It wasn't lying, telling everyone how he hated her
It hadn't been lying, telling everyone how he hated her. True malice had dripped from every single one of his cold and vicious words as he spoke of her unforgivable deeds. Killing. Torturing. Destroying everything within her reach. He knew all about it. He himself had once been within her reach, and still was. No one truly understood that though. How she still possessed an immense power over his very being, no one even knew that she ever had. He sometimes wondered if she knew it herself. Perhaps she did. Her every deed being a taunt against him, every action a punishment, meant to be observed by him. Or maybe she didn't. She mightn't even think about him at all. Perhaps the place he'd once held in her heart was now entirely filled with another. Another being the Dark Lord, as she'd so lovingly called him. The last time he'd heard her say it with love was in his own home, when killing the Prewett brothers. Telling them of his wondrous glory, how blood traitors deserved the worst punishment, for actively closing their ears to the truth of his words. She'd been right in front of him then, the last time he'd ever heard her say anything at all.
The way she'd barged into the house where they lived, completely alone and still able to kill two and petrifying another spoke of her talent and cunning. Not even surprising him, he knew fully well what she was capable of. What did surprise him though, was the way she'd done it.
He'd been on his way out of the door, saying his goodbyes when the door was blasted apart and his mind frozen over by seeing her of all people standing there right in front of him. With a weird lopsided smile on her face and a look in her eyes staring straight into his as if there was something she wanted to say she'd petrified him before he even had the time to reach his wand. He'd fallen, a clanking noise against the floor and a crash as the vase he'd brought with him in the fall had shattered. The table on which the vase had stood managed to turn him in his fall, so that he was now facing the inside of the house. Without being able to move to help, or yell out a warning for his friends, he'd seen them coming down the stairs, alarmed at the crashing of a vase without any explaining yell to follow. He'd seen her eyes lighting up with that beautiful fire, a deep pleasure emanating from her every move as she bombarded them with hexes while expertly dodging and avoiding every spell coming her way as they'd put up a startled fight.
He'd heard every word of her lecture, of all things, about the Magnificent Dark Lord, and what a pity it was, having to kill two purebloods and how guilty they should feel about such a waste of blood. And she'd toyed them around, playing, without even getting a scratch. The fight hadn't even lasted for five minutes, the time it took for the order to arrive after the Door Protection Alarm had gone off. At the sound of the first pop heard from outside her pose changed from that of a girl on a playground showing off her skills at walking the line high up in the air without fear, to that of a grown woman. Still without fear, but no longer showing off. Swiftly shooting two killing curses without remorse, she'd apparated away, leaving him there.
Tears of rage had fallen from his eyes as soon as he was released from his petrified state by a member of the order. The rage and tears clouding his vision as well as the surprise and confusion at not being killed. Confusion that would haunt him for several weeks. Several weeks of wondering whatever she had meant by sparing his life. Had she simply been carried away by the joy of toying with the Prewett boys who'd once followed her around as children and simply not had the time to kill him? Or had she meant to keep him alive a little while longer to be able to taunt him without distraction?
There had been a hearing about it, there had been several suspicious glances coming his way as he told the tale, adding his own ideas as to why his life had been spared by his cousin. The confusion and irritation ate away at him until that day when James and Lily were killed. That horrible day when he'd been wrongfully accused of betraying them. That dreadful moment when he had to give up his little godson, knowing that he had to hunt down Peter the Rat and kill him, so that he with strength in his heart could go after That Horrible Woman. It hadn't been lying, telling everyone how he hated her. He really did. Because now he knew why he wasn't killed that day. He was meant to live, so that he would appear the traitor and be wrongfully imprisoned. Tortured for the rest of his life. Punished. Perhaps she did care about him still. Hating him as he hated her. Maybe that Dark Lord of hers hadn't taken up the place in her thoughts that he had once held.
Having an answer to the question that had consumed him from the inside for so long had come to him at a time when it no longer mattered. Her actions were no longer under his observing eyes. He was imprisoned for life. Her precious Lord was gone, and she was probably out to find him. Her being caught wasn't probable, and even if she was, the only other prisoner he ever saw was the one occupying the cell opposite from his. A deranged man like all the others there, probably dying as he sat there thinking it.
Knowing that she still thought about him made no difference, because he would never see the woman haunting his every thought again.
Author's note: This is my first chapter of my first story ever posted for others to read. Happy and proud I hope you've enjoyed it, and feel free to review in any way you like! :) I'm a big fan of constructive criticism!
