A/N: This is a new fanfic that I'm writing within the span of three days. Just a little bit of fun writing, nothing serious. Hope you like it!
Chapter One.
Crissy rolled over, away from Rabastan. Her skin was slick with sweat and sticky because of it; she wanted nothing more than to separate herself from him... And get out of the fluid-covered bed sheets. Luckily, her boyfriend was never one to cuddle after sex.
She had barely sat up in the bed, digging around underneath, trying to find her gray, pleated skirt when Rabastan grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her back down onto the bed, her head resting on his stomach. Usually this meant she was stuck here, giving him another round of sex, each thrust more painful than the last.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" Crissy replied. The question was off the wall and more out of the blue than anything the boy had ever thrown at her before.
"You heard me, I know. Do you love me." This time, it wasn't a question, but a demand.
She shrugged, sitting back up and yanking her hair from his hand. "Not particularly, no," she admitted with a second shrug. Really, she'd only kept seeing him because it was expected of her. No one broke off their long term relationships with high standing, pure blood wizards in their seventh year. No one. Especially not other pure bloods with no marriages already lined up and arranged for them. Crissy happened to be one of the "lucky" few whose parents hadn't already gone looking for suitors.
"Than you shall leave me." Another demand that should have been a question.
"That was the reason I was looking for my clothes, yes. I was unaware that you'd turned into a sap overnight."
Rabastan sighed and stood, pulling on a clean pair of Y-Fronts before pacing around the room, stopping at the window to stare out. The window, of course, was fabricated. They were currently many feet below the surface in the Slytherin dormitories, which were all practically dungeons. Crissy finished pulling on the majority of her clothes haphazardly. Later, she would shove the undergarments into the inside pockets of her robes; she wouldn't put them back on after wearing them most of the day, but she also refused to carry them out in the open back to her side of the dorms. Or leave them here for the other boys to find. That was all she needed, a pack of Slytherin boys with a pair of her panties to use as leverage for whatever they decided they wanted from her that day.
She stood up and looked at Rabastan. He wasn't often clingy and half the time Crissy doubted that he kept her around for anything more than sex... And the occasional party that a date was basically a requirement for entrance. Sometimes, Crissy was honestly resorted to being the trophy date and it was hardly a compliment.
She pushed the dark green curtain the rest of the way around the bed and out of her way as she picked up her crumpled robes from the floor. In just a few hours, they would be heading home for the Christmas holiday and they were - as far as either of them knew - the last Slytherins to leave who were leaving, so they hadn't had much concern for being careful not to be caught.
Severus Snape would be staying at Hogwarts, of course, and he could have easily walked in on them at any point without question, since he also lived there, but she doubted that Rabastan would mind. Severus, on the other hand, would either be intrigued... Or terrified.
"Are you done with me, then? I've some packing left to do before the holiday," Crissy said, draping her robe over her shoulder casually while he sulked at the window.
Rabastan turned slowly, the muscles in his back rippling as he did. "We are expected to wed, and you don't love me. In fact, I dare say that sometimes, it feels as though you're barely able to tolerate me."
Crissy shrugged. What he said was true. Most days she could barely stand to be in the same room as Rabastan, even though they'd been dating for the better part of the last four years, and some days... Well, there were rare occasions when she found herself actually wanting to be near him. But those days had become so few and far between lately that Crissy couldn't even remember the last time it had happened.
"And even worse, you care not that we've deteriorated this way, if you've ever loved me the way I loved you," he said. Crissy rolled her eyes; she was tired of guilt trips from Rabastan. She'd been given at least one a week for the last several months, and lately, she was lucky to get by with only one per day.
She sighed. "Listen, Rabastan," she started. It was time that she finished things with him here and moved on with her life. "If you've know for so long that I wasn't interested, why have you kept stringing me along as though I am?" she asked.
He hung his head, long dark hair falling into his sullen face. "I had hope that this was just a phase you would grow out of and in the end, we would become stronger because of it," he paused and looked up at her, his brown eyes - easily her favorite feature of his - sullen and sad. "We would make a beautiful team for the Dark Lord."
She spun on her heels and shook her head. They had many an argument over their loyalty, though the question of sides was never raised; they both had known for ages that each of them were allies of the Dark Lord. Rather, the question was always of how much of themselves they were willing to devote to him. Rabastan was convinced that Crissy was never willing to give enough; that she hadn't given his Lord a fair chance in changing her mind, despite the multiple gatherings she had attended.
"I will never join his forces, Rabastan, and you know that. You have know that for years, now," she sighed and took a few more steps towards his door. "I believe, dear Rabastan, that it is time we said our goodbyes."
"Yes, I wouldn't want you to miss your train home."
"Not... Just for the holidays," she paused. "For good. I'm just... I don't get that feeling from you as I once did. My attention... My heart lies elsewhere."
The silence between them as Rabastan glared at her was palpable. She didn't move, except to breathe, and even that was sometimes debatable.
"Leave then. Leave me, and never speak another word to me," he said turning his back to her and slamming his hands against the windows, palms smacking into the glass hard enough that Crissy thought it might crack under the pressure.
"Goodbye, dear Rabastan," she mumbled, exiting the room. She climbed the stairs slowly, thinking over what just happened. Her parents would be disappointed in her for letting a wizard of such high stature slip away when clearly he had their future together in mind. And for what? A whim? A stupid, school girl crush that would never be reciprocated?
It was true that her relationship with Rabastan had seen better days, but the real deterioration of the couple had begun not long ago - perhaps in the middle of the previous year, if that far back - when she had been forced to partner with one of Rabastan's dorm mates, Severus Snape. She'd never even been interested in becoming the boy's friend before their partnership, but spending so much time with him in the class had changed her mind. Severus still treated her as he had before the class, just now they spoke more, but Crissy couldn't help but wonder what went on in his mind about the people around him, including herself. She was also dying to get to know him better, if he'd let her.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him sitting on a couch in the common room, facing the boys' stairs. Maybe he'd read her mind and was waiting for her? He'd known all along what she wanted.
"Are you finished in there now? I would like to put my belongings away and care not to see Rabastan naked... Again."
Crissy sighed and nodded. "Go ahead. He's just in his skivvies, though, and pretty pissed right now, though, but you're safe otherwise." Of course he wasn't waiting for her. Even if he knew that she'd been interested, he didn't seem the type to wait for her... Especially while she fucked his roommate. Hell, she wouldn't even bother waiting for herself in that situation.
"Angry? Why would sex have made him angry? He's always been in a better mood before after being with you..." Severus said as he stood. He averted his eye as he spoke of their sex lives and Crissy was more than a little embarrassed. Of course everyone in the dorm knew about it, but no one had ever brought it up with her in conversation before.
"I just broke up with him," she said. Confessing this aloud made it somehow more real than it had been in the room. It was much more unsettling to admit to someone else that she'd just thrown away the future that she'd been working hard towards all this time. Especially when that someone was the main cause of her distraction.
Severus nodded solemnly, as if he understood what she was thinking. "I think I will wait until he leaves for home. Have a Happy Christmas," Severus said, sitting back down and opening his beat up, well-loved copy of Advanced Potions. "Will I still see you this year at the Malfoy's Christmas party?"
Crissy nodded, but then thought about it. She had never received her own invitation to the party, but had always gone along as Rabastan's date. Lucius knew who she was, of course, but they had never been personally close.
"I don't think so," she said. "I've never been friendly with Lucius and now that I'm not forced to be there to hang on Rabastan's arm... I don't think I'd be very welcome, unfortunately." Crissy had already bought a new dress for the party and had been looking forward to going. She wasn't going to be attending the party that had been a staple in her holiday tradition for the last three years. It would be something about Rabastan's company that she would sorely miss.
"Shame," Severus said, flipping pages. "It was always a pleasure having someone not so dimwitted to talk to. Now I will be the only sober one at the function... As well as the only one not parading around, wanking to every mention of the Dark Lord."
Crissy laughed. She'd never quite known where Severus stood with his alliance, the way he studied and some of the things he said led her to believe he would become a Follower, no doubt, but then he would say things like that, and she would be convinced otherwise. Either way, it didn't matter to her, as he wasn't trying to shove his beliefs down her throat as some of the other boys had done. She heard a door slam and a trunk being thudded across the stairs, followed by a long string of swears.
"Have a Happy Christmas, Severus. I'll be retreating to my dormitory now, so as to avoid dealing with that again."