EYES OF THE EVERGREEN - quantum witch © 2001
see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary
4 : Ineffabilis
This time the kiss was long, sweet, slow as honey poured through their veins. He stopped trying to think or believe it was real. If it was only a dream, he never wanted to awaken.
Their bodies had moved closer and she was holding him gently with both arms, one hand now caressing the nape of his neck in the most delightful way. He ventured a hand upward to touch her face as well, and found it bumping against her soft bosom instead. Flustered, he almost pulled away to apologise, but she merely reclaimed his lips and guided his hand back to her breast. He moaned softly into her mouth, as his long fingers defined the gentle curve of flesh beneath his heated palm.
When he felt her own tiny groan, he stopped hesitating and reached for the buttons down the front of her dress. She didn't stop him, in fact aided when his clumsiness caused him trouble. Soon he had exposed the lace and silk camisole beneath, and his fingers stole gently beneath the dress and back to her breast. Still covered, but only just barely. It was heavenly soft and warm.
He nearly whimpered when she moved her lips to his neck, sucking and nibbling, and began to undo the buttons of his coat as well. He shrugged it off and helped her with the stiff old-fashioned shirt he wore, until it was open and his chest was bare. And her lips went further down and across his collar bone and he knew he was going to simply die of desire.
There were further moments of unfastening and pushing aside of restrictive clothing, and more and more touching and tasting. Eventually there was a feast of exposed flesh and his lips had found their way across most of hers in a frenzy of discovery. She was soft as a rose petal, not at all rough like her namesake. And she smelled of heavenly things, though he had no name for any of them at the moment.
When they were down to nothing but the last scrap of undergarments, she suddenly seemed as nervous as he was. "We should… go to the bedchamber, I think," she said softly.
He nodded mutely, sparks of desire in his black eyes.
They went, they lay on her large comfortable bed, they stretched out face-to-face. The sensation of being in nearly full skin contact with such a rapturous being was almost too much for him to bear.
"I must confess to you, Juniper," he said as she continued kissing his face and neck, arms moving along his back like fire," I am… utterly inexperienced."
"Oh my, Severus," she managed a breathy giggle against his chest, "that comes as a total shock."
He narrowed his eyes and smirked, not truly angry. "Mock me if you wish, oh Scarlet Lady."
"Not mocking," she giggled again. "Oh, it's so absurd really, I'm only laughing because I'm every bit as nervous as you." She looked into his eyes with a smile and genuine innocence, brushing aside a long tendril of black hair that had fallen across his face. "I think you will soon find, if you've any recollection of human physiology regarding the particulars of female anatomy… that I am just as untouched."
His eyes held a moment of blank confusion, followed by surprise, then a darkening sweetness she wouldn't have imagined. "You… used spells on every man you've reputedly been with?"
"Confundus mostly, and the occasional Obliviate. Yes."
"And… me?"
"And you," she said, reaching downward to gently grasp the most sensitive and prominent evidence of his desire, "I want very much to be with, and not to forget me. No spells. Just you."
The dark sweetness in his eyes melted and flowed over them both.
His mouth drank her in as they stripped away what little was left of clothing and inhibition.
Gingerly they found their way through the tangled rose bed of passion. A few scratches. A prick of a thorn. A drop or two of gladly shed blood…
But oh the sweetness of the petals. The soft devastating scents and sounds. The dewy kisses of lips and bodies.
The deliciousness of at last being completed…
Afterward, Snape could only hold her, kissing her forehead, inhaling the fragrance of her hair. She belonged to him. She had given herself only to him. He was so deeply touched that he couldn't speak of it. He'd never dreamed it could be so utterly sweet, to feel someone sighing contentedly, wrapped in his embrace, nuzzling closer.
He finally noticed that Therion too had joined them and was curled tight against his spine, purring, basically pinning him in place.
And so he knew… it could never last.
To combat the morose knowledge, he muttered, "Well, that wasn't half so bad."
Mock-insulted, she chided, "And what, pray tell, made you think it would be bad?"
"You know what I meant. I merely mean, well… You know boys will talk of their conquests. And they all say the same things. 'She was a good tumble', but then they move on to the next and the next. Like girls were disposable, nothing more than wrappers on a chocolate frog, and once they've eaten away the sweetness inside, it's trash…"
She shuddered. Having seen firsthand that many of them did indeed think that way, she was even more glad for having used spells against becoming true refuse under their feet. "And you thought perhaps I'd be the same way. No reason not to, since I had built such a reputation as a painted tart."
"I wasn't sure what I thought of you. But I do know that women… life… these are not disposable and forgettable. Not after what I've seen in the last few months." That haunted look came back into his eyes. She'd chased it away briefly, but both knew it would take much longer to eradicate. "And someone special is even less dispensable. Frankly my dear, I can't imagine being with anyone else but you…"
Now he looked at her with such devotion, that she knew what he would say next. And she quickly put a finger against his lips to stall him. "Don't speak it. Not yet. It isn't safe. We've already said too much."
Confused and a little hurt, he frowned at her and removed her finger. "So we are to be nothing more than a quick thing after all?"
"No no, you misunderstand. First I must make sure of something, I should have done so before." She sat up, and reached for a wand kept in her bedside table. Waving it toward a dark corner of the room, she called out, "Umbra Janua". And suddenly dozens of large spiders were creeping from every shadowed spot, appearing literally from nowhere.
Snape almost leaped in surprise, but when it was clear she had invited them, he tried to relax.
"Have you heard everything that's been said here today?" she asked, and they clicked a soft sound that apparently she could understand.
But no, they were actually moving, spinning webs. Writing in the webs. Yes, the answers came, we know all, friend Juniper.
One very large spider, almost transparently white and about as big as Snape's thumb, dropped slowly down from the canopy above the bed. It loomed before Juniper's face, and she smiled. "Hello Vivian, I'm glad to see you too." Then she turned to explain things to Snape. "This is the matron of the group, the mother of them all. She is a Shadow Spider, native to Africa and unfortunately very rare now. People kill them a lot, because they don't understand them, think they're dark creatures. They travel through dimensional doorways inside shadows, and as you've seen are quite intelligent and can speak in their own way. They make excellent Secret Keepers." The last part was spoken with gravity.
He understood now. Anything he wished to say to her in private needed to be kept hidden away, even from within their own minds. Others could pluck it out and use it against them both, and at this point they would likely both be tortured and killed. He nodded.
"Okay, Vivian," she said softly, "I'd appreciate it very much if you could take everything that we've said today and keep it in your webs. Please don't tell anyone these things."
The large matron spun a web between her forelegs, spelling out, Fidelius. We shall always help you. You are our friend. And now so is the man.
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I am surrounded by a lot of trusting individuals today," he muttered.
Juniper grinned. "Because we can all see right through you, dear Severus. And we won't be fooled." She kissed him softly again, her hand on his still glowing chest. "And we would never betray you." She stroked the Dark Mark on his inner left arm gently, as if to soothe it away. "Never. We would rather die first…"
He refused to allow himself to imagine that it would happen. Not right now. In the back of his mind, he knew, knew it would come to that someday, if they didn't figure a way to escape it all. But right now…
He returned the kiss, more deeply, and drew her back down onto the bed against him. "Not that I think they care one way or the other, but do you think we could have a few less spectators…" He glanced at the groups of spiders and Therion.
She giggled again, girlish and happy, and waved a polite goodbye to them all. The spiders sank into the shadows, though not out of hearing range.
Therion sulkily left the room to lay in a patch of sunlight. They had spent the entire night together and didn't even seem to notice it was morning now, and therefore his breakfast time. Fine, he would just have to go outside and hunt up garden gnomes to eat, and it would be her fault that his breath was foul afterward. Grinning in his own way, he stalked out the flap in the backdoor as the sounds of renewed passion began in the bedchamber.
NOTES:
· TITLE. The Latin title "Ineffabilis" means "unspoken, unspeakable". This is to show that they must be careful exactly what they say to each other.
· INTIMACY. Disgustingly poetic little sex scene, eh? Couldn't seem to get as graphic as I'd like with Snape's love life. He is terribly closed and private in some ways… Makes him sexier, I think. But then again… just read the OTHER stories I've written. Not so private there. Maybe he just likes his real love to be personal…
· LATIN. The spell I created, "Umbra Janua" means "shadow doorway".
· SHADOW SPIDERS. This idea came to me from another (literal) dream about Snape. The concept of using an animal for a Secret Keeper seems way more sensible to me than using a human. Animals hide better, and you often can't understand them unless you're around them constantly and get to know their unique personality. Also, the matron spider's name Vivian means "life" just like Eve (the mother of her kind, if you like to believe that myth).