FIC: "Sherry and Smoke" for shaychana
Title: Sherry and Smoke
Author/Artist: ???
Recipient's name: shaychana
Characters/Pairings: McGonagall/Trelawny
Rating: R
Summary: One second more. One second one more time and I vaguely taste sherry, but not enough to drive away the smell of the heat and us.
Warnings: None, unless you need me to spell out f-e-m-m-e-s-l-a-s-h for you.
Notes: This was my first time writing femmeslash, so I hope this is something like what you had in your head. It was fun to write (once I figured out what I wanted to do). Huge thanks go out to elsie, aku and xlickthespark, without them this fic would be a pile of mistakes and broken plot lines.
She smells of sherry (bottles) and smoke (incense) when she walks into the room, but after a few minutes of the water boiling for tea she takes on the scent of chamomile and vanilla (candles). The warmth of the summer in the room one floor down from Gryffindor tower makes us both flush and set our robes aside.
She wears a peasant shirt in sky blue (the colour of her earrings) and a skirt that is white as a painting canvas. Her sandals show small feet, one with three toe rings on it, silver and amethyst entwined.
I wonder why I am making tea on a day like today (too warm) and instead put the pot on the counter and watch it change into a pitcher of lemonade.
She laughs as I pour us each a glass. The ice on the glass sounds like her laughing. Her laugh is like a child's laugh, innocent and true. It breaks into a thousand pieces and dances around the room until all that is left is silence and even that comes welcomed into the room with us.
We talk about this year's incoming students (the second Black girl is on her way and will surely be a Slytherin). The window is stuck when I try to open it farther and she joins me in tugging at the latches and hoping that the paint hasn't sealed us unto a dungeon of heat waves.
Her hand slips and gravity pulls her down, down to me. The sheets of my bed are cool on my skin as we both float down onto the mattress. I fall years ahead of her, waiting until I feel the weight of her body on mine to say something (oh!).
The window falls shut (crash), but I don't think I really hear it. Her eyes (green with flecks of gold) are staring at me and I wonder what emotion that is.
I feel her hands shifting for a place on the mattress to push herself up, but every time she finds holds on something the sheets move and she falls against me again.
Five times (six? four?) of trying to get up and we're crushing each other as she finds my lips and presses down lightly. One second. One second of tasting the leftover lemonade on her breath before she pulls away.
She's stopped fighting gravity.
One second more. One second one more time and I vaguely taste sherry, but not enough to drive away the smell of the heat and us.
I know this is wrong. We've known each other since fourth year, when we were Charms partners (the odd girls out in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw). I know she wears one size down from me and that she twists her hair in a bun to stick a pencil in it. She has a scar two inches above her navel from when she transfigured a pincushion into a razor and fell against it. She has no sense of balance.
I don't know that she kisses first with her lips lightly, then with more pressure. She teases with her lips, pulling back and starting over.
Every bit of my body is pushing against her, a leg wrapped lightly over hers (has it been like that since it started?). I feel curls over and under and between my fingers as I reach into her hair and bend my fingers.
This is wrong and for a moment I let go of her hair and go to roll out from under her, but when we break apart her eyes panic and turn a shade lighter (paisley green). Three seconds and she's completely on top of me, hands pushing us under the sheets, into the cool shade of the corner of my bed.
The bed is mine and I feel possessive of the red sheets with gold trim. She isn't Gryffindor and that seems like the only thing that makes this wrong.
She is filled with more angles than curves and when she settles her weight against me I feel her hips pressing into my stomach. She is beauty, pure beauty. She has Greek sexuality with lidded eyes that are flecked with gold and cheekbones that are strong and defined. A goddess. A statue.
She pushes my legs apart with her knee and shifts until she is barely tall enough to kiss my lips (she pushes up with her toes to keep touching). I feel her fingers dancing over my stomach, over my left ribs, back to my navel and up to my breast. She starts to lift my shirt and must feel me freeze, because she whispers to me (shhh) and keeps going. Her nails leave trails over my ribs, long marks that litter my skin.
I lift up and help push (pull) the shirt over my head. The fabric is damp from the heat and the both of us. I'm glad to be rid of it. I only wish I could hide my body from her. I feel as though every inch of skin is the wrong colour, every edge is too blurred. My arms go to cross over my bra and across my stomach, but she only pushes them away.
"Beautiful," she says as she leans up to kiss me again.
With her weight on her knees she ends up kneeling on the bed, hair in ringlets down her back and across her shoulders. Her body is acres of beauty, plains of silk and paleness that swallow my breath. When she leans back down against me I feel unworthy of touching her, but she grasps my hand and drags it across her shoulder and her back, around and over her stomach. I think perfection is too much, it doesn't exist, but this, this is something that isn't in the dictionary.
She wriggles out her skirt and helps me with pulling off my trousers. There is clothing all over my room, thrown over a chair and lying on the floor. There is almost nothing between us; a sliver of air couldn't pass between her rib and mine.
"I've never-" I say as she moves her hand to the clasp of my bra. I know she's noticed, but I feel as though I need to say it out loud.
She pulls the last of the fabric covering my breasts away from my body and whispers against the skin between them (shh), throwing the garment somewhere over her shoulder. One hand is pressed between her hips and mine. The other is wandering my body. She gropes at me and I hiss, body arching against hers. My lips are opened and my eyes closed as she moves her fingers up and down against a hard nipple. I must be distracted by something heavenly, because without realizing it I find two hands all over my body, one fixated on a my second breast, the second crawling down past my navel into the waistband of my underwear. I feel guilty, because I'm frozen under her. My hands are still, one in her hair and the other resting under her shoulder.
I am a wanton, my legs spreading as her fingers slip into my vagina (sex).
"Let me touch you," she breathes against my lips. "Let me make you gasp for air."
Her thumb (is it her thumb?) rubs over something sensitive and I jerk up against her and make a sound like some sort of creature. Every time she moves her hand I think I might explode. When my body arches against her, and I make a muffled sound and fall against the bed with no spine or bones in my body, I think I've had an out of body experience."
She's a Seer and I can feel her pressing her mind against mine and I can't push her away.
I can see my body writhing against her hands, I can see my eyes fluttering shut and open. I think I'm falling into a Pensieve, because this is me watching myself crash down on her. I'm crashing on sherry and smoke.
She's pushing against my body with her own and her hands are busy still, rushing over my body in hurried motions. Her eyes (a mix of slytherin and gryffindor) are on mine as she moves one of her hands down to her own triangle of curls and starts to grasp and pull against herself. When she falls against my body I move my hand across her shoulder and settle it on her spine, my chin tucked in where her neck collides with her shoulder.
Silence captures our tongues and we lie there until the sun sets in the sky, when she rolls next to me and we fall into a restless sleep, hands always touching each other, faces within kissing distance.
She's gone in the morning and I think nothing of it until I see trails of claw marks across my stomach and I remember how we fell against each other (because of the window) and she touched me and made it hard for me to breathe.
We pass each other in the hallway to the way to Albus' office a week later, but I've been summoned to discuss a student who is going to arrive in two weeks early (i know the parents) and I only make a moment's worth of eye contact because I start to run down the stone corridor to the statues that guard the entrance to the swirling staircase.
It's eleven and we've just left a staff meeting. I feel her watching me all through the introduction of Joanna Kipling (ancient runes) and talk of new books for the Potions classes. When we break I nod to Albus and walk out alone. Twenty (five) steps down the corridor I feel a hand on my elbow and I walk faster only to be followed. We barely make it to her room (it's closer) before we start to pull off robes and shirts, nipples hard against each other as she presses against me. I'm between her and the wall and can't breathe, but I'm reassured, because her hand is grasping mine at our sides.
The bed is softer than mine and sheets are imported silk in patterns of green and gold. She goes to move her hand down my stomach, but I stop her and whisper (you first).
I've never and probably wouldn't do it once I've outgrown this rush of hormones and recklessness, I think to myself. This isn't becoming for a woman, spending her day in another's bed. She guides my hand down to her crotch and I find my own way to the bump and slit that seems foreign from my own. Her eyes are heavily lidded and her lips are pursed open as I brush one way and then another against her clit, bringing her closer and closer to the edge that drops her hundreds of feet before she can come up for air. One of my fingers finds its way into the slit and pushes in to find more wetness and a new sort of sighing and bucking from her. She pushes up against my hand and grinds against it until she falls apart against me and I can smell her on the air.
Albus sits in his chair, staring at me. He smells like sherbet lemons (lemonade) and is studying me. I feel him prying off layer after layer of lies and secrets that I've told this week alone. He knows. I start to wonder if he has something hidden in my room that spies on me.
"You seem cheerful, lately, Minerva. What can I praise for this change?"
He brushes a hand over his beard before adjusting his glasses. I feel him pressuring my mind to answer the truth.
"Are you blushing, Minerva?"
I laugh softly and play with the fringe of my shirt. "I've found a new hobby. It's fascinating, learning about-" I can't remember what hobby I've been saying I've started. Knitting. Crossword puzzles.
"Astrology, perhaps?" I think I hate him for his twinkling eyes and how they laugh at me as I sit there smoldering in the chair.
"Yes. Astrology and a bit of palm reading."
He sits in his chair, staring at me. Finally, after what can only be hours of waiting he dismisses me and I run to my room to stand under the cold water of my shower, staring at the tiles that aren't really marble, only painted lies.
We lie together in her bed, the sheets wrapped around our waists as we stare at the ceiling and say nothing (silence). She traces her fingers over my palm. She's memorized the pattern of swirls and lines that predict our lives. Long. Two loves. It ends in tragedy (like juliet, she whispers). She has only one love and her life line fades into nothingness (ophelia, i say hopefully). Maybe if she runs her fingers across the deep line that predicts tragedy it will be worn away and I'll pass like she will.
It's harder now. My room is closer to the common room and students are constantly calling on me in the middle of the night. She trails her hand along my waist when we pass in the hall or when Albus calls staff meetings in his office (lemonade). We find ourselves in tangles on Hogsmeade weekends, trying to mold to the other. She's still the same (goddess). She tastes like sherry and smoke. We're forty now and everything is different. We fight for air because the world is closing in on our types. She laughs when I say this and asks which type that is, witch or something else and I can't quite meet her eye because I don't know the answer.
We taste each other and feel for something new on the other's body (she has a scar just above her hip now). She lies on top of me and tucks my hair behind my ear before she starts a line of kisses down my neck (i love you).
Saturn is in the sky tonight, bright red and with a string of light behind it, she says. (death).
She forgets to meet me Friday night and I find her asleep on her bed, naked body covered in claw marks from her own nails. She has sherry on her breath and I try to ignore it as I sit her up so she can drink some water. My fingers wander over her body as she leans against me. I wrap an arm protectively around her waist and run my fingers through her hair until I can untangle it enough to braid. If she only knew that her hair was being tied into little knots. I wait with her until the morning, when she focuses on me and whispers (what happened?).
This is too much for her. She can't shut the voices and images (death) out and they haunt her as she tracks her way across the room to find another bottle.
She screams at night, her fingers clawing for the sheets. I wake up with scratches across my shoulders and hips where she tries to get me closer to her, closer than we already are. I hold her and smooth her hair, trying to get her to stop seeing the pale boy with dark hair. He tells her things, horrible things. Her eyes open (gold flecks), but they don't see anything. We're old now. Albus knows and draws her into his office. They have secrets, the two of them. This dark haired boy haunts everyone now. He carries with him the stench of death. He is powerful, the almighty.
Uranus is following me, she whispers into my ear. Uranus is following me to both sides of the moon and I can't find something to distract it, she says as her fingers crawl down my stomach. We're caught in this. We can't get out.
They find Gideon and Fabian that night. Saturn was meant for them, their eyes wide and young as they faced the bright lights of the Unforgivables. She dreams of it hours before it happens. They call for Molly and try to avoid the darkness that swarms around them. Remus hides behind bars of silver (a monster until morning) and it's only when he wakes that he finds Molly in a corner of the library, fists above her head. She is tear-stained and when he takes her in his arms (like a feather, she is) I feel my stomach clench, because Sybill tells me of it as it happens. She falls asleep talking of his hair (greying) and Molly's eyes (scared). She wakes up sweating and trying to tie her hair in knots.
Years later Albus treats her like a newcomer. She is the relative of a great Seer and she has predicted the end of it all. He has eyes the colour of hers (there is no gold in his) and knows nothing of who he is. He is the boy who lived and he is alive and has overcome the worst wizard of our time.
The next eleven years are blurred with bodies and breathing and softness. She's only ever once hurt me, hurt me so badly that I tranformed and went missing for a week. A Weasley caught her eye, she says. She blames his long hair, his earrings of fangs. He was the unknown. He was something new. I feel the pain sink into me because I'm alone for this moment and she can't catch my eye when she tells me. Hours after I am found in Albus' office we are fumbling for breath and she is whispering (god, i'm sorry) into my ear and I'm trying to find the headboard for my fingers to wrap over. He knows, she says. He knows, but he won't tell.
Her fingers are ragged and push inside of me so harshly that I cry out and bite my lip. She is ravaging my body and I can do nothing but hope that the wood beneath my fingers holds. She wanders and pushes and pulls on me until I make a sound (a cry like a dark creature) and arch into her body. (you're gorgeous like this) She whispers into my ear as she closes her eyes and rubs her body against mine. She makes sounds like a wolf (werewolf) makes in the forest and grinds down on me until she is fallen next to me. Her eyes are fluttering and as I blink she is caught in snapshots.
She's lost weight. She's four sizes smaller than me and I can't keep transfiguring her clothes to fit her better. Two girls notice and visit her often (too often). Soon they'll catch us and we won't be able to hide this anymore. I give them extra lessons to keep them from telling someone about the bottles that Sybil keeps under her bed. They fit perfectly in rows of four. She drinks them while I'm at class, teaching. Firenze covers her classes and everyone skirts around the tower so they don't see her like this. She's drifting away. She's going away from me, fading into nothingness.
We're eighty and she curls up next to me on the couch, her hands shaking as they smooth out my skirt. I plant a kiss on her forehead and pull her closer to me. The war is over and we're alone. We are the minority that is surrounded and every once in a while I remember (which type?). We are the centaurs and creatures that once were beautiful, but are now in hiding from everything. Albus has fallen and the students have left and moved to somewhere that isn't here. There are too many skeletons at Hogwarts, no one there to keep it open. The Burrow gone, Diagon Alley is only just starting to open new shops. We've gone so long without magic that I'm not even sure I could transfigure the couch into a chair. This is how it is now, this is how we are.
She presses her lips against my ear and whispers (i love you, minerva) and I clutch her hand next to my chest and lean against her to whisper in her ear (shh).
She calls me Minerva, but her voices cracks and fades away after the er and I wonder if she even says the last bit. She smells like nothing, nothing but what comes in the door when I go out to feed the stray cats and pluck honeysuckles from the vines swallowing our house whole. She can't drink lemonade because it reminds her of too much, too much all at once. I keep it simple, one hand on her body, one kiss on her lips.
Author/Artist: ???
Recipient's name: shaychana
Characters/Pairings: McGonagall/Trelawny
Rating: R
Summary: One second more. One second one more time and I vaguely taste sherry, but not enough to drive away the smell of the heat and us.
Warnings: None, unless you need me to spell out f-e-m-m-e-s-l-a-s-h for you.
Notes: This was my first time writing femmeslash, so I hope this is something like what you had in your head. It was fun to write (once I figured out what I wanted to do). Huge thanks go out to elsie, aku and xlickthespark, without them this fic would be a pile of mistakes and broken plot lines.
She smells of sherry (bottles) and smoke (incense) when she walks into the room, but after a few minutes of the water boiling for tea she takes on the scent of chamomile and vanilla (candles). The warmth of the summer in the room one floor down from Gryffindor tower makes us both flush and set our robes aside.
She wears a peasant shirt in sky blue (the colour of her earrings) and a skirt that is white as a painting canvas. Her sandals show small feet, one with three toe rings on it, silver and amethyst entwined.
I wonder why I am making tea on a day like today (too warm) and instead put the pot on the counter and watch it change into a pitcher of lemonade.
She laughs as I pour us each a glass. The ice on the glass sounds like her laughing. Her laugh is like a child's laugh, innocent and true. It breaks into a thousand pieces and dances around the room until all that is left is silence and even that comes welcomed into the room with us.
We talk about this year's incoming students (the second Black girl is on her way and will surely be a Slytherin). The window is stuck when I try to open it farther and she joins me in tugging at the latches and hoping that the paint hasn't sealed us unto a dungeon of heat waves.
Her hand slips and gravity pulls her down, down to me. The sheets of my bed are cool on my skin as we both float down onto the mattress. I fall years ahead of her, waiting until I feel the weight of her body on mine to say something (oh!).
The window falls shut (crash), but I don't think I really hear it. Her eyes (green with flecks of gold) are staring at me and I wonder what emotion that is.
I feel her hands shifting for a place on the mattress to push herself up, but every time she finds holds on something the sheets move and she falls against me again.
Five times (six? four?) of trying to get up and we're crushing each other as she finds my lips and presses down lightly. One second. One second of tasting the leftover lemonade on her breath before she pulls away.
She's stopped fighting gravity.
One second more. One second one more time and I vaguely taste sherry, but not enough to drive away the smell of the heat and us.
I know this is wrong. We've known each other since fourth year, when we were Charms partners (the odd girls out in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw). I know she wears one size down from me and that she twists her hair in a bun to stick a pencil in it. She has a scar two inches above her navel from when she transfigured a pincushion into a razor and fell against it. She has no sense of balance.
I don't know that she kisses first with her lips lightly, then with more pressure. She teases with her lips, pulling back and starting over.
Every bit of my body is pushing against her, a leg wrapped lightly over hers (has it been like that since it started?). I feel curls over and under and between my fingers as I reach into her hair and bend my fingers.
This is wrong and for a moment I let go of her hair and go to roll out from under her, but when we break apart her eyes panic and turn a shade lighter (paisley green). Three seconds and she's completely on top of me, hands pushing us under the sheets, into the cool shade of the corner of my bed.
The bed is mine and I feel possessive of the red sheets with gold trim. She isn't Gryffindor and that seems like the only thing that makes this wrong.
She is filled with more angles than curves and when she settles her weight against me I feel her hips pressing into my stomach. She is beauty, pure beauty. She has Greek sexuality with lidded eyes that are flecked with gold and cheekbones that are strong and defined. A goddess. A statue.
She pushes my legs apart with her knee and shifts until she is barely tall enough to kiss my lips (she pushes up with her toes to keep touching). I feel her fingers dancing over my stomach, over my left ribs, back to my navel and up to my breast. She starts to lift my shirt and must feel me freeze, because she whispers to me (shhh) and keeps going. Her nails leave trails over my ribs, long marks that litter my skin.
I lift up and help push (pull) the shirt over my head. The fabric is damp from the heat and the both of us. I'm glad to be rid of it. I only wish I could hide my body from her. I feel as though every inch of skin is the wrong colour, every edge is too blurred. My arms go to cross over my bra and across my stomach, but she only pushes them away.
"Beautiful," she says as she leans up to kiss me again.
With her weight on her knees she ends up kneeling on the bed, hair in ringlets down her back and across her shoulders. Her body is acres of beauty, plains of silk and paleness that swallow my breath. When she leans back down against me I feel unworthy of touching her, but she grasps my hand and drags it across her shoulder and her back, around and over her stomach. I think perfection is too much, it doesn't exist, but this, this is something that isn't in the dictionary.
She wriggles out her skirt and helps me with pulling off my trousers. There is clothing all over my room, thrown over a chair and lying on the floor. There is almost nothing between us; a sliver of air couldn't pass between her rib and mine.
"I've never-" I say as she moves her hand to the clasp of my bra. I know she's noticed, but I feel as though I need to say it out loud.
She pulls the last of the fabric covering my breasts away from my body and whispers against the skin between them (shh), throwing the garment somewhere over her shoulder. One hand is pressed between her hips and mine. The other is wandering my body. She gropes at me and I hiss, body arching against hers. My lips are opened and my eyes closed as she moves her fingers up and down against a hard nipple. I must be distracted by something heavenly, because without realizing it I find two hands all over my body, one fixated on a my second breast, the second crawling down past my navel into the waistband of my underwear. I feel guilty, because I'm frozen under her. My hands are still, one in her hair and the other resting under her shoulder.
I am a wanton, my legs spreading as her fingers slip into my vagina (sex).
"Let me touch you," she breathes against my lips. "Let me make you gasp for air."
Her thumb (is it her thumb?) rubs over something sensitive and I jerk up against her and make a sound like some sort of creature. Every time she moves her hand I think I might explode. When my body arches against her, and I make a muffled sound and fall against the bed with no spine or bones in my body, I think I've had an out of body experience."
She's a Seer and I can feel her pressing her mind against mine and I can't push her away.
I can see my body writhing against her hands, I can see my eyes fluttering shut and open. I think I'm falling into a Pensieve, because this is me watching myself crash down on her. I'm crashing on sherry and smoke.
She's pushing against my body with her own and her hands are busy still, rushing over my body in hurried motions. Her eyes (a mix of slytherin and gryffindor) are on mine as she moves one of her hands down to her own triangle of curls and starts to grasp and pull against herself. When she falls against my body I move my hand across her shoulder and settle it on her spine, my chin tucked in where her neck collides with her shoulder.
Silence captures our tongues and we lie there until the sun sets in the sky, when she rolls next to me and we fall into a restless sleep, hands always touching each other, faces within kissing distance.
She's gone in the morning and I think nothing of it until I see trails of claw marks across my stomach and I remember how we fell against each other (because of the window) and she touched me and made it hard for me to breathe.
We pass each other in the hallway to the way to Albus' office a week later, but I've been summoned to discuss a student who is going to arrive in two weeks early (i know the parents) and I only make a moment's worth of eye contact because I start to run down the stone corridor to the statues that guard the entrance to the swirling staircase.
It's eleven and we've just left a staff meeting. I feel her watching me all through the introduction of Joanna Kipling (ancient runes) and talk of new books for the Potions classes. When we break I nod to Albus and walk out alone. Twenty (five) steps down the corridor I feel a hand on my elbow and I walk faster only to be followed. We barely make it to her room (it's closer) before we start to pull off robes and shirts, nipples hard against each other as she presses against me. I'm between her and the wall and can't breathe, but I'm reassured, because her hand is grasping mine at our sides.
The bed is softer than mine and sheets are imported silk in patterns of green and gold. She goes to move her hand down my stomach, but I stop her and whisper (you first).
I've never and probably wouldn't do it once I've outgrown this rush of hormones and recklessness, I think to myself. This isn't becoming for a woman, spending her day in another's bed. She guides my hand down to her crotch and I find my own way to the bump and slit that seems foreign from my own. Her eyes are heavily lidded and her lips are pursed open as I brush one way and then another against her clit, bringing her closer and closer to the edge that drops her hundreds of feet before she can come up for air. One of my fingers finds its way into the slit and pushes in to find more wetness and a new sort of sighing and bucking from her. She pushes up against my hand and grinds against it until she falls apart against me and I can smell her on the air.
Albus sits in his chair, staring at me. He smells like sherbet lemons (lemonade) and is studying me. I feel him prying off layer after layer of lies and secrets that I've told this week alone. He knows. I start to wonder if he has something hidden in my room that spies on me.
"You seem cheerful, lately, Minerva. What can I praise for this change?"
He brushes a hand over his beard before adjusting his glasses. I feel him pressuring my mind to answer the truth.
"Are you blushing, Minerva?"
I laugh softly and play with the fringe of my shirt. "I've found a new hobby. It's fascinating, learning about-" I can't remember what hobby I've been saying I've started. Knitting. Crossword puzzles.
"Astrology, perhaps?" I think I hate him for his twinkling eyes and how they laugh at me as I sit there smoldering in the chair.
"Yes. Astrology and a bit of palm reading."
He sits in his chair, staring at me. Finally, after what can only be hours of waiting he dismisses me and I run to my room to stand under the cold water of my shower, staring at the tiles that aren't really marble, only painted lies.
We lie together in her bed, the sheets wrapped around our waists as we stare at the ceiling and say nothing (silence). She traces her fingers over my palm. She's memorized the pattern of swirls and lines that predict our lives. Long. Two loves. It ends in tragedy (like juliet, she whispers). She has only one love and her life line fades into nothingness (ophelia, i say hopefully). Maybe if she runs her fingers across the deep line that predicts tragedy it will be worn away and I'll pass like she will.
It's harder now. My room is closer to the common room and students are constantly calling on me in the middle of the night. She trails her hand along my waist when we pass in the hall or when Albus calls staff meetings in his office (lemonade). We find ourselves in tangles on Hogsmeade weekends, trying to mold to the other. She's still the same (goddess). She tastes like sherry and smoke. We're forty now and everything is different. We fight for air because the world is closing in on our types. She laughs when I say this and asks which type that is, witch or something else and I can't quite meet her eye because I don't know the answer.
We taste each other and feel for something new on the other's body (she has a scar just above her hip now). She lies on top of me and tucks my hair behind my ear before she starts a line of kisses down my neck (i love you).
Saturn is in the sky tonight, bright red and with a string of light behind it, she says. (death).
She forgets to meet me Friday night and I find her asleep on her bed, naked body covered in claw marks from her own nails. She has sherry on her breath and I try to ignore it as I sit her up so she can drink some water. My fingers wander over her body as she leans against me. I wrap an arm protectively around her waist and run my fingers through her hair until I can untangle it enough to braid. If she only knew that her hair was being tied into little knots. I wait with her until the morning, when she focuses on me and whispers (what happened?).
This is too much for her. She can't shut the voices and images (death) out and they haunt her as she tracks her way across the room to find another bottle.
She screams at night, her fingers clawing for the sheets. I wake up with scratches across my shoulders and hips where she tries to get me closer to her, closer than we already are. I hold her and smooth her hair, trying to get her to stop seeing the pale boy with dark hair. He tells her things, horrible things. Her eyes open (gold flecks), but they don't see anything. We're old now. Albus knows and draws her into his office. They have secrets, the two of them. This dark haired boy haunts everyone now. He carries with him the stench of death. He is powerful, the almighty.
Uranus is following me, she whispers into my ear. Uranus is following me to both sides of the moon and I can't find something to distract it, she says as her fingers crawl down my stomach. We're caught in this. We can't get out.
They find Gideon and Fabian that night. Saturn was meant for them, their eyes wide and young as they faced the bright lights of the Unforgivables. She dreams of it hours before it happens. They call for Molly and try to avoid the darkness that swarms around them. Remus hides behind bars of silver (a monster until morning) and it's only when he wakes that he finds Molly in a corner of the library, fists above her head. She is tear-stained and when he takes her in his arms (like a feather, she is) I feel my stomach clench, because Sybill tells me of it as it happens. She falls asleep talking of his hair (greying) and Molly's eyes (scared). She wakes up sweating and trying to tie her hair in knots.
Years later Albus treats her like a newcomer. She is the relative of a great Seer and she has predicted the end of it all. He has eyes the colour of hers (there is no gold in his) and knows nothing of who he is. He is the boy who lived and he is alive and has overcome the worst wizard of our time.
The next eleven years are blurred with bodies and breathing and softness. She's only ever once hurt me, hurt me so badly that I tranformed and went missing for a week. A Weasley caught her eye, she says. She blames his long hair, his earrings of fangs. He was the unknown. He was something new. I feel the pain sink into me because I'm alone for this moment and she can't catch my eye when she tells me. Hours after I am found in Albus' office we are fumbling for breath and she is whispering (god, i'm sorry) into my ear and I'm trying to find the headboard for my fingers to wrap over. He knows, she says. He knows, but he won't tell.
Her fingers are ragged and push inside of me so harshly that I cry out and bite my lip. She is ravaging my body and I can do nothing but hope that the wood beneath my fingers holds. She wanders and pushes and pulls on me until I make a sound (a cry like a dark creature) and arch into her body. (you're gorgeous like this) She whispers into my ear as she closes her eyes and rubs her body against mine. She makes sounds like a wolf (werewolf) makes in the forest and grinds down on me until she is fallen next to me. Her eyes are fluttering and as I blink she is caught in snapshots.
She's lost weight. She's four sizes smaller than me and I can't keep transfiguring her clothes to fit her better. Two girls notice and visit her often (too often). Soon they'll catch us and we won't be able to hide this anymore. I give them extra lessons to keep them from telling someone about the bottles that Sybil keeps under her bed. They fit perfectly in rows of four. She drinks them while I'm at class, teaching. Firenze covers her classes and everyone skirts around the tower so they don't see her like this. She's drifting away. She's going away from me, fading into nothingness.
We're eighty and she curls up next to me on the couch, her hands shaking as they smooth out my skirt. I plant a kiss on her forehead and pull her closer to me. The war is over and we're alone. We are the minority that is surrounded and every once in a while I remember (which type?). We are the centaurs and creatures that once were beautiful, but are now in hiding from everything. Albus has fallen and the students have left and moved to somewhere that isn't here. There are too many skeletons at Hogwarts, no one there to keep it open. The Burrow gone, Diagon Alley is only just starting to open new shops. We've gone so long without magic that I'm not even sure I could transfigure the couch into a chair. This is how it is now, this is how we are.
She presses her lips against my ear and whispers (i love you, minerva) and I clutch her hand next to my chest and lean against her to whisper in her ear (shh).
She calls me Minerva, but her voices cracks and fades away after the er and I wonder if she even says the last bit. She smells like nothing, nothing but what comes in the door when I go out to feed the stray cats and pluck honeysuckles from the vines swallowing our house whole. She can't drink lemonade because it reminds her of too much, too much all at once. I keep it simple, one hand on her body, one kiss on her lips.