Living in Shadows [Harry Potter Fanfiction]

Chapter Fourteen | Bowen Manor, January 1979

Chapter Fourteen

Bowen Manor, January 1979

            Morning light fell through the dainty curtains, speckling Hazel’s bare back with lacy shadows. Beside her, Severus lay watching; she really was exquisite, with her snowy skin and golden hair. Her eyes reminded him of the only gift Eileen Snape ever received from her husband; a dark circular stone, black as a starless night.

Carefully, Severus removed himself from the large bed, freezing as Hazel let out a soft sigh. She looked so content, one bare breast peeking over the pallid sheet. It barely covered her; ending at her lower back-she had a dimple there that Severus had never noticed. There was a lot about Hazel Bowen that Severus had never noticed.

The dimple in her back, the beauty mark under her left breast. How her fingers her long, the middle one slightly curved. The birth mark that was so small-like a tiny star twinkling in the hollow of her breast bone.

Severus put on the white button down he’d been wearing the night before, as well as the trousers and cloak-all a little wrinkled from being dropped on the floor. He considered leaving a note, but couldn’t be bothered to find a quill, let alone parchment.

So silently, he crept towards the door. ‘Please don’t wake up, please don’t wake up.’

“Sev?”

Hazel’s voice was soft, and Severus had a memory of tracing her shoulders with his lips. Had that really been them? It seemed as if it had all been a dream.

“Yeah, Hazel?” he turned around, trying to smile in a way that could be perceived as innocent.

“Where are you going?” she asked. Her face was a cool and smooth mask, but her eyes gave her away-as they always did.

“Breakfast.” He said off the top of his head “Muffins from Daisy’s.”

“Oh.” Her whole body seemed to relax, and a smile flickered “Oh. Okay. I thought…” she bit her lip slightly, embarrassed “I thought you were sneaking out on me.”

“On you?” Severus shook his head, pretending the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “Never.”

            Eating muffins mostly naked in bed was the best way to do it. Propped up by Hazel’s unnecessary amount of pillows, the two ate their muffins in silence-it wasn’t uncomfortable, but not easy like it used to be.

“It’s getting late,” Severus said finally, brushing crumbs from his bare chest.

“I suppose so.”

“I should probably be going.”

“Might be best.”

Staring straight ahead, neither said a word-which would break the silence, who would bring them back from whatever hazy dream they had lived in for the past ten hours.

Hazel licked a crumb of sugar off her thumb; she’d had a brown sugar and apple muffin, her favourite. “I don’t know how these things usually end, Sev.”

“Neither do I, Haze.”

The smiled goofily at each other, then Hazel let the sheet drop and straddled the boy she’d once called ‘booger buts’ at age seven, pressed her mouth to his and ran her slightly crooked finger down his pale chest.

“Whatever it is you’re late for…” she whispered, trailing her lips down his jaw.

“Can wait.” He finished, rolling over so she was beneath him.