Spark of Black

by Almira

Something, what was it? Her shadow descending into Gryffindor common room, the dancing flickers of the fire cascading onto the walls in painted strokes, twinkling aurora borealis. Always her fingertips first, softly, feathering over his wrist and then her eyes would appear, the green of envious fields and grape vines, jade glinting and smiling, a spark of black. He can catch her neck in his palm, pull her face towards him so he can smell her hair and lose himself in her sighs and moans, breaths caught in the back of her mouth, waiting for escape.

"Hey," she would always whisper, testing how intently he could listen. She would let the words lose themselves in the wind, ask in a faded sotto voce tone if he could find them if she let go. "What are you reading?"

The same, constant, never faltering. "My Transfiguration book."

Her hand touches the open pages, pinches a corner, pushes it off his lap. It hits the floor with the same deadened thud, the paper flutters and rests. And then it's his hand around her forearm, fingers tangling in hair, just one kiss: intensity and darkness, hope and fear, secrets and mythology, danger warning signs calling names and making faces bread pudding the raindrops cascading down noses down eyelids and catching in lashes eye contact and feeling the warmth press beneath the cold soaked clothing.

Andromeda will pull away first, stare into Sirius' dark eyes and say something like, "We could fly away tonight. No one would know we'd gone until morning."

"We'd be in Paris by then."

"Or Egypt. Wouldn't you like to see the pyramids?"

He'll pull his arm around her waist, bring her into his lap and, oh what then? He can't remember. Just more patchy things, some scent of honeysuckles and lacey blue hydrangeas soaking in an authentic Italian blown glass vase. Mahogany bed frames, a beech tree, a willow, a lake, a forest; he's flying with James, the air whooshing in their ears and he wonders how far up this broom goes, wants to take it to the moon, wants to get as far away from the earth as possible. Maybe find his star, maybe find hers too.

Some moment lost within his mind, messy fragments strewn about in scenes wandering and waiting to be pieced together again. Back to the rain. Icy sheets melting his skin into goose bumps, prickles and numbing, subside. He's running through the grass, shoes sticking and sinking into the mud, trying to suck him under -- hungry thunder and lightning looming nearby, he shivers under the dead-weight of soaked clothing.

She's standing there. Watching from under the stone doorway, brown curls pulled delicately by the wind. Eyes. Jade, jasper, emerald, spark of black.

His shoe slips, slick muddy grass stains his knees, dirties his hands and he can smell the rain when he's this close. He stares at the maze of green and how the folds have collapsed under his feet, shifting and bent, wishing to be erect once more.

Her shadow again, wavering before coming closer, he touches the gray-cast form lightly with his fingertips, replicating the way she always touches him. He sits up and takes her hand gently, pulls her to her knees, to the ground and here's the sparkle the reflection of her star in those eyes, the rain on her mouth. Parted and smirking, she looks at the sky, screams and laughs into the eye of the storm. He wants to keep watching her, wants to see her cry here, but the rain blurs and he's afraid she'll wash away. Grasps the ball of her shoulder and tastes the water on her lips, the fury and the adrenaline, the light, shiver, shine, wisps of her voice, fading to that spark of black.