I couldn't give you a warning
But I felt it all over me
I hope you come where I'm going
And babe, my hands are free
Falling so hard
Swimming through stars
And maybe that's alright
I'm feeling you
Every single way
I'm feeling you
Ain't no other way
There was a time I remember
Breathing air like this
But that was when I was younger
Didn't know what I had, I'd miss
I'm feeling you
Every single way
I'm feeling you
Ain't no other way
Feeling you by Harrison Storm
Severus paced desperately up and down in front of me on the night of Halloween, but so far, he was not able to utter a word.
"Severus, if you don't slowly tell me what happened, then I'll have to pour you Vitaserum, whether you like it or not. Severus looked up and looked at me as if he was just realizing that he was with me and that I needed an explanation for his peculiar behavior.
But he went to the front door, grabbed my coat and threw it to me.
"I have to walk. I can't sit down quietly," he said curtly. I nodded, threw on my dark red coat that reached up to my calves and watched Severus throw on his black coat. Although it was only the beginning of November, it had become surprisingly cold.
We went out into the cold night air, so that our breath floated visibly in front of us as a cloud even in the moonlight. I looked at the calm sea, on the surface of which the moonlight was refracting.
Severus was still silent.
"Is it the anniversary of Lily's death that wears you down again? Or does it have something to do with Karkaroff?" I asked, pulling my coat tighter around me at the thought of this man.
"You know that the day of her death always weighs on me, but it's not. And Igor? No. That is, I don't know if it has anything to do with him. It would be quite possible," Severus said softly, casting his gaze at the surf next to us. I stopped abruptly, for I hasten to guess riddles.
"Severus, now tell me at last!" I ordered in an unusually loud and shrill voice.
Severus looked at me, assessing how he should package his words in order to give me clarity as quickly as possible without worrying me too much.
"Potter is the fourth participant in the Triwizard Tournament. He must have somehow managed to get his name to end up in the Goblet of Fire as a participant in another school. It's a magical contract and he's going to have to participate. Dumbledore trusts the boy's statement that he neither caused nor wanted it," he explained briefly, but his words literally took my breath away.
" I thought he was safe," I exclaimed, outraged by the fact that the headmaster just let all this happen before more haunting thoughts gripped me. But Severus shook his head defensively.
"It's not for him to decide, it's the binding rules of the tournament and Dumbledore certainly can't help it that Potter likes to break rules since he set his foot over the threshold of Hogwarts," he explained with sparkling black eyes.
"But Harry could never have done it himself. The question arises, who is capable of manipulating the Goblet of Fire, Severus?", I asked now in awe.
"This is exactly the question that the headmaster also asked me a few hours ago. It must be someone with very strong magical abilities. A student is hardly capable of that," Severus said and took my hand. But he didn't do that to make himself feel safer, but to get me to keep running.
"You mean it was a capable witch or wizard? But who benefits if the boy takes part in the tournament?" I asked, squeezing Severus' hand to reassure myself.
"Isn't it obvious?" Severus asked, and now it was he who stopped and rolled up his coat on his left arm. There I recognized the Dark Mark, even though it was so dark around us. "He's getting stronger."
I swallowed and closed my eyes for a moment, as if this would help me to suppress reality.
"Does Dumbledore see it that way?" I asked in a brittle voice.
"Yes. But so far he has only shared this possibility with me. We have come to the conclusion that we first observe it as it evolves. Maybe we'll find out the middleman," Severus replied dryly, but I can feel a hint of fear in his voice, even if he wanted to hide it from me.
"How can you protect Harry if he has to take part in these tasks? And who on earth is so close to Voldemort and at Hogwarts at the same time?" I asked, looking into the black eyes of Severus, who shrugged his shoulders.
"In any case, I'm keeping an eye on Igor Karkaroff, even if he's more likely to piss his pants than willingly submit to the Dark Lord again. The Dark Lord is certainly extremely bad to speak of him."
"Maybe it's an advantage that Alastor is with you this school year," I said and squeezed Severus' hand again, still clutching mine tightly.
"He showed the unforgivable curses to the students. It has scared even some die-hard Slytherins with it."; Severus said, apparently trying to distract us from the fact that Harry's life was in danger. I sighed, but gladly accepted this offer, because the fact that someone like Voldemort should have such access to Hogwarts scared me as deeply as Severus. And I suspected that it did not facilitate his position at Hogwarts. As a former Death Eater, he was certainly under the highest suspicion not only at Alastor.
"And he turned Malfoy into a ferret after he tried to ambush Potter with a curse. However, when he tried to tell me off about my protégés, I turned his back on him. I don't put up with something like that. From nobody.", he said, and although I was a little amused at the thought of Lucius Malfoy's son as a ferret, I knew that Alastor had gone too far.
"He teaches the forbidden curses? And did Draco cast a spell as a ferret? And I thought that this school year would only be stirred up by the Triwizard Tournament," I said with a grin. "And is there at least something else to report from Hogwarts?"
"Well, Potter is no longer the only celebrity, now that Victor Krum rolls the eyes of all these doe-eyed girls and also enchants the boys with his skills on the broomstick. And Charity Burbage sometimes chatters me up in the staff room. Apparently, it wasn't a good idea to ask her so many private questions during the basilisk on our patrol together 2 years ago. She really thinks I'm interested in her life," Severus explained, looking quite annoyed.
"It's a good thing if Charity sees you as a friend, because you can confide in each other," I said with a smile and my fingers stroked his hand which were holding me.
Severus looked at me most unpleasantly at the thought that he could not get rid of his colleague so easily.
"Well, it's probably better than Igor's company," Severus added in a deep voice.
I slowed my pace with the intention of surprising Severus with a quick kiss on the lips, but he stopped as if he had read my mind. He brushed some of my long strands of hair off my face and gently placed his hand on my cheek before slowly lowering his head and stroking my lower lip with his thumb. He sucked his own lip into his mouth briefly, full of anticipation of the touch that was now spreading in front of us.
"What's new with you and the plant poisonings today?", Asklepios Sharp asked me in the break room as he peeked over his newspaper to take a closer look at me. His gaze swept over my figure before catching on my face again. "You look exhausted."
"Yes, there were an enormous number of cases of poisoning by gneiss bubbles today, which people thought were Dirigible Plums," I explained to Sharp, slumping down on an armchair next to him and watching him look at me with raised eyebrows so that they were completely covered by his dark brown hair.
"It's harvest time for Dirigible Plums.", I explained with a smile and grabbed a cup of tea. "And with you? Were there a lot of potions poisoning today?" I took a big sip of the still warm tea and looked at Sharp over my cup.
"Amazingly, it's rather quiet, just a poisoning by someone who wanted to come up with a new potion to cure boils, mixing snake teeth, whelks and a blood blister pod," he explained, shaking his head in sheer contempt.
"What people always come up with," I said with a grin, because somehow many witches and wizards had a knack for poisoning by carelessness. I immediately thought of Neville Longbottom and how Severus tried to teach him not to cause any more dangers in this area.
"You'd think they weren't educated well enough in school, wouldn't you?" he said with a sigh. "But tell me, have you heard from the Curse Department that a former Death Eater showed up there with a request to remove the Dark Mark from him?"
"No. This is... bizarre. Who was it?" I asked excitedly and astonished. Someone who freely revealed his dark past?
"It's being kept secret. But he had already tried to burn it away with fire and etch it away with acid. He insisted that he was under the Imperius curse at the time," Sharp said, wrinkling his nose in displeasure.
"You don't believe it?"; I asked, taking another sip, my hands holding on to the cup.
"Not at all. Whoever has the Dark Mark belonged to the inner circle, that is well known. And whoever was in there voluntarily chose this fate. None of them deserve to be forgiven. Under no circumstances. It is right for them that they wear this mark. It's a sign of their weakness, their falling under a horrible monster," he said, angrily folding the newspaper as his words rushed through my head. "Do you see it differently?"
"Yes, I think a person can change and truly regret what mistakes he has made. He just needs a chance at redemption," I said, thinking of the man I loved.
Asclepius shook his head slightly.
"You seem to have a weakness for lost souls, don't you? In any case, I don't think that such a great outrage can ever be atoned for, it brought too many victims, too much violence and horror," he said with a cutting undertone in his voice.
"And yet we were both here, under the protection of St. Mungo, instead of taking action against these people, weren't we?" I said bitterly, thinking of my own fear at that time. It was omnipresent and literally ate away at all of us.
"This was our battle hall, Catherine! We fought the battle here or don't you remember the many victims we've treated here, trying to save everyone, to keep them from permanent damage? Do you really think that was easier than dying in a duel?" he asked.
"I don't see myself as a heroine of war," I replied quietly, thinking of the horror that the war brought to these halls around me too.
"It's no wonder. A war does not produce heroes, only victims," Asclepius said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder before looking me straight in the eye. "You should be proud of your accomplishments and never think you could have done more. I know the losses you've had to go through. I knew Prewett from my own school days at Hogwarts, he was under me for 2 years," Sharp said, smiling at me.
"You knew Gideon?" I asked in astonishment.
"Of course, everyone knew him at Hogwarts. He was a Gryffindor, popular everywhere, humorous, handsome, held venerable offices at Hogwarts. I, on the other hand, was a Slytherin, with nothing in my head but learning, unable to think outside the box, but averse to the pure-blood ideas of my own home and partly of my family. But fate would have it that I was here and did my training when he was admitted to his own training as an Auror with a serious injury. But he recognized me immediately and was genuinely happy to see me when he regained consciousness. He was so extremely grateful and down-to-earth that I wondered if he couldn't have been a good friend."
"But the houses at Hogwarts certainly didn't allow that," I said quietly. "Doesn't that show you that such a partition might be meaningless? Just like the ones you set up when you condemned the repentant Death Eaters?" I asked him, amazed to see him smiling broadly.
"You have really interesting views in your belief in goodness, don't you?" he asked gently. "I think that's why the two of you were such a good match. Prewett and you. I was so sorry when you lost him. I have seen you suffer, but I have been unable to express my condolences to you. You seemed so vulnerable that I was afraid of hurting you even more. We weren't very close with each other back then."
"It doesn't have to. I have suffered this loss and Gideon will always be a part of me that I cherish very much. But now I'm happy again, Asklepios. I am united with the love of my life. It's more than I ever hoped for," I said, feeling myself turn pink at the thought of Severus and now without any guilt towards Gideon, whom I had also loved, albeit on another level.
"I'm glad to hear that," Asclepius said in a hoarse voice, before pouring himself a cup of tea as well.
"And you, Asklepios? Do you have someone you care about?" I asked curiously over the cup of tea.
"You mean a great love?" he asked, taking a sip of tea. "Maybe I have two of them. One I can live out and the other will probably be denied to me. But I've already come to terms with that. Maybe one love is just enough if it's also your greatest passion. And I've always been a loner, even as a child."
I thought about what he had said as I emptied my cup. It sounded pleasant on the one hand, but tragic on the other and I didn't know how to react.
Luckily, our trained healer, who reported potion poisoning, rescued me, so Sharp quickly rushed away in his lime green robe.
When I stopped by Alice and Frank after my long shift at St. Mungo's, I saw in the large hospital room not only Gilderoy Lockhardt, who was taking a nap over his many autograph cards, which he had proudly marked with his initials, but also a woman named Agnes. She had for all over her head and barked instead of speaking.
But I tried not to let my irritation show and walked towards my old friends undeterred.
Alice, as she often does, stood by the window and looked out without fixing anything, while Frank sat in bed and stared at the wall opposite.
"Alice, my dear, how are you?" I asked her aloud, but she didn't even bat an eyelash.
"Neville must have been here on the holidays, wasn't he?" I asked, smiling, looking at a bedside table next to Alice's bed. There was an old photograph of a laughing Alice, to whom Frank had lovingly placed a hand on her shoulder, with a small sleeping baby in her arms. I sighed at the thought of all that was taken from this family. Such an unnecessary sacrifice after Voldemort had disappeared.
"I don't know if you can feel it, Alice, but he's getting stronger," I whispered, and I heard her breathe loudly beside me, but her face remained expressionless. I turned to the window and looked into the green courtyard. "Don't worry, Alice. We're going to stop him. Forever. I promise you; he will be stopped for good."
Suddenly, I felt her hand grabbing mine. I stared at our touch and saw her put a small wrapping paper in my hand and closed it gently, but her face was still fixed on the wall behind me.
I smiled at her. "I know I'll take care of myself, Alice."
Suddenly, the door swung open, and to my surprise, Remus stepped through, looking around the hospital room uncertainly, before he saw me and a big smile formed on his face.
"Sharp said I'd find you here. I've been waiting for you because I wanted to pick you up and ask if we want to eat something together," he said, running his hand through his light brown hair, which already drew some gray strands.
"Gladly!" I said joyfully and said goodbye to Alice and Frank before I sat down Remus in our usual Muggle pub.
"I'm assuming you've already heard that Harry passed the first task of the Triwizard Tournament with flying colors?" Remus asked, taking a big sip of Scottish Highland whiskey.
"Yes, it was a big headline in the Daily Prophet. But you can imagine what I think of the whole story of it in general," I said, gently pushing my glass of burning liquid back and forth on the table. Remus nodded anxiously and we were silent for a moment.
"Dumbledore wrote to me that the security measures are very high and every participant is protected, especially Harry," Remus said quietly after a while, but he sensed that I was not convinced by Dumbledore's dull promises and he fell silent again at a glance at my expression. I sighed after a while, because I wanted to spend a pleasant evening with my good friend and he was not to blame for the decision to just leave Harry in the tournament.
"But I'm glad that Harry has survived a task so successfully. I have to say, I've had a few sleepless nights before," I said, knowing that I wasn't the only one, Severus also felt sick at the thought that all of our protégé was in such a situation. But Severus was just as sure of Dumbledore's safety precautions as Remus.
"Yes, I'm really proud of him. Padfoot too and by the way, he is currently back here in England. He has taken a stand, but he is safe. Dumbledore has made me understand that our enemy is growing stronger while we are talking to each other here," Remus said and I drew in sharply because of the risk Sirius took so lightly.
"So, do you feel ready?" I asked dryly after a few moments of silence and now raised my glass to take a big sip.
"No. And you?" Remus replied, grabbing my hand, which was still on the table.
"You can't escape something inevitable, can you?" I replied, still feeling a gentle burning sensation in my throat as Remus watched with widened eyes as I swallowed.
And although Severus and I now saw each other again almost every night, as the security precautions at Hogwarts were by no means the same as in the last school year, we were supposed to spend Christmas Eve separately from each other, as Severus had to stay at Hogwarts because of the Juleb Ball, which was held exclusively during the Triwizard Tournament.
But I didn't mind not seeing him until the next morning and had made myself comfortable with a good book about advanced amnesia spells, in which it was described in detail how to pull individual people or things out of individual memories in order to delete them. After watching Tiberius look for mice in the front yard, I went to bed early, only to see Severus in his best robe in front of me just after midnight.
"Sorry for the late disturbance. I still wanted to see you," he whispered, standing on the edge of my bed, undecided whether he should approach me and with a guilty expression about the fact that he had just woken me up. I smiled sleepily at him.
"Severus, you never have to apologize for that. I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow. I'm so excited." I straightened up and wrapped my arms around him to pull him towards me on the warm and soft bed. But I immediately noticed that he was depressed, and his thoughts were circling.
"Was it that bad?" I ask him.
"Yes. All these pubescent children on the one hand and Karkaroff, this coward on the other. He persecuted me and left me no choice but to talk to him, so I went with him to the rose garden. He has cold feet because of his fear of the Dark Lord. I told him he could escape, I'll find an excuse for him in front of the Dark Lord," Severus said softly, sounding very exhausted. I ran my hand over his back and he immediately leaned against me.
"He's gotten stronger again? Show me, please," I said, pulling his left arm close to me, but Severus flinched.
"I don't want you to see it. It's quite clear now," he explained quietly, stroking his shirt tightly over it.
"Are you ashamed of me?" I asked incredulously, but I hadn't seen Severus for a week and was amazed, but the ever-increasing shadow on his forearm must have intensified in this short time.
"Yes," he replied, barely audible, staring at his own hands, which were clasped in front of him, his strands of black hair falling into his forehead.
"Severus, that's not necessary. As long as you see it with different eyes this time. There's no shame, it's a sign of a wrong decision that you would never make again," I said softly, running a hand over his hair.
He nodded and began to look into my eyes again before slowly pushing his left sleeve back. For the first time, I saw its formerly dark side very clearly before my eyes, the skull with a snake curling out of its mouth.
"A nice Christmas present, isn't it?" Severus asked bitterly, watching my pinched lips.
"The fact that you are here with me today is truly a gift," I whispered, gently stroking his left forearm. Severus twitched briefly, but let me trace the lines of the Dark Mark with my fingers. I wanted him to know that I still loved him, and even though I loathed his past as a Death Eater, it was an irrevocable part of his life's journey.
"I would have loved to be with you in the rose garden. You would have liked it. Filius has furnished the garden with fairies of light and sculptures. Instead, Karkaroff chewed off one of my ears. But I used the time wisely and kept a few students from hasty intimate actions," Severus said seriously, but looked at me irritated when he noticed my big grin.
"How did you get them...?" I cleared my throat at the thought of Severus scouring the bushes of roses like crazy.
"If I hadn't been careful, who knows how far some of the children would have gone. It didn't exist in our days at school," he said disparagingly, but I raised my eyebrows and wondered which school he went to, because it certainly wasn't Hogwarts.
"I'm not sure about that. From the sixth grade onwards, I heard a lot and in the seventh grade, I actually had..." I fell silent and bit my lower lip at the thought of it. But Severus suddenly looked at me, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists.
"You had…in Hogwarts?" he asked angrily. "With whom? Was it Lupin?"
"No, you misunderstood," I giggled now and felt great relief from him. "You know I've only had eyes for a certain Slytherin. No, I meant, I didn't just catch a pair of lovers red-handed."
"Oh, really? Who?" he asked, but now there was no anger in his voice.
"Lily and James. The two had been hiding in the trophy room. And Alice and Frank... well, I'd rather keep that to myself," I laughed at the idea of this love, which was so carefree at the time.
"Oh, I can imagine that well enough," he said softly, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
"We could have used our time more intensively back then. If only I had let you in on my feelings," I thought out loud and looked at his soft, warm lips, which he now formed into a smile.
"Then I would have had to clean my eyes," he said softly and leaned slightly towards me.
"We can start right away," I breathed and took off the old gray nightgown, which actually belonged to him.
He smiled when he saw my naked torso in front of him so suddenly, but he knew right away what to do.
When he started caressing my breasts, it aroused both of us equally. It was so incredibly pleasant to see him so physically aroused, because Severus looked like he was holding back and trying to savor every second. He leaned back above me, kissed my lips before he slid his tongue along my neck and further down to touch my breasts with his mouth.
Severus knew exactly what to do to drive me crazy with excitement as his left hand tenderly disappeared between my legs.
At that moment, I opened his best robe, which slid down, followed by his black shirt, which was interspersed with fine silver threads that formed small ornaments. An oversized bulge had formed in his pants, but before I could free him, I felt his long fingers gently slide into my opening as his thumb massaged my clitoris.
I gasped loudly, which made Severus grin broadly before he kissed me again and moved his right hand from my breast to his pants to open them while he continued to pamper my private parts with his left hand.
As he brought his fingers out to open my thighs wider with his hand, I closed my eyes before feeling a gentle thrust of his stiff penis into me, I moaned softly and heard him gasp, for he was breathless from excitement.
Severus straightened up without leaving my body and shifted his weight to his knees. He grabbed me and pulled me even closer to him, I wrapped my legs around his pelvis, my hands running feverishly over his tense back muscles.
Then Severus moved up my body until his erection was pointing more downward and the back of his penis was pressing against my clit.
He moved his body down with each reentry and up with each exit. Again and again.
The friction was so intense I couldn't hold back my lute, it was like an explosion between my thighs. It should be like this forever. It felt like we were one forever.
Sensing my strong arousal, Severus groaned very deeply and moved faster and faster while I could hardly bear the tension inside me. But Severus kept pushing and pushing, over and over again, faster and faster, and his deep moaning drove me almost insane until I felt my arousal gain the upper hand and I felt the muscles around his penis deep inside me cramped.
Severus let his head fall forward and enjoyed watching my body vibrate beneath him, his hair hanging wildly over his face.
He stopped moving, staring into my eyes before poking into me again until his black eyes curled briefly and I felt his cock fire its hot liquid into me as Severus took one last deep breath that left his mouth in a loud moan.
Then, leaning on his forearms, he grabbed my face with both hands and pulled it towards him until he could kiss me and soothe my flowing body with his weight.