Author: Selene Rain
(selene_rain@hotmail.com)
Rating: PG. Romance/Angst.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers
including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made
and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: This is in response to the Season Fic Challenge. Yeah, I know it
took a long time, but 1) I was scared to post it, but the loffly
slashers in the chat last night boosted my confidence ;) and 2) it
took Jenny FOREVER to beta this thing. Well, better late than never,
I suppose. Without her, Draco would be watching Conan O'Brien,
sitting in the air conditioning, and killing himself climbing out the
window! I LOVE YOU!!!
This is my first fic that anyone other than Jenny has read, so I'd
absolutely adore any comments (reply or email me), but I'm a fic-
posting virgin, so please be gentle! Enjoy!
I am lying in bed, reading Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5, trying
to forget how ungodly hot it is long enough to fall asleep. I
haven't been sleeping very well lately, because even in the sunless
night, the end-of-summer heat and humidity are enough to make even
the shortest and thinnest of clothes cling to your skin. I am cranky
from lack of sleep, frustrated with the heat, and restless of the
trapped feeling this weather and this house give me.
Yet another spell to heal a broken bone. Even reading last year's
spell text isn't putting me to sleep. I sigh discontentedly and turn
my head to feel the cool sting as a breeze from an insufficient
cooling charm wafts along the delicate film of perspiration on my
neck. I look out the window, to see tiny splashes of water hitting
the glass.
The lure is too strong for me to resist. For some reason, I do not
want to go out the front door. Perhaps I want to get out into the
rain as quickly as possible, maybe I don't want anyone else to know I
am still awake, or maybe I just don't want to have to share this with
anyone else.
I slowly rise and walk to my window. When I lift it up, I stick my
head out and look around, as if to be sure no one will see me. I
pull my head in and take a deep breath from the wind blowing in from
the storm, letting my nose fill with that wonderful fresh rain smell
as my mind fills with thoughts of early spring showers when I was
very young—youth, peace, freedom.
Opening my eyes—I don't recall closing them—I grip the windowsill
tightly as I lower my left leg out and onto the hard ledge. Moments
later, when I finally lower my foot onto the damp, squishy carpet of
grass in the backyard—now nearly black with night and wet—a sudden
bolt of lightening sends a shiver through my body.
As I walk to the center of the yard, the rain quickens and pours down
harder. I close my eyes and look around. I can sense rain dripping
sweetly off of the angry statue next to my mother's sad roses; hear
the back steps. The fence looms to my left, and I can see myself—
standing as the clouds release their weight on me. I open my eyes
and am transported back in time to that night, only months ago, in
the rain.
Through a thousand diamond raindrops—each illuminated by the moon
peaking out from behind the clouds—I see you walk to me, a look of
pleased wonder on your face. It demands to know what I am doing out
in the rain and begs me to come back inside before I catch a summer
cold. You never did much like the rain. Your eyes, however, tell me
that you love me, despite and maybe even partially because of the
part of me that loves to venture outside when it rains.
When you get to me, you only smile enigmatically and wrap your arms
around my ever-dampening form. I lean my head on your shoulder and
let my body bend into you. With every one of our matched
inhalations, I smell a spicy mixture: your cologne, you—soft and
simply boyish—and the rainy air. On the exhales, I feel your light
breath brush against my neck.
You wind your arms tightly around my waist and I pull mine up around
your neck. Resting my forehead against yours, it strikes me that in
order for me to do this so perfectly, you must be crouching down a
bit. You do this so naturally that I'd never noticed it.
I gaze deeply into your bright, full green eyes, illuminated by
moonlight and rain and love. Somewhere deep in those burning orbs, I
can see a kiss coming on. No, I don't want you to kiss me. Not now,
not yet. I want to just stand here with you like this a moment
longer, sensing you. I can see you and smell you, but more than
anything else, I can feel you. I can feel you in parts of me that I
never knew I had.
Before too long, I can taste you as well, as I kiss away a raindrop
that had run down your cheek to your jaw line. I straighten up again
and look at you—those glowing green eyes so filled with intensity,
that mop of too thick, too unkept, too long, too perfect brown hair
now shaggy and dripping with rain, as is the rest of you.
Your eyes meet mine and for a second, everything disappears—the rain,
the grass under my feet, the breeze, the night, you and me—none of it
exists. Then you kiss me and it all comes crashing back. It's as if
my senses are on overdrive. I can smell rainy you, hear every drop
as it hits the tin roof heavily, and feel each cool splash as it
falls on my hot skin; feel every caress of a hand, every massage of a
lip, each flick of a tongue.
Before I even realize it, we are on the ground, getting—if possible—
wetter and definitely hotter. I envelop myself fully in you
physically, mentally, and spiritually—something I never thought I
could do. I lose myself in you—I cease to exist, as do you. All
there is is us.
A distant clap of thunder brings me back to life and I am once again
in my backyard—alone. I absentmindedly raise my hand to my neck,
where I am sure I can still feel you gently nip at my wet skin.
Thinking back on that night, the details of that came next are
blurred. What really remains is the sensation—it makes me weak in
the knees—and the feeling in the core of me that still remains.
We knew that what we had, that what we were, could not last. No, we
knew that at the end of the summer, we would have to go back to
school, where things had to change, where I was me and you were you
and there was no us and never could be. What we both knew and
couldn't bring ourselves to say was that this—this peace and
rightness and freedom—had to end.
Yes, looking back, it's clear that the experience—for that is all one
could describe it as—was the way it was that night for one very
specific reason. We were saying goodbye.
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