Fireplaces remain lit all throughout the month of December, the flames watching students cramming and sitting for exams, packing for the holidays, and, on the last and most awaited night of the semester, preparing for the Winter Ball.
The common room is overflowing with the girls getting ready to descend the stairs to meet their dates, but Reverie is alone in the girls dormitory, staring at her image in the dusty mirror on the wall. Her silk green gown, reflecting the warm light from the glowing candles beautifully, fits like a glove, and she's sure that her brown hair has never shined so brightly. She runs her hands over the front, right where the waist line separates the tighter chest portion to the loose, long, flowing skirt, touches her mother's pendant necklace, and takes a deep breath.
She sees her trunk on the floor, empty; for the first time in seven years, she isn't going home for the holidays, and her eyes well with tears at the thought, her heart contracting. She didn't honestly think she'd get this far, all alone, and she isn't ready for the painful reality to sink in.
But, she reminds herself, she isn't alone. Oliver is waiting for her, and the thought of braving this last night with him makes descending the stairs into the now empty common room that much easier.
Oliver gets up from the velvet red couch when he hears her, and when he sees her, he's sure that he feels his heartbeat in his stomach and his head at the same time. He drinks in the image of her and her dress, and Reverie reddens under his gaze.
His eyes meet hers, and she ruffles the skirt jokingly.
"Good choice?"
He grins. "Great choice."
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Walking into the Great Hall, she feels eyes on her and Oliver, but her eyes are stuck admiring the decorations all around them. The ceiling is bewitched to show the never-ending bright gray that accompanies winter's signature light snowfall. Snowflakes are falling around them, but they dissipate into the air just a few feet above Oliver's head. Decorative white winter trees are all around them, with the signature 12 Christmas trees adorned throughout the room, making the hall look like a winter forest that Reverie wants to get lost in.
In the middle of the room, she sees a large fountain, with its water frozen mid-fall. Reverie's cheeks become rosy, because although the room isn't truly a winter wonderland, there's a slight chill, and she loves it.
But before she can go on analyzing any more of the room, Oliver squeezes her arm.
"Fred is calling me over. I'll be right back," he says, and makes his way towards the center of the room.
Scanning for a table with empty seats, her eyes fall on Professor McGonagall, her back turned towards Reverie, talking animatedly with Professor Lupin. Subconsciously, Reverie knew that he was going to be here. She knew that.
But, looking at him now, as he nods to something McGonagall says and brings his glass up to his lips, nothing could prepare her for the way his eyes somehow go straight to her from across the room, for the intensity with which he looks at her from over his glass, for the way it somehow feels like the snow is falling down directly on her and simultaneously like she's burning as his eyes travel so, so slowly down her figure unabashedly, as if ingraining it to memory. Nothing could prepare her for the way his eyes move back up and meet hers as he ever so subtly raises a single eyebrow, challenging her. Reverie looks away, and Lupin looks back towards McGonagall, now on her second drink and still speaking, and he smiles, and McGonagall takes it as encouragement to continue, even though the only coherent thought Lupin seemingly will ever have is of Reverie Castill.
Instead of sitting down, Reverie goes to get a drink. After two glasses, Oliver finds her leaning against a high table, cup in hand, watching her classmates dance. He follows her gaze to a boy and girl in year six, swaying like an old married couple to the music. Reverie turns to study the side of Oliver's face.
"How are they younger than us and still seem to have it figured out?"
Oliver turns back towards her now. "Have what figured out?"
She raises her glass, as if the answer were all around them. "It. Life. Love, even." The liquid sloshes around slightly, and Oliver realizes with a flush that two-drink Rev is introspective.
"Rev, these four walls are not life." He scans her face, briefly, before taking a sip of his own drink. "And, for all it's worth, every love is different."
Reverie looks down at her hands. "And us? Why didn't we ever try? To figure it out, I mean."
Oliver doesn't say anything for a few seconds, and she regrets saying it until he sets his cup down, and his hand enters her line of vision. "Let's try to figure out how to dance."
She takes it, he notices her flushed cheeks and brightening smile, and as they walk into the middle of the Great Hall, he is painfully aware that all the heads that turn are turning towards her while she has no idea.
They stand jokingly straight before one another as the song begins, and then Oliver twirls her and she laughs and hangs her arms around his neck. For a moment, everything feels safe, normal, even easy, and when Reverie rests her head on Oliver's shoulder, Oliver's heart swells and Reverie closes her eyes, smiling as they sway, convinced that everything will be okay.
As the song nears its end, Oliver pulling away surprises her, but when he twirls her again, she laughs and Oliver smiles with her. But when she looks past Oliver, her smiling eyes connect with Lupin's brooding ones, looking straight at her from across the room. Reverie's smile falters.
Lupin looks down at his glass, studying its contents, and then tips the rest down his throat in one fluid motion, sets it down, and works his way through the crowd, and Oliver asks if she's okay, but she lets go of him and turns just to see the door to the Great Hall shut.
When she pulls away, Oliver lets her go.
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When Reverie exits the Great Hall onto the grounds, the silence engulfs her. A stark contrast to the loudness inside, her ears feel clear, and she takes a deep breath of the cold fresh air. She doesn't bother to look for him -- she knows exactly where he'll be.
It's a clear night, but she doesn't even notice. She finds him standing by the rock at the edge of the lake, lighting a cigarette, his jaw flexing as he holds it between his teeth; he cups his hands at the end of it and inhales. He looks out at the sparkling lake, and she approaches, a couple yards away, watching as he leans his head back and blows out a cloud of smoke.
He tilts his head back down, looking forward towards the lake.
"You're wrong, you know. About me caring." He taps his cigarette.
Reverie, startled that he knew she was there, walks slowly towards him, stands on his right, and looks out at the ripples in the water. Her brain goes fuzzy with the intoxicating smell and the warmth emanating from his body being so close to hers. He still hasn't turned his head towards her.
His words ring in her ears, and she remembers what she told him the last time they spoke, but she can't possibly bring herself to respond.
"Those are still forbidden, you know," she says instead, quietly. Two beats pass. She feels him shift and looks down to see his hand holding the cigarette in front of her, as he blows out another cloud of smoke. She takes it between her fingers and slowly wraps her lips around it and breathes in, the nicotine filling her lungs, as he moves his hand away. She doesn't dare turn towards him as she feels his eyes burn a trail across her face, her lips still around the cigarette. His eyes don't leave as she takes it out and leans her head back, blowing the smoke above their heads and into the night. Bringing her head back down, she hands the cigarette back to him. He puts it out and turns his darkened eyes back towards the lake.
"A lot of things are forbidden."
She finally gives in and looks at the side of his face, and she can't help but try to memorize the light stubble growing alongside his jaw, the slight crook in his nose, the shape of his lips. But when he suddenly turns towards her, her eyes meet his own, and she realizes with a start, first, how incredibly close they are, and second, that her dress is the exact same shade of green as his eyes. She wonders if he noticed -- for a second, she even hopes that he did.
He watches her emotions play out on her face, and she knows she should say something, but the idea of talking feels like even more of a strain on her skidding heart.
"You should quit," she whispers, breathlessly, and she's sure he can hear her heartbeat when his eyes fall to her lips.
"What if I don't want to?" He says, in a low voice.
"Then don't," she says so quietly that she can hardly hear her own voice over the sound of her heart beating in her ears.
But she knows he heard her when his right hand reaches up tantalizingly slowly to cup her face. His thumb brushes against her cheek, relishing in the softness, and when his lips finally touch against hers so tentatively, her entire body burns and he's already breathless, and when she wraps her arms around his neck, he moves his hand to the back of her head and pushes into her lips, fervently, passionately. When he bites her lip lightly, she moans into his mouth, and he smiles against her lips. She tastes nicotine and mint and is convinced that she could get drunk off of him. She digs her hands into his hair and pulls slightly, and he pulls her flush against his body as he groans, but when noise suddenly spills out of the castle as a group of 6th years run outside, they separate.
She can't possibly look at him; just the sound of his ragged breath from beside her is doing dangerous things to her body. Instead she forces herself to move away, walk towards the castle, even as she feels his eyes burn into her, desperate to say something he knows he can't say.
Lupin runs a hand through his hair and looks back towards the lake. Somehow, the smell of lavender and vanilla permeates even through all of the smoke, and he knows that any alcohol and all the cigarettes in the world have nothing on him when she's near, and he can't even tell himself that he hates it.
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When she gets back to her dormitory, Reverie sits down by the fire that's still burning, the silence almost as deafening as it was outside, and she tells herself that whatever just happened could never happen again, that they could've been caught and she could've been expelled and her parents' death would've been for nothing. But, when she rests her head in her hands, all that she can think about is the way that his lips molded so perfectly into her own, the burn that travelled throughout her entire body, the intensity with which he looked at her and her lips, the way he smiled against them, and the heat that pooled between her legs when he groaned and pulled her into him.
All she could think about was absolutely everything except for the empty trunk at the foot of her bed, the cloudless sky, and the starry night.
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A/N: Chapter 13! This was so much fun to write, but of course, nothing comes easy to Reverie and Lupin.
I moved continents over this past month, so that's why I've been so inactive, but I'm back, and I hope you all liked this chapter! As always, thank you all for voting and commenting! All of your support encourages me to keep writing, so thank you, thank you, thank you!!