Dark as my Intentions

Well, the idea elves and fairies were running rampant last night, much to the detriment of a good night's sleep. I hope those who have read the first parts enjoy this final chapter. Yep, that's right folks, the final chapter.

The usual disclaimer applies - I don't own or make anything off of JK Rowling's fabulous creations. Hogwarts - hers, Dumbledore and Snape - also hers. Harry Potter - you got it, hers as well. I do own the protagonist of this story and the plot/backstory.

The lyrics that have been set within quotation marks are the creation of the wonderful songwriter Maria McKee - no copyright infringment is intended and I do not gain financially by citing her lyrics. Again, I do recommend readers to give her music a try. Fabulous, atmospheric stuff.

Time is an Inconstant Companion

He was a living paradox. Those eyes were flashing with passion even as they bored through me with their cold and haughty stare. His flesh that had been cool beneath my fingertips now burned me with his grip. His fingers around my wrist felt like they were searing me, like ice on bare skin on a very cold day. His fingertips were on the inside of my wrist, as if he were searching for my pulse. Beneath my touch, the dark mark was throbbing, as if it had a beat of its very own.

I had been so very careless. I had been so enthralled by him, I had ignored the change in his heartbeat, how he would be ascending from the depths of sleep. Or, maybe I didn’t care. Maybe I wanted to be caught.

********

“Your wound was plain like mine no ragged edges well defined
We grew to war like a bloom reaching toward the light
It felt so brutal so transdermal so alive…”
“Scarlover” by Maria McKee from the album “Life is Sweet” (1996)

********
“Who are you?” He repeated, balancing himself on one elbow. His hair slid across his face, obscuring one eye. I ached to brush the hair back, to perhaps touch that marble cheek again.
“No one.” I whispered, laying a finger against his lip, like a mother trying to quiet a petulant child. My finger gleamed against the crimson stain on his mouth. He caught my other wrist with his other hand, so I was now completely ensnared. His tongue flicked out, and he tasted his own blood on his lip. He drew my hand away from his mouth. He was thinking, wondering I don’t know what. The fine muscles around his jaw were working, worrying away beneath his skin. He released my one wrist and kneaded at his throat. His fingers came away scarlet. He studied his hand for a moment, the bloom of red against the lined white palm, the fingers stained.
“Who are you?” His voice was no longer so strong, no longer so bold.
“You don’t need to know.” I whispered. “I’m no one; I’m everyone.” I brought my lips close to his ear, feeling the silk of his hair against my cheek, fluttering against my eyelids. He smelled of the leather of old books and the crisp scent of soap. I pressed my palm to his stained one. I could feel the lines that creased his palm against the smoothness of my skin. I locked my fingers with his so we were inextricably twisted together. I felt that familiar twisting gnawing feeling within me.
“Palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.” I murmured against his throat. He sat up, turning away from me.
“A name.” He hissed. “You have a name?” I sighed.
“Persephone. It’s not my true name, but it’s as good as any. It’s what I’ve been called for many years now.”
“Persephone.” He sounded out each syllable carefully, testing the crispness of the consonants on his tongue as if it were a foreign language, a new incantation. His eyes flickered with comprehension.
“The Greek goddess – tricked into becoming the Queen of the Underworld. But that’s just a Muggle myth.”
“Yes, but it tells you of my circumstances – how I came to be as I am. Taken away, against my will, transformed into what I am. Since then, I have been at Hogwarts.” I leaned close and brushed his ear with my lips. “Time is an inconstant companion, Severus, and these halls are so lonely.”

His back was to me, and I could see scars both old and healed and new and raw spanning his back like a gruesome spider’s web. The healed scars shone silver in the moonlight. I traced a scar with my fingertip and he drew back, not away from my touch but pressing into my hand, closer into my reach.
“Why have you come?” He murmured. How different his voice was under the circumstances. By day, his voice was high, cold, and almost cruel; by night, his voice was soft, melodic, almost uncertain, curbed by sleep.
“I don’t know. I’m drawn to you, that’s all I do know.” My lips were traveling the length of his spine, ending at the nape of his neck. He caught my hand and pulled by arm across his shoulder so I was reaching over him. His lips were moving across the inner aspect of my wrist. The skin was so sensitive there, and his touch almost tickled. Then, his mouth was pressed to the crook of my arm, and I was certain he could feel the hammering of my immortal heart, the pull of blood through my veins, beneath his lips. His face was in profile and I could see how his eyes were closed, his hair slipping forward, the moon gilding his skin silver. The warmth of his kiss seemed to radiate outwards, warming my entire body. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so warm. My mouth glided across his collarbone and I traced that valley with a fingertip in an echo of my kiss. He twisted to face me and I saw a small smile curve across his lips. I don’t think I had ever seen him smile before. He opened his mouth to speak, but I laid my finger against the lip that was still painted with his blood. Any more words would spoil the moment, shatter the beautiful illusion. He was awake, and he was mine. I had marked him, and now I would possess him. The marks on his throat were the twin of my own. The scars that crossed his flesh, symbols of his betrayals and his dedication to the dark cause, mirrored my inner state. I pressed a palm to the dark mark, perhaps to see if it felt different from the rest of his skin, if it felt evil. It felt as the rest of him did, soft and smooth like the skin of a sun-ripened fruit. His hand took my chin, drawing me ever closer. His mouth caught mine, drawing me in, and he whispered something, the words lost in the crush of flesh. He whispered the words again – it was one word whispered over and over, like an ancient spell. I slid down onto my back and he lay alongside me. The furious beating of his heart rattled against his ribs, against my breast, as I had imagined it would so many times before. His fingertips danced across my collarbone, and his lips lingered on my throat. He whispered the word again and this time I heard it, felt it rumbling against my throat.

Furious, I gripped his shoulders, raked my nails across his back, feeling them drag across the old scars. I touched the marks with my tongue, waiting a moment. Then, I kissed him, drinking deeply, trying to fill the void and still the gnawing feeling within me. I felt betrayed. The word he had been chanting over and over – he knew.

He had said my name, my true name. He knew my name.

********

“Ugly inside of me taught me of beauty I wouldn’t trade that work of art
For all the silk of perfect skin…”
“Scarlover” by Maria McKee from the album “Life is Sweet” (1996)

FINIS

A/N - Persephone (pronounced Purr/Sef/Oh/Knee - sort of rhymes with Hermione now that I think of it) was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Demeter was a goddess of agriculture. Hades, the god of the underworld, became enamoured with Persephone and decided to make her his queen (he was actually her uncle but Greek mythology IS rather rife with incestuous seeming affairs). He kidnapped her, dragging her to the underworld. Demeter went looking for Persephone, and in the variation of the myth I grew up reading and hearing about, since Demeter was gone, all vegetation died - a perpetual winter fell on the land. Demeter negotiated with Hades and got Persephone back, on the understanding that Persephone was not to have eaten anything during her time in the underworld. Well, she ate some pomegranate seeds, and for each of those pomegranate seeds she devoured, she must spend one month in the underworld with Hades. And that is the reason, as explained by myth, why we have three months of winter (calendar months of winter, that is....). 3 pomegranate seeds eaten, three months in the Underworld. Makes the pomegranate seem a rather sordid fruit, doesn't it?

The phrasing about "palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss" is from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.