Yes, I'm late again. I'm sorry! I'm not trying to make this into a habit, I promise, but I also know you guys can forgive me. I finally moved into my friends house, and I'm pretty upset at the moment as I've never lived away from my parents, and they also moved to another state (well, Oregon, so only one state over, but still) so it's even more of a change because they are now four hours away from me. I'm feeling pretty panicked (I'm very dependent. I don't like being on my own, and also my friend's dad is this extreme conservative who likes to try and offend me), but I'll get over it pretty quick I'm sure. Also, since we are nearing the end of this story (yes, I will be writing a second generation sequel), it's harder for me and takes longer for me to pull together each chapter and which scenes I want to come first and whatnot, so I'm sorry if I'm not updating exactly on time. Oh, and I don't mind that some of you guys don't like Ophelia! I find it interesting to see which characters you guys like and dislike! I completely understand as she is my most basic female character, and she is no where near one of my own favorites in my story. I was just saying it seemed like a couple of you were a liiittle excited about Ophelia being completely destroyed, hahaha, but hey! I won't judge. I can be pretty petty about characters I don't like, so I can't talk.
I don't own anything from Harry Potter.
Freya Krat fought at the arms pulling her from the edge of the Astronomy Tower, ripping her nails into the flesh of them savagely as she shrieked out her tearful protests.
No, no, no!
She needed it to be over. It had to be over. She couldn't do it anymore, she couldn't do any of it. She'd had everything stolen from her, and she couldn't allow her peace to be stolen from her as well. She kicked roughly at the strong figure that held her. He was slightly thinner than the man she had grown used to holding her, the man she loved.
The man she no longer had.
She sobbed in desperation, completely blinded by her hot tears, not hearing the words spoken in her ear through the loud, deafening ringing as her world seemed to be moving so, so slowly. Why was everything going so slow? She needed to hurry, hurry so the agony would end.
"Let me go!" She tried to scream the words at the man trying to take her freedom from her, just as men had always take everything from her, but the words did not sound like the scream she had intended to create through her impaired senses. "Let me go," she sobbed again. "Let me die. Please let me die! Please!"
Please, please..
Instead of releasing her, she was dragged down to the ground and she wailed with defeat, shoving with weak arms at the chest she was being pulled towards, her arms feeling numb and powerless as her whole body buzzed along with the fierce ringing in the ears. Pain she had come to know well consumed her chest, taking her breath away. She had thought she had gotten used to pain, thought she had outsmarted it, thought her heart was not able to break more than it already had been broken. She had been wrong, very wrong, and she was just so tired of hurting. There was nothing left for her, no way out of this dark, miserable existence she never asked to be brought into.
She had had enough.
But she deserved this pain, as this pain was her fault. She should take responsibility, she should have to live with and suffer through it. She had earned that suffering, but as she was the coward she always had been she couldn't do it. She had to escape it.
"It hurts," she whimpered, too done to care how pathetic and pitiful she seemed. Who was she trying to act strong for? What was the point? "It hurts, and I'm tired."
What did it matter? Nothing mattered. She didn't matter, she never mattered.
Her face was hot, she learned this when cool knuckles brushed down her face through the wet streak of tears she had made there, the mess likely mixed with bits of her running mascara. She pressed her wet skin up against the fingers instinctively, the chilled touch feeling nice against her salt covered face. An odd cloak of calmness covered her and she stopped her struggling, the blaring in her ears dulling enough to hear the man communicating to her. She stopped pushing against his body, her hands limply resting against it and she realized a wet stickiness under her nails and it faintly occurred to her that she had torn into this man's skin aggressively enough to draw his blood.
So much blood on her hands, on all of their hands, forever staining them.
"Shh," he soothed. "Let me see, let me see what is hurting you, love."
Aldrich Greengrass.
Freya shook her head roughly, preparing to start struggling again, but her limbs wouldn't move. "Just let me go. I have nothing to offer you," she whispered, her eyes still leaking relentlessly.
"I believe I disagree," he replied, his voice far too calm and clear.
Her world was crashing down on her, her lungs felt as though they were collapsing in on her chest, the seams of her sanity that she had tried forever to keep together were finally breaking apart.
How was he so calm when she was so unhinged? Surely the pain was enough for him to be affected too.
She sobbed again, crying out her protests once more as she gathered enough of her senses to resume pushing at him, not that that helped anything. Her head throbbed with her sorrows, and her tears slipped into her mouth for her to taste her own failure, her failure at never letting anyone break her. Here she was, breaking in the arms of Aldrich Greengrass, the man who had just denied her her chance to gain peace, but she was never allowed to make her own choices, was she? Not even when it came to her own life. She should expect as much by now. She began to fight harder again. Kicking him, hitting him, trying to hurt him enough for him to release his grip enough for her to get away. He grabbed her wrists firmly, leaving her to only cry out angrily at him as she wept, her pulse quickening as she began gulping in breaths, panicking. Aldrich moved a hand from her wrist to wrap into her hair, the hair that she had for once pulled down to end her life, guiding her head back as he made her lay back across his lap, the brightness of the moon and the stars blurred in her emotional vision as she was forced to look at them. She felt it again, that forced calmness, and her breath slowly slipped back into a more appropriate rhythm, her cries of anger and fight quieting.
"Let me see," he told her, his voice terrifyingly silken and inviting in a way that made her want to do what he was telling her, made her want to do as she was asked. "Let me in, and I will reward you."
Why was she still fighting? She didn't want to fight anymore. They had won. Everyone had won.
She closed her eyes in defeat, letting herself go completely still in his arms as her body shook, feeling him touch her mind and pull at every nearly unbearable memory she had. The pangs of sharp pain into her heart killed her more at every piece he pulled through, but only for a moment as each time he made her relive one it was as if he was pulling the pain with him, taking it from her. Everything that she was, everything that made her her, was coursing through her head as she wanted to jump to her death, every bittersweet memory, every haunting ache, every violent night, as well as what had broken her that evening was being quieted for the moment.
He was relieving her as she gave to him, rewarding her as he had promised.
It was so good, the peace she had been grasping for, and she needed it.
She needed him.
Freya reached up to grab onto the front of his sweater, pulling him closer greedily as he drank her in, providing her her freedom from her sorrow's gasp, if only just for the moment. She whimpered at the freshest wounds before they were taken from her as if they were being blown away as easily as small candle flames. She trembled as the weight of their crushing presence was lifted from her, feeling as though she was finally in real bliss when he had finished. This man was good, so good to her. She knew he was someone to be feared, a man she had always avoided, but she didn't care. She didn't care about anything anymore. She could breathe, and she couldn't remember the last time she didn't feel haunted as she didn't feel haunted then. Even in her brief moments of light she had still felt the darkness of her world weighing her down, but now there was nothing. Only the ghosts of the sadness and pain that she knew existed but couldn't connect to as if she were separated from those memories all together.
"My sweet, sweet witch," he purred, his tone low and hungry in a way that should have repelled her, but instead sounded so alluring to her thankful soul as she struggled to pull herself up in order to be closer to him. "What have you gotten yourself into? Don't worry, I will keep your secrets for myself."
He helped her sit up against him, her legs sliding easily around his waist as her arms went around his shoulders, her face nuzzling into his throat as she shuddered again. He had all of her truth now, all of the demons that came with her truth. Then again, did it count as her truth when she couldn't feel it then in his arms due to him being the marvelous wizard that he was?
"Good girl," he cooed. "Do you see how lovely it can be to be good for me?"
The fingers he still held her hair with began messaging into her scalp, lulling her into her tiredness that she didn't realize was so thick against her senses until then and she rolled her head against his shoulder, pleasure spreading through her as he rubbed her head, his other hand resting deliciously on the side of her thigh when she squeezed her legs more tightly around him. She nodded slightly in response to his words, answering him before letting out a slow breath as she relaxed.
"So much pain," he mused, his finger moving down her leg and drawing slow circles into the skin that had been exposed as her skirt had been pulled up in result of her straddling him the way she was. "So much hatred, my love, but for yourself more than anyone else. The amount of self-loathing you hold is alarming."
She hummed as his words slipped off of her, none of them attaching themselves to any feelings she recognized at the moment as she was floating in her peace. She rolled her head up again, pushing her nose against his collar bone and she lazily kissed him there, feeling oddly affectionate towards him.
How could she not be affectionate towards the man who had given her such a prize?
"I'm going to take you back to your dorm now, and you're going to sleep. When you wake up, you're going to feel all of your misfortunes properly once more, but you have gotten over the initial shock now. Now you will not be impulsive, and you can handle it just as you always have handled everything with strength. You're my fierce witch, Freya. Prove me correct, and don't try to throw yourself away again," he told her, his voice light but still serious. "You're mine."
She shook her head, though not at the comment that she would normally be shaking her head at, tightening her hold on him. She didn't want him to leave, she was afraid to be alone in the state she was in. He had comforted her, and she had never been comforted so effectively before. She didn't want those feelings to come back, she didn't want to feel as though death would feel better once more. Life felt good in that moment under the stars she loved so much and the breeze chilling her in a way that made her feel human, he felt good. He felt safe, and unlike the man she loved he felt right for her, someone she was meant to be with as he lived in the same darkness she did. Especially now that he now understood her in a way no one ever had, and likely never would. She didn't feel so trapped within her horrors anymore now that she had released them.
She pushed her hands under his sweater and the shirt underneath it, moving her hands against the warmth there with her fingers that were dirtied with his own drying blood, curling them so her nails would sink down into him.
He was horrible, she was horrible. They fit, and she wanted to accept it and stop trying to be fight it. She was done fighting her world.
"I am not influencing you to be lustful, my pet. That is you, so don't go pitying yourself about it in the morning if you begin something that I expect you to finish."
She pulled her nails down his naval, hooking her fingers into his pants as she raised her head, her lips grazing along the size of his jaw to the corner of his mouth as she blindly found her way to kiss him, his hand that had gone loose in her hair retightening to push her mouth more securely against his as she kissed him deeply. He seemed to be fully reveling in how she was expressing her desires for him, her desires to finally stop avoiding the inevitable. This man wanted her, and she believed him powerful and intelligent enough to have her if that's what he wanted.
No, he didn't want her. She was already his, and had been ever since that day in class.
She undid his pants, pulling at them just enough to slip her hand down to wrap it around what she wanted, her eyelids growing heavier as the intimate bits of her leapt with anticipation at the contact. She shifted on his lap and pulled the thin bit of fabric between her thighs to the side, impaling herself, not caring to wait very long to give into her dark desires.
She didn't love him like her muggle, but she didn't feel that guilt in being with him, didn't feel as if she were soiling him with her touch.
He took a hold of her hips now, pushing her down just how he wanted, pivoting his hips to hit her in just the right spot as he took control. She didn't mind. He could have whatever he wanted from her then, and she would surrender it to him. She moaned and reconnected their lips, biting and sucking at his lower as she pushed both of her hands into his hair, not needing to find her own balance as he was fully and capably holding her as her drove himself up into her.
If it was control he wanted, he could have it.
This was exactly what she wanted. She was in no position to be having sweet, falsely romantic sex with this man, and even though she was cloaked in this cloud of serenity at the moment she still had her senses. No, this quick, improper release of need and surrender as she mourned the way out she knew she would never get a chance at again, knew she would listen to him and not attempt to end her life again was exactly what she needed. Fucking the exact type of man she had always fought to stay away from was symbolic in its own way, and it should have sickened her how relieving it felt to feel in place.
She supposed she would be sickened in the morning.
He tasted wonderful in her mouth as their tongues met, sending her into another frenzy of twisted need as she freely threw all of her pride at him, pleading to him to give her more, to give it to her harder.
She was begging him. Fuck, she hated herself.
His hair was soft between her fingers, and she pulled at it how he pulled at hers, listening to his irritable growl as she pulled his head back slightly to kiss his neck, gasping in slight pain when he thrust unnecessarily violently into her. She bit into the skin of his throat roughly, sucking it hard enough to mark him for the next days to come, an odd gurgling purr of complete pleasure spilling from her nearly drooling lips as he pounded up into her mercilessly.
Her breath cut off at the peak of her ecstasy and her teeth were in his flesh once more as she convulsed around him. If she didn't feel spent before, she certainly felt spent now.
"If you loathed yourself before then I can only imagine how you will feel in the morning when you fully realize what you have done after what has only just occurred to you," he chuckled softly once he was finished with her himself, his voice still lovely to her ears though he was saying something unpleasant to her and laughing at her misfortune that he was predicting. "Again, this is what you desired in your own impulses that you don't think through. I've done nothing more than relieve you of your heartache. I won't put up with you claiming anything different."
Freya inhaled his scent, closing her eyes as she was drifting, accepting his words uncaringly as her body thrummed in the after effects of their sex. He could ruin her with what he knew, he could ruin her with the simple fact she had just gotten into his lap and shagged him, but she didn't care anymore. She was already ruined, and she didn't believe this man would expose her anyway as she believed him that he did want her. He wouldn't ruin the reputation of his future wife.
"But who am I to deny my wife's desires?" His voice had crept down into a purr again and she rubbed her face into his marked skin.
Weak, she was so weak. A coward finally accepting her place as she was always told she should.
"Try not to be too hard on yourself when you wake up, my love. Don't be too hard on my sweet witch," he tsked, his thumbs circling themselves against the skin of her hips that he was holding, still inside her body. "It felt so good to forget, didn't it?"
Freya sat across from Aldrich on the train weeks later, feeling completely out of place next to him while not sitting beside the same man who she had sat beside ever since she had started Hogwarts.
"This ring will start harming me once we are married, yes? As I have to dance with other men."
He paused his eyes on the book he was reading, looking past the edge of the pages for a moment before he flicked his eyes up to meet hers with a dull expression before dropping them back to his book, resuming his reading.
"Well?" She pressed, scowling irritably at his show of ignoring her.
"Do you really need me to answer such a ridiculous question?"
Freya narrowed her eyes, crossing her leg over the other, shaking it impatiently. "I don't need you to answer, but obviously-"
"Stop fidgeting," he ordered her flatly, glancing at her leg in aggravation.
She shifted again, dropping her leg back onto the floor of the train, releasing a stream of air from her nose as she stared him down.
"Of course. Don't be stupid," he finally answered.
"I'm not stupid."
"Listen carefully with your ears, darling. You know the English language well, do you not? I told you to not be stupid, not that you are stupid," he drawled, turning a page of his book slowly.
"So this is how you're going to be? For the rest of ours lives?" She quipped, crossing her arms over her chest, uncaring of how out of line she was being.
"And what exactly does 'this' entail exactly?"
"Difficult."
His lips played at a smirk, but he still didn't look up at her and leave his focus on his stupid book. "Is that what you believe I am being? Difficult?"
"Isn't that what I just said? And you act as if I ask unnecessary questions."
"I will entertain your attitude to a point as it amuses me, but do be careful with my boundaries."
"My attitude? Funny, I thought you enjoyed my attitude seeing as that's when you really decided to stalk me," she spat coldly, sitting back against the seat as she stared at nothing bitterly.
"Ah, and yet you chose to marry me. You chose to give yourself to me when I was not asking for it, chose to betray your little friend to my parents in your agreement to giving yourself to my family, and you chose to put that ring on your finger. I had no part in any of it aside from expressing my interest in you to my parents."
"Yes. As I believe you know by now I take full responsibility for my own misery. I'd say interest is a rather gentle word in place of obsession, don't you think?"
"Obsession," he repeated, chuckling darkly. "You do love to flatter yourself in hopes it will mask your abundant supply of insecurities."
Freya hummed, unable to disagree with him. Much to her disappointment in herself she still found his voice incredibly alluring, and he had an elegance about him that calmed a part of her, attracted her.
"My interest in you was not in result of your insolence," he told her dismissively.
"Then for what? Because I'm so beautiful?" She sneered at him.
"You are beautiful," he answered simply, eliciting a snort from her and she looked away, rolling her eyes.
"But no, though I don't have to deny that, do I? You're a very talented witch, and how you handle yourself and your demons intrigues me. You're intelligent, though you don't always act like it."
"Wow. You're so sweet. I feel properly romanced now," she replied, her tone emotionless.
"Do you need romancing? It seems you spread your legs for me either way."
Shame coursed through her and she grit her teeth, upset at both his words and the reaction he had drawn from her. She didn't want to give him the emotional responses he wanted from her.
"I am perfectly capable of romancing you if that's what you would like," he told her gently, his voice reminding her of liquid pouring down in a perfect stream, pouring down on her. "Whatever you want, my sweet witch, but I don't believe you truly want to be in love with me. That may just break you completely, accepting such a defeat. I am a man of mercy."
"You could never make me love you," she snapped coldly, her posture falling ever so slightly. "I don't have any left to give."
"I disagree. To both statements." He looked up at her, waiting until she met his cool colored eyes that were so contrasting to his dark features. "Luckily for your sanity I do not require your love, only your loyalty. Actually, I may get a bit bored if you were to love me. Your hatred makes you so enticingly passionate, and you have so much of it. It's intoxicating. No, but you will be loyal to me and you will obey. You will be as I expect you to be, and you will fit my family name as a Greengrass wife should fit. These are simple rules, my love. Do try not to break them. I may be merciful, but I have my limits. Though I'm sure once you reach them you will learn quickly not to ever reach them again."
"What will you do, darling?" She scoffed, keeping her eyes on his. "My father wasn't very creative when he hurt me in his drunken rages, but his son made up for his lack of imagination more than once."
"Violence isn't a talent of mine. You surrendered your mind to me, and not just that but your feelings as well, your emotional reactions to your horrors. I've had them, could have them again, and just as I could take them away for you for a small while I could give them to you in any way I want. All at once, one at a time, I could heighten the pain. Anything I please. If you feel as though things were unbearable that night at the Astronomy tower, well, I assure you that I could make that night seem like something easy compared to how I could harm you with merely your own mind, your own experiences, your own emotions." His voice was light as he spoke, a honeyed edge to it, and he spoke with such sureness and confidence that she believed him without any doubts towards his words.
She was terrified.
"But I don't want to do that, so perhaps don't bring us to that point, alright? Good. Now, though your disloyalty to the Nott family has benefited me, I must warn you to not ever think of plotting some adorable little revenge on me or my family, not that my family will be around once we are married, but things will not end well for you. No matter how horrible your life may seem, I swear to you it could always get worse."
"Noted," she ground out rigidly, taking his threat very seriously. She couldn't imagine feeling or experiencing worse, but she imagined she never wanted to find out whether or not it were possible.
"Relax, darling. I have a solid hold on my temper, I can assure you."
"Why won't your parents be around?" She asked stoically, not wanting to linger on such an unnerving subject.
"They will leave. They're work here is done. It's doubtful they will even be present to see any children we produce at their births. They don't care. Believe me, they won't be missed."
Freya sat beside her father at the Greengrass home as her father and Aldrich's parents discussed the formal matters of their marriage. She barely listened, barely took in the surroundings of her future home as they spoke in their perfectly charming voices. She had been to the home before of course, but she never cared much to pay attention to the details of the homes she visited for events.
When her father left to use the restroom, that's when her attention was refocused. The faces of Aldrich's parents fell into nothing, only blank stares as their mouths went limp from their plastered smiles and their eyes blinked calmly, their eyes occasionally traveling around the room, not really showing interest in anything they were looking at. Even Aldrich held more warmth and substance than the emptiness of these seemingly hollowed bodies before her as they didn't even bother to keep up even a shred of their act for her, they didn't have to anymore. The atmosphere of the room was suddenly very cold, and the impossible silence that hung in the air was so incredibly uncomfortable that she had to move, her shifting somehow distractingly loud and she became fully aware of the volume of her breathing.
"Aldrich," his mother said finally after a while, offering nothing else besides his name as her voice had lost it's usual sugary coating, not needing to even look at him as he got up in an obedient, almost rehearsed manner and exited the room, following his mother's silent orders as they ignored her presence.
She almost preferred the violence of her family to the lifeless, lonely eeriness of this.
Freya brushed the back of her fingers against her fragile son's sweet face less than a year later, her hand trembling gently in her overwhelming affection. He was so innocent, so small. Perfect. She leaned down to press her nose and lips to his face, inhaling his sweet, newborn scent.
"My baby boy, you're so perfect," she murmured, barely loud enough for even her own ears to hear. "Much too perfect for this world."
"You did well, Freya," Aldrich said quietly from above her. "Thank you."
Thank you.
Freya looked up at her husband, her eyes still full of her emotion. His expression was so uncharacteristically soft that it stunned her, freezing her there next to him with their son who was weakly squirming in her arms, quiet. He was a quiet baby. Freya held her son to the side of her, towards his father and Aldrich hesitated before lowering himself slowly to sit on the bed beside her. He slowly held out his arms, allowing her to pass Edric to him, Aldrich cradling him with an uncertainty she had never seen from him. He always seemed so sure in everything he did.
"He has your dark hair," she said quietly, running her index finger over the soft, dark hairs on little Edric's head.
He said nothing, silent and unmoving as he stared down at their child, completely still as he held his breath. She watched him for a few moments, slightly alarmed when he still didn't take in a breath. She put a hand over one of his, taking it to slowly guide it to the baby's soft hair.
"He'll look like you," she told him, nodding.
She didn't mind. Her husband was an attractive man, and she didn't want to see traces of her bitter self in her sweet son every time she looked at him.
"You won't break him, you know." Their world would do that instead.
Aldrich inhaled slowly, finally, and he relaxed his arms around their child, his eyes falling back into their familiar, slightly chilled calmness.
"He's a beautiful baby," she whispered. "He deserves better parents."
"Indeed. To both statements."
