Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Nor do I make any money.
Whispers
Who knew whispers could be so loud?
They followed him everywhere he went: Diagon Alley, the Ministry, even Muggle London.
He couldn't get away. No matter how hard he tried.
After all these years, he had thought he would have learned how to be above the whispers but he couldn't. He couldn't escape his own guilt he felt with the most recent set of rumors. Though he wasn't doing anything wrong.
At least that was what he told himself.
At least that was how he lied to himself.
After work he would consume drink after drink; night after night in the back booth of the Leaky Cauldron: looking for his red head – the one with bright brown eyes. The ones that he missed.
Instead, after drink after drink, night after night, he went home with a red head with clear blue eyes.
Every night he would give in to those soulful eyes. He would relent: to words that he couldn't quite make out; to hands that caressed his skin with an unfamiliar tenderness; to lips that responded to the most subtle of his suggestions; to the voice that whispered his name in adoration.
He would follow her home with his hand in hers; leading him to the now familiar flat. He would start with her shirt every time, opening her to him; then her skirt, followed quickly by her undergarments as he pushed her back to the bed that might as well have been his these days.
He would climb on top of the soft body with a fuller chest; hips that now cushioned him; legs that wrapped around him, holding him in place; thighs he couldn't stop himself from tasting and biting for they were so much more luscious then the red head that came before.
He would revel in the way her body felt against him until guilt overwhelmed him as he called out, "Susan", before he would leave her fast asleep.
And in the morning, after a quick shower, he would head to work and think the whispers were louder today then they were yesterday.