The Stars on the Staircase

Love, Love, Lust

(Author's note: Hello Dearest Readers! I just want to drop in to say a couple things before we begin. The first is that this Chapter is very long. I have broken it into five sections with names so it's easier to start and stop reading as you need. I may not post next week as really, this should be two chapters but I didn't have the heart to break it up. Now, a content warning: The smut is in the final section of the chapter, this chapter contains anal sex. Please feel free to message me if you need to avoid this. I can tell you exactly when to start and stop reading. Also this chapter deals with love potions which means that sometimes in this chapter people do things without asking for consent. Love you all so much and thanks for reading!)

~~+ One - Numb +~~

The journey back to the school I am quiet and numb. I am panicking about being caught by Filius. I'm unsure whether I have been able to make a realistic impression that I had been given love potion, and even more worried that I had done it well because it meant Severus was going to look like he was drugging me after just kissing me at the Christmas party. It would make everyone hate him more. It was hard enough to deal with the fact that most of the people I spent time with hated him normally, I didn't need them trying to talk to me about him personally wronging me.

So the walk back to my cottage, the flooing into his office, I'm silent for all of it, just thinking. I'm so distant that Severus almost makes me jump when he finally speaks. "Come on let's get out of these cold clothes and get warmed up."

"What are we going to do?" I ask him again.

"Let's have a nice warm bath. Get the blood back in our toes, hmmm?" He suggests, hanging up his coat and removing his boots. I'm still standing there like an idiot grabbing at one of the wingback chairs by the fire like a statue when he comes and starts unbuttoning my coat. "Sweetheart, we are alright, this is a very fixable obstacle." I finally come into my own body for long enough to feel my freezing cold feet and bend to take off my boots.

The headmaster's bathing chamber has a bathtub that is more Roman bathhouse than standard water closet. The front of the room has a neat tucked away toilet, shower and sink each in their own tiled alcove, but then toward the back of the room there are steps down into this absurd basin that would comfortably fit four to six people. I turn on the taps and quickly shimmy out of my cold clothes and wade in even before it's full, eager for my toes to stop prickling.

To take my mind off how cold I am I walk over to the taps and choose some bubbles. I need cheering up and nothing cheers like some bubbles. When this hot spring finally fills itself I nestle in on one of the seats and wonder what's keeping Severus. He comes in with two glasses of white wine and the bottle tucked under his arm. Thank Merlin. He always thinks of everything. I halfway swim over to get mine, not wanting to stand and expose my torso to cool air. "Thank you." I breathe after my first sip.

Right after he joins me in the tub he is pulling me by the waist to lay on him in our favourite spot. There is a reclined seat by the window that is our usual place if we are feeling cuddly in the tub. I don't complain as he pulls me into it, I love sitting here. I love having his thighs on either side of me so I can draw my fingers over them, feeling the dampened swirls of his leg hair under my fingertips. I love getting to rest my head on his chest, the way he often presses kisses to the top of it while we lay here. Mostly I love the fact that when we lay here my breasts rest just below the bubbles and he can never resist laying his hands on them when they press through the suds.

"Were you serious about giving me a love potion?" I ask finally after we are settled and quietly sipping.

"Yes." He answers, I can hear a little smile in his tone. "I've been thinking though, we have a whole week before students return."