly, I've never thought he had enough gumption for that."

"But his parents are right in with the Death Eaters, so even if they can't modify his memory, they know people who can."

"Why they'd start all this now is another thing entirely," he added darkly.

"I don't know," she murmured, tilting her head and focusing in on the flowers. "Some parts seemed like lies and then others didn't. It was bizarre."

She wanted to point out that she'd been able to read him. Before everything, that is. Somehow she felt like that comment might not come off the way she meant it, and she didn't want to make the day any worse than it already seemed to be.

His point was a fair one. But then, he knew much more about Death Eaters and the Order and everything else, so Adrienne figured that was to be expected.

"I have no idea. I haven't spoken to them in.. what, months now? I can't imagine what I've done."

There was, potentially, another explanation. One she really didn't like. "I just... I hope it doesn't have to do with my brother. He's always been quite good at getting into trouble, but he's never dragged anyone else into it. Maybe I should write him," she suggested, looking to him for an opinion.

Selwyn didn't know what she expected him to say.  Actually, correct that, he knew what she wanted him to say.  She wanted him to tell her that was an excellent idea, but he honestly didn't know if it was.

"It's your decision," he told her instead.  "All I can say is I've never heard of him, but that might just be because he wasn't very high up in their ranks."

Selwyn didn't honestly understand how Addie's brother (he couldn't remember the name) would be pulled into all of this now.  She was out of the Poliakoffs' clutches, and there was no way they could save face anymore.  Unless they hoped to lure her back and make her remarry their son by holding her brother hostage or some such thing.  But that was preposterous.

And it was another obstacle in their relationship.  Selwyn was beginning to tire of those.

"I was here to invite you out to dinner," he said abruptly.

"I hope so," she said firmly. "We haven't heard from him in years, so if that changed now, I would be shocked."

In the end, she shrugged and set the vase down on the end of the counter, figuring she could move it later on. When he spoke, she turned around to face him.

For a moment, she didn't say anything. But then one hand fell to rest at her hip, an amused smirk appearing.

"Well, that would explain the clothes," she supposed aloud, gesturing towards him with her other hand. Looking down at herself, Adrienne hesitated, lifting a section of her dress in explanation for what followed. "Is this alright for where you want to go?"

"Anything's all right for where I want to go," Selwyn replied, "if it has your lovely self in it."

He hadn't really even thought that far ahead. Selwyn was beginning to realise that he was probably not the best when it came to the dating scene. He'd never had the opportunity to practice. All the other dates he'd ever been on were either while he was at Hogwarts, or arranged between his parents those of the girl.

Although, he had been out to dinner with Shylock a couple of times, but he didn't think Addie would want to know that.

"But is there anywhere you want to go, particularly?" he asked.