Disclaimer: Severus and anything else recognizable belong to J.K Rowling, not me. Elise is mine. No money is being earned, nor infringement intended.

Flicker

He is sitting at his desk, marking papers, the scratching of his quill sounding in counterpoint to the crackling of the fire in the hearth. I am on the floor, clad in a black leotard and black tights, gray rubber dance pants over both, rolled above the knee. He, of course is buttoned up.

"Must you write around on the floor like a cat?" he asks, scowling partly at me, and partly at the paper - it's the fifth years' essays that he's grading, and that scowl is generally reserved for one of the male members of the Golden Trio, as the faculty have come to refer to one Harry Potter and his two most common cohorts, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

"I'm stretching," I tell him, and leave it that that. Eventually he will accept that what I do involves as much ritual as his precious potions do.

A gong sounds, but it's muffled, as if the instrument is embedded in a stone wall. In fact it is an alarm warning of trouble in the Slytherin dormitories. "I must go," he says, rising in one fluid motion, and taking up his teaching robes as he stalks toward the exit. "It may take a while. Do not trouble yourself to wait up."

I start to tell him that it's no trouble, but he is already gone. I sigh then return to my stretching. I complete the routine, and stand up, padding barefoot across the thick carpet, toward the table where a tea pot waits, the tea ever warm. En route, however, the flicker of the candle on his desk catches my eye, and I dare to sit in his chair.

Leather, supple but old, cool to my hot skin, even through layers of rubber and cotton spandex, seems to wrap around me. His chair fits itself to me. Somehow I can touch the floor and reach the desk, though I shouldn't be able to do both comfortably. I push aside the stacks of paper, leaving each with a note, hastily scrawled, so he knows which are marked and which remain unread.

The quill in my hand is stiff and uncomfortable. I know I left a fountain pen here the other day, but am hesitant to pry into his drawers. I spy it though, set to the side, and pick it up. The balance is better in my hand, the barrel thicker than a quill, and smoother, the nib, gleaming golden in the light. I pull a piece of paper from the stack at the end of the desk - flat paper, not a scroll - and begin to write a note. When finished, I fold it in half, write his name on it, and slide from the chair. I glance down and smile at the way the black ink glistens in the swoop of the 'S'.

The stone floor is cold against my feet as I walk from area rug to area rug, crossing from the sitting room to the soft darkness of his bedroom. I strip in the dark, then whisper a spell for soft light, and find one of the t-shirts I've left in the wardrobe, and pull it over my head. It is white, v-necked, and huge on me, a remnant of my father's collection, and oh, so soft.

Thus attired I pad on bare feet to the bed, climb in, utter the spell that removes the light, and close my eyes.

It may be minutes later, or it may be hours, when the bed sags, and his weight joins mine, his long body wrapping itself around me. "Elise…" he whispers into my half-asleep ear. It is the only word he says, and then sleep claims him, and reclaims me.

When I wake in the morning, Saturday, he is still asleep so I take advantage of it and watch him for a while, and then I realize: the air is cool, the covers are warm, and he is not on duty this weekend. Sleeping late seems just the thing.