We Can't Wake Up

Marcus wrapped his arms around Anne’s waist and pulled her even closer so that every part of them was touching. She shivered as his breathing blew her hair away from her neck.

They stepped away from the tree as they held each other. Marcus gently kissed her neck and Anne rested her head against his chest. Marcus’s heart was beating fast as if he had been running. Anne could feel this and she smiled slightly. She had never felt it increase even slightly and now it was almost out of control.

Marcus couldn’t care less how his heart was reacting as he held Anne to him. He didn’t even feel the urge to hurt her and force her to his will. He was, for the first time in his life, content. The feeling of being able to stay there all day washed through him and so they stood.

His lips left a tingling sensation up her neck to her ear where he paused. “Stay, please,” he whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

Anne pulled her head away from his chest and looked at his face. She couldn’t read the emotions there but she gave a small smile as her eyes filled with tears. “Where else would I go Marcus?”

He studied her dark brown eyes, trying to read the depths of what was hidden. Her smile widened minutely and her arms moved from around his waist to around his neck. Marcus pulled away from Anne and lay down on the ground. Anne immediately lay down beside him so that her head rested on his chest. He wound one arm around her waist and with his free hand he slowly began to stroke her hair as it tumbled over his chest.

The sun was shining strongly down upon them, warming their bodies and touching everything around them. Marcus closed his eyes and all he could see was the red tint of his skin. Anne’s fingers danced up and down his neck, tracing patterns that he couldn’t make out.

Marcus felt that he should say something to her, but he had absolutely no idea of what to say. He felt that if he tried to talk something stupid would come out and it would ruin this moment. This moment in which he was experiencing feelings he had never felt before; in which he felt content, peaceful. He didn’t want to end this moment in which everything concerning him and Anne had at last fallen into place.

But at the same time he was scared. Another emotion that was new to him. He was scared by what he was feeling, this utter contentment. In his mind he kept seeing pictures of his father and his mother, of Harry Potter, Maria, and Percy. They floated around his mind, each one reminding him that he could not remain here forever, that he was not these feelings of content. He wasn’t what Anne wanted him to be, and he wasn’t sure if he could change that.

He shook his head slightly and blocked these thoughts from his mind. He would not think of them now. Later he would, but now he would be with Anne and that would be it. He would dwell on his darker side later when he was alone and there was no-one around to see him.

Anne’s sighing breath brought him completely back to reality and he sat up. Anne sat up with him, his arm still wrapped tightly around her waist.

“You’re not going are you?” Anne asked quietly.

Marcus shook his head and rested his cheek against hers. He could feel her breath against his neck, her heart beating against his. He continued to play with her hair, taking in the scent of it, the scent of her skin and her clothes. He let the scent fill his mind and it pushed everything else from it.

Anne closed her eyes as she relaxed against Marcus. She had wanted to be able to sit like this with him again for so long. Ever since that day in the hospital wing. She wasn’t sure how to take the fact that his parents were Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange but for the moment it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was with him and he wanted her to be there. He had asked her to stay; he hadn’t told her to stay or even forced her. This meant so much to her, he would never understand.