Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: 'How foolish we mortals be,' I thought fondly. 'For there is none more foolish than I.'

Warning: Slash; Lemon; Lime; Angst


_ Pretender _


Sometimes, when it is just him and me, I can imagine a world where this could be possible. Where me and this emerald eyed demon – for that is what he is – can be together without hiding. But then I remember the dangers of such a world and the tiny ray of hope that had started to attach itself to my person washes away.

Whenever I glance at the man who is currently lying in my arms, a rush of hot, blistering protectiveness threatens to consume me. This man who has had to fight so much to gain so little. This man who - who I love. He might have been proclaimed the savior of the Wizarding World, but that is a lie. He hasn't saved a place, no, he's saved people. Corrupted, manipulative, passionate, loving, hating, hurting people. And he's saved me. But I do not think he knows it.


The following year I found myself alone. I hardly ever left the safe confines of the library even as a slithering monster was petrifying muggleborns. At that point in my life, I had not cared.

I still felt that white hot rage whenever I glanced at Harry. It raised flames around my heart and closed off my lungs. My eyes would narrow and my facial features would twist into an ugly image of my soul.

He never noticed though. And why should he? There were whispers at every corner; ridiculing him, taunting him, calling him 'Slytherin's Heir'. Idiots, the lot of them.


There was a moment, once that year, where I found myself alone with this demon. A demon I was sure was put on this earth to torture me for sins I could only dream of committing. I had, of course, dreamt of the darkest and sweetest sins; of the body and of the soul. I wanted to be tainted. I suppose, since I was only twelve at that point, I had not realized just how tainted I already was.

He had looked at me with bright orbs of exhaustion. It was not the type of tiredness from sleep deprivation, no, because surely that was too normal for Harry Potter.

He had taken one look at me, at the coiled snake that rested gently across my heart, at the silver and green tie loosely knotted around my neck, and that was it.

He turned around, apparently thinking that as I was a Slytherin I would start a fight. A fight he was definitely not in the mood for. It would be the last time I would ever see him alone for the next two years.

That was the only time since the sorting that I had ever glanced at him and had not felt anything.

Liar...


Sometimes love is inspired from the night

I glance down at the sleeping man lying quietly in my lap. He is my sentimentality, my happiness, my poison. He has left me tainted in the most pleasant of fashions, and I cannot help but think that sin has never tasted so sweet.

And when the sun's rays end this sight,

A mirage of colors slowly hit the chair we're occupying, shining a soft light over our eyelids. A groan awakens me from my thoughts, and I gently tangle a hand in soft midnight hair.

All the feelings remain with the stars of the night.

This is my least favorite part; when we have to pretend. I hate this, sometimes, and the look on his face reflects it too, but even I cannot deny that he is worth this. Harry Potter is worth every hardship and anguish I must bear because, really, I just love him that much.


Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought

To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,

But I will half believe that wild light fraught

With more of sovereignty than ancient lore

Hath ever told - or is it a thought

The unembodied essence, and no more

That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass

As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass?


"In Youth I Have Known" 'Second Verse' by Edgar Allan Poe


© 2010 Inyx Dawn