Swick.
He lights his cigarette with a meaningless flick of his wand, and watches the black ashes collect at the end. Leaning against the wall, back slouched and hands tucked into the beat-up pockets of his grey jeans, Antonin Dolohov watches.
This time, it's the fierce girl with the rosebramble hair, her pale sister, the blinded red-haired one, the sly, golden-haired charmer, and the white-blonde angel-boy who take center stage in the unfolding drama of the common room. They were matched up into perfect little couples from the day they were born, only it's all gone horribly wrong.
It's not the angel-boy who the sister runs to at night, on her sly, creeping feet and dressed in an innocent white nightgown that seems oh so very ironic, no, her destination is not her intended's bed—it's the bed of that sly, fallen one. It's not like she loves the charmer, and he her, but it's because she's tired of the niceties, the politeness, the sweet words of her angel-boy—she wants someone who will not treat her like a frail, porcelain doll, and he wants another pretty face he can put a notch to on his bedpost.
But why pretend to be someone you're not? Deep down inside, you are always that careful little doll—don't even try.
Meanwhile, it's the bramble-haired girl who the angel-boy comes to for comfort—and she will take out a glass of the finest firewhiskey, draw up a glass for him, and allow him sanctuary in her pale arms. The angel-boy won't admit it, but secretly, he wants more.
And the wild girl wants him too, even though she knows, oh she knows, that whatever came out of a simple hug and three empty bottles of firewhiskey would be a mistake, and mean nothing to the both of them.
Puff.
He takes a swig out of his cigarette, and then continues his watch.
But one night, one ordinary Sunday night, whose only departure from the ordinary consisted of the fact that the angel-boy had found his pale bride-to-be in bed with the sly one, who had just smiled a slow, lazy smile, and said, forget something, malfoy, while the girl had shrieked, and tried to cover up her guilty body with a sheet, things had gone farther. Hands had gripped at fabric, mouths had met roughly, primeval utterances had slipped through kiss-swollen, hungry lips, and the thin silk of white-blonde hair had met with ash-black curls.
They had participated in the wild dance of mad, impassioned lust, only he had let her go in the last two seconds with a gasp. She was left on the ground, a fallen angel, with the crumpled pieces of her heart clutched in her bloodied hands.
Puff.
Another deep exhalation.
And the only one to pick up the pieces is the blinded, red-haired one, who is not a player in this game, but just a substitute. Just a substitute for the angel-boy. While he held the broken girl in his arms, she dreamed of her angel, and wished that it were his pale lips that were touching hers. But the red-haired one isn't stupid, and he knows that she doesn't want him—no, never him—but it's all he can do, to pick up her pieces.
Puff.
He takes another swig from his cigarette, before plucking it from his mouth and dropping it to the ground, where he crushes it with the flat heel of his shoe.
Then he turns to walk away, because their silly little games amuse him no more.