The Meeting of Midday and Sunset


"I'm old enough to be your grandfather," he said. "I was even your parents' professor before you. Aurora this isn't–"

She cut him off with a swift kiss. When Aurora pulled back, she looked at him with a coy smile and whispered, "It's been a long time since you've been a professor to me, Horace."

Hesitantly, Horace placed his hand on her thigh. He was still uncertain that the course they were about to take was appropriate. She was a colleague. What if things ended poorly? What then? Their working relationship might never recover. Then there was the fact she'd once been a pupil under his tutelage.

Aurora may have not been his student for over twenty years, but he could still recall the girl she'd been. A tall child with sleepy eyes, dancing fingers, and feet that refused to stop pounding out their steady rhythms upon floors and tabletops even for exams. Oh, she'd been irksome then. Always offering simpering apologies for the annoyances she caused professors and peers alike while defiantly continuing her practices. She had made a wonderful, wonderful Slytherin, Horace would admit, but Aurora had also been so frustrating to teach. One never knew if she heard them over her private songs or if she was too tired to be paying due attention when she stared unblinkingly forward with half-lidded eyes.

Now, with age and reflection, Horace could surmise that her tired eyes and perpetually in-motion appendages had come from late nights spent studying the stars. Her drowsy gaze a result of forfeited sleep and her moving hands and feet a necessary evil to stave off slumber during inappropriate times.

When Horace learned she'd taken up teaching Astronomy to the children of Hogwarts, Aurora was an enigma no more. Finally, everything came together to reveal her for what she'd always been – a stargazer. Aurora, once an alien girl, was now a relatable woman. With this new information, it made sense to Horace that Aurora built her career around trying to bridge the gap between the sublunary children of Hogwarts and those foreign ones of the nighttime sky.

Horace may have not given her much mind as a girl, seeing as Aurora did not have any prodigious talents, connections, or even the cut-throat ambition so many of her peers did, but now? All his attention was going to her. Aurora was not that sleepy girl anymore. She was a woman. She was not quite middle-aged yet, but neither was she someone you could mistake for anything under thirty. Aurora had the beginning of marionette lines around her mouth and her constant odd hours and lack of sleep had left permanent bags beneath her dark gaze. Horace could see that now with her in his lap.

She was still fifty years younger than Horace, but Aurora was more than mature enough to understand what a relationship like this would come with. She knew just as well as he that they would draw frowns, whispers, and quizzically raised eyebrows. Even with all of the same knowledge as Horace, though, Aurora, with her orphic eyes and winsome smiles, had been trying to lure Horace into her world for months, he realized with awe. All those looks, brief touches and murmurs of concern and flattery he'd received from Aurora over the year had been her attempt to tell him that she wanted to be more than friends and colleagues.

Now, with the end of the school year fast approaching, Horace could see that she'd decided to take a more direct approach by inviting Horace to her rooms to discuss a popular novel over wine when her more subtle attempts failed to give her the results she wanted. They had talked about the novel, of course, because Horace had long since given up on romance and had never thought there could be more to Aurora's invitation than what was on the surface. When Aurora had realized such after an hour or so of talking with Horace, she made the grand gesture of putting aside her goblet and losing the friendly quirk of her lips.

Raising a brow in question, Horace had waited.

Aurora told him, "I'm quite fond of you, Horace."

He had been miffed at her directness, yet thoroughly pleased at knowing Aurora liked him. "Thank you, Aurora," Horace had said with a small, confused smile.

She frowned thoughtfully. Then her eyes sparked with what he understood now had been an idea. Lips forming into the faintest outline of a victory smile, she placed a hand on his knee. Horace stared at it. Then, lifting his eyes, he stared at Aurora.

It clicked.

Her unflinching gaze told him all he needed to know.

"Aurora…"

She got up from her chair and carefully sat herself on his old knees. "I want to be with you," she told him.

And then he'd tried to protest. She had kissed him and now, uncertain, he had to consider what he was going to do. This was a quandary that never before had Horace faced. Even when he had been a young professor, students and colleagues alike hadn't shown much interest in him. Horace was quite short; and while his potbelly was a newer addition, he knew he'd always been a bit pudgy.

Horace was willing to concede he was not handsome, not even when he'd been a young man. It never bothered him much, though. Some women didn't need an attractive fellow, just one who could provide for them (or so he'd been told by his mother, grandmother and aunts). As time went on, though, being a professor took up more and more of his time as he began to form his social club and became the Head of Slytherin.

After a while, he stopped looking for a wife.

Horace had friends a plenty and a fulfilling career. Even now, Horace acknowledged a wife would be a nice addition, but he was alright without. Despite being content with his bachelorship though, and knowing what Aurora was offering was not necessarily lifetime devotion, Horace could not stop himself from imagining her as his wife. Aurora, as his wife, waiting at home for him every evening with a warm smile and kiss. Aurora strolling hand and hand with him through Hogsmeade. Aurora casting cooling charms upon him when he was feverish and ill. Aurora being there to share new discoveries with and to shower with extravagant gifts.

Aurora beside him always.

It was such a beautiful dream that Horace worried if he turned down Aurora's advances now he'd never get the chance to realize it. With that fear in mind as he continued to map out the intricacies of their potential future as husband and wife, Horace made his decision. Beginning to move his hand up and down Aurora's thigh, he murmured, "Okay."

Long arms wrapping around his neck, Horace could feel her sigh in relief. "Oh, Horace, we'll be so happy…" she told him before kissing the shell of his ear.

Finding himself smiling, Horace took Aurora in a gentle hold around the waist and said, "I have no doubt, my love."

Briefly, Aurora returned his smile. Then she canted forward, eyes fluttering closed. His smile going wide for all of a moment, Horace let his own eyes fall closed as he captured his lover's lips in an all-encompassing kiss.


Thoughts?

I enjoyed writing it, though, I feel like I might need to write a followup chapter or two eventually.

Thanks for reading and please review!