100 Moments

Title: Summer
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: None
Summary: #63 – Summer. How to cool down…
Word Count: 768 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. Takes place before the First War, approximately 1978.


Prompt 63 – Summer



The Cooling Charms were not working, and so I had to resort to stripping down to my camisole and knickers, sitting below a shaded window, fanning myself with a copy of Ars Alchemica. It was not how I would have imagined myself spending a glorious summer day, but I had little choice. Even the glass of lemonade on the wide windowsill was sweating as much as I was. I considered running an ice cold bath and lay all day in the water, but I never could stand how my skin would wrinkle on my fingers and toes.

It felt was if the Manor were getting back at me for some reason. There was hardly a breath of wind coming in through the open window over looking the gardens, but on a rare occasion, I would feel the cool spray of the hosepipe watering the flowers below the window.

I hate summer.

“Cissa? What are you doing up there?” a voice called from below the window and I straightened, dropping the wrinkled magazine to the floor next to the couch I had Conjured. Leaning out the window, I gazed down at my husband, and my breath was taken away.

He was shirtless, and despite the intensity of the sun, he was still a pale specimen of porcelain perfection. His long silvery hair was pulled up in a high ponytail; sweat trailing down his wide chest to his slim hips and the loose pair of trousers he wore. His bare toes curled into the cool, shadowed grass, and his long fingers were blackened with potting soil.

“Melting,” I called down.

He grinned, and I shivered despite the heat.

“Come down to the garden, I will cool you down.”

I felt my eyebrow rise speculatively, but I nodded and pulled myself from the window.

“Don’t bother changing!” I heard him call, and I smirked.

My husband, Lucius, was a strange breed of man. I supposed I was the only person in the world who knew him for what he truly was—a mischievous, and at times petulant boy in a man’s body. Sometimes I felt insane, wondering why I had ever consented to marrying him, and at other times, I knew that if I did not have him, I would never want anyone.

I felt silly crossing the garden in my under things, but the Manor and its grounds were private, and there were no critical eyes watching me as I had come to know growing up in my parent’s houses. I scanned the garden, but did not see Lucius.

I heard him, however, creeping up behind me, and as I whirled, my sweaty hair slapping into my shoulder, I received a face full of icy water. My husband, older to know better, and far too poised to ever let anyone know his true nature, had sprayed me with the hosepipe like a child. Lucius was twenty-four years old, and yet, with me, he acted all of twelve years old. I loved him.

I, predictably, shrieked, and tried to run. My back, my hair, my legs, every bit of me was soaked. Irritated, I rushed at him, grasping the hosepipe and bending it so the water stopped. He only grinned, far stronger than I, and put a thumb over the end.

Again, I was nearly drowned.

The grass of the garden was wet, prismatic rainbows dancing over the ground, and soon, I slipped and fell hard. Lucius dropped the hosepipe and came running, only to slip himself and fall over me.

I think I was the first to laugh.

Lucius followed, lying between my thighs, his damp trousers pressing into the wet silk of my knickers. He kissed me, the sun warming us of the icy hosepipe water. I loved him more than I could say, even when he was acting like a child.

I opened my eyes as he lifted himself halfway off my body, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow of the darkened patch of skin on his forearm. It was the one thing about him that I found distasteful. The ‘Dark Mark’ had not burned for him all summer, and I was glad for we could have moments like this…

“Cool enough?” he asked the end of his ponytail dripping more cool water on to my nearly transparent camisole.

I smirked. “I think I might need a warm up,” I whispered, twisting my hips against his.

He grinned and ground the wet material of his trousers against my core. “I think I might know the trick to do just that, my dear.”