It was hardly in a conventional way in which they met. One's usual idea of meeting someone doesn't involve the pointing of wands, the uttering of curses aimed to kill, and roars of fury clashing against desperate screams.

She was masked, hair tied back into a tight bun, hidden under the thick black cloak. Her face lay concealed under the silvery skull of a mask that said all one needed to know. Death Eater. The words so despicable, disgusting , to the heart of any 'good' man. There was nothing distinguishing, nothing special. A drone, a follower. He was barely awake, having only risen out of urge to relieve himself, only just tucking his wand back into his pants, before the senses so finely attuned by months on the run alerted him to the presence he knew shouldn't have been there. The hero turned, reactions faster than the blazing green light that soared over his head as he ducked. Spellfire, a galaxy of lights and orchestra of noise, filled the forest.

The words flowed from his mouth, a verbal river of well practiced curses and jinxes, lapping over a tongue far too used to the sound of curses. Sparks clashed, the air trembled, as bolt met bolt midair leaving behind the hiss of cancelled magic. The girl was slowly being pushed towards the river, slowly losing her footing, ever so slowly falling. The boy was gaining the upper hand, advancing with bloodlust in the emerald eyes that were dull in fury. Fire met ice, green met red, snake duelled lion.

The lion lunged forward with a tongue of flame, the snake barely sliding under it. Water, a stream not gentle or refreshing, but forceful, forward, aggressive, cut through the morning air. The lion howled as it took the impact, roared as it struggled back to its feet, soaked from head to tail. The snake moved in for a kill, fangs bared green and blazing, yet the lion was ready, hardly a moment had passed yet it was already back on its hind legs, moving to react . All it took was a single spell, blood red, striking the abdomen of the black cloaked serpent, sending the green light flying uselessly into the grey skies, to end the battle.

The girl lost, fair and square. It had hardly been fair in the first place. A suicide mission; perhaps that hadn't been the title on the paper, but that was the harsh truth. Disposable. Perhaps that wasn't how she though of herself, but it was the simple truth. Girl, good but hardly great, young, average. Just the type then, to be sent on a mission of certain death. But nothing in this world was certain, least of all the promise of passing. If it had been, perhaps the tale would have ended here. As it stood, fate, in all her mischievous scheming, had other ideas.

"Get up". The words were harsh and cold, hardly befitting the title of 'hero' that had bequeathed on the boy. They were spat rough as from a grinder. The boy's messy black hair fell over his bloodied face as the wood in his hand was roughly shoved into the throat of his felled foe. The mask lay ajar, the robe torn and burnt, the girl sprawled below the lion like a broken rag-doll. She said nothing. The boy wasn't taking no for an answer; instead, roughly grabbing her collar, he pried the stationary figure up into the air, holding a bundle of the dark fabric in his hands in a grip merciless.

Her first words to him were nothing but scorn.

"Fuck off Potter. Just kill me already and you can go on your merry way to 'stopping' the Dark Lord, and I can die here like the disgrace I am." The voice was filled with nothing but disgust and hatred, dripping in the anger that lathered her entire being. The boy showed a brief moment of surprise. Not for the words spoken, but for the voice that spoke it. A voice familiar to him, yet equally distant. A voice he'd rather not have heard in the current predicament.

"Greengrass", was all the so named hero uttered quietly. He hadn't known her well. She was a snake, he a lion. The only time they associated each other was on the battlefield, whether exchanging harsh words or rapid spells. A member of the Slytherin clique, representative of it at the very worst, aristocratic, arrogant, spiteful. He may not have been glad to see her, but there was no love lost. She merely laughed, a high cold laugh that sent shivers down his back as it reminded him of another laugh he was all too willing to forget.

As he released the girl, keeping his wand trained on her figure, she threw off the mask, dropping the hood. The girl turned to look at him in scorn. "What's wrong Potter? Can't bear to kill one of your classmates? Get real. If it was Draco here, the Dark Lord himself would have competition for the title of 'best killing curse'." The laugh that followed was hollow, humourless. The smile didn't reach the empty brown eyes. Her face, considered by many who observed it to be a high class beauty unlike her fellows, could only be described as battered. Bruises, low hanging bags under the empty eyes, cuts bleeding fresh blood; at the moment, nothing particularly positive could be said about it.

The bot shook his head, keeping his wood pointed coldly at her chest. "I'm not afraid to kill you, Greengrass". The words were hollow, truthless. The coldness didn't reach his dull emerald eyes. No matter how he tried, Harry Potter was no killer. There was nothing in that heart that could bring itself to rob a mother of her daughter, a girl of her sister. That being said, neither was Harry Potter an idiot, much to the protest of certain people. The words "Incarcerous" left his mouth without a hint of hesitation, the rough ropes cleanly snapping to the contours of the girl's body. A flicker of fear passed over the dead brown eyes.

"Going to tie me up and have a little fun with me before you stick the other wand in me then, Harry? Go on, I don't care. Try your fucking best." Greengrass spat the words contemptuously, trying so desperately to inject into her voice the hatred she felt he deserved. The boy who strode shakily towards her said nothing, her merely shook his head, grasping the ropes with the iron grip of his left hand, while wrenching the wand from her hand with the remaining limb. As the ropes tightened, a slow horror began to grow in the blond haired Death Eater as she looked fearfully into the eyes of her captor, bottom lip trembling as she spoke.

"Don't say it, don't fucking say it Potter. Don't say you'll spare me. I don't need your god dammed, stupid, fucking, sympathy. This isn't the time for your shit. Kill me, you stupid Gryffindor bastard. Kill me and be done with it, like I know you want to, you little shit." All the insults and taunts in the word that she could muster poured out, tumbling forward into an increasingly incoherent stream of pointless words. All the girl could do was watch as she was levitated into the air, body floating unnaturally above the ground in an experience one might have almost considered to be fun, had her body not been bound by ropes from neck to ankles.

"Too bad Greengrass. Maybe you want to die. A lot of us want to die. Sometimes, I want to die too, but you know what, so fucking what. Life's shit, better start getting used to not getting what you want." Blunt words cutting the air, he began the tedious process of levitating Greengrass over to the campsite, slowly leaving behind the ruined spectacle of destruction that marked their site of battle. They exchanged no words, insults, or even glances. Silence, cold and uneasy, was only broken by the cries of "Harry!" that floated over the ridge above.

Descending the ridge came down the messy haired brunette and the tall redhead. Their shock was difficult to conceal, or in the case of the latter, disgust as he looked down upon the prisoner their comrade had brought. As the trio gathered two thirds of the way down the leaf covered slope, the other boy, Ronald, was the first to speak. "Harry, we can't take prisoners." His voice was ground in frustration. The words were angry, irritated, seething with an arrogance that screamed 'I'm right, listen to me!'. The boy with messy black hair only shook his head unhappily, turning to the brunette with a pleading look. She seemed to understand whatever sentiment ran through his heart better than the other boy, who only turned incredulously to the pair.

"She's not just a snake, she's a Death Eater, and by the looks of it, one that tried to just kill Harry. Why the fuck do you think this cunt's worth keeping alive? All she'll be is a drain on us. We'll have to slow down to keep her around, this isn't mercy or kindness or some shit like that you shit twats it's just plain stupid and I-"

The rant of the the redhead was cut off by the other girl. She stood with her arms crossed, looking neither glad nor mad, only contemplative, a million thoughts streaming through her head as she tried to resolve the yawning rift that had cracked open between the group. "Ron, we aren't going to keep her around forever. Once we get the chance, we'll drop her off to an order safe-house where she can be properly incarcerated. Isn't that right Harry?" The last word was almost pleading, as she turned to the dark haired boy, begging that he follow, to just stay quiet and agree, for the sake of unity.

He said nothing but merely nodded and began to ascend the ridge. Harry didn't feel like speaking. The green eyed youth barely felt anything at all, only a faint ebbing anger that only grew. The sleep had washed it away, refreshed him, and sent thrills of joy through his heart; the same positive feelings that had sparked him to take mercy on the former classmate of his. But the creeping plague was catching back up to him, and no matter how hard he ran, he couldn't outpace it. There was only one thing he could do, yet he was so loathe to do it, but at the same time, yearned desperately to.

Reaching the small campfire that burned with low, flickering remnants of flame, the exhausted boy cancelled the levitation charm, sending Greengrass tumbling to the ground as he collapsed into sitting lazily next to the slow burning ashes. The youth looked to right, where the Death Eater lay, a cold anger burning in the brown eyes that reflected the faintly leaping orange sparks. The silence stretched on, this time, unbroken by the pair who seemed to have disappeared into the forest unknown. He spoke. "I never though that they'd send you after me, Daphne Greengrass."

"So what. Do you pity me, Potter? Don't pity me. I made my choice, I accepted the mission. If you were lying at my feet, it wouldn't be in ropes, you would be a savaged and bloody corpse. I serve the Dark Lord faithfully. No Imperius required unlike some retards." Every time she insulted him, her mood seemed to lighten, if only ever so slightly, as though the feel of verbally assaulting someone somehow relieved her of the stress she had built up. The long blond hair was no longer tied in the neat bun it had been, but was strewn in the mud, once luscious locks mixing freely with the autumn leaves on the forest floor.

"I don't really pity you Greengrass. You're a Death Eater. Your kind has taken so much away from me, made me hurt, made me cry. There isn't anything in the world you could do to make me forgive you, and I know you don't want it anyway, so let's keep this the way both of us want it, a relationship between a captor and his victim. No stockholm syndrome allowed". He added the final sentence with a short, humourless laugh, reciprocated to his surprise by the bound girl lying beside him.

"Dream on Potter. You may have half the girls in the school wanting to get in your pants, but we Slytherins have no delusions that you're just a stuck up prat. Plus, we heard you'd rather take it rather than give it Potter, is that one true? Is that why you keep the Weasley prat around? His broomstick?" Short and malicious, how could anyone could expect anything more was beyond either of them. The boy looked laughed shortly in spite of himself, a laugh cold and bitter as the morning frost coating the ground around them.

"Yes Greengrass. I swing Dumbledore's way, that's why I keep a girlfriend as cover. Good logic, you caught me" replied the boy with an unusually sardonic tone as he rubbed his hands and stood, carefully wiping leaves off his mud splattered pants before reaching into the filthy black jacket he wore, extracting a silvery locket that he almost ripped of his body, flinging it haphazardly into the tent, as though afraid that if he stared at it any longer, he'd never find the will to remove it.

From behind the dark haired youth came a burst of laughter. "How classy of you Potter. You were jewellery. Is it mudblood made? Or a gift from the blood-traitor slut? Do you wear a cute bracelet with it too?"

Harry's eyes darkened. Striding back towards the girl who now sat upright, the boy grabbed her robes, a fury foreign to her, that she hadn't seen in the entire morning filled his eyes. Roughly pressing the short holly stick to her throat, the boy snarled, "Don't you ever dare insult my friends like that, you heartless Slytherin Bitch, or I will make you pay, for every single word that comes out of your mouth." The threat was clear, yet Daphne Greengrass seemed hardly fazed, almost amused, at the words that came from her captor. Her mouth twisted into a wry, lifeless sneer.

"And tell me Potter, when I call the mudblood for what she is, or call out the Weasel for being utter shite at everything, what are you going to do to me? Come on, tell me, Chosen One" The last two words struck home hardest of all, sarcastic and mocking in every sense of the word, ridiculing everything he'd ever fought for, pouring scorn everything Harry had ever accomplished.

For a moment the boy didn't respond but merely let her go and walked to the small tent. Three steps away, he turned. His eyes so very cold and unforgiving yet burning, smouldering with true furor said everything that his words didn't. Yet even she didn't expect his blunt reply. From far away came an echo of a man he once knew; even now he could hear his voice, see his long alabaster hair.

"There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!", the voice which Harry would rather forget snarled furiously. Then there was the reply. "You are quite wrong," the words of the who had taught him so much, hadn't he? The echo of that phrase rang the loudest in the empty clearing "Indeed your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness "

Death always had come slowest to those who sought it dearest and most eagerly to those who would rather keep it away.

"I can keep you alive, Greengrass."

A/N: Whew, better get back on with my exam revision...

To be honest I don't really know where I'll be taking this yet.