Sometimes We Die
Chapter Ten: Halloween
Author: H. Ashleigh
Disclaimer: I am obviously not J.K. Rowling, nor will I ever pretend to be. The views of the author and the views of the characters are often conflicting and are not equal. Please do not judge the author due to her character's failings, misjudgments, ineptitudes, and misperceptions.
"Carve your name into my arm,
Instead of stressed I lie here charmed." –Placebo
Friday, October 31, 1975
Evening
The dreaded Halloween party had arrived.
Severus hated parties. They forced you to converse with people, and if you didn't, you were seen as rude and anti-social, which Severus was, and bully to those who weren't.
But if Slughorn caught any sort of wind, even the smallest kind, that any of his Slytherins didn't wish to attend the party, he would call them into his office for a session of intense psychoanalysis.
Severus stared at himself in the dorm mirror. He had done nothing different with his appearance; his hair was oily, his standard robes wrinkle and lint-free, his black shoes buffed. Judas, Evan and Frederick wore dress robes, but seeing as he owned none, he did not. Thomas suffered the same predicament, but Severus did not particularly care about his lack of formal appearance.
Severus walked to the Common Room full of students dressed impeccably well. Only those who were Muggleborn did not own dressrobes, and so stood out starkly against the satin and glitter of the purebloods.
"Severus, tut, tut," he heard to his left. Saloma and Gera were lounging on a sofa, their slender legs crossed underneath their expensive dresses. Crystal glasses sparkled in their hands, the deep, burgundy liquid swirling in it matching the colors on their nails and lips. "Why are you donning the same raggedy robes you wear every day?"
Severus ignored Saloma's jibe. Her heart-shaped face tilted up to look at him. Her long, black hair hung down in loopy curls, and clashed against the pale, off-white colored skin of her clavicle.
Gera uncrossed her legs, and after swallowing the rest of her drink, leaned forward a bit to set the glass on the table in front of them. Her pert breasts swung forward a little bit underneath her low-cut, thin-materialed dress, and she leaned back again against the sofa. Her Italian nose sent a shadow across her olive cheekbones. Her eyes were deep pools of black-brown color, swimming beneath her fringe of eyelashes, and staring up at him playfully. Severus scoffed at her, and turned away from them both, to walk over to his fellow sixth-years standing in front of one of the windows.
"Severus, you and Thomas are incorrigible," Jezebel said immediately, staring down at the front of his dress with a wrinkle creasing her button nose. Virginia laughed, and Judas and Evan chuckled. Frederick was staring out the window, his fist held against his mouth in a brooding fashion.
Jezebel straightened her short party dress, and smoothed back her French twist. Virginia turned to her date, a tall, dark seventh year named Oliver Carrow. He had bought her a corsage, a dark cerise set of baby roses that matched her classy ball gown. Around her neck she wore a single pearl of immense size, the largest pearl Severus had ever seen. It was a creamy iron color.
The large clock in the Common Room struck seven, and they were heading up to the Great Hall. The different types of perfume and cologne converged and twined together to hover above their heads in a glittering, opaque cloud. Ten minutes later, they were entering the Great Hall, which was decorated with thousands of long, tapered candles. The flames threw sharp shadows across the hall, and flickered on the bare shoulders of the girls. Huge, ghastly pumpkins haunted the corners of the room, and slivery patches of light denoted ghostly apparitions hovering inches above the ground, mourning the evening.
Severus and the other sixth-year Slytherins headed over to their table, sitting in their usual places halfway down. Severus made sure to sit so that he was facing the entrance doors, and his hands toyed erratically with an odd hem of the tablecloth.
Lily flounced in several minutes later, flanked on either side by Josie and Emily. They were laughing at something, and Lily's face caught in his mind, a glowing, flickering blur of peach. Potter was not far behind her, his eyes glued to the back of her head as if staring at her would finally be enough to get her to notice anything else but his inane personality.
She was dressed in a forest green, ruffled cocktail dress, strapless. Her hair was pulled back into a simple, flirty ponytail, tied together with a big, black bow. Severus imagined slipping his fingers into the knot, allowing her hair to swish and fall in waves like water down her back. Then he could unzip her dress, and peel it away from her body, to reveal the snow-white layers of skin, peppered in unexpected places with frail, lacy clumps of freckles. He imagined there would be some buried in her clavicle, and dancing along the thin stretch of skin attaching her thigh to her groin, and sprinkled like cinnamon over her lower back. Her body would be creamy and smooth and tingling with warmth, like a top layer of milk warming on the stove, and he would press his fingertips into it, as if he were molding dough for bread, gently and sweetly. Her lips would slide open, and a small sigh would seep out, a moan would escape from her throat and slip between her teeth, and her tongue would run along the seam of her lips, moistening them, anticipating the taste of his skin and mouth, the heat of his bare body pressed next to her in unconstrained passion as his fingers traced her belly button and curved over her hip to collide with –
"Severus!"
Severus blinked, and turned to look across the table at Judas, who was staring at him oddly. He looked around the table, and saw that everyone was already eating.
"Aren't you hungry?"
He shrugged a shoulder, and then put a couple things on his plate to placate his housemates, who were probably wondering what on earth had gotten into his head. Lily had long since seated herself at the Gryffindor table, surrounded by her friends. Severus sometimes imagined what it might have been like, to be in Gryffindor. Pure love hung over that table, attached to everyone and everything. Even the bleeding chairs oozed sentimentality.
"Thinking about what a bunch of clots the Gryffindors are?" Virginia asked him.
He gave her a sly smile. Of course, he would never once wish he had been sorted into Gryffindor. He would hate to think their inanities might rub off on him. But sometimes, he couldn't help but wonder.
Soon dinner was over, and Dumbledore dispelled of the tables. He announced that the Gryffindor house band would play the background music while they could mingle, dance, play the games set up around the Hall, do whatever they wished.
"The bloody Gryffindors have a band?" Jezebel demanded. Severus smirked at her reaction, purely Jezebel.
"Jezzy," Evan said. "We all know what a mesmerizing voice you have. Why don't you start a band?"
"Brilliant idea, Evan," Tori said. "And we could cater to Jezebel's obsession with herself. The name of the band could simply be, Jezebel."
Evan snickered and Jezebel snarled at Tori.
Virginia and Oliver wandered off to the center of the Hall as the band started up their first song. Evan asked Jezebel for her hand, a pureblood tradition at any function: brother and sister always danced together first. Judas left to seek out Soleil Brishen, a Slytherin seventh-year, and someone he had been interested in for several years. Thomas Gamble sought Vernette Ziegler, a mis-sorted Hufflepuff. She was the only exemption Severus knew of against the sorting hats impeccable record for sorting. She had been attending USDL meetings ever since she was first invited, but Severus also knew she liked to hang out with the Gryffindors. He didn't really know what any of that was about. Finally, it was just Severus and Frederick standing there. Rebeca and Tori had left to go find dates, and Judith had long since abandoned them to spend time with a Ravenclaw boy she was interested in.
They stood in silence for several moments, as Severus listened to the deep, melancholic sounds escaping Hazel Clarke's cello. Then Frederick spoke; he was staring in the general direction of the Gryffindor sixth-year girls, which also happened to be where Severus was staring.
"So," he mumbled. "You spend time with the Muggle-born Evans, don't you?"
Severus ignored his derogatory voice, and nodded at the rhetorical question. Everyone knew he spent time with Lily Evans.
"Does she ever talk about the Figg girl?"
Severus said nothing for a few moments. "Why wouldn't she? They're best friends."
"So what does she say?"
"Nothing in particular."
"Does she ever say anything about me?"
"Why would she say anything about you?"
Frederick was silent for a little while. "I've sort of been shagging Figg," he replied.
"She hasn't said anything about that," Severus lied after a few seconds of more forced silence.
"Really?"
"Really."
"I kind of like her, you know," he said after a song had gone by.
Severus wondered why he was suddenly opening up to him. Frederick hardly talked at all. He was extremely quiet, and only spoke when forced.
"Even though she's a blood traitor, she's pretty brilliant. Have you ever seen her fly?"
"Yes," Severus said in a clipped manner. He tore his eyes away from Lily and latched them on to Josabella Figg, whose long legs were accentuated by a short and thin, deep maroon dress with a slit up the center. She was laughing at something Black was saying, and he could almost hear her laugh as Emily joined in. One of Josie's hands was unconsciously laid over her belly. Soon, she would have to hide the swelling with a glamour.
"She asked me to come with her, as a date," Frederick continued. "I said no, though."
"Why?" Severus asked.
"I'm sure you can figure out why," he replied simply.
Severus said nothing in reply. About an hour later, Josie left the Hall, presumably to go outside to the courtyard. Frederick followed her out shortly after.
"Would you like to dance?"
Severus turned and saw Lily standing behind him, staring up at him playfully. He smiled in spite of himself, and grasped the hand she held out to him. It was soft and tiny, a little slice of heaven afforded him. She led him onto the dance floor slowly, and turned to press her body up against his as a song started. Her olive green eyes stared up at him underneath her long, red eyelashes, and his hand on her back felt the tickle of her hair swaying around with their movements.
Severus considered this was the first time they had ever been in such close proximity. Her scent was alluring and comforting. Almond and coconut collided with a lovely vanilla and cinnamon; it clung to her skin, and hours after they danced he could still smell her on his fingertips.
They danced to a twisted sort of tango. He dipped her down, and her neck stretched into infinity; it was long and delicate and perfectly shaped. Then he pulled her back up and pressed her against him again; she looked at him intensely, and wrapped her leg around his hip. Seduction seeped through her pores and out of her eyes.
The dance extended on into infinity, and their minds extended out to occupy all of the space in the Hall, until no one else was there. When his time in her arms did finally end, it was rudely and abruptly. Dumbledore snuffed the candles and illuminated the overhead chandeliers, so that bright light filled the hall. They stared at one another through squinted eyes, trying to adjust to the light. Then Lily leaned up and pecked him chastely on the cheek before bidding him good night and leaving with her friends.
Severus dreamed that night of sheer white curtains, down comforters, and cool sheets. And of almond scented skin and perfect green eyes staring up at him atop a perfect, bow-shaped mouth. Of cherry colored hair spilling over pillows, and of a perfect nude body writhing and shuddering uncontrollably and involuntarily underneath him. Of long, slender limbs wrapped around his waist, and of nails digging into his shoulders in urgency.
A/N: Thanks to my readers and regular reviewers, especially Davek86. Thank you also to my beta reader, MRSSPICY.
Comments are very welcome and are much appreciated.