The Stars on the Staircase

Summers with Severus

I came up with a great double excuse for the summer. I told my parents I was travelling with friends and told my friends I was travelling with my parents then happily moved in with Severus for the duration of his break. For those blissful months he taught me everything the bedroom could be between two people... and the living room, and the kitchen, and the stairwell, and on one very silly afternoon the upstairs linen cupboard.

I would always think of that summer as our honeymoon summer. It was what I had always imagined being newlyweds would be like. There was a spare room in which I dropped my bags and proceeded to almost never visit them for I wore the same two summer dresses the entire time, chosen largely for their ability to be easily removed.

When he announced one day that he wanted to begin his summer brewing for the school and was enlisting me as his helper I protested vigorously. He told me I should have gotten a poorer grade if I wanted to be excluded from this activity and proceed to boss me around his lower kitchen which he had made into his brewing area. Spinner's End in the summer was nothing like the cold dungeons of Hogwarts during the fall and winter. It got so hot and humid in the house while we were brewing that I almost could not stand it.

That was why I was upstairs, sitting in the bathtub in a few inches of cold water when he called for me to continue. I realised I had not retrieved a towel for myself for after this little cooldown. I got up and dripped off as much water as I could before stepping out and into the hallway, dripping all the way to the linen closet. I heard him coming up the stairs as I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me. I was suddenly inspired to close myself in, playfully hiding from going back to the kitchen that even cooling charms could not aid in making livable with a giant fire burning in it.

I heard him walk past the cupboard to the bedroom looking for me, and not finding me there, he walked back to the bathroom and then I knew he had tracked my wet footprints when the shadow of him blocked out the light coming in from the hall under the door.

When he opened the door he looked at me wrapped in my towel and pressed against the wooden shelves he said "Is this the naughty cupboard?"

"I haven't been bad yet."

"You have been hiding from me."

"Only for fifteen seconds or so."

"Long enough..."

"I did not have any real intention to hide from you, I closed myself in quite spontaneously." I press my hands flat across his chest, bare from brewing in the too hot kitchen. His lack of clothing beyond trousers was perhaps my only reason to happily consent to brewing. I begin tracing circles with my fingers. Maybe I can distract him between brews.

"Do you need a break? I could transfigure you into something soft and fold you up for a nap in here." He offers, playing stern and serious but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"No thank you..."I respond, trailing off. He knows what kind of a break I want. It's not the napping kind.

"Turn around and climb up so your feet are on that lowest shelf." He instructs, I look at him quizzically. "Now, little nymph." He orders. First I am bossed around the kitchen, now I am bossed around the cupboard. My instinct to complain bubbles up but I know complaining will cause me to end up back in the kitchen instead of a possibly sexy encounter in a closet.

I turn, find a place for my feet and pull myself up with my fingers, wrapping them around the shelf above my head. I feel his body come close behind me and he closes the door behind him. It is a tight fit and I can let go of the shelf, my body is supported by his and his by the door. If that little latch gives way we will both go tumbling into the hallway.