Hours ago, the fire had been ablaze in various shades of orange and red, roaring with life, but now, as the evening unraveled into the deeper, darker night, that same life was nearly extinguished. Due to a fire poker gone missing, and the fact that he'd been too lazy to get another, Severus had let the fire dwindle down to almost nothingness. The coals glowed red and hot, though they contributed little to the cold, empty room. Shadows danced in the corners and floated eerily across the walls, but they were ignored.
The chilling temperature of the dungeons, the surroundings, the time - in the brief solitude that he claimed as his at the end of each day, the Potions Master discarded everything, choosing, rather, to brood. He sprawled in a high-backed chair of ebony before the stone fireplace, his face he cupped in one hand; the fingers of the other hand drummed unmercifully upon the arm of the chair, creating a dull, rhythmic pounding inside his head. It was in this state that he thought often of various places he'd been, of people he'd once known, and of faces he'd seen. His mind drifted, sifting through memories long past, and unaware, he allowed himself to be pulled back in time.
~
"Severus? Severus! Wake up, Severus!"
Eyes flying open, he jerked up in the chair, looking around with a wild emotion. He'd heard her voice, hadn't he? She had to be there - she'd sounded as clear as day . . .
His eyes fell upon the dying embers left in the fireplace as his shoulders slumped. Just a dream, he decided bitterly. She'd never been there, never been his. Why couldn't he face that? Sighing, he passed a hand over his eyes, cradling his forehead in his palm. Always someone else's, never his -
"Severus." There it was again, his mind playing tricks on him, making him believe in something that wasn't. "Severus! I'm here . . ." He cracked open one eyelid, and then the other.
And she was.
He sat up, startled, as she smiled seductively at him, tossing her fiery hair over her shoulders. He reached out to her, but she moved evasively out of reach, slapping his hands away. Circling around him, she held the back of his chair and bent down, whispering in his ear. "You've lost faith in me, Sev." Her breath was warm on his skin, and he opened his mouth to deny it. "You've lost faith," she cut in with a harsher tone, coming around to stand once more before him.
Running his tongue across his lips to wet them, he thought perhaps he'd finally gone insane. She couldn't possibly be there with him - she was dead. And yet there she was, as beautiful as he remembered her. A fiery angel all in white with lips as red as the embers that remained unstoked, and eyes that glowed as fiercely.
"How easily you dismiss me." She leaned forward, grasping the arms of his black throne. Her hair fell in her face, and she shook it away before moving in as though to kiss him. Then she laughed and pulled away. "Am I really so forgettable, Sev? I can show you that I'm not," she whispered, straddling him.
He ran his hands up her thighs, pushing aside the flimsy, gauzy material that covered them. Her skin was silken and hot to his touch, like a match whose flame has just been extinguished. His fingers moved upwards, pausing briefly to revel with desire in the full, soft warmth of her breasts, before trailing down her arms to cover the feminine hands that were so expertly arousing him. He knew she must have felt him harden beneath her.
"Are you remembering yet?" she taunted, undoing the first clasp of his robes.
"Yes."
"Are you regaining your faith?" The second clasp opened.
"Yes."
"Do you want me, Sev?" A third clasp was undone, and she slipped her hands inside, running them slowly, torturously over his chest, down his stomach, to rest in the mass of dark hair beneath his navel.
"Yes," he choked out, grasping her hips and locking his gaze with hers, hunger, desire, need unmistakable.
Those sparkling emeralds flashed, and her mouth twisted into a coy, cruel smile. She threw her head back and laughed once more, then crushed her lips to his, searing him with the forbidden heat of her taste as she touched him and bent his will until it broke.
~
He closed his eyes, wishing to prolong the pleasure he felt from her kiss, wanting to absorb the total ecstacy of her touch on his willing body. He felt her tear her mouth away from his as he moaned, nearly completely lost in sensation.
"You were right, Severus - I've never been yours. I never will be yours . . ."
Sorely irritated by her comment and driven by lust, he reached for her again, and was met with air. With a bewildered stare, he realized the coals had died completely and she had gone with the life they had held. Regret, frustration, and hatred welling up in him at the same time, he pounded the armchair with his fist.
"Dammit, Lily . . ."
He'd always thought of her as an angel while she'd lived, no matter how demonic he'd believed her to be at times. She'd tormented him then, and she tormented him now. Even in death, she was just an angel passing through.