NOTE

Warning for sexual content.

Do remember that a month has passed since the pensieve, so the relationship has evolved a bit.

53. Cottage

In the last days of May we were together in the castle. We took our walks, ate our meals, read our books. One afternoon he asked me a question. "May I take you somewhere?" And I told him he could.

A cloud-strewn sky stretched over the rolling hills of the place where we landed. The sun was shining silver, throwing its long rays through the blueness and caressing the long grass, which looked like a silken ocean as the wind made waves of it. As we walked side by side I practised placing my trust in different parts of him. His hands. His hips. His ankles.

"Where are we going?" I asked, after a long while. "Where is this?"

"Near the lakes," he said. "You'll see."

We climbed a hill towards the clouds, which sailed like fast ships from shape to shape. Over the hill lay a valley, where the clouds' shadows swam. In its centre, alongside a long stone wall and at the edge of the thick woods which covered the next mountain, sat a small cottage and its orchard-garden.

I paused, panting slightly, and smiled at the view. "That's lovely," I thought aloud, words half-drowned by the wind.

Severus stopped some paces ahead and turned around. "It's yours."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. "What?"

"Ours, I mean."

I looked between him and the cottage, unable to quite understand. "What?" I said again.

He was silent, and I realised as I watched him squinting from the sunlight that he meant he had bought it. The cottage was his; and, by extension, mine. I felt my mouth fall open in shock as I gazed at the idyllic valley. A tender excitement was swelling in my chest, and soon it was carrying me down the hill at a brisk walk. I couldn't believe it! Quite soon I had broken into a jog. I had to get closer.

It was real. I walked through the orchard of apple trees, whose white and pink blossoms gave off a sweet perfume, and around the gorgeous green garden, vines clambering over the wooden fence and wicket. Roses grew up a trellis on the side of a small shed, which contained wood, gardening tools, tin buckets…

I kept turning around to look at Severus in disbelieving joy, but he only walked slowly down the hillside, his hands in the pockets of his muggle trousers, his face in a mysterious expression–just shy of that wince of a smile.

"What!" I called, and laughed aloud as I walked around the side of the house into the cold shade. There was a beautiful old oak tree, and the white kitchen door. I was just stepping up to it when Severus appeared on the other side–he'd apparated, in order to open it for me.

Feeling rather dazed, I stepped inside into the smell of old wooden furniture, the slight hint of dust, the warmth of a home.

The first thing I was drawn to was the beautiful piano. There had always been a piano at the Burrow, and Bill and Ginny could both play, but I'd never learned. I touched the keys with my fingertips and looked around in awe, feeling Severus's eyes on me as I took in my surroundings. The cottage was fully furnished, with a beautiful scarred dining table and red rugs on the wooden floor. Blankets were folded on the couch before the fireplace, and the kitchen contained everything it needed. I also noticed a strange old wheelchair, wooden, its wicker back slightly deformed from where someone once sat. Narrow stairs led up to the second floor.

"How…?" I asked.

"I sold the other house," he said bluntly. "It was time."

So this was where he'd been going so often over the past month. This place was why he'd been absent so frequently.

I shook my head. "Who…?"

"An old couple. They were moving to Egypt."

"It has everything."

"All they took were their books and clothes."

I heard birds chirping outside. "This is a dream," I said, looking at Severus. "It's a dream."

The corner of his mouth moved slightly. "It is a place to stay, whenever you would like to."

I couldn't speak, couldn't force my face to take on any distinct expression. I would never have expected this from Severus, not in a hundred years. I hadn't imagined he would ever let go of the house in the town where he and Lily had grown up. I certainly hadn't imagined that he would invite me so fully into any house which belonged to him–let alone to speak of it as though it was mine as well.

I had no idea how to thank him.

He followed me up the stairs. They were very creaky and I smiled as I reached the landing, reminded of the Burrow. The whole cottage reminded me of the Weasley home in its warmth, its simplicity. Upstairs were three bedrooms, one very small and two larger, all with beautiful old windows. One had clearly been preferred by the former residents. The bed still had its white blankets. There was a lamp on the bedside table, a basin by the window, and an empty chest of drawers. A mirror hung on the wall.

"You may choose your own room, of course," Severus said, from the doorway.

There was a depth of implication and consideration underneath the offer, and I blushed. "Thank you," I answered.

He lowered his chin in a small nod.

I felt the silence of the room, the space between our bodies. I turned my eyes to the mirror and saw the depths of my own gaze. Severus and I had not spoken much, had not touched much, had not said the three vulnerable words since the night of the pensieve. Why had he done this? Why had he brought me here? It felt like when he spoke to me he was trying to speak a new language–one in which casual insults and abrasiveness were not allowed. I was still trying to understand what lay under every word, every look. Trying to trust.

I turned my eyes to him. "I cannot replace her, you know."

His eyes had never left me. "It's you I want."

I held my breath and looked away again, out the window.

We went silently downstairs. I felt how closely he was watching me, and felt almost trapped by his sensitivity. My old fears were crawling out of the corners of my heart. My emotions for him were strong, but I was afraid to trust them. In the castle it had been easy to breathe, to get away, but now that we were here…

We stood together in the garden. The wind had not ebbed, and it tugged my hair back from my face. I covered my eyes and looked to the woods, dark under the summer sun. Hardly knowing what my hands were doing, I took off my cardigan, rolling up the sleeves of my shirt to feel the direct warmth of the sun on my arms. I shut my eyes.

Then Severus was holding my arms, kissing the blue lines of my veins. I watched him through half-closed eyes, feeling my heartbeat, drawing in a silent breath. My eyes opened and I leaned forward into his chest. He embraced me and held my mouth with his, opened my lips with his. An immediate throbbing made itself known between my legs.

I broke away and went to the door. "Some water?" I said.

"Please."

I stepped inside. In the kitchen I pressed my wrists against the water pitcher to cool myself down. Then my forehead. Then my temples. Then my open mouth. Breathing slowly and deeply. But it was no good. The words continued to echo in my head.

It's you I want. It's you I want. It's you I want.

After an hour it began to rain. It seemed by then that there was something inevitable about the encroaching evening and night, something that I would not be able to resist. We stood among the apple trees and watched the clouds covering the sun. Raindrops made small clicking sounds against the branches.

"I guess this means we're meant to stay a while," I said. "I'll make a fire."

I carried wood from the shed to the fireplace and began to build the fire with logs and kindling. I realised I'd left the door open to the quickening rain, and heard Severus close it behind him as he came inside. I looked at him over my shoulder, and he looked back. I turned my face to my work again, but continued to sense his eyes. I whispered "Incendio" and the wood caught fire from my wand.

Softly, from behind me, came quiet notes on the piano. I stood and turned, pressing my hands to my thighs. Severus had charmed the instrument to play, and gradually the notes came together to form a simple tune. Climbing and descending, climbing and descending. Slow. Slow.

I went to his arms and allowed him to gather me near to him. He swayed, and my body moved with his, like a slender wave that follows another on a sandy shore. I felt the desire surging up from him, his cautious breath against my temple. He wanted me, but was unable to tell me so; unable to ask for my body.

Thunder rumbled softly. I imagined the faint vibration would make the house tremor, unbuild the illusion. But the walls remained. The firelight and shadow.

I drew away, tears coming down my face. His fingertips touched the corners of my eyes.

"You want to make love to me," I whispered. It was almost an accusation.

"Yes," he confessed.

"I don't know… I don't know how to give you… I'm afraid."

The thunder sighed.

"Of what."

I trembled. "That it will break me."

His hand was cool against my cheek. "That I will break you?"

"Yes."

Our lips touched. My tears continued. He moved his hand under the looseness of my shirt.

"Come with me," he said.

"Please," I whispered, though I didn't know what I was pleading for or against.

"Come."

He led me by the hand to the stairs, and I followed him up, leaving the piano to its solitary playing.

At the foot of the white bed he began to undress me. I could not stop crying. There was too much feeling. I was weakened by love, and I was afraid. I watched Severus, the way he remained strong. Why couldn't I be the same?

He held me in my nakedness and, with soft cool breath from his lips, dried my tears. I let him lay me down, and felt his hands on my body as he knelt between my legs. He coaxed my knees over his shoulders. My hands went to the sheets, my mouth to the warm skin of my arm. I trembled as his fingers touched my inner thighs, my hips. His warm breath trailed over my centre as the thunder murmured outside. Then I felt his mouth, and a long, low groan was drawn out of me. Each stroke of his tongue, each moan and hum from his mouth, made little threads of lightning run through my core.

Soft cries harmonising with the thunder, he slowly rocked me backward and forward. My body arched like a bow. He rested his hand on my belly and I shattered.

Everything was quiet as he came up to me. I touched my tongue to his skin, naming the tastes it had taken from the day. The sweat, the sun, the rain. The firewood and music. He was looking into me through my eyes. I began to cry again. He pressed my knees wide with his hands and entered me.

We lay in love softly and slowly. I was silent, breathing him in as he moved deep inside of me. On his lips my name was a prayer, both question and answer. A bird hovering in the air. Our mouths were open but did not touch. I watched the small changes in his eyes, like the changes of a sea. There was so much of him. It ached.

The rain caressed the window and he moaned until he came. I wrapped my limbs around him, his heat in my belly, his trembling flowing into my own body and becoming my own trembling.

The piano downstairs had stopped. We lay in each other's arms, cradling parts of each other's bodies. I touched his shoulder, his abdomen, his arm. He held my breasts, my back, the backs of my knees. I hardly knew what had happened. Fear still ran in my blood, but its hum was more distant now. I felt how badly I had wanted this. His depths. His protection.

"This is our house," I breathed, after many minutes.

"It is," Severus said. His fingers drew slow circles in my hair. "It is our house."

NOTE

The plot will begin to pick up again in the next chapter. Please do let me know how you're responding to the story!