"I hate you," she whispers as he stalks towards her, moving like a glacier but with deceptive swiftness, eyes as hard as iron but shimmering like molten steel. She takes one step back, two, pressing herself against the cool stone wall, trying to absorb the ancient chill in a vain attempt to slow her racing heart, to give her body a reason to be shuddering oh so softly when he reaches her, trailing a single, graceful finger down her cheek.
"I despise you," she protests even as her arm reaches up, holding his hand against her face; it's a gentle, tender embrace, though the look in his eyes that she knows is mirrored in her own is anything but. Emotions cloud his gaze like pinwheeling stars as the world moves around them even though they stay perfectly still.
"You… you disgust me," she murmurs, though as her tongue darts out unconsciously, circling her lips as she stares transfixed at the pale god ringed by moonlight before her, she knows the only thing about him that disgusts her is that he doesn't. His eyes darken, fixed on her mouth and the slow, innocent sensuality that is the way she watches him, and she is suddenly reminded that they are so very alone.
"W-we shouldn't," she gasps when he drags her towards him, softness and curves meeting unyielding strength, but as he swallows her protest with his lips she starts to forget even her name, and without it there is absolutely no reason to feel ashamed about how right this is. His body is tensed against her, and as she feels him shudder slightly, what little of her brain still functions marvels that she is the one who can bring his iron control undone.
She cannot speak after that, lost in the sensations that move beyond he and her and into the realm of they; clothes scatter against the floor, some torn in haste, some slipped from skin in a way that would be lovingly were the two of them not each other.
In almost no time at all, they are naked saved for the lies between them, lies like the ones that have been slipping out of her ever since he found her up here watching stars. It is only moments later that she is seeing stars; even the lies are slowly being driven away by thrust and counterpoint, by the slow arching of her back and the tension shaking in his fingers as they clasp her to him like he is drowning. His almost-desperation is matched only by the way she gasps his name, by the way her fingernails rake down his back as if she's marking him as hers in a way nobody will ever see.
The crescendo builds, and soon she cannot even form words; this is what he can do to her, take her brilliance, her intelligence, her control, leaving her with nothing but animalistic gasps and pants and wordless begging. His eyes have never left hers, hooded in shadow as the moonlight glints off his silvery hair, but she can feel his gaze burning, scorching through her like the rest of him and she wonders if there's some way she could feel like this forever.
There is a moment of perfect stillness, of shocking, frightening clarity as she realises exactly what he is to her, and then she shatters, coming undone in an instant. Her mouth frames a set of three words that will for once be the truth, but then he kisses her, stealing her words as she feels his pleasure shuddering through him and she understands that perhaps he knew all along.
He collapses on top of her, but she's a boneless mixture of sated exhaustion, so her only protest is that she can't see his face any more as he rests it in the crimson fan of her hair. The silence is heavy, languid, broken only by harsh gasps as she sucks air into her lungs; the wind carries their scent, and it washes over her in a mixture of sweat, the forbidden tang of everything they've just shared, and him.
The night air is cold, as icy as the stone below; frigid gusts sweeps across the tower's ancient battlements, billowing around the two of them. But all she can feel is him, and the unspoken realisations that hang between them like the sword of Damocles; everything is different now, and her lies will be forever tainted by that single, solitary moment before she came undone.
The truth of what they have done, of what she only now understands but he has known all along suddenly strikes her, and the only reason she does not shove him off her in her haste to re-dress is because he has rolled to one side. She can feel his gaze watching her, and she knows if she turns to look at him she will be lost, and so with a strength of will she half-wishes she didn't have, she glances everywhere but at the centre of the tower; the silence feel like a temple, but she's not sure which one of them is the object of worship.
She's still not looked anywhere near him by the time her hand bunches her clothes against her chest; she knows he is watching her even though she is facing away, and she can feel his gaze caressing her skin like his hands had only minutes before. She cannot suppress the shudder or the traitorous pang of longing at the thought.
She gives him time to collect his own belongings, and when she can feel him standing behind her, looming like a thunderstorm on the distant horizon, she still cannot turn to look at him. His hand comes up, resting on the back of her neck, and she knows the way her flesh pimples is nothing to do with the cold because even that single touch sends a wave of heat flushing through her.
"I-we-please…" she trails off, but she thinks he understands the message because when she turns around he has vanished into the shadows, and she wonders if he'd ever really been there at all. She sits down, arms clasped around her body in a mockery of the way he held her, and tries to ignore the way the silence sounds like betrayal.
It's the day of the Leaving Feast, and she hasn't seen him since that night—her dreams would beg to disagree, but she's never been one for Divination—so when she spots him across the Hall her gaze instantly darts away, pretending the reason she'd looking over at the Slytherin table is because of her cousin Albus and not because of his best friend.
She's lost in her thoughts all through the Feast and the train journey back; her extended family keep asking her what's wrong, only stopping when Albus tells them to leave her alone. She's broken from her reverie when she feels him watching her, feels the molten silver of his eyes pouring over her body like he's trying to commit her to memory, and she looks up because she's at the station and her mother and father are coming to collect her and there are so many people around that she's safe – somebody will stop her traitorous body from drifting in his direction like she's a magnet and he's her opposite pole.
There's an undefinable sadness in his eyes, and he raises a single, graceful hand in farewell; she's so distracted by the way his lips move that she almost forgets to read them.
"Goodbye, Rose," Scorpius mouths, and the words hit her with a heavy finality that she won't understand until she arrives back at the start of seventh year to find he's transferred to Durmstrang and she'll never see him again.
The night finds her atop the Astronomy Tower, weeping.