Across the room of polite conversation and well-disguised sneers, he watches her, one hip jutted out provocatively, one hand holding a glass of dark wine, her heavy hair gleaming in the candlelight. Watches as her fiancé slides a hand across her back to encircle her waist, claiming her protectively. He smiles to himself at the gesture, knowing how useless it is. She used to torment him, hurt him, tease him, poke him until he became so angry sparks flew out of his fingers, and then she laughed again, mirthless and mocking, insane. Now he can have his revenge, but he won't use magic. Not against her. She's not worth an honorable battle, and he has other weapons against her. He knows how much she hates the boy whose hand is clutching her waist, he knows that she wants a different escape than him, something better, more ambitious, more exciting, and he'll give it to her. And, just when she thinks she's found her answer, he'll take it away, and she'll know he just wants to hurt her.
She'll still need him.
Slowly, he works his way across the room, letting his eyes burn with the prospect of such a wonderful triumph. It's as though the crowd melts away, with their wine and their smiles and their custom-made robes. She's standing near the door leading to the second room. As he exits, his hand brushes her hip under the silk, brushes around to her inner thigh, a light touch, but unmistakable. As he walks on, past the second room and towards the stairs, he wants to look back, to see the surprise and the understanding mingling on her face before she can disguise it again (she was always the worst at that), but he doesn't, because then he would lose control of it.
He waits for ten minutes while she battles her hatred with her want, sitting lazily on his bed, watching as the sky outside changes blood red from the sunset, then charcoal grey as storm clouds roll into appearance, thundering ominously. The floor creaks outside his door and he ignores it. She won't bother to knock.
He won't look at her as she enters silently, shutting the door with an almost hesitant click. Her footsteps are noiseless against his thick carpet, her silk makes only the softest rustle, and for a moment she strikes him as innocent, undeserving of what he's going to do to her. But then his eyes travel to meet hers and the innocence disappears; in its place he sees lust, feels it radiating off her body. He looks her over, noting how the robes do little to hide the shape of her body, and wonders if she did that for her fiancé, or for someone else downstairs, someone too proper to be in this room with her. He smiles and stands up. She almost takes a step backwards – he's taller than she is, now – but doesn't, holding her ground, her chin held high. He meets the challenge with another smile, softer, and lets a little desire surface in his features.
Of course, she'll think it's because of her. She's right, but he doesn't want her body. He wants her soul, and he'll have it.
He doesn't speak and she follows his lead, her full lips trembling with the effort not to make a remark. He reaches out, smoothes her hair back from where it's fallen over her shoulder, lifts it and returns it to its place with the rest, stepping closer as he does, inhaling the dark perfume she wears. Her eyelids fall until she's staring up at him through her eyelashes and she reaches to touch his cheek, but he turns his head away. She won't touch him unless he wants her to.
Slowly, his hands travel from her hair to her ears to her brow, her nose, her cheeks, her lips, her neck, her collar, her shoulders. Her head falls back a fraction and he bends forward to brush his lips against her throat, allowing his teeth to graze against her pale skin. Her lips part and again she reaches for him, but he grabs her hand and pushes it away. Then he moves to her wrist, her forearm, up to her shoulder again and down to her breasts, ill concealed beneath the tight fabric. This time, she does gasp, her chest heaving forward so that his touch becomes that much firmer against her. He smiles into her skin and runs his tongue in a long slow trail up over her chin to her lips. She kisses him and he pulls away, returning to her throat, pushing her head back farther until all her can see is the long column of her skin, waiting for him.
His other hand finds her other breast, running over the nipple and underneath to cup it gently as he lets his teeth close on that soft spot where neck ends and shoulder begins, a smooth, pale curve, without blemish. She shudders towards him and he backs away, breaking contact so that he can look at her, see her eyes. She's never done this, never known what it's like to have someone touch her; she's been good and loyal to her family. But she's been about to explode for months now, he knows, and that one touch against her hip brought her over the brink into recklessness. Her mouth is open, dark lips wet from where she's licked them. Her breasts heave as she struggles to control her breathing, gazing at him with a need he's only ever seen in her when she was hurting him, hurting others. He smiles at the thought that it's he who's hurting her now, that she needs him, not to hurt, but to relieve.
His eyes flick down to the fastenings on her robes, then back up to meet hers. She understands, and her hands fly up to undo them, trembling and clumsy. She pushes the fabric off her shoulders; it falls to the carpet in a rustle of soft wings, shimmering in the fading light from the window. Outside, thunder rumbles, and the Muggles next door turn on their lights.
She stands in front of him now in her underclothes and her shoes. He stares at her, letting a little more desire into his expression, egging her on, and slowly she reaches behind her back for the ties to the corset her mothers forces her to wear. She unlaces it and peels it off her body, dropping it as well. He doesn't move. She pulls off her shoes, then her underwear and stockings, a twisted, confusing mess of cloth and silk, toeing them all off until finally she stands before him, naked, and more beautiful than she might have been with the clothes on, though if he is honest with himself, he liked the corset on her. It gave a sense of imprisonment, of capture and control.
Finally, he holds out a hand to her and she steps over the tangle of her discarded clothing to take it. He pulls her close, his hands again finding her breasts, but moving from there, across her sides and back, to her bottom and over her thighs. His fingers press against their insides, forcing her to take a step horizontally, spreading her legs so the same fingers can press up against her, twisting inside her as she sucks in a hissing breath, clutching at his arms with long, cruel fingers, her nails digging into his own silk robes. He smiles again, pressing himself closer to her, his breath hot against her neck, his tongue slipping out to tease her, to touch her, just a little.
His other hand stays at her breast, pinching the nipple, running over the skin, memorizing the feels of her skin and the beating of her heart, fast and panicky in her chest. She presses her fingers under his chin, forcing his head up, and kisses him brutally, wanting more than what he's giving her, even as he turns his fingers inside her, adding another one, pushing up farther, deeper. He lets her kiss him for a second, but pulls away again, turning his head to the side. She tries to turn him back to her lips again, but he refuses. He removes his hands from her body, stepping away, letting his eyes meet hers. He smiles for a last time, and finally allows the cruelty and the sadistic pleasure shine through them, tells her what he's done.
And then he leaves her, standing naked and desperate in the middle of his room, and returns to the party downstairs.
Years later, as they fight, wands mere blurs and the outside world forgotten, he sees in her eyes that need again, that horrible fury and desire to cause him pain, to hurt him, to get her revenge, but underneath that, another desire, a desire never satisfied, and he laughs out loud at her weakness. He's won; he can do no more. When her spell hits him, all he can think of is what poor revenge this must be for her, still standing naked in the dim light, with thunder crashing outside and a dim-witted fiancé waiting downstairs.