Under Rug Swept
1.
Your hair is bunched back today. I suppose you must think that it makes you look ordinary, or less beautiful, especially with ink smudges on your face after you've wiped stray pieces of hair from your face.
You're not ordinary, you know. You never are. Not to me.
I wish I could tell you this. I wish I could wipe away those ink smudges while you're in the bathtub. I dream about that at night, sometimes. My fingers itch to touch you, to run through your hair or even just to rest briefly on your shoulder as I pass you.
You laugh at something Ginny says, your eyes closing to slits and your face coming to rest against your hand, quill dangling loosely between fingertips. I swallow thickly, and make myself look away. My hands tremble as I reach for the teacup by my side, and I take a long gasp of the hot liquid so the pain in my mouth and throat distracts me. I cannot stop myself from thinking about you.
I feel old without you. When we were together you made me feel young and alive. You always knew how to be young, even though you were so grown-up while you were asking Albus if you might sit in on an Order meeting, or when you were reviewing the latest book on dragon behaviour.
I remember that night. The heavy book lay on your lap and your finger followed the line of the passage you were reading to me. The sheets of my bed twisted around your legs, and my fingers twisted through your hair. You were so perfect, in moments like that when we were both winding down from the thrill of sharing our bodies and reveling in amazement of one another.
"Are you listening?" You asked me with a smile, swatting my hand away from your neck, where I had been holding a lock of hair and tickling your ear with it.
"Yes," I answered, and reached over your body to flip the pages of the book to the chapter on dragon mating habits. "I find it particularly interesting that the male Chinese Fireball will capture his female by biting her neck, and will hold on for the duration of their mating." I scraped my teeth over the expanse of skin where neck joined shoulder on your body, not exactly biting, and making you shudder.
"And you call yourself a scholar?" You had quipped at me, teasing and fighting back a devious smile. "You're just like any other man; only interested in how the sex works." I laughed then, sliding my hand from the pages of the book to curl my arm around your waist. The smile on your face broke out and you leaned down to kiss me.
That was when you were at Hogwarts, and had a curfew to keep. You were never able to linger in my bed until the morning. You would sneak away from my rooms when the prefects had returned to their house dormitories and go to your own private Head Girl chambers.
Those days are gone, now that you've graduated and are working at the Ministry, gone since you told me you needed space to finish your school career and begin your working one. I didn't understand fully what you wanted then, but I do now; it is finished. I wake up in the night without you beside me, I let no indication of any feelings that may be, and were between us, slip. I leave you alone.
You've abandoned your Ministry work now, and are instead explaining something about Advanced Potions to Ginny. I want to sweep you up in my arms and take you upstairs to my bed, but instead I take my tea, the cup shaking against the saucer in my hands, and leave the study to be away from you.