A Matter of Black and White

CHAPTER 33—MAGIC WORKS

Even down in the dungeons, Snape could tell from the faint pounding of a bass line that the party upstairs was still in full swing. Didn’t Slughorn realize that most of Hogwarts’ inhabitants—the sensibly unpopular majority of the castle—were trying to sleep?

Snape, however, was nowhere near bed. After Malfoy had stormed off in a juvenile huff, Snape had tried patrolling the halls to quash a pre-holiday rendezvous or two. On the fourth floor, he had caught a Hufflepuff and Gryffindor in the middle of a snog-fest. The latter had actually had the gall to assert that if the Slug Club was allowed to be out of bed late that the rest of the student body ought to be granted the same privilege. Snape had assured them that they were missing nothing from Slughorn’s party and had sent the two students back to their respective houses.

Back in his chambers, staring blankly over the top of a potions journal, he thought that the students wouldn’t miss anything by having their little tryst cut short either. What did a bit of tongue-wrestling mean after all? Most people snogged like it was a game. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of playing spin-the-bottle or hanging mistletoe? Some people liked the thrill of an unexpected, forbidden kiss. There wasn’t any consequence to it. They would forget it as soon as someone more handsome came along. Then they would play their game with someone more likable, someone more fascinating, someone who knew how to dance….

No, there was nothing to miss from such games. Best to avoid such foolishness altogether.

This certitude put him in no mood for playing when a knock sounded at his door a bit later. When he answered it, he found himself gazing straight down his nose at the Christmas Queen herself, who was glittering incongruently with the dreary dungeon corridor. He gazed impassively at her.

“You forgot something,” she said simply.

He didn’t answer. No more games.

“My dance?”

He stalked back to his desk and picked up his journal. “I’m not going back to Slughorn’s.”

She stepped unbidden into his chambers. “I didn’t say you had to.” With a wave of her wand, his cloak rack started playing an umbrella-turned-violin.

“Why are you doing this?” he demanded, his back to her and his dark eyes boring holes into the pages of his journal. “Why bother coming all the way down here when your dance card was obviously already full?”

She stood in the center of his office while the slow strains of the umbrella-violin played. The cloak rack augmented the tune with a baritone hum. “Because we were supposed to dance,” she said.

Gods, she wanted to give him a pity dance. “I never said I wanted that.”

She joined him at his desk. “You don’t say a lot of things, Severus,” she said softly but with a look as powerful as any Legilimens. “But I’d like to think I know how to listen.”

He watched her as if she were moving in slow motion. She stepped up to him and took his left hand, then set her other hand on his shoulder. He froze in this foreign position, his right hand still hanging loosely at his side. No one touched him by choice. No one got this close to him. He had trained himself to believe that this was the way he preferred things.

But he didn’t move away.

And neither did she.

These two facts gave him courage. What did one do when one stood close to a woman like this? What did one do when slow music was playing, when one was being serenaded by an umbrella-playing cloak rack? One did not just stand frozen in the middle of one’s office with a woman in one’s arms like one had been Petrified.

That would be absurd.

He set his right hand on the silver-white arch of her hip.

He didn’t know the steps to the song. (He didn’t know the steps to any song—when would he have ever learned?) He simply shifted his weight from foot to foot, marveling at how easily she moved with him.

“You’ve never looked so ridiculous,” a familiar cynical voice in his head sneered, “tripping over your own feet to the strains of a crooning cloak rack. Longbottom wouldn’t be so pathetic.”

But she was so warm. She even smelled warm—like flowers on a midsummer day.

Bugger the cynical voice. He would have tap-danced in a tutu if it meant having her this close. Oh, she was close—closer even than she had been to Bloody-Myron-Blasted-Wagtail. Christmas Queen she might be, but, this near to his own body, she felt like a day at the beach in July.

He awaited one of her mercurial shift of moods, which always managed to put them out of step with each other. She would try to cajole him back to the party or would break from him and leave him for the festivities upstairs. Instead, she swayed gently with him until at last their movement was imperceptible and they were simply standing before one another, pressed together in the intimate stance of dancers.

His breaths came shallowly and erratically as he regarded the white and silver woman in his arms. Her face was upturned to him, her lips slightly parted, her blue eyes like magnets pulling him down to her. His chin jerked as he tried to deny the attraction. This was still a pity dance, even if she had gone to the trouble of coming all the way down to the dungeons to give it. She hadn’t signed up for anything more serious.

But there she was, still standing in his arms, his tentative Inner-Optimist reminded him. The dance was through and she wasn’t shaking him off. Her own chin was bobbing up and down, ever so slightly, as if she were debating giving in to the same pull he was fighting.

Maybe it was the wine from the party, maybe it was the absurdity of a moment set to the tune of an umbrella-turned-violin, a moment in which anything seemed possible, but with a leap of his stomach he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers.

Oh, Merlin, he shouldn’t do this.

She would scream or laugh or pull away with an intolerable look of pity.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she slid closer into him and parted her lips so that he could breathe her in. He could feel the lingering burn of alcohol on his lips and…was that?...oh, yes…her tongue flicking between them to part them.

He kissed shyly, super-cognizant of the pressure he was applying and how his large nose seemed to keep bumping into her face. It had been far too long since he had done this—evening in the woods notwithstanding—and he was ready at any moment for her to decide that he had gone too far and retreat. She, nevertheless, sucked and tasted fearlessly, just like the shameless schoolgirl he had overseen snogging in the Beauxbatons stables. Her tongue ran along the inside of his lower lip, then up and over the ridge of his teeth, inviting his own tongue to come out and play.

Tentatively, he tasted her, a meeting of slick muscles engaged in a glorious fight. Her tongue slipped under his and found a soft place underneath, somewhere just before his tongue met with his lower jaw. She applied pressure and he growled into her sweet mouth. She drew back just enough for him to catch a wicked glint of satisfaction in her eyes.

Despite the Cynic’s red-alert warnings for self-control, this small break from her was too much for him, and he leaned back down to recapture her mouth. He sucked the soft flesh of her lower lip and then her upper one for good measure. Then he ventured beyond those red gates like an explorer investigating every valley and ridge, her own tongue acting as a guide.

He was conscious of his hands now weighted on her hips like lead. He wanted to explore the outside of her as well, but he did not know the rules of this game. Would she call him a pervert if his hands roamed? He ventured to reposition his hold to the still-chaste but invariably sexy dip of her lower back, which allowed him to pull her more tightly to him. She rewarded him with an embrace of her own in which she strained to move up and into him. Her own hands rubbed small circles on his back, intermingled with clenches at his robes during particularly exhilarating kisses. Her fingers roamed up his neck, brushing up behind his ear and across his cheek. She planted light kisses at the corner of his mouth and worked her way along his jaw to the underside of his chin, easily accessible to him from her height. She sucked greedily at his throat, leaving his head as light as if he had been inhaling Euphoria Elixir fumes all day long.

Despite the exquisite sensation of these off-terrain kisses, however, he wanted desperately to taste her again. Unwrapping his right arm from around her, he took her face in his hand and directed her back to his mouth. She responded with gratifying eagerness, which he took as license to allow his fingertips to explore the fine features of her face and the graceful line of her throat. (Wouldn’t Sanguini envy him now?) Finally, his right hand cradled the back of her neck, and his fingers wove into the upswept silken threads at her hairline. He had the sudden urge to have her hair free, for it to flow like molten gold through which his fingers could swim. With what must surely have been some sharp hair-pulling, he fumbled for the clip that held her hair—and, so it felt, him—prisoner. Try as he might, though, he could not find the trick to releasing the clasp. He wanted to relinquish his left hand’s hold on her waist, to take a breath and concentrate on the maddening metal task at hand, but a part of him feared ceasing the glorious occupation in which their lips were still engaged. The spell might fade. She might come to his senses, leaving him empty-handed.

At last, however, his inexplicable desire to let loose the golden shower overcame him, and he drew back just enough to see her lip-swollen face. She did not recoil when she got another glimpse of the man she had been kissing like a teenager in the rosebushes. With upturned face, her blue gaze simply found his as he used both hands to finally unfasten the clip at the back of her head, releasing streams of gold like Felix Felicis pouring onto her shoulders. He ran a tendril between his thumb and forefinger, wondering what kind of luck he could have to touch such a precious substance.

He wasn’t sure how his outer robes and her silver-white cloak fell to the floor, whether he had been presumptuous enough to discard a layer of his own clothing, whether he had been courageous enough to undo the brooch that kept the embroidered material from slipping from her bare shoulders. He only knew that they were so much closer now, that he could feel her breathing breaths for both of them, and that they were barreling toward something terrifyingly yet magnificently unstoppable.

Through their kisses, her hand moved up his chest, a lightning bolt in slow motion, electrifying his organs so that he feared his heart might actually stop. But he sprang back as if truly jolted when her nimble fingers started unfastening his shirt buttons. He did not want her to see him. There was no Severus Snape under the robes and the linen. There was only a hallow man, framed in angular bones and held all together by a yellow-white film of skin. Whatever it was she thought she would find under the material, it was not there.

But Aurora only stepped back into him, murmuring something indiscernible, making a calming sound like Hagrid made when he was tending a wounded animal. She suckled his Adam’s apple, her warm, luxurious lips distracting him from the skin she was laying bare. Her kisses worked their way back down his neck and onto his exposed chest, each one careful and deliberately placed, breathtakingly conscious of what she was nipping and licking and hungrily sucking and yet somehow miraculously desirous of more.

She had made her warm, wet, soul-imbibing way down to his sternum when her fingers freed the last of his buttons. His shirttails were still tucked into his trousers, but she made no attempt to loosen them. Instead, her hands caressed his belly at the open V of his shirt. The contact of skin on skin made his stomach muscles contract, as if she were touching him with icy rather than heat-radiating fingers. But her mouth found his again, and she made that soothing sound, a breathy vibration that passed through his lips and flowed to his core, easing him back to a state of heady, anxiety-inhibiting desire. Her soft hands slipped under his shirt and circled round his waist to his back, where dexterous fingers kneaded little circles to the rhythm of their nipping and suckling.

Their kisses deepened and she used her hold on his waist to press herself more firmly against him. With a wave of shame, he thought how evident his desire for her must be from the giant bulge digging into her stomach. But the mound of need in his trousers did not mind getting noticed when she strained on tip-toes to gyrate her hips against it. Afterwards, she gave him a long and promising kiss and took him by the hand, leading him through the bookcase passage, past the familiar sitting room, and into the darkened bedroom where no one else ever entered. She did all this as silently and confidently as if she were in her own chambers, moving this rendezvous forward where she knew he might stall.

Then she was at the foot of his bed, facing him with a patient expectancy that both thrilled him and yet sent him sinking into shame at his own uncertainty. Desirous to reclaim his usual self-assurance, he reached for the gentle hills of her shoulders and watched as his seemingly confident hands moved back along her shoulder blades and then dovetailed to her spine until at last they found a zipper. With the smooth collection of the ex-Potions Master, he slowly drew the zipper down to the middle of her back. He didn’t need to do anything else; the dress simply fell away, white and silver shimmering down her body. But he could not affect expert certainty now. He stared, open-mouthed at the white goddess radiating in the moonlight, revealed to him in just some satiny panties and a strapless bra.

Sensing his indecision, she kissed him again, reminding him of the art form they seemed to have rapidly perfected in his office. Her hands were more urgent now, and she yanked the tucked-in linen of his shirt from his beltline and freed him entirely from the garment. Amongst hungrier kisses, she loosened his belt and undid his trousers while he had at least the self-possession to toe-off his shoes. Another electrifying kiss as their damp torsos made first contact and his trousers were down about his ankles and his left leg was between her knees to bring himself even closer to her. Still, the position with her almost astride his leg was not satisfying enough. He wanted her in his bed…now.

Despite his urgency to have her beneath him, where gravity would aid them in pressing themselves even closer together, he was cautious about laying her down on the bed, fearing he might somehow drop her and break her. His muscles actually strained to the point of pain to lay her gently enough against the pillows.

The picture before him was exquisite. It was too fantastic even for dreams. In his bed against black satin sheets—his one luxury—was a heavy-lidded treasure just for him. With almost painfully awe-filled eyes, he surveyed her riches—the two lace-capped hills of her breasts, which overlooked the gentle plain of her belly, which then jutted into a satin-obscured precipice between her thighs. His extended palm hovered over all these and the creamy rivers of her limbs, never quite touching this sacred terrain, though the warmth radiating from it was tangible.

“I’ve never had anything so beautiful,” he murmured, not certain whether he had uttered these words aloud or just in his head.

She took the hand—his left—which was drifting just above her stomach. Firmly pressing her palm into the back of his hand, she urged him to make contact with her skin. When his whole hand was hot with her, she released the pressure but with the lightest of touches guided this lucky appendage up her body and over the rough lace. He was suddenly conscious of his forearm in her face and of the tattooed black skull right in front of her—the mark her heavenly limbs had been too perfect to take. He felt her eyes graze it, but she made no comment and continued to lead his hand under her back, where he could release the clasp on her bra. Then the lace was gone, and in its place were two pink peaks that beckoned to him. He wanted badly to take each one in his mouth and suckle the tender flesh, but he was afraid this might somehow offend her, so he contented himself with cupping each breast and brushing each nipple with his thumb, watching each summit spring back more prominent than before.

The sensation of her breasts reshaping themselves in his hands was too exhilarating to pass up quickly. Wanting to savor the moment and perhaps regain a bit of his senses, he found her lips again, gratifying his senses of taste and touch simultaneously.

She was clinging to him, and, from the way her left leg snaked between his so that she could rock up against his hips, he knew she wanted more. Slowly, carefully, he slid his palm down to her stomach, which twitched as if he were tickling it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled the ticklish girl in the Beauxbatons hayloft. With an expansive hand that sought to possess all it touched, he caressed the sensitive skin from hip to navel to hip. She mewed and thrust her hips, encouraging him to explore even more. Tentatively, he slipped the tips of his first two fingers under the lush satin band of her underwear.

“Take them off,” she said throatily.

He pushed the material down over the graceful arch of her hips, along her thighs, and to her knees, where she was able to shimmy out of them and kick them to the floor. Then he was cradled between those bare legs, looking down at this inexplicable body of white magic.

She reached up to him and caressed his chest, tracing sharp lines of bone and sinew. Then she pulled him down to kiss him again and he swam in the intoxication of her. Their bodies created marvelous friction, and the amber curls between her legs tickled his shaft, hardening it almost painfully. Sometimes the tip of his cock dipped into her wet folds, but though the lower half of his body longed to plunge the rest of the way into her, the rational bit of him was still waiting for the catch that always accompanied such too-perfect situations.

She couldn’t want this. She would start crying and say she had made a mistake. She would push him away in disgust at his own foulness and ineptitude. Worse yet, she would start laughing and howl at the trick-to-end-all-tricks on nasty Severus Snape.

But then he felt something astounding—what could only be her hand around his member, kneading him with little waves of fingers, a surprise sensation that nearly sent him over the edge. With her other hand, she cupped his face, giving him a look of desirous assurance as she guided him into her. His breath caught at the tight, moist heat in which he was engulfed, but she gave him no time to consider the sensation. Her hands were on his hips now, helping him find a pleasurable rhythm. When they found a steady tempo, her arms reached for his shoulders for purchase as she sought to help him deeper into her.

Somewhere in the midst of this heady, horizontal dance, his mind registered the fair limbs that held his body. Her skin was pale, as was his, but there was so much contrast between her flesh and his that it was impossible for them both colors to be called “white.” Her skin was rich and nourished like cream, while his was translucent and jaundiced. They were like the two contradictory definitions of whiteness which had baffled him as a schoolboy. He was the absence of color, a paint to which the painter had forgotten to add pigment. She was like white light, comprised of all colors, the glass prism waiting to refract her light into a rainbow.

The contemplation faded as his climax surged upon him. He plunged once more into her and then saw only colors, colors like stars and visions that belonged only to fantasies and crystal balls and which reminded him none of this could be real.

* * *

AN: At last! At last! I hope it was worth the wait. ;)

The chapter title is taken from the song “Magic Works” from the fourth HP film. It was most definitely in my mind as I was writing.

Artist: Jason Buckle, et. al. Lyrics
Song: Magic Works Lyrics
And dance your final dance
This is your final chance
To hold the one you love
You know you've waited long enough

So,

Believe that magic works
Don't be afraid
Of bein' hurt
Don't let this magic die
The answer's there
Oh, just look in her eyes

And make
Your final move
Mmm, don't be scared
She wants you to
It's hard
You must be brave
Don't let this moment slip the way

Believe that magic works
Don't be afraid
Afraid of bein' hurt
No, don't let this magic die
Ooh, the answer's there
Yeah, just look in her eyes

And don't believe that magic can die
No, no, no, this magic can't die
So dance, your final dance.
'Cause this is, your final chance.

Lyrics available at http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/harrypotter&thegobletoffire/magicworks.htm