A/N: Written for a prompt by Sharlene, who rocks.
Disclaimer: I own nada but the story. Ferrret and Weaslette own each other, etc. etc. etc. You know the drill.
There had to be some reason she kept returning-- gravitating towards this crazy dizzy destruction, like a moth drawn to flame. And she couldn't for all her intelligence figure out why.
He had made her cry from the first-- a darkly scowling boy with all the warmth of ice and steel. He didn't know how to be gentle, she didn't think. He might never have been taught, and even if he were capable, he never showed it to her.
Sharp elbows and sharper words, and she gave as good as she got, as the years passed on as both grew taller, his voice deeper but still as cold, all icy eyes and bruising hands. She raged at him in fifth year once, throwing a heavy book at his arrogant head, and had she not ducked from quick reflexes, the fireball he sent flying would've singed her hair. She was almost stripped of her Prefect badge, and the next time he saw her, he spit in her face, an ugly sneer stretched across his chiseled features. The immaculately groomed, dirty-blonde bitch hanging on his arm didn't stop laughing until they were both out of earshot.
She would hate him forever, and took vindictive satisfaction when her team won against his and the look of rage on his face, the stormy eyes darkening and smouldering in fury, the fingers that bruised hers clenched into white-knuckled fists. She wasn't sure what possessed her to blow him a kiss and flash him a malicious smile, but he brought out the worst, the side of her that almost reveled in his pain.
The next meeting was in a hallway late at night, as she was returning to her dormitory after an excursion to the Prefect's bath, and he came stalking down the hall, a half-empty flask in hand, and a threat to report him brought a cruel speculation of her whereabouts. And a slap in his cruelly handsome face brought a crimson handprint and her arm savagely twisted behind her back, and when she opened her mouth to scream, his lips crashed down on hers, and it was harsh and sharp with the taste of alcohol and maybe blood from where she bit down in an effort to break free, and he kept her arm pinned, fingers bruising wrists, and she shoved him almost violently against the wall, legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted her. His mouth wasn't nearly as cold as she might have expected, but she wasn't expecting this or the almost-forceful yank on her long, wet hair as he pulled her head back to nip at her throat.
He took her virginity behind a tapestry, and it was messy and painful and exhilarating. She returned to her dormitory at dawn, limping slightly and hair like a jarvey's nest, a love-bite tingling on her neck. Breakfast brought another round of insults, and he sneered at her as though nothing had happened. The blonde girl fawned over him like a solicitous canker, and she laughed, notes ringing like peals of brass against ceramic, or the clash of steel weapons. It was cold and bitter and hysterical.
Neither of them were surprised to see the other at the same spot the next night, and this time around, they didn't even manage to shed all their clothing before it was just the same again, and when she came, her nails drew blood as they scored his back, even through his shirt. She could almost see the faint rose stain through the white linen, and hoped that it stung as his sweat ran across the abrasions.
It was surely a downward spiral of some sort-- a game of twisted emotions and delight in all that was wrong. It was a rebellion and an addiction and a curse, and she kept coming back. She wore long sleeves to hide the bruises on her wrists from where he grasped too tight, and kept on telling herself that she could handle it.
And yet, one night she awoke in a cold sweat, jolted out of unconsciousness by the dying echo of her own scream, and it was then that her two roommates worriedly opened the curtains, eyes wide in the darkness as they tried to get her to tell them why she screamed HIS name and why she was crying. And she had nothing to say, because it was completely wrong and she couldn't understand it herself.
The blonde girl that was infatuated with him made a generic derogatory remark to her in the hallway, and ten minutes later, found herself spawled on the ground with a wand pointed between her eyes, and normally she wouldn't have bothered. She sobbed so hard that she couldn't speak, unable to answer any of Ron's questions or meet Professor McGonagall's eyes. She stayed in the warm-empty safety of her Common Room that night, and the night after, and the night after that.
She should not have a hard time letting go of hate.
For the next month, she surrounded herself with her loving, safe friends and housemates, smiling like a doll and walking with the even steps of a machine, bruises healing and carefully pretty, empty bright brown eyes and steady unclenched hands. She thought she would make it, really, steeling herself not to shiver at the looks of wrath burning into the back of her head in classes, and the studious avoidance of any time alone with him. Her group of friendly protectors would never want harm to come to her, and none of them could hurt her like he could.
And one day, on her way out of her last class, a familiar, bruising hand shot out from the shadows behind the rusty suit of armour in the corner, catching her by the wrist and dragging her forward. She stumbled, nearly hitting the menacing battle-axe held by the armour, and her shriek of alarm was muffled by his hand.
"You're not leaving," his voice growled in her ear, low and thrilling and unavoidable. "I won't let you."
"You don't have a CHOICE, bastard," she hissed, a frantic note to her voice. "You don't control me. I HATE you."
"And it's consuming like something else, and you can't leave any more than I can," he told her, and it would almost be cruel if it weren't so true. He finally smiled, the first time in her recollection, and it almost softened his features except for the cynical quality to the expression. "It's a fine line between pleasure and pain, and love and hate, and you can't get off the tightrope any more than I can without falling to our deaths."
He'd be the death of her someday anyway, she was sure of it. But at least she was the same for him, and as he kissed her, a clash of lips and teeth and tongues with a faint taste of anger and tears, she realized that everything between them had been building to this. This was fate, her blessing and her curse. She lived in the middle of a paradox; she was drowning in it, and she couldn't find a better or worse way to go.