John Donne
Chapter eighteen
In the morning, Poppy opened the curtains to the ward and the normally austere nurse smiled to herself as the first thing she saw was two figures entwined in the bed. The first thing that Elrin saw was Severus' face locked in sleep. Both of her arms were wrapped gently around him and as one of his arms was crushed under her, she tried to shift to make him comfortable and in doing so, woke him with a start and she plunged straight into the murky depths of his gaze.
"How are you feeling?" she whispered, taking in every inch of his face, noting purple bruises underneath bloodshot eyes.
"I'm not sure yet. I'll find out when I move. Immobilized as I am with you enveloped around me," he grumbled.
"You want me to move?" she asked dismayed, about to untangle herself.
"No, he replied quickly holding her tight, "not at this minute," and continued to contribute his full share of the entanglement of their bodies. Despite the pain that he was experiencing from deep inside and from what felt to be every single one of his muscles, he lay motionless in the bed. Soon the sound of rain drummed against the windows, which made the ward darker and darker and in time they both began to soak up the warm safety of their existence and relaxed into not having to be anywhere or do anything for at least a while. Poppy was leaving them alone, but they suspected that it would not be long before she marched out of her office and demanded that they be split into separate beds for public decency. They noticed, however, that for the sake of that decency, she had already arranged the curtains to shield them, and especially their young public from their horizontal embrace. However, his body did not let him lie in peace for long: spasms of pain burned through him making his limbs and torso rigid with tension. Tentatively, almost with embarrassment, he asked if she would massage him, particularly on his legs and arms. Gently she rubbed his bruised limbs in slow deep movements, the knots in his muscles angry and solid. His body gradually began to surrender a little to the pressure of her hands and moaned quietly into her side.
"Where was I found?" he asked in between slow breaths.
"In the Forest." She didn't want him to mention too much about the incident. There was a guilty disturbance in her at the thought that there was a point where she had given up on him, on herself, on everything.
"Ah, Hagrid," he sighed. "What would we do without him? Did he pick me up in the usual place?"
"I don't know. You were deep in."
"Oh," he said, puzzled, "how did he find me?"
"We just followed Sampeer – he came and found us."
"We? You went with Hagrid?" He looked alarmed and she stopped her work on one of his exposed arms, the one with the Mark on it, carefully avoiding the bleeding black image amongst the soft hairs of his arms.
"Well, yes."
Severus rolled his eyes and glowered at her.
"Have you no sense of safety? It was a full moon, and just the two of you – in the heart of the most perilous forest in this country?"
"We were quite safe. A unicorn brought us back here," she said, in the faint hope of ameliorating this apparent irresponsibility, ignoring the roses and the hungry spiders. It was safe on the back of the unicorn.
Shaking his head at her naiveté, he seemed disgusted, but let her carry on.
Fractious, he automatically rubbed his face and she pulled his hand down.
"There is nothing there," she stated firmly.
His eyes shifted away from hers and said nothing and she had the feeling that he would have liked to have been somewhere else at that moment.
"Do all the Death Eaters have them?" she asked, ignoring his unwillingness to talk about it.
"Yes," he replied tetchily.
"Do you," she continued, determined to clear this in her mind, "become as they are," she emphasized, "with that – mask?" He paused and the longer he paused, the higher grew her dread and her inner plea for a negative response.
"No," he said slowly, "but – I – am more aligned with them."
What was that supposed to mean?
"What's the difference?"
He was finding it difficult to talk about it with her so close, was aware of the scent of and the softness of her body and the steady look on her face and would have liked to have escaped the interrogation, but as he looked at the mix of trust and wariness in her eyes, he explained, "The former – leaves me my judgement and my freewill: leaves me with my soul intact, unfortunately, it still encompasses me so that I can feel my own darkness magnified in them. Albus and I made various spells so that it does not rule me."
His openness to her moved her, but there was an important detail that she needed to clear up.
"It – didn't seem so last night. I saw that you were in the grip of it. Just as you came to consciousness, you might easily have killed me," she stated without a trace of recrimination, just commenting on an observable fact. Looking pained, he studied the rain outside.
"I remember. Faintly. That was…" and then realized what he was going to say. He did not want to mention to her what had happened. It was bad enough with her knowing about the mask. His voice became harder. "I don't wish to speak of it." She knew that it would be difficult for someone to continue to be annoyed while lying in someone's arms and instinctively sought out the trouble in his mind which echoed the hurt and unyielding muscles in his body.
As she observed his aggressive defence she stubbornly prompted him: "Because…?" Then understood what he was avoiding talking about.
"Because – you had been tortured with Crucio?"
He stared back at her and she stated, "Poppy told me. I presumed that you had been tortured in some way, but I wasn't sure how. Did you think I believed you had fallen down stairs?"
"No," he sneered, "But the use of Crucio is quite – extreme. Even Voldemort does not use it too often. I was – in survival mode while I was weakened from the Crucio. The mask was too strong for me at that point," he said bitterly and held her face with one hand and scowled at her closely. "You must never, ever be around me while I am recovering."
"I took care of myself," she replied, coolly, but was secretly warmed by his concern. In turn, the depth of her loyalty, her strength, and her cherishing astounded him and he suddenly and completely thawed, despite his habitual tendency to rigidity.
"I – am - so sorry, Elrin," he said, overcome, and he hugged her tight, tight enough to make her wince, but she did not make a sound or a movement as it must have cost him much pain. Roughly he clutched a large handful of her hair, then pressed his face to it as if imploring the universe for the answer to the mystery of life and whispered close against her ear, "How can someone be so precious to me?"
She sank into his wild confusion and could feel his other hand flex and fist in frustration on her back. Lying like that for a while, breathing together, she thought of a medicine to might help take his mind off his present state.
"We - could - do some translating," she suggested and then watched the tension ease from his face as if something deep inside him had been holding on for dear life. He sighed with relief and in gratitude, kissed her on the nose gently and to her, it was as if someone had given her the world. A sudden thought came to him.
"You don't imagine that I …have an ulterior motive with you…?"
"No," she whispered confidently, " I don't."
He rested his head back on the pillow and thankfully closed his eyes and some minutes passed before he spoke again.
"Do you realize," he said cautiously, "that the parchments were given to me by my mother?"
She was all attention and the compliment he was paying her did not pass her by.
"When was this?" she asked. He opened his eyes in an unreadable face.
"When I was nearly 11. Just before I came here. She was murdered defending them.
She watched him as he spoke.
"She lay there on the carpet and made me recite a part of it until I knew it off by heart."
She died in front of him? It was a masterstroke to give him something to do. She must have been very special. What a burden for a child to carry.
She recited slowly frowning slightly, " I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight & Bright Glory, Stirring the hearts of men with drunkenness.""
Then he continued where she stopped.
"And while tending the creation of the world, reveal that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.
Be thou my secret centre, my heart & my tongue! O splendrous serpent! They are as upon the earth; I am Heaven."
"It's so beautiful," she murmured as he finished and the echo of something came into her mind. Perhaps she would mention it later. To have lost his mother, in such circumstances and at his age, just before going away to school….She stroked his hair quietly, smoothly, just like his mother might have done. He closed his eyes again and she could feel emotion sweeping through him, although he lay still. He smiled crookedly "Though she would never have done that," he murmured, his voice deep. "We were not a 'touching' family. Too traditional. Too respected. Discipline was everything."
"But she loved you."
"I can only presume so. I was not privy to her heart."
"But you could feel it."
He grunted what she presumed was assent, and he did not object to her continuing to stroke him.
It took him only another day to get out of Poppy's clutches which was apparently a record and he refused to walk with a stick that his body, still twisted and inflexible, really needed. However, by leaning on Elrin he made the painful journey to his rooms. She could hear his jagged breath as he started to climb the stairs, but he did not complain or utter a sound. He refused to burden others with his pain, but he was frustrated at his weak condition. Poppy had looked disgusted at his departure, but recognized wasted breath when she saw his retreating back. Elrin managed to give her a smile and a little wave as they went out of the door. Maybe it was too soon, she thought, but privately, she was glad, as she wanted to be alone with him. During the time they had both been in the ward, school had closed for the Easter Holidays, so there were no students around to see him labour in order to retreat to his lair to lick his wounds. This time though, unlike countless others, he had someone with him, and even when in pain, was aware of her every step with his, who allowed him to press on her shoulder with his hand and who said nothing as they moved slowly through the empty corridors.
She was glad to be back in his spacious and elegant rooms and for the first time, as she helped him into one of the chairs by the unlit fireside, noticed the grandeur of the view from the huge windows where a large part of the lake could be seen. When she had been there before, the wide brocade curtains had been closed.
How they had lain on the rug; how he had collected her tears for his potions.
As it was a sunny day, the light glittered on the surface of the lake, its' secrets maintained in the shadowy waters that did not reflect the trees and the blue mountains behind it, even though it was now Spring.
She glanced around at the range of heavy books massed around the room with its air of steady peacefulness and wondered about all the years he had spent here, alone, in his own company, a close satellite within the school; part of it, yet not. An individual who had a nightmare background: a blemished history, who had cut himself off from well-intentioned company, both scathing in his treatment of students and aloof from his colleagues. Shut away in here she could understand how. It was like an eyrie for a threatened species of bird, a black-eyed raptor, uncomfortable and surly if someone was close: threatening if approached. She was silent, staring again out at the scene before her and wondered about how she came to be there: how lucky she was and considered all the events that had happened since she came. Circular thought then led onto the chill of what might happen in the future: how easily her happiness could be taken away.
Loving someone made you so vulnerable.
The source of most of her happiness watched her for a while and then called her name and she came out of her reverie.
"Mm?" For a second or two, she looked at him puzzled, observing how tired and pale he looked. Underneath however, there was an unspoken eagerness about him and then she remembered her promise. She thought he might have rested, but that was a forlorn hope, and sympathized with Poppy. She didn't think he liked to be seen as he was: physically powerless and dependant, but the power of his presence, and his intangible qualities were considerably intact. His voice was soft, but his force of spirit loud and she responded as only she knew how and went to his side.
"Of course," she said, friction automatically activated in her body the moment she came within feet of him. "Where are they? In the office?"
He nodded to a corner of the room. Piles of scrolls lay efficiently wrapped with black ribbon on top of a wide cabinet, "In the cabinet, under the first year reports," he said.
"In such an ordinary place?" she asked in surprise.
"Anyone," he sneered, "would expect secret hiding places and strong magic and would waste their time deciphering wards. They wouldn't think to look in there amongst grubby potion essays."
It was an odd feeling shifting from their usual cosy place in his office to do the translating in his rooms, though it was so tranquil there in his study cum drawing room with the two easy chairs and the sun reaching in on both of them. Subsequently she began to settle down, a parchment in her lap as always and he with his quill and notebook in hand. As usual, he did not push her, but she observed the mix of willpower and excitement hidden behind his stony face as he re-read some of his old notes. She wanted to lean over and kiss him, already missing the comfort of his body, but decided to leave that for later. She already held his heart in her hands.
It took her a while to concentrate. She remembered the overwhelming tension that she used to feel with him so close in the office and with it the unspoken and hidden question within her of whether there could be anything between them, of whether he wanted her. The difference between then and now was that there was no longer the fear and pain of his rejection and she could relax. To her surprise, being homeless in the true sense for so long, his inner sanctum felt like home. With this as her kick-start, she opened quickly to the inner sound and soon opened her mouth as it ascended out of her in a pure dual note.
He pretended to read his notes while she sounded, but his eyes kept their vigilance. The words seemed to come out of her long and slow, her mind held in abeyance while the melodious sound moved stealthily out her mouth.
The Sun, Strength & Light; these are the Star and the Snake."
There is a text missing here, she said slowly, carefully, the parchment has a hole in it, but I am to understand this:
"There is the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star yet therefore is this knowledge: the knowledge of life and death."
She could hear him scratching out his notes. It seemed to come from a very long way away. And then more moved into her mind:
"For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all,
But to him is the winged secret flame, and to her the stooping starlight.
Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!"
She wanted to talk to him and coming back to him, she was about to say something, when he grunted at her.
"Wait," he said irritably, attempting to keep up, and then looked up, "Well?"
He sounded as if he was back in the schoolroom and it distracted her mind. The thought had appeared complete and rational in her mind, but confronted by his intellectual rationality, crumbled into dust at his gaze. He knew he had broken some delicate reflection by his impatience, but his eagerness to resume where they had left off before made him ignore it. They continued until they had collected the names and amounts of herbs and bizarre items to make the next potion. Couched in that poetic language, it took them a while to get it out on parchment and he studied it with passion, asking for books and more notebooks.
They spent some time deciphering the next potion, and every time they worked on it, Elrin felt uncomfortable, in that she felt that they should be doing what Fawkes had suggested – retracing their footsteps. However, Severus argued for them to forge ahead and then re-examine it all when they had completed the ten potions that were mentioned in the parchments, and in the end he had won. Report writing and preparing lessons through the day and studying his notes at night, it seemed as if the devil were after him, and since his return from Voldemort, not surprising. In her turn she helped him with the potions as much as she could and at other times poured over some extremely useful and excellent books on Phoenix myths and culture from his own collection. So the weeks passed, sifting through the knowledge, dissecting the text, ruminating on it. Physically, he was still damaged and weak and tired easily and although they had their moments of closeness and she shared his bed she gradually became aware of something on his mind and how he kept it closely guarded within his strictly buttoned chest despite their physical proximity.
It was just before the students returned for the summer term, when she came across the Remembral in his office. She was idly poking around in an assortment of objects on a small corner table, when it caught her eye, the deep pink cloud within the sphere calling to her. Picking it up, she moved it this way and that, as if it could sift through all her experiences within her memory.
"Severus, she called, whose is this?"
Distracted, working at his desk, he snapped, "I – oh, that belongs to that Jeremy Honeycutt. I confiscated it from him since he was busy boiling it in his cauldron and then he had the audacity to claim he had forgotten his homework because I had taken it from him. Pathetic excuse as usual. Anything to duck out of self responsibility."
"Can it affect anyone?"
"Certainly." He was irritated at being disturbed from the reports but was politely containing himself. "Would you mind if I …?" He asked sardonically tilting his head, and went back to writing steadily in his journal.
At first he had asked her to stay with him in his rooms because he was weak and he seemed to assume that she would continue to stay there, but before long, she began to feel unsure if she was invading his space and his studies. It was a haven, a place of retreat and stimulation and she loved it, but she had never had such luxury, and it seemed altogether too wonderful, too subtly splendid for her humble upbringing. She was having doubts about her worthiness in this environment, as if she deserved to be starved of good books, quality craftsmanship, beautiful furnishings, the magic of music and a studious atmosphere.
"I think it would be a good idea if I returned to my rooms," she said suddenly to him as he was picking out some particularly good specimens of beetle livers from a jar. He had begun to make the next potion, and as he was still in a certain amount of pain, was doing it slowly and carefully.
He looked up with a face that was unreadable. "Oh. Do you not like it here?" The tension between them was stretched. She could feel the pull of it from her midriff.
"Of course I do, it's beautiful; it's a wonderful place."
Why did he not say 'Stay, I love you'?
"But you want to go back to your own rooms?" his voice was level and careful. Perhaps he wanted her to go. She had outstayed her welcome. His eyrie was not big enough for two.
"Well, I feel it might be beneficial to you. I could visit."
The thought of her neglected room, abandoned often in the past weeks.
He turned back to his cauldron, stirring thoughtfully, hair limp, his face twisted away.
"If you would prefer that," he said noncommittally.
Didn't he know that she wanted to stay?
For some unknown reason she found that while he had fallen asleep quickly at night, she was, in the face of the darkness and the quiet and her own spinning insecurities, sinking into a wilderness of doubts and longings, even with his deep breathing in her ear and warmth lying beside her.
Perhaps he had tired of her already. Perhaps being with her, she would become as annoying as the colleagues that he shrank from. And it wouldn't be because of leaving the toothpaste top off…
"Very well," he continued without looking at her.
She felt sick, as if she were walking away from him. She wanted to go to him and insinuate her arms around his still tense body, but it was almost as if she had declared her distance from him, that she no longer had any right to give or receive his affection. She then had to collect all her personal items, a few clothes: nothing that would have constituted a full arm's worth. It was as she was going towards the office door that she remembered the original potion that he had made for Remus, and had no idea why she took a slight detour just to look at it. It had been pushed to the back of some jars out of the way in disgrace and as she revealed it with one hand, gasped aloud so that his head jerked up to attention.
"Severus – that potion – you know, the one – for Remus – you won't believe what has happened to it."
For all his speed of initial responsiveness, he slowly and carefully looked at her, the desk light illuminating his wariness.
"What is there about it?"
She could hear the hidden anger in his voice, but continued, "It's changed."
"Impossible," he muttered, looking back down to his marking. The third years were slacking as usual. How they expected to pass their end of year exams was a mystery to him.
She peered at the label in case she had made a mistake. It was clear. He did not make those kinds of mistakes.
"It's the correct one. It was green wasn't it?" She knew it was. "Well, it's a sort of light blue now."
This had him up from his chair in an instant, and he seized upon it, though still expecting her to have mistaken the jar. Clearly though, it was not a mistake.
"This is not possible," he said, completely overwhelmed and examined the potion in the light. "To be fully functioning," he explained, "it needs to be clear, although this blue colour is definitely a step in the right direction."
"Maybe it has just needed time," she said, pleased for him, but absorbed with her departure.
"It would be extraordinary with this kind of mixture. I would have said impossible."
Hope appeared to rekindle his spirits, and excitedly, he got out his original notes. So distracted was he, that she didn't think that he would notice her exit.
Slowly she moved out of his office, down the steps and along the corridor, the evening light from the low rays of the sun through the stained glass windows catching in her eyes, tears beginning to flow down them as her steps echoed in the quietness. As she reached the end, and was about to turn down another, she heard hurried footsteps behind from where she had come and turned to see him approaching her way. She continued, assuming he was going somewhere urgently, but her heart leapt all the same as she could hear him come closer. When he caught up with her, his legs stiff and awkward, sending his robes out behind him, she could hear him panting as he came level with her, and saw that his white face was faintly flushed.
"Elrin…" he said, then halted, uncertain what to do.
She felt the strength and the confusion in him as a heady mix as she looked back towards him.
"Do you really want to go back?" he asked in a distant tone, but the hastening and the characteristic tell tale movements of his hands betrayed his emotions.
She hesitated, staring at the floor. "No."
"Then …stay." He could rarely remove the sarcasm from his voice, but here he was achieving a high degree of sincerity for him: she would have given him seven out of ten for this. He seemed more angry with himself than her.
She hesitated. "I do not want to be in your way. I do not want to…. to become an irritant to you."
"An irritant?" he almost shouted. "By hell's door…you…calm me…you give me.….you give me…..something I have never had….. ever……..never even dreamt of ……..being content."
"You are not content," she said, straight out. "There is something…."
"What?" he winced and snapped at the same time.
"I don't know. I can feel it." Something in her was afraid to go there: if he clutched a fear so deep that was some fear specific to them both, she did not want to open it, so she deflected the worry. "You have been solitary in your beautiful private place for so long…I fear to disturb both you and it."
Fighting for his secret needs, he had no wand, no spells, no incantations, only himself. He looked as though he feared that it would not be enough. He struggled to speak.
"Be, with me…..I …..want you," he asked, making it sound like a menacing invitation.
"Do you?" she asked, still disbelieving, surprised at his passion, almost reassured by his annoyance.
"You know what I think of you."
"Tell me," she replied.
"You are my life," he said softly, silkily, bending close so that only she could hear. One never knew what walls, what pictures, what creatures hanging upside down in rafters could hear in this building. He continued to growl laboriously, "I am not accomplished at this….."
Masterly understatement. However, she thought he was doing pretty well considering.
"I was certain that you would want to leave…" he continued…"I do not understand how you could…..endure to be with …." And so she let him struggle with his unfinished sentences and allowed him to take all her worldly goods back out of her arms. As there were no students about to hear their potions master become so inarticulate, she took full advantage of their absence, and held her hand to his cheek, stroking it, half smiling at his look of complete mystification at how life had a habit of turning over one's life despite one's best endeavours.
"There is something I would like to show you," he said, a dark light springing up in his eyes. "Now is the time. If we return your belongings, I will take you now, we must hurry."
At last, when she was beginning to run out of breath, when he had routed them through what seemed like the entire bowels of the castle, wound through countless corridors and up numerous winding stairs in an erratically disorientated journey, full of secret entrances and disguised corridors, when, just as she felt that they must be quite high in the castle in a disused and broken part of it, they came to a tall double set of doors. They were set high above steps and were so battered that the ancient carvings upon them were a mere trace of themselves, their mythological symbols no longer decipherable. Both of them sat down on the steps before the doors, he totally exhausted, even to the extent that she began to worry about his condition. When he had recovered sufficiently to get up, he removed what appeared to be many complicated wards. The wood of the doors still held good although they complained on their hinges as he pushed inside into the blackness. The air that greeted her told her that it was not used very often but it held an intangible air that she did not directly recognize, yet spoke of some primordial familiarity to her inner senses and as she entered. The place pulsed with the kind of magic that made her think of the Slytherin Common room and had a stillness that held an invisible power that she could sense, though not see. The air sparked and danced around them with high voltage currents, the hair on her body shocked by the crackling in the air. It appeared to seek her out and examine her, like a being whose home was being entered, and she an invader. Slightly intimidated, she glanced at Severus for reassurance, but he gave none, merely stepped stiffly aside and looked slyly out of the corner of his eyes while removing his robe, placing it at the entrance and sealing the doors behind them with wards. This site may have peaked in a distant age, but, as she touched the nearest wall to caress it's ancient stone, she jumped as she could feel it breathing, slow and deep under her hand. If she stayed still long enough, she could see it moving very gently, pulsing and weaving and when she lay her head against it, could hear an undistinguishable murmur that made her shiver, not with fear, but with some ancient memory.
He lit some flames in the sconces that immediately illuminated the dark beauty of the interior as a ruin of a huge chamber, but no ordinary ruin. From the high dome, it spread itself out in a circular shape down to broken slabs of lettered stones below on the floor while fragments of paintings clung to the walls, a last ditch attempt to remain there before they fell off. Scratched gold leaf and faded colours which had once been rich and vibrant spoke of a powerful time; its' wreckage revealing more about its' splendour than when it had been fresh. The boldest element that was noticeable there, was a wide path created in a serpentinian shape which crossed the whole of the floor and snaked up the wall at the other end of the interior, it's head climbing up to meet a huge pair of wings that had a glow about them. These wings reached out and bent down in protection and she noticed that in the very centre was a star, possibly a cut-out in the roof to let in light. Both the star and the wings called out to her in some unseen way.
She stooped down to touch the path, and multicoloured glass glimmered strangely. Some pieces were damaged and lost, but the overall pattern was there and she glided her hand over it.
"Beautiful glass," she murmured.
"Glass?" He sneered. "Those are tsavorite with a mixture of nephrite, green sapphires and green rubies. All precious jewels."
Surprised, she looked again at the bejewelled path and marvelled at such glittering extravagance. While she examined them, he wandered up the path towards the head of the snake and the wings above it and stood for a while.
It was while she was examining the path that she felt something shift and in half a heartbeat noticed two things, a stream of light pouring through the star shape and Severus shouting at her. Stunned, she hesitated, not understanding what was going on, and watched in slow motion as he clumsily rushed towards her and could then hear what he was indicating with his arms.
"Get off the path," he screamed, and she began to move, so slow, so fractionally it seemed. She was thrown clear as he slid and collided against her and he fell onto the path. Looking back from her place on the stone floor, she could see the snake-path undulating slightly, but what alarmed her most was the lightning force that she could see dancing along the length of it, ripping through his body.
Horrified, she leapt up and got as close as she could without touching the path, and stood aghast, wondering if she could reach out to him. Within the flickering currents he could see her and cried out again, managing to shout out briefly two words.
"Don't…… Safe."
It didn't look safe as he was twisted and bent with the force of it, green light wrapping itself around his body. Were it not for his words, she would have grabbed him and dragged him off, but restraining herself with difficulty, she remained until it had ceased its activity and gradually he came to himself and began to stand upright. To her surprise, he was not wounded, but on the contrary, there was a vigorousness about his body now, as if he had fully recovered from his wounds, and he was moving slowly and determinedly towards her.
He was obviously well enough now. There was no mistaking that supple grace, that predatory movement, that vigour.
Not being sure what had happened as he had a different look on his face – one she was familiar with, but which was prior to their recent closeness and she began to wonder if it was wise for her to hang around. Instinctively, she looked for his mask, fearful of its return, but there was no sign of it.
She moved away from him uneasily, but he continued to advance on her and they moved together until he got her back onto the serpent pathway and she could sense it lifting up behind her – making a high slope that he was trapping her against. She could have dodged to the side, but her eyes were held on him as they sparked and shone with an energy that held her in his orbit. She knew what he wanted, what he was about to do. They hadn't had sex since his return from the Forbidden Forest and he looked very, very hungry. She glanced around apprehensively. It didn't seem likely that anyone would find them there, but she was not sure about the disposition of the wizard standing in front of her after that voltage from the serpent and as if to echo the doubt and confusion of her thoughts, a storm began outside. She could hear rolling thunder as it became suddenly darker, and the thrashing of the rain on the roof above as it began. The dome was magicked, like the Great Hall, to reflect the outside. Inside, the flames in the sconces immediately became brighter: light falling on the two figures in sharp relief and shadows spreading out on the floor beside them.
"Disrobium," he muttered, and all her clothes disappeared, leaving her completely naked and he quietly appraised her from head to foot. However, his clothes remained on him and he as she stretched out a hand to remove some of them, he put up a hand to prevent her.
"How come you get to keep your clothes on?" She protested, aware of the tilting hardness of her nipples and the vulnerability of her state.
He grinned unpleasantly. "Master of the Serpents' privilege." Then waited. "I see you do not fall into my arms Madam…"
"Severus, I don't think we should be doing this. This is not right. You are…"
"Transformed?" He mocked. "You liked me weak and defenceless, a hobbling enfeebled wreck?"
"You were never that," she countered angrily. "I - don't know what has happened to you."
He loomed over her, dark and hungry like the shadows around them.
"You fear," he said, silky smooth, tracing his finger across her throat while she held her breath. "What do you fear?"
"That you are not the person I knew a few minutes ago."
"I am the same – recharged."
"You may say so, but I see what I see, I hear what I hear."
"And I make you uncomfortable," he said slowly, ignoring her discomfort.
She swallowed discreetly.
Had he disappeared – been malformed into something dangerous or was he just transformed?
"Lie against that behind you," he said abruptly, brooking no delay, moving so that he stood over her. At first the path felt cold on her back, but then she noticed that it vibrated in small waves like the muscles in a real snake and it calmed her, seduced her into its' nature and she felt its' hardness and its' chill no longer, although the fact that she was butt-naked and he was standing there smug in his clothes, did not lend itself to her ease and instant delight.
"If – I – kneel before you, like – this.." he said as he knelt down with a slow dignity on one knee, close, so that his bent head was close to her belly. It was a supplicatory move, not a mockery. When she continued in silence and confusion, he stood up again, and between the lowering of himself and his rising, she felt her body betraying her with the penetrating force of his psyche.
"Do you want me now? It is you that decides, not I," he said.
His previous remarks had been ambiguous and his stance unambiguous, but his reference to her freedom to choose reassured a part of her mind. She missed his defencelessness and the closeness they had achieved, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that this new strength, this seduction, was having it's affect on her and that it sent her back to when she first knew him – he all powerful and she helpless before him. Not a comfortable thought, but her breathing rate had increased and she had felt her hand tentatively stretch out towards him and clutch his jacket and so pulled him towards her. Sweating slightly with a damp sheen on her skin, she could feel the mix of coolness of the air on it as well as the heat from him brushing against her. He did not remove one item of his clothing, but remained buttoned into his frockcoat and she could feel the slight roughness of it as he bent to touch her on her nipples, on her stomach and on her arms, the fabric trailing its way over them after his hands, leaving her trembling. The touch of his hands was warm and firm, sliding over her form, over her thighs, her arms, her neck, exploring, touching nothing too sensitive at first, planting kiss upon kiss on her stomach and she began to relax into his movements and felt his body underneath the material, the flat of her hands massaging his chest, his back, pulling his hair, clutching at him, seeking him while he moved confidently and assuredly onto her breasts, circling maddeningly until her tender nipples stood pleading and she began to breath heavily, and wrap a leg round his and he smirked with pleasure at her growing discomfort. She was not sure of the threatening civility of his seduction and the obscure and possibly dangerous nature of the snake path she was lying on. Taking full advantage of her unsurety, he pressed forward with his hands, fondling her back and the ripeness of her bottom until she began to want him desperately and fought not to show it. He grinned even more ferociously, his eyes fixed on hers, daring her to flee or to succumb, she could not tell. Eventually, after she began to feel that she might start to have enough of his teasing, he reached into her and stopped at the warm entrance with his hand, waiting for her to indicate whether he could enter.
Since when did he ask? Didn't he always just take what he wanted, as if he had a right to it?
He had the power to push his fingers inside, yet still he paused, just touching the soft haven of her lips. She could feel the dangerous closeness, the crackling vibration of his body and his person, his mind looming over hers, his domination held momentarily in abeyance, balanced so that she could choose. It appeared to be an odd thing to do, but it opened her completely. She crumbled into his desire. She reached her mouth to his which was soft and welcoming, betraying the cool burning of his sexuality and he took that as an affirmative, and gently thrust his fingers inside and she closed her eyes, partly to shut out his intimidating presence and to feel the flooding desire in her body. To him, she was satisfactorily wet and his hooded eyes surveyed her flushed skin.
"Open your legs," he commanded softly, voice throaty and low. She did as he desired, to be rewarded by him ducking down and inserting his tongue. She gasped with the intensity of it and clutched his head, his viper tongue knowing how to please her and she felt like climbing the walls by the time he had finished.
"Please," she cried softly to him as he stood up again, high and oppressive in her space.
"Please what?" He smirked, deliberately licking his lips slowly in front of her while watching her hunger reveal itself.
What did he want her to do? Beg?
She could not speak, her mingled anger and desire was rising in her so strong that it blotted out her rationality.
"Tell me what you want, my dear," he sneered annoyingly.
Did he not control her bodily responses? Did he not have her soul already?
"You want me to f*** you my dear?" He asked, maddeningly considering, his lip curled.
She glared at him.
Through his clothes, she could feel his solidity and she palmed and rubbed him distractedly and then whispered: "F*** me. No, f*** me forever."
Smiling with half his face, he calmly opened his trousers and with his hardness evident, brought it to her entrance and again waited. She could feel the smooth head touching her, the forward troops of a battalion of energy, waiting to storm her body, waiting to be welcomed into her darkness and rock it into submission. Still he waited and she opened her eyes wide in fury.
"Are you waiting for a written invitation?" She retorted.
"You have to ask me in," he said patiently. She took a deep breath.
"Severus, I want you to…" and he must have been on the very edge of his restraint, because before she had finished, he had plunged and she was filled with him. She could feel the snake path under her shift slightly. Turning her head to look, he snapped "Look at me – keep your eyes on me." And his eyes thrust into her soul just as his lower body pierced hers. This was his territory, his known world and she was a guest in it so she knew he would not suffer her harm, so she fixed her trust on him, held him as the drowning would to a raft as the path began to move as he slowly pumped in and out. Waves of delicious sensation filled both her groin and her heart, offering her body to him, he taking what he wanted, she accepting, he giving all he had, she enfolding him, he lost in her, she as the centre in which he hid, he increasing his aggressive movements, she opening further to receive them, he to fill her with him, she to take him whole into her, he to surrender to her. The snake was moving strongly now and knowing this, she fixed herself wholly to him, letting go her self-preservation, her pride, her anxiety and he filled her with his life force, his pain, his mystery, his fury, his loneliness, his dark delight.
Together they went with the path as it sank down into darkness as if into subterranean waters, into oblivion, into death and she clung to him and wondered if they were going to die. She would, if she could have, clung to the mad glitter in his eyes as they sunk further down and could feel her nails gripping his shoulders and her life swept before her: her previous life of frustration and boredom and then being called by him. There must have been something rich in her that had answered his call: perhaps some part of her had called him, unconsciously. All this magic and pleasure and homecoming tore open in her all the joy she had withheld for so many years, all the potentiality she had stilled within for safety's sake and which now flooded her like a tide. Then as these two realities collided in her: mortality and dreams, the two of them began to rise together, the path lifting up and with Severus' face still before her as he studied the thoughts shimmering across her mind. Higher, the path rose until it was higher than the floor and then proceeded to go higher still, lifting its great back until they burst into the storm's environment high above where the chamber rattled with the thunderstorm outside, where it shook the foundations of reality, with the crashing of the lightning all around, absorbing its dangerous power. Shuddering with ferocious life energy as it coursed through their bodies, both gasping with the immensity of it, as if it could tear the world apart and put it back together again. Its reached such a pitch that she began to sound, low at first, and then he joined her with his deep base note, while hers rose high and the look on his face changed from complacent joy to awe as she swung them both into another stratosphere: her reality an accompaniment to his. As she lifting it into finer levels, into a deep sense of peace, his dark notes shifted gear into a different level to keep with her and like dancers, swung round in harmony, facing one another. He could then see that she began to throw out a radiance, an out-flowing of light in amongst the darkness, a central point rippling outward like a rose over him and the surrounding gloom. It had the power of his own power, but was different in substance, but he knew he craved it without having known it before and without knowing it had been absent from his essence. His soul shuddered with its' ecstasy which removed his exile from happiness, violated his agonies, his guilt and his anger into dissolution. It was then that they saw the wings outspread over them, giant sheltering wings whose centre was a bright light and she moved towards it naturally; lifting up to open to the wonder of it and he too moved towards it, his snake power finding its rest in the beauty of it, his body plunging into the light of it. And lo, there was beauty all around and it made him want to weep, not with sorrow but with sheer unadulterated joy, a stranger to his heart. At this peak they exploded with happiness, bliss spreading through them like fire, like a raging torrent - like a gentle breeze. She had wanted to climb that little bit higher, but at the last moment, could not - she had reached her limit, her boundary of openness and a splinter of disappointment lodged in her mind, but the overwhelming emotion coursing through her body and her soul made up for it.
And then they sank into their own world from that somewhere else, the snake path gradually lowering until it became level with the floor, their sweating bodies exhausted, but their spirits full, entangled in each other, heart to heart, body to body, drained and filled to capacity. He was still in her and she wanted him to stay there forever and grasped his damp hair and his all too human body as if she could keep the sounds and the sights and the feelings that they had felt and witnessed forever, and not let go such fleeting moments. To express their love in words would have been a climb down from such heights, from such rapture, so they just came to gradually, basking in their togetherness, in their excursion into the depths of their own hearts and neither had realized how much could be experienced through that organ of the soul. He was still on top of her, and she adored the feeling of that dead weight, even as it was slightly uncomfortable and as he gently slid out of her, she cried out with the loss, fearful of going go back into their separate compartments, back into desire and fear, male and female, separate beings in the clumsiness and confusion of the everyday world.
"I am here," he said simply.
As the storm outside had ceased with their own turbulence, they listened to the silence of the huge chamber that seemed to be at peace, within its' shadows and in its walls and in themselves and they looked upon each other and knew each other.
After a while, lying there, she said, "I was just on the edge of something, as if I could have made just one more step…" and left unspoken what that would mean, as if all mysteries would have been exposed to her gaze. He shook his head in wonderment, stroking her cheek with his thumb, his other arm tenderly wrapped around her still naked one, his frockcoat spilling partially over her.
"Have you any idea of what we have just done?" His face shone as he spoke and she did not know what to say, but gazed at the deep mystery of him.
"We have reached something few people have, " he said, "what scholars for millennia have written about in earnest, deciphered and argued over. Tradition has talked about it and you took me up to its summit," and he kissed her on her face and her breasts.
She said hesitantly, "It wasn't just the snake was it? There were the wings and the light."
"The star," he corrected. "A very ancient symbol. It goes back into the depths of time, into prehistory when the doors to other realities were more widely open. The snake and the star with the wings have always been together – at least in our history. I have always concentrated on the serpentine, having been led and fed by that force through my families' inheritance."
"It's a fearsome and formidable one," she said.
"It is, and I always believed that it was the only thing for me. I - never knew what the star with the wings were, except as intellectual concepts," and he took her hand and kissed its palm in devotion. "You brought something to the Serpent that I would never have dreamt of, except that it seemed the most natural, the completion of something – as if I had never missed it, but when it was there, knew it had been absent."
"This was where you called me, wasn't it?" She asked.
"Yes," he replied and gazed at her, not believing his luck, shocked that fortune had turned around and blessed, not cursed him, and was fearful that she might dissolve into nothingness before him.
"Sweetheart," she said, shifting slightly, "I'm beginning to get a little cold."
"Oh," he said, disarmed, and with his wand Accio'd his robes and then wrapped her in them and she delighted in its smooth and warm texture full of his essence, as if he were wrapping his body around her. He tucked her in and she smiled at his concerned look.
"If someone so much as harms a hair of your head, I will kill them," he growled, still tucking her in unnecessarily.
That's my Severus.
Lifting herself up a little, she kissed him on the vertical furrow of his brow. With a sigh, he then straightened himself up and said regretfully, "We could do with returning for supper, otherwise Albus will be on our case." In an instant, he had returned her clothes with his wand, and put his robe on. They made their way down into the world they loved but with a union that had no equal, their auras bound like two halves, his dark light and her cool brightness hidden from everyday sight, but palpable to those who could see.