She finds herself in a downward spiral at a dangerously young age; her bones are still so small and fragile, her skin so thin, her heart so weak and untouched that she never stands a chance in surviving the fall. And when she falls she falls hard, past the precipice of purity and into the abyss of recklessness before anyone around her can notice what has happened - and when they do, all hell breaks loose, but she has already landed, has already struck the ground and fallen into the Earth, and all that is left for them to do is watch.

There is something about her, the people say, special. She has always been special, will always be special, but her parents shake their heads and turn the other way, and it is blatant disapproval, this outright disregard for her own state of being that draws her to him.

She has become a blood-red stain on their flawless IKEA-white linoleum world that wouldn't come out, marring the image of perfection that her parents had worked so hard to maintain. War heroes did not have daughters who associated with the children of the villains. In the fairy tales, the good girl married the good boy and they lived happily ever after, but she was not a good girl, not anymore, and there would never be a happily every after in her future.

So she trapped him in her web with lips like roses and venom-filled lies, he who was the symbol of her rebellion. White and pure like an angel, silver hair and silver skin, he who was meant to be evil, and she stood atop him with eyes like black holes and hair the colour of flames, and it was almost laughable that she was the one who was meant to be a beacon of light, of hope.

She was nothing. She was a shadow, a ever-evolving, ever-present being that cloaked the world in cold and darkness wherever she went. And he was foolish enough to love her, to think that if he could reach deep enough within the emptiness that had become her heart, her mind, her soul, that he could find something worth salvaging. He had delusions of grandeur about their non-relationship, thinking he was more to her than propaganda. Thinking he could own her, claim her, mould her into sunshine and put bows in her hair, build a white picket fence around her to trap her into a life of mediocrity, of average perfection that she had worked so hard to escape since her fragile mind was able to dismiss the concept of flawless, since she had realized that the air we took into our lungs was not air at all, but lies and deception and distrust.

She kisses him hard and her kisses are poison and his kisses are life, and as he wastes away she grows, grows until she has doubled in size and he has almost disappeared completely.

He is ruined, she knows. Skin and bones and flesh and death, like she had been before, before she had died and come back to life stronger, less afraid. He is ruined to the world, but nearly ready for her, nearly enough for her to use. She has shown them all what she can do, just what power she holds in her lips and her eyes and her smile. He will become a martyr, a sacrifice for her cause, and she knows that someday he will thank her for this. She knows.

"Close your eyes," she tells him one day. It's a lesson, a test, and he knows that. It's his most important one yet.

He does as he's told without hesitation. She likes that about him.

"What do you see?" she asks, even though it's not hard to guess. And she closes her eyes with him so she can see it too, see her creation, her world that she's slowly bringing to life. It's beautiful, breathtaking, and she smiles to herself in pride. It's hers, hers for the taking.

"Darkness," he answers, and she nods, because that's it. That's it exactly.

"Keep them closed," she tells him, and again he does what he is told. No that she can see, because her eyes are sealed shut along with his, but she knows. She knows these things about him, has him so wrapped around her finger that she can predict each one of his actions so precise it's almost a science, almost an art. "What do you see now?"

And this time he hesitates, unsure, too afraid of what will happen if he gets the answer wrong.

"Light," he replies, and she nods, even though he can't see her, because he knows her better than he knows herself, and she knows he can feel it when she does.

Light through dark, dark through destruction. Dark through rebellion, dark through flaws and cracks in the foundation, through stains and scars and marks that will never come out. She's going to change the world with her kiss of death, suck the life from the living and raise up the dead. So when the last breath passes through his lips, the last light of life leaves his eyes, she doesn't feel a thing other than pride.

He was too good for this world anyways.

A/N: depressing one-shot ftw. Rose Weasley is a psycho in this don't ask why.