Objects of Desire

Chapter 13 - Edge of Reason

By Azrale Geffen

“31^st October 1981

The Dark Lord has a new obsession, a Muggle visionary, and I have been tasked with finding her and unlocking her secrets. I have followed her, walked in her shadow, felt the conflict within her waif-like frame, and if one could pity a Muggle, I would pity her. I submit that whilst no family can be wholly free from strife, there are some who manage to maintain an even, unthreatening unity that somehow allows its young to grow up without the manifold disruptions of even the mildest shock.

I can only vow that I will never allow this to happen to Draco. Such an upbringing, such a vile mistake, leaves the child wholly unprepared for the onset of puberty, let alone what else is to follow.

Miss Regina Vermoral had such an upbringing as this. Sheltered and safe. As though she had been wrapped in a protective layer of cotton wool. And when the visions started at the age of twelve, her parents thought her mad. At first the visions were little more than nebulous flickerings, something that she couldn’t explain, but certainly nothing for her family to worry about. A problem with her eyesight perhaps and she was dragged to specialist after specialist who could find nothing wrong with her eyes. But the visions became more profound; they were destined to. They soon became a bright reality that pushed the solid universe into soft focus. Regina Vermoral began to walk within a swirling mist of celestials. She was able, as so many of our kind wished they could but never managed, to walk between two worlds. One, her feeble Muggle normality, the other, a celestial plain where she bore witness to titanic heavenly battles.

Muggles have lost their gods within the pages of their own dogma; they treat the divine ones amongst them like vermin. I found Regina living in a rat infested hole that they pleasantly refer to as an ‘institution.’ They have put things to her head because of all the happenings she has told them, they have tried to drive the visions out and when I found her, they were about to remove the part of her brain they believe to be responsible for her ramblings.

She looked on me as quite the savior.

How ironic.

Given the choice of being mutilated or going with a man who came out of thin air and told her he believed her, she took the obvious. I believe that she thought me one of her celestials, something I am still chuckling about. I explained to her that the celestial war that she was viewing was not a battle of good versus evil, as Muggle misconception would have it, but a war between two sides equally matched in both honorand malice. What she saw was no conflict of right versus wrong, but a territorial dispute emanating from basic unresolved internal conflict.

She did not believe me; Muggles have such a difficult time understanding that Celestial beings can be as petty and fierce as their human counterparts. Such a reservation did not stop her from packing her bag however. She owned little by way of clothing, but it is not her clothing that was of interest to me. What I want, and what the Dark Lord craves is what she discovered when she realized that she was powerless to stop the sights of deranged Angels and bloody demons from surrounding her. When she knew that she would never be free of it, she stopped being afraid and began to look around. She wanted to know more, to prove that this was no simple insanity. When the other world presented itself, she explored it, stepping over bodies, climbing through the marshes, and then she discovered that she could pick things up – and take them home.

Two hundred little bottles and tiny scraps of silk folded to create envelopes, and inside, the most precious of all things. Blood and oil, flesh and feathers, arrowheads, slivers of shields, fragments of armor, or of bone. These things are not of this world and yet this girl is able to bring them here, able to lay out before me what has not been seen since the dawn of our time. I requested that she bring it all of course, the bottles, the Angel essence, the journals full of what her captors considered gibberish but which I recognize as the language of the ancients.

And she is here now, in my home, awaiting my Master’s call.

Later…

Something has happened which I could never have predicted. He is gone. The Dark Lord has vanished, I cannot feel him, and the Dark Mark has faded as though it were never there. It was a child who did it. A baby with no extraordinary talent. I saw him, held him even, and he did nothing to me. But to the Dark Lord he was deadly.

And now I am left with this girl, a Muggle girl with a wealth of precious things and whilst I am sure her virginity will prove an amusing thing to take, I do not know what else to do with her. Her possessions are now mine, but what of her person? With the Dark Lord gone it may be unwise to simply kill her, and somewhere, deep in my bones, I feel that I will have need of her one day, and I have never taken such feelings lightly…”

Snape frowned and picked up his quill, with carefully measured strokes he wrote “Regina Vermoral?” on a piece of parchment.

~ ~ ~

Hermione’s eyes widened and her head suddenly cleared. What in hell was she doing? She turned her terrified brown eyes to Draco, who seemed to have everyone’s attention at that moment, standing as he was in the doorway looking strangely as though he was caught between being highly amused and being extremely pissed off. She suddenly felt extremely exposed, cold and…oh my god, Severus is going to kill me.

She struggled out from under Lavender, pulling her robes closed as she went and giving a small scream of horror at what she had just allowed herself to do.

Lavender rolled onto her back, stared at the roof for a few seconds before sitting up, stretching languidly and retrieving her robes.

“Are you going to join us dear?” she asked Draco with a good deal more nonchalance than she actually felt.

Draco seemed to consider the offer for a moment, moved in behind Harry and wrapped two possessive arms around him and forced a tight smile. “Not tonight darlin’, another time perhaps?”

“Sure, whenever. You want a drink?”

“Love one.”

Lavender wrapped her robes securely around herself and retrieved a glass from the dresser. She knew how to handle the situation, just as she knew how to handle Draco. Give him a drink and calm Hermione down. Unfortunately, calming Hermione down was not going to be as easy as pouring a glass of champagne. She handed the glass to Draco and moved to help Hermione find her shoes…her roommate’s intention was obvious.

While the girls rummaged around the floor, Draco leaned in to whisper harshly in Harry’s ear.

“You drunk baby?”

Harry nodded dumbly, he felt the first sting of tears and Draco hissed, “If I catch you doing this again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Harry nodded again and felt a hot tear streak down his cheek.

“Shhh, don’t do this now.” Draco turned his attention back to the girls who were having an argument of sorts. To Draco’s bewilderment, Hermione was preparing to go and confess her near infidelity to her lover.

“Don’t tell him!” Draco stared at Hermione, incredulous, “He really doesn’t need to know.”

“What!” Hermione couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. How many times had her parents ranted on about relationships built on trust? Now she was supposed to lie to Severus? On top of everything that had just happened? “I have to tell him!”

“No you don’t,” Lavender urged, glad to have Draco on her side, “trust me, you really don’t want to tell him about this. He won’t find out, so he doesn’t need to know.”

“But what if he does find out?”

“He won’t…not unless you tell him.”

Hermione glared at Draco and wondered how Harry could possibly trust him if he was so ready to tell such a lie. Then she noticed the way his hands were clutching Harry so hard that his fingernails were digging into flesh, and she realized with some amazement that he was far more upset about it than he was letting on.

Harry was almost cleaving to Draco’s body, his face a mask of shame. He wasn’t looking at anyone, wasn’t speaking and Hermione could see the wet streak of tears on his face. But Draco still had his arms around him, still loved him, and wasn’t letting him go.

“I can’t lie to him, I have to tell him.”

Lavender was shaking her head, she looked uncomfortable and a little guilty, “’Mione, you’ll only hurt him…and yourself. It is such a small thing; don’t ruin what you have over it.”

“If it is such a small thing, why shouldn’t I tell him?”

“Because he’s…” Lavender paused and frowned. She was about to say, ‘because he’s a grown up,’ which was utterly ridiculous; they weren’t twelve anymore…something they had just proved admirably. Because he’s Snape? She had to admit that she had no idea what he would do if he found out. She had only known him as a Professor of the school; not as a person. She simply didn’t know him. Draco, on the other hand she knew well. Draco’s reaction proved to her that he loved Harry, but she knew he wouldn’t make a scene, that he wouldn’t get angry – not here at least. She should know, she lost her virginity to Draco Malfoy when she was sixteen. She knew his attitude to sex well enough, and some of her own beliefs had been inspired by his. What she did know was that Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape were well and truly two different people.

“If you tell him,” Lavender said slowly, “and he reacts badly, don’t go wandering around the castle all night. Come back, you’ll need your friends around you.”

Hermione tried to smile and gave Lavender a little hug. With the air of one heading for the executioners block, she headed for the Dungeons.

~ ~ ~

Angelina often considered that her memory was not her greatest friend. Sometimes it played tricks on her, occasionally it failed her completely, and then, there were days like today, when her memory was so clear she found herself mouthing the words silently to a conversation she’d once had, long ago.

He’d said, “You don’t understand, we can’t keep doing this!”

And she had replied, “But I love you.”

It was Charlie, wasn’t it? Yes, she was sure it was Charlie, she could hear his voice and she would recognize it anywhere. And then he came to her; the full vision was there in her head, as though the orb of her mind had turned and delivered him to her, whole and alive.

But she could not guide this conversation; this was little more than a memory and she was little more than a spectator to her own past self, throwing her body in a sobbing heap at his feet.

My how she was weak back then.

“I love you,” she cried, “please, don’t do this, I love you.”

Charlie had looked unmoved, as though she was dirt on his boot. “Angelina, that doesn’t matter, can’t you see?”

“How could it not matter? How could you say that? You brought me here! You made it matter! You made me love you!”

Charlie walked away from her and she liked to think that he looked stricken. He must have because she had known that it wasn’t his fault. “I don’t mean it that way,” he said, “don’t twist this to suit your own ends.”

“I’m not twisting anything! You brought me here. You told me that we were meant to be together, it was you!” She was on the floor, like a dog, looking up at him, pleading, “How can you just stand there and tell me it’s over? Why now?”

“You’re George’s wife! What do you expect me to do?”

“But I was George’s wife yesterday, and the day before that, and the day you first kissed me! Why does it matter now?”

“Because it does!”

“It’s your mother isn’t it?” Angelina knew it had to be. It had to be Molly. The woman hated her. “She found out about us, and she’s forcing you to leave me!”

Charlie pulled his robes roughly out of her grasp and walked away from her. “Trust me, if my mother knew about us, I wouldn’t be standing here now.”

She looked desperately around the room, the same room they had met in every week for a year. She hoped desperately to find some clue, orsome inkling as to why he was doing this to her. “You’re lying. I know you are. She has said something, hasn’t she! What has she said?”

“Nothing! Mum doesn’t know anything about us!”

“Then why? You love me, I know you love me!”

“GEORGE IS MY BROTHER!”

He stopped himself and drew breath the same way that all the Weasley boys did when they needed to calm themselves down, and then turned back to her, perhaps ashamed for having yelled. She couldn’t tell.

“Please…” her voice cracked, she was crawling on the floor, dragging herself to him, clutching at the dusty hem of his robes. “Please don’t do this. Charlie, don’t do this. I love you. You’re all I have, and I need you.”

“You have George,” Charlie answered. “You have your husband.”

But her husband was cold comfort, little more than a boy when what she wanted was a man. “Is there someone else?” She barely dared to ask the question; and he was shaking his head.

“No, of course not. I just can’t do this any more. The war is coming, and I can’t be torn in two, with you on one side and my family on the other.”

“But if we we’re together,” she said, excited, with false hope shining for brief moment in her eyes, “If we’re together we can face them. You said that once, you said we could face anything together.”

“But I don’t want to face them. I don’t want to be against them. They are my family. They are everything to me.”

“And what am I?” she asked, defeated, “nothing at all?”

He was silent and he turned his face away from her. Nothing at all, some vile thing crawling on the floor. He had taken her, used her and discarded her when his own guilt became too great.

“You can’t leave me,” she said bitterly, with an edge of menace, “I won’t let you leave me.”

He was walking towards the door, not looking back at her, not caring what he had done.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed, “I HATE ALL OF YOU. I’LL MAKE YOU PAY, I SWEAR I WILL!”

He stopped and turned back, staring at her hopeful face. “Don’t Ange. Go home to George and stop hurting the family. Don’t say things you’ll regret later.”

She bowed her head and cried, rocking back and forth on the floor, pooled in dusty sunlight. He had brought her here to ‘their’ sanctuary, and he had made love to her. He had forced the infidelity and she was made to pay the price for his guilt. She hated them all. Hated the way they could close ranks, hated the way Molly ruled her sons and forced them to comply with her wishes, and how she forced them to choose family over happiness.

She hated that family. All of them. And they would pay for their blinkered solidarity.

~ ~ ~

Snape had just finished preparing himself for bed when Hermione came bursting through the door to his chambers. He had finally put the journal away, certain that he was not going to find anything else on Regina Vermoral that night. He was looking forward to sleep. For the first time in years he honestly felt he would have no problem actually nodding off. He was exhausted, Hermione had been using his body like a trampoline for almost a week and he was certain that if he didn’t lie down and sleep soon, he wasn’t going to get through the next semester.

Hermione soon put paid to that idea by storming into the room and almost screaming, “Severus!” at him.

Snape took a step back and frowned at the sudden intrusion, he then found himself uncomfortably aware that he had on his…less than best nightshirt, and that she was looking wild eyed and disheveled and, well, aroused. “Hermione! Are you insane? Anyone could have seen you!”

“I…” Hermione looked frantically to the door and back to him, and looked as though she would burst into tears at any moment. “I’vedonesomethingreallystupidandyou’regonnahateme…”

What in Merlin’s name did she just say? “I do not have the pleasure of understanding you; you are going to have to slow down.”

Her lip started to tremble and he almost groaned as the tears came and spilled down her face. Was her period still due? Dear Gods, had it arrived and she’s come to tell him about it?

“What’s wrong?” He asked, as gently as he could muster under the circumstances, and then another thought came. “Has someone hurt you?” What if they have…what if someone has hurt her? I’ll kill the mother-fucking sons of bitches…

“I…” Hermione began to sob in earnest now, taking in great gulps of air and for a moment Snape thought he was going to have to go and find whoever had touched her and dispose of them quietly, when she began to stammer out a hesitant reply. “I-I h-ha-have d-d-done something r-really s-s-tupid. Y-you are gonna h-h-h-hate m…”

The end was lost in a fresh hail of tears.

Something stupid? How stupid? “Well, calm down,” he snapped, trying to remain calm himself, “and tell me what you have done.”

He’s going to hate me, oh Gods he’s going to leave me. She looked at him, standing next to his chair by the fire. She could already feel the loss of losing him. Draco’s voice came back, urging her not to tell him and for a moment she contemplated lying. He would know though, he could always tell when she was lying.

“You might want to sit down.” She whispered.

Snape raised an eyebrow, so it was bad enough to sit down for. Oh my God, she’s pregnant. Her period didn’t come and I’m about to be the father of some dunderheaded brat! He nervously sank into his chair and looked at her suspiciously, allowing his face to settle into the mask he used when addressing first years. He watched as she shuffled nervously, unsure of how to break it to him, and then finally she drew breath and began to speak.

Snape listened, his face never changing as she told him the whole sordid tale. She told him everything, from start to finish, without embellishment. All about Harry’s lesson and her reaction to it, about Lavender and kissing her. When she finished she bowed her head, to ashamed to even cry any more. She studied the tops of her shoes and waited for him to speak.

He remained silent for a long time, trying to decide exactly how he felt about it. One part of his brain was off dancing a jig because she wasn’t pregnant and he had to wait for that to return before he could make a reasonable assessment of damage. He certainly wasn’t happy with the events, but then she certainly wasn’t the first person to ever get drunk with her friends and end up rolling around on a bed with them. He seemed to recall on dark and stormy night, several bottles of very good whiskey, with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy and a very interesting morning spent trying to explain to a two year old and his teddy bear why there were three people in mummy and daddy’s bed.

Thank the Gods Draco didn’t remember that.

Then there was how he and Hermione had discovered each other in the first place. He could still taste the absinthe when he thought back.

Now she had got herself drunk and decided to learn something he would have been only too willing to teach her. On Potters fingers – of all things! Silly little girl.

And Lavender Brown too…he would have given his left ball to have seen that.

Snape began to smirk. Hermione was looking apprehensive and she was wringing her hands, expecting the worst. He was still big bad Snape in her eyes, and he probably would be for a long time. He obviously would have no experience with such things in his own past. The smirk became more like a grin and he tried not to laugh at her.

“Well,” he said at last, deciding he really should put her out of her misery, “when are you going to show me what you learned?”

“Do you want me to show you now?”

Snape grinned and considered it. “Actually, I think we might save it for a moment when I will really appreciate it. I’m tired, I need to get some sleep.”

Hermione looked uncertain for a moment, had he not really forgiven her; he wanted her to go? “Do you…do you want me to leave?”

He smiled, pushed himself up out of the chair and took her hand on his way to the bed, “No, you can stay.”

She grinned.

“But just to sleep…only sleep.”

The grin faltered.

He turned the bedclothes down and turned to her, gently he began to unbutton the robes he had purchased for her, slowly revealing her naked form beneath. As the robes fell to the floor and he lifted her face to his, he felt himself harden and suddenly all thoughts of sleep were running off into the distance.

But he really needed sleep.

She smelled musky and he knew that if he reached between her legs he would find wetness there. He could only be glad that Draco had walked in on her before she had gone to far, the idea of someone else bringing her to orgasm was like a torture to him.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, “what must you think of me?”

“I was young once you know, I can remember what it was like.”

She stroked his jaw and standing on her toes she flicked her tongue along the side of his throat. “Why Severus, are you telling me you had a wild youth?”

“I was a Death Eater sweetheart, ‘wild’ doesn’t quite cover it.”

She tensed a little at the comment, but relaxed back into him, splaying her hand over his chest and feeling his heart beat there. “Did you ever do anything like that?”

“With my friends?”

“Yes.” She smiled shyly, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer; not sure she wanted to know that he had a life before her. But of course he had to, he was twenty years her senior and she knew he had been with people before she came along.

“A long time ago. Things were different then.” He slipped between the sheets, “Come to bed.”

He pulled her under the covers and brought her close, kissing her again, loving the feel of her body in his arms. He gently slid his hand down her body and delved his fingers into the wetness he knew he would find between her legs.

He spread her open, gently parting the lips of her vagina and sliding a finger deep into her, and then he coated his fingers in her wetness and lazily circled her clit. She sighed and smiled and then seemed to melt bonelessly into the bed. He knew precisely how to touch her, how hard to rub or how gentle to be and when her ragged breathing betrayed the onset of her orgasm he slowed down, letting the feeling subside, so that he could build her up again.

“I…I want it…” she ground her pubis against his fingers, “I want it…now!”

He chuckled, evil bastard, and secretly marveled at just how wet she could become. “Shh, it’s coming, I promise.”

He circled her clit again and her hips bucked up into his hand and she cried out, unable to stop the orgasm from washing over her. When she finally calmed and her body relaxed, Hermione rolled her face to him and smiled. His eyes were already closing, and she quietly whispered “Nox,” deciding he really needed to sleep.

~ ~ ~

Morning came all to soon and with it, the day Harry had been dreading. Facing the school. Facing everyone and knowing that he would be on display, as he always had been, but this would be a thousand times worse. Today he would not be the hero. Today he would be some pervert who was shagging his arch-enemy, someone to gossip over, and someone to pass judgment on.

The day didn’t start well. Draco was still none too happy about the previous night, although his mood had improved since they’d gone to bed, and he was now speaking to Harry in words of more than one syllable. He had also made love to Harry gently, taking him from behind in the early hours as they had been spooning and thus raising Harry’s hopes that he really wasn’t all that angry. Just as Harry had considered that maybe his day would not be too bad, Ron had made a fuss over Harry’s showering with everybody else. Something Harry couldn’t comprehend because he had showered with them for years and his “perverted tendencies” had never caused him to do anything odd or obscene to his friends. More than a few people seemed to be egging Ron on however, or remaining ominously silent and so Harry had waited patiently for them to finish before showering quickly and returning to his room to dress for breakfast.

Draco decided that he wasn’t going “down there” to be ridiculed. He rarely ate breakfast as it was, and he liked the quiet of the morning to have his bath without intrusion. Harry wished he had thought of that, but he could only imagine what would happen if Ron found out they had bathed together…he would probably demand the disinfection of the tub.

So Harry was left to go to breakfast alone. Not a task he relished, but his courage always rose to a challenge, and if he wasn’t ashamed of his relationship, he was hardly going to hide from the world because of it.

Such a thought did not bring him comfort when he stepped into the Great Hall and it fell silent. There was nothing, not even the quietest of whispers and he felt his face begin to burn as he walked between the rows of tables – and the whispering started in his wake. He kept walking, forcing his head high and focusing on a point just above Dumbledore’s head. He could never remember a moment when the Great Hall had seemed so very long and he hoped he didn’t do something stupid, like falling flat on his face on the stone floor.

As he drew closer to the table he noticed that Ron had surrounded himself with Anthony Goldstein and Seamus – like Harry was going to try and sit next to him.

“Saved you a seat gorgeous.”

He felt his face split into a relieved grin as Lavender waved him over, indicating a spot between Hermione and herself.

“Where’s Draco?” Hermione asked as he sat down and he felt another weight lift from his shoulders. Hermione was still talking to him, and she appeared to be in a good mood – which meant that things with Snape had not been a total disaster.

“He’s having a bath…” Harry replied and tried to sound as though it was no big deal that his lover had left him to cope with this alone.

“Is he still in a shit about what happened?”

“Sort of…he’s getting over it.” Harry smiled nervously, “um, how are you?”

“Good,” Hermione positively beamed at him, “never better”

She can’t have told him, there was just no way she could have. “So you didn’t tell Snape then.”

Lavender scoffed into her tea.

“What?” Harry was genuinely confused. Hermione had taken on a trancelike quality and Lavender looked thoroughly amused.

“Well,” Lavender said with a small hint of amazement is her voice, “it appears we didn’t give the good Professor enough credit.”

“He was alright with it?” Harry cast an incredulous glance at Snape who was chatting to McGonagall and, wonders would never cease, actually smiling. He must’ve said something terribly funny because McGonagall looked over at the three of them and burst into hysterical laughter.

“Is he telling her?” Harry asked with rising dismay.

“Probably,” Hermione sounded resigned to the fact, “he tells her just about everything.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

McGonagall was laughing so hard now that Dumbledore had to nudge her – and she spent the rest of breakfast with a smirk she could not quite lose.

“Well, I’m glad they find it amusing.” Harry was a little disconcerted. How was it possible that Severus Snape had reacted so well, when Draco had reacted so very badly? It just didn’t seem right.

~ ~ ~

“Dear Ronnie,

By now you should have received George’s letter telling you that I am coming to Hogsmeade to do the books for Zonko’s. Aren’t you pleased? You should be because I had to take a considerable amount of time off from work, just to come and see you. I get there on Saturday 16^th, so don’t make any plans for that night because I have booked a room at the Three Broomsticks, and I know you’ll love what I have for you.

Remember, Saturday 16^th at six, you know how I hate to be kept waiting, and I really don’t want to have to go home and tell George all about how mean you were to me during my visit.

Adoringly yours,

Angelina.”

~ ~ ~

Classes progressed in a familiar way that disturbed Hermione, though she had never thought it possible. She was not sure what she had expected. That Severus would be different, would call on her in class perhaps, or allow her to answer a question, even dote on her brilliance? He was far too cautious for that, and so he treated her as he had always treated her, with contempt bordering on disdain. Even though Hermione knew it to be an act, she could not help but feel alarmed by it. She had been confined to her own bed since their first night back, his excuse being that he needed sleep and that he did not want her traipsing around the dungeons at night where anyone could see her. True, he had managed to steal some time, and they’d had dinner in his room, but nothing more had happened. Her body was feeling bereft, and as she sat through her ninth Potions class since arriving back at school, she couldn’t help but watch the way he moved about the room; her body in a heightened state of arousal, and wonder if she could just hurl him into his office and have him on his desk.

The idea was ludicrous of course, but she had to have him at some point, the frustration was almost painful.

He seemed to be coping admirably and she thought with some dismay that he probably didn’t miss her at all.

“Miss Granger, what exactly do you think you are doing?”

She looked up at him, and then down at her work and grimaced. She had just managed to put so much powdered Unicorn hoof into her amnesia draught that it had taken on the look and consistency of setting tar.

“I-I’m sorry – Professor, I wasn’t concentrating on what I was doing.”

“Evidently.”

Get me to stay after class! Give me detention!

“In future Miss Granger, please refrain from wasting our resources or you may find yourself hunting it down yourself.”

“Yes, Professor.” Bastard.

She left Potions at the sound of the bell, resisting the urgent need inside her to turn back and try and communicate some desperate signal of desire to him. Harry grabbed her arm and dragged her along. Defense against the Dark Arts was next, and everyone was excited because they had been promised their first lesson of Defense with a stave.

Not that Hermione was particularly interested in staves. She had seen the damage they could do, and she really didn’t want to touch one. Dueling she considered an essential in the art of self defense. Using a Stave was just plain barbarism.

Still, it would be interesting to watch a demonstration.

Professor Delancet had set up a long platform to be used for the dueling lesson. She knew the damage a stave could do and she didn’t particularly want one out amongst the class. With a platform she could set up wards around its edges so that any stray shots would dissolve harmlessly into vapor and no one would get hurt. When the class arrived, all eager to see what she had set up, she was standing in the middle of the platform waiting for them.

“Alright then, gather round,” she beckoned the class forward, “gather round.”

It was by far the biggest class in the school, the entire of seventh year had taken it, and adding the thirty three eighth years, it was more than triple the size of other classes. She was glad that most of the lessons were practical affairs because she knew full well how hard it was to seat the lot of them in one place.

“Now, as I promised, today we are going to be looking at staves and finding out who would like to learn how to use them and who is actually skilled enough to learn how to use them.” She swept her gaze over the crowd and rested on Harry for a moment until she saw him start to blush and shift uncomfortably on the spot.

“Professor Snape has been so good as to agree to assist me with the demonstration, so if you could just make way down there and let him through, I would be most grateful.”

The crowd parted as people backed quickly away from the Potions Master and sickening memories of Gilderoy Lockhart’s first, and only, dueling demonstration came flooding back. Snape looked his usual foul tempered self, his arms folded and a scowl firmly in place. He obviously took Sabine Delancet with a touch more seriousness than he did Gilderoy Lockhart however, because he had dispensed with robes and wore a plain black shirt and pants.

Those who had been in Lockhart’s class that day shuddered, they liked Professor Delancet and they hoped she wasn’t about to be humiliated. They also knew she was no Lockhart, and most hoped she would kick Snape’s arse.

“I’ll bet 100 Galleons on Snape to kick her arse,” Draco said, not taking his eyes from the platform.

“I’ll take that bet.” It was Colin Creevy, “I reckon she can beat him.”

“You’re on.”

Within seconds a book was being set up with students’ surreptitiously shoving gold in Colin’s direction and he was glad he had an auto-quill to write down names and amounts.

Hermione looked around her friends as though they were vultures. Harry had just bet sixty galleons into the pool and a blow job to Draco, that Delancet would win. “What if she hurts him?” she whispered harshly.

“God, I’d love to see that.”

She glared at Harry who winced apologetically and turned back to the platform.

Delancet threw Snape a large crystal ball which he caught easily. He held it out in front of him and it began to emit light, growing brighter until its edges began to blur and it lengthened and changed, growing until it became a stave as tall as Snape himself. The crystal ball sat snugly in top of the stave, whilst the other end held a pointed crystal conductor.

“Now, Professor,” Delancet smiled tightly, “disarm only – I’m not interested in losing a limb today.”

“As you wish,” Snape replied silkily and shifted the stave under his arm in a manner that those who had been through the final battle of the war recognized as a Death Eater position.

Professor Delancet eyed his stance and shifted uncomfortably; she slowly and deliberately gripped her stave in both hands, pointedly unwilling to adopt a similar position, and leveled the Stave at her opponent.

There were no niceties involved, no polite bowing, no elaborate incantations. The ideology was simple, point and shoot. The power behind the bolts of energy was entirely dependent on the will of the one holding the weapon. The stronger the Wizard, the greater the charge. The trick was in learning how to dodge the bolts, and this was no easy task. While a wand was an elegant thing, able to pinpoint areas of the body with extreme accuracy, a stave would simply dismember the whole body in one blow.

“Alright then,” Delancet said clearly, “1-2-3…”

They both fired at the same time - and stone floor rumbled as the bolts collided.

Delancet got off the next round faster and Snape, showing an agility no one would have thought possible, flipped backwards over it, firing as he went. The bolt caught her square in the chest and knocked her to the floor.

Harry cursed silently and wondered if it was too late to change his bet, and behind him came the sound of money changing hands.

She wasn’t down long, as she used the momentum to roll backwards and regain her feet. Delancet fired and caught Snape on the hip.

Hermione yelped and Harry grinned as Hermione was caught between covering her eyes and watching in horror.

“She’s hurting him!”

“I think he can hold his own ‘Mione.”

And indeed he could. Snape planted the conductor into the platform, using the Stave to save him from his fall and then vaulted around it, landing on his feet and swinging the stave over his shoulder in one fluid movement, the resulting bolt of energy caught Delancet in the face. She fired back before she even noticed the pain, succeeding in knocking him down this time, and he flipped back onto his feet and stood poised, ready to fire.

Harry quickly searched through his pockets for another few Galleons to add to his bet. Delancet and Snape circled each other cautiously, like two predatory animals. They were both grinning and Harry realized with a small shock that they were both enjoying this.

If anything would ever reconcile him to Snape that would. He liked a good fight.

“More?” Delancet challenged.

Snape responded by flipping the stave and pointing the conductor at her. His mouth slid easily into a wry smile. “Care to make it interesting?”

Delancet grinned in return. “I don’t think your girlfriend would be too happy if she had to put you back together Severus.”

Snape arched an eyebrow and shot a look at Hermione and gave a barely perceivable wink. “Oh I don’t know, she’s very clever, I’m sure she’ll manage.”

A second book had been started, ‘Guess the name of the foolish woman who was sleeping with Snape’ and Draco was silently lamenting that he wouldn’t be able to bet on it.

“Gods, she’d have to be desperate,” Ginny giggled. “Who’d have him?”

“I bet it’s McGonagall, it has to be McGonagall.”

“Or Sprout!”

A giggle rushed through the crowd and Harry cast a concerned look at Hermione whose teeth he could hear grinding over the buzz of students.

Delancet was laughing heartily and flipped the stave over. She didn’t wait before she shot a red bolt of light at him, which he dodged admirably and returned fire, tearing a gash across her shoulder.

“Oh you bastard!” Her voice was shocked and with laughing alarm, she ran at him, fired at close quarters and tore a chunk out of his thigh. He responded by rolling the stave in an arch over his shoulder and cracking her on the head with it.

And she went down.

“Oh my God,” Draco drawled, “he knocked her out with it.” He turned to Colin. “Pay up Creevy.”

Hermione didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or cry out at the dirty tactics. Either way she was torn. She looked with concern as Snape knelt beside Professor Delancet and pulled out his wand. He murmured “Enervate” and her eyes shot open.

“Fuck that hurt!” Delancet groaned and sat up, forgetting for a moment that she was teaching a class. “You miserable shit!”

A ripple of laughter ran through the class and they waited with baited breath to see if he snapped at her. He didn’t. Instead he helped her to her feet, muttered that he had a good headache potion that he would get for her later, and inspected the damage to his leg. She stood, stretched, and winced at the pain in her shoulder.

“Alright then.” She addressed the class, “Now you have seen how it’s done. There are no niceties involved, no rules. The aim of this sort of fighting is to get your opponent down by any means necessary. The staves are powerful and as you saw, can be used in ways that don’t necessarily involve magic. That is why they were the weapons of choice for the Death Eaters. Those of you who would like to try it may step forward. I warn you, I will only chose the most skilled amongst you to try it.”

A group of people moved forward, most held back. Hermione turned and moved to the back of the room, trying to get her heart to slow down and not race to Severus and inspect the raw wound on his leg.

“Potter, Malfoy, you’re up.”

She stopped and turned back as Harry and Draco climbed up onto the platform and wondered if Delancet had taken some kind of perverse pleasure in pitting them against each other. The crowd was whispering again, speculating on just how this fight would go, many actually seeing Harry and Draco facing each other for the first time since their relationship became common knowledge.

Snape handed Draco the stave and scowled. “You shouldn’t be doing this and you know it.”

“I’ll be fine, besides, it’s disarm only.”

“Disarm with one of these things could actually take your arms off.”

“Calm down! Gods, now you do sound like my father.”

“Your body can’t take this kind of jolt.”

”Then I will get out of the way.”

Snape glared at him and Draco returned his glare defiantly. “Does Potter know?”

“Know what? This is nothing, I’ll be fine.” Draco took the stave in both hands and turned to Harry - and paled.

Harry was standing in a perfect replica of Snape’s Death Eater stance, Stave tucked under his arm and a huge grin on his face.

“He knows how to use this already doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” Snape said casually. “He blew the hell out of an entire row of Death Eaters I seem to recall.”

Draco swallowed.  Fuck.

“Disarm only please,” Delancet said loudly and Draco sighed as Harry blasted him backwards off his feet.

~ ~ ~

Snape left the Defense class shortly after he was certain Draco had suffered no real damage and Potter had been given some other poor sap to blast away at. He didn’t notice that Hermione followed him at first, and by the time he did realize, he was enjoying the feel of her shadowing him and he lead her silently through the school, along dark corridors and up disused stair cases until he reached the third floor and a dusty room that had once housed a three headed dog named Fluffy.

He swung around, searching the darkness until he found her and smiled and said, “You can come out now.”

She stepped from the shadows. “Why did you come up here?” she asked, but her heart was thumping in her chest and she felt the first tendrils of arousal reach through her.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he returned silkily.

“I was following you.”

“I knew you were following me.” He came closer and her stomach tied itself into a knot.

“Did you miss me,” she stammered, “the last two weeks, did you miss me?”

He smiled a dark smile. “Very much. I’ve had to stroke myself each morning and think about what you would feel like if I was inside you.”

She felt her panties suddenly become saturated, and she had to fight the urge to tear his shirt off his body. “Does your leg hurt?” she whispered, not thinking about his leg, but wondering when she was going to have his cock inside her.

“No, not at all.” He moved closer still and stroked her face with the back of his hand, “were you worried?”

“No,” she lied, while every sense, and each tiny nerve ending suddenly came alive under his touch. She had almost forgotten how tall he was; the top of her head only just reached the pit of his throat and when he pulled her to him, her breasts crushed hard against him, and she felt his hard cock press into the soft swell of her belly.

One arm encompassed her back, holding her close to him, the other cruised easily over her body - his hand finding its way into her robes and fumbling with the front clasp of her bra. She helped him, loving the way he chuckled shyly when he couldn’t get it undone and she kissed him gently.

Ohhhhh yes that was what she’d been wanting. His tongue pushed deep into her mouth and tangled with hers, then explored her gums, inner cheeks and the hard edge of her teeth. His thumb circled a crimping nipple, and then his palm closed over her breast urgently. He hadn’t shaved well that morning because his stubble was prickling her, but felt exciting, exhilarating. He was unstoppable, his kisses stealing her very breath and she could feel her insides quicken with anticipation.

His hand left her breast and slid down her body, finding it’s way through her clothes and delved between her legs. She moaned, knowing they were standing in the middle of a room anyone could walk in to and yet he was examining her most intimate of places and she was aching for it, desperately wanting him to finger-fuck her, to get her ready for his cock which she could feel pressing insistently into her belly.

He smelled of heat and fresh sweat that overpowered the scent that he applied to his skin. His hair fell forward and tangled with her own, and she could smell the shampoo he’d washed it with. Oh Gods she just wanted to devour him. Two weeks was far too long to wait!

She stood on tip-toe and raised her pubis, offering it to his hand. He slid a finger through the thick folds and sank it deep inside her, and she gasped and cried out a little as she bore down onto him. His thumb worked at her clitoris and she felt her legs begin to shake. She threw her arms around his neck and held on tight lest she fall.

“Do you want to show me what you learned?” Snape asked huskily, “I’ve been thinking about it since you told me, and I want you to show me what you did to Potters fingers.”

In an instant, she was on her knees on the gritty floor boards and his pants were unbuttoned, his cock protruding, hard and thick, the foreskin rolled back over the glans. She stared at it for a moment, took in the sight of it and then closed her hand around it and stroked it, letting the pre-cum act as a lubricant for her hand to move over the shaft.

“That’s good, that’s so good. I want you to suck it, put it in your mouth.”

His cock was beating strongly in her face like some kind of a weapon, and she wanted it inside her, to feel the meaty length of it in her wet pussy. She felt his hand run through her hair and he clenched a fist full of it, using it as a halter, drawing her face closer to his cock. He smelled musty and aroused and the smell was intoxicating.

She opened her lips and took his cock full into her mouth, amazed at how big it was, how it filled her, pushing her tongue back too far. He tasted strong, and she lapped at the length of him, inserting the tip of her tongue into the tiny slit at head and tasting fresh pre-cum there. A growl came from deep within him and he tightened his grip on her hair, pushing himself deeper into her throat. Hermione wanted to gag, it was too deep, but she forced the reflex down. Harry had told her she would get used to it, it just took practice – and she was certainly willing to do that.

He stood there, legs braced, his head thrown back while she lavished pleasure on him. She released her hold and pulled back, gasping for air and looked up at him, realizing his features had curled into a snarl and that he was lost in the moment. His cock swayed persistently, seeking her mouth again and she closed over him, sucking him deep, gradually milking his orgasm from him. When he came she panicked, not sure if she should pull away or swallow and in the end she took some down the back of her throat and the rest creamed over her lips and chin.

He looked down at her, covered in his come and felt a moment of shame. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket he knelt before her and gently cleaned her face, pressing gentle kisses to her cheeks, her nose, her eyes and finally her mouth.

They left the room silently, plunging into the corridor as student and hated Professor. When they reached the landing she turned towards the Great Hall for lunch and he turned in the opposite direction, towards the Infirmary, finally deciding that his leg might need seeing to.

He stopped her quickly, making certain that no one could hear them he whispered her name and she turned. Her face still looked erotic, her lips still swollen from sucking him.

“Come tonight,” he said quietly, “come, if you want to…I sleep better with you there.”

She smiled and nodded silently, then watched as he turned on his heel and swept down the corridor and away from her.

~ ~ ~

“You’re late.”

Ron knew full well he was. He’d taken his time, secretly hoping that something would happen well before the sixteenth actually came, and when it hadn’t, he’d dragged his feet, even stopping at the Hogshead for a few drinks to build his courage. “Yeah,” he said, and looked nervously to the blackness of the night sky outside, “it was hard to get away.”

“Really?” she asked sarcastically, “couldn’t get out of dinner, or were your multitude of friends holding you up at school?”

He looked away, feeling the first edges of a craving coming over his body and he shivered. Ron wondered for a moment if she had anything to ease it, a dose of her drug, as he was running out of it and had to ration out as though it were precious.

“I hate to be kept waiting,” she snapped. “You know that.”

“I know.”

“So did you have dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Good, no need to waste our time with that then.” She moved from her chair and paced a circle around him, “take your clothes off.

“Ange, I don’t think…”

She stopped in front of him and her eyes narrowed. “You seem to think that was a request. It wasn’t. Take your clothes off.”

He swallowed. “I-I can’t,” he said, “I can’t keep doing this. Please Ange, I can’t…I-I’m sick.”

“Yes,” she grinned, “but I know what will make you feel better.”  She reached into her robes and withdrew a glass phial and he felt his mouth water at the sight of the reddish liquid inside. “You want this don’t you? I can see it in your face.”

He nodded, licking his dry lips.

“So how have you been feeling? Not well? I bet your magic isn’t so strong at the moment either.”

He frowned, confused and she saw the first flicker of fear in his eyes.

“Yes, the drug affects that. It’s one of the down sides. It makes you weak when you don’t have it, it makes you sick.” She smiled, seductive. “But you still want it though, don’t you Ronnie?”

He hesitated, and slowly nodded.

She laughed softly and padded around him, stopping behind him and tracing a lazy finger across his shoulders. She liked the feel of him, she liked the way his shoulders were quite straight, the way his pale neck seemed to stoop forward and that his hair was still slightly damp from his shower. She leaned in and brushed her lips against the back of his neck, allowing herself this one small pleasure from him. He smelled clean and fresh and vaguely like talc. Probably something his mother had given him. Perhaps something he had used since childhood.

Something that felt uncomfortably like love and tenderness settled into the pit of her stomach and Angelina pushed it further down. The Weasley boys could do that; they could induce love, care and compassion in a person – and then they could just as easily destroy it. Just look at how Ron was treating his best friend.

They were all the same.

“Undress for me.”

He closed his eyes. “No,” he whispered, “I can’t.”

Her face hardened and she pulled away from him. “Undress for me, or I will undress you myself.”

“We have to stop this Angelina. We can’t keep doing this.”

“Don’t piss me off Ron, you might not like what happens to you.”

He turned away from her, and she felt her blood run cold. No, he would not walk away. She was sick of watching them walk away from her!

Ron felt a tug at his middle and suddenly he was being hauled backwards towards her, pulled by an unseen force and he wondered how it was that she was so very strong and he was suddenly so weak. The answer was of course, still in her hand. A sticky red liquid that fed his desire.

She flicked her wand, and suddenly his arms were above his head and he panicked, looking up in time to see two metal manacles lock tight around his wrists.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I told you not to piss me off.”

“What are you going to do?” He struggled against the bonds, but found his struggling only made the cuffs around his wrist tighten, his fingers started to turn blue.

“It won’t help to struggle. You are quite helpless, pathetic really.”

“This is stupid Angelina,” he cried, “let me down!”

She shook her head sadly, pointing her wand at him she laughed and said “Abdo-Induviae”

He heard the sound of tearing cloth and his robes were pulled away from him, thrown across the room and landing in a dirty heap in the corner. He looked at the meagre pile of black wool and worn white cotton. Hand-me-downs from the brother whose wife he was now a slave to. He almost smiled at the irony of it.

Angelina’s stern expression did not change and with another swish of her wand, the chain holding him to the ceiling inched up and he watched it go, stretching his arms and lifting him so that he was on the very tops of his toes. His body was stretched taut, every muscle sang out and flexed, fighting to keep him stable in a position that seemed impossible to contemplate maintaining. He had no choice however. Angelina had him bound tightly.

She jerked his face down, held him by his jaw and forced him to open his eyes. He was confronted with his own reflection in a full length mirror and he realized that this was no punishment for being late or making her angry. She had planned this all along. She had the mirror ready, no matter what he did, and Ron knew he was always going to end up like this.

He felt his mind go numb and only some base primal part seemed to be working, some instinctual function within a quagmire of fear. Disgust and shame swept over him and then rage at himself and his captor for the fact that she could just do this so casually, and he could do nothing about it. His arms ached, his wrists ground against the metal binds holding him and, to his horror, his bladder began to send out urgent messages, causing him to regret the drinks he’d had to calm his nerves.

Angelina paced around him, inspecting his lean body and finally she said thoughtfully, “you know Ronnie, I think you like this. I mean it isn’t such a high price to pay for what I can give you. Face it Ronnie, you need me.”

He most certainly didn’t need her. He hated the very sight of her. She stopped in front of him and he curled his lip and before he knew what he was doing, perhaps forgetting for the briefest of seconds just what position he was in, he spat at her.

Angelina remained calm. She knew they could be base and crude. The Weasley’s might be Purebloods, but no one would ever suspect it, the way they behaved. She wiped the saliva from her face and took a step closer.

“That wasn’t very nice Ronnie,” she chided softly. “After all I have done for you. I think you might need to learn some manners.”

She traced one small nipple and then rolled it hard between thumb and forefinger. He gasped and she smiled up at him before biting down onto the tiny bud, hard enough to make him cry out, and hard enough to draw blood. He struggled, feeling a blossom of stinging pain form on his chest and then another sensation took hold as she slid a syringe into the soft flesh of his groin and the heat of desire washed over him.

The drug was strong, pure, different, and good.

“Shhh,” she admonished, watching his eyes roll a little into his head and knowing that he would come back in a moment, once the initial rush was over. “You know you want this. You want this, don’t you Ronnie?”

His head lolled forward in a parody of a nod.

“Well, I’m going to have to hurt you, you know that don’t you? Because you have been very naughty again. Look at what you are doing, betraying your brother, by seducing his wife. That’s very bad isn’t it?”

He nodded again, and his head didn’t feel like it was on his neck any more.

“Look at what you are doing. You are here, naked, with me.” She smiled as he tried to focus on his own reflection, “and look at your cock. It’s nice and hard now.” She slid her had down the length of him and stroked him gently, “you have an incredible cock. You want to put it inside me, I know you do.”

His eyes began to clear as the euphoria died a little, he frowned, a small look that creased his features somewhat. “Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice a muffled somehow.

“Is that important?” she asked. “Maybe I like you.” She stroked him a little harder. “Do you know, I could do anything I wanted to with you right now?”

Her voice was low, but he felt the power behind it, and with the drug coursing through him, her voice was turning him on as much as her touch.

“Are you listening to me?” She snapped and slapped him, hard, across the groin, making his body jerk and bringing him back to himself in an instant. He almost let go, his urge to pee mounting by the second, and he regained control of himself just in time.

Angelina walked around him, stripping her robes off as she went. She leaned in behind him, pressing her breasts into his back and he groaned, aching for her to touch him. She laughed at the sound he made and brought her hand down across one buttock with a force that shocked him. The room resounded with the sound of the slap.

She walked away from him and picked up something from the table. He focused on her hands and his eyes widened. It was a paddle of some kind, like something he had seen in London when he had gone to Soho with Harry and Hermione. But something told him this was no flimsy Muggle paddle. She flexed it between her hands and let the flat edge go with a little twang.

Ron shuddered and followed her progress as she resumed her predatory circling of him, craning his neck around as far as he could to watch Angelina; half convinced that she was joking, and trying, successfully, to scare him.

She stopped in front of him and stood naked before him, hands on hips, her nipples hard and he could see wetness between her legs. She went down on him, taking his cock into her mouth and drawing it back deep into her throat.

Oh Gods, it was good…it was so good. “Please stop, please stop”

She worked her mouth over him, caressing his balls with the flat edge of the paddle, bringing him close to orgasm. Then just as he was close to coming, she stopped and pulled away. She stood straight and glared at him, her mouth swollen.

“You’re a horny slut,” she purred. She rubbed some pre-cum onto her fingers and pushed the fingers into his mouth so that he could taste himself. The smell from her sex rose to his nostrils. The intoxicating smell of desire. She moved to the back of him and turned him to the mirror again.

“Look at yourself, look how horny you are.”

His reflection was like an erotic view of his own personal hell. He was stretched out and pale, his body aching and aroused. He could see the evidence of his addiction rendered over his arms and legs as bruises in varying shades of black, purple and red. And she was behind him, one arm around him, stroking his cock. From behind she pressed a finger between his buttocks and the tiny mouth of his anus pursed in anticipation of the invasion. He whimpered.

“Unchain me,” he said suddenly, “unchain me and I can make love to you.”

She shook him angrily, stopping herself from laughing at his choice of words. She did not want him to love her – and she certainly didn’t want to love him. “DID I TELL YOU TO SPEAK?”

“N-no,” he faltered.

“Then don’t!”

“But I need to – “ he stopped as she gave him a warning glare.

“Shut up! You are not to speak!”

“But I need to p…”

She slapped him across the chest, his belly, his hips, and very nearly precipitating disaster. The pain was excruciating. She was lost to his sight, but he could hear, sense and feel her behind him. The pause stretched out like a yawn in the ether, while his skin burned from her first assault with the paddle, his bladder throbbed and his cock yearned for her.

Suddenly her finger pushed hard into him from behind and Ron gasped and cried out as she fingered him, finding his prostate and circling it, stroking her finger against it.

“You like this don’t you? I can tell you do. You like my fingers in your arse and yet you hate what Harry does with his lover. Do you think he does this? Do you think he does this with D…”

“I don’t know!” Ron rasped harshly. He didn’t want to talk about Harry, not now.

“They do you know. They do more than this. They finger each other, they suck each other and you hate it because you know now that it feels good. You hate it because you want him. You’ve always wanted him.”

Ron closed his eyes and felt a tear slip down his cheek. “Please, let me go.”

“SHUT UP!”

A swish and sudden draught from behind gave him scant warning, then agony bit deep into his flesh as the paddle connected with the bare flesh of his rump. He yelped, and obeyed the animal instinct to empty his body proved too great in that moment and as stinging pain engulfed him, he felt the hot urine splash against his belly and then run down over his hip.

Oh Gods no, no, please no…

The paddle landed again, lower this time, catching the crown of his leftupper thigh, then his back, his ribs, and the length of his legs, over and over again. He screamed and tears welled up, spilling over – and yet she kept going. She thrashed him, warming to the momentum, and thoroughly enjoying it. She should have thought of this sooner, should have done it to George, to Charlie, and to the whole damn lot of them. It was cleansing and liberating to hear Ron scream like that. Knowing that she was inflicting his punishment, and aware that she was causing Molly Weasley’s baby boy to scream, cry and plead.

And he was screaming, screaming loud enough to alert someone to his plight and she angrily paused long enough to cast a silencing charm, before resuming in earnest. Who knew he could scream like that? That fucking loud!

When she stopped he hung limp and silent and she smiled, out of breath. She pushed her hair back from her face and wiped her own spittle from her chin.

“You still with me Ronnie?”

He groaned softly, telling her that yes, he was still there.

She plunged three fingers into him, rotating her fingers around his prostate until he came, yelled and wanted to die for the shame of it.

She lowered the chain and he managed to find his feet. His arms were released and they fell limp and sore by his sides. She walked away and picked up the rags that were all that remained of his robes, and threw them at him. He shook as he wrapped himself in them. She had seen him at his weakest point. He had screamed, pissed and come in front of her; he had no dignity left. He had nothing left to salvage.

“Next time,” she said matter of factly, “you will be on time, won’t you Ronnie?”

He nodded silently, too ashamed to speak.

“Because I have been very forgiving of you. I mean, I could have gone to George.”

He nodded again, wondering which fate would be worse.

~ ~ ~

Semeuse tapped the front of the mirror and whispered his angel’s name. It had been a long time since he had created a magic mirror and he had begun to give up on the task. Using a bowl to peer into the Edrasil would have to suffice, although a mirror had the benefit of being larger and far more easily accessible. In the end he sought out and found a partially made one from the various collections in the Museum and he finished it using a hard based Planetary Tincture and the Edrasil carrier. The result stood before him. Full length and ornate, it was his visual portal to his obsessions.

The surface of the mirror seemed almost to liquefy and change, and then suddenly Lucius was there in front of him.

The Curators heart swelled and felt as though it would burst with longing. Lucius lay in the bed, sleeping soundly. Peaceful and alone. Semeuse hadn’t seen him since he’d Apparated back to the traveling exhibition five days before. He was desperate to return to London. He could not go, not during the week at least. It would not do to allow the Aurors to let suspicions grow and thus he let duty keep him away. He would go to the Museum on the weekend, he would have to. He watched Lucius sleep, his heart racing and desire pulling him closer to the glass.

A glance at the clock told him that the Museum Elves were late. He had tasked them with the meticulous care of his beloved. He had told them that this was the most precious of things and that they must attend to him as though the Curator was there to supervise – which he was – the Elves just weren’t aware of that fact.

He waited patiently and they finally appeared. Three of them looked anxiously at the Angel’s body as though afraid of it, and then quickly set to work. The blankets were removed and dirty linen taken away and changed. Semeuse silently urged them on, aching for them to get to Lucius himself. They seemed pointedly to avoid touching him, a little afraid. He could understand why. Many of the Elves who worked at the Museum had been freed from their families – and some incident, years before, had freed many of them from the Malfoy Manor. The Elves were essentially tending their old Master – and they obviously remembered him well.

He can’t hurt you little Elves, but I can, so get on with it…

The Elves moved on to Lucius, finding their courage and lifting him to a sitting position, his head fell forward and one of the Elves was almost entirely engulfed in hair. They quickly removed the shift and lay him back into the pillows and set about cleaning him, their deft fingers working fast over the pale flesh.

Semeuse smiled and felt his cock harden at the sight of the naked body played out before him. He longed to touch him, longed to run his own hands over that smooth skin. He had always been the one to clean his Angel, it was his task and one he had longed for. To watch others do this was like torture. To just observe others running their hands over him, combing his hair, and cutting his nails, or as they moved his limbs to stimulate nerves and muscle…it was almost too much to bear.

Oh Gods, he is so beautiful.

Semeuse wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold him, take his body and taste the clean flesh. He knew how Lucius would taste, he knew that the flesh would be salty and somehow sweet. He knew his lips would be soft and his spit would taste vaguely of honey.

Much the same way his son’s spit had tasted.

The son. Now there was a problem. The boy had petitioned the Ministry to have his father returned and the idiotic Fudge was actually considering it. He had been to see Semeuse only the day before and it had taken hours of persuasion to ensure that the Angel wasn’t handed over on the spot. Semeuse had submitted a counter claim, saying that for the good of the Wizarding world, the son should not have him. Fudge had mentioned some kind of trouble recently, something in the papers, but Semeuse was refusing to read the Daily Prophet or its gossiping counterparts, and he was certain it would be nothing of any real interest.

Semeuse had sent the Edrasil to Hogwarts with his most trusted owl, who had managed to avoid being intercepted and had dropped the liquid directly over the boy’s window sill. To the Curators eternal dismay, the view down from the windowsill was of a chair, a fireplace and a bookshelf – all from above. When he did see the room’s occupant it was usually only a fleeting glimpse and Semeuse was learning little of the boy’s habits.

One thing that was patently obvious was that Draco Malfoy shared a room with his lover, a boy the same age as Draco himself, with a head of tangled black hair that seemed to stick out in all directions. He was strangely slight, giving the appearance of fragility and strength, all in the one body. Occasionally the dark haired boy would appear, naked, his skinny hips seemingly too narrow for his broad, angular shoulders and when he caught the occasional glimpse of lightly tanned skin, Semeuse felt a rush of pleasure run through him.

The Angels son kept himself infuriatingly covered. When he did go to the bookshelf, or sit in front of the fire, he was wrapped tightly in his robes, as though self-conscious, or perhaps aware that he was being watched. The angle of the vision was such that it was always above them and Semeuse was disappointed that he could never really see their faces. He would have liked to have seen his face, to ensure that the boy was as like his father as Semeuse remembered him to be.

Semeuse watched the room rarely, preferring to focus on his Angel. His vision of perfection, lying in his bed so very far away. The Elves had pulled a fresh shift over his head and were smoothing it down over his body, hiding him from the world. Carefully they drew the blankets up over him and it was only then that they realized he was awake and staring straight ahead. They looked at him for a moment as though expecting him to move and hit one of them, but he lay perfectly still, impotent to stop them as one placed a perfectly executed kick into his ribs.

The Curator stood, roared, and Apparated. He had obviously been away too long.

~ ~ ~

“You have to tell Potter that Professor Dumbledore has decided to confine the pair of you to the school.”

“What?” Draco had just arrived in Snape’s chambers hoping to hear that his godfather had found more in Lucius’ journal. Draco did not want to know that he was officially stuck in the school. “Why? What have we done?”

“Nothing, Hogsmeade is crawling with photographers from the Daily Prophet all trying to get a picture of the pair of you together and Albus is trying to avoid that.” Snape smiled thinly. “Also, Potter’s post has taken a decidedly – sexual – turn, it seems there are a large number of Wizards out there who wouldn’t mind doing what you do and want to prove that they can…and…it appears they have set up camp in Hogsmeade as well.” 

Fuck.

“Now, do you know anyone by the name of Regina Vermoral?”

Draco scowled, thought about it, and shook his head.

“She’s a Muggle, in her early thirties, and people might think she is a little odd.”

“Odd how?”

“Crazy.”

“Why would I know a Muggle nutter? The only nutter I know of is that woman in the village near home with all the cats, but she’s really old.”

Snape knew the cat lady well enough. When he was young, Lucius used to pay him to sneak up and charm her plants so that she thought they were talking to her. He nudged back an irritating shame that suggested that they might be responsible for some of her madness.

“No, not her, this woman would be young, possibly attractive, someone your father…knew.”

“Someone my dad shagged? A Muggle? Dad wouldn’t shag a Muggle.”

“Draco, take the rose colored glasses off for one moment. When it came to your father the words ‘anything with a pulse’ took on new meaning.”

Draco folded his arms and scowled a little harder. “He wasn’t that bad. He did have his standards.”

“Yes, low ones.”

“Not at all, he liked beauty and intelligence. If someone was stupid he didn’t mind so long as they were beautiful, and vice versa. If someone was ugly but intelligent he liked them too.”

Snape sneered, not entirely convinced.

“He shagged you didn’t he?”

Snape’s eyes widened, and he was momentarily struck dumb.

“I know lots of things Uncle Severus.”

Evidently. Snape cleared his throat, deciding not to pursue the line of questioning any further. Draco, however, seemed reluctant to let it go.

“He always had a soft spot for you. It must have been a real shock when he found out you had betrayed him.”

Snape frowned again, his relationship with Lucius was not something he wanted to discuss here. “I think he understood more than you realize.” He stroked the journal protectively, “Now if you don’t mind, I would like to get back to Regina Vermoral.”

“Alright.” Draco sat himself down and traced a pattern on the cover of a dusty book, “why do you want to know about her.”

“Because I think she is the one whom your father went to when he was looking to make the potion that he took. If we can find her, and she’s still alive, I’m hoping we can get her to tell us how he did it.”

“Why would she be dead?”

“He may have killed her when he got what he wanted. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Non would know.”

“The House Elf?”

Draco nodded. “Dad told Non everything because he was bound to keep his secrets.”

A House Elf, of all things. Typical of Lucius, he wanted to tell his secrets, so he told them to the one being that would be harder to break than Gringotts. Even Elves who hated their Masters were hard to convince to talk; Non was something completely different. Non was entirely devoted to Lucius Malfoy, and he was also intelligent, not a quality highly prized in House Elves, but certainly prized in Non. He was not going to tell the secret willingly and he certainly wasn’t going to be tricked to give it up. It would be easier to remove the giant squid’s tonsils than get that Elf to talk.

“Would he tell you?”

Draco shrugged, “Maybe, if Dad told him he could.”

“Can you summon him?”

“No, Non is bound to the house. I can go there.”

“No you can’t. Dumbledore has confined you to the school.”

“Yeah, so I’ll sneak out.”

Snape sighed, “Actually, you can’t. Dumbledore has cast wards around both you and Potter. You wouldn’t get out the front gate.”

Oh you have got to be joking. Draco opened his mouth to let fly with a stream of insults and remarks, Snape stopped him before the first words made it past his lips.

“What if I go and get him?”

“He’ll probably scratch your eyes out trying to stay at the house.”

Oh Good Grief! “I will have to try and find a way.”

~ ~ ~

12 February 1999

Dear Miss Granger

Please find enclosed a summons to attend the trial of one Viktor Krum that has been scheduled for Friday 26 March, 1999. The charges relating to this matter are of Attempted Murder, Assault and Attempted Rape on your person. Please be advised that if you do not respond to this summons or fail to appear at the Ministry of Magic on Friday, 26 March 1999, Mr. Krum will receive a full pardon and be allowed to return to his home country a free man.

If you have any queries regarding this summons please do not hesitate to contact our office.

Sincerely,

Anya Zohar

Secretary

Ministry of Magic.

~ ~ ~

12 February 1999

Dear Mr. Malfoy

With regards to your petition no. ∑∏∆∏≡∂

After careful consideration the Ministry of Magic have reached a decision regarding the transferal of Prisoner No. XX∆∏∂, Mr. Lucius Malfoy, to your custody.

At this time the Ministry believes we cannot place Mr. Malfoy in your custody. Your schooling commitments, health problems and recent revelations in the press have led the Ministry to believe that you would be unable to create a suitable environment for the prisoner. As such, temporary custody has been granted to Mr. Archibald Semeuse, Curator of the Museum of Magical Arts and Antiquities.

You have 30 days in which to appeal this decision.

Sincerely,

Anya Zohar

Secretary

Ministry of Magic.

~ ~ ~

Ron made his way back from Hogsmeade with the first feeling of hope that had entered his body in a month. She was leaving. Tomorrow morning she would be gone and he wouldn’t have to see her again. Not until the summer, and by then he could reasonably expect to get himself a decent job and get as far away from her as possible.

Once upon a time he had hoped to work with his brothers, but now the idea seemed absurd. He doubted he’d ever be able to look George in the face again, nor would he ever be able to sit at the family table without feeling guilt over what he had done.

He wondered if she was as cruel and hard with George, or whether it was a punishment reserved for him and him alone. A punishment for his own duplicity. Thinking back now, he couldn’t even recall why he had wanted her, or what had made him think of her as a lover, but it must have occurred to him at some point, because he had seduced her. He must have seduced her, she told him that he had, and she kept telling him it was all his fault.

“You seduced me,” she said and he had agreed with her, so it must be true.

Tonight she had been gentle with him. Loving even. He grimaced at the memory of it, and then couldn’t help but laugh at himself. In a way he hated that she was loving, hated that more than when she caused him pain. When she was loving he was forced to confront himself and confront the fact that he liked it. When she was loving he wanted her. He wanted to kiss her, caress her, and feel himself inside the confines of her body. When she was gentle he sought her touch and felt some comfort in it. He could almost pretend that she could possibly love him and that she was not his brothers wife, but some other woman entirely, someone who was entirely his.

And the very idea of being that way with her made him physically ill.

He could smell her all over him, taste her sex in his mouth. She had taken him on the floor and his body was covered in a fine film of sweat and grime. He felt filthy. Beneath his robes his shoulder throbbed and he knew that the fresh puncture wound was oozing blood and pus down his arm. He needed to shower.

By the time he reached the castle it was late, well after two in the morning, and even the ghosts seemed to be resting. His footsteps made a hollow sound as he trod across the flagstones and mounted the stairs to the tower. The staircase had never seemed so impossibly long. He had noticed it in the past weeks, that they had become harder to climb and tonight he found himself stopping to catch his breath, looking up at the seeming never-ending spiral and wishing he had his broom. By the time he reached the picture hole to the Common Room he was sweating and his sweat stank of something feral, like something evil lurking beneath his skin.

He made for the showers, his mind so suddenly consumed with ridding himself of the stench that he didn’t bother to remove his robes. He pulled them wet from his body and dumped them in a puddle of water and wool on the floor. He let the water run over his body, turning the hot tap up as far as it would go until steam filled the room and his skin was red raw. But still he could smell her. A sob wrenched from his body and he scrubbed, digging his fingers into his flesh and trying desperately to scratch her out of his veins.

It wouldn’t come out. He could feel her coursing through him as sure as the drug itself, and then his veins opened and the holes in his arms gave way and his arms streaked red in the water.

Ron smiled. It was coming out, the drug was coming out. That was good, that was a good thing.

But it wasn’t the drug, it was blood…and Charlie wasn’t here to make it better. Ron turned the shower off and stood there, letting his body cool and watched, entranced, as the blood stopped and all that remained were the bruises. As though the blood had never been there at all.

Oh Gods, look at the state of me.

He began to shiver as the cold air filtered through the steam, and then he lost sense of himself and sank down to the floor.

~ ~ ~

Semeuse tangled his fingers in his Angel’s hair and drew him close. His body was warm and pliable, and thanks to their recent swimming, he was regaining some of the muscles that had begun to waste away. He was still far too thin, but there was little the Curator could do about that. Forcing food down his Angel’s throat was not an option.

Still, he brought him offerings, and with Valentines Day so very close, he had chosen chocolate to try and tempt Lucius into eating. He dipped a finger into the melted pot of fudge and smeared a thin film of it along his Angel’s inner lip. Lucius’ pink rag of a tongue instinctively came out to taste it and Semeuse smiled.

“Yes, that’s right, it’s chocolate. Do you remember chocolate?”

Lucius did not answer and after a moment a thin stream of chocolaty drool ran down his chin. Semeuse smiled indulgently and licked it away.

“Would you like to see what Draco is doing?”

He had brought the mirror with him, a Valentines gift that he was willing to give early. After watching the room with greater care, Semeuse had discovered that the boy would sit in front of the fire and read every night for hours. He was like clock work. He would sit there, late at night, engrossed in whatever book had taken his fancy and he would stay there until his lover returned and called him to bed.

It was a view that Semeuse hoped would excite Lucius. The vision of his son with his knees curled up under him, reading peacefully. Something that would perhaps give his Angel comfort until Semeuse could get the boy here, and the pair could be together.

“He reads,’ Semeuse explained as he moved the mirror into place, “and he looks so lovely, I thought you might like to watch him.”

He tapped the surface of the mirror and waited as the glass changed to reveal the familiar contours of the boy’s room.

Except this wasn’t familiar, not familiar at all! Instead of Draco quietly reading as Semeuse expected he would be, the vision came clear and they were confronted with the sight of two boys fucking against the book case.

A smile spread across the Curators face and he crawled back to Lucius, never taking his eyes from the mirror. The dark haired one, the lover, was spread across the book case, the edge of his buttocks on one of the shelves, his legs hooked over Draco’s elbows. He had braced himself, holding onto the edges of the shelf for support and Draco was pumping hard into him. Hard enough to unsettle the contents of the shelf, books, photographs and trinkets were raining down on them.

Draco was half dressed, his clothes askew and Semeuse couldn’t help but wonder if he was ever naked. The lover was deliciously naked, and taking the boy deep into him.

“Look at them Lucius,” Semeuse breathed. From what he could see of their faces the pair looked caught between ecstasy and torture. “Look at how they want it, look at how they are loving it.”

Lucius stared and Semeuse thought for a moment he could discern a change in the Angel’s expression. He was watching, aware of what he was seeing.

“Is he warm inside Lucius? As warm as you? Look at him, strong and dominant; he can’t get deep enough into the boy can he? Is he like you in that respect; is that something you taught him?”

He slid a hand up the Angel’s thigh and gently began to knead his soft cock until it slowly hardened.

“You like this? Do you like watching your son while I touch you?” He stroked Lucius a little harder, “We can watch him together. When he gets here, you can watch me move inside of him. Would you like that?”

Semeuse swept his gaze back to the mirror and the intimate scene contained there and gently began to masturbate Lucius with skillful hands. The boys in the mirror were cresting, he could see by the urgency with which they moved their hips. They would orgasm soon and Semeuse waited for that moment, hoping that perhaps they would lift their faces a little, show him how beautiful they were.

“Do you think we will see him Lucius, Draco’s lover? Perhaps we might see him tonight, see if his face is pretty enough for our boy…or do you know who he is already? Do you know if he is beautiful enough?”

Draco came, shoving hard into his lover and the dark haired boy screamed and clutched at Draco’s shoulders. He lifted his face, and Semeuse moved forward in anticipation as his eyes opened and there was a flash of brilliant green…and the mirror shattered.

Semeuse turned back to the Angel whose face was hard, as though he had been concentrating for a long time.

“Lucius!” He growled it out, ominous as anger flashed over him, “you are a very naughty boy.”

~ ~ ~

Harry yawned and scratched then regretted the pint of water he’d had to drink before bed. His body ached a little. It was a pleasant ache, one that told him he’d been shagged senseless and that he should be back in bed curled around Draco. He had no idea how Draco managed to down so much water before bed and actually manage to sleep through the night – not that they had been doing much sleeping for the last hour. Harry wouldn’t mind so much except that now Draco was advising Harry drink the same amount and now it was 2am and Harry was desperate to pee.

He was surprised to hear the sound of running water when he entered the bathroom. Someone obviously deciding to have a late night shower. The sound of it only increased Harry’s need to relieve himself and he almost skipped to the urinal. The water stopped shortly after and Harry was relieved when the bathroom fell into silence.

He stood at the urinal and resisted the urge to rub sleep from his eyes. He didn’t want to wake up fully; he just wanted to go back to bed and bask in the pool of warmth Draco created beneath the covers. He smiled dopily, thinking of Draco mumbling something unintelligible to him when he got up and then rolling over to resume snoring softly. He had to admit it, Ron kicking him out of their room had been a blessing disguised in a nasty wrapper. Harry loved the fact that he had ready access to Draco’s body and he sometimes found himself sitting up in bed at night, watching Draco sleep, gently stroking his hair and almost crying with happiness.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound that came from the showers and Harry braced himself for whomeverit might be. He hoped they wouldn’t say anything, as he was in a good mood and he really wasn’t up for a fight tonight.

But no-one came out. Harry frowned and listened. There was definitely someone there; he’d heard the shower running, and the only way out of the bathroom was to go through the toilets, so no one had come out. He listened carefully, straining his ears to hear and finally he made out the sound. Like a sob. Like someone crying.

He had vague visions of some poor sod that had fallen over in the shower and was lying there in pain until morning because Harry was reluctant to investigate. He sighed, washed his hands and walked slowly to the showers, hoping that who ever it was wouldn’t take his being there the wrong way.

“Ron?”

It was Ron, of course it was, Harry could hardly mistake him. He was sitting on the floor of the shower stall, knees drawn up to his chest, soaking wet and rocking back and forth. He shivered with cold and as he raised his eyes to Harry he seemed absent, as though he wasn’t really seeing him at all.

Harry quickly grabbed a towel and, crouching before Ron, he wrapped it around his friends shivering form. He couldn’t fail to notice the livid bruises that marred Ron’s arms and legs. They looked like puncture wounds. Some were old, some horribly fresh.

“What’s wrong? What happened to you?”

Ron didn’t speak, he didn’t seem to realize that Harry was there. Harry wrapped a second towel around him and tried to pull him forward, out of the cold water on the tiled floor. He rocked forward, almost collapsing into Harry’s arms, his wet cheek crushing against Harry’s shoulder and he lay that way for a long while, seemingly content to shiver there, drawing some of Harry’s strength and calming his breathing to a slow measured pace.

Harry didn’t speak. He moved, going down to his knees on the wet floor and holding Ron tightly, feeling him shiver in his arms and wondering what had caused this, why he was here, and what had happened? At last he had to break the silence, needing to know what was wrong, needing to know how he could help fix this.

“What happened Ron?” Harry whispered and his stomach twisted as Ron tensed as he really heard Harry’s voice for the first time and realized just what he was doing. Ron pulled back, almost tearing himself from Harry’s arms.

“Ron…” Harry knew this was hopeless, he could see from the look on Ron’s face, “please, just tell me what happened.”

“Get away from me,” Ron hissed, “get your filthy hands off me!”

“Ron.” Harry shook his head in dismay, but decided he needed to push on. “We are worried about you, Hermione and I…”

“Spare me your concern, I don’t need it.”

“Something’s going on with you. If you just tell me what is going on I might be able to help you!”

“Ever the hero eh Harry?” Ron sneered, “The only help you could possibly give me is to leave me the fuck alone. Why don’t you run back to the ferret? He might want to butt fuck you some time soon.”

Harry stood up and began to walk away, but he forced himself to stop, and turned to face Ron who was still on the floor looking like an injured animal. “Why are you so determined to push away the people who actually care about you?”

“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have started fucking that son of a bitch.”

So there it was. Draco. Not that he was gay, but that it was Draco.

“What are the bruises on your arms and legs?”

“None of your fucking business, so just fuck off.”

“I can tell you what they look like.”

“JUST FUCK OFF!”

“You look like a fucking junkie, Ron.”

Ron stood quickly and advanced on Harry, catching Harry completely off guard. He hadn’t expected Ron to move so damned fast, whilst a moment ago he just didn’t look capable of doing anything. Ron’s face was a mask of pure, unadulterated, hate.

“Listen, you filthy little faggot,” Ron spat the words out, his face so close to Harry’s that spittle flecked his cheek, “if I want your fucking concern or your filthy fucking opinions I’ll ask for them. Now fuck off back to that disgusting piece of shit you sleep with and leave me the fuck ALONE!”

Harry’s eyes narrowed and he took a step back from the man in front of him. The realization came like a bolt from the blue; at that moment he didn’t care if Ron lived or died. Harry turned on his heel and stormed from the showers.

~ ~ ~

Semeuse took a step back from the bed and his hands involuntarily flew to his face. He couldn’t believe what he had done; he couldn’t believe that he had damaged a specimen so precious! Returning to the bed and running his shaking fingers lightly over the rapidly bruising face, he knew it was true.

His anger had taken him by surprise. His sudden feeling that Lucius was never happy, and that Lucius had willfully destroyed something that he had crafted with such loving care. His only portal to keep himself sane when he was not here withLucius. He had lashed out, and it was such a base reaction, something Archibald Semeuse would never have considered possible for himself to do. Just what was the Angel doing to him? How could he be driven into such a rage?

The cheekbone was broken; he could see that without feeling the bone. They would need a healer, and fast. One that wouldn’t ask questions.

He gently stroked Lucius’ hair back from his face and wondered if he should Enervate him or leave him unconscious until help arrived. He knew a healer, someone from the nether regions of Knockturn Alley who would come and fix this – with a price tag for his silence.

Semeuse summoned an Elf, one he trusted and who was bound to him and sent him on his mission. He then returned his attention to Lucius, stroking his shoulder, his throat, and his damaged cheek.

“I’m sorry my darling one,” he kissed the hard bone of his shoulder, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I should not have hit you. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

He looked back to the broken mirror and felt a rising dismay. Lucius was going to have to be tamed for a bit, especially if Semeuse was going to get the boy here. While he liked the fact that Lucius could think and was aware, the fact that he could do magic, however hard it was for him to do so, was going to cause a problem.

He was going to have to look into binding spells.

~ ~ ~

Angelina had been tempted to stay in Hogsmeade another night. It was a temptation she considered a weakness on her part, but she couldn’t afford to have them, not now when she was so close to finishing everything. She had found Ron’s body to be far more pleasurable than she would ever have hoped, and on their last night together she could not help but be loving and gentle. She wanted to kiss him, wanted it to be like it had been with Charlie – before his family got in the way. Her desires to love him were mere conflict on her part, and when all was said and done, she knew that this was one temptation she would have to forgo.

She had always known that this moment would come eventually, and to continue with Ron for her own pleasure had not been part of the plan. The time had come and she simply had to steal her courage and finish this.

But the knowledge that she had to end it did not help her feel any better about what she had done to him. She hadn’t expected to feel sad when she looked at his pale form, marred by bruises, broken skin and riddled with an addiction that she had caused. Still, she knew that the blame lay with his family. The Weasley’s had caused it all. If they hadn’t been so damn suffocating, and if that bitch of a mother hadn’t torn Charlie from her – as though Angelina was nothing. Who were they to be so very high and mighty? Who were they to pass judgment on her? She had loved him last night and that should be enough. It was her apology, or at least the best he was going to get from her. Beyond that she could feel nothing.

Ron was hers to do with as she chose now. She had taken him from being an awkward lover to being a skilled one; that would be her legacy to him. If all else failed he could always become a whore. In fact it was a fate she thought might be a good one – a constant shame to the family, and a purulent thorn in their sides. She was ready to go ahead with her plan, and Ron was ready for it. His addiction had made him paranoid and pliable to her will. She had convinced him easily that he had instigated the affair, that it was all his fault, and that he had been the one. The betrayer. If anyone ever asked him questions about it, he would agree with her version of events.

She smiled as she considered the fact that all of her work was about to come to fruition. The Weasley’s, who had been the destroyers of her happiness, were about to get a lesson in family loyalties. She would destroy them for humiliating her. She would tear at the very fabric of what made them strong, and she would enjoy tearing the family apart.

She had often gone over in her head the possible ways that the family would stand. In the end she had decided that Ginny might well stay on Ron’s side, as she had always looked up to him and they were closer to each other’s ages. Fred would obviously go with George, while Bill would sit on the fence, Arthur would bury his head in the sand and pretend it wasn’t happening and Molly…the smile of Angelina’s face broadened…Molly would respond in anger, as she always did. Molly would lash out without thinking and hopefully cause some kind of irretrievable family rift.

Then the news of the family strife would filter to the press (no doubt aided by an anonymous nudge of her own) and Arthur would lose the up coming Ministry election and would be buried in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office for the rest of his days.

The family would be ruined – and all because of one stupid little boy.

It was perfect.

The plan had come about easily enough. She’d had the idea one night after another family dinner where Fred and George swapped roles to confuse their mother. The woman was easily confused, as Angelina could tell the pair apart, so how come their mother couldn’t? Molly kept glaring at her, no doubt finding a multitude of faults to pick at and Angelina suddenly knew what to do. She looked at Ron, laughing like a twit, and back to the twins, and slowly she had let her face changed, sadden, and then she had sighed. Later she had gone to Ron and sobbingly confessed that she suspected his brother of having an affair. Could they talk, perhaps have a drink some night? She really could use a friendly ear.

And so she took Ron’s comfort and twisted it to meet her own needs. Seducing him was easy, a simple of matter of slipping a potion into his drink and making sure he felt that he had suggested it. She would play the good wife for the first time. She would cry and she would leave him, and then she would step it up. They shared a secret, a secret he was terrified of her confessing. Getting the drug into him was another simple step and once it was there, it wouldn’t take much. Addiction was guaranteed. The drug made him weak, and she had also placed an antibody for an ancient disease into it, something to wear away at his immune system and then bulked the drug up with a steroid that would keep him able to function. The disease would not kill him, just make him ill and unable to fight the drug in his system.

Angelina now had her pawn in place. He was guilty of sleeping with his brother’s wife and that would be enough to have the family shut him out and then the manipulation would come about. She knew Molly Weasley well enough to know that she would never admit him back into the fold

She would leave them to stagger under the loss of a son who was not dead, but was dead to them. George might never miss her, but he would miss his brother. She hoped George never recovered his trust in any of them.

She arrived back at the place she had called her home for three years and quickly removed her smile, adopting her very best hurt wife expression and seeking out her husband.

“Did you miss me?”

He jumped, obviously not expecting her home so soon. He smiled broadly; “Ange! I thought you weren’t coming back until next weekend.”

“I bet that put a damper on your plans, especially with Valentines Day being tomorrow.”

George couldn’t help but sigh. She had that tone of voice on, and that look of her face. “How was Hogsmeade?” he asked warily, pushing his work aside lest it get in the way of the fight he could see was brewing in her.

“Good, very pleasurable.”

He frowned a little, but smiled hopefully. “Good, I’m glad you enjoyed it. You should have stayed the extra week, given yourself a bit of a holiday.”

“You would have liked that, wouldn’t you?”

“No, of course not.” George resisted the urge to roll his eyes. When she was in one of these moods there was no reasoning with her. “All I meant was that you should take a break, you work really hard, and you need a rest.”

“Oh yeah right, all concerned for me are you?”

“Of course, I…”

“And it has nothing to do with Marbella Ronda being London?”

“Marbella Ronda?” He did roll his eyes now, unable to believe that she had come back with this in her head. “Fucking hell Ange, not this again.”

“Not this again? Perhaps if you stopped seeing her it might have gone away, but you had to persist with it, didn’t you?”

George pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fend off the headache that was looming. He couldn’t understand where this had come from. It had started months ago, just after she had started working with the Muggle drugs for St Mungo’s. Suddenly this woman, this Marbella Ronda had appeared ,and he was supposedly having an affair. At first, he thought she had mistaken him for Fred somehow and that it was girl Fred was seeing…which would have been great, except he knew full well that Fred was as gay as the hills…and Marbella Ronda was definitely a woman, not some Drag-Queen that Fred might have dragged home.

“Angelina, we have been through this so many times now, I don’t know anyone named Marbella Ronda, you are the only person I have been with.”

“Do you think I am a complete idiot? I’m well aware of what has been going on!”

“And what exactly do you think has been going on?” George almost grabbed her and shook her, she was glaring back at him, her face hard.

“Alright, tell me if this sounds familiar. Your mother, who hates the sight of me, introduced you to Marbella Ronda last year and you have been having an affair with her ever since.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about! My mother hasn’t introduced me to anyone!”

“Your Mother wants you to leave me and marry that bitch!”

“My Mother wants you to get pregnant and have babies; she doesn’t want to get rid of you!” George began to pace, trying to think of a way to reason with his wife who had, in the past few months seemed to have lost any sense of reason she might have had. “How could I have been having an affair, I’m always at home with you.”

“YOU FUCKING LIAR! You get Fred to stay here with me, you get him to pretend he is you! Didn’t you think I’d notice? Didn’t you think I’d notice he wasn’t you?”

George stared at her in amazement, his mouth worked open and closed a few times. “You’re insane, you’re completely fucking insane!”

“Oh really?” She smirked, like a child with a  secret it was about to reveal, “Ron doesn’t think so.”

“What does Ron have to do with this?”

“He knows about Marbella Ronda, he knows about your dirty little games. He told me all about them.”

“Ron? Ron told you I was having an affair with Marbella Ronda?” George couldn’t believe it. It was impossible, “why would he do that?”

“Because he understands me, and he’s not going to lie to me just because you’re his brother.”

“But…” George scowled, it didn’t make any sense, “but he’s lying. I don’t know this woman, and I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Ron thinks you do.”

“Then Ron is full of shit! Since when did you start listening to anything Ron says?”

“Since he started doing things for me that you haven’t managed for a long time.”

George felt his heart suddenly freeze in his chest and he stared at his wife who was looking triumphant and defiant at him. When he found his voice he rasped out, barely above a whisper. “What…what have you done with Ron?”

“Nothing I haven’t already done with you, although I have to say he has an incredible cock, I could just suck on it all day. He likes that, he likes my mouth on him. He makes me get down on my knees and he pushes it right into my th…”

“You…you and…Ron?” No, that was impossible. Ron would never do that. Ron wouldn’t lie to her, Ron wouldn’t convince her that he was having an affair just to get her into his bed. Ron was his brother; he just simply wouldn’t do this.

“Why do you think I wanted to go to Hogsmeade?” She asked bitterly, “Ron knew we could be together there without having to worry about you walking in on us. Christmas was a nightmare, all that sneaking around.”

“Christmas? You were with him at Christmas? IN MY PARENT’S HOUSE?”

“In his childhood room at that. He likes it when I’m on top so I can ride him. His cock is so huge, I can feel it right up inside me when we make love that way.”

George felt his legs go and he leaned heavily against the fire place. “You fucked my brother.” He wasn’t sure if he was saying it to her or just to the air so that he could hear the words.

“So now you know what it feels like. Now you know how it feels to be the idiot sitting at home, waiting for someone who is out screwing around. Now you know how it feels to be the one left in the dark!”

“I’ve never had an affair,” he said, defeated, “I’ve never cheated on you.” 

“That’s not what Ron says.”

“WELL FUCK RON!” he looked her up and down in disgust, and said with bitter sarcasm; “oh wait a minute, you already did!”

“He told me not to tell you…he said you wouldn’t understand. He’s right though. It is one rule for you and another for every body else. You can fuck around as much as you want but you expect me t….”

“I DIDN’T FUCKING CHEAT ON YOU! IF RON TOLD YOU THAT HE IS LYING TO YOU.”

“Why would Ron lie to me?”

“TO GET YOU INTO BED YOU DAFT COW!” George stopped and buried his face in his hands. He’d started to cry with frustration, but he couldn’t remember the tears starting. How could Ron have done this, how could Ron have betrayed him like this? He tried to calm himself, to reason with her. “Ange, I’ve not cheated on you, there is no other woman. Ron has lied to you.”

“No…” she shook her head, “You’re the liar; you always have been.”

George felt his body begin to numb. He felt empty, and hollow somehow. Angelina was turning and walking away from him, from the life they had made. He watched her going as though he were watching a vision of a catastrophe and being wholly unable to stop it. He didn’t want to lose her – he loved her. How was he going to get by without her? To think of her with his brother tortured him, imagining her twisted around Ron, kissing him, licking him, sucking him…his brother!

It seemed to him that he had always been supported by her clarity and conviction and it had kept him grounded. He had feared to bend to her world, perhaps he thought that to do so would cause him to lose her bearings, and instead it had caused him to lose her. Their relationship had always been volatile.

But his brother? His treacherous brother.

He did not run after her. He did not, as he considered doing, plead with her to stay. He considered calling her back, but instead let her go, not wanting to see her face again. His mind turned to the one who man he had once thought he could trust with her.

Ron.

He had delivered her to him!

Ron who had filled her head with lies and was the one to blame for the demise of his marriage. Months of fighting could be laid at Ron’s door. False accusations about a woman he had never even met – all Ron’s creation.

George slid to the floor, shut his eyes and listened as the front door closed and his wife walked out of his life.

Chapter 14 >>