Heya, thanks again for the reviews. Am trying to update asap but am on nights, so bear with me.

ACT 3 - ANGELINA

When had it all started? She could say she had been stressed. Worried about Quidditch. Worried about exams. All the crap that was going on in school. All those excuses condensed into one horribly undeniable fact for her. She had wanted him. That was the starting point for them.

The ending point for her.

Leaning a touch arrogantly against the wall, his T-shirt ripped along the hem.

She remembered staring at the rip with annoyance. That offended her for some reason – or maybe she was just looking to pick a fight with him – anything better than looking the rips and twists in her own personality that had allowed her to be drawn into playing his strange little game like this.

"Do you want something?" It came out more coldly than she expected. He raised an eyebrow, and inclined his head slightly towards the window that faced the Quidditch pitch. "I was wondering if you were OK. Flint took you out pretty hard in the last practice game."

She didn't know what to say. It seemed like such an innocent statement, but for the last couple of months, the verbal sparring had been layered with something that she wasn't prepared to admit to. Not here, anyway. Not now

She settled for shrugging her shoulders. He just looked at her.

Although his face remained blank, she saw shifts of expression, fleeting, and imagined that it was the ghost of a smile that danced across his face.

She ground the word out, each letter seemingly bit out. "Thanks."

"No problem." His face was expressionless. The blue eyes seemingly bored and slightly glazed.

She made to move past him, towards the main hall, he looked like he was going to block her way for a couple of seconds, but then he shifted ever so slightly.

Her skin whispered against his, like two pages that had been stuck together for years, and were being forced to separate.

"Move."

"I don't want to, Johnson." It was soft and dangerous. He knew just as well as she that the spark had started to flicker a little more.

"Do you want me to make you?" Her eyes glimmered up at him, unafraid and challenging as the lion she prided herself on representing. She was a few inches shorter than him, and a hell of a lot lighter. He snickered and took a step towards her, so close now, he had to crane his neck down to meet her gaze. So close that if she turned slightly, her body would move into his hands.

It was the feel of her hand sliding into his shirt, trailing down his stomach ever so slowly, that appeared to make his decision up for him. She suddenly found herself jammed between his body and the wall. His hands slid down to cup her face and force her to look up at him. "Are you sure?" Her answer was a kiss, sweet, gentle, lingering and strangely apologetic, as if regretful of time wasted. His kiss was anything but gentle. Hard, punishing and intensely erotic, it was a culmination of a year of pent up desire for her, his tongue pushing into her mouth, hard, demanding and hot.

Why she understood him so well was something she never voiced. It was her way of giving him space – before it had all became too messy, it was her way of letting him deny that this thing between them existed. She never felt completely free of him. She knew when he was looking at her from the other side of the hall, knew that behind the benign little stares he tossed her way oh so casually, there was an unspoken promise. Sometimes it lay between them in bed, trailed after his fingers as they moved idly over her skin, with no real purpose except to torture her senses.

"I wish…" Her eyes flashed angrily at him, although she knew it wasn't him she was angry with – it was herself, for letting a base emotion control her.

"You wish?" He goaded her, as they sat, on opposite ends of the couch, his legs stretched indolently out ahead of him, and head tilted back, eyes closed. Her legs were curled over his, her heels tucked underneath his thigh.

"You're just – you're a dead end for me, really. In all senses. This can never go anywhere but here." Here, she gestured wildly around the room.

He slid closer to her, and she felt fingers, warm and soft against the nape of her neck.

"But here's the safest place, Johnson."

She twisted her head so his fingers caught in her long dark hair and threw him a scornful look.

"What are you thinking, Montague? Are you thinking we can walk out of here," here, she laughed lightly and then closed her eyes in self correction, "are you thinking I can walk out of here whole? Reputation intact? Respect intact?" She left the other phrase silent, yet it was the one that echoed the loudest in her thoughts and the one she knew he must have seen in her eyes. Could she, would she, walk out of here with her heart intact?

She knew she thought too much with him, with them, but she had to. She had to know why everything that she had ever believed of herself had suddenly betrayed her into his arms. She had to figure out why she didn't try and stop it, and why she let it get as far as she had.

At the back of her head, she always wondered if this was a dare he'd been put up to. That one day, it would all fragment apart into shame and guilt and anger. That Slytherins would sneer and laugh at the poor stupid little Gryff, and that Gryffindors would shun the traitor amongst their midst, always whispering behind their hands about 'that scandalous Gryffindor girl'.

He was waiting for the day when he could finally say he had broken her, and relish in the victory – of that she was sure.