Disclaimer: Surprising as it may be, I don´t own Harry Potter.
A/N: Clearly inspired by the Buffy episode "Entropy" and therefore named after it. Don't read it if you mind angst, confusion, angry sex and fics from non-native speakers
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Entropy
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"Screw 'em!" the boy with the messy ink-black hair spats out, his brown eyes sparkling in a desperate mixture of anger and drunkenness behind the round glasses. He has forgotten long ago why he is sitting here with this cold blonde he is supposed to hate, has forgotten why they ended up drinking fire whiskey in this dusty, deserted room in the middle of the night, but he's glad that she's here. Without her, he would be all alone with the memory of his latest humiliating encounter with the red-haired vixen he had so foolishly chosen to fall in love with.
"I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid."
His eyes darken. That girl's his personal hell-goddess, she really is, and he would burn for her if she would just let him - but apparently he isn't worthy of that.
"Screw 'em!" he repeats a bit louder and the blonde nods. She looks very pale, woven from insubstantial light, and her luminous dark blue eyes with the faint suggestions of dark circles under them are the only point of colour in her face. Sirius uses to call her the Ice Queen, but she doesn't look like it tonight. Not at all.
She offers the bottle to him, the dim light glinting off the gold of the ring she's wearing. Probably a present from her arrogant git of a boyfriend, James thinks, and despite himself he has to laugh at the gorgeous irony of it all. Her silver-haired angel, whose cold grey eyes promise her the world when he is not busy shagging the entire female population of Hogwarts, and his lovely red-haired witch are two entirely different kettles of fish, but there is one thing they have in common: they are able to destroy those who love them without putting any real effort into it.
He takes the bottle and drinks, the whiskey burning his throat and chest. "It's not though as I haven't done anything to win her", he explains, trying to make her understand and wondering why he bothers at the same time. "I've even tried to be nice to Snape, that slimy piece of shit, but is it ever enough?"
She laughs mirthlessly, a sound that makes him shudder. He can hear shards of glass from her heart, broken so long ago that it is impossible to fix, in this voice and he knows so goddamn well how it goes. "Of course not", she replies, her upper class accent lovely stained by the alcohol. "I was always going above and beyond for Lucius and what good did it?"
"None?" he guesses.
Again the hard laugh. "None", she agrees, wistfulness darkening the impressive eyes momentarily until their cold blue turns into the impossible near-black he knows so well from Sirius's face. It's so easy to forget that they are relatives...
He seats himself next to her, getting right cosy with her personal space. It´s pure irony. He's never been that close to the girl with the burning hair, but somehow it figures that this wintry Slytherin allows him the favour.
Narcissa, he thinks, three smooth syllables and honey running down a razorblade. Like his girl she is named after a flower. Like his girl he has nothing of a flower´s fragility. For one moment, he wonders why her family has broken with their ridiculous tradition and not called her Cassiopeia or Vega or anything like that. He will ask Sirius tomorrow.
...Of course, that would involve telling Sirius that he spent the night drinking with one of the cousins he hates, so forget that idea again.
"You know, it's not the fact that he's fucking Florence Zabini or Estelle Sinistra or whoever he has chosen as his whore of the week that bothers me", she interrupts his thoughts, her voice bitter. "It's that he doesn't even try to hide it."
"I don´t know why you are bothering with him anyway", he argues as reasonably as his condition allows him to. Not that he actually cares, but she listened to him as well and she is so near and a part of him really wonders what such a breathtakingly beautiful creature sees in an utter bastard like Lucius Malfoy. "You could have every guy at school, Narcissa, you know you could, so why the hell does it have to be Malfoy?"
"For the same reason you are bothering with that filthy little mudblood of yours, I suppose" she returns with venomous sarcasm. When she sees his hurt expression, her lips draw back into a sneer. "We are sitting in the same boat, Potter", she tells him nastily, taking his uneasiness as a personal triumph like any good Slytherin would. "Better don't dare to judge me."
He doesn't answer to that. She's right, the smooth serpent, and they both know it, but he wont give her the satisfaction of speaking it out.
"We are sitting in the same boat."
Yes, he reflects, they really are. Love got under their skin and invades them like a cancer every second of every minute of every goddam day... and now he's got his hand on her knee.
"It hurts", he confides in her, knowing very well that he's stupid to do so. "I try to pretend that it doesn't, I try to play along, but it's killing me. Every time she turns away, it's a little death and I'm sick with it. Do you wanna know something, Black? Love sucks."
"Of course it does", she agrees, not squirming away from his touch like a good girl would, like the red-haired witch he so desperately loves would. "Has nobody ever told you that love was a Slytherin, Potter?"
She smells so fucking good, he finds himself thinking, like moonlight and ice in a winter's night all mixed and it makes him want to plunge in and drown.
"Spare me your Slytherin wise sayings" he demands rather sharply, his hand sliding further up her leg and shoving her posh skirt up to her waist. She shivers, but doesn't speak again.
He hesitates only a moment. The blonde's no safe harbour, he knows that. She's got her own game, her own cold-hearted love, and they're both very, very drunk, and when it's over, they won't want to think of it, they'll hide the evidence and pretend it never happened.
But God, he wants it.
"I want you," he then tells her quite matter-of-factly. "I want you to scream for me. To make me scream. Just get her out of my head."
A wry wintry smile forms itself on her lovely full lips. "Works for me", she replies simply.
Without warning, he pulls her up and covers the her perfect mouth with his own, shoving his tongue into the warm cavern that opens up for him without any resistance. Of course he knows that he's supposed to be gentle because for all her bloody-minded coldness Narcissa´s a girl and you don't treat girls like street whores, but for some reason, James doesn´t give a damn about that. He doesn't think that she cares either. After all, she is a Slytherin and for this lot sex and death and love and pain is all the same bloody thing.
A girl's voice is calling to him over the distant, her voice clear and melodic like Narcissa´s will never be. "Potter, why do you have to be such an arrogant git? What has Severus ever done to you? I would rather go out with the Squid than with you. Potter, are you even listening to me?"
Not much longer, bitch.
It's not the first time for Narcissa, of course not, and she's practised and very skilful, knows how to make him scream like he just commended it and how to scream quite prettily herself, but he knows that she looks at something else. Not him.
She really loves Malfoy, James realizes when he finally finds a rhythm that pleases them both. The same self-destructive way he bloody lost his mind and his dignity for the girl with the crimson hair and the light green eyes. They are really sitting in the same boat.
"James..."
At least she's kind enough to remember his name when she comes, to use it with passion even, as though it actually mattered who the hell he was.
It's his last clear thought before the blessed oblivion of his own orgasm overcomes him.
"You really have it quite bad for him, don't you?" he asks her a little later when they are both lying on the floor, breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling. "What about Malfoy? Does the wanker love you, too?"
She stands up, the lust replaced with coldness and discomfort as she smoothes her long golden hair. "What are you, my analyst?" she hisses, yanking down her skirt. "For your information, Potter: No, he doesn't. He cares, a little, but that's all and you can fuck off anyway."
And just one moment later the door slams and he is alone again, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Women. Damn them all, he'll never understand them. It doesn't matter if it's the girl or the Ice Queen or any of the other bitches - the whole lot is insane.
Eventually he stands up, still shaky from the alcohol and the sex.
It's time to go head back to Gryffindor. Face his demons. Face the girl. Forget what happened just now.
After all, James Potter is best when it comes to ignore things he doesn't want to think about.
Finis