"Where are we?"
He smiled, a bitter smile yes, but only she could provoke such a reaction. A smile was a rare occurrence, but nothing was too good for her- nothing too good for his queen.
It was possible that, yes, he could love her. He knew that he would have hated to kill her if he was still human. Outside his was the perfect ruse. Only too human, some would even say handsome when describing his exterior. Just a little thin, and just a little tall, he was the perfect embodiment of grace. Topping it all off with his artist's fingers, long and thin.
She had remarked upon his appearance when she first saw him. And that was the moment she was his queen. But he was her king, and everyone knew that kings had more power. At this moment he definitely had the most power.
From the first moment he saw her he captured his heart. It soon became an obsession, a morbid one perhaps, considering he was fifty years older than her. But that was assuming that morbid meant abnormally susceptible to or characterized by gloomy or unwholesome feelings. He supposed that loving and lusting after a mere eleven year old would be considered unwholesome. But unwholesome was something meant for humans.
She caught his eye with her mane of fire, and captured his heart with her tears. Some women, he heard, were more beautiful when they were angry. She was stunning when she cried. And she had cried a lot. Cried as he raped her soul mercilessly. Cried as she died inside. And she ensnared him more and more as each pearl leaked from her chocolate eyes.
He thought, perhaps, if he didn't have to kill her, he might crown her as his queen. But she ensnared him as easily as a Slytherin, and dangled before him the traces of his secret goal. And for that she must surely die.
Maybe if he was still human, he would have pitied her family and left her to live, and instead gone back to hibernate for months or years, until the secrets of his most sacred goal once again reared their head like a cobra about to strike. But he wasn't human; you couldn't be human to do what he did.
Mercy was another one of those things he didn't know, humans had mercy- and he wasn't human. He wasn't too sure what he was exactly, he knew he was more than a human, but strikingly inferior to the gods. He would stand up to the gods one day, and he would declare his challenge. On that day he would be ruler of all, and he would keep a memento of her around his neck. Perhaps a thin braid of the liquid fire that had first caught his eye.
After he defeated his final foe, he'd have to remember that he'd need to get that memento. She would be his strength in the hard years ahead. And his victory would be his glory. The world would worship her for what she was. And when he died, they would meet again in another life.
She might not love him now, but she would learn to.
Fin.