"Alive" by Redcandle17
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.
Three things occupy Alicia Spinnet's life now.
She does her household chores in the morning.
After lunch, she goes to a park in the nearby muggle town and sits there watching the muggles. Homeless old men and women shuffle by with shopping carts. Screaming children run pass her, casually pursued by their gossiping mothers and nannies. Teenagers saunter by, trying to impress each other. Some of the braver boys will whistle at the attractive young woman sitting alone on the park bench. Alicia mostly ignores them, though sometimes she smiles when one of them reminds her of George or Lee. Occasionally she brings a notebook and scribbles down her thoughts, a description of the sandbox fight between two toddlers, and poetry.
Around sunset, she heads home. She has dinner and a few drinks alone before Warrington arrives. He only spends a couple of hours at the most, and they don't talk much. She tries not to cry as he fucks her. It's not that she doesn't enjoy it – her body likes his body very much – but she wants to cry for her lost life.
This is her life now. Within a month of the war's end, she lost her job at the Ministry for past ties to traitorous elements. The only employers willing to hire a suspected blood traitor were not people Alicia cared to associate with. Even with her status as a pureblood exempting her from taxes, the costs of sustaining her body and her parents' house depleted her small inheritance within a year.
Almost as if he'd calculated the time it would take to make her desperate enough to whore herself to him, Warrington showed up at Alicia's home just as she'd started to consider trying to get a job in the muggle world she knew nothing about. He offered her the same amount of money she'd made at the Ministry in exchange for her sexual services.
Knowing she risked being locked away in a muggle mental asylum if she tried to integrate herself into their world, she accepted Warrington's offer. Her memory of the first time was a blur. He'd pulled her hair and kissed her roughly, frantically tearing off her clothes. He'd fucked her roughly, too. But it had been so long since she'd last been touched – a side effect of having all of one's friends and family killed or imprisoned – that Alicia couldn't help her body's eager response. That had certainly pleased Warrington. He'd pronounced her worth every pence before he left without saying so much as goodbye.
She'd cried for hours that night, until her throat was sore and her eyes ached. As she and Warrington settled into a routine, she stopped crying every night, though the urge was still there.
She was just so lonely. If Warrington bothered to talk to her, if he ever held her for more than the minute it took him to recover from his orgasm, if he ever whispered something nice instead of the same insults he'd uttered at school, Alicia would have forgiven him. It wouldn't matter that they had been bitter rivals at Hogwarts, or that his friends had killed her friends if he treated her like a person. She would forgive him for being a Death Eater if he treated her at least like a favorite courtesan rather than a trophy-toy. She even thought she could love him if he ever gave any indication that he wanted her love.
The muggle sits beside her and offers her one of his pretzels and shares his cheery predictions about a big upcoming match of some muggle sport. Alicia is lonely, so she takes his pretzels and pretends to understand what he was saying, nodding and murmuring sounds of interest.
He's there again the next day, but this time he's in a uniform, astride a horse. Alicia knows enough about muggles to recognize that he is some kind of law enforcement agent. He dismounts and stands beside her, grinning. He tells her he'd seen her there for weeks, looking pretty and thoughtful and sad; that he had to get to know her. He formally introduces himself.
Alicia tells him her name. Struck by sudden inspiration, she says she's new to the country.
He offers to teach her all about England.
They meet in the park regularly. On his next day off, he shows her around town and buys her a cup of coffee.
It takes Warrington a week to notice the change in her, or at least that's how long it takes for him to comment.
Alicia was waiting for him to leave when he pulls her closer. "What are you up to, Spinnet?" he asks.
"What are you talking about?"
"You were humming to yourself when I arrived this evening. And you hadn't had any drinks in a few days. You seem…happy. What's gotten into you?"
"I'm sorry I'm not miserable enough anymore for your liking. Would you like me to cry now?" She's never dared to talk to him in this tone before.
"I don't want you to be miserable, Spinnet; you'd be less entertaining. I was merely curious. Did you take up a new hobby?"
Alicia turns her head to stare at him, incredulous. "It's taken you five months to muster interest in my life? Well, don't waste your time now. There's not much for you to be curious about. I clean my house, cook, sit on park bench and read, get drunk, and fuck you. That's the sum of my life, Warrington. Curiosity satisfied?"
Callous bastard that he is, he merely says, "And what changed this past week?"
"I met someone who likes me," Alicia replies dully.
"I'm paying for your exclusive services, Spinnet."
She can't believe there was ever a time when she wanted him to talk to her. Was she really that desperate for acknowledgement that she existed as more than a body? "I don't want to do this anymore." She doesn't have to stay in the wizarding world as a ghost anymore, not with Michael willing to help her become part of the muggle world.
"Don't be stupid," Warrington says sharply. "Even if your new boyfriend," he sneers as he says the word, "is wealthy enough to support you, how long do you think he'll risk his reputation for your sake?"
"He's a muggle." She realizes she should never have mentioned Michael, but it's too late now.
"You're not leaving me for a muggle."
"Leaving you? We don't have a relationship therefore I'm not leaving you. I'm ending our business arrangement."
"Ah." He sounds amused now. "That's what has your knickers in a twist." He braces himself above her, face closer to hers. She can feel his breath against her cheek when he says, "What do you want me to do? Buy you dinner? Tell you that you look beautiful? More foreplay? Or perhaps you want me to cuddle you after?"
Alicia blushes, embarrassed at herself because if he'd told her this a month ago, she would have happily accepted any crumb he offered her. Now she says, "I want to be Alicia Spinnet again."
Warrington kisses the side of her mouth. "I know you're Alicia Spinnet." He kisses her neck. "I remember those five goals you scored against Ravenclaw Seventh Year – the Ravenclaw Keeper slipped off his broom trying to block you." He kisses the hollow of her collarbone. "I remember you cried during the first Care of Magical Creatures class Third year." He whispers into her ear, "The muggle will never know any of that."
She knows he's trying to manipulate her, and she wants to let him. She doesn't really want to leave the only world she's ever known; she just wants to have a life again. "He likes me. He'll love me soon if I'm with him."
"He's a muggle. He'll run away, screaming, from you if he ever found out you were a witch. You already know, of course, that you'd be breaking the law and risking life imprisonment in Azkaban for consorting with a muggle."
"Stretches your skills of deception to pretend you love me, huh? It's nice to know you're not that good a liar."
"No, I spend all my evenings with sullen witches to indulge my masochistic side."
It's an epiphany. She's never before considered the idea that Warrington, too, may want more but be unable to ask for it. It's too much. Alicia doesn't know what to say, what to do. She lays still in silence.
"Marry me. You can be bored in my house, and I'll not talk to you at the dinner table. I'll fall asleep in your bed and you can complain to your heart's content."
It's the last thing Alicia expected. "Marry you? But what about your reputation? After all, I'm an infamous blood traitor."
"I am the highest ranking Death Eater our age. If you're carrying my name and my heir, it won't matter who your friends were or what silly club you joined years ago."
She says, "You missed the part about me wanting to be Alicia Spinnet, not Mrs. Warrington," but she's running her fingers through his hair.
"Would you really rather live as a muggle?"
"No," Alicia admits. "If you're still here tomorrow morning, I'll answer you then."
Warrington smiles and she realizes it's the first time she's seen him smile rather than smirk. "According to Montague and Pucey, I snore."
"I'll elbow you 'til you stop."
It's possible she's making a mistake. Maybe she'll regret this moment years later. Although, as they kiss, Alicia doesn't think that's likely.
End (1,595 words)
Author's Note: Are you wondering "WTF?" The answer is because I like "Voldemort's won" scenarios and I'd rather these two characters be unhappily together than happy with other people.