Basically the expanded version of Close with a plot!

Thunder cackled as James Potter walked into the quidditch locker room, eyes ablaze, and tossed his Firebolt 300 against the benches, not caring if it broke.

"It's just a game, James," said Fred as he entered behind him, eyes carefully watching over his cousin as he stepped over the discarded broomstick. "Slytherin barely even won that game."

"It's my fault," James nearly yelled. "I can't do anything right this week."

"It's not your fault." Fred placed his broomstick in his locker and slipped out of his quidditch robes. "Besides, everyone has bad weeks. We'll just make sure to practice extra hard this week, yeah?"

"I guess," James sighed, laying down on the bench. He allowed his eyes to flutter shut, replaying the events of the match over and over again to see what he could improve on for next time before he heard the jingle of Fred's quidditch bag.

"You coming up with me? The rest of the team already went in," Fred informed him, eyeing the castle as his stomach rumbled. It was almost time for dinner.

"I'll catch up with you," said James, his eyes still closed. "I just...need a moment, I suppose."

"Aright then." James listened as Fred's footsteps trotted up the slope towards the castle, though it was almost shut out by the noise of the rain pouring down. He'd had a rather shit week, he thought as he lay there, wallowing in his own self pity. He had done everything from forgetting to do his homework to having his girlfriend break up with him (again) to now losing the quidditch game to Slytherin due to his inability to focus properly.

He let out a deep sigh thinking to himself that he would never want to leave the quidditch locker room as he sat up and kicked his broom. "Fuck," James shouted angrily as it hit the wall and snapped.

"Foul mouth you've got there, Potter," said a haughty, girlish voice from the locker room's entrance.

"What're you doing here, Parkinson?" James spat; the last thing that he needed right now was to see Poppy Parkinson breathing down his neck. Her lips pursed in a semi-amused way as she crossed her arms across her chest and took a step towards him.

"Well you lost the match in a particularly spectacular way," Poppy replied with a twirl of her fingers, mimicking the way he'd looked flying around the pitch today. "I thought I'd just come to rub it in."

"I'm not going to sit here and entertain you," he said to her, rising to his feet and making to leave. He didn't need to deal with her today.

"Where else are you going to hide from Fortescue?" she asked with faux concern. "I heard someone wasn't giving her what she wanted, so she dumped you in search of someone who would - not that she hesitated to advertise it to the whole school. Must hurt. Haven't you guys been together since diapers?"

"Shut up, Parkinson!" James shouted, shoving her shoulders against the wall - hard. Before now, there had always been something like a 'no-touching' rule between the two of them. She could cut him up with her words and he would bite back with words that stung just as much - but they would never touch. They knew that it would be dangerous if they did - one of them would end up dead while the other would wind up in Azkaban. But this time - this time it had been too much for him. "You don't know the first thing about relationships, do you? Not when the only thing you've got going for you is that thing you have with Malfoy." He noted the way she shifted under him when he mentioned Malfoy's name. "Oh? Is there a little trouble in paradise, Parkinson?" he asked with a hint of amusement and a hint of something danger - it would have scared anyone else, but not Poppy.

"Tell me," James said in a soft, gentle voice when his tone was anything but. "Did he finally realize that you're more trouble than it's worth? That you're worth nothing, which is probably why your father left you in the first place."

He watched as her dark brown eyes narrowed into slits, though they still sparkled like sharp daggers. Poppy had always been the person he would never understand. She would push him and he would push right back; they would aim to hurt each other with their sharp words. Too often he found himself seeking her out whenever he get frustrated or angry, just to yell at her some more and was almost never surprised when she showed up out of nowhere after particularly draining arguments with her on-again-off-again boyfriend.

Poppy's hands gripped the front of his robes - almost touching his skin - and pulled him close. Her breath tickled his nose and his eyes darted towards her lips before moving back towards her eyes. "At least I'm not a little lost boy who's trying so hard to outrun his father's legacy so he's not left behind in the dust."

"At least I have a legacy to live up to," he snapped, the words leaving his lips with a bitter taste. He inched his face closer towards hers - a challenge. "You're no better than your mother - a villain who'll be forgotten in a few years."

"What does that make you, Pots?" Her eyes narrowed, boring into his with what felt like daggers into his soul. "A hero?" A dark chuckle escaped her throat.

"At least heroes have happy endings — so tell me, Pops," James spat, trying to appear in control of the situation. It had always been about control with her; it seemed to be the only thing he couldn't do when he was around her. He could the heat of her skin searing into his as his hands dropped from her shoulders to her arms - her flesh; it was like she was like acid — no, like poison — and he'd had too much. "How does it feel to go home at the end of the year to a broken home?" He said through gritted teeth, admittedly a little more breathless than he'd been hoping.

"Who needs a wholesome home when it feels so good to sit on mountains of golden galleons rather than a mountain of expectations weigh me down like you," she said without missing a beat. She moved to grab one of his hands, tearing it from her arm; she clasped her hand in his before digging her nails in deep. She wanted to make him bleed for having touched her.

Her words might have rang true, but he would never have given her any kind of satisfaction. James brought his face closer; she thought he might actually bite her. "It must feel like shit to have to fill that little hole in your heart with money because nobody loves you," he whispered in her ear, doing his best not to wince as her nails dug into his hands. The seeker in him stole his hand away, only to turn around and grab her wrists fiercely as he rose to stand taller than her, smirking with victory as she gasped at the force with which he grabbed her — it was probably enough to bruise her skin.

"If you're trying to hurt me, Potter, why don't you try a little harder?" Poppy hissed, bringing her face to his, their noses almost touching. She was challenging him, pushing him, like she always had. She was constantly pushing his buttons just to push them and he would pull her — he would seek her out just to take out his frustration on her. He wanted to hurt her and even worse, he wanted to be hurt by her. They had never been afraid to come out swinging with bloodied hands and bruises; with her, it had always been all or nothing; do or die.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Parkinson," he breathed, his breath tickling her heated skin as his heart rate seemed to accelerate. "I'm going to break you."

A smirk seemed to fight its way onto her lips; her face was cruel and striking in a way that it shouldn't have been. Her eyes bore holes into his, filled with all of the anger and frustration that had been building up. "So break me," she whispered daringly, her eyes wide and hungry like she knew what was coming next. There was almost no time to take in the angle of her cheekbones as the light came down on them, nor the scent of her Chanel as her head angled slightly, showing off her neck. It released the feeling of desire that felt like it had been hiding under the layers of disgust and loathing. With a breath, James pushed his lips onto hers — he should have known better — and lost himself in her. He dropped one of her wrists and wrapped his hand around her waist as she snaked hers around his neck, pressing their bodies against each other, ridding of all the space between them as if this was their only worldly desire. He poured all his frustration, all of his anger, all his loathing into the way he pressed his lips against hers. It was a kiss hard enough to bruise lips, enough to hurt one another in the way that they wanted it to hurt, in the way that they needed it to hurt.

James dropped her other wrist and took to grabbing her waist, sliding under her sheer white blouse to touch her bare skin. It felt like fire against his hands. A breath escaped Poppy as she arched against him, greedily taking in the feeling of his hand against her hidden, naked skin and encouraging his hands to travel higher. James felt like his hands were dancing with fire as they ventured higher, brushing against the soft lace of her bra. "Touch me," she whispered, her voice filled with the kind of desire that he had never heard before but made the thrumming of his heart seem to beat so much faster. Often he found himself in similar situations with Flora Fortescue, only he hadn't felt this kind of strong, emotional connection. This is wrong, James thought to himself, though he had never felt anything being so right. James pushed under her bra, cupping her breast and giving it a squeeze before pinching her nipples enough to make her hurt, only to hear her moan in pleasure. The sound was enough to send shivers down his body, straight to his cock.

The place between her thighs seem to throb and he seems to know because soon he's moving her knickers aside and shoving his fingers into her cunt and she is biting his shoulder as her wetness coats his hand. He pushes her more and more against the wall, pressing their bodies as close as possible while he tugs his trousers down just enough.

"Fuck me," she whispers hoarsely, her breath hot against his neck. He lifts her legs and she wraps them around his waist as he shoves her against the wall again — hard — and thrusts into her with his breath no longer steady and his heart beating rapidly against his rib cage. Her cunt is small, warm, and tight — it feels nothing like the sloppy blowjobs that Flora gave him not far from where he's now fucking Poppy Parkinson against a wall, he thinks quickly. James squeezes his eyes shut as if it will help keep him from cumming too quickly. His hands feel hot against her thighs as he grips them hard enough to leave bruises on her milky white skin. Her nails are digging into him, leaving small, red crescent marks as she stops trying to stifle her moans. Their kisses feel needy and urgent. Her cunt feels fucking glorious as he begins to lose the steady rhythm that they had and soon, it's all too much for him; suddenly he can't seem to control himself anymore as something in them tightens. "Poppy — I-I can't — I'mgonna —"

"Cum in me," she whispers breathlessly and he feels himself unraveling before her — he feels weak and vulnerable but so good. Before long, she feels her muscles constricting and and overwhelming feeling of pleasure. They push each other into oblivion and now they're falling together.

Soon, they are nothing but a tangle of limbs clinging desperately to each other. As if he were being snapped out of a daydream, James began to scramble to pull his appearance back together. He did his best to ignore Poppy as she began to do the same, only it seemed to be easier for her to fix her hair and pull her knickers back in place because before he was able to get his trousers pulled all the way up, he felt her brush past him and out of the door. In a way, he felt almost rejected as he watched her vanish in the rain.

"Fuck."

— -

James returned to the common room long after dinner was finished looking slightly disheveled and out of breath.

"You look like shit," Fred tells him, but his face tells James that he's more curious than anything. "Where've you been? You missed dinner."

"I was...thinking about things," James replied vaguely, walking past him into the boys' dormitory. "It's late. I'm going to bed."

Fred watched his cousin curiously as he followed him into the boys' dormitory, noting his swollen lips and the small red marks on the back of his neck.

author's note: i just love complicated slytherin/gryffindor relationships, don't you?