Two to Lead

Chapter 27: Sex, Lies and Vampires

"Di rider finerai

Pria dell'aurora."

(You will be done laughing

before dawn.)

-Don Giovanni

*******

"I don't think she's coming, milord," Lucius said as tactfully as he could. Standing around for three hours in a forest ruining his favorite pair of boots was not his idea of a worthwhile pursuit. He cast another drying spell even though it withered the dragon hide.

"She'll come. They people don't understand time the way that we do, Lucius."

"Yes, milord." Lucius combed his hands through his hair, cursing the humidity. The English climate was truly murder on one's hair. He'd be better off in a more temperate environment, but that would mean either exposing his skin to more sunlight or regularly applying the proper potions to protect it, when the potions themselves tended to dry out his skin, leaving him vulnerable to the possibility of fine lines around his eyes, which meant he'd have to apply an anti-wrinkle potion regularly that couldn't be used in conjunction with the sun protection potion or else it could cause blackheads. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Keeping himself looking youthful involved far too much compromise and choosing between the lesser of two evils for his Malfoy blood.

Malfoys didn't compromise. And they always chose the greater of two evils.

"Voh-dee-mort," a girlish voice said. Lucius turned around to see an innocent-looking Japanese schoolgirl, her skirt falling to mid-thigh, hair in pigtails with red ribbons adorning them, sucking on a lollipop and smiling at them coquettishly.

"Sakura," the Dark Lord said as warmly as he ever said anything. "It's always nice to see you." His red eyes gleamed in what Lucius feared might be a come-hither way. He found himself unable to find fault with this disgusting little interchange. Eyeing the girl's slim thighs, ample hips, high, perky breasts and the teasing hint of cleavage at the vee of her blouse, Lucius found that he was the forty-something equivalent of horny.

Sakura pulled out her lollipop and giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand. "We are very preezed wiss you, Voh-dee-mort. She did not know the purpose of the attack. She did not sense us. We llllike very much what you have done for us."

"I still haven't received any guarantees, Sakura."

Dropping her eyes to the ground, the girl shifted her weight to one hip, cocking her head to the side. "We do not give guarantees, Voh-dee-mort."

"I have done as you asked," the Dark Lord said coldly.

"Yes," Sakura said, gazing at him through her eyelashes, her lips parting slightly. "And as you have asked, we are considering your propositions." Demurely, she lowered her eyes to her lollipop. "But we did not have to ask. We could have taken the dark creatures on our own. You cannot expect the same respect in return."

"Dumbledore already has another Guardian on his side. I was under the impression that you wanted to balance the situation."

"We do," Sakura said, sucking on her lollipop thoughtfully. "But you haven't yet given us a reason for that ballllance to come through you."

"What other options do you have for carrying the whole of the Guardian power? The Potter boy? The Guardian herself?"

Sakura tugged at one of her pigtails and pouted. "We don't lllllike involving ourselves in your prophecies and your sillllly mortal wars."

"And yet, in this case, you have," the Dark Lord pointed out.

"Yes," Sakura said, smiling at him wickedly. "Make it worss our effort, Voh-dee-mort." Sending them both a flirty glance, she bounced off into the forest. Lucius watched the tantalizing flash of her knickers until she danced behind a tree and disappeared.

"They think I'm working for them, Lucius," the Dark Lord said, a thin smile gracing his parchment-like skin. "They have no idea about what I'm planning."

"You are, as always, brilliant, milord," Lucius said automatically, his mind on pale pink knickers hugging a tight young bum, peeking out from underneath the staid pleats of a plaid schoolgirl kilt. Maybe if he sweet-talked Narcissa, she'd...

Lucius sighed. Never in a thousand years.

*******

It took Draco nearly a week to look at her - brief glances in the hallway - and another week to actually respond to her owl with a near command: Seven-thirty tonight.

In any other circumstances, Ginny would have wrung his neck, but after spending Easter holidays watching her mother tear up every time she walked into the room and lying awake at night listening to the low hum of adult conversation downstairs deciding her fate, she just felt wrung-out. Tired. Sad. Generally not up to chasing after Draco.

Aside from the first few weeks afterward, she hadn't really had nightmares about the Chamber of Secrets, but ever since she and Ron had sat at the dinner table with their parents and told them the details of the spell, she'd been having nightmares.

Or at least a nightmare. Upon waking, she couldn't even remember what it had been about, but she knew that it was always the same, because afterwards she always felt the same sort of fearful urgency. She'd lost something or left something behind, and it was terribly important that she get it back.

She didn't know what, but she had a sneaking suspicion she knew where. She'd never felt any desire to go back to the Chamber before. So far as she knew, it had been sealed up and she couldn't. But Ginny still couldn't shake the feeling the something had been forgotten there, that something dangerous had been overlooked, and that she was the only person who knew what it was and where to find it.

Because she understood exactly how insane this sounded and what a flimsy excuse it was for re-opening the Chamber, Ginny had kept her mouth shut about it.

And the nightmares continued.

Plus, Ron was still angry with her and even Vendetta seemed to be holding a grudge about being left with Hermione at Hogwarts during the break.

So when Ginny got to the Room of Requirement, she was more antsy than usual. She didn't know what sort of mood Draco was in, but if his inattention was any indication, it wasn't a good one, and the thought of having to defuse him seemed tiring.

Merlin, couldn't they just have sex, like they used to?

When she entered, Draco was already inside, standing in front of the fireplace, his shoulders hunched, the firelight glowing silver-gold through his hair. He didn't react when she entered, but Ginny began removing her clothes, hoping to avoid a conversation.

"Keep your clothes on, Red," he said sharply. "We need to talk."

"You've avoided me for two weeks, and now you need to talk?" she asked, something in his tone awakening a desire in her to start a fight with him.

"I needed to think some things through, and I couldn't do it with you around."

"Oh, that's nice. How did that work out for you?"

He turned his head to look at her, his features unmoving. "Not very well, actually."

"So what did you want to talk about?" she asked, heaving a sigh and sitting on the bed.

Draco seemed to stiffen slightly, then relax. The left side of his face was in shadow, the right side bathed in firelight, and Ginny suddenly shivered. He looked like a stranger.

"Why did you lie to Granger about the Chamber of Secrets?"

Ginny recoiled; she couldn't help it. She covered as quickly as she could, but she had a feeling he'd seen it anyway. "What are you talking about? I never lied."

"You said you didn't remember anything. You lied."

"No, I didn't," she snarled.

"I overheard the Death Eaters talking, Red. They already have a plan for you. They say they've had it for years. I can only interpret that statement as meaning their plan has something to do with the Chamber of Secrets. Lie to Granger until you're blue in the face, Red, but you have to tell me the fucking truth so that I can fucking stop it!"

"Shut up!" Ginny yelled, shooting up from the bed, realizing in a distant sort of way that he'd managed to push her beyond reason. "Shut up! I don't remember anything! I don't!" She turned and started stalking towards the door. Draco caught up with her before she managed to escape. Ginny tried to fight him off, but he held tight. Using strength she didn't know she had, she shoved him backwards. He lost his balance and sprawled out on the floor. She put a hand on the door and froze. Sanity returned.

What was she doing? Why was she acting like this? Dropping her hand, Ginny slowly turned. Draco was still sitting on the floor, staring at her intently.

"I don't remember going down there," she said, a bit defiantly. "I was just there, and so was Tom, but he wasn't Tom. He was different. That was the first time I saw him, and I knew something was wrong. Then he told me what he was planning to do."

Draco didn't move, but Ginny felt her fists clenching. "It's spotty after that. Lately I've been having dreams about it, like I left something down there that I have to get back, or that I did something I have to undo. But I don't know what happened. The next thing I remember is waking up and Tom was gone and Harry was there."

His lips thinned and he stood up slowly, reaching into the pocket of his robes and taking something out. "Here."

Ginny looked at the small black book and stepped back, running awkwardly into the wall, feeling as if the blood in her veins had been replaced by something cold and corrosive.

"No," she said shakily. "I don't want that."

"It wasn't protected at all, so I can only assume it's useless, but even so, I don't trust my father with it, and I don't trust myself with it. So take it."

Ginny shook her head vehemently. "No."

A dark expression crossed his face, and Ginny's breath caught. She had once challenged him at the lake when he'd been angry. She had needed to know whether or not he was like his father. Frankly, she was less sure now than she had been then.

Draco flung the book at her feet, and even though she didn't have any room to do so, Ginny tried to back away from it.

"It's a book, Red," he said in a dead voice. "It's just a stupid, useless book. You know he isn't in there any more. Take my word for it: he's a lot uglier now."

Looking almost disgusted with her, he returned to his position in front of the fire. Numbly, Ginny bent down and picked up the diary. It felt empty; the familiar surge of power she'd felt the first time she'd picked it up - and the last - was absent.

Tom, here, destroyed. In her hands. It was hard to wrap her mind around it. Having been rather unconscious when it had happened, she hadn't really believed it until now.

It angered her that Draco could rake her over the coals and then just stand there and throw the diary at her, employing his best Lucius Malfoy impression, not saying a word about what had happened to him. Didn't he feel anything? Was he so jaded that even being initiated into the service of You-Know-Who didn't warrant an actual reaction?

"So did you enjoy the holiday?" she asked maliciously. "Did you enjoy killing some helpless Muggle?"

"I killed a bloody wizard, Red. If you'd like to know more about it, go read the minutes of the last meeting. I believe my father keeps them in his study."

"Right, because the Death Eaters keep minutes."

"Well, we wouldn't be a proper organization if we didn't, now would we?"

"So it's we now?"

"Yes, it is," he said icily.

They had talked about his reinitiation, planned for it, even known when it was coming, but Ginny couldn't have imagined how terrible she would feel when it finally hit home what it meant. And how terrible must he feel? Did he feel terrible? She didn't know.

"He has all four of us, Red," he said in that same voice. Tears of confusion and frustration welled up in her eyes. He didn't say anything else, and Ginny bowed her head as the tears started to flow. She sniffed and Draco glanced at her.

"Stop crying, Red. We knew it was coming." She could tell he'd meant for the words to come out colder than they actually had.

Unable to stand the role of helpless weepy girlfriend, Ginny approached him warily, as one might a wild animal, reaching out a hand to touch his back.

He stiffened and drew away from her slightly. It nearly killed her to see that, no matter how much she could have predicted it was coming. The tears came faster.

"Draco, don't do this. Don't just stand there like that."

At her words, he spun around like a top, a fierce look on his face, his silver hair lit up in the firelight, falling into his eyes. Even driven to the edge, he was beautiful. "What do you want me to do, Red? Do you want me to hold your hand and tell you everything's going to be alright?" he asked mockingly. "Is that what you want?"

Ginny just shook her head, burying her face in her hands as a sob escaped her.

In response, he withdrew a step and crossed his arms. "Don't worry. He won't get you. It's just me, after all. Doesn't that make you feel better?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Well, it should."

Just like that, every fiber in her being was consumed with rage, directed entirely at him.

"Is that what you think this is about?!" she screamed, shoving him dangerously close to the fire. "Are you really stupid enough to think that that's what I'm upset about?!" Draco had the wherewithal to look frightened of her.

"Did it ever occur to you that I love you, you stupid fuck?! Do you really think that I'm glad it was you and not me?! Do you really think that I don't hate this?!"

She had a lot more to say, but she managed to hold herself back when she saw the absolutely horrified look on his face.

Draco stared at her for a long moment. "You don't mean that."

"Don't you dare tell me what I mean and don't mean."

He continued to stare at her as if she'd just pulled a knife on him. With effort, Ginny calmed herself down. She hadn't planned on telling Draco that she loved him. Until the words had come out of her mouth, she hadn't even been certain that she did. She was certain, however, that no plan she could have devised would have involved her bellowing the words during an argument shortly before calling him a stupid fuck.

And he wouldn't be gaping at her, either. Ginny sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

"So you're saying you meant it?"

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" he asked, for a brief moment looking lost and uncertain, like a little boy.

Against her will, Ginny's heart softened. "I don't know why. I'm not even sure there is a why. I just do."

"You don't know why?" he asked suspiciously. "How do you know you do, then?"

"It's love, Draco. There's no rational reason for it."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't buy it."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ginny asked the ceiling.

"Forgive me, Red, but that was a pretty lame justification for a pretty big statement."

"There isn't any justification, Draco! It just happens!"

"Well, that's silly," he scoffed. "I mean, if I were to lay something like that on a person, I'd at least be able to back it up with some evidence."

"This isn't the Wizengamot," Ginny bit out. "It's a relationship."

He shrugged. "I feel cheated. How do I know you're not just hormonal or something?"

"Fine, then," she challenged him, poking a finger into his chest. "If you were to tell somebody you loved them, what would your justifications be?"

"That she was exactly like me," he smirked. "Only nicer, more personable and with breasts," he qualified.

"I see," she said, torn between screaming at him again and crying again.

"Three reasons, Red. I think I deserve that much." In opposition to his previous statement, he now looked completely serious. Ginny bit her lip, trying to figure out if he was toying with her or not. "How about this?" he said softly. "If you can't think of any, I'll let you take it back. No harm, no foul."

The realization hit her so suddenly and so hard that Ginny stumbled backwards. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

"Erm, Red? That wasn't a rhetorical question."

"I know," she said, her voice thin and high. She wanted to laugh like a fool and dance a jig around the room, but this was important, and she didn't want to mess it up like she had the initial confession. He needed this from her, and Draco Malfoy didn't need much.

"I love you because you're smart and determined, and because you're much greater and stronger than even you realize - and you realize a lot - and mostly because...well, because you're an immense bastard to the rest of the world, but you're not when you're with me. And I guess I like knowing that everybody else gets the bastard," she couldn't hold back a smile, "but the sweet, thoughtful..."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"...adoring, gentle..."

Draco made gagging sounds. Ginny ignored him.

"...understanding and kind side of you belongs to me." She punctuated her statement by leaning up and giving him a long kiss to show how much she appreciated him. Drawing back, she smiled at him. "And I especially like knowing that you trust me not to announce to the whole school what a softie you are at heart."

He raised an eyebrow. "That was enough bullshit to bury both of us."

"It wasn't entirely bullshit, you know."

"Don't make me curse you out of the room to prove I'm not 'sweet,' Red," he threatened.

"Okay, fine," Ginny admitted. "I guess I went a bit far. The whole point was that you're a completely different person when you're with me than you are the rest of the time."

He looked doubtful. "And that's meaningful to you?"

"Of course it is!"

"Why?"

"Because you can go around cruelly making fun of the rest of the school or try out as many patented Malfoy glares as you want, but I know for certain that the only time you even come close to being honestly and completely yourself if when you're with me."

His hand reached up to stroke her hair. "Red, I didn't understand a word you just said."

Ginny banged her head against his shoulder a few times. "I love you because you have a magnificent cock, alright?" she growled. "Are you satisfied now?"

He smiled faintly. "Yes, actually."

"Well, then, there's your answer."

*******

Every year, Draco spent the time period between the beginning of term and the Gryffindor-Slytherin match feeling exactly like this: determined, focused, at the top of his game, almost...content. Of course, it always turned to shit once he lost to Potter again, but he lived for those months when possibility still existed.

Draco wasn't sure that he felt the same way about Red that she felt about him. In his mind, love was a simple thing. He loved flying. He loved a perfectly-prepared Medium Rare steak. Whatever he felt for Red, it was anything but simple.

Rationally, no matter how the spell and the war went, their relationship was not going to work. Aside from the obvious circumstances of their families hating each other, and the two of them individually hating each other's families, he would rather be Millicent Bulstrode's love slave than spend Christmas with the Weasleys having farting contests, and she would probably prefer to suffer the same fate rather than endure Lucius.

There was also the issue of dignity. He didn't seem to have any when it came to Red, and it worried him. He was willing to sacrifice a bit to keep her safe, but Thera's words - pussy whipped - echoed through his head every time he did it just to please her, like avoiding her brother even though the kid deserved nothing less than an ass-kicking.

Lucius could turn his dignity over to the Dark Lord, but Draco would be damned if he'd turn his over to anybody, even Red. Not even if he liked the weight of her head on his shoulder. Not even if she had a dirty imagination and perfect breasts. Not even if she could respond to a murder confession by declaring her love at the top of her voice.

Draco couldn't hold back a chuckle. Red's temper was a beautiful thing to see.

"What so funny?" she murmured, raising her head to look up at him.

Knowing she wouldn't appreciate any explanation he gave, Draco leaned down and kissed her. Red responded immediately, freeing him from his robes, messing up his hair and opening her mouth to him. Grabbing his collar, she ripped open his shirt.

Draco pushed her away, making an inarticulate sound as he studied the front of his now button-less shirt. The small pinging sounds he heard were custom-made mother-of-pearl.

He was about to complain about this abuse of innocent and expensive clothing when Red grabbed the remnants of his shirt, kissed him hard, and said in a voice indicating that if he argued, she might eat his trousers off, "I want to try out the swing."

So far as Draco was concerned, when a fiery redhead gave you a look stating quite plainly that you were either going to fuck her or leave the room without your legs in proper working order, you did as the lady pleased.

Red had always seemed a bit wary of the sex swing. She eyed it every once in a while, with what Draco had hoped was intrigue, then generally screwed up her face and said it looked like a Muggle torture device. Love did funny things to people, Draco decided.

"So how does it work, then?" she asked eagerly.

"Well, first you get in there."

"Yes, I kind of figured that. I'm asking you how I get in there."

"Now that you mention it, I not really sure," Draco said thoughtfully.

"Draco," Red said impatiently, "I thought you knew how to use this thing."

"Well, I've used one before, but the girl who got into it just sort of clamored aboard. I'm sorry I didn't have the presence of mind at the time to make a diagram of it."

"I think we need directions."

"Ah, here we are," Draco said, picking up the glossy instruction manual that dropped at his feet. He flipped to the introduction. "Congratulations on being the proud owner of a Swingmaster Seven. With a few easy steps, you and your partner will be shagging in ways you never thought possible...Yes, whatever..." he muttered, flipping a bit more.

"Oh, dear," Red breathed over his shoulder as he flipped to a picture of a large-breasted woman lounging on her back with her legs in the air as a well-muscled hunk somehow appeared to be penetrating her while suspended from the ceiling by his ankles. Both were grinning and waving at the camera. "I don't think that's possible, Draco."

Neither did he. "I get nauseous when I hang upside-down, anyway," he shrugged.

The next diagram showed the same couple, only this time the man was standing and the woman was on her side, legs in a near-perfect split. "My legs don't even go like that," Red said, frowning. "And can you really get in from that direction?"

They flipped through the book, arguing the relative discomfort and feasibility of each one. Finally they decided to fall back on the basic, run of the mill missionary position. Considering the contortions involved in some of these, Draco had a feeling they shouldn't get ahead of themselves.

Red scrutinized the picture, then went up to the swing, narrowing her eyes as if planning out her movements. "You might want to undress before you get on it," Draco advised.

She turned and leered at him. "Will you help me?"

After the minutes spent viewing the instruction manual, which - aside from the large-breasted, unnaturally flexible woman pictured - managed to take the fun out of sex the way Professor Binns took the fun out of tales of intrigue and battle during History of Magic, both of them needed a little rekindling.

"I suppose I could," he said, approaching her slowly. Over the course of their relationship, Draco had learned to take things slowly with Red, not because she asked him to - she generally spent the last half of foreplay pulling at his hair, wriggling around and barely restraining herself from begging him - but because...well, because it made her pull his hair, wriggle around and he had hopes for getting her to beg one of these days.

He also took it slowly because Red's first inclination after doing something she enjoyed was to do it again and again. Repeatedly. Until they both passed out.

Draco undid her robes, sliding them off of her. Stepping back, he tossed them aside, taking her in. Perhaps due to her hair, Red had a way of making the Hogwarts uniform look sexy. Their eyes locked and she gave him her patented smoldering gaze. Women gave him smoldering gazes all the time, but those were different, calculated. Red didn't do that. She just showed him what she honestly wanted, at it was him. Passing each other in the hallway, she could make him hard just by looking at him like that.

Merlin, he'd missed it. Leaning forward, he kissed her. Red tried to wrap her arms around his neck and speed things up, but he wrestled them back down, placing her palms against his chest. She moaned into his mouth and scratched him as he slowly undid the knot on her tie and added the garment to the pile. The shirt was removed even more slowly as he placed kisses on every inch of exposed skin he revealed.

After removing her shirt, Draco was pushed aside as Red hurriedly removed everything else. She straightened, perfect breasts calling out for him to pay attention to them, red curls temping him to explore further. "Okay," she said. "Read me the directions."

Draco blinked, not comprehending. Breasts. Want to touch breasts.

"The manual, Draco," Red reminded him, pointing at it behind him.

"Yes, of course," Draco said quickly, retrieving the manual and flipping to the proper page. He cleared his throat. "So you face that way," he said, pointing. Red complied. "And then you put your right arm through that last strap there, and do the same with your left arm." She did, looking at him expectantly.

"And then the straps..." Draco squinted at the book, then at the sex swing, trying to make the diagrams line up. "I think your feet go through these two," he said, stepping forward to hold two straps that hung higher than the others. "To support your knees."

The straps in question were level with Red's chin. She looked at them, then at him. "I don't think I can get up there on my own," she said, making a wild kick and missing.

Draco dodged the other straps to put one hand behind each of her knees. He lifted them, but couldn't see where they were going. "Is that right?" he asked.

"I think so," she said. "Oh, wait. No, it isn't," she said in a panicky voice a split second after he let go of her. Draco was hit in the head by something and quickly scurried out from underneath the swing, trying to size up the situation. It wasn't pretty.

Red's left foot was caught in one of the straps. The other was kicking wildly a few inches from the floor, which served to do nothing more than spin her around. As if that weren't enough, Red's flailing right arm had managed to catch another strap that through some set of circumstances, was currently pinning her right armpit to her chin.

"Draco," she gargled helplessly.

It was hard, really hard not to just stand back and laugh at her. Instead he rescued her.

Extricating her, Draco gathered her up, gritted his teeth, and carried her over to the bed, valiantly ignoring the shooting pains driving like arrows into the base of his spine.

Damn growing spells.

Aiming to place her on the bed and casually lay down next to her, instead Draco unceremoniously dumped her on a bed, then stretched out on the floor, staring at the ceiling with a great deal of intensity. It would go away in a few minutes.

Red peeked over the edge of the bed. "Draco? Why are you on the floor?"

"I like it down here. You should try it. Makes the room look completely different."

She rolled her eyes and scrambled down to lay beside him. "I'm sorry about the swing. I didn't realize that thing was so complicated."

"Neither did I," Draco admitted.

"I just wanted to finish off the night with something special," she sighed.

"We can still have sex," Draco said bravely. "We just need to wait a while."

"How long?"

Until I can feel my legs again. "A few minutes. I think we need some time to recover."

"Well, I'm recovered," she said, curling against his side, sliding a hand down his belly.

Against his will and the capabilities of his body right now, little Draco responded. "So you are," he said weakly. "That's good."

Red raised her head to look at him. "Are you alright?"

"Smashing. How about I lay here just like this and you do whatever you want to me?"

"Really?"

"Sure. Just don't jostle me around too much."

"Well, that certainly turns me into a quivering mass of feminine goo."

"I need some quiet time to revel in the warmth of your love?" Draco tried.

Red's mouth quirked. "How much farther can I push this before you admit you're incapable of having sex with me?"

"I'm hardly incapable," Draco insisted. "Most of me is in perfect working order."

She sat up, sighing. "You've thrown your back out, haven't you?"

"Now why would I go and throw out a perfectly good back?" Draco asked innocently.

"Stop playing, Draco. Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey?"

"No, no, I just need a few minutes to..." he sucked in his breath abruptly as Red grabbed his shoulder and his hip and turned him over onto his stomach. His back felt much better once he was there, but still. "I thought you loved me," he muttered.

"I do," she said simply, straddling him. "Now tell Ginny where it hurts."

"Lower back," he sighed, recognizing that he was in no position to argue with her.

Very gently, she began massaging the area in question. "Merlin, you're hard as a rock."

"Not anymore, I'm not."

"I meant your back."

She kept up the massage, gradually working at the knots, loosening them. Draco let his mind wander. She loved him. She massaged his back and tried to be a good sport about the sex swing. It was an odd concept to grasp, because he really couldn't see anything in it for her. When they weren't having sex, she generally seemed exasperated with him.

Red finished and climbed off of him. "All better," she whispered, stroking his hair. "You should be in top form for the Hufflepuff-Slytherin match."

"Are you going to cheer for me?"

She looked offended. "Of course not."

"But I thought you loved me," he said, the tiniest bit disappointed.

"Love and Quidditch are mutually exclusive."

"That's a decidedly Slytherin way of looking at it," Draco commented, carefully turning over on his back. Red cuddled against his side and he wrapped an arm around her.

"What can I say? I'm like you, only nicer, more personable and with breasts."

As a first year, Draco had been forced to serve detention with Potter in the Forbidden Forest, and they had come upon a cloaked figure sucking the blood out of a dying unicorn. Draco had done what any reasonable person does when met by a unicorn-blood-drinking fiend: run screaming in the other direction. Potter hadn't, and he had always thought it was because the kid was a bit dim. Now, he realized why Potter hadn't. It was the same reason why Draco was not fleeing the room as if his arse were on fire, screaming in the manliest way possible. He couldn't. He was frozen in terror.

He'd said those words to Red, and there had been a conversation about having reasons for loving someone, and Red, quite obviously, thought he was saying he loved her back.

Only...he didn't. Or if he did, he didn't know it. He didn't even know how to go about finding out if he did or not. And right now, Draco saw himself faced with two choices:

Either he could play along and hope that he loved her or could at least fake it well, or he could tell her the truth and be faced with that look she got every time he said something mean to her, as if she were an innocent little puppy that he was in the middle of kicking.

He'd seen far too much of that look tonight. It was wearing him down, making him do things he wouldn't normally do like...why the hell was he cuddling with her on the floor?

As quickly as he could, Draco extricated himself, standing up unsteadily. "Umm, Red?"

She looked up at him expectantly. Draco swore and turned away. He couldn't do this with them both naked. Yanking on his clothes, he grabbed hers, tossing them to her.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Inadvertently, he looked over at her, adorably attired in her overlarge Hogwarts shirt - probably handed down from a brother - and nothing else. Her hair tangled around her shoulders, and he wanted to rip the shirt off of her and...

Oh, yes. That's why his shirt wouldn't button. Leaving it loose, he pulled on his trousers and tried to formulate a coherent sentence that wouldn't make her slap him.

"Listen, Red. I'm..." he trailed off again, watching her pull up her skirt and stockings.

"You're what?" she asked, all innocent puppy dog as she slid her feet into her trainers.

I'm pretty sure you got the wrong idea about this love thing. "I'm tired."

"Draco, it's okay," she said, coming over to stroke his cheek. "I don't mind."

He'd told her that he would never hurt her if he could help it, emphasis on if he could help it. But Draco couldn't imagine an ending to this that didn't involve him hurting her.

Picking up Tom Riddle's diary, he handed it back to her. Red took it, clutching the book and watching him as if she had some inkling of what he was thinking.

"Thank you for this," she said, holding up the book.

Draco shrugged. "I thought it should be with you."

Stepping forward, she kissed him lightly. "I love you."

"If you really loved me, you'd cheer for Slytherin on Saturday."

*******

"It just doesn't make any sense," Fox muttered, pacing back and forth in Professor Snape's mortuary of an office. In theory, she should be having this discussion with Professor Dumbledore, but his wisdom encompassed wisdom only, hindsight and not tactics. Though the basics of hygiene might be lost on him and his idea of décor screamed 'Medieval prison,' Snape at least understood tactics. "Why not take over the prison? They could have, if they'd moved quickly. But they didn't. Why?"

"I didn't hear anything about it before it happened," Snape said, his black eyes following her as she paced back and forth in front of his desk. "Perhaps it wasn't well planned."

"That's bullshit," Fox spat. "You know it as well as I do. There wasn't any resistance coming in. They'd done away with all of the guards already. So why not protect it? Why not use the common sense of an eight-year-old and not concentrate all of your forces in a room that can be easily attacked from three different directions?"

"Central location," Snape shrugged. "Plus, they had the soulless aurors..."

"Yeah, because they really swayed the battle..." Fox contributed sarcastically.

"...and the element of surprise," Snape finished, having decided that he needed to play devil's advocate. "They couldn't have known the kind of forces we had on our side. They couldn't have known that you'd find them and defeat them that easily."

She had found the dark creatures easily, and defeated them easily. But it still bothered her that Voldemort hadn't been around, overseeing everything. The soulless beings masquerading as aurors had responded to commands. The members of Dumbledore's group had attested to that. Voldemort's absence begged the question: who had been ordering them?

"I'm convinced that they were being controlled mentally," Fox said, turning to stare down Professor Snape. "But if they were, then why didn't I feel it? I should have."

"Being a mere mortal, I don't believe it's my place to answer that question," Professor Snape sneered. "You Guardians are supposed to run all of this. So you tell me why."

Fox's eyes snapped to him, wondering, suspicious. Something in his tone of voice implied that he knew more than he was saying, even if he didn't realize that what he knew was important. "Why don't you tell me why?" she asked casually.

His eyebrows drew down so low they nearly merged into one. "What are you implying?"

"It was easy to write off the interference I felt in this school to the presence of Harry Potter, and the former presence of Voldemort. Are you still telling me that that's the cause of it, Professor?"

His eyebrows flew up. "What else would be the cause?"

It was rare that Fox found herself honestly and truly angry. The mortals she knew were easily read and no threat to her, and she could sniff out ulterior motives faster than a niffler could find a gold galleon. But there could be a purpose behind her presence at this school that didn't necessarily involve ulterior motives. If she had been brought here to train Harry, then it was only natural that they would watch her to see how it progressed.

Unless Dumbledore had actually brought her here to be watched, that is.

Without even bothering with the pretext of waving a hand, Fox slammed Professor Snape against the wall of his office, holding him there. "What is this?!" he roared.

"I might ask you the same question," she said, picking up a quill from his desk and playing with it. "You've been unaccountably interested in me ever since I arrived, Professor. I know you had no designs against me, but that doesn't mean that I know precisely what your designs were. So tell me."

His lip curled. "If you're looking for information, you've chosen the wrong source. If you want answers, Dumbledore's the only one I know of who can give them to you."

Fox nodded, her eyes boring into his. "You turn on your masters easily, Professor Snape," she said softly. "One of these days, that just might come back to haunt you."

"I am on Dumbledore's side in this war," he hissed, "as I was in the last one. But I have no interest in the actions you Guardians take for or against each other. Besides," he said haughtily. "You said I would live through this war."

"Yes, I did, Professor. And you will," Fox sighed, feeling oddly betrayed at his actions. She had believed him an enlightened mortal, one who had the capacity to understand the purpose of the Guardians and of human existence in general, and the entire time, he had merely been spying on her, serving a master just like all the other mortals who were incapable of drawing breath without a master to serve, be it an individual or money or success or a silly utopian ideal.

"I told you that because I thought you might understand," she said heavily. "As a mortal, death is the least of your problems. We're not as different from you as you think."

She felt Dumbledore's presence behind her, but didn't turn her gaze from Snape.

Isn't it against your philosophy to use a mortal to do your dirty work?

I do not use people, Fox. Despite your feelings on the matter, I still believe your interaction was beneficial to both of you.

Oh? Fox asked, barely restraining herself from laughing. How?

Some mortals need faith. Others need truth. Severus is a member of the latter category. The arbitrariness of our will and the even larger arbitrariness of those things that reside outside of our will - Severus needs to understand these things. As for using him to spy on you, I think you can see that it was far more complicated than that. He presented you with a challenge, a mortal whose opinions deserve to be heard by our kind more often. As it is, I'd appreciate it if you'd release him.

Because she wanted him out of her sight, Fox did. "Severus, would you mind?" Dumbledore asked politely, gesturing to the door. Glaring at her, Snape left.

Fuck off, old man, Fox said, turning around to face Dumbledore, standing with his hands folded in front of him, beatific as a saint. You interfered with my power. You're standing in the way of me regaining the rest of it. Is it because you think I'll go down easier than Grindelwald? Is that it? You've all had a lot of years to plan my demise.

You incorrectly assume that I'm the one planning your demise, Fox.

Tell me who's planning it. I'll arrange for their demise.

It isn't that simple.

Of course it isn't. You all have your full power, and I don't.

Your knowledge is old, but your experience isn't, Dumbledore said, looking at her with the full brunt of his purpose on this planet - wisdom. Learning from one's mistakes. Learning not to make them again. She hadn't been around long enough to do so.

I suppose you shouldn't have bothered taking down Grindelwald, then.

Dumbledore sighed. I didn't want to. I regret that it fell to me to do so. As much as the others believe that war brings about only evil, I believe as you do, that it's purpose isn't so simple. It is easy to brand evil, to seek it out and destroy it, but it is far harder to try to understand it and prevent it. I did not bring you here to destroy you, Fox.

Then why did you bring me here?

I won't lie to you. I was only allowed to bring you here on the pretext of destroying you, he admitted, his eyes twinkling merrily, as if he were a Salvation Army Santa pleased by her tossing a coin into his pot. I convinced them to let you train Harry to defeat Voldemort. I assured them that I would block your ability to sense their strategy. Luckily, you wrote off the interference with the easiest possible explanation.

Fox's jaw dropped as the implications of this little plan sank in. You want me to train Harry so that he can defeat Voldemort, then force me into handing my power over to Harry?! But he isn't even a Guardian, and it's not like you can make him into one. He's mortal. Aside from the fact that it would eventually kill him, it would mean...

...that the Guardian of War would exist at the whim of the other Guardians. It would give us more than enough time to prepare and control the next incarnation of that particular Guardian, who would have even less power than you do now.

Fox eyed the Headmaster warily. But you didn't buy into it, did you? You told me to earn Harry's trust. You sent me out there to fight on your side.

Dumbledore looked decidedly pleased with himself. I didn't just want you to earn Harry's trust, I wanted him to earn yours. The Guardians cannot force you outright to turn over your power, but they can certainly create the circumstances for it. Grindelwald knew that he had been targeted, and so chose willingly to endow Voldemort with his, which is why Voldemort retains that power. But if Voldemort had refused it...

So you pinned all of your hopes on a sixteen-year-old hothead.

The Headmaster laughed. I think we both understand that Harry's a bit more than that.

A power the Dark Lord knows not, Fox said, shaking her head. Even I thought...

THE power the Dark Lord knows not, Fox, he corrected her.

The ultimate power, she said, smiling grimly. The power to deny power. And here I thought when you told him it was love, you were just feeding him a line.

I don't generally make it a habit to feed people lines, Fox.

Not that that was actually the point of the conversation. Fine, then. So what was the whole point of the Azkaban attack, then?

They want a check on Voldemort, he said, staring her down. And on you.

Fox crossed her arms. They threw a bunch of dark creatures at me to test my mettle? Isn't that the slightest bit insulting?

Dumbledore looked away. They didn't do it to test your mettle, Fox. They did it to see if you were capable of sensing Guardian influence near you.

Fox blinked at him, shocked. How near?

Just outside the prison, the Headmaster said. You see, they've changed strategies since this all began.

What do you mean?

I don't agree with them on this point, but suffice it to say that they care very little anymore whether Harry or Voldemort wins the final battle. They just want to ensure that the power doesn't end up in your hands. They don't want the world to have to go through what it did the last time a Guardian had to be destroyed. They'd much rather have the power held by a mortal - any mortal - that can be easily controlled.

Who was outside the fucking prison?! It was that Sakura bitch, wasn't it?

It doesn't matter anymore, Fox, Dumbledore said gravely, ignoring her attack. All of them are against you now.

Stepping back, Fox's hand itched to withdraw her sword. Do you mean 'all of them,' or 'all of us'?

Dumbledore's eyes didn't twinkle in the slightest when he answered. That remains to be seen, Fox. That depends on you.

*******

Thera frowned at the knock and put down the Daily Prophet. She knew for a fact that Harry was at Quidditch practice. Hoping it wasn't Snape, she opened the door.

"It's Hermione," a disembodied female voice whispered. "Can I come in?"

Thera opened the door further, surprised. "Does Harry know you have his cloak?"

"No, he doesn't," Granger said, pulling it over her head. The cloak hadn't done her frizzy hair any favors. "Frankly, I'd rather he not know about this."

"Ah. Come to tell me to back off, have you?"

"I'm not here to tell you to back off. I just want to talk about what's going on between you two," Granger said coolly.

Thera smirked. "Sex, Granger. Surely you've heard of it."

The other girl looked at her. "Is that all?"

"What else is there?"

Granger didn't seem inclined to answer. "I've known Harry for six years. I know him better than anyone else."

"Maybe you two should be sleeping together, then."

Granger sat down in her desk chair. "No, it's not like that."

And if you believe that, I have some land to sell you. "What is it like, then?"

The girl ignored the question. "Harry's had a lot of stuff to deal with this year. And he's actually been dealing with it pretty well...for Harry, at least."

"Bravo for him. What does that have to do with me?"

"I think you've helped him," Granger said bluntly, "more than Ron and I could have."

Bluntness must be contagious. "Well, he doesn't have to protect me like he does you."

"I'm not so sure that's the case."

"Harry tries to protect everybody," Thera said, growing impatient. "It goes with the whole grand destiny hero thing."

"Yes, he does," the Gryffindor agreed. "The question is: would you return the favor?"

"I can't," Thera snapped. "To refresh your memory, there's this whole spell..."

"But you would if you could?" the other girl interrupted.

"Of course I would. He's the only one who can take down the Dark Lord, and you know that the Dark Lord's going to try his best to do away with him before that's possible."

"Is that the only reason?"

Once more, Harry's face flashed across her mind. "What other reason would I have?"

"He cares about you," Granger said. "I don't even think he wants to, but he does. And Harry's not the kind of person who can stop caring about somebody once he starts."

Thera bristled. "Well, if he does, I didn't ask him to. And it isn't my problem."

The bushy-haired girl stood. "Then I guess I'm done here," she said, smiling tightly and unfurling the invisibility cloak. "Thank you for your time."

An unidentifiable anger rose up in Thera, and she sat down on the bed, picking up her paper and shaking it out violently. Granger put on the cloak and she gritted her teeth. Granger called out a cheerful goodbye and she answered with a curt nod. The door opened and before she realized what she was doing, Thera had risen from the bed and kicked it shut, ripping off the invisibility cloak at the same time.

"What do want from me?" she demanded.

A pair of piercing brown eyes stared her down. Thera suddenly remembered Harry describing Hermione as his living, breathing conscience. Up until about five seconds ago, she'd thought it was funny. Uncomfortable with the very idea of a conscience - much less an embodied one - Thera dropped her eyes to the floor.

"I want to know that he's not making a mistake," Granger answered.

"Do you think he is?" Thera shot back.

"Honestly, I don't know. I just know that when Harry decides he's going to do something, it's utterly pointless to try and stop him. All you can do is go along and try to make sure he gets through it okay."

"So that's what you're trying to do here."

"Yes," Granger said. "I'm not doing a very good job of it, though."

"No, you're not," Thera said, rubbing her eyes. "You know, when I started this whole thing, nobody told me I was volunteering for 'Operation Spare Harry Potter's Feelings.'"

"I'm not trying to get you to do anything," the girl said quickly. "I mean, it's hardly my place to tell either of you how to handle all of this."

Thera hummed, deliberately not pointing out the fact that Granger was doing exactly that.

"But this is about a lot more than sparing Harry's feelings. You know that, even if Harry doesn't. Just...think about it, will you?"

"Sure," Thera said noncommittally, feeling a sudden urge for a nice stiff drink. As obviously as she could, Thera sat back down and picked up the paper, focusing every ounce of her attention on the fascinating story of a wizard from Kent who'd discovered a whole new way to fertilize Scrumroot, waiting for Granger to leave.

"Listen, I know I didn't handle this very well, but you have to understand that it's hard to love Harry." Granger laughed shortly. "Of course, I also think it's impossible to know Harry and not love him. It's like a disease."

Thera forced herself to concentrate on the fertilizing potion used - a potion that very well might revolutionize the treatment of seasonally carnivorous shallow-root plants - until the girl finally left. Throwing down the paper, Thera opened up the desk and poured herself a good three fingers of the blue label scotch Draco had brought back with him from Easter holidays, disdainful of the thoughts running through her own mind.

There was no reason for Harry to spare her a thought once all of this was over, but he would, and frankly, it was all her fault. Without a doubt, she was the controlling force behind this relationship, and she had long ago lost control of it.

If Reina could arrange the remnants of herself properly, she'd be laughing her ass off.

"So Harry mopes for a week?" she asked her mother's ashes. "What does it matter?"

At that point, Thera made the horrifying realization that it did matter. It shouldn't. She was appalled that it did. Yes, Harry wasn't your average guy, but did that mean she should feel guilty for doing what she'd done? Her? Guilty? Her?!

The strength left her knees, and Thera sank to the floor, clutching her glass of scotch to her chest as a sorry replacement for her pride, intelligence, and sense of self-preservation.

Merlin's fucking balls. I'm as bad as Draco.

Downing a good portion of her scotch, Thera decided that she was simply suffering from some messed up hormonal combination, some freakishly early infestation of PMS.

True, it wasn't everyday that a girl hit the sheets with The Boy Who Lived, but that didn't change the face that he was a bumbling teenager, and if she was going to lose her head enough - stress, it had to be stress - to actually spend her time wondering whether or not she cared if he walked out of her room and got flattened by a bloody bus, then she needed to sit right here until she straightened herself out.

She'd gotten a good deal farther with the bottle of scotch than she had with straightening herself out when Harry showed up.

Stumbling over to the door, Thera realized that she was plastered.

"I didn't shower or anything," he said, removing the invisibility cloak that had been in her room not too long ago to reveal a set of Quidditch robes and a head of hair even more messed up than usual. "You said you wanted me sweaty."

"I say a lot of shit," Thera said, waving a hand, taking a moment to try to remember what she'd decided, and what she'd been making the decision about. She felt certain that there had been a decision or something recently. An important one, too. Damn.

"Of course you do. It's an essential part of being Thera," Harry said, half-smiling. He seemed to be swaying. Or maybe she was swaying. Thera decided that this was actually a philosophical question. Who was really moving and who was standing still? Or maybe both of them were moving, but one was just moving more than the other.

Mulling this over, Thera returned to her desk to pour herself another drink. It took a great deal of concentration, and she missed the bottle the first time. Then the bottle disappeared. Blinking, Thera studied the spot it had occupied mere seconds ago.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" Harry asked.

Turning unsteadily to face him, Thera made a swipe for the bottle in his hand and nearly toppled over. "Give it here," she said threateningly.

He looked amused, which only made her angrier. "How about this? If you can get it away from me, then you're sober enough to have another drink."

Occasionally, Harry seemed to forget what she was. "What are you, my mum?" she railed. "Well, you're not! She's over there in a bloody box!" She glared at him and took a few theatrically angry, heaving breaths.

Harry's arms dropped to his sides and his face went slack with shock.

Sighing shakily, Thera leaned forward until her forehead made contact with his chest. A moment later, Harry's arms went around her and she heard the distinct sound of a mostly-full bottle of fine scotch being put down on a wooden surface. Shoving him away, she located the bottle and grabbed it, smirking at him triumphantly.

"You're so gullible," she said, trying not to spill as she poured herself another drink.

"I'll admit it's embarrassing to get outwitted by someone with only one wit functioning."

"To witlessness," Thera said jovially, turning too quickly and falling into the desk.

Harry stepped forward and steadied her. "Are you really sure you want to drink more?"

"Why not?" she asked, downing a nice big gulp.

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?"

"I had a good reason," she said, feeling defensive. "And now I don't remember what it was. See? Mission accomplished."

He frowned. "Did something happen?"

"No," Thera said, focusing her eyes on her drink as she set it down.

"What happened, Thera?" he asked, Boyfriend Harry. Belatedly, she recalled why she was getting pissed.

"Would you rather I staged a big row or just gave you your walking papers in my most condescending voice?" she asked, raising her head.

Harry blinked at her. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm dumping you, Harry. We're moving in different directions. It's not you, it's me."

His expression didn't change. "You're dumping me?"

"Yes, I am. You're really quick on the uptake, aren't you, Harry?"

He intercepted her hand as she reached for her drink. "Is this you trying to stage a row?"

"I tried to give you a choice. Now you don't get one."

"Okay," he said slowly. "Do I get an actual reason why?"

"Oh, reasons," she pooh-poohed, dropping her head back to look at the ceiling.

"Merlin, you're impossible," he whispered, tugging her over to the bed, sitting her down.

She righted her head with all the coordination of a newborn. "I'm leaving."

"I know," he said regretfully, still standing in front of her so that she was looking directly at his stomach. "And believe me, Thera, if I could do anything..."

"Oh, shut up, Harry," she said, irritated with him.

His weight sank onto the bed beside her and Thera glanced over at him. He was glaring at her desk as if it had just insulted his mum. He was angry. He was supposed to be angry with her, but she didn't think he was. Well, she could change that.

"You're getting too involved, that's all. I should have seen it coming. It was just supposed to be a spot of fun. I'm leaving soon anyway, so why not end it now?"

His glare dropped to his hands, clenched between his knees. "Is that what you want?"

She got up to retrieve her drink. "Of course it is. That's why I'm dumping you."

"Uh-huh. Why did you have to get drunk to tell me?"

"Where I come from, people don't have to justify getting drunk," she sniffed.

"Thera, stop it," he said in a hard voice, taking the drink out of her hand. Thera grunted and tried to get it back, but Harry held her off and downed it himself. "Smooth," he said, coughing. She made a face at him and grabbed for the bottle, but he got there before her, shoving it down his pants to keep it away from her.

"I've never had a guy try that tactic before," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Thera, please. Sit down before you fall over."

She did. "Happy? Now I'm sitting down and dumping you."

"What happened to seizing the moment? 'I'm going to miss you' and all of that?"

"I'm not going to miss you," she said, yawning. "I'm going to collect my Ferrari and then I'm going to fuck the first Death Eater I can find with passable dental hygiene."

"Oh, so that's how it is?" he asked, a chill in his voice. Something poked deep into her gut. Must be indigestion. He wouldn't get angry if he wasn't reading too much into this.

"Yeah, pretty much," she said, sinking back on the bed, giving over to drowsiness.

"I feel sorry for you," he said flatly. "If that's really your life, then I feel sorry for you."

The comment was intended to hurt her. That was the whole problem, wasn't it? He was her problem, and she was his problem, and the whole thing was problematic. Veg-o-matic. Static cling. Sitting up on her elbows, she giggled.

The giggling didn't go over well. She decided to use it to her advantage. Smiling up at him seductively, Thera said the one thing she probably should have said a long time ago, to nip this thing in the bud, to spare them both a meaningless scene like this one.

"This whole time, do you really think that you were the only one I was screwing?"

He flinched as if she'd physically struck him, and Thera laughed. Just like the other times, she didn't know where it came from and she had no way to turn it off. She laughed as Harry said something cutting and left and she laughed for a good long time afterward. She laughed until she couldn't breathe anymore. When the laughter finally abated, she was left to stare at the unaccountably swirly images of her bedroom walls, her head feeling stuffed too full - a premonition of the pain she'd feel in the morning. Better to feel it then, rather than now. That's why people got drunk in the first place.

Pulling a pillow over her head, Thera glared at the bedside lamp, annoyed with it and yet too tired to get up and turn it off. Opening her mouth, she let out a hearty belch.

Why not? She was alone, after all. Unfettered. "I'm ready now," she said, turning over on her back and pulling the covers up. "I'm ready for you, you fucking reptile."

*******

Kicking at the pretty spring flowers as he walked along with Hermione to visit Hagrid, Harry marveled at the fact that he didn't care a whit that Slytherin had barely beaten Hufflepuff and that Gryffindor was very close to winning the house cup.

What he cared about was the fact that Ron still wouldn't speak to him, all because of a fucked-up girl who had tossed him out like a pair of soiled knickers, of which she probably had plenty. He had refused to tell his best friends about her. He had gamely played any part she wanted him to play for her. And the entire time, she had been - true to character, if he was to be fair to himself - fucking anything with a sausage that bothered to compliment her eggs, so to speak.

How could he have not seen it? How could he have been so fucking stupid? So completely blind? So caught up in the - retrospectively superficial - moment?

Viciously stamping out a collection of dandelions, Harry was stopped by Hermione's hand on his arm.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or are you just going to keep it all bottled up inside while murdering flowers?"

"Thera broke up with me," Harry informed her. "Wait. No, actually, she dumped me," he clarified, grounding the heel of his shoe into the offensively perky yellow flowers.

"She did what?!" Hermione cried, grabbing his chin to look at him.

"She. Dumped. Me," Harry enunciated before shrugging Hermione off and stomping towards Hagrid's hut. Hermione caught up quickly, taking two steps for every one of his.

"What happened?" she asked breathlessly.

"I was in her room. She said, 'I'm dumping you.' That pretty much finished the matter," Harry snarled, deliberately avoiding the screwing other people issue.

Hermione halted. Harry kept walking, until he heard a faint "Bloody hell" issue from behind him. He stopped, because Hermione never swore unless someone was actively in danger of death, dismemberment, or being seduced by evil females who made you want to have sex with them and then twisted your emotions into a writhing mass of confusion before inducing you to trust those emotions prior to making you feel emotions about them and then throwing those emotions in your face and admitting that you were just another guy in a long line of...Harry shook his head.

"Huh?" he asked intelligently.

Hermione gulped. "I...um...well, you see..."

"What?!" he practically shouted, riding the edges of reason, leaning towards unreasonble.

"Just don't be angry with me," Hermione said in a tiny voice. "I didn't mean...which is to say that I think she misunderstood me..."

Harry froze. "What are you talking about?"

"I went to talk to Thera last night," Hermione said, glancing up at him quickly, then looking away. "Not to convince her of anything, I swear. Just to talk."

"To talk about what?" Harry asked dangerously.

"Well...you," Hermione said, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth.

Harry had a feeling he would have been angrier had he not been so surprised. "Me. You talked about me. And what, may I ask, did you talk about?"

"You, and...you know...her," Hermione said, her eyes looking everywhere but at him.

"Would it have anything to do with her getting pissed and dumping me?" His voice rose at the end, entirely against his will. Harry suddenly felt as if it was a third year again and Hermione had taken away his Firebolt. Only Thera was hardly a broomstick. Broomsticks didn't get drunk and laugh while they told you they'd fucked other people.

"It shouldn't have," Hermione said firmly. "But if she took it the wrong way..."

"Then what?"

"Then it's possible..." Hermione stopped abruptly, studying him.

"Yes? What's possible?"

Shaking her head, she looked away, gazing at Hagrid's hut, deep in thought. "We're in a war, Harry, you especially. And I know it's hard for you. I know I can't even begin to understand how hard it is." Swallowing, she looked at him full on. "Maybe it doesn't even mean anything to you, what with the prophecy and everything, but all of us are willing to do whatever it takes to help you. You don't even have to ask."

Her brown eyes were earnest, almost pleading with him to believe her, and Harry hung his head, feeling guilty for blowing up at her over his silly romantic life. At the same time, what on Merlin's earth had she said to Thera?

He felt his jaw clench. "First of all, I'd never ask you..."

"I know," she interrupted him, pulling him close and kissing him on the cheek. "But that doesn't mean we aren't still here." Hermione pulled back, holding his shoulders as she smiled slightly. "I think more people care about you than you know, Harry."

He shifted uncomfortably under gaze, as he always did when his fame entered a conversation. He didn't want it. He never had. As much as he hated to admit it, Thera had been right when she'd said he was a hero specifically because he didn't want to be one. The more he seemed to resist it, the more heroic people seemed to think he was.

"Let's go see Hagrid," Harry muttered, suddenly not wanting to know about last night. Thera would have either agreed with everything Hermione said, then promptly forgotten about her, or else insinuated that Hermione wanted him for herself. Either way, what had occurred between the two of them had no bearing on what Thera had said to him.

Hagrid was overjoyed to see them, and Harry felt a bit guilty. He hadn't visited his friend for several weeks.

"'Arry, 'Ermione, 'ow are you two gettin' along?" Hagrid asked, pushing forward a tray of brownies that might serve a better purpose plugging up drafty holes in the castle.

"Fine," they answered simultaneously.

"Fine, are yeh?" Hagrid asked, putting a kettle on the fire. "Then why ain't Ron 'ere?"

"He has class now," Hermione tried to cover.

"I know 'e don'" Hagrid said mildly, still attending the kettle. "An' I know you been 'avin' a disagreemen' and all..."

"It's a long story, Hagrid," Harry said, stroking Fang's silky ears.

"Din't seem long when 'e tol' it," Hagrid said as he rummaged around for three teacups. "Seemed like a misunderstandin' what never got put arigh' to me."

"He's mad at me for not telling him about Ginny," Harry mumbled, devoting his attention to scratching Fang's chin in between the twin drool lines issuing from his mouth.

"Aye, he is. She's 'is little sis. It's 'is job to look after 'er, and you din't let 'im."

Recalling their vain attempts last year to make Hagrid see reason about Grawp's presence in the forest, Harry wondered whether this made him a more or less trustworthy person on the matter of sibling responsibilities. He sighed and decided it didn't matter.

"It's not like I didn't want to tell him. I just didn't want to tell him until I absolutely had to." Harry was actually startled at how lame this excuse sounded.

"You were jus' tryin' to be a good friend," Hagrid said stoutly, handing him a cup.

"No, I wasn't," Harry said firmly. "I just didn't want to follow up 'Congratulations on your first girlfriend' with 'And by the way, Voldemort's gunning for your sister.'"

"Harry, that is trying to be a good friend," Hermione argued. "You wanted Ron to be happy. But look at it from his perspective. All of a sudden, all of that time he was spending with me is just time that he wasn't doing what he thinks he should have been doing to protect Ginny."

"Oh, great," Harry groaned. "So I ended up managing to ruin that for him, too. What are the unforeseen consequences of my next stupid decision going to be? Global holocaust?"

"Well, that is the chess board you're playing on, more or less," Hermione said, suppressing laughter.

"Ron's stubborn," Hagrid said wisely. "He knows you din't mean any 'arm, but it's hard for 'im to just come righ' out and say it. It's gonna take 'im some time to come around."

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by three short raps on Hagrid's door.

"Who could tha' be?" Hagrid asked, seeming overly surprised. "I don' know. I reckon I should answer it and see who it is." He stood, glancing at Hermione meaningfully.

"Did you hear that?" she asked Harry suddenly.

"You mean the knocking?"

"No, no," she said, her face turning slightly pink. "I think I heard something out back. I think I should go check it out. You know, because I'm a prefect and all." Shooting out of her seat, she ran to the back door, opening it up and nodding at Hagrid.

Nodding back, Hagrid opened the front door. "Ron Weasley!" he bellowed. "Now in't this a surprise?" Harry sat up, his eyes darting to the back door.

"Surprise?" Ron's voice asked. "What do you mean? You sent me a note..."

"Come in, come in," Hagrid interrupted him, reaching out and pulling Ron into the hut. "I've jus'...got ter see abou' some business with the salamanders." Bustling out the door as quickly as his size allowed, Hagrid slammed the door shut.

Belatedly, Harry realized that he had been set up. Ron - apparently - didn't.

"Hagrid?" he asked, trying to pull the front door open. It didn't budge. "What the hell is going on here?" Letting go of the door, his glowering stare fell upon Harry. Ron's face visibly hardened. Without a word, he strode across the hut to the back door, that also refused to budge. They were trapped.

Ron kicked the back door a few times, then suddenly turned to face him. Harry had faced down Voldemort himself, but nothing in him could bear the look on Ron's face just then. Hurt, anger, disdain, distrust, and it was Harry's fault that it existed in the first place.

"I don't think we're getting out of here until they want us to," Harry said tonelessly.

"So they're going to interfere, are they?" Ron said in a low, angry voice. "Fine, then. Merlin knows Hermione can't draw a bloody breath in the morning unless she's interfering in something that's none of her business."

Harry stood. He had no right to be angry for himself, but he could at least be angry for Hermione. "If you really think that, then you don't deserve her."

In response, Ron picked up the tea kettle and threw it at his head. Harry barely managed to dodge it, his wand in his hand before he even thought to draw it, ready for anything.

"Do you really think that I need you tell me what's what?" Ron asked, his face bright red with rage. "That because you have a fucking prophecy, you can run around screwing me over and then tell me whether or not I deserve my own fucking girlfriend?! Merlin, Harry," he said raggedly, "you don't even understand how much I trusted you. I rode from here to London on a fucking horse I couldn't see because I trusted you. So don't even think about getting all moralistic and protective about Hermione, okay? Because we both know her, and we know that she's a superior piece of work most of the time, so go fuck yourself, Harry. You don't know anything."

Having gotten so immune to the Dursleys' comments of this sort, it surprised Harry how much Ron's words actually hurt him. Maybe it was because - unlike the Dursleys - he valued Ron's opinion. He didn't know. He just knew that he had no defense.

"No, I don't," Harry said, sinking into a chair, steeling himself for the rest of it.

Across the room, Ron seemed to sag. "Merlin, Harry. Aren't you even going to argue with me about it?"

Harry's head fell into his hands. "Do you want me to? What do you want me to say?"

"What I want is for you to take a few minutes of your time and explain why you did what you did," Ron said mechanically.

"I've already told you. I didn't know about Ginny and Malfoy until just before the summit. As for the spell..." Harry swallowed, glancing over at Ron's stern face. "We knew that Ginny was safe for a while. For a few months, at least. Both of us just didn't want to put that on you, not with everything else going on, not until we had to."

Ron's jaw tightened, but he didn't answer. "Ginny cares about you, Ron, and I..." Harry coughed, uncomfortable with how this was going to sound. "I do too," he said evenly. "And neither of us wanted you to worry until you had to, and...that's pretty much it."

Ron nodded to show he had heard. Going over to the front door, he rapped on it authoritatively. In the moments after his knock and before it was answered, he turned his head over to look at Harry.

"I know you didn't mean any harm," he said in a deflated sort of tone. "And I know Hermione and Hagrid think that that means everything, but it doesn't. Not to me. Because if it was your sister, and she was involved in something like this, I would have told you, no matter what." As quickly as he could, Ron slid out of the barely-opened door as Hagrid returned to rescue them.

*******

Flooing back to Hogwarts, Vivian threw herself dramatically onto the bed.

'You know where to find me,' David had said. She didn't. He wasn't at her old flat, or his old flat, or his parents' house, or her parents' old house, or the chichi café where they'd had their first kiss, or the copse of woods where they'd gotten married outside Monterey, or the Institute, or even - yes, she had actually checked - under her bed.

Vivian sent a guilty look over to the pile of essays stacked on a chair by the fireplace. Searching for David had taken precedence over Hogwarts business lately. She sent an even guiltier look as she scooped up the floo powder, seeking out Remus.

He was seated at the kitchen table, tucking into a ham sandwich with the gusto of someone ravenously hungry who thinks there's nobody around to watch them.

Vivian winced. "Don't you get heartburn if you eat this late?"

He shrugged, waiting until he could swallow to answer. "I'm starving. I've been moving stuff around all day. I just got back a few minutes ago."

"Moving stuff around?"

"For my parents. Into the new house."

"Oh, right. I forgot about that. Is it nice?"

"It barely qualifies as a cottage, but they like it."

Parents. Cottage. "Oh dear," Vivian whispered, pieces fitting together in her head. David. Parents. Cottage. 'You know where to find me.' I know where he is.

A sense of urgency overtook her. She knew where he was. She could end this tonight. "Stay here," she said. "Stay here until I get back."

"What?" Remus put down the sandwich and stood. "Where are you going?"

Ignoring the question, Vivian walked around him and picked up the kitchen chair he'd been sitting in, lifting it up and carrying it over to break it against the sink.

Except it didn't break. It just bounced off. Picking it up, she shoved the thing at Remus. "Break this for me," she ordered.

"Why?"

"Just break it."

Remus looked at her oddly, then smashed the chair to pieces. Gathering up a few of the pointier shards, Vivian shoved them into her pockets.

"What are you doing?"

She couldn't tell him. He'd want to come if she told him. "Nothing," she said, shrugging and trying to make her way to the kitchen door.

Remus blocked her way. "Going to go quietly study some wood shards in the parlor?"

There was no way he was going to buy this. "I know where he is."

"Who? You mean David?!"

"Yes," she said, trying to sneak around him and failing.

"And you're going to take a few homemade stakes and just go after him? Alone?"

"Yes."

"I see. So you're going to walk into an obvious trap without backup or a plan?"

"I don't think it's a trap," Vivian said slowly.

Remus snorted. "Of course it is. So where is he?"

She bit her lip, trying to decide whether or not to tell him. "His parents' lake cottage."

"It took you two weeks to figure out that he was at his parents' cottage?"

"Honestly, I forgot all about the place. David and I spent a weekend there once, but his parents sold it a few years later."

"Why are you so sure he's there?"

"Because that's where he proposed to me. Or at least that's where we were when he proposed to me and I said yes."

Remus rubbed his chin. "It's a trap."

"I really don't think it is. I think he wants it to be a face-off. I think he wants to prove that he's smarter than me."

"Sweetheart, he'd prove that pretty effectively if it's a trap and you walk right into it."

She sighed. "You're not going to let me go alone, are you?"

"Of course not! Are you crazy?!"

"That's one explanation for it," Vivian muttered, shoving a hand into her pocket to locate her wand. Very simply, she wasn't dragging him into this. "I love you, Remus."

"I love you, too," he said, taken aback. "What does that...?"

Vivian whipped out her wand. "Stupefy!" Remus slumped to the floor. She turned him over onto his back, feeling a tug of remorse. Ignoring it, she climbed the stairs and walked out to the street so that she could apparate to the backyard of the cottage.

It took her a few seconds to get her bearings. The moon gave very little light. In front of her, she could make out the small white structure. The windows were dark. Vivian edged back into the woods and stood still, listening.

The woods were alive with crickets and rustling leaves. She tiptoed slowly along the tree line, her senses attuned to pick up the presence of anyone who might be lurking nearby. The house appeared to be empty. As she neared the front, she could hear the waves lapping the shore. The lakefront was dusky and hidden, trees blocking out any evidence of human existence aside from a small rowboat tied to the dock, bobbing gently.

She didn't know if it was the same rowboat they'd nearly overturned trying to get into, both of them giggly and a little drunk, filled with the romance of youth, when life could still go any direction you wanted it to. He'd rowed them out to the center of the lake and they'd snuggled and looked up at the stars, and he'd asked her again, and she'd said yes. Who could've predicted that the next time they'd be here, it would be to kill each other?

Vivian felt a sudden tingling in the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. She spun around. The woods behind her were empty. Backing up against a tree, she scanned the yard and the house. Both appeared empty, too. Vivian armed herself with a stake in one hand her wand in the other and snuck around the back of the house once more.

It wasn't until she'd watched and waited for several minutes that she finally noticed there were no leaves rustling above her head and crickets chirping. The silence was eerie, unnatural. Vivian gulped. Forget the woods; her eyes never moved from the house.

She wanted more than anything to call for backup, but couldn't bring herself to do it. This was hardly Order business, and she wasn't going to call them in because of a hunch and a prickly feeling. If this was a trap, then it was a trap designed for her, and if David was in that house, then she was going to kill him and get the hell on with her life.

Making a decision, Vivian sprinted soundlessly up to the house and crouched underneath a window, her eyes locked on the back door, waiting for it to open.

It didn't, which brought no peace of mind. A second before it happened, a voice in her head realized that she was about to be attacked, sending out primal signals: Danger! Run!

She had barely risen from her crouch to do exactly that when blinding light exploded in front of her eyes. Crying out, Vivian tripped over her own feet and fell into the wet grass. The impact nudged the urgent voice up another level, screaming in her ears to run, which she would have been perfectly happy to do if she'd been able to see anything.

The light went out as suddenly as it had come, and Vivian tried to push herself up, blinking at the weaving purple and orange shapes in front of her. She couldn't see where the cottage was, much less the woods. Hearing footsteps, Vivian changed tactics, wildly throwing curses at the shifting light echoes in front of her eyes.

And then she fell, landing with a grunt. Frantically, Vivian tried to raise her wand again and found she couldn't. She was bound, her hands tied behind her back, the wet spring grass prickling her cheek. She struggled to no avail.

Without sight, time became an unknown entity. Vivian didn't know how long she fought against her bonds before someone - David, it would seem - raised her from the ground magically. She could feel air passing through her hair and realized she was being moved.

Her wand wasn't in her hand anymore. She didn't know where it was, and she couldn't get to her pocket to call Dumbledore. Not having any other weapons at her disposal, she screamed bloody murder for a second or two, until David put a silencing charm on her. "Silly to do that, you know, and annoying to boot. There's nobody to hear you."

A familiar smell wafted towards her, and it was all Vivian could do to keep from retching. Somewhere nearby was a dead body, and it wasn't a fresh one, either. Her eyes were beginning to recover from their shock, and she could see that she was floating down the hallway that led to the front bedroom. The smell got worse as they approached. Vivian screwed her eyes shut and prayed it wasn't anybody she knew.

"Howard and Roxanne, meet my wife, Vivian," David said pleasantly. "Vivian, these two lovely individuals have been gracious enough to let me relive some old times here. In general, I like what they've done with the place, though I disagree with draperies on principal. Shades are so much more practical, don't you think?"

Vivian winced as he dropped her to the floor, but kept her eyes shut, carefully breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench. "Come now, darling," David chided her, "say hello to the nice people." She finally opened her eyes to glare in his general direction, careful not to make eye contact lest he mesmerize her.

"Oh, yes. I forgot. Finite incantatem."

"Are you so lazy that you can't be bothered to bury your victims?" she hissed.

"They're my victims," he said indignantly. "I can do whatever I want with them."

Looking over, Vivian saw that Howard and Roxanne had been tossed into the corner like a pair of gruesome rag dolls. Roxanne was on the bottom; the woman's skirt had ridden up to her knees and Vivian could see a pair of sensible shoes and stockings. Draped across her, Howard sported a flannel shirt and khaki trousers, both stained liberally with blood. His eyes were wide and staring and his head - covered with wisps of white hair - was almost completely detached from his body. In all honesty, she'd seen worse, not that it was the sort of thing she'd ever been able to get used to.

At long last, it registered that David had done that to them, and probably enjoyed it.

"They're Muggles, you know," he continued, as if they were conversing over tea. "You'd be surprised to know that Muggles taste different. They're saltier."

She dragged her focus back to him with effort. "What do you want?"

"Always one to cut to the chase, aren't you? Where's your backup?"

"I don't have any," she said, feeling even less intelligent as she said it aloud.

With lightning-fast speed, he seized her by the hair and hauled her into a half-kneeling position. Vivian gasped and tried to shift her legs so that her entire body weight wasn't being painfully held up by a collection of hair follicles. "At the risk of sounding cliché, we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Where is your backup?"

"I don't have any," she ground out. "I came alone." David let go of her hair, watching her drop to the floor before sitting down beside her.

"I believe you," he said lightly. "You're just egotistical enough to do it. Or just stupid enough. This isn't exactly your finest hour, darling."

Considering her position at the moment, Vivian had to agree. "Well you have me all tied up now. I'm at your mercy. Looks like you won." Trying not to betray the movement, she shifted slightly, trying to stretch her hands closer to the stakes in her pocket. If she could find a good sharp one, she might be able to cut through the ropes.

In about six or seven weeks. It wasn't exactly the most brilliant plan, but it was all she had, and it meant she needed to keep him talking.

"So what are you going to do now?" she asked casually. "Turn me into a vampire? Drain me dry and toss me on top of Howard over there? Go find a dementor and make me your love slave? Imagine the possibilities."

"I don't know yet, but I have plenty of time to decide. You have a purpose to serve for the Dark Lord before I get a go at you."

"Oh, really? What would that be?" Shifting a little more, Vivian moved her fingers an inch closer to her pocket.

"I'm not going to tell you the bloody plan, Vivian," he said, standing up.

"Well, why not? I'm not going anywhere, and it's not like Howard and Roxanne are going to tell anyone." Her fingertips brushed the opening of her pocket.

"Cute, darling. Now, does anybody know you're here?"

"No."

"I don't know why you have to make this difficult," he sighed. Vivian saw his foot draw back and braced herself. The kick knocked the breath out of her, but thankfully didn't do any more damage. David watched her patiently.

"Nobody knows I'm here," she said when she could.

"Don't play games, Vivian. Who knows you're here?"

"Nobody," she insisted.

"Hmph. We'll have to come back to that later, I suppose. My assistant approaches."

Vivian wondered what he was talking about until she heard the front door open and footsteps in the hallway. An assistant? She craned her head, trying to see the doorway, barely visible above her right shoulder. Stretching more, Vivian saw...herself.

She stared for one brief, shocked moment, thinking, but I'd never wear that. Vivian the second had a lot more cleavage showing than Vivian the original would ever display.

Polyjuice, she realized. She'd not only been polyjuiced, but tarted up, too.

Letting her head drop back down to the floor, a great many scenarios - all of them bad and certainly detrimental to her reputation and career - flashed in front of her eyes.

"Did you have fun?" David asked her doppelganger.

"Hardly," the other Vivian snorted. "I mean, what does a girl have to do?! Honestly!"

"Still no action, huh?"

"I made pudge over there look as good as it's possible to make her look, and all he did was snog me a little and then say he'd had a long day."

Vivian frowned. Pudge? Though it was a ridiculous thing to do, she found herself instinctively sucking in her belly and pressing her thighs together.

"Well, we know he's attracted to her. Maybe it's the attitude."

"You said to act like a bookish prude," the other Vivian said exasperatedly. "And then you told me to seduce him. So yes, I think it might be the attitude." It was disturbing for Vivian to watch herself talking and gesticulating and dressing in ways she never would.

"I'd watch your words if I were you, Magda," David said softly. "You don't have an advisory role in this organization."

The other Vivian - Magda, apparently - looked cowed. "I'm sorry."

"I like you feisty, Magda, but not disobedient. I suggest you learn the difference between the two. Take another dose and meet me in the guest bedroom." The woman nodded and left. "So that was Magda," David said in conclusion.

"Is fucking her like fucking me?" Vivian asked, suppressing her rage with difficulty.

He turned his face back to her and Vivian averted her eyes. "I don't fuck her."

"You might as well. It's not like she'd protest."

"It's not the same," he said dismissively. "Though you might find it interesting to know that your friend Balder Astragand hasn't noticed the difference."

Vivian swore. Balder hadn't sent her an owl in months, and she had just figured he'd gotten the point. Could this really have been going on that long?

"I'll give him credit; he isn't a talkative guy," David said. For a moment, Vivian felt a bit sorry for Balder. Then it occurred to her that he was a fascist pig who hadn't clued in on the fact that he was dating a rather bad imposter of her.

"Anybody who knows me will see through this in a second." Polyjuicing somebody into her wouldn't fool the Order. She knew too much; there wasn't a way to fake that.

"You'd be surprised," David said mildly. "In any case, it doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Because Magda isn't going to be near anybody you know. Eventually we'll use her as a decoy, but for now, she's just for Mr. Astragand, not that that's been very helpful."

"Did you really think that he would just blab everything about his job to me?"

"We thought we might get a few things here and there, not just about him, but about you." He approached her, and Vivian tensed up. "Although he did tell us one useful thing." Bending down, he turned her on her stomach and began rummaging through her pockets. Taking out the stakes, he snorted and tossed them aside. From her other pocket, he pulled out a handful of coins. Vivian smirked. Good luck finding it, darling.

Rolling her over, he held the coins in front of her face. "Which one is it?"

"Which one is what? If you want my pocket change that much, just take it."

"Which one is the communication device?" he asked in clipped tones.

"David," she said flatly, "they're coins."

"Vivian, nobody knows you're here and nobody's coming for you. Eventually you'll identify the communication device and use it to call in your little friends, and believe me when I say that what occurs between now and eventually will not be very pleasant for you. And I'll still have the information, won't I? See, it's not a matter of 'if,' but of 'when,' and if it I have to, I can make you tell me. So why do this to yourself?"

Vivian analyzed her options. She'd told Remus she was going to David's parents' old lake house. Once he woke up, it wouldn't take him long to figure out where that was.

Secondly, the Death Eaters couldn't get Magda into Hogwarts. The wards were far too strong. And they certainly couldn't get her into Number Twelve.

Thirdly, if David seemed to be spending a lot of time threatening her without actually doing anything, and she got the odd feeling that he didn't really want to hurt her.

Though risky, the third one seemed like the most likely candidate for keeping her out of danger in the very near future, so she latched onto it.

"Remember the last time we were here?" she asked, as if she wasn't tied up and there weren't old corpses in the corner and he wasn't a vampire getting ready to torture her.

"Have you bloody well lost it?!" he practically shouted, shaking the coins under her nose.

Vivian ignored him. Years before the fighting and the jealousy and the turning into vampires and becoming mortal enemies situation, there had been reasons to get married. A lot of them. At one point, they had been happy together.

"I saw the rowboat, David. Is it the same one?"

There was a long pause before he answered. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"When I saw it, I remembered us trying to get into it while we were holding each other up, and I slipped and you tried to keep me from getting wet and..."

"And I leaned over to stop you from falling and almost tipped the boat over," he said testily. "Yes, I remember. Now, back to the point..."

"Why here, David?"

"I've always liked this place. It has nothing to do with you."

"Yes, but for me this place is all about you. Did you bring me here to make me remember it? To make me remember us?"

A surge of relief went through her when she saw the hand holding the coins falter.

"I didn't mind that you didn't love me," he said quietly. "I loved you and I had you, and isn't that what happiness is? Having what you love?"

Vivian held her breath, afraid to answer.

"Let me tell you, Viv. It isn't. I gave you what I promised, but you never gave it back."

"David, I never meant to..."

He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I've tried to make you love me and I've tried to make myself something without you and I've even tried to make you hate me, but I've never succeeded." He laughed softly, bitterly. "Even now, you don't hate me. Even if I tortured you, you wouldn't hate me. Not really. You have to really know a person to hate them, and you've never known me. So I've decided to not give a flying fuck what happens to you. You're no more and no less than a means to an end. So no, I'm not fucking your likeness and pretending it's you, and no, I'm not going to be distracted by nostalgic vignettes of the way we were. So stop wasting my time."

A sick, curdling fear began in her stomach, and Vivian couldn't even find the ability to form words. He didn't want to punish her or prove anything to her or own her, he simply wanted to use her - who she was and what she knew - to destroy the Order.

"Look at me, Vivian," he ordered firmly.

She screwed her eyes shut, her heart thudding so loud in her chest that she wondered if he could hear it. He probably could. "Do you really think it's going to be that easy?"

His breath whispered across her face as he leaned close. It smelled the same. He smelled the same, a smell she'd lived with for fifteen years, that she knew as well as her own.

"Easy? Things are never easy with you, darling. I should know. Imperio."