She did not look back on that year... those two years... with much warmth.
Fitting, really, as the ominous clouds that gathered continually around the castle appeared to reflect what was happening in her mind, in Aurora's most inner soul. So much so that she had felt it had shattered her soul a bit, and from that she would never fully recover.
1997 was the year everything changed, everything became tainted just that little bit more, where everything she had held together so well and so dear had fallen away from her, all the while ironically also being a year of rebirth - quite literally.
The minute Aurora had learned that he had been made the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, was the exact same minute that the clouds had arisen in the sky, she was almost positive of it.
Why now? She had asked herself when she had received a visit from him late one night in August. They were not living together outside of Hogwarts - it was phenomenally difficult for them to achieve such an act that most long term couples took for granted. Severus had now fully immersed himself in the life of a double agent... triple, quadruple agent... working for both the Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort's band of followers with such emotional and physical effort that he used to come back to her vomiting and shaking in her arms most days... but an effort that, to the rest of the world, seemed seamlessly effortless. For that was the way he had to make it look, of course.
But Aurora knew different. For she had seen him for him when no else did. Well... perhaps the old, white batty wizard he was slave to... but the old, white batty wizard was never there to absorb Severus's broken pieces day to day, hour by hour, the gruelling and yet beautiful kind of every day love that Dumbledore could not experience.
They become completely and utterly broken together that year.
"Why now?" she had asked Severus when he had first broken the news that a change in classrooms was in order.
"Why after all this time, after all your applications, has Dumbledore allowed this now of all years? When you're surely busy enough with everything else going on!"
And he had not said anything of the truth then - the first bought of deceit and lies he had showered her with. He merely held her tighter to his body as they lay together, covered in the bedsheets in the room of the house which belonged to her eldest brother. He had held her tighter, Aurora had told herself, had to tell herself, because of the guilt that had been coursing through his veins at the time she was sure of it... there had to be some slither of regret there, somewhere, he had loved her once, if only once... she was sure of it...
"I don't know," he answered and lied eventually, and she had felt a breath catch somewhere in the chest on which she was resting her forrest of dreadlocks. She closed her eyes, oblivious to his mind, as five of his long, slender fingers journeyed their way through her hair, setting the neurons up and down her spine alight with icy pleasure. "I suppose with Horace returning, the Headmaster thinks it would be best for him to resume his old position."
"It's position that belonged to you!" Aurora said defiantly, fighting some kind of battle she didn't even know existed. "Slughorn left that job. At least he does have experience as a teacher, unlike the rest of those dolts the old man's dug up to teach Defence, he'd be a somewhat competent professor for a change!"
"I've taught Potions for fourteen years, Borealis. A change in scenery is actually most welcomed -"
"You don't think it's odd that it's been fourteen years of you trying to - and then he just - he just gives it away -"
"You know very well that Slughorn - "
"I don't give a fuck about Slughorn! I didn't at school and I still don't now!" she whipped all of her hair away from him and sat bolt upright in the bed, viciously straddling his midsection and holding him there in what felt like a vice-grip between her thighs. She shoved him heavily. "I give a fuck about you, you idiot. Have you not noticed a slightly peculiar pattern amongst all the Defence Against the Dark Arts professors... well, so-called professors...?"
Instead of arguing back, or attempting to wriggle free (why would he, really?), she caught sight of him smiling lightly in the moonlight that had snuck through the cracks between wall and curtain.
"I don't know whether to be offended or touched," Severus whispered softly, one of his hands had attempted to rub the top of her thigh but Aurora had swatted it away immediately. "You're concerned about me leaving Hogwarts, but I fear you think me to as inept a dunderhead as Lockhart was. No... on second thought I have decided to be offended by that."
"Shut-up," Sinistra bit churlishly, turning her back to him like the petulant child she was. She folded her arms over the edges of her knees and glared into the darkness, waiting to see how long it would take him to move.
To be fair, it was not very long, and feeling the touch of his fingers on her back made Aurora's muscles soften a little... but his words were, as always, not particularly comforting. Not in the normal, mollycoddling sense anyway.
"I always feel rather pre-pubescent whenever I visit you at Mithras's house. As if I should be scaling the outside wall when I leave in order to avoid a lecture from him. It is not a pleasant experience."
Aurora scoffed. "Deal with it, Princess. You have Pettigrew to snuggle up to at my previous residence. Feels wonderful to be kicked out of my summer home for the human equivalent of an infected pimple -"
"You know I had no choice."
She hadn't expected him to take the jibe so seriously, hadn't expected it so much that the clouds in her mind had darkened and rumbled louder as the realisation of what he meant dawned on the both of them.
"That's what I'm afraid of..." Aurora whispered ominously through one stray dreadlock as she looked back at him, his form had taken a clearer, sharper shape as her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness.
The form leant forward slightly and she allowed herself to be drawn back into the bed as she groaned from the weight of her thoughts. If only she had known back then... if only she had known her thoughts were the mere tip of the iceberg... how he had kept himself together that night, knowing what was about to come, she would never know...
He must've never loved her in the first place.
But for the meantime, before she had come to realise this, Aurora merely allowed the forceful breath of a sigh to wash itself across his sallow, beautifully sickly skin as she nestled into his neck. She felt an artery underneath her ear pulsing callously.
"Thank Great Illu I was the most perfect, most talented Occlumency student you ever had, huh? Kept our 'little thing' secret from the entire wizarding world for six years, have we not?" she quipped as she twirled the tip of her silver tongue around the piece of his skin where neck met collarbone, she felt a slight sigh emanate from his lips and his chest and the skin began to expand as Severus extended his neck, allowing her further play space.
"Somewhat necessary when I... want you to be safe... and, ah, well..." Severus attempted to reply with seemingly great difficulty - he seemed to have trouble finding words: a rarity, usually, but not when Professor Sinistra's (when Her) tongue was involved. "Considering my only... my only other Occlumency student was Potter I assure you it's no big accomp..."
He gave a very sharp intake of breath through yellowed clenched teeth as the caressing tongue withdrew to welcome a sharp, icy nip from Her own incisors. His entire body tensed, one leg repeatedly rubbed upward and downward upon the mattress as if not knowing what to do with itself as Her incessant, relentless biting continued, deeper and harder until his chest was rising and falling so hurriedly it reminded Aurora of all the times he had arrived, panting, clawing at the door of her Astronomy tower.
You package yourself in with those buttons so tightly; no-one would ever guess that such purple and black and yellow bruises lurk beneath you... She thought... little did She know that there would be wounds, not so loving wounds, wounds in the very same place She used to devour, wounds he would never be able to cover up with black cloth and buttons...
The very same blood had just begun to appear in tooth-shaped little beads and dots in various positions upon Severus's neck. He never attempted to heal them magically - Aurora would never allow such a thing anyway, but he had never wished to, he wore them as badges to honour her work and that pleased Her all the more.
His pelvis had begun to arch, reach out and try to rub desperately, unconsciously, against Her own as the hissing from the blissful pain continued. Aurora spread Her aching wet thighs over him in his entirety; She did not particularly want to satisfy him so easily but by God She needed to be fucked and fucked so hard She wouldn't be able to walk properly until the following term. Hiss turned into moan.
And it was so subtle at first that She had not noticed. Not noticed him suddenly crying out in terrible pain... in unwanted, unwilling pain. Pain that did not belong to Her.
Aurora was suddenly awoken from her pleasurable reverie by the sight of him clawing at his left arm... the Mark which he had always so desperately attempted to hide was as black as it had ever been for two years now. And it was burning again.
"No... no..." Severus was muttering viciously, not from the pain which he was surely used to by now, but from sheer contempt. He swore savagely under his breath and, as if merely to spite the Dark Lord himself, tore himself around and kissed her just as contemptuously.
"You-hab-to-leeb-I'll-be-fine-..." Sinistra mumbled while simultaneously gagged by his unrelenting, greedy mouth. When they finally parted he gave a haughty scoff.
"I know you will be, you idiot" Severus answered representatively cryptic and disparaging at the same time, as he began struggling hastily with his robes. Aurora watched on from the edge of the bed; her chest ached seeing him like this but she would never let it show, by God she would never let it show. She was the strong one. If she crumbled they both did and they both knew it.
She gave a forced smirk... but she was so good an Occlumens now that she wondered if he was able to realise it was forced.
"Guess I'll be entertaining myself all by my lonesome, yet again."
She lay back and parted her legs slightly, revealing every inch of her gloriously bare dark body twice over. Severus stopped mid-button with a furious groan and shot her the most exasperated glare in the history of the universe.
"Not helpful. Really not helpful."
He finished with his buttons, swung on his cloak and kissed her once more upon her forehead.
"I'll be back soon, Borealis. You are forbidden to move on yet."
Sinistra smiled painfully.
"Oh, I'm sure that stupid oaf of a servant of yours has just burned your house down or something. It'll be fine."
Her eyes met his and she allowed him in this time.
It'll be ok. You will be ok.
And Severus nodded weakly.
"Well, with any luck he'd have burned himself along with it," he retorted as he drew out his wand, preparatory to Apparating away.
His eyes, empty and black like the most starless night, had not left hers. Sinistra relented and allowed him in just that little bit further.
I love you, Borealis.
Yeah, yeah, Gitface. I love you too.
It was much easier unspoken.
And after a pause that was just a millisecond too long, he had vanished with a crack. Her composure was now permitted to dissolve.
If only she had known. That this was nothing, nothing, compared to what would happen in just under a year... that she would be praying to go back to a time where all she had to worry about was the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, or the Mark burning a little more than it did before, or Pettigrew replacing her as roommate at Spinner's End...
How she would give anything to come back to this point in time...