The Stars on the Staircase

Friday Nights and Finals Plights

As term resumed we looked at our schedules and decided that we should pick a designated time for meetings. This was agreeable to both of us in terms of time and the safety of our secret. Friday nights at 11:00 was the appointed hour I would slip through my fireplace. It allowed me to lead a very normal life with my friends and no one was the wiser.

On Friday nights I learned all manner of things. I never knew if I was going to have a tender evening of kisses and playfulness, or if I was stepping into my own sensual torture chamber. Sometimes he was just in the mood to extract every ounce of pleasure I could store in my body. Pushing me to endure more, or teaching me how to channel different kinds of pain into pleasure. Always consentually, of course. He loved nothing more than to make me repeat that I wanted to continue, to beg him. We played mental games too, and he taught me how to block him out or let him in while being "distracted".

Regaurdless of what kind of sex we had he was always so tender with me after, holding me close, or sometimes getting into the bathtub and holding my spent body in his arms. I loved recovering from his ministrations in the warm tub. Nothing felt so good as Severus washing me before he returned me to his bed.

On Tuesdays evenings I would train with Flitwick. Filius helped me explore my creative side, and we practiced skills involving moving different ingredients and manipulating them. Every Tuesday I would make something beautiful. He would too. Sometimes we would admire the other's creation so much that we would trade. I had a shelf of curiosities made by the two of us. Little glass flowers, metal birds, fabric dragons, paper mice in fancy dress. It all used the mind stilling that Severus so frequently made me practise, but Flitwick never laid a hand on me while I was concentrating. Our friendship was getting stronger and I no longer felt weird around him.

The term slid past as they always did, so slowly and yet so fast. I yearned for our Friday nights. I counted the days till my Saturday mornings when I would wake up beside him and hopefully steal a little more of his time. He never really seemed to mind me keeping him for an hour or two. I began to loathe trouble makers. I would have made an excellent Head Girl running around stopping people from getting detentions that would steal my lover from me on Saturday mornings.

He and I were pretty good about only meeting on Fridays through that secret fireplace. It was the safest way to ensure we would never get caught. There were, of course, a few notable exceptions to our Friday night rule. Each of these memories thrilled me to recall.

The first was when charms club and choir had teamed up to make a concert series that was also a scavenger hunt filled with riddles. Students had to listen to the songs for clues and then run around the school looking for them. The prize was a princely portion of candy. It was great fun setting up.

The night before the concert I was in the corridor outside of the Great Hall in a little alcove, setting up a rigged charm that displayed a secret riddle. I couldn't get my candle illusion to extinguish when the time was up. In the process of testing it after I'd reconjured it for the fifth time I swore "Shit. Come on you stubborn-"

"Evening."

"Fuck!" I whisper shouted as he scared me to death. "Sorry, Professor. I thought I was alone."

"Why are those pretty lips of yours always so full of naughty words?"

"You snuck up on me."

"Charms club members seem to be out and about making little clues in every nook and cranny. Most in pairs. Yet their Vice President is left alone?"

"I can do it alone. I'm just struggling with the last bit."

"Which is?"

"The last riddle will give them the password and a clue about the location. They have to say "Helga Hufflepuff" as they step inside this area and my illusion should pop up. Little doors, inside another clue and a candle that should... in theory... extinguish when they finish reading."