Title: Vanilla
Author: Juliet Norrington
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: JKR owns 'em, but I love them!
Summery: Hermione, as sketched by her lover. Companion to "The Ocean" HG/SS
A/N: Severus's PoV.
Vanilla.
She smelled like vanilla. Many times I would burry my face in her long silky curls, and breathe in her warm, tingly scent. She was beautiful. My fingers used to dance along her soft, smooth skin, making her laugh, or moan, whatever I wanted. She used to tease me about my being in total control, but we both knew it was not so. My fingers always looked so pale on her warm, tan skin- like winter touching summer. We were like summer and winter. She was a summer goddess in my eyes, with hair of mahogany, eyes of chocolate, and skin of the sun.
I was the winter- cold. With pale, pale skin and dark, dark eyes and hair. And heart, I thought, until I heard her laugh the day when it all began. I will always remember her laugh, the soft bubbly laugh that I would always hear whenever I played her. She was so ticklish. I remember when she used to laugh for me daily, throwing back her luscious curls and sending her laugh to the summer sky. I thought those days would never end- in my mind I can still see her swinging on the tree swing, back and forth, back and forth… and at dusk, when she would dance in the darkening meadow, a firefly on each finger. Our summer was a frenzy of laughing and love making. She would be lying in the shallows of our lake, bathing her body in the sunlight, and I would swim over and make love and make love and make love…
Our winter was spent curled up on the floor beside our fire, studying until both our eyes ached. Making potions, and having small food fights with the ingredients. Snowball fights at the sunrise when we thought no one could see. Nights spent with our heads and bodies cuddling close under the heavy blankets, warming each other against the cold, cold air. Once, we were one. Together. Whole. Perfect. But now, my beautiful summer goddess is gone. The summer has finally ended, throwing me back into the icy winter that I lived in before I knew her.
I cannot bring myself to hate her. It's impossible. Every time I try, I remember everything I did and said to her, before my eyes were finally opened. The things that still haunt me, and will until my dying day, along with the last time I saw her. She was smiling, and in her eyes there was a bright and happy sparkle. She was wearing her first set of non-school robes, and the silver necklace I gave her. She looked so happy, so blissfully happy. And so was I. I was as happy as she, for I thought this would be our first day publicly together. I wanted the world to know that I loved Hermione Granger. But they never did.
My bed still remembers her body, her soft, beautiful body. It cries for her to join me, as my body and mind cries for her. And it still clings to her scent, the heavenly scent of vanilla that is forever imbedded in my pillow.
