Special thanks to Diana for her insight and perfect suggestions and to those of you who reviews here and to me personally.
Chapter 21 – These Dreams
Somewhere, in the place where dreams refuse to yield to reality, Sophie was flying. Ascending through the air, laughing and singing, through billowy clouds and into the stratosphere she soared unburdened by earth and fear.
Sitting on a cliff in the distance was a man. Spotting her, he approached. Slowly, he encircled her, dancing, if slow music was playing in the distance. His eyes burned into hers as he gradually quickened his pace, swirling faster and faster, until she was spinning, spiraling as in a whirlwind.
As the pirouettes slowed and gentled, she found herself in his arms, sitting on a cloud. He was smiling, and in that smile, she found safety. He kissed her feverishly, he caressed her, he covered her body with his. She trembled in the growing anticipation of his movements. Her body tingled with each touch as her fingers wove through long, soft hair. He silently explored her body, fingertips and soft lips marking their territory. She dragged her nails lightly down his back.
Was he quivering, too?
Sophie awoke to find that smile and those eyes next to her. It was not a dream, not in the literal sense, anyway. She smiled back as she raised her arms over her head in a long drawn out stretch. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Some," he said softly.
"How long have you been watching me?"
"I lost track of time." His gentle smile now turned into a twisted grin. "Do you know you snore?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Pardon?"
"You snore. Quite loudly, actually, when you sleep on your back." His grin grew wider. "It's really a wonder I slept at all."
She turned away from him in a huff taking the entire comforter with her. "You're so bloody romantic. Tell me how do you keep your admirers away so efficiently? How do you keep riots from breaking out over you?"
He ignored her comments. "Actually, sleeping on your stomach only stops the snoring; it doesn't seem to restrain the drooling. You must have been dreaming about me."
With this last remark a rather fluffy pillow found its way to his head. As Sophie continued the assault she managed to say, "When did you get so bloody comical?"
He grabbed the pillow from her hand and threw her back on the bed, pinning her down. Hovering millimeters from her face he stared into her eyes. "I believe I was told to seize the day, as it were. I believe I was dared to live a little. Not to be so tight. I am simply following doctor's orders." He leaned in and kissed her neck, not releasing her arms. He placed a small bite on her ear before whispering, "It would seem that perhaps next time you may want to consider your diagnosis a little more carefully, Doctor. Your prescription has yielded some unforeseen side effects."
"And pray tell, what are these side effects that have you so distracted?" She threw in her own wicked smile as he began to show her.
"We really should get out of bed." Sophie's voice came from under the covers of a much disheveled bed.
"Why?" Came another voice from under the mass.
"It's past noon."
"So?"
Untangling herself from the blankets, she sat up laughing. "What has gotten into you, Severus?" Though she was reaping the benefits, she was shocked at his new attitude. "What happened to the uptight, buttoned up, workaholic with the billowing robes who used to make children cower with barely a look?"
A head slowly found it way out of the heap. "I sent him away." His voice was now more serious.
"Why?" As much as she was enjoying, this she had to know.
"Do we have to talk about this now? I am still basking in the glow and you are ruining it," he quipped.
She gave him a small smile. "We can talk about it later, darling, but I am still getting out of bed. I seemed to have worked up quite an appetite after last night."
He watched her leave the bed and walk across the room, naked. "You are beautiful," he marveled. She smiled as she put on an old velvety green robe. She threw a black one at Severus. He recognized it as the one he wore the last time he was there. She disappeared in to the kitchen. "Oh, bloody hell, you win," he said aloud as he muttered to himself, "what fun it is to stay in bed alone?"
He found her in the kitchen brewing tea and eating a scone while scanning a Muggle newspaper. Not looking up, she spoke: "It seems the house elves were here last night and left quite a few supplies." She peeked at him over the top of the paper.
There was that damn wicked smile again. "Yes…..well….I did ask for some things….They do their job so comprehensively."
She watched him pour tea into his cup and chose a muffin from the pastry basket in the middle of the table.
"Now that is odd. I would have pictured you as more a dry toast sort of man."
"I am an enigma, aren't I?" He smiled out of the corner of his mouth.
Watching him she could no longer delay the conversation she had started earlier, the one that had been on her mind since he returned last night. She did not want to ask, really; in fact she knew she shouldn't even bring it up, but…
"I can't bear it any longer. Why?"
"Why what?"
"Stop being coy; it's maddening. Why did you so suddenly change your mind?"
He watched her sitting there. For a tall woman only a few inches shorter than he was, she looked decidedly small in an oversized robe. She picked her knees up and rested her feet on the edge of her chair, drawing her arms around them. She looked so innocent and sweet. How could he possibly make her understand? If she, the one person save Dumbledore himself; she who knew him better than he ever allowed anyone before, was asking this questions than he had to be straightforward and honest, and for a man like Severus Snape this was asking a lot. He sat up straight and looked at her. "I don't know…I guess I just decided to let go."
Sophie was more confused now than ever. "Of what?"
"Everything……I let go of the guilt over Cecilia's death, over still being alive. I let go of the hatred and misery that had become my barricade against those who were trying to be my friends…Of hoping for death and pretending it was righteous." He paused for a few minutes and looked into her eyes: soft brown ones with specs of green that glittered in the sunlight, and currently held confusion and just a bit of apprehension.
He continued. "Yesterday I was taking a boy with a battered body, a bruised soul, and dead spirit to his room. The parallels between us are obvious, so I won't challenge your intelligence by pointing them out…. He turned to me and the only thing he said that entire time was 'Why does she bother with me?' It was a question I had been asking myself for three days. I didn't know the answer but I managed to talk on an on saying things like 'Because you are worth bothering with', 'Because beneath this brusque exterior is a good person who cares about those around him whether he will admit to it or not', 'Because life is but a few precious fleeting moments and we owe it to ourselves to make them worth living.' I began to realize whom I was actually talking to, and I started to reproach myself for my stupidity."
His eyes began to soften and his voice began to rasp. "Cecilia would not have wanted me to waste the life she died for. I owe her at least that. She would have wanted to me to fight for a life worth dying for, to make my destiny my own and never allow anyone else to decide it for me. She gave me those abilities years ago, when he gave the last gift she ever could to me. Who am I to waste it? What kind of person would that make me?"
He smiled then as for the first time in a couple of decades he felt the guilt burdening his shoulders lift and dissapperate. He smiled and it was glorious. "Walking back here I felt emancipated…I felt like a child on Christmas morning, getting the gift he had prayed for undauntedly all year. Since hearing of Voldemort's resurfacing I have waited for him to come to me like the Angel of Death imposing a sentence…… Then you came and did something to me I thought I could never forgive. You gave me a reason to live. You forced me to find that part of myself I had buried by doing nothing more than loving me and making me love you."
A lump formed in Sophie's throat as he said these words. She sat quietly, tears filling her eyes.
He let out a deep breath and took her hand from across the table. "Mind you, I am not the type to go around picking flowers and reciting poetry, but perhaps allowing people in and not constantly pushing them out will be a good start for me…for us."
She got up and walked over to him never releasing his hand. As he pushed his chair away from the table, she sat down facing him, straddling his lap. Putting her arms around his waist, she rested her head on his shoulder. He pulled her in closer to him and inhaled her scent. She smelled different today, like him actually, but sweeter somehow, and he wondered if he smelled that good to anyone else.
She continued to nuzzle his chest silently as he spoke: "Are you going to say anything or are you just going to keep me trapped in this provocative position?"
She straightened her back to meet his gaze with her own. "You have affected me as much as I have affected you." He was not sure how to react to this statement. Truth be told he never considered her any different from when they first met.
She snuggled back into his chest and continued. "I try very hard to give the impression that I am capable of living without the aid of anyone else. I learned how to fix things, to make things, to build things out of a need to rid myself of the necessity of others. The truth is after Alice, I refused to allow myself to be so exposed again. I do what I must to facilitate my work but shy away from personal relationships. I have only had two other intimate relationships in my life, and they both ended because I could not open up, because I pushed people away, because I was scared of getting hurt." For the first time Severus could ever remember she sounded vulnerable. He heard sadness in her voice before, anger, frustration even fear but never this; never this defenseless.
"You were a challenge to my professional ego," she continued. "I fell in love with you in spite of myself. I found a kindred spirit with whom I connected with as I never had with anyone before. I fell in love with you because you knew my grief and understood what it meant. Understood what it was to lose yourself to another…for another. You made me admit for the first time in a long time I needed someone……that I needed you."
Whatever he expected, it was not this. She always seemed so confident, so in control of everything. But could that not also be said about him? Did he not also put up a façade? A masquerade? A thought suddenly came to him. "And I turned you away," he said softly.
"You did what you felt you had to do. I'm sorry for putting you in a position that forced you to decide, whether you eventually came around or not."
Still straddling his lap, she shifted slightly and brought her hand up to his chest, drawing small circles on it. He rested his forehead on hers and spoke, "I do love you. I loved you from the first time we met. I hated myself for it. I since have come to believe my irreverent actions were some subconscious need to sabotage any chance with you."
"Spoken like a true Freudian," she laughed.
"A what?"
"Never mind……….We did have a stormy introduction, didn't we?"
"Looking forward to calmer seas ahead?"
"I hope not. I rather enjoyed the waves." They laughed, and Sophie wrapped herself around him tighter.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now I shower and begin my much neglected preparations for yet another term of attempting to educate the mindless and disinterested."
She rolled her eyes. "All right, besides that?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied.
"Do we make our relationship known?"
"If I am not mistaken," he said with a smile, "the only people who thought we weren't already in a relationship were the two of us. I doubt seeing us together would be much of a surprise to anyone."
Sophie sighed in agreement and begrudgingly got up and stretched. As comfortable as she was, her legs had started to fall asleep. She sat down across from Severus. As she poured herself a fresh cup of tea, she furrowed her brow. Severus could see the wheels turning. She finally looked up at him. "I have been wanting to ask you something else?"
"Now is as good a time as any, I suppose."
"You had once told me that you knew that I 'worked till all hours of the night only sleeping when I was at the height of exhaustion.' How did you know that?"
That wicked little grin crept back on to his lips. "Quite accidentally," he began, though not too convincingly, "I found that one could get a direct view into your home from the Astronomy Tower. That is, if one uses a telescope."
"Accidentally, eh?"
"Quite…accidentally."
"I'll have to remember your penchant for voyeurism," she drawled.
"It's your turn to answer a question."
"You and your damn reciprocity. You know, I am beginning to hate that word."
He laughed. "Why do you keep so busy?"
She gave a small shrug. "Excessive fatigue has become the only way I could fall asleep, other wise I just lie there reliving the horrors, whether they be my own or my patients'……..I took up hobbies to give myself something to do…I knit, I sew, I do all sorts of crafts. Poor Neville has a closet full of clothes I have made him…..bags……trinkets. It was nice to make gifts for the others."
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "I suppose we will just have to find more creative ways of tiring you out."
