Author’s Note: This is for the LESS Flying Challenge over at DeviantArt and is a sequel to “Flying too Close to the Sun”.

In the Palm of Your Hand

“Come with me,” Lily beckoned, her green eyes crinkling up with her smile, the copper waves of her hair tossing in the sea breeze coming off the water.

“Where?”

“You’ll see…” she offered mysteriously. “Some place nice. I promise.”

Severus followed her without further question. Quite frankly, he was rather pleased to still be here at the seaside on holiday with the Evanses and not on trial at the Ministry. Much to his surprise, the underage magic he had used the week prior to protect himself and Lily from the fast-developing storm that had caught them unawares on the cliffs had been excused. He had received a letter from Minerva McGonagall, of all people, informing him that he was not to worry, that the situation with the Ministry had been taken care of by the Headmaster, and to congratulate him on his quick thinking and gallant behavior. He didn’t really know what to think about that, so he chose not to think about it at all.

They were walking across the nearly abandoned beach in the general direction of said cliffs, and it did nothing at all to shore up his confidence in her little surprise. “We’re not going climbing again, are we, Lily? Because really, I think I’m rather lucky to not have been…”

“No, Sev, we’re not going climbing.” She sounded slightly impatient, but there was a bit of a smile in her voice as well. “It’s better than climbing. I promised you that I would teach you to fly, and I plan to!”

He felt his heart skip a beat and then speed up as a rush of adrenaline shot through his veins. “Lily, I—I don’t think that's… underage magic, you know, and I just…”

“Stop being a ninny,” she challenged. “I swear, Severus, sometimes you act just like an old woman. I’m not going to do anything that will get you into trouble. I promise.”

He didn’t think he liked being called a ninny, and he definitely didn’t like being compared to an old woman, but Lily was wearing nothing but a kelly green bikini top beneath a grey cardigan which the wind kept catching and blowing back, giving him little glimpses of the curve of her back and the lovely slit of her navel just above her low slung denim shorts, and he knew that any boy, Muggle or wizard, would sell his soul to be in his place for even the briefest of moments, so he kept his mouth shut. But they had better not be climbing again; he didn’t care how tempting she looked.

As they approached the cliffs, she headed beyond the outcropping they had climbed before and followed the line of solid rock further and further down the beach. They had been passing the occasional person here and there, out walking their dogs or gathering clams in the early morning sun, but where they were now seemed almost totally abandoned.

He was just getting ready to ask her just where on earth she was taking him when she ducked out of sight in front of him. He hurried after her, and found that she was waiting for him just inside the mouth of what appeared to be a fairly large cave.

“Are we going in there?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

“Yes—and before you object, I’ve brought a torch.” She lifted the small beach bag off her shoulder, and rooted around in it until she finally pulled out the torch in question and flicked it on. “I’ve even brought extra batteries, so you needn’t worry, worry wart.”

He wanted to object that if he hadn’t been around to worry for her the past few years, she would probably be dead by now, but as always, he didn’t.

He must have still looked concerned, because finally, with a slight roll of her eyes, she reached out, grabbed his hand, and yanked him into the darkness. They hadn’t gone far when he began to hear the sound of dripping water.

“You know, Lily, when the tide comes in this whole place probably fills with water.”

“You’re right, Sev. It probably does.”

“When is the tide set to come back in?”

“Don’t know…”

“You don’t know?!”

“I’m kidding,” she said after a moment of tense silence. He could tell she was laughing at him. “It went out just before dawn. We’ve got a few hours before it even starts to come back in. We’ll be fine.”

He pulled his hand from hers. “You can laugh at me, if you want, Evans, but I—”

She stopped dead in front of him and spun around, the light from the torch shining directly in his eyes. He brought up a hand to shield them. Either she didn’t care that she was blinding him or didn’t realize it, because she left the thing where it was. “I wasn’t laughing at you.” She sighed.

Suddenly the light went out, and he found himself blinking blindly in an inky, thick blackness. “What—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said from just in front of him.

“With the torch, I mean.”

“Nothing’s wrong with the torch. I think it’s time for your lesson.”

“What?” He rolled his eyes in the darkness, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “Are we learning to fly in the dark, is that it? If we do it in the dark then maybe the Ministry won’t notice?”

“So rude,” she retorted lightly at his sarcastic tone.

“Well…” He didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all. He couldn’t see a thing, and for a boy who was used to constantly assessing every detail of his surroundings for potential danger, it was a most disconcerting sensation.

“Well…” She sounded as though she were enjoying herself. “In order to learn to fly, you have to learn to let go of your inhibitions, your fears.” There was a pause and he heard a slight scuffling in the sand. “You have to learn to trust.” Her voice was behind him now. “To let go of the need to be in control—of everything…” Her voice was closer now, just over his shoulder, by his ear. He could feel her breath against his hair and it sent a little shiver skittering over his skin. “A rather tall order for a Slytherin, I realize…”

He couldn’t be entirely sure, but he was almost certain that he had felt her lips brush against his earlobe as she said “Slytherin”. He felt dizzy. All the blood from his head was rushing swiftly south and for the first time since she had extinguished the torch he was grateful for the dark.

“So,” she whispered.

“So,” he replied, trying to keep his voice steady, but it still came out sounding almost like a whimper. He cursed it.

“Do you trust me, Severus?” Somehow she had got back around front of him without him even noticing. He felt the heat of her body as she stepped so close he imagined he could almost hear the beating of her heart (or was it his?).

This was the part where he woke up. Well, usually he woke up. There was that one time a couple of months ago, where he hadn’t awakened until… well, he’d best not think about that dream right now. It would hardly help his situation.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” There. That was better. He was back to sounding indifferent and slightly perturbed. It wouldn’t do for her to know that he was about to burst with need at the nearness of her.

“Do you trust me?” she repeated.

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

There was complete silence, and he began to wonder if she had sneaked back out and left him alone in the dark. “Yeah, sure?” suddenly sprung out of the black. She was angry. He could hear it in her voice.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that she had wanted to hear. “Yeah, I trust you.”

“How much?” She demanded. She was still in front of him, but further away now.

“A lot, okay?”

“A lot?”

“Yeah—a lot.”

“How much?!” she demanded again. He could tell she was getting more and more put out with him every time he opened his mouth. Somehow he was swiftly digging his own grave, and he wasn’t even sure quite how he’d managed it. He wracked his brain trying to think of what it might be that she wanted to hear.

“I—I trust you to teach me to fly, Lily, okay? I—I trust you with—I trust you with my life,” he finally managed, and was amazed to realize he meant it.

“With your life…?” she whispered. She was standing close again, and she sounded a little amazed. She smelled good, too, he suddenly realized: clean, fresh-washed, like new leaves after the rain.

“Yeah,” he whispered in return without knowing why.

“Sev…” He could feel her breath on his lips.

“Yeah?”

“To fly—to fly you have to know what it is to be happy, truly, fully, wholly. Have you ever been that happy?” He felt each word she said, a whisper of sweet strawberry-scented breath.

He thought about it for a moment, but there was really no need; he already knew the answer. “No.”

“Do you think you could be?”

He didn’t know what to say, so instead he kissed her. He breached that small breath of a space between her lips and his and did the thing he had been dreaming of doing since he was a boy. Her lips were soft and slightly moist and they yielded easily to his. He stood very still for a moment while his brain caught up with what he had just done. When he realized that she wasn’t pulling away, wasn’t slapping him or pushing him away in the darkness, he began to explore that mouth a little, moving his lips softly and slowly against hers. She responded in kind, and then they were kissing in earnest.

She tasted as clean as she smelled, sweet and perfect, and that was just her lips. He wondered what her tongue might feel like tangled up with his. It was something that was done when kissing; he knew that. Merlin knew he had seen enough sixth and seventh year Slytherins with their tongues tangled in the common room over the years to know that.

He thought he might be pushing his luck a little with that, but then, to his surprise, he felt her tongue slide against his lips as though she were thinking the same thing. He opened to her and she entered eagerly, and then the desire and need just took over. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew that there would be a point where she would get disgusted with him, but he didn’t seem able to stop.

But she didn’t get disgusted with him, even when he slipped his hands beneath her cardigan, splayed his fingers out against her bare back, and pulled her closer. He knew that she would know then just what she was doing to him. If ever there was a moment for her to pull away, that would be it, but she didn’t. In fact, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled herself even closer.

He felt lost, but oddly, for the first time in his life it didn’t scare him. He belonged to her in this moment, body and soul. He should have been terrified, but he wasn’t. He felt like he was flying.

He smiled against her lips.

Flying…