The Stars on the Staircase

Star Light, Star Bright

~+~ Star Light, Star Bright ~+~

"One... two... three... four...five...six...seven......eight...nine...ten... eleven......twelve...thirt-....There was something I was supposed to do. Now I can't remember what it was."

The thought was broken. A nagging sensation there was something I desperately needed to do, but as I stared into the depths in front of me I had lost what it was exactly.

"The number you are searching for is thirteen. I had hoped that all students who reached their seventh year could count to twenty but, alas, my expectations must be lowered once more." Professor Snape's scathing voice made his classroom come swimming into sharper focus. I was supposed to be stirring, looking around, everyone else was, except me. I'd lost my way. Still that nagging feeling that there was something I needed to do niggled at the back of my mind. What was it? Had I missed an ingredient?

I couldn't remember. I tried to check everyone else's cauldrons for colour, but only the face of my scowling professor was currently on offer. My palms were sweaty. I was hot and cold at once. I couldn't look at him. I had to remember what number he had said before he further humiliated me. It was a teen... that was all I had. The number three was prodding at me but so was four though... four... fourth... fourth floor... what about the fourth floor. Did I have an appointment I was forgetting?

"Your brew is going to curdle while you stand there like an idiot with an idle stick in your hand. Counter clockwise. The number again was thirteen, you insufferable dolt. Can't remember the simplest thing, how disappointing."

"Shit. Fourteen fourteen fourteen..." I repeated in my mind as I clamoured to get the contents of my cauldron moving again. My eyes stung with tears and even with the blurry vision I could  tell my classmates were exchanging glances over their cauldrons, mocking me for my frozen horror. "Fifteen.... Sixteen... oh god how many do I need to do?" I cast my eyes to the book on the table. "I need to do thirty six.... Wait... what number was I on?"

"You're on seventeen ." His voice filled my head instead of my ears. I brought the wooden shaft around again and quaked with humiliation as his sarcasm seeped into my brain.

"Eighteen ." I counted and his voice counted over mine in my head in unison.

"Nine...teen ." He drawled slowly and my body reacted to his voice in my head, nipples hardened, skin goosebumped. Fear and arousal in equal measure. I somehow knew that his voice should and should not be in my head but fuck if I could remember the reason why it was possible. My head hurt, I could not count. " Twenty. No wonder you're distracted. What number are you on now? "

"I'm... ." Visions of his hands running down my body, skimming over my peaked nipples through my jumper replace the answer.

"Twenty one....What sluttish thoughts you have." He croons. I move my stick, focus on the colour of the liquid changing from lilac to aquamarine. My body is on fire, this secret conversation making me feel ill at ease. I don't want him to know I think these things. " Twenty two...Tell me... are you unable to count because you are terribly stupid or just... in need of special attention?"

I didn't dare even think the answer. I tried to hold those slippery numbers in my head. There was something I was forgetting. My brain did not help, just gave me more images of him, right when I didn't want them. It was the mental equivalent of having one's pants pulled down in front of one's crush. Every time my mind strained for numbers I seemed to pull only filthy thoughts about him. Scenarios and images bounce around. His voice cuts through it all with cruelty.

"Twenty three... Are you imagining me spanking you because you think you deserve punishment? Twenty Four.... I'm not so sure you need that kind of punishment. I think you'd enjoy it too much. "