Can I just take a moment to thank everybody reading, reviewing, lurking around this story? Thanks everybody! And I really appreciate the fact that everybody is so receptive of my "slow" romance building. hope you continue to enjoy the story. Onward!
Black Velvet
Chapter 25: Midnight Rendezvous
"It's you, it's you, it's all for you,
Everything I do,
I tell you all the time,
Heaven is a place on earth with you
Tell me all the things you wanna do.
I heard that you like the bad girls,
Honey, is that true?
It's better than I ever really knew
They say that the world is built for two.
Only worth living if somebody is loving you
Baby, now you do."
Video Games, Lana Del Rey
Lily stared at the fluted ceiling of her dormitory room and sighed loudly. Across the room, Candace mumbled something, her words muffled by the quilt on her face. Lily sat up abruptly. She looked at her dorm mates enviously; they were all fast asleep.
"Figures," She muttered. "I'm the only idiot who can't sleep." She fell back into bed and groaned, not caring if her dorm mates woke. In all honesty, she wanted them to wake up, if only to fill up the hours she'd spend worrying about things people had said to her, things she'd heard people saying about her and finally, the things she should have said to people when the opportunity was present instead of now, hours after the fact. It had been a rough couple of days and she was simply tired of thinking.
She felt exhausted.
Suddenly her stomach growled. Lily looked down in surprise. When it growled again, she turned over, hoping that the hunger pangs would fade away if she turned over and slept on her tummy.
Another soft grumble from her stomach made short work of her sleep posturing. She swore colourfully under her breath, the one thing she had learnt well from James, and pushed herself onto her knees. Throwing the quilt and blankets off, she stood and grabbed her wand from the nightstand.
With a soft light illuminating the floor at her feet, she spotted her comfy dragon slippers. They were muggle made and a gift from Aunt Hermione. Lily smiled at them and quickly slipped her feet in. Tip-toeing across the room, she carefully opened the door and stepped out into the hall. The chilly air of the passage had her hurtling back inside for her dressing gown.
A few minutes later, with her slippers on and the dressing gown snugly wrapped around her slender frame, she crawled out of the portrait hole and marched down towards the kitchens, hoping the elves wouldn't be too discomfited by her midnight appearance.
She snuck down the staircases and quietly made her way down the final corridor leading to the kitchens. There was a stillness and serenity about the shadowed alcoves and dark hallways of the castle that tugged at her mind and called out to be explored. Reining in the desire to simply wander about the castle, she picked up the pace until she stood directly before the painting hiding the door to the kitchens. Tickling the pear while looking over her shoulder, Lily couldn't help but feel that her short detention spell had completely taken her wariness of flouting rules away. How in the world had she not done this before?
The painting swung open before she could finish the thought and she smiled radiantly at the few elves she could see sitting before the fire.
They sat in a circle, probably telling each other stories as they kept a vigil on the large fires of the kitchens. "How may we help little Miss?" An old elf asked with a sleepy smile.
Lily cringed as she realised her intrusion. She had probably disturbed them when she had been fiddling with the painting. But the heavenly aromas drifting out of the kitchen put an end to any guilt over it. She peeked over their heads.
"Umm, may I have something to eat? A sandwich or hot chocolate, anything really. I'm not picky."
She was pulled inside without preamble, with a chorus of shrill voices welcoming her in, telling her to sit; they'd get her something right away. Lily felt her jaw drop at the flurry of activity that engulfed the elves. They moved at dizzy speeds, rushing about. Plates appeared, ingredients dropped from the air above their fingertips. She saw vegetables thinly sliced by a large knife even as a large block of chocolate was crushed and tossed into milk warming over the fire.
In a matter of minutes, she found herself seated near the fire, a sandwich and a goblet of steaming hot chocolate placed before her. After assuring the elves she really needed nothing else, Lily turned to her plate. They disappeared just as quickly as they had surrounded her. It was quiet again.
Lily blinked and licked her lips as she looked at her sandwich. The golden cheese peeking out from under the lettuce made her mouth water.
Smiling to herself, she picked up the sandwich with both hands, "I've died and gone to heaven."
"Bon appetit." A smooth voice said behind her.
Lily jumped. She felt the cheese burst inside her mouth, accompanied by the crunch of cucumber. Swallowing desperately, she grabbed a napkin and frantically dabbed her mouth before turning. "You evil, evil boy!"
Scorpius laughed. He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. "You realized just now?"
Lily bit her lip. Her heart was free-falling, plummeting down a deep tunnel she couldn't be sure there was any escape from. She dropped her gaze. Her fingers dug into the soft bread of her sandwich but her appetite had fled. The morsel in her mouth turned to ash. Fear of him understanding what was happening to her almost suffocated her, forcing her to take a deep breath and then another when the first did absolutely nothing to calm her nerves. The last thing she needed was for him to notice what he was doing to her. She didn't think she could bear it if he knew.
The prudent thing to do was to strike before he had the chance to read her. She was thankful the kitchens were dimly lit right now. "Quite rotten of you to mouth off just as a person is biting into her sandwich." She glanced at the sandwich and poked a piece of onion back into its delicious layers.
Scorpius rolled his eyes, "Who told you to stop eating?"
Lily tossed her hair imperiously. "I don't intend to stop anyway. I'm famished." To prove her point, she picked the sandwich up once again, and bit into it. She closed her eyes and let out an approving sound.
"So good!" She took another bite, completely ignoring the boy sitting across her.
Scorpius bit his lip. He couldn't believe his luck. He'd been looking out for a way to speak to her for days and now, here she was, snacking in the kitchen in the middle of the night. He hadn't spoken to her properly since the day their parents had been summoned. The five minutes in the library right before she'd run off, didn't count.
He laughed as she continued to make exaggerated sounds alluding to the exquisiteness of her midnight snack.
He watched her silently, conscious of the way her innocent posturing stirred something wicked in his heart.
"Where have you been hiding all these days? I wanted to talk to you." He said quietly.
She stopped eating. Her eyes darted up, locking onto his face. She swallowed.
"Oh. What about?" She looked at him with some concern when he didn't speak but continued to stare at her. She blushed as he sank his teeth into his bottom lip in the midst of watching her.
He lifted his chin and gestured towards her plate. "Don't you want to finish that?"
Lily smiled and quickly finished what was left of her sandwich. "Okay. I'm done." She moved her chair closer to him. She laughed suddenly. "Isn't this strange? I don't see you the whole day and then suddenly, you're right here, in front of me. Today was such disgusting day too. Did you know…." Her voice died away as she noticed him staring at her.
"You talk too much."
Lily blushed. "I do not." Pouting, she leaned back into her chair, and crossed her arms across her chest. "Fine. What did you want to talk about anyway?"
Something dark flared in his eyes as he watched her plush lips. He looked away immediately.
Lily noticed how he clenched his fingers together before pulling his chair almost flush against the table. She let her arms fall at her sides.
"I just wanted to know if you were alright. I heard what happened with Jenner."
Lily felt the tension seep out of her shoulders and she relaxed back against the back of her chair. "I'm fine. I just," she shrugged "I wish I had realized it sooner. Then, maybe I wouldn't have let it drag on for so long. I was just as much to blame really; I shouldn't have let it continue for so long, not when…I should have done something sooner."
Scorpius contained his triumphant grin and schooled his features to neutrality but inside, he was cheering at how well he had read her.
Her veiled admission was delightful and he knew it was time to press his advantage.
"It seemed like you were looking for excuses to stay with him. Why would you do that?" He looked at her directly in the eye but Lily felt the weight of his stare piercing through her chest like a lance.
Her mouth open and shut a couple times before she finally found her voice. "I don't know."
Scorpius arched an eyebrow. "Really? This again? You still don't know?"
Curbing her instinct to turn and run, Lily ran her fingers over the sides of the chair and gripped the edge tightly, as if she were gleaning strength from it. "Are we really having this conversation right now?"
"Yes." He replied with languid deliberateness. He wouldn't stop now, not now when he was so close and could almost taste victory on his lips.
"No." She responded tartly.
"Why not?"
"Why not? Sweet Merlin Scorpius, I've had a trying couple of days. I'm trying to get my head screwed on straight, so excuse me if I need a day or two to think and just be. I mean, this is crazy."
"Why is it crazy?"
"Oh, what do you want anyway?" Pushing away from the table, she stood and turned to leave. Her mind hurt from all the mental gymnastics she'd subjected herself to over the course of the past week, ever since the night she'd followed Scorpius into the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps, if she hadn't followed him, she might have kept her peace of mind.
"Look, I get it alright? You only bothered with me because of Lucas. You knew it annoyed the hell out of him when you talked to me so, so you used to do it all the time. But, I'm not with him any more, so you can just stop it, alright? I won't blame you or anything." She finished weakly.
"What are you talking about?" He said in puzzlement.
Her heart hammered inside her ribcage. She needed to get away from this conversation and the potentially explosive revelations it would lead to. Her feelings for this strange boy took her by surprise and toppled her carefully constructed tower of precise, well-thought out decisions and opinions.
He'd shattered her ironclad control on her life. He'd punched holes in the façade of Happy, Carefree Lily because she was definitely not happy or carefree right now.
If anything, she was terrified. Terrified, of the way her heart raced when she looked at him, how her skin burned should he brush against her, how her eyes followed him, searched for him, how she felt like she could fly when he was near. She was scared of the carnival of butterflies converging on her when his eyes met hers. She felt suspended in the air, turning over and over, falling in an abyss, without no way out. She had no remedy for this. There was no stopping it. There was no turning away from it.
She ran her fingers through her hair. "I really can't do this right now."
His fingers on her wrist froze her on the spot. Moments later, his breath brushed past her ear, "Don't go."
"I really should." She persisted.
"No, you don't. Just stay. Relax." He chuckled. "Think of the sandwich."
She turned slowly.
His eyes twinkled with mischief.
Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she sunk back into the chair and wordlessly picked the sandwich up to finish it. "Okay, I'll stay but only because I haven't finished my sandwich. I couldn't hurt the elves' feelings by not eating it."
"The elves feelings?" He said sceptically.
"Yes. They do have feelings, Scorpius."
"If you say so."
"Don't let my Aunt Hermione hear you talk like this."
He chuckled. He'd heard more than plenty about her Aunt Hermione from his father. The number of times his father grudgingly complained about Mrs. Granger-Weasley would have made him suspicious had it not been for his very open and obvious affection for his wife.
"You have a gift for deflecting attention to inconsequential things, don't you?"
"I don't think I understand what you mean."
"Oh, but you do. It's so easy isn't it? To talk about ten thousand useless things….food, time tables, problems with Ancient Runes, the fine feelings of kitchen elves, but you can't bring yourself to say the one thing weighing down on your mind."
"I can."
"Then say it!" He leaned forward, eyes gleaming with a manic, almost feral intensity.
"I will, when I choose."
He rolled his eyes and sat back, shaking his head.
She smiled shyly at him. "Are you angry?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at her. "Yes."
"Don't be."
"Why not?"
"It makes you look scary." She crossed her eyes, eliciting a reluctant smile from him.
Shaking his head, he looked at her as she continued to make funny faces at him. "You are incorrigible."
She laughed. "You know you like it."
He smiled. "I do."
The odd elf still rushed about, setting things up, preparing for the next day. Lily watched as one carried a large pie pan over to the ovens. As he walked past her, he placed a small jar of chocolate frosting on the table. Her eyes brightened and she abandoned the sandwich to pick the jar up.
"I can't believe he left this here!" She squealed in delight.
Scorpius looked at her warily. "What is it?"
Lily attempted to pry the lid open. "It's chocolate cream. You know, to frost cakes with."
Scorpius pulled a face. "Ugh. You're holding the recipe for a heart attack in your hands."
Lily gasped. "Blasphemer! Infidel! This right here is pure bliss; it is ambrosia! It's the stuff dreams are made of!"
"Not my dreams." Scorpius replied silkily.
Abandoning the sandwich, Lily continued to tug on the lid of the jar. "Yeah, well, you're boring." She looked up in time to see him look at her in disbelief and giggled. Smiling, she asked, "By the way, were your parents upset by the whole going into the forest thing?"
Scorpius scoffed. "Please. My mother was a little alarmed but my father probably wouldn't worry unless I did something really drastic, like get expelled." He glanced at her. "Were you alright?"
Lily shrugged. "Fine."
"Are you sure? Because you didn't look fine and your parents seemed pretty upset about it."
Lily stopped fiddling with the jar and looked up at him. "My parents weren't upset. They just worry about me a lot." She took a deep breath as he continued to look unconvinced. "Look, I'm not the wild child in my family. My brothers and my cousins, they all have this burning desire to prove something. For my brothers, it's always been about proving their Marauder genes. For my cousins, it's about setting themselves apart from their parents and the things they did."
"And it's not for you."
"No." She looked at him steadily. "I know who I am, and I'm fine with what I am."
Scorpius watched her carefully. "And yet, you were falling apart over it."
"That's different."
"Why?"
She sighed. "I've never broken curfew. I've never made it my mission to see how many broken school rules I can get away with. They expect it from my brothers. But it's never been something I would do."
"Why?"
"No reason. I just don't find it very interesting to go sneaking around school after hours."
"Hmm." Scorpius let it slide. She was obviously hiding something and trying to deflect attention away from it.
She looked down at the jar once more, bracing herself; she gripped the lid tightly between her fingers and swung it free.
"Oh! Finally!"
Scorpius smirked. "Just a question, exactly what do you intend to do with that?"
"Eat it, of course. Yummy!" She licked her lips before looking around for a spoon, groaning when she couldn't spot anything. The house elves kept their kitchen meticulously tidy. "Decisions, decisions. To wait for a spoon or not to wait for a spoon." She shrugged after thinking it over for a moment. "Spoons are overrated anyway." Glancing at Scorpius, she said haughtily, "You don't know what you're missing. You should try it, really."
She dipped a finger into the jar and scooped up the frosting on her finger. Bubbling with laughter, she held the jar out to him, "Fine. Don't look so neglected. Here. Have some."
Scorpius smiled. The devilish spark in his eye twinkled wickedly as he ignored the proffered jar but moved his body forward.
Lily's eyes grew wide and her cheeks bloomed with a raging blush as he leaned close and closed his mouth over her finger. Her heart shut down and lightning raced down her spine as his tongue swirled around her finger, licking the chocolate off. An all-encompassing heat engulfed her, reaching every vein, every nerve and every fibre of her body. It erupted behind her eyes, in her mind, all over her skin. She felt his teeth graze her finger as he moved back, eyes glued to her face all along.
"You were right. I didn't know what I was missing." His voice quivered slightly. He clenched his fists. He had miscalculated. He'd only just wanted to give a little nudge, show her what she could have, if she'd get over the misplaced guilt over putting Jenner in his place. But it had backfired and now he found himself plunged in the throes of a desire he could not fulfil, not yet, by no means yet because the only girl who would do, wasn't even aware of the havoc she was causing. What he needed from her was on the fourth stair and devastatingly enough, she didn't know the staircase existed.
The raspy edge to his voice sent sparks straight to her belly, followed by a languid heat curling down and pooling between her legs.
"I better go." He remarked before standing abruptly and briskly walking away from her.
Lily let loose a jagged breath. She pushed her fingers into her hair and rested her elbows on the table, breathing deeply.
What just happened?
X
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