The Sweet Scent of Paradise

I awake as I always do. Refreshed. Rejuvenated.

Mornings are so full of promise for me. I've always preferred them, despite the odd looks I get from so many of my night-owl friends. In the mornings, there is still the promise that today will be better than yesterday, that tonight I will be better off than this morning.

There's been no time yet, in the hazy morning light, for optimism to dissipate. For each stinging shot of reality to tatter and torment my mood, until I fall, exhausted, into sleep yet again. Paradise is still possible, in the silver glow of morning.

And still I linger in my sweet-scented sheets, longing for another moment here. Head on pillow. Toes curled in fabric, the smell of safety wrapping itself around me.

With him.

I no longer suffer from the urgent need to hop from bed each morning. With the final divorce decree I reclaimed my bed as my own, no longer a prison from which to flee with each morning's light.

Now my bed is what I make of it, what we make of it together.

My Remus. I linger on the thought like the finest of chocolates, melting it around my tongue, letting it coat my taste buds with its sweetness. Remus.

I want to make it last longer, this space between asleep and awake. His scent is near, so spicy and familiar now, and I want to swim in it. Submerge myself in him. He is paradise; and I'm the proverbial stranger, a-lost in a wonderland.

He smiles in his sleep. I don't know if he always smiles in the morning, but he smiles today. His teeth are slightly crooked, and his moustache is too thin. These might have bothered me once. I'm a triple Virgo, with strong Libra influences. I like order and balance, and these tiny imperfections might have driven me mad, once-upon-a-time.

But he is my Remus, and I am his Petunia. I have come up unexpectedly from the depths, and he has brought me floating back to the surface. My face is cooled by the salty surf, warmed by the brilliant sun, and I float in this tide of him. I am a world away from Privet Drive, from the clubs and the criticisms. He is smiling, and I am awash in his beauty.

My Remus. A million years ago, I might have called him that. A million years ago, before Lily and James, before You-Know-Who and secret agreements and magical nephews and Vernon, Vernon, oh, Vernon. I might have called him my Remus, as we lingered together on a moonless night under the stars. I might have been shy with him, not hungry and demanding as I was last night. I might have let him seduce me, slowly, subtly, instead of pouncing on him with a lifetime's worth of need.

My Remus. His teeth on my flesh, his hands in my hair. His scent in my nostrils.

I rejected him once, all those years ago. Stupid, scared, foolish foolish girl. I sent him away, and with him any hope I might have had for passion. I turned him away.

Imperfect. Unstable. Different. Difficult.

Stupid words I spoke, in that long ago place where I thought perfection still existed.

Before the Dursley years. Before Privet Drive. Before the god-damned Japanese golfer jokes.

Perfection does not exist. Paradise can be found in crooked teeth and too-thin moustaches. In spicy scents and odd humor. In three days a month where I dare not touch him, and he cannot touch me.

Such a small price to pay for the warmth of the sun, is it not? Here in the morning time, when my body is still sated by him, when I still understand that we can be together without it being perfect. Before the world reminds me of the uphill battle. Before the world reminds me of our differences.

Before I see the fear in his eyes, the fear he always tries to hide.

Fear of hurting someone.

Fear of hurting me. Oh, his fear of hurting me!

I would gladly risk him clawing me to shreds, ripping out my throat with his teeth in a wave of passion, if it meant never again feeling the deadness I felt all those years. A moment of agony is so much better than a lifetime of numbness.

My Remus.

I would risk for you what I would never risk for myself. Pain. Fear. Humiliation. This is love, this risking without shame. This is paradise, this knowing, deep in your bones, that no pain is too great for a cost for love.

My Remus.

What risk is there, here in the silver morning, which would be too great? With my toes curled in the sheets? With your arm, strong despite the faded scars, wrapped around me? What fear is there, my darling man, that I cannot face with you in my life?

I will leave this bed soon, and fix you a breakfast you tell me was not necessary. I will smile when you scold me for spoiling you, and kiss your messy hair. And we will return to our lives, struggling to find a way to bring our secret into the light.

And at the end of the day, if you are still with me, and if Harry has not found out, and if Vernon has not caused me any trouble, it won't take so long to remember the silver promise of morning, and the sweet scent of paradise.

And I will love the night-time, when you are there.

End