Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
She only sought to help, but he was still hurting, though he made a constant, unrelenting show that he was alright. Somehow, this made him seem pitiable-pathetic, like an infant screaming for its mother. There was a period in their shared time when they did not speak, save when he gave an order-curtly and with distaste-and she obeyed with a matched amount of malice in her doing so.
It was as though they had entered into some kind of viper-like dance; constantly sneering and jeering at one another, unable to reconcile that the life they had plunged into together was not something either one of them could have asked for, while simultaneously being unable to pull themselves from the doldrums of one another.
He hated her because she was not Lily Evans-The Woman. Soon, she found that she hated herself for that very same reason, and spent innumerable nights in front of the cracked and dirty glass in the bathroom; willing the brown hair to turn red, and the unquenchable fury to be silenced. She practised the Lily Evans smile in the mirror, trying to be coquettish and sincere all at the same time; but in the end, it made her round and pasty face look lumpy and stretched in all the wrong places, and she let it fold back into its usual ugly, unsatisfied frown.
The worst of it was, she supposed, that she really did want to help him. For a long time, she would have liked nothing better than to wake to a good-natured smirk and some playful banter, perhaps even a kiss...not that she'd get picky, or try to rush. But it was almost as though that wound of his mind, the one that would not let a pleasant word slip from between his lips, did not want to heal. It almost enjoyed festering, reminding him of every single way that she was not Lily, and every single way that she was useless and disgusting and hideous. It was what allowed him to treat her like scum with no qualms, and the longer it festered, the worse he was to her.
Sometimes, he came to her in the night. Whispered Lily's name as he felt her move beneath him. Said he wanted to feel better...just to feel better. And she really, really wanted to help, after all.