Dance Me Back To Love
He sat there, still and silent, staring into the flames of a dying fire. One foot, rested on its opponent's knee, his head resting in his hand. It was one of many sleepless nights he had never grown quite used to over the past twenty years.
He still saw her smile when he closed his eyes, could still feel her hands caressing his skin, as he lay naked beneath the bed sheets. She had hurt him, ripped out his very soul. He hated that he could not block her from his memory as she had undoubtedly done.
Suddenly, the mark that had been embedded in his skin on his forearm all those years ago, burned with a sharp pain. He was startled out his reverie. He had work that beckoned to be taken care of. She could wait.
note: Aleasia is pronounced A-lee-see-ia
The evening was one of beauty that sang of a deceptive calm. In the center of the courtyard, the granite fountain brought to life the sound of running water that came in an endless arched stream from the mouth of a sculpted fairy. It had been one of her favorites years ago when she was a student at Hogwarts. Sitting along the wide wall that encompassed the fountain she thought how little some things had changed.
"I don't know, Albus…I just don't know if I could face him…" Her soft voice, thick with worry, carried through the short distance to land upon the ears of her long-time friend and mentor.
Albus Dumbledore, knowingly, allowed a few moments of silence, a chance for the young woman beside him to relive past memories, to gather her thoughts and calm her emotions. "You are needed here, Aleasia."
Needed, yes, she had heard that same word from many souls in her young life. Yet still she wasn't sure exactly what it meant. She sighed.
"I assume you would have me take a teaching post here at Hogwarts?"
Dumbledore nodded, casually. "Defense against the dark arts, it is the perfect position for you, our circumstance set aside."
Silent again, Aleasia let her eyes wander through the fast approaching night to take in the subtle beauty that was Hogwarts. In truth she had thought many times over the years of returning to her old school to teach, many times only one thing stopped her.
Thinking of his ever-lingering presence made her pulse race and her knees tremble. He would not forgive the hurt she left him. She could not forgive his lack of perceptiveness. Why he had never come after her in all these long years since their separation, she would never know.
"And Malyia, what of her?"
"I would expect that she would enroll here at Hogwarts as a student. I shall, of course, leave her living arrangements up to your parental judgment."
Aleasia leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees as she buried her head in her hands. A pose she often took when upset. "All right, Albus. Though I do have one stipulation?"
An eyebrow rose on the old man's face as he waited for the inevitable.
"No one is to know that Malyia is my daughter. No one, Albus."
It was with some degree of trepidation and long-acquainted pain that Aleasia walked away from the headmaster then. Having agreed to his request that she play an active role in the order of the phoenix was one thing, after all, she had been a member once before. To live in a castle where a man she had never quite managed to stop loving walked the same halls, was entirely another.
Albus Dumbledore watched her off in the distance, as she made her way to the gates of Hogwarts and apparated away to the home she had occupied for the past several years. He sighed; he missed the young woman's presence. Her willful spirit he had enjoyed during the time she was a student and years after as she proved herself to be one of most talented witches he had seen pass through Hogwarts in all his years as both a teacher and headmaster.
Something had gone wrong years ago, it had left both parties injured and bitter. And for once, Albus was at a loss how to mend the two people he most cared about.
His last thought, before he made his way back into the castle, was how interesting the fast approaching school year was promising to be.